I'll never buy anything at a police auction again

Part 2

10

My Dad finally told me what happened that day

I Was Abducted While Studying Abroad

Everybody has a Demon

Two Facts You Should Probably Know

I was born on a child farm

I Kidnapped Somethings Sister.

The Barn in the woods

I'm 45 But I Have Only Lived Through 19 Years

The Most Beautiful Garden

The Stars Look Very Different Today

I just learned the horrible, impossible truth about a drug called “adrenochrome.”

A Letter of Recruitment From Life is Beta

Fran and Jock

My Son is Seeing Things I Can't on His New Tablet

The Quiet Room

I Write the Fake News

Death seemed different when we were young

Haha guys my parents think I'm a virgin but I’m kinda, like... not lol.

The Green Man

The Man of 1,000 Riddles

The Black Library

Pig Iron

I Was Almost In The Lucky 47 Club

"Palette Cleanser"

The Good Shade Hotel

Our Hotel Celebrates The Strangest Holidays

An App Called "New Eyes" Has Taken Over Our Town

My uncle had "brain bubbles"

There Was Something Wrong With Our Last Foster Child

An open letter to my husband

A Toxic Situation

I was almost involved in a school shooting

The Bible Has Become My Personal Hell [Part 1]

The Bible Has Become My Personal Hell [Final]

One Missed Call

You'll Never Even Know

My Best Friend Became a Murderer

Locked Away
I'll never buy anything at a police auction again
I'm a dispatcher for the county fire and police, and it was when I first started
working there that I learned the county holds auctions for items and property
confiscated during crime events. These auctions weren’t publicly advertised (I
only knew of them because I was a dispatcher) so the crowds were always the
same group of law enforcement, firemen, and pencil-pushers like me. Most of the
time, the stuff up for auction was just cheap jewelry, weapons, household items,
and so on; or it would be super weird, like a velvet painting of an Elvis-looking,
kinda Asian Jesus Christ rocking out on the xylophone. Every so often there’d even
be large items, which drew the largest crowds – like cars, or the time they put up
a gaudy boat named “The Pussy Dragon”.

And it was during one of these large-sale police auctions that I came to buy my
first house; a house that I also helped seize.

It all began with a spike in heroin overdoses.

It was apparent from the day it started, even to me as a dispatcher. One day it
was quiet and then, all of a sudden, ambulances were racing all over the county to
help unresponsive people in vehicles, at home with children, in retail bathrooms,
even in the most rural places. This lasted for weeks (it was even on the national
news) and we were able to help save a good deal of people, but not everyone
made it back. My county gets its fair share of emergencies, usually burglaries or
DUIs, domestic disputes, house fires, etc. – but this was the first time several
jurisdictions had to join together with the FBI in order to stop it.

Dispatch was aware of the case but we weren’t directly involved until the sting
operation, some three months later. Detectives, working together with two senior
FBI agents, were confident they had located the source of the heroin – a house in
a wealthy suburb square in the center of the county – and I was on the line to
update the separate jurisdictions holding the perimeter.

SWAT approached the house.

The first explosion let us know it wouldn’t be easy; the second explosion
reinforced the idea.

Then came thunderous gunfire, louder and more vicious than any I had ever
heard before.

As much as I don’t like to give drug dealers and mass murderers credit, the
operation inside that house was incredibly well orchestrated. The explosions were
landmines that had been strategically placed in the yard—but that was only the
beginning. They had mounted a 50cal machine gun to a wall in the garage and
opened fire immediately. The backyard was a nightmare of hidden barbwire that
tripped additional explosives, with several suspects unloading cover fire using
automatic weapons. The beginning hours were pandemonium. Houses were
evacuated up to a mile. The garage was so well fortified that Homeland Security
had to assist; they imploded it with a tiny cluster bomb to prevent further damage
to nearby houses. The other suspects were killed in a gunfight soon after – none
of them surrendered. And the drug-trafficking operation inside was so carefully
constructed and subversive that it could have gone unnoticed forever, if not for
the fact that their heroin was three times as potent as anything else available.

Jump to over a year later, when the successful raid’s been mostly forgotten, and
the beautiful, two-story house gets put up during an auction with a low turnout. I
had been saving up for a down-payment on a house for quite some time at the
time and had already been in contact with lenders to establish my price range –
so when I saw a house for sale, in a wealthy neighborhood, 30% below market
value (and right in my wheelhouse), I bid…and I bid alone. Turns out, since four
officers had lost their lives there, no one else wanted anything to do with it. So, I
had a new house.

The crime scene had long been professionally cleaned but there were still issues
with the property, obviously: the garage had to be rebuilt, the septic tank had
issues, the bullet holes would have to be patched and repainted, the wooden
kitchen cupboards needed replacing, and on and on—but I didn’t care. I finally
had a house. And I’m moderately handy so fixing it up wasn’t much of an issue…at
least in the beginning.

I immediately noticed there was an issue with the tap water, which I hadn’t been
made aware of. Since the house had been practically abandoned for a year, and
the septic tank was having issues, I didn’t think much of it. I called a plumber to
check the water pipes and drank bottled water in the meantime. It wasn’t until
the septic cleaners came out to fix the tank that I started to realize I may have
made a mistake.

“Tank…fine…” the one cleaner kept telling me. (He spoke little English so we had a
bit of a rough time communicating, and the other cleaner had vanished.)

“No issue?” I kept asking, since the inspector had told me the septic tank wasn’t
working properly.

The cleaner would then shake his head and agree that there was an issue, which
would further confuse me.
Eventually, their boss had to call me as an intermediate.

“It’s not that the septic tank needs cleaning,” their boss told me, then paused.

“So what’s the issue?” I had to almost encourage him to tell me.

“The tank isn’t working because of the contents inside it. We can’t clean it. It
needs replacing,” he told me.

This came as horrible news to me since a new septic tank was extremely
expensive.

“What?! Why?”

The boss couldn’t give me a straight answer and, at first, I thought he was trying
to rope me into unnecessary expenses…but I would get my answer soon after.

The plumber showed later that same day and he turned on the faucet to find the
water a greyish color. It stank, too, almost like sewage. “Weird,” he told me,
eyeing the dirty water suspiciously. He explained to me that normally it was rust
or dirt but this wasn’t. When I asked if it could be a result of the septic tank not
working properly, he shook his head no. “Highly unlikely,” he said. “Maybe if you
drew from a well but you don’t. So those pipelines are completely separate.”
The plumber checked the pipes throughout the house but couldn’t find an issue
so he explained that he would have to come back with more tools to dig around in
the piping behind the house.

So I spent the first night in my new house without lights, as the electricity had yet
to be set up, and without water, and without working toilets. Luckily, first thing in
the morning, the plumber returned and dug around in the backyard for the water
line. I was in the kitchen, replacing cabinets, when I heard him scream. I quickly
ran into the backyard and found the portly plumber pale and wide-eyed. He saw
the hammer in my one hand, which I had forgotten was still in my hand—and
then the plumber took off in a sprint to his car parked around front. I didn’t chase
him – in fact, I was too confused to do anything but stare around. He had dug a
large hole in the dirt and I walked over and peered in. There was a pipe that had
been dug out and the plumber had wrenched the pipe open and, inside, he pulled
out what appeared to be a nest of dead black spiders.

It creeped me out, and it stunk to all get-out, but it wasn’t so scary that I’d run; in
fact, I got a bit closer since the spiders were long dead. I grabbed a nearby stick
and began poking at them – when I realized they were all connected. Further
perplexed by this, I used the stick to try and drag it out of the pipe. But it was
stuck. So I half climbed in the hole. The smell was overwhelming, like a port-a-
potty had been lit on fire, but I covered my nose with my shirt and rolled up my
sleeves. Up close, I could tell it wasn’t dead spiders that I was looking at. The
black clumps looked like congealed oil. I carefully bent down and leaned forward
and slowly reached my hand inside the pipe. And that’s when I felt something
hard – but it was stuck. I pulled at it and it broke apart a little and I freed a piece
of the clog. I pulled out the rock-like hunk I had dislodged and tossed it aside and
reached back in, trying to get the rest, and I tilted down further, pushing my hand
in deeper…and it was then that I noticed something. The chunk I had removed
from the pipe, it had a black, decomposing lip. And teeth, one with a filling. The
black clumps weren’t a nest of spiders or congealed oil; it was hair. Long black
hair that belong to a skull that had been split in half. And I had just yanked out the
lower jaw. Skin was still clinging to bone but barely, like gooey flakes of old cake
batter.

The police were never able to identify the woman we found in the water-line;
they weren’t even certain how half of a skull had even ended up in the water-line.
They just assumed it to be a remnant of some human-trafficking that had gone on
there but it wasn’t for certain. Apparently, in the year the house had been in
police custody, not a single person had used the water. To make sure there
weren’t any further issues, the borough payed to replace my septic tank so they
could search it, too.

That night, in the candlelight of my bedroom, I began to doubt my choices. Half a

skull in the water-line, who-knows-what in the septic tank, and I had started
hearing weird creaking noises in the walls. It was probably just the house settling,
sounds that all houses make, but when coupled with half a decomposing skull in
your backyard, anything can become scary. I had a rough time falling asleep.

First thing the next morning, my phone woke me up.

“You got a minute?” the local Sergeants asked. He was a familiar voice to me.

“Yeah, what’s up?” I groggily responded, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

“Is everything alright?” he inquired, a tinge of worry in his voice.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied, fully awake.

“I need you to gather your stuff. Two squad cars are on their way there right now
to pick you up.” I asked him several questions but the only real answer he would
give me was, “We’re gonna put you up in a hotel for a short time.”

It wasn’t until I refused to leave my house without a reason that he answered

more completely.

“We found a large amount of partially digested human remains in your septic tank.
And…we have reason to believe that you’re not alone in the house.”
(2)
“I need you to gather your stuff,” the police sergeant told me over the phone.
“Two squad cars are on their way there right now to pick you up.”

I asked questions, disoriented from having just woken up. The only answer he
would give was, “We’re gonna put you up in a hotel for a short time.”

I refused to leave my house without a reason; that’s when he answered:

“We found a large amount of partially digested human remains in your septic tank.
And…we have reason to believe that you’re not alone in the house.”

“…the fuck?” I asked, wiping the haze of sleep from my eyes.

“Everything will be fine,” he repeated twice in an almost patronizing voice, like he

was dealing with a rambunctious child. “Just gather some things and step outside.
But stay on the line with me, okay?” He was using a pretend-calm, one I was quite
familiar with – working in emergency situations as a dispatcher, it’s imperative to
seem calm – no matter the situation, appear calm – but knowing that didn’t make
it any less horrifying to be on the receiving end; in fact, I would have rather heard
him scream, “Get the hell outta there now, you’re in danger!” Acting as if nothing
were wrong made the fact that something was wrong all the more glaring, all the
more chilling, all the more real…

Floorboards creaked.
I dropped the phone and froze with a stupid expression on my face.

The sound came from somewhere on the second floor but I couldn’t place where
exactly.

Sirens in the distance. The screech of swerving tires in my neighborhood.

pit-psssssh…pit-pssssh

It was approaching the bedroom door – a step, then the sound of dragging…

A step, then the sound of dragging...

I whimpered, naturally; then, slowly, I turned to the doorway.

The sight was a gut-punch, bone-deep.

“Oh God…” I mumble-groaned.

It wasn’t a hulking threat that was approaching—no, this was worse. This was so
much worse.
The person was naked, that I noticed first, but it was so emaciated that I couldn’t
tell their gender or even their age. The body was hairless and taller than a child,
about 5’8, and their skin was an unnaturally yellowish brown but I couldn’t tell if it
was caused by jaundice or dirt, or both, or worse. Their right arm – it caused my
breath to choke in my throat (the first time in my adult life that I actually gasped).
The right arm was missing below the middle of the bicep; in its place was a hunk
of gore, skin dangling black and rotting. It was an old, festering wound, long
infected. Both eyes were open but the sockets were empty. The stain of running
blood had tattooed itself down both cheeks. The poor creature was blind as it
lumbered forward.

One step forward, then a drag of the back right leg...

pit-pssssh…pit-psssssh

The calf muscle was missing from the right leg.

The police were able to catch my escape in all its glory as they rolled up, both
cruisers parking in front of my lawn:

I blindly grabbed and threw whatever was nearest me to break the closest
window – sadly, the object happened to be a pillow, which bounced off with no
damage. I ignored this failure and instead threw myself out of the second floor
window, landing on the slanted awning that hung over my front door—which I
then tumbled down, falling a good thirteen feet into the grass with a loud, breath-
taking thump.
Miraculously, the only thing I hurt was my pride - as it quickly became a running
joke between local officers and fellow dispatchers for months.

("Remember when Richie threw himself out that window?"

"Don't pull a Richie."

"Dispatch, we got a situation here. Should I jump out the window?"

"The Richie Tumble" even became a motion where you just pretended to roll in
place.)

Let’s skip through the next week with tidbits:

The police found the one-armed, no-eyed victim laying in my bed and
immediately transported her to the nearest emergency room. I visited her in the
hospital after a few days; she was a 29 year old female that had gone missing
(about two months earlier) from a college three states over. Her brain was mush,
they told me, and her tongue was gone – so she had no ability to communicate
and no means to explain what had happened.

Her condition may have been the worst of the situation and all but, in a close
second, the police were unable to tell me where the hell she had come from.
There was no blood, not anywhere. There was no evidence of her hiding in the
crawl space, not that she had the mental capacity to do so for months. It was as if,
one day, she mysteriously appeared in the second floor of my house.

True to their word, the county put my up in a mediocre hotel while they
continued to scrub the house. The FBI returned with their resources but, again,
they found nothing; then, again, they disappeared into the night air. The primary
jurisdiction assigned a surprisingly attractive and deceptively smart Detective
Francine Brazle to work as an intermediate between me and the active case. They
were hesitant to provide me with much but I did get some information.

The septic tank had evidence of multiple, partially digested human remains – that
is to say, pieces of a human bodies had passed through the digestive track of
another human and were then deposited in the septic tank – and it was recent
enough that the bacteria hadn’t enough time to break it all down. All of this
meant that a cannibal had recently used the toilet - until it broke; and that they
had been eating people and using my toilet during the year my house had been in
possession by the police.

(The DNA of the waste, however, didn't match the woman in the hospital - was
was strange and unnerving but weirdly glossed over.)

I still went to the hotel for a short period while they ensured that my house was
completely vacant before letting me return. Once I was allowed back, the septic
tank had been replaced, the electricity had been hooked up, and the water main
was unclogged so that each tap worked fine (though I continued, for a time,
drinking bottled water).
I was hesitant to be alone but, as I was in a town with zero friends or family, I
didn't have much choice - so I slept with the light on and spent most daylight
hours out and about. I didn't have a lot of cash on hand at the time but the money
I did have went toward amenities and furniture. And, over time, the house started
to feel less menacing. It sounds weird to say but it's bizarre what I can forgive and
forget within a month.

My first order of business was to sign up for an online dating service. It didn't take
long before I realized how extremely easy it was to meet a woman at a bar, grab
dinner and a few drinks (often with the last bit of money I had), and then offer to
end the night at my house, which I owned and lived in alone. For all intents and
purposes, I became rather whore-ish - partially because I could but also (maybe
subliminally) because I didn't want to be in the house alone.

And, as far as I could tell, everything was normal...until one night, soon after,
when I was at work and received this call:

“Alpha-one-one-zero-one, what’s your emergency?”

The voice was male and deep and he breathed heavily into the receiver.

“Someone’s gonna get murdered.”

“What’s the location of your emergency?”

“Fourteen Seventeen Crestview Circle.”

“That’s my address,” I corrected him; my immediate reaction was to think he was

mistaken.

“I know,” the voice agreed.

And then the line went dead.

(3)
“Alpha-one-one-zero-one, what’s your emergency?”

The voice was male and deep and he breathed heavily into the receiver.

“Someone’s gonna get murdered.”

“What’s the location of your emergency?”

“Fourteen Seventeen Crestview Circle.”

“That’s my address,” I corrected him; my immediate reaction was to think he was

mistaken.

“I know,” the voice agreed.

And then the line went dead.

This was the first recorded instance in our area of a dispatcher being threatened.

In any emergency call, the line is traced. When tracing a call, first the signal
connects to the nearest cell tower and that tower connects to a satellite which
then gives us a specific GPS coordinate within maybe 40 ft. of the caller.
Unfortunately, the satellite never had enough time to get a pin-point of the call
location so we only know that the cell tower ping for the call was made within a
2.1-mile radius that included my house – so, it was close but, then again, most of
my town fit within that radius; it could have come from anywhere local, even the
dispatch call center. The number itself was through a Verizon carrier but a rep for
Verizon told us the number had been defunct for some time, which was all they
would tell us. (Verizon wasn’t even legally obligated to release that much, as no
real crime was committed and the call could’ve been construed as a mistake.)
When it didn’t happen again, the police were forced write it off as a prank since
they had no other option.

Can’t chase the sound of a voice, they told me.

(I did; I listened to the recording of the incident so many times that I started
hearing that deep voice everywhere – even to this day, it’s in my dreams.)

Surprisingly, in the month after the ominous call, life became quasi-normal. There
were no further police interruptions, veiled threats, decomposing body parts, or
emaciated victims. My shifts at dispatch are in three 12-hour days followed by
four days off – which can feel like forever sometimes, especially if you’re alone in
a two-story, mostly vacant, previously horrifying suburban house. To fill my spare
time, I started driving for Uber to get out of the house as well as make some
money on the side. Little by little, piece by piece, I used the extra cash to fill my
house with more – more furniture, more art, more flourishes, anything to make it
more welcoming. I got side-tables and two couches from Goodwill, ordered
framed posters of my favorite movies, vases with fake flowers, a scratched up
flat-screen from a shady person on craigslist, and so on.
And, as usual, I would meet women off an online dating site. There’s a bar near
my house call Rex’s (the only bar to still have Pantera on the jukebox) and it was
the perfect place to meet new people, always half-full and quiet-ish before 9pm –
then all hell would break loose and the heavy metal would blare, and it made a
good excuse to leave. Some nights it didn’t work out; other nights did and my
date would come home with me for the night.

This was how I met Kay…

The day started with a swipe-right on a beautiful, dark-haired woman. A

conversation followed, which led to an exchange of phone numbers, further
conversation, and plans to meet up at Rex’s. She was early and smelled of licorice.
I was timid, with a sense of humor. Things were going well until Rex’s decided to
blast their heavy metal early, around 7pm on a day when the sun didn’t set until
8:30pm. I invited her back to my house, as went my routine, but she batted me
off and, instead, I walked her home as the sun set. It was…nice, for lack of a better
word; not world-changing or explosive or dramatic, not a hilarious meet-cute we
could tell as an anecdote at parties.

It was different, at least for me.

The evening was pleasant, quaint, and the conversation was organic. We weren’t
trying to impress or judge; we were just talking. She was sweet and inquisitive
and something about her made me more honest and forthright than normal. I’m
not a dishonest person but I tend to be guarded, especially against people I’ve
just met – but with her, it was just easier. (I didn’t, however, mention a single
goddamn fact about my house yet – that’s not first date material, no matter how
relaxed the conversation.) And the night ended with a peck on her cheek.
My Kay…

And I must breathe a deep, sorrowful sigh as we head into the dark territory of
this story – which began on the night of our third date, after she finally agreed to
come over and watch a movie. I had told her the stories about the house on the
second date, why it had been confiscated by police and the evidence that had
been found after I moved in. Telling her about the woman with the missing arm
(who seemingly appeared out of thin air), I spared the grisly details but got the
point across that my house didn’t exactly have a normal history. Kay wasn’t really
bothered by it, to my surprise; in fact, the more I told her, the more interested
she became – to the point that I eventually (politely) requested we talk about
something else, since it all still made me a bit queasy and nervous. But once she
came over, and we got comfortable on the living room couch, the conversation
about the house resumed:

“Do you ever think your house is haunted? You know, because of all the bad juju?”
Kay asked before I could even turn the television on. Her voice was soft and a bit
high-pitched, like it might come from someone extra tiny – it was cute, endearing.
(I could have listened to her talk for hours; she was the opposite of the voice that
threatened me and, like that voice, I can still hear her in my dreams.)

“Bad juju? Is that the technical term?—and what should we watch?” I replied,
trying to Netflix my way out of the situation.

“Whatever you want,” Kay dismissively answered, knowing full-well before

returning to the subject. “Like, did you ever wonder if maybe it isn’t a person
doing this awful stuff? Maybe the bad people did awful things here and now the
house is haunted.”

“The house isn’t haunted; if anything, it’s evil.”

My answer had been an attempt at humor but the thought made Kay’s eyes light
up—and then the house creaked.

“What was that?!” she gasped, more hopeful and curious than afraid.

I explained to her that the house was always making noises like that and, even
though it still creeped me out, I had come to accept that it was normal. Houses
creak, pipes bustle, windows rattle – and this house had seen its share of issues
and rebuilding, which only added to it.

The house creaked again – a slow, short rrrrrrrp

Kay looked me dead in the eyes.

“My parents owned a ranch house and it was all wood…and I never heard any
sounds like that.”

My face turned a slight shade of pale.

A slow, wry smile crossed Kay’s lips. “Wait, do you think there could be pounds of
marijuana in the walls?!”

“No,” I shook my head, “police went through each and every wall, from what they
told me.”

“Yeah but they also missed a bunch of stuff, didn’t they?” She thought a second
and then looked around the room, examining the walls. “There’s only one way to
be certain – we’re gonna need a hammer and a stethoscope.”

There was a long, silent pause…

“Are you…you’re joking, aren’t you?” I finally asked.

Kay laughed; and so was her sense of humor. Then she asked me for a phone
charger and yanked the remote from my hand and started flipping through the
Netflix options.

I had an extra charger in my bedroom so I excused myself and ran up the stairs—
only to stop halfway. There were droplets of a black liquid on a stair. And it wasn’t
until I wiped it up with my sleeve, mistaking it for dirt, before I realized that a) it
was still wet (and therefore fresh) and b) it was sticky and c) it wasn’t black but
stained my white sleeve a dark, brownish red. I tried to smell it but couldn’t, and I
didn’t dare taste it. As I hadn’t been upstairs in some time, I found it bizarre that I
spilled something—and that’s when I heard something so unsettling that my
knees wobbled.
A child’s giggle.

And then a shadow dashed into an empty room on the second-floor.

“Fuuuuuuuuck…” I groaned, mortified.

“What’s wrong? Is it a ghost?” Kay joked from the living room.

In response, I exhaled for about a minute – until both lungs were bare pouches
inside my ribcage and then some. My eyes had closed the millisecond I saw
something move but, as there weren’t any nearby windows to “pull a Richie”
(…not that I would have, exactly…), I once again froze with a stupid fucking
expression on my face.

And this is the point where I tell you: I’m usually the guy screaming at the movie
screen when Mr. or Mrs. Peripheral Character is an idiot for investigating the
strange sound in the dark house. Sure, I could’ve jet straight back down the stairs
and grabbed Kay (or not, even) and just run out the house…but the thought didn’t
even occur to me. It seems silly, I understand; and I’m not some heroic tough guy.
I don’t claim to be brave. And my thought process was simple: there’s a fucking
child in my house?—is it a fucking ghost?—no, can’t be…ghosts aren’t real! ghosts
aren’t real…ghosts totally aren’t real, though. right?—ghosts aren’t real…and
maybe I misheard the sound, maybe it was a cry that sounded like a giggle—
maybe someone else is up here, wounded – Lord knows the last person was…—
there’s a beautiful woman downstairs—i really, really like her—i really, really
don’t want to freak her out. (I also pussied out so hard last time, jumping out a
window to avoid a disfigured woman that needed help; I just couldn’t do it again
– especially not if it turned out to be a child this time.)

So I climbed the steps…one…by one…by one…with only my right eye partly open,
as it was farthest from the back room – not that that helped. I moved as if
sneaking. “Whoooooo…?” I sort of culled like an owl. My voice broke and I
couldn’t even really finish the sentence, “Who’s there?”

I reached the top of the stairs and stepped over another small pool of black liquid.
It was sundown outside. There was still enough ambient light to see fairly well but
I turned on the hallway lights—and then felt light-headed when I noticed a tiny,
unmistakably bloody hand-print on the wall under the light switch. A hand-print
with only a thumb and two fingers, spread wide apart. The red was still slowly,
slowly dripping down the wall. One thing was certain: Whatever just created this
hand-print had only done it a few seconds earlier.

“Alpha-seven-four-six-eight, what’s you’re emergency?” my co-worker Franny

answered when I called the dispatch line. (I did immediately call the police.)

“Franny, get any nearby officers to my house asap,” I whispered.

“Who is this?” she asked, and I could tell she was smiling; then I was briefly muted
as she radioed a nearby officer over to my house. (Brief history: her and I had met
at Rex’s one night, and we had our own moment, and, in the end, maybe she was
trying to torture me a little; I would’ve deserved it, if that was the case.)
I hung up the phone.

rrrrrrrp

A creak from inside the empty room on the second floor.

I quickly ducked into my bedroom and turned on the light and grabbed the first
thing I could, since I needed a weapon – again, it was a goddamn pillow. This time,
however, I was still so scared that I didn’t let it go or throw it or anything; I just
hugged it and went back into the hall and approached the back room.

Each room I passed in the hallway, I turned the light on. The spare bedroom. The
bathroom. The overhead bulb in the closet. I left each door open. And then, I
approached the open door at the end. It was an empty room I hadn’t begun filling
with furniture yet. (Even the spare bedroom didn’t have a bed.) My breath was
heavy as I rounded the door. The hallway light lit half the room—and there, in the
back corner, was a small, dark figure. It was wearing a hoodie, I swear it, no bigger
than 4’10 –but when I turned the light on, there was nothing; just another pool of
dark liquid in the back corner of an empty room.

The puddle was still spreading out, though, as if it had just been made.

Sirens in the distance. The screech of swerving tires in my neighborhood. The

police were closing in. I moved to investigate the puddle in the back corner as the
police pulled up on my lawn—and then, they got a familiar sight.
But this time – I swear – something fucking pushed me out the window.

And just before it did it, it giggled.

(4)
My breath was heavy as I rounded the door. The hallway light illuminated half the
room—and there, in the back corner, was a small, dark figure. It was wearing a
hoodie, I swear it, no bigger than 4’10 –but when I turned the light on, there was
nothing; just another pool of dark liquid in the back corner of an empty room.

The puddle was still spreading outward, as if it had just been made.

Sirens in the distance. The screech of swerving tires in my neighborhood. The

police were closing in. I moved to investigate the puddle in the back corner as the
police pulled up on my lawn—and then, they got a familiar sight.

But this time – I swear – something fucking pushed me out the window.

And just before it did it, it giggled.

Coming to, I could hear “Not again,” and “Goddamnit, Richie,” from the
approaching officers as they walked over. I knew them immediately. Officer
Wright had a gut and ugly hair, and he radioed for an ambulance as he
approached me. Officer Reinhart had a bushy ‘stache and tight, eager eyes as he
drew his gun while heading towards the front door. I spoke with them on a
weekly basis while they were on patrol.

The wind had been knocked out of me and there was a pretty nasty gash in my
right forearm from the glass but I was otherwise okay. I had been holding a pillow
but lost grip as I rolled down the slant of my roof and fell; it landed on me as I
tried to sit up. (I fall out a window with a pillow in hand—and the pillow lands on
me – pretty much sums up my life.) Officer Wright told me to stay down until the
ambulance arrived and then asked me to describe the situation inside. I told him
there had been something on the second floor, in the back room. I had heard a
child laughing and when I went to investigate, something pushed me out the
window.

“Anyone else in the house?” he asked but, before I could answer—

A woman screamed.

We turned toward the house.

It was Kay—in all the confusion, I had forgotten about Kay.

Officer Reinhart had opened the front door but didn’t enter the house until the
scream. Officer Wright was close behind and, ignoring his request, I came in
behind them. I followed Reinhart into the living room, checking each room on the
way, while Wright ran up the stairs to check the second floor.

“Ew. Jesus Christ, Richie…” Reinhart grumbled as he slowly walked into the living
room.

I was too shocked to respond.

The stench got me first—it was so unexpected that it hit me like a jab. My nostrils
stung and my eyes water and I could feel bile rising in the back of my throat. In
the center of the living room, on the floor between the couch and the television,
lay a small mound of dead, rotting animal caresses. Half a house cat. A skinned fox.
Dog legs. Tails. Fur caked in dried blood. Buzzing flies. Pulled teeth.

And no Kay.

There was another scream – again, it was a woman’s…but I couldn’t place it. I
couldn’t tell if it was upstairs or near us or in the kitchen or a bathroom, almost
like stereo.

I could hear Officer Wright call out in the upstairs hallway, “Ma’am, where are
you?”

No response.

Reinhart asked if there was anyone else in the house and I told him that it had just
been Kay and I, as far as I knew.

Officer Wright came back downstairs. “Second floor’s empty,” he said. His gun
was out, too.

The men kept both hands on their weapons as they trained them at the ground.
Officer Reinhart and I moved out of the living room to escape the disgusting rot
and met Officer Wright in the hallway. All three of us shared confused expressions,
then both officers turned to me for some sort of answer—and that’s when I
noticed a hallway door ajar…the one leading to the basement. Both officers saw
my attention shift and, without a word, they both prepared to enter the
basement.

Officer Reinhard opened the door and called down into the darkness.

“Ma’am, we’re coming down.”

No response.

“Goddamnit, Richie, where’s the light?” he asked, searching the walls for a switch.

I reached behind him and turned the light on by pulling a string attached to a
hanging bulb. The light swung a little but the stairs were lit up well enough to see.

“Oh shit!” Officer Wright exclaimed, lifting his gun toward the bottom of the stairs.

“What?” Reinhart asked; I, too, was confused.

Officer Wright had obviously seen something at the bottom of the stairs,
something that startled him, but he shook it off and didn’t answer; instead, he let
Officer Reinhart go down first.

“Stay here,” Wright said, his voice solemn and his eyes serious, before he, too,
(hesitantly) walked down the stairs behind Officer Reinhart.

I did as I was told and stayed at the top of the basement stairs.

Officers Reinhart and Wright reached the bottom of the stairs and disappeared
around the corner.

It was dead silent.

I couldn’t breathe, terrified of whatever awful thing was to come next – gunshots,
screams for an ambulance, hoodie-wearing monsters...

But nothing happened.

It remained dead silent…until—

“Richie,” a voice whispered into my ear so close I could feel the hot breath on my
neck. It had sounded like Kay, like she had been right behind me, had whispered
right into my ear. I spun around—nothing. The hallway was empty. The top of the
stairs was empty. And the basement was silent.

The stench of rot reached me once more and I gagged—

“Richie!”

I nearly jumped out of my skin—but this time it wasn’t a voice whispering in my

ear. It was Officer Reinhart - he was at the bottom of the stairs looking up. He had
called to me. Frozen, I stared down the stairs with another goddamn stupid
expression plastered all over my face.

“Richie, there’s nothing down here,” he called up.

Both officers came back to the first floor hallway and I had to explain to them that
Kay had been in the living room just a few minutes earlier – and I had no idea
where she could have gone, maybe out the back door or something. (Her
screamed sounded awfully close to be outside, I thought but didn't say.) And she
hadn’t come out the front door or we would’ve seen her. I had picked her up that
night so she didn’t have a car. Her house was too far to run to. Kay was still
around, somewhere - she had to be.

Officer Wright headed toward the back door in the living room (“Ew. Jesus Christ,
Richie…” he said as he saw the pile of dead animals) while Officer Reinhart asked
me to take him upstairs and explain what happened, bit-by-bit.
I showed him the spot where I found blood on the stairs. I showed him the three-
fingered, bloody hand-print just under the light socket. I showed him the bed
where I grabbed the pillow. I showed him the doorway where I had seen a
shadow move, and where I thought I heard a child giggle. I walked him to the
empty back room and pointed toward the window I had been pushed out.

The officer entered the room and checked the puddle in the back corner, and
then the broken window, and then he turned toward me—and that's when
something caught his attention.

“Oh, Richie…what did you do?” Officer Reinhart asked, turning his eyes to me. He
kept his gun down…though I couldn’t help but notice it was more in my direction
when he said it.

The room was empty so I was confused…and I didn’t understand what was talking
about until I entered the room, until I turned around, until I saw the wall…

In blood, someone had scrawled the word

HELP

And the scribble got smaller and smaller, as if disappearing into the wall.
(5)
When I was young, my family adopted a mini-Pincher mutt from an abusive
owner. We loved her even though she wasn’t very bright, and the abuse she
suffered caused lifelong emotional issues. She’d confuse joy for anger and ate
everything from food to carpet and worse, and she never did learn even the most
basic commands. And because of the emotional confusion and idiocy (I say that
with love), the dog would seem like an absolute lunatic. She’d be excited, you’d
pet her belly, she’d love it – and then nip at you. She’d eat trash, you’d kick her
out of the room, she’d back up as much as necessary…and then head back to the
trash can as if you hadn’t said anything at all.

Ironically, we named the dog Angel.

My house feels like someone shackled me to my old dog Angel, and this time I
didn’t love her.

People always think I should’ve just run from the house, run for the hills, left,
peace, see yah. But I can’t, and here are the many reasons: I’m broke 90% of the
time, no matter the circumstances, and the remaining 10% has to go towards the
small, simple pleasures I need in this world in order to stay sane; leaving, which
would result in a foreclosure of the house, would relegate me to a nomadic, broke,
smelly life as a homeless person, a life that would ultimately lead to a death by
the elements (and if the plan I choose ends in my death, it’s gonna be a death on
my own god-damn terms and not scrounging and hiding); I didn’t (and still don’t)
believe in ghosts, which means (to me, at least) that whatever’s doing this is real
enough that it can be stopped – and, hell, even if it turns out to be a poltergeist or
demon or what-have-you, there are still ways to stop it; and now, maybe most
important of all, someone I actually cared for was involved, involuntarily. This was
no longer about faceless victims and bad guys – someone innocent, someone
sweet and caring and completely unrelated had just gotten involved because of
my decisions.

No, there wasn’t any leaving; not yet.

Something of mine had been taken and I’ll be GODDAMNED if I wasn’t going to
get it back. I’m not a tough person but there’s a line between what’s right and
what’s cowardly – and I refuse to be a coward, to “pull a Richie.” I would stand my
ground, even alone. And since the hospital kept me overnight, with nothing else
to do, I began to form a plan from my bed. Using the internet on my phone, I
learned how to reinforce doors with steel and comparison-shopped for specific
items like surveillance equipment and construction tools. If I had to return there,
which I would, then I was going to do it right: with a plan.

Detective Hernandez, the detective in charge of the case, also stopped by while I
was in the hospital.

First thing he told me was, “Kay’s missing.” She hadn’t been to work and her
house and car were untouched, so it was now a missing person’s case – and I was
the last person to see her. Det. Hernandez even folded Kay’s case into the re-
opened investigation in the house, as he deemed it relevant. He also informed me
of a few other things: Even though the investigation was on-going, my house was
no-longer a crime scene, a fact I found surprising as it had been such a short
period of time. But forensics had already been through the place, photographs
had been taken, and all that could’ve been done had been done within the span
of 24 hours. (This, to me, was troublesome; I’m no expert but I’d think it takes a
bit longer to collect every strand of DNA evidence.) In addition to that, the blood
they found on the floor and walls had little consequence – the only thing they
could determine was that it came from more than four different people and
included animal blood. They also found semen in the pile of dead animals but,
again, all they could tell was that it had come from two or more people.

None of the information was reassuring; in fact, it was quite the opposte. And
then Det. Hernandez left me to sleep. It took a bit to finally doze off but the
painkillers helped and eventually I did sleep—until, in the middle of the night, I
woke to find the Chief of Police sitting in a chair beside my bed. His name was Roy
Harber – well, Chief Harber to most. He wore a long-brimmed, black cowboy hat
all the time, even when it wasn’t appropriate. His face had a million creases, like a
tan shirt that had been stretched out after being crumpled at the bottom of a
closet for years. His glasses were wide and the frames were a cheap gold. He was
a grave sort.

“I wanna tell ya a story, young-un,” he said, waking me. His harsh eyes crossed
over me as I stirred but then returned to staring off into the nothing in front of
him.

I was bewildered, to say the least, less startled and more confused. I had met the
Chief a few times but not often, and this was the first time he had ever spoken
directly to me.

“I was a Sheriff – hyuh, was way back when. And we got a tip that there was
someone in our town that uh, that just didn’t belong. Older gentleman, prolly
late-sixties, an' he had been in a house not two or three miles from yer own.” He
cleared his throat. He had the voice of a smoker and I could smell it on him; his
teeth, the bare few times I could see them, were also yellow.
I leaned on my arm, forgetting that it had just gotten seventeen stitches, and
grimaced at the pain.

The Chief glanced at me but continued his story, undeterred.

“Based on the tip, we did a bit of surveillance. Got his DNA off outgoing mail, his
fingerprints, everything. Come to find out the man had been a Serbian warlord, of
all things. Wanted by the Hague, Interpol, U.N. War Crimes Council, and what-
have-you. They had called him ‘Lovac’ back home, which meant Hunter. He would
take rebels and drag them into a lake in front of everyone – and then he would
strangle them underwater. ‘The Underwater Strangler,’ the headlines read. Seems
redundant to me but, to his credit, it was effective. He would murder one rebel
while the others watched from the shore, helpless, and then he would leave the
body in the water and walk over to another rebel and drag them into the water
and strangle them, too. He’d do this to each of them, just over and over and over
– twenty, thirty, forty rebels – picking them at random, and just loving every
second of it…but at the end he would leave one rebel alive so that rebel could go
back and tell all the other rebels what he’d seen.”

Hell of a way to wake up, I thought and rubbed sleep from my eyes. Since the
Chief wasn’t really staring at me – and it felt like he was half-telling the story to
himself – I kept my eyes on the bedside hospital table swung over my lap. There
was still Jell-O waiting for me to eat but I had lost my appetite.

“So this war criminal – this mass murdering serial killer – was right in our back
yard and we had no idea. Had no one said anything, we never would’ve even
looked. But we did look. And we found him and raided his house. The man
swallowed cyanide before we could bring him in. Worst of all, though, was what
we found in the basement: a dead woman. The body was fresh but there weren’t
any external wounds so we thought maybe he poisoned her. Turns out, her
organs had been eaten from the inside. How, you might ask? Lovac had forced a
snake up her vagina. It was still alive, too – during the autopsy, they found it
working through her intestines.”

Chief Harber got up from his seat.

“Just goes to show,” he said in parting, “you never can tell what’s in your own
back yard.”

And then he left.

I never did fall back asleep and, at mid-day, they let me go home.

I got a ride back to the house but, instead of going in, I got inside my car and sat
there. I didn’t know what horrors were waiting for me. I didn’t know what was
still there from before. I didn’t know if I should even go inside; but, if I didn’t go in,
where would I go? My parents are dead. No brothers or sisters. No out-of-town
friends. No one. I’d always been a loner and, especially at the moment, I regretted
it.

When I did go in, it was slow. The house was eerily still and it felt like many others
had been through my house since I was last there. The dead animals were gone
but there was a massive, circular blood-stain in the middle of the living room. The
bloody hand-print under the living room light socket was there, just a bit faded, as
was the word HELP. I didn’t touch a thing, didn’t clean it off the walls, didn’t even
return to those rooms again – these were going remain as they were until I had
figured this out, like horrid tattoos. Reminders. Evidence. I did do my best to
quickly search the empty room for anything the police might have missed, as well
as each corner of the house for any answers, but, without tools, it wasn’t as
effective. So I would wait, bide my time.

I parked down the street and slept in the car, only heading into the house when I
absolutely needed food or water or a shower or clothes. In order to get
everything I needed for my plan, I’d have to work extra hard and accrue more
money – so I continued as a dispatcher and drove Uber as much as I could, until
I’d get so sleepy it became a danger, and then I’d sleep in my car wherever I could.

But then I couldn’t even Uber anymore, after one situation…

(NOTE: This had been previously posted long ago but it was out of order within
the story; I’ve deleted the original post in order to include it here for continuity.)

Late into a recent night, I log onto the app while I’m actually inside the house – I
had finished a shift and was home just long enough to take a shower and dress,
but it was night so I was ready to get the hell out immediately. It takes a few
minutes after logging in before the app bwip bwip of a new ride. I check the
phone and see that the pick-up location is one minute from me; the rider is close.
Lucky, saves on gas, I think and book it to the car, put my cell phone in its holder
on the dash, accept the ride, pull up the map—and the pick-up location is an
aerial view of my street.

Weirdly close – but okay, saves gas.

It’s dark out. (I only drove for Uber in my spare time, usually at night so I could
maintain a 12-hour work schedule.) I’m reversing out of the driveway and check
the map to determine which direction to head—when I realize the map isn’t just
over my neighborhood…it’s over my house.

And then something moves outside my car.

I had been so preoccupied with the map on my phone that my headlights are still
off, so I flip the switch—and that’s when I see him. Slender, with needling arms
like a praying mantis and a square head. The face is ghastly pale like a bloated
corpse, and blood trickles from his mouth. I yelp and pee a little – only to realize
that it’s not a monster; no, it’s my neighbor decked out in his creepy magician
gear.

I let out a sigh of relief, though still a bit freaked.

He lives in the house directly next to mine. We’ve never shared more than a few
passing pleasantries. I’m a quiet person, and the fact that he’s always wearing
strange magician outfits didn’t help. It might not scare me as much if he dressed
like a normal magician but, this night, his appearance is decidedly more gothic
and clown-like. His tuxedo and dress shirt are black and finely-pressed, but his
face is caked in a flakey stage makeup that makes him a pale, almost sickly shade
of white. In stark contrast, his lips are covered in a vibrant red lipstick, with slight,
downward smears in each corner that make him look sad. And his dark eyes are
half-hidden by the brim of a tall, Victorian stovepipe hat.
“Hail, young man!” the neighbor magician calls from my driveway, which I
consider to be a peculiar greeting.

He opens the car door and gets in back. The car fills with the stench of B.O.
doused in obnoxious cologne. It immediately makes me uncomfortable when he
sits behind the driver’s seat, since I can’t really see him. I try to break the
awkward silence that follows by admitting he “startled me.” I don’t say it in an
accusing way but more light-hearted, with a chuckle.

“Sorry, I was trying to save you the trip next door. What scared you? Was it the
black tuxedo?” he asks in a booming voice. He’s a constant announcer, which I
find annoying. He speaks clearly, enunciating each word, and purposely
commands people’s attention by speaking two notches louder than necessary.
And his enthusiasm is intentionally over-the-top. It’s so pretentious, in a way, as if
I’m not talking to a person but someone stuck in a bad performance; and he
always sounds different, sometimes more gravelly, sometimes soft and higher-
pitched.

“Your pale face-paint scared me, actually,” I lie while clicking through the Uber
app, beginning the trip. (Really, I’m frightened that he was in my yard, watching
me get into my car, and I had no idea he was ten feet away.) My cell displays a
route to the destination and I finish backing out of my driveway.

“You wanna know a secret?” he says in a mischievous tone, practically goading

me.

“…sure?” I hesitantly answer.

“My white stage makeup is actually arsenic!” laughs the neighbor magician,
shaking the car. (I don’t see the humor in it.) “Just like a woman from the
Elizabethan era.”

“Fascinating,” I feign interest and then go quiet.

Usually I’m silent when I drive, to better focus.

We get a few minutes outside of town—

“Pull over a moment! Here, to the right,” the neighbor magician shouts out,
startling me. I do as requested and pull the car onto the shoulder of the road. It’s
a desolate stretch of back road and I assume the immediacy is because he wants
to use the darkness as a quick bathroom, but then he wonders aloud, “Was that
an opossum?”

“What?” I respond, confused.

The neighbor magician scribbles something into a tiny notebook from his pocket
and then points a thumb behind us and it takes me a second to realize the real
reason he requested I stop…

He’s talking about a dead animal we passed on the side of the road
“Ugh, I have no idea,” I reply, disgusted.

I can hear him scribble something else before he tells me to drive on, which I
quietly do.

“I have this trick where I invite a volunteer on stage and scalp ‘em, like a dirty
in’jun.” He pauses and, for a moment, I briefly consider the possibility that he’s
actually scalping people; but then he asks again, in a tone both mischievous and
goading, “You wanna know a secret?”

“Uhhh…phhhhhh,” I just sort of mutter back. I don’t want to be rude but I also
don’t especially want to hear anything more so I end up stuck in-between.

The neighbor magician takes this as a yes.

“Since I can’t really scalp ‘em,” he says with an obvious glee, “to make it look
real…I use the skin of roadkill.”

I’m too shocked to reply outright and let this new information digest for a period.

Perhaps sensing my repulsion, he continues:

“Everything must be real, you see. A single disingenuous prop can ruin an
otherwise perfect show. So the performer, as well as his performance materials,
must remain real.”

I nod in agreement, as if I understand, since the destination is (thankfully) just a

short distance ahead. But…I notice we’re heading deeper into nowhere the closer
we get to the destination. The paved road turns to dirt. Telephone poles,
businesses, even houses aren’t out this far; it is shadow and the twisting limb of
bare trees.

“Like this other trick I have,” he goes on, and my stomach tightens, “where I invite
a volunteer on stage and remove their teeth, one…by one…by one…just like a
crazy dentist.”

“Remind me to never volunteer at your shows,” I joke (though I’ve never been
more serious about anything in my life).

He laughs, draws a breath, then asks, again, “You wanna know a secret?”

“I think I’ve heard en—” I start.

“Once a week,” he cuts me off, “I go to the hospital crematorium and stock up on

teeth. For the trick. Real teeth, they don’t burn. And the volunteers never know
I’m putting real, human teeth inside their mouths,” snickers the neighbor
magician.
The dirt road leads to a clearing and, in the distance ahead, I can see the flickers
of a large bonfire. We pass the tattered outline of a run-down barn. The land is
flat, dirt fields. It’s eerily calm outside the car. Nothing moves, like driving through
a painting.

“Aren’t magicians supposed to keep their secrets?” I interject, ready for him to
leave.

The fire ahead is at least a story tall. I can see people dancing around it as I reach
the destination, which appears to be nowhere, and slow.

“Only if we’re afraid the secret will get out,” he answers, snickering again, and he
leans closer to my headrest so that, in the rearview mirror, I can see half of his
pale, downturned face peeking out behind my own.

I stop the car alongside an empty dirt road leading toward the bonfire.

“How can you be sure I won’t tell anyone?” I ask, trying to remain playful even as I
grow increasingly nervous.

I want you out of my car, I keep thinking.

“I just know,” he says with a certain smile, and then he holds out a twenty. The air
in the car is so still I can feel my heart beating in the silence. I reach out to take
the tip but he pulls back a little. “There’s this one, last trick…”
Oh God… I think and cringe.

He’s watching me in the rearview, his face half-hidden.

“I used to invite a kid from the audience to join me onstage,” he says in a calm
whisper. “And I’d have the child lay down on a special table…and I’d tell them to
close their eyes, as if they were sleeping…and then I’d pull out this long ice
pick…and I’d perform a lobotomy on them.”

Something moves outside the car as he asks, in a mischievous, goading tone:

“You wanna know a secret?”

I expect him to tell me some awful detail about dead bodies and children but he
doesn’t—no, he says something worse.

“That girl you invited over the other night,” he says and lifts an eyebrow. He’s
talking about Kay. “I envy you, really. She was so hot…”

And then he was out of the car, disappeared into the darkness.

I immediately told each and every single detail of my Uber trip with the neighbor
magician to Det. Hernandez over the phone. He listened close and I could hear
him writing it all down. Before hanging up, he said he’d look into it and asked
where to find me so I could take him to the field where I dropped the neighbor
magician off.

“Probably asleep in my car in the driveway,” I told him.

And, the next morning, that’s where he found me just before dawn.

A knock on the car window startled me awake and I stared up at Det. Hernandez
with eyes half-open. For some reason, instead of opening the door, I just rolled
the window down.

“What’s up?” I asked, casually.

“Is this the man you saw last night?” Det. Hernandez asked, holding up the picture
of a man with a red beard. The man appeared kind of short and stubby, with a
round, fat torso. I’d never seen him before.

“No,” I answered.

Hernandez was a younger guy (probably in his early 30s) and he had a measured
demeanor, like he was more informed and better able to study everything.
“You’ve never seen this man?” he asked, holding up the picture.
I shook my head no.

“Well, this is your neighbor.”

I squinted at the picture, scrutinizing it a bit more.

(Even though his gun was holstered, I noticed Det. Hernandez had undone the
strap securing it in place.)

“No,” I corrected him. “I called you last night about the neighbor who
lives…there…” I said, pointing behind Det. Hernandez to the house from which the
neighbor magician had come—except the house was now surrounded by yellow
evidence tape, with an ambulance in the street and several police cars pulled
around in front.

“Yeah,” he said in a stern, forceful voice. “Your neighbor – Henry David Allen. His
residence is there, in that house – the house you told me about last night.”

“Maybe I didn’t recognize him. He’s always in makeup, sort of like a clown. He’s a
magician,” I answered. “And every time I saw him he had makeup on so maybe I
was just a bit confused…”

“Makeup? Mr. Allen wasn’t a magician; he was software engineer.”

(6)
Hernandez was a younger guy (probably in his early 30s) and he had a measured
demeanor, like he was more informed and better able to study everything.
“You’ve never seen this man?” he asked, holding up the picture.

I shook my head no.

“Well, this is your neighbor.”

I squinted at the picture, scrutinizing it a bit more.

(Even though his gun was holstered, I noticed Det. Hernandez had undone the
strap securing it in place.)

“No,” I corrected him. “I called you last night about the neighbor who
lives…there…” I said, pointing behind Det. Hernandez to the house from which the
neighbor magician had come—except the house was now surrounded by yellow
evidence tape, with an ambulance in the street and several police cars pulled
around in front.

“Yeah,” he said in a stern, forceful voice. “Your neighbor – Henry David Allen. His
residence is there, in that house – the house you told me about last night.”
“Maybe I didn’t recognize him. He’s always in makeup, sort of like a clown. He’s a
magician,” I answered. “And every time I saw him he had makeup on so maybe I
was just a bit confused…”

“Makeup? Mr. Allen wasn’t a magician; he was software engineer.”

My eyes remained squinted while I thought a moment, as if this would somehow

help me see the answer clearer. I was confused. Det. Hernandez might as well
have been speaking another language.

He didn’t wait for me to respond.

“I need you to come with me,” he said, reached inside, unlocked the door, then
opened it.

I did as he said, still a bit groggy. He led me to his vehicle and opened the back
door for me, which I took as a bad sign. Before getting in the driver’s side, he gave
a motion to the other officers at the scene in front of my neighbor’s house – a
gesture to let the other officers know that he “had it under control.”

“Show me where he took you last night, exactly. And everything he said,” the Det.
Ordered once the car was started and he was driving away from my
neighborhood.
I did as I was told and told him each of the creepy passengers “secrets” as we
traversed the same back roads out of town. Each time I told him something horrid,
the Detective shook his head with (what I assumed to be) disbelief. I was
surprised to find the area already covered with police once we reached the large
area where the bonfire had been the night before.

“We got the info from Uber already. There’s not much to find – not even the giant
fire you mentioned. And whoever used Uber did it with your neighbor’s phone
and his Uber account so there isn’t much there, either.”

“So why did we come back?” I asked him.

“Because I wanted to hear you tell it again,” he answered, then pulled a U-turn
and drove away. And that was all he said for the moment, so I sat in the confined
back seat of Det. Hernandez’s unmarked police car as we drove the rest of the
way in silence. It wasn’t long before I realized he wasn’t taking me to the station
house, as I expected, and instead we pulled up to a secluded area by the nearby
lake.

And, once again, I was worried.

Det. Hernandez got out of the unmarked police car and walked around the side
and let me out. He motioned for me to walk and I did, if a bit hesitant, with him
directly behind me and out of sight. When I did glance back, his walk was stiff
with purpose. He told me to keep walking, which I did, and then finally had me
stop when we reached the destination – a secluded picnic table. It was still dawn
and the sun was rising in the distance, over the lake and surrounding woods. If it
wasn’t such a daunting situation, the setting could’ve been serene and
picturesque.

Det. Hernandez sat me on the picnic table – not the bench \ but the table-top
itself, so I could be eye-level with him while he paced.

“Your neighbor was found dead in his living room. Been there a while, too. The
stench was so bad they had to enter with independent oxygen masks. Found a
puncture wound to the eye from a botched lobotomy. Scalp and teeth were
removed, bagged, and set aside. Body was positioned upright and cross-legged.
Cause of death is uncertain until the autopsy but it could have been from any of
the traumas.”

The information was like an assault. Every detail was a shock. The gruesome
details were horrifying. Their eerie relation to my story from the night before
made it even worse. It was like the words he was saying were attacks and I need a
moment to recover. He said more afterward but I didn’t even hear him. Someone
had been murdered about 80 yards from my house. And then Kay had been taken.

When I was finally able to listen again, to really hear Det. Hernandez , it was
possibly the most important piece of information he was to give me:

“When the FBI had been at the house, I heard them refer to something they
called Backburner on the radio frequency,” he told me, pacing. He was staring at
the ground, working things out in his mind. His hands moved as if he was putting
together puzzle pieces. “It was an accident. They have their own secured
frequency but sometimes they’d hop on ours and I don’t think realized anyone
noticed or cared; but I did. Backburner, it sounded like some sort of project or
operation or something…” he said, thinking.

“Why…why are you telling me this?” I asked, bewildered; I honestly had no idea
why he was confiding in me. I was the least capable person for him to do that.

“Because I know you from dispatch. Because, oddly enough, I trust you – as much
as the Chief wants me to bring you in, I don’t think you have any clue as to what’s
happening. I don’t think you’d hurt anyone…and because I’m also going to need
your help.”

“My help?” I asked, confused but also kinda complimented.

Det. Hernandez stared at me for a long time before speaking again and I could tell
he was judging just how much he could trust me; it must have been enough
because of what he told me next:

“When I first started here—when anyone becomes a sheriff in this area, we

always hear about Chief Harber uncovering and arresting that Serbian guy. Caught
a war criminal, gets a promotion, eventually becomes Chief – and all because he
followed a tip, looked in his own back yard…and blah blah blah. He uses the story
as warning these days – don’t trust anyone ‘cause you never know. But something
about the story never sat well with me. The informant’s information was never
recorded, which is unheard of – no testimony, no deposition, no recording,
nothing. And for a case that high profile, you’d think it would’ve been important.
For some random person to one day point the finger across the street and say,
‘That guy’s suspicious,’ there’s nothing wrong with it – but the guy didn’t leave his
house. No one even knows how the girl got there since no one had seen the man
come in or out. No informant, no reason, big investigation. Even the arrest
records are redacted in sections. The whole thing never sat right with me – still
doesn’t.”

None of this really made sense to me; what did it have to do with today, with now?

Det. Hernandez continued.

“When the FBI came, they were only here for a short period of time. These were
federal crimes, which usually involve indictments and further investigation – but
this one, for whatever reason, didn’t. The drug bust, human trafficking, all of it
crossed state lines, all of it should have warranted government involvement – but
it didn’t. In fact, the FBI were only here for a short time. For a majority of the yer
your house was in custody, it was completely empty. The bulk of the investigation
happened the week after the bust. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the FBI were
there more for containment than anything else.”

“Oh shit, so this is like some big government cover-up?” I asked, now fully
immersed. I always wanted to be involved in something like this. Alien lifeforms,
covert operations, genetic experiments – I was game.

“Look,” he said, trying to calm me down, “it isn’t quite like that. But something is
going on and it involves your house.”

And from there, we formulated a plan. Det. Hernandez listed the equipment he
had on hand to help and his overall theory. I told him the money I had been
saving from Uber and what I had intended to buy with it. Joining together, we
could get our hands on everything we’d need. His theory was a bit far-fetched but,
at this stage, nothing could be ruled out; and my plan for the house was sound, if
a much. It would take me days, possibly weeks to get it done – weeks I would
have to spend inside the house – but there was no other choice.

No matter the disagreements we had (and there were a few), there was one thing
that was certain: plan B was to burn that fucker to the ground.

Det. Hernandez still had to bring me into the station house for questioning, which
we did directly after our stop at the lake. He asked me questions and I answered
honestly; and it as all recorded by the camera behind the one-way mirror.
Nothing new was discussed; just a thorough recounting of the details.

When we were done, Det. Hernandez dropped me back off at the house. He got
out and walked a good distance away from the vehicle to talk with me. (I was
beginning to assume the car was bugged and that’s why he refused to talk about
these things there.) Our conversation was brief; he had a storage locker #187 with
a combination lock. The code to the lock: 1-11-21. He would get the supplies we
had talked about and put them there. Meanwhile, I’d begin work on the house. It
would be set-up for a warzone.

That was about two weeks ago...

Since then, I’ve mostly been working on the house.

Det. Hernandez has continued putting supplies into his storage container: GPS
devices, small cameras that were easily hidden, tiny mics, infrared cameras, and
so on. I mostly spent my money on weapons, like a Mossberg shotgun and several
containers of gasoline in case the house needed a quick cleansing; I also got
smoke canisters, trip-wire, and anything I could use for gunpowder.

Different officers have brought me to the station house two additional times for
questioning but no charges have been filed against me for either the
disappearance of Kay or the murder of my neighbor.

Everything was going to plan – working inside the house during daylight hours,
dispatching, sleeping in my car, restocking supplies – that is, until
yesterday...when I noticed that Det. Hernandez hadn’t put anything in the storage
facility for a few days. I called his cell but no answer. I called the department but
couldn’t reach him. He had given me his home address on the off-chance I’d need
it - and, since I couldn’t seem to locate him, I deemed it necessary to visit. So I
went to Det. Hernandez’s house.

First thing I noticed was that his apartment door wasn't locked; second was the
stench, one that was becoming familiar to me. Like putrid milk and burnt hair. It
was an acrid, eye-watering stench that overwhelmed the moment I opened the
door.

The apartment was bare, even more so than mine – table to eat at, one chair,
small couch, smaller television. The dishes were piled in the sink and flies were
buzzing all over them. The fridge door was partially open and everything inside
had spoiled.
I called out the Detective’s name but no one answered.

The lights were off and when I tried to turn them on, nothing happened; either
the power to the apartment had been shut off or the light bulbs had all been
broken or removed - just a bad sign, either way. I had to use my phone flashlight,
which gave off an sickly white light and made everything a bit more eerie.

There wasn’t any blood on the floor, which was pretty much the only thing I
found reassuring. The living room was empty. And the kitchen was empty (aside
from the flies). And the bedroom was empty. And the bathroom—well, the
shower curtain obscured the tub but it was otherwise empty.

The smell was much more intense when I entered the bathroom and I knew—I
was certain something horrible was waiting behind the curtain.

The sink had items strew everywhere – there had obviously been a struggle.
Something happened there.

I kept the sickly light focused on the curtain as I approached.

I could make out a crumpled shape on the other side.

My hands were shaking when I reached out, took hold of the plastic curtain—and
yanked it back.
Det. Hernandez lay in the tub, his neck broken – his head twisted so hard that his
chin rest on his back.
(7)
I took a moment to puke in the bathroom sink. I’d seen a lot of awful stuff but
that was a first for me. His expression was horrified, his tongue blackened and
hanging out the side of his mouth. Someone had just dumped him and it made
me so sad, like they considered him trash. He had been the only person that was
on my side; now I was alone again. I can’t tell you how selfish that (still) makes me
feel, to see a dead man and think about myself…but I’ve been alone for so long.
Then Kay. Then the Detective.

Goddamnit.

—I regained composure. I washed the puke out of the sink. I wiped my

fingerprints off of everything. And I left for work, to keep up appearances.

I started my normal shift, white as a sheet. Two of my coworkers made comments,

asking if the walls in my house started bleeding yet, or had I fallen out any
windows lately – but I played it off as sick, and that life was otherwise fine.

The twelve–hour shift was relatively uneventful, until…

“Alpha–one–one–zero–one, what’s your emergency?”

A familiar sound – a child giggling.

I could hear something in the background, distant but distinct: a woman crying.
And she was saying the same word over and over: “…help.” It was more of a moan
than a statement. And I knew then, instantly, that it was Kay.

The child giggled again and I could hear the phone shake, movement, and Kay’s
crying suddenly became screams of agony.

I jerked and backed away from my desk in horror, the headset ripping off my ears.
The sound had scared me so bad it was as if it had happened right in front of me,
and that’s how I reacted. But I have to tell you – after everything I’d been through,
my fear was constantly fading into determination. First I’d be horrified; then I’d
plan. Same thing had happened at Detective Hernandez’s house…
No one would believe me anymore; and whoever murdered him must’ve done so
because he knew something they didn’t want him to know. But what could he
have possibly found out…?

I told everyone at work that I still felt sick and needed to leave immediately,
which they all believed as I had again turned pale.

But before I went home, there were a few more stops…

Kay had been gone for weeks but now I was ready. I set half a dozen lamps
around the house, each in the center of the room and each plugged into the
socket controlled by the light switch; then, I opened and filled light bulbs with a
single shotgun’s shell of gunpowder before screwing them into each lamp.

I made tripwire alerts outside every closet and door using firecrackers, wood
matches, and non–tensile fishing wire.

I reinforced every door and window with steel, from the inside – not just to slow
police from breaking in (which I knew would come sooner or later) but also to
prevent the inside from breaking out.

Each room got a small, Lego–sized infrared camera (courtesy of Det. Hernandez)
so I could see body–heat in the darkness.

I also bought a parakeet on my way home…not for defense, not as an alert or

weapon or anything – just company. I named him Tweeters and kept him with me
in the living room, which I made my base of operations. I just didn’t want to be
alone for this.

And there were canisters of gasoline in each hallway, as well as the kitchen, each
with a soaked tee–shirt fuse.

This is going to end one way or another…

And, as the sun set on my final day in that house, Tweeters tweeted from his cage
beside me while I watched an iPad switch between the infrared cameras
stationed all over the house. The center of the living room was constructed like a
fort from my youth, a blanket stretched over–top from couch to chair to chair,
and me hiding beneath – except I didn’t have a loaded shotgun with me when I
was a kid. (I also had a taser strapped to my hip, in case all else failed.) I’m not
sure why I decided to make my last stand in a blanket fort but, no lie, it definitely
helped. I felt safe under there.

The only downside was that the fort was still kind of close to the circular ring of
blood and gore left on the carpet by the pile of dead animals.

“So, Tweeters, tell me a little bit about yourself…” Tweeters was blue and yellow
and he twerped and hopped around and ate some seeds. “Really? That’s super
interesting,” I replied. This was how I would stay sane. “Got any favorite
movies?”…“Oh , you’re more of a reader, huh? Not much good out in theaters
these days anyway. Big Will Smith fan?”…“Me too.”…sigh…“I need a friend,
Tweeters. You a friend?” He happily twerped again; I gave an appreciative nod.
“Glad to hear it, buddy.” And I was, I really was.

There was a long period of dark nothing—and then, as is life, everything

happened at once.

It was crawling, that’s what I noticed first. Something scurried out of the closet on
all fours. It was the empty room on the second floor. Their movement had been
slow at first – so slow that I wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for the body–heat
image. I clicked the screen so it stopped scrolling through the other angles and
remained on that one. The room was pitch–black and the person…they seemed to
round a corner that didn’t exist in the closet and emerged out of nothing. I had no
idea what it could be – mangled human, weird creature, giant spider…whatever it
was crawled out—and somehow, even in complete darkness, still noticed the
tripwire and was careful not to touch it.

But something much closer wasn’t as careful—tssssss BOOM—and, not ten feet
away, the tripwire in the kitchen went off.

Something else was with me, much closer.

I changed to the kitchen camera – nothing there. I switched to the other cameras
– nothing…until I got to the one in the living room, just overhead, and that’s when
I saw someone. It was definitely a person, and a big one at that. Tall and squared,
like Frankenstein's monster. My body–heat was half–masked by the blanket in the
center of the room—and standing just outside the blanket fort was someone else.
They weren’t moving; they just stared down at the blanket, at me. Looming.
Lurking.

I grabbed the shotgun and pointed up and pulled the trigger.

The concussive blast made me deaf and disoriented – and the explosive shock
instantly killed Tweeters. (Poor little guy didn’t even make it a day with me.) I
pulled the smoking blanket off and found—no one. The living room was empty
again. I checked the cameras and the figure was gone. But not the thing in the
empty room upstairs – something was still crawling around up there.

The last thing Det. Hernandez gave me was an old pair of night–vision goggles and
I pulled them over my eyes and leapt to my feet. Shotgun stock against my
shoulder, I moved from the living room to the stairs, checking each corner.
Nothing. I was moving quickly – and didn’t check the other rooms on the second
floor, just ran straight to the empty room and kicked the door in and – turning my
head away – I flicked the light switch.

The room exploded in sparks from the gun–powder light bulb.

And then—tssssss BOOM—the tripwire outside the closet was triggered.

A squeal – something small and frightened.

I rushed in—and that’s when I found it, when I trapped it, when I held it down
with the shotgun aimed square at its face…

A child. Just a dirty kid with crooked teeth, a girl no older than ten.

I kept her pinned down with my foot.

“Where did you come from?!” I screamed.

The child whimpered and wiggled, distraught. When she did speak, the language
was unrecognizable – I wasn’t even sure, it could have been gibberish.
Sirens in the distance. The screech of swerving tires in my neighborhood.

The police were coming for me.

8
I miss the days when I’d cook dinner. Most people don’t know this about me but
I’m actually an amazing cook, and the best nights were the poor, lazy nights when
I’d have to use whatever ingredients I could find in the kitchen to cook a meal.
Box of ziti. Boil water with salt and then drop it in for about eleven minutes at a
constant boil; then, the sauce. While the pasta drains, mix whatever pieces to
make the puzzle complete. Onion and garlic, browned. Ragoo sauce with cream
cheese, rosemary, and oregano. Mix the pasta into the sauce, stir, then layer into
a glass dish with sour cream and extra cheese in each layer, topped with a heavy
dose of parmesan. Bake for 20, 30 minutes. Maybe a glass of red wine with dinner,
Pinot Noir.

It’s easy to take for granted the mundane.

So there I was, shotgun to the head of a child while screaming, “Where did you
come from?!”—when there were sirens in the distance. The screech of swerving
tires in my neighborhood. It was the police – and they were coming for me.

Come to find out later:

County dispatch had listened to the recording of my last call before I left work – 6
seconds of childish giggling, a woman (Kay) crying for help—then screaming in
agony, all from an untraceable number without a GPS location. That’s also about
the time when a nearby unit checked on Det. Hernandez after he didn’t report in
for his shift. That was it. Kay’s disappearance. My neighbor’s death. Det.
Hernandez’s murder. (And they didn’t even know about Tweeters yet.) With all
that, the police felt they had enough evidence (albeit circumstantial) to scare a
confession out of me. So they sent the Special Crimes Unit over.

What the SCU didn’t expect, however, was to find my house engulfed in flame as
they arrived – which it most certainly was. In fact, they parked their cruisers and
the van about a half–block away – just in time for the fire to reach a gas can in the
living room. The explosion was so big it blew out the entire face of the house. A
second explosion collapsed the top floor into a giant pile of rubble, one that
burned higher and brighter than anything the town had even seen. (Pieces of my
bedroom landed over two blocks away.)

I didn’t blow up with it, obviously.

I had had the young girl pinned down when the distant sirens distracted me – and
it was just enough for the child to wiggle free and scurry toward the closet. A
shooting pain in my right shoulder stopped from me from following her—the pain
shot to my fingertips like ice in the bloodstream. My teeth clenched so hard they
almost broke. I had never been stabbed before – and it’s something I highly
recommend avoiding when possible. Easily, far and away, hands–down the worst
pain I’ve ever felt in my life. My whole body became so sensitive, it was as if I
could feel the tissue and muscle tearing on a cellular level – and the tip of the
blade penetrated through the scapula bone itself. Even the goddamn bone got
stabbed. And it was right in the back, in the right shoulder.

The child reached the closet and pushed back the crawl space in the wall and slid
into the darkness of an extremely narrow passage that went straight down. It had
been something I found before, a slim, dead drop down to a wood frame. (Believe
me I had looked into it…though that may have been the problem – I hadn’t done
much more than look. It was a normal crawl space, part of the interior between
the first and second floors of all houses; but that’s not all it was, apparently, as
the child disappeared head first down it.)

I spun around to find the neighbor magician behind me, bloody knife in hand.

The night–vision goggles gave me a bit of an advantage—he lunged and I was able
to dodge, jump out of the way – closer to the window.

It’s not too late to pull a Richie…

The thought was quickly dismissed.

The neighbor magician had looked creepy in the back of my car—but he was
exponentially more terrifying in the green contrast of night–vision. His face was
flecked with peeling make–up and a black specks – I couldn’t tell if it was dirt or
blood; I could barely even make out a human face. He was taller than me, too,
and his long hair was matted and dreading. He wore the same stovepipe hat, and
the same dark tuxedo – but his eyes, they burned with fury.

I’m not a fighter. In my whole life I’ve maybe been in two fights and both were in
grade school. (Not to brag but I was the victor in both.) With the neighbor
magician, it wasn’t like a fight, though; it was far different, something my body
had never experienced before. Not just the stab wound slowing me down, or that
the fisticuffs were in night–vision, but that this confrontation was unlike any other
I had ever been in because this stranger genuinely wanted me dead. There’s
nothing like it, to come face–to–face with an enemy trying to end you. Life makes
a bit more sense, in a way. It was a moment when I understood there were no
longer rules; just life. It’s not exactly horrifying, as one might imagine, but entirely
visceral – blood pumping adrenaline, the mind sharper, time slower.

I raised the shotgun before he could lunge again—and, even in the darkness, he
knew what was coming. The neighbor magician jumped out of the room and I
fired two following shots into the wall, in the direction he leapt. The blasts were
enormous, gaping holes in the wall – big enough for me to see through the
hallway and into the bathroom and closet. It was hard to aim as each shot not
only released an echoing BOOM but also a blinding light to the goggles. I cocked
the shotgun—snick–snick as the empty cartridge hit the floor, smoking—and then
fired a third shot downward, at the spot on the floor where he must’ve landed.
Not only did the third shot miss him entirely but the buckshot nicked the plastic
gas canister at the end of the hallway. Unlike in the movies, however, the gas can
did not instantly burst into flame and explode—but gasoline did leak down the
hallway and into my bedroom.

I stepped into the hall but didn’t see him. I froze a moment (probably a stupid
expression on my face), unsure if I should follow him or the kid. (I wasn’t even
certain I’d fit down that narrow–ass crawl space.) But I could still feel his presence
– the neighbor magician was still around, somewhere. Waiting. And I wasn’t
about to turn my back on him again.

So I began moving down the hallway, shotgun stock against my shoulder.

Nothing in the closet.

Nothing in the bathroom.

Nothing in the stairwell—and that’s when he jumped out of the bedroom and
slashed at me. I happened to shield myself using the metal of the shotgun—and
as much as I want to say I blocked him because I’m super–badass, the truth is that
it was the result of reflex and complete accident. I had been startled and the
blade was hit away by the barrel of the shotgun, but it was as I threw the shotgun,
completely off–guard and panicking and frightened. It did give me one extra
second’s jump on him, just enough time to kick the neighbor magician backwards,
deeper into the bedroom and away from me.

He didn’t fall down but remained standing, ready to rush back.

So I flicked the light switch.

Life was slow motion for a moment:

The lamp had been to the side of the bedroom and set up like the others. When
the electrical current hit the gunpowder in the bulb – sparks, a trillion of them in
every direction like diamond–shaped supernovas. It was probably beautiful – I
wouldn’t know, it was blinding to the night–vision goggles and I had to quickly pull
them up on my forehead. I swiveled back into the hallway just as—tssssss
BOOM—another tripwire went off inside the bedroom with the neighbor
magician. I’m not sure which of the two caused the first spark to ignite the
gasoline that had soaked into the bedroom floor from the plastic container in the
hallway—but the fire was instant, thin and almost imperceptible but for the
occasional flicker of orange and yellow. It spread through the bedroom and
consumed the neighbor magician toe–to–head in a flood. I was already twisting,
turned and running down the hallway, back to the empty room. The fire spread
and I could feel the heat even without seeing the flame. I smashed into the closet
of the empty room so hard that the plaster cracked and shattered—and then I
fucking howled because it had been my stabbed shoulder that broke my
momentum. The pain almost caused me to faint. It was easy to crumble down to
my hands and knees, especially since it was away from the black, billowing smoke.
With my last bit of strength, I kicked myself forward, squeezing into the crawl
space, my body stuck—then, just barely, it fit—then, I was tumbling straight down,
free–falling in darkness.

It felt like for a moment floating—but then I landed.

My head hit something solid.

And I was out cold.

9
Everything wasn’t just dark but absolute blackness—like a vacuum. Deep space
had more light than the area where I woke. It didn’t even feel like reality, like
maybe it was a fevered dream, some awful nightmare I couldn’t escape…but the
pain made it real—so. very. real.

The ground was dirt and rock and it was agonizing to crawl forward. My right
shoulder had been stabbed and my entire back was sticky and warm; there was so
much blood that it was even seeping around front into my armpit. My head was
bleeding from a wound on my forehead or on the top of my head, and it was
trickling blood into my left eye – which stung and partially blinded me. I even tore
open the gash in my arm (from when I was pushed out the window), an old
wound which had only recently gotten the stitches removed. My body and clothes
were also covered in ash and sweat from the fire. Dirt and rubble had stuck to my
bare skin and open wounds from the crumbling house and wherever the fuck I
had landed—and then I remembered: the house, it had been burning, collapsing,
smoke and fire everywhere…but here I was, somehow okay.

I felt around, trying to get a bearing of my situation. My hand crossed over

something that felt an awful lot like human hair—but it quickly pulled away.

I instinctively pulled my hand back, horrified.

Something skittered in the darkness and I froze. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this isn’t

good, I though.

I was well-aware that my situation, somehow, never got better but instead had
gone from bad to worse to the last–fucking–place–on–Earth–anyone–would–
ever–want–to–end–up. I did have a bit of luck as I felt the plastic of my night–
vision goggles. I had lifted them up on my forehead when the fire started, when it
got too bright; and they must have fallen off as I tumbled into the dark pit. The
luck was truncated, though (as is my life). Only one of the lenses worked, the left
– which happened to be the same eye that was hindered by the blood dripping
into it.
I spit on the neck–line of my shirt and tried my best to wipe the blood from my
left eye, and then put on the goggles—and immediately saw, in the neon green,
two glistening eyes staring back. They glared from behind long, dirty hair; every
other feature was hidden but for the cat–like, searing eyes. It was a human, and
slender, I could tell, and they were wearing tattered, shredded clothes. (I’m only
slightly embarrassed to admit that some bodily functions released the moment I
saw someone not twenty feet from me.)

This emaciated person remained in place, their eyes watching me squirm…and

then, slowly, they held out an arm…and extended their boney index finger…and
then, ever so gently, they curled the finger, motioning for me to follow. The arm
lowered again to their side, and the person turned and lumbered forward,
disappearing down the dark corridor ahead – and behind them, the person
dragged a dead housecat by the tail.

My obvious instinct was to head in any other direction – of which there were
several, each a dark tunnel burrowed through dirt. I assumed we were well–
below my house but I wasn’t certain how far or even where, exactly. I did find
that almost all of the tunnels led to dead–ends that only went straight up. I wasn’t
sure how they were able to do it but it seemed like, whoever was using these
tunnels, they were actually crawling vertically up the dirt wall and, presumably,
into different areas of my house. Or other houses. Or both. (There were a good
amount of tunnels.)

There was one tunnel that didn’t lead to a dead–end and, of course, it was the
one in which the horrifying stranger had disappeared. I didn’t follow at first; I
stayed and contemplated if I should just lay there forever. Maybe someone would
find me, eventually, when they dug through the rubble of my house…unless all
the tunnels upward had collapsed with it. (Many of them visibly had.)

Also, as if it wasn’t already enough, the cave–like tunnel rumbled slightly with an
ominous noise, an echoing, shaky wheeze like a nearby giant had just sighed. It
was bizarre and completely random and only lasted about thirty seconds – but
goddamn it was terrifying. I literally thought it was my life ending, for a moment.
But then it stopped, and everything became silent, and I began to feel more
helpless in the dead–end of a cave.

The shotgun hadn’t made it down with me so I had no weapon – except a nearby
rock, which I grabbed and clung to like a pillow.

And then, quite hesitantly, I followed down the narrow tunnel…

It couldn’t have been more than 6ft tall by 4ft wide, the dirt walls covered in tiny
scratches; and I couldn’t tell if the tunnel had been dug out by a hundred hands—
or if countless people had struggled while being dragged there against their will.
Maybe both (though the soil was hard and mostly rock, which I’d assume to be
impossible to dig through by hand).

I stepped over the skinned housecat that the creeper had been dragging (must’ve
just gotten bored with it and left it), and I followed along, close against the wall,
when a light in the distance got bright enough for me to remove the night–vision
goggles. And I could see something ahead. The tunnel, just before the light,
became more jagged – and then it opened up. I could see concrete, and an
overhead light, all of which made me more hesitant…but I continued, cautiously.

I reached the end, where the dirt became jagged and broken concrete, and then I
emerged out a massive crack in the concrete wall to the other side, into
something else entirely…

It was like a bomb shelter only much larger, like a fall–out bunker for soldiers.

The room in which I stood felt weirdly normal – a small bookcase to the side filled
with old books, a purple area rug in the center, trophies and art on the walls, and
the sweet scent of lilies. It was a warm, friendly environment.

“…the fuck?” I murmured, absolutely bewildered.

Again, there was a shaky wheeze that rumbled, this time much louder – and I
could better identify it. The sound was from the bunker’s central air, either a
purifier or air conditioning, something. As the sound filled the room in which I
stood, so did a soft, cool breeze.
Faint music whispered down the concrete corridor to me – German opera.

The recording was scratchy, playing from a record.

Again I had blood in my eye so I grabbed a nearby piece of cloth and wiped away
the blood—and that’s when the long–haired, lanky creeper passed by the
doorway. I hugged the rock, not as a weapon but for comfort. The stranger kept
going, though. I could see a hallway outside the room. As there was no real option
to go back (and no better weapons in the room), I continued on with just my rock.

The music was louder in the long, plain hallway. It was grey concrete floor–to–
ceiling, with no decoration. Both ways were clean and well–lit, and I saw the
creeper, lumbering on, turn into a room to the right; it also sounded as if that was
where the music was coming from – if not that room then close by it. The other
direction down the hallway led to seemingly more doorways similar to the one I
was standing in. Each room had a heavy door, all of which were closed but the
one to the right.

I was slow entering the hallway.

Instead of investigating the many rooms, where any number of horrors were
probably hiding, I just followed the long–haired, lanky creeper – at least they
seemed weak and easy to overcome if they suddenly attacked me. I was also
pretty sure it was a female, like the emaciated, one–armed woman who had
stumbled into my bedroom that day.

Each room I passed had reinforced doors that were all closed.

Each also had a small, thick window, but I couldn’t see inside as they were all
completely dark.

The music got louder as I approached the open doorway to the right…

Inside was a pleasant enough dining area, with a table set for six—but the table
was otherwise empty, aside from one familiar face…

“You smell like piss, Richie. Have a seat,” instructed Chief Harber, calling out to be
heard over the German opera. He was sitting with one leg over his knee, smoking
a pipe, but leaned back to turn down the music on the record player and then
pointed a finger at a chair across the table from him.

The long–haired, emaciated female was standing quietly in the back of the room,
facing the corner.

He was a large man, older but obviously ex–military and still extremely
intimidating; and, as if that wasn’t enough, he had a Luger pistol on the plate in
front of him.

I did as I was told and took a seat.

“It’s nice, ain’t it?” he asked.

Having been through so much by then – so much madness and danger and horror
– that sitting in the chair felt amazing, such a relief to be off my feet and able to
just rest and bleed without moving. The blood had overwhelmed my left eye so it
just remained closed and I glanced around, not really taking in the details.

Chief Harber puffed on his pipe, eyeing me up; then he looked around.

“Amazin’ it’s held up as well, considering it was built in the forties,” marveled the
Chief in his low, gruff tone, “built specifically for them sum’bitch Nazis who were
just too important to try at Nuremberg. Too evil to live in normal society but…too
smart to die, I guess.” His voice was contemplative, just as it had been when I first
met him – in my hospital bed, weeks earlier. “And they were just the original
residents – never thought I’d say this but the bastards that came after were even
worse. Dictators, war–lords, mass–murderers – Government can’t just have them
walking around, though, can they?—so stuff ‘em in a deep god’amn hole where
no one’d ever think to look.”

A part of me heard him talking but my brain wasn’t able to comprehend much
more than a single detail at a time: the reflective china of the dishes; the words
“sum’bitch” and “Nazis”; the tattered clothes of the emaciated woman in the
corner; “mass–murderers”; a bottle of wine in the center of the table…
The Chief noticed me noticing the bottle of French red and he stood and poured
me a glass, explaining the year and vineyard—I heard none of it, grasped the
wineglass and chugged the sweet liquid, and then held it out for more before he
could even return to his seat. The Chief obliged and poured me another glass,
then poured himself one, and then he returned to his seat.

“I’ve gotta kill you,” he said, rather matter–of–factly. “You know that, right? Just
like your nosy neighbor, and the detective…” He looked me over and added, as an
afterthought, “Won’t make much of a meal, though – will ya…”

I nodded. Whatever, dude. I was about as close to the end of my rope as I could
reach, so I just sipped the wine. He did the same. We shared a quiet moment—
then, the Chief turned toward the emaciated woman in the corner.

“Kay, grab us the Bordeaux on the top shelf,” he ordered.

The long–haired woman stumbled a bit, turning away from the corner, and then,
slowly, shuffled out of the room toward wherever the wine was kept. I couldn’t
even recognize her; she’d lost thirty pounds, at least. Her arms were rail–thin and
her hair was so dirty and matted that it blocked any real detail of her face, which
was too caked in dirt to make out anyway.

Learning this woke me up—learning that the poor creature from the tunnel was
actually Kay—this reinvigorated me, helped my adrenaline start up again, helped
my mind focus – and then, carefully, I began to take in the details around me. I
did my best not to show much emotion, shuffling in my seat a little to sit up and
better drink my glass of wine. (There was a steak knife on the table.) My left eye
remained mostly closed but the blood had started to congeal and I could squint
through the sting.

The Chief wasn’t much led on by this; he rested a hand on the Luger and smirked.

“Sorry, the kids just wanted Kay more than you. And after the last girl was
barren—and then escaped before they could finish with her – yah know, they just
needed a new…uh, well, mom, I guess. And they weren’t gonna get any more
brothers and sisters without one so – they did what they had to.” He gave an
accepting nod.

I finished my glass of wine, set it on the table, and then slouched, letting my
hands rest on my hips.

Kay shuffled back into the room with a bottle of wine in her hands. She seemed
defeated, unable to speak, barely able to function. I didn’t know what he had
done to her in the weeks since I’d seen her but it must’ve been hell.

The Chief looked from me to Kay, then back to me, studying my expression. I
showed none, not because I was successfully hiding them but because I was
actually focusing on something else.

Chief Harber dismissed me for the moment and leaned forward to examine the
label on the bottle of wine.

“I told you to get the BORDEAUX!—” he scolded her, raising a fist.

But I stopped him.

zzz—zzzzzzzzt—zzzzzzzzzzzzt

After I finished my glass of wine, I rest my hands on my hip—and realized

something was still with me, something that had been with me since the blanket
fort. And I only remembered it when my hand accidentally rest on it. Because of
the dirt and grime and soot on my clothes, the rectangle had remained well–
hidden.

I barely moved, as it was excruciating to lift my right arm any distance, but the
moment his eyes were off me, I lifted my hand about two feet—and the taser
caught him right in the throat. Chief Harber jerked as 50,000 volts hit him hard,
knocking him back into the chair; and he remained tensely seated upright as
1,200 volts continued pulsing through him, effectively shutting down his nervous
system.
I sat the taser on the plate but remained seated, unable to move much; I had lost
enough blood that life was getting a bit harder and harder to hold on to. I did stay
conscious, though, watching.

Chief Harber’s eyes were wide with shock, his rough, stubbled face beat red and
shaking.

Kay gazed down at him. And then she slowly lifted her chin so I could see the
innocent, confused expression on her face. Her eyes followed the line from the
taser on the plate to Chief Harber’s throat. Her frail body kind of swayed as she
stared at the Chief.

The taser had lost its charge and stopped pulsing but Chief Harber didn’t seem
able to control his body anymore, momentarily frozen with a stupid expression on
his face – but he did have enough energy to focus his eyes on Kay, at least for a
brief moment.

As if her fingers were made of glass, Kay delicately picked up a steak knife from
the table. She wasn’t aggressive but more thoughtful, gentle even, as she slowly
stuck the blade into Chief Harber’s throat. The blood dribbled at first, the blade
just sliding deeper and deeper without much resistance. The sinew tore against
the ribs of the blade—and then I could visibly see the outline of an artery just as it
severed. Blood gushed all of Kay’s hair and face and tattered clothes but she
didn’t react, her eyes on Chief Harber as if distracted by a twerping bird just
outside the window.

The room actually felt brighter in the moment his life ended.

And his eyes never closed.

Kay carefully bent forward and took a small key ring off of the Chief’s belt, then
shuffled over to me, her clothes and face dripping blood. With a small motion of
her shoulder, she suggested I get up and follow her. I wasn’t certain if I could but I
tried nonetheless—and though my legs were wobbly, I found that I could still
stand.
Kay waited for me in the hallway outside the room. Several of the bunker rooms
were opened and I could feel eyes watching us as we passed—but no one came at
us. We found no further fight. Perhaps the most surprising action was when Kay
took my hand in hers.

And so, hand–in–hand, we left the bunker.

Cue Miike Snow’s “Silvia”

10
I wish I could say that Kay and I walked out of that bunker hand–in–hand, and
faced the dawn together, and everything that followed was rainbows and
sunshine…but that’s not real life, is it?

My Kay…

The timeline in my non–fiction writing is always messy, exprès – that is to say, it’s
meant to be messy. Sometimes things read as if they’re occurring now, or
yesterday, or ten years ago – and it’s because the moment a reader can figure out
the day and date, there’s a much greater chance of them finding the real crime,
which then might compromise the situation or identities of those involved.

So when I say that Kay’s still recovering, I can’t tell you how long it’s been. But I
can tell you that I visit her often. I can also tell you that, whenever I enter the
room, her eyes light up; the doctor says I’m the only person she does it for. And I
can tell you that she’s started communicating with us, which has been an amazing
step in her recovery. I love my Kay dearly, I always will…and she’s my focal point,
the one good thing in this world that keeps me circling the shallows instead of
treading into the deep–end.

My Kay…

I also gathered the ashes from Tweeter’s cage and spread them at sea, just as he
would’ve wanted; followed by a moment of silence, and then a quick reminder
that Tweeters was more of a reader than theater–goer. (I think he would’ve liked
the ceremony.)

The town I left has remained quiet. There was more to the story, so much more at
play than I ever realized, but no one knows because there were never any news
stories, no national reporters flooding the area, nothing; in fact, the only parts
that made it into the local paper were the house fire and the deaths of Detective
Hernandez (considered an accident in the shower) and Chief Harber (heart attack).

The FBI showed up and did a quick sweep and covered everything up, as they
always do I’ve come to learn. (They’re like the highest–level janitors.) I wasn’t
arrested, as I feared, because everything – and I mean everything – was swept
under the rug.

They did give peace offerings – something that surprised me. In exchange for my
silence (so keep this whole thing on the DL), the US government gave me a check
for the amount I had paid into the house (it wasn’t much) and Kay’s health
insurance bills will be covered forever; after that, it was a quick handshake by a
federal agent named Johnson—and then everyone was sent off while the
evidence was destroyed.

The end.

I was able to get a small amount of the real story, pieced together by evidence
and assumption and the small amount I overheard from the local police while
they were looking after Kay and I in the days following the event:

The initial “drug raid” that led to the seizure of the house had not, in fact, been a
drug raid at all. The residents had gone mad after months of “haunting” by
bunker mutants that had dug their way into the house; the homeowners were
terrified and armed to the teeth in the end. By the time a firefight started, and the
F.B.I. arrived, the battle wasn’t just between police and the residents – who were
shooting at everything – but several of the CHUDs, as well. (C.H.U.D. is the term
I’ve come to use in reference of the bunker mutants – it means Chief Harber’s
Underground Dwellers.)

And then the F.B.I. came around just long enough to label the situation a “drug
bust” while doing a shitty job to make sure the lid was sealed on a situation they
already knew existed – a result of the habitation of war criminals with knowledge
too valuable to the US Government to destroy. The bunker had actually been shut
down in the 80s when President Regan cut funding and effectively shut down
many operations, including this one – but instead of dealing with it, the US
government just threw away the key. The few remaining criminals were supposed
to die in their hole; more than one of them didn’t.

(The only thing I still don’t understand: the overdoses. After this, the epidemic of
heroin overdoses decreased by 75%. I don’t know if maybe the people in the
house were selling drugs or if the police had made a recent drug bust and used it
to mask this situation or what; no one ever answered that question for me.)

It’s believed that Chief Harber learned of the bunker when he caught the last
living war criminal – a Serbian who had escaped the bunker, murdered a family,
and then lived in their house for decades. They pieced things together by using
the bloodline of the four adult men and seven children they found living in the
bunker rooms and surrounding tunnels: several had genetic defects from
generations of inbreeding and were descendants of some of the worst murderers
in history (several of which had long–been considered dead); and the youngest
children were birthed by missing women (whose remains were found
cannibalized) and they were all directly descended from Chief Harber…in fact,
they found evidence of so many dwellers in that bunker that they were never
certain that all of them had been found.

I’m not going into much detail of what Chief Harber used that bunker for, only
that an inherently evil person had stumbled onto a secret which they then used to
live out there sickest fantasies…but we put an end to it, luckily.

As for me, dispatch put me on indefinite leave so I was immediately homeless and
jobless – with only a small amount of money. So I did what anyone would do:
started an unlicensed private investigations business called The Richard Cunning
Detective Agency – well, really I just got an llc., printed some business cards,
made a website, and accepted a request to help someone find their missing
family member (more on that in a bit). And, out of all those things, the hardest
decision to make, weirdly, was in choosing a name for the website. I thought
about it for a long time: I didn’t just need a name that told people Richard
Cunning had started a detective agency but also a name that needed to be
subversive, inviting but informational, memorable yet subtle…and then it came to
me:

thecunningdick.com

Perfect, yah know.

My Dad finally told me what happened that day
I went to visit my Dad not too long ago. We have a good relationship, we just
don’t talk all that much. His health is starting to decline. He was a little wistful.
We’re just each having a beer not saying much, when he says he has something
he needs to tell me.

“You’re old enough you may as well know.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I ask him.

“Remember that time I got home from work real upset and I wouldn’t tell you
want happened?”

I did remember. It wasn’t something I would ever forget. He wasn’t just upset. He
was scared of something. I’d never seen Dad scared in my life until then. He was
the kinda guy whose bar fights are town legends. I also remember he told me to
never ask him about it, so I never did.

What he told me disturbed me profoundly. I’ve been bothered by it ever since. I

hope writing it out will help me deal. First, a little background.

First Incident

When I was really young, like four or five, my Dad and I lived in a cheap apartment
building on the ground floor. I don’t remember much about it. I know I didn’t like
it there. The kids weren’t nice to play with. They’d steal my toys. And it was just a
grimy area. But we were having tough times and it’s what he could afford.

Probably what I remember most about the place was how I would get woken up
from sleep every once in a while by flashing lights. I don’t remember being too
worried about it at first. I just assumed there was lots of lightning in that area. I
was five. I didn’t know jack about meteorology.

One night, my Dad had my uncle and his wife over for a crab leg dinner. I
remember it distinctly because it was the first time I’d ever eaten crab. While they
were talking, I just casually mentioned the lightning last night. Dad said, “There
wasn’t no lightning last night.”

I thought he was just clowning around, so I laughed and told him how the flashing
lights woke me up. He and my uncle got serious. That freaked me out. Because
they were always silly when they got together. They asked me more questions
about the lights, nothing I recall exactly. But they decided I was probably seeing
headlights from cars driving by, shining on the curtains.

I guess I believed them. But after that, I’d always get nervous when the flashing
lights would wake me up. Because I knew it wasn’t lightning anymore. A few
times I called for Dad when it happened, but when he’d get to my room there was
nothing to see. He started telling me it was all in my head.

We moved out of that apartment after a year or so when Dad’s handyman

business picked up. The flashing stopped when we left. So I came to believe it was
a combination of passing cars and my imagination. It wasn’t something I ever gave
much thought to again until recently.
Second Incident

One time I was helping my dad out on a job. This was a bigger job, kinda
rebuilding a whole house, so he had a few other guys working with us. Some of
them I knew and some I’d never seen before. I was used to it. It’s what he always
did on bigger jobs.

I was sitting off on my own eating my lunch and listening to my CD walkman. Dad
generally didn’t eat lunch. He’d just get too into the work. So he was still busy on
site. Suddenly I notice a guy walking toward me from the general direction of the
site. I didn’t remember seeing this guy before. But he was making a bee-line
straight for me. He was an oldish guy. His head was shaved. And he was wearing a
Ramones t-shirt.

He sat down beside me—way too close—and didn’t say a word. I took of my
headphones, because I didn’t want to be rude, and said, “Hi.” He told me my Dad
was looking for me and I should get heading back as soon as I’d finished my
sandwich. That was the plan anyway, but I said that was fine. To make things less
awkward, I said I liked the Ramones. He didn’t seem to even know who they were.

After sitting with me for a few moments longer, while I ate my sandwich
uncomfortably, he got up and started walking away. I was relieved. I started to
put the headphones back on when he stopped suddenly. I don’t know why, but it
freaked me out. I froze. He turned around and fixed me with the most hateful
stare I’d ever seen. I didn’t know what it felt like to be hated until then. It was like
he wanted me dead.
I remember thinking what I should do when he attacks me. But he didn’t attack.
He just shouted, “Someone’s been sleeping in your bed and I don’t like it!”

He stalked off, leaving me puzzled and terrified. It was probably eighty-five

degrees out, but I was shivering. I put the rest of my sandwich away and went
back to work. I asked my Dad who that guy was a little later. He said he had no
idea what I was talking about. I described the guy. Dad said nobody like that even
worked on the site!

At the time, I figured it was just some weird drunk. But now it has a whole new
meaning. Things I didn’t catch before stand out. Like, my sandwich was still in my
box when that guy talked to me. How’d he know what I brought for lunch?

Dad’s Story

When I was fifteen, Dad was called out on a job some house way on the other
side of the bay. In the town I grew up in, you have two sides. One side of the bay
has all the beaches and the mall, the other side has downtown and lots of woods.
The old apartment was on the beachy side. The house he was called to was a
quarter of the way to the next town on the woodsy side.

So he shows up in his van with all his tools. The front yard is really overgrown. No
vehicles in the driveway, except a rusting husk of what used to be a ‘70s model
Chevy. The house is in pretty bad shape. But he went up to the front door. Before
he could knock, he saw a note telling him to come right in and they’d be back
soon.
He didn’t like going into someone’s home without them there, because he didn’t
want to be accused of anything. But he’d driven far, so he went ahead. He got to
work on repairing some wood rot around the window frames. He’d been there for
nearly an hour when he thought he heard someone. He went to check. There was
still no car in the driveway, except for his van.

“Hello?” he called.

He heard what sounded like a door slam. Dad was not the kind of guy to get
nervous. He was a local legend for his bar fights. But he told me he was starting to
get creeped out. And that just pissed him off. So he started stomping around the
house. He saw the back door was wide open leading into the overgrown back yard.
He wondered if it was just the wind moving the door. He closed it and was going
back in to work, when he decided to just look the place over. Just in case.

He looks around downstairs. There’s nothing much to see. The house is in bad
shape, but it’s furnished. The place is kept fairly clean and tidy. The electricity still
works. Someone’s definitely living there, just not able to keep the place up.

He’s pretty much satisfied his concerns, but he goes upstairs to look around
anyway. Upstairs is much the same as down. Clean and tidy, just in need of
repairs. Something doesn’t feel right about the place to him. Dad’s never been
much of an intuitive kind of guy, so those must be some bad vibes.

The last room at the end of the upstairs hall is closed. It’s the only door that was
closed. It’s jammed in the frame somehow, but he gets it open. It’s just a
bedroom. All painted yellow with yellow furniture. He spots some wood rot
around the window frames upstairs, too. He was told there’d only be three
windows to do and this one made four. But he checks it out. When he does, the
sill just lifts right off and there are papers and things stuffed between the walls.
He’s seen it all. It doesn’t surprise him.

He pulls the papers out because he plans to go ahead and do this window, too,
‘cause he’s like that. He wouldn’t ask for more money. He just wanted the whole
job done.

When he pulls the papers out, he sees it’s mostly photographs. Dad’s big on
privacy. He just happened to see the photographs and he knew he was looking at
something bad. He started flipping through them. They were all pretty much the
same. The back of each picture is dated. But every one of them was a picture of a
little boy sleeping. Dad recognized me and that ground floor bedroom right away.
He remembered my stories about the flashing lights. It hadn’t been in my head at
all. Someone had been taking pictures of me sleep for almost a year.

He told me there weren’t any pictures of other boys either. Whoever took the
photos was only taking pictures of me.

He called the police, of course. The listed owner for the house was an elderly
couple living in Vancouver. They used to summer in the home, but just hadn’t
gotten around to it in years. They didn’t even notice they were still paying the
electric bill. They had no idea about the pictures or hiring my dad. It was a dead
end. I had so many questions after he told me this. For one, why would someone
who was so far away from our apartment drive a 30-minute drive at night to take
pictures of just me? How’d they even know me? How’d they fixate on that one
apartment or kid? And why call my dad out to find the stash of pictures after a
decade of leaving us alone?
Dad actually had an answer for one of those questions. In a way, I find this
creepier. Turns out he went out to the wrong address. He wrote it down wrong.
When police checked his answering machine tape for clues, he was actually called
to a much closer home by a completely innocent guy. He stumbled on this house
and stash of pictures completely by a random misunderstanding. So who left the
note on the front door?
(Part 2)
I got a lot of really insightful comments and questions from the last post I made.
You guys saw things from perspectives I just didn’t think of and that got me
thinking. There are things I really need to know. So here’s an update on what I
was able to learn in the last few days. I feel more confused now than I did before.
Maybe you’ll all see more in it than I do.

First, I tried talking to my Dad, but he wasn’t in the mood. Shut it right down. I
pressed him a little on the flashing lights and he told me I should ask my Uncle
Matt. So I did. Uncle Matt and my Dad get along great. Never seen them fight in
my life. But they’re very different. Matt’s easy-going, jokey, always has a kind
word for everyone. That’s why I was shocked when he actually got mad. He told
me to never ask him about it again and to leave him alone.

That would’ve been the end right there, but my bi-weekly phone call to my Mom
was due and I didn’t really have anything else to talk to her about. So I told her
what Dad told me, what I remembered, and what happened with Uncle Matt.

“What the hell were you thinking?” she scolded, pretty typical of her. “He still
feels it was his fault.”

The hushed way she said it, like someone might overhear, chilled me. I didn’t
even know what she was talking about. There were some odd things in my family
that I kinda knew, but no-one really talked about. This is the version of it my Mom
gave me.

What Mom Said

My Dad and Uncle Matt had a younger sister named Flora. I never knew her as
‘Aunt Flora,’ because she was gone before I was born. When Flora was eight or
nine, weird things started happening to her. My Dad only talked about them
when he’d been drinking gin, Mom said. Gin made him brood. She used to hide
his gin, because it’d freak her out when he talked about these things.

Like this one time my Dad woke up because he heard noises in the kitchen. He
came out to see what was up. Flora was making a peanut butter and sugar
sandwich in the middle of the night. He asked her what she was doing, because if
their Mom caught them in the kitchen at that hour, they’d have their butts
reddened.

Flora told him she had to make a sandwich and a picture for “Mr. Chawed Froy”.
Mom said Dad would shudder when he said that part of the story. His voice got
real low when he’d say the name. So my Dad got mad at Flora, because he
thought she was being dumb or half-dreaming. Then she showed him the picture
she drew. It was a drawing of a boy sleeping with “Matt” written above it.

My Dad, being the oldest child, was very protective of Matt and Flora. He
immediately felt something wrong was here. He took the picture and tore it up.
And he told Flora she had to get back to bed right away.

She told him Mr. Chawed Froy would be mad, because she promised him. Dad
asked her who this person was and what he looked like, because he meant to tell
their Mom. She said she didn’t know what he looked like, but he talked to her
from the drain in the bathroom sink. He told her all sorts of things and she’d been
talking to him every night for a month.
At this point, my Mom said she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It was giving
her the willies. She didn’t even like saying the name. Mom was always kinda
superstitious about things. Like, she would be afraid to say the names of certain
diseases. She’d never say ‘cancer,’ as if saying it causes it. She said just saying the
name ‘Chawed Froy’ made her feel like she was being watched. But I asked her
more questions and she kept going.

She said my Dad didn’t believe Flora. She must have been dreaming or just
imagined the whole thing. He took the sandwich and ate it himself after sending
Flora back to bed, so his Mom wouldn’t find it. He remembered the sandwich well
because peanut butter and sugar was not something they ever made in the
household. He had no idea where she’d heard of it.

He forgot all about what happened for a few days or weeks. Until one night he
woke up to pee and could hear funny noises as he got near the bathroom. The
light wasn’t on, but Flora was in there alone. He stopped outside the door to
listen. She was whispering a whole conversation in there. He figured she was half-
asleep and didn’t know what she was doing. He went into the bathroom to get
her. Then he heard it himself. There really was a voice coming from the drain.

Mom said he would get a distant look when he talked about this and just set the
gin down, like he couldn’t drink anymore (and my Dad can always drink more).
The voice he heard sounded cold and metallic. Probably from coming through the
pipes, he figured, but it scared the crap out of him. What it was actually saying
was even worse.
Mom said he’d try to imitate the metallic voice, saying, “Come outside, Flora,
come on outside, no-one has to sleep out here.” Flora whispered into the sink
that she couldn’t, because her brother might catch her. And the strange voice told
her, “He never should have et my sandwich.”

Hearing it made my Dad's hairs stand on end. My Mom said it's the most scared
he'd ever been. Not one to freeze, my Dad pulled Flora out of the bathroom and
slammed the door. He warned her never to talk to Mr. Chawed Froy again,
because he was bad.

He ended up telling his Mom and they found where some pipes had been messed
with under the house. They also found some drawings of my Dad and Uncle Matt
sleeping. They were all burned right away and his Mom forbade them to talk
about it. They didn’t handle scandals like that too well at the time. But my Dad
saw some of the drawings before they were burned. And they weren’t drawn by
Flora.

I had never heard anything about any of this before. Dad and Uncle Matt almost
never talked about Flora anyway and when they did, it was always cryptic. I didn’t
know what this had to do with me, but my hand was shaking holding the phone.

I thought she was done, but she said that was just the beginning. My Mom usually
gets tired of talking after ten minutes or so. I was surprised. Maybe she needed to
get it out of her system.

She said that after that, Flora used to complain about flashing lights in her
bedroom. Everyone just figured she was seeing the light from the lighthouse,
because it was still active back then. She complained about it for nearly two years,
saying she had trouble sleeping. Her Mom got sick of it and put thicker curtains in
her bedroom and she kept complaining. They ended up getting her a sleeping
mask. Problem solved.

Not long after this, Dad, Matt and Flora went to a friend’s house to hang out,
because he had a record player and his parents would get him any records he
wanted. They’d all just listen to music together. She left to go home before Dad
and Matt did. But she never made it home. They never found her body. In theory,
she could still be alive, but nobody really believes that. Mom thinks Dad and
Uncle Matt always felt personally responsible for it, because if they’d just left with
her, she might still be alive.

My Mom figures that’s why the flashing lights thing upset Dad and Uncle Matt so
much. And I guess I was opening old wounds by asking about it. At the same time,
I find it really spooky that the same thing would happen to both me and Flora.
And upsetting that it wasn’t taken more seriously when it happened to me. I also
felt really bad about hurting Uncle Matt. I visited him the next day to apologize. I
told him my Mom explained everything and I really had no idea. He wasn’t mad
anymore. Actually, he apologized to me, too, because he said I deserved to know.

What Uncle Matt Said

He said there was a little bit more to it than what my Mom described. A week
before she disappeared, Flora had started complaining about the flashing lights
again. They figured either she was forgetting to put on her mask or it had been in
her head the whole time. Then a day or two before she disappeared, he couldn’t
remember, she woke up and the mask was gone. She couldn’t find it anywhere.
They figured she just didn’t want to wear it anymore. But now he wasn’t so sure.
Another weird thing, around the same time, was they found footprints in the
snow outside the house. It had snowed almost three feet overnight. These
footprints lead out of the woods behind the house and went straight to Flora’s
window. The thing Uncle Matt said creeped him out the most was that the
footprints at the window didn’t face into the window. The faced back toward the
woods where there was nothing but trees. For the footprints to not have been
covered in by snow, someone had to have walked to Flora’s bedroom window
sometime after midnight and stood there staring into the woods in a blizzard.

Strangely, he said they never really worried about it much. Everyone knew
everyone there. It just stands out in hindsight.

The day she disappeared, they got a call from Timmy Jean, the boy with the
records, telling them he just got a new one. Uncle Matt said Timmy was an only
child. He thought the records were how Timmy’s parents got him off their hands
and made him some friends. So he was normally really excited when he got a
record to share. This day he sounded flat, emotionless. Matt had to ask if he was
even speaking to Timmy. And the whole time, Uncle Matt felt like someone was
listening in. He could hear a sound in the background that wasn’t quite breathing.
It was like someone saying ‘yeah’ really softly.

Around this time, where my Dad and Uncle Matt grew up, the phone lines were
all what they called ‘party’ lines. Each home’s phone would have a different ring
so they knew who should answer. But anyone could answer or listen in on anyone
else’s phone call. So having someone else on the line wasn’t unheard of, just
impolite.
They went to Timmy’s, but when they arrived, Timmy said he didn’t call them and
he didn’t even have a new album. Uncle Matt and Dad decided to hang out with
Timmy and listen to some old albums anyway. But Flora was really disappointed
and wanted to go home. So she left alone. He remembered thinking it was too
bad she left, because they found her sleep mask in Timmy's room.

That was the last time they ever saw her, Uncle Matt said. He was trying hard not
to tear up. He said he remembered it like it was yesterday. Her little, brown shoes,
bows in her hair, and, he said, the oversized Ramones t-shirt they’d found during
a trip to the city. It was her favorite band.

I felt an awful pit in my stomach when he said that. I don’t think I’d ever
mentioned the detail about the Ramones t-shirt before. Not that Uncle Matt
would pull my leg on something like this. I guess it could be a coincidence. A lot of
people like the Ramones. But I’ve never felt so unsettled in all my life. I told him
about the guy in the Ramones shirt. He told me to just drop it, because “it was a
long time ago.” That was all he had to say.

There's a lot of what Uncle Matt said that I find strange. Like how unconcerned he
seemed that Timmy hadn't made the phone call. Or the sleep mask.

I’m visiting my Dad for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I’m going to bring two bottles of
DeKuyper gin. Have a happy Thanksgiving. I’ll let you know if I find out anything
more. Or if I don’t.
(Part 3)
I just want to thank everyone again for your interest in my personal journey and
for sharing your views. I might have walked away from it by now if it weren’t for
your support. Because the more I learn, the less I seem to understand. But I did
learn more from my Dad over Thanksgiving. I had to mull it over for a few days.
Now that I have, I feel comfortable sharing it.

When I first unloaded the bottles of gin, Dad looked at me like I was setting a trap.
In a way, I guess I was. I wonder if he knew what I was up to? I know at least he
hadn’t talked to Mom. They still hate each other. But Dad’s a man’s man and
doesn’t turn down a drink.

I kept waiting for the opportunity to start asking questions. But it never felt right.
Turns out I didn’t have to. Dad asked me if Uncle Matt talked. I told him he had,
but that there was a lot that didn’t make sense to me. “Get used to it,” was his
answer.

I was starting to get upset with all the secrecy. We’d always been a family of
straight-talkers. Or that’s how we thought of ourselves. I didn’t see why this was
suddenly changing. So I asked him why he wasn’t more alarmed by the flashing
lights in my room when the same thing happened to his little sister? Or why he
didn’t immediately think I was in danger when he found those pictures of me?
Why didn’t he do anything?

He told me he did more than I’ll ever know. That I was typical of my “video game
generation.” And to go ahead and have another drink, ‘cause it’s Thanksgiving. I
did, but I wasn’t feeling very thankful.
After sitting in silence for a while, which is pretty typical for us actually, he said,
“Never liked that little rat.” I just waited for him to elaborate. Dad talks at his own
pace. “Timmy Jean, I mean,” he said.

I hadn’t expected him to say anything about Timmy. He was about as peripheral
to what happened as I could imagine. But Dad had a lot to say about him.

About Timmy

Dad said Timmy wasn’t really a bad kid, he was just strange and pale and weak.
Most other kids didn’t like him. His parents didn’t seem to like him. Even the kids
who did like him didn’t really like him.

The general opinion was that Timmy’s parents were always gone, although it was
hard to tell whether they were home or not. They kept to themselves. Rumors
went around that they were brother and sister. One thing that was certain was
that they’d inherited money. Unlike everyone else, they didn’t keep any livestock.
They just bought everything from the general store for Timmy and disappeared.
Dad said today it’d be called ‘neglect,’ but people watched out for each other
back then.

One thing that always struck Dad as peculiar was how when they wanted Timmy
to do something other than listen to records, like go play kick-the-can, he’d say he
was going to ask his parents. None of them had seen or heard his parents in the
house, so they were surprised. But Timmy would go into this one room, close the
door behind him, and they’d hear him talking to someone in there. He’d come out
and tell them he had to stay put.
This happened a few times, he said. Not that they invited Timmy Jean out all that
much.

Another thing he didn’t like about Timmy was he’d just do strange things.
Sometimes he seemed pretty normal. Then he’d change just like that.

This one time they were listening to some new record he had. He turned it off and
told them he learned a new song and dance. Dad wasn’t interested, thinking it
would be childish. But Flora and Matt wanted to see. Timmy started walking
backwards in a circle, shaking like he was freezing, and making shrieking sounds. It
was annoying the hell out of Dad, so he told Timmy to cut it out. But Timmy kept
doing it.

Dad had never seen Timmy show any emotion other than excitement over his
records. When he was doing this ‘dance,’ he looked downright hateful. Flora
started crying and Matt looked pretty scared, too. Dad never had patience for
stupidity. He grabbed Timmy by the shoulders. He said he remembered how
Timmy felt, his skin was cold and jelly-like and he could feel his small shoulder
bones like they weren’t covered at all. He shook Timmy until he stopped and was
back to normal.

Timmy started playing the record again like nothing had happened. Dad said they
left, because Flora was too upset.

It was after that, Dad said, that he went to get Timmy for something, he couldn’t
remember what, and Timmy wasn’t home. That was weird in itself. But Dad went
inside to look for him just in case. He couldn’t find him. So he decided he’d just
ask Timmy’s parents where Timmy was gone.

He opened the door to the room Timmy always went into. The room was kept
really dark. They could never see anything when Timmy slipped in. Now he knew
why. It wasn’t a bedroom at all. It was just a closet. There was a cushion thrown
on the floor, some bread crusts, and pieces of paper. Dad said he’d seen enough.
He closed the door and got out, never went back to Timmy’s again. Because when
Timmy would go in that room, they wouldn’t just hear Timmy talking. They’d hear
someone talking to him.

I’d already drank more gin than I should have, but that still sent shivers through
me. But I thought of something. I asked Dad if this happened after Flora
disappeared. He said ‘No.’ So I said, how was it he was at Timmy’s the day Flora
disappeared?

“Your uncle Matt doesn’t always remember things right,” he said. He gave me a
stern stare when he said this, like it was something I should keep in mind to the
end of my days. I know Dad’s looks very well.

About Uncle Matt

He said Matt came up to him that day and said they had a call from Timmy to
come over and listen to the new record. He’d heard the call come in and that was
nothing strange. But he never went with them to Timmy’s. He went to the general
store to pick up a present for Betty Coffin, a girl he fancied, and Matt and Flora
went to Timmy’s by themselves.
When he was at the general store, he remembered being surprised to see Timmy
in there just picking up some food with a big wad of bills. He’d never seen that
much money in one place in his whole life, so he wasn’t likely to forget it. He told
Timmy ‘Hello,’ but Timmy just paid for his food and walked out with his food and
his bills. And Flora never came home from Timmy’s that day.

“And that’s all I know about it,” he said.

I told him Uncle Matt said he was listening to music with him and Timmy when
Flora left on her own. Who was he listening to music with, then?

“Wasn’t Timmy,” was all Dad said. It was so eerily matter-of-fact.

I took another shot of gin right there. I hoped it’d stop me from shaking. When I
looked at Dad, he was staring down, with a sad resignation I’d never seen in him
before.

My Dad could drink me under the table ten times over. So after that last shot, he
had to put me to bed on his couch. That was the end of our talk.

Lying there on the couch, I suddenly remembered something from way back,
when my family would go down to the beach. We’d all sit around the fire, the
adults would drink and tell stories about growing up in that hamlet, and the kids
would roast marshmallows and shiver listening to these stories. There were true
stories and ghost stories all mixed together.
These were the only occasions where I’d ever heard them talk about Flora before.
After what my Dad said, I remembered a story Uncle Matt told.

He said he and Flora would go for these long walks in the woods together. My
Dad used to go with them, since he was expected to watch them. But once he hit
his teenage years, he got more interested in girls than babysitting.

They’d decided to go back into the woods behind Hyman’s general store. There
are no trails or anything. They just picked a spot and went into the woods. You
can go back for miles and miles into just pure woods. It’s all national parkland
today. Normally they’d walk about thirty minutes or an hour. Dad would have
them walk parallel to the edge of the woods. Without Dad, they just kept going
deeper.

They’d been walking into the woods for well over an hour. Or at least he thinks it
was. Flora wanted to turn back by this time, but Matt wanted to keep going
deeper. She followed him because she was scared to go off alone. But she got
upset and said she was going back on her own. He told her that’s fine and don’t
get lost.

Uncle Matt said she wasn’t gone thirty seconds when he felt her tugging at his
arm. He got mad, because he thought she was bugging him to go with her again.
But when he looked, she was pointing at something behind him. He said really
seriously that he’d never forget how wide and scared her eyes were. He turned
and saw a man standing out in the woods. It scared him, too. The man didn’t
really look scary. He was just a man. But there was no reason for anyone to be out
so far in the woods. They shouldn’t even be there.
The man had his back to them, looking deeper into the woods. He wasn’t moving
at all. They crouched down as quietly as they could to watch him. But he didn’t do
anything but stand there.

Matt said he didn’t like it one bit. He felt there was something really wrong about
what was going on. He took Flora by the hand—something he never did—and
they walked away making as little sound as possible.

He kept glancing behind his shoulder as they walked. After a few minutes, he was
satisfied they were well away from the man. He was long out of sight and
probably hearing range.

After a few minutes more walking, Matt heard a thudding sound. Flora squeezed
his hand tighter, so he knew she heard it, too. But they didn’t say anything to
each other. They were too scared. The thudding kept getting louder. Then he
heard this scream, at the top of someone’s lungs, like he’d been hurt. Matt looked
back and saw the man they’d seen earlier running right at them full speed
through the woods, screaming the whole time. No words.

Matt said he and Flora were so scared, they couldn’t even run. They backed up
against a tree and crouched down. Matt thought the man was going to kill them
or hurt them and he didn’t know what to do about it.

When the man caught up to them, he stopped short only a few feet away. He
took in a deep breath and shouted in their faces, “GET OUT!” They were too
scared to move. So the man kept shouting it at them. “GET OUT! GET OUT!”
Finally Matt tugged at Flora and they ran and ran back the way they came. When
they were almost out, they heard Dad calling for them somewhere back in the
woods. They were about to go running back to Dad, so he’d protect them. But
then they saw him at the tree line and ran to him. He took them home and that
was that. He said they never told their Mom because they figured they were just
trespassing.

After Uncle Matt finished his story, everyone was quiet for a good long time. The
story seemed to bother Dad more than anyone else. I remember being especially
upset by it, just because it bothered Dad.

Then Dad said he remembered that when he first came to get them, he couldn’t
find them. He figured they’d just gone home. But he couldn’t find them at home
either. He looked in the general store and down on the fishing wharf, but they
weren’t there either. So he went back to the woods. Just as he got there, he saw
them running out of the woods screaming and crying. He asked them what was
going on, thinking they’d just seen a bear or something, and they just kept balling.
So he brought them home and questioned them to get the whole story. He said
he never told Uncle Matt at the time, but he saw them coming out of the woods
as soon as he got there. He never did call out for them.

I don’t know why I suddenly remembered that story. It’s just another weird thing
that happened to my family. Just an hour away from where Dad grew up, in the
nearest bigger town, there’s a huge sanatorium up on a hill, looks over the whole
town. The guy in the woods could be just some guy who got out of there and they
had the misfortune of startling him. Could be completely unrelated to everything
else.
So that gave me a lot to think about. I don’t feel any more secure or confident
after what Dad told me. If anything, I’m more confused and unsettled than ever.
The last several days have been a strange ride. But I know there’s no way I can let
it go now. I’ll try to find out more and I’ll continue sharing what I can.
(Part 4)
I managed to find out more about Timmy. I had to hit up people I haven’t spoken
to in a long time or barely know at all, but eventually I hit a few relatives who
knew more than I ever expected to find out.

Before I share what I learned about Timmy, though, I’ve been asked in the
comments how I can keep such a level head while I keep uncovering these weird
incidents. I guess because it’s distant. I shake and shiver and feel dread when I’m
hearing about or remembering these events. But it’s still way back there. Even my
Dad finding the pictures in that house happened years ago. That’s been changing
lately. Little things have been happening that have been making me uneasy.

For one, my Mom has called me twice since Thanksgiving. I know this isn’t overtly
creepy. But we normally only talk once every two weeks. On top of that, she
hasn’t been herself. She’s been trailing off, going silent for long periods, and
sometimes it’s like there’s an echo when she speaks. I started wondering if
someone’s tapping into our conversations—like with a baby monitor, or
something.

And she’s been saying strange things. For instance, after being quiet for a while,
she said, “It’s lonely down here.” I asked her what she meant by “down here,”
since she didn’t live any farther south than me. She just said in a tone so flat she
could’ve been reading it, “You should come. It’s wonderful down below.” She
changed the subject right after and seemed normal after that. My first instinct
was to worry she was depressed or something. But I don’t know. The last thing
she said was if I hear anything strange about her to not believe it.

I’ve also been receiving other phone calls. They started a little before
Thanksgiving. First call was an instant hang-up. The next time just silence. Each
time after that, I’d hear sounds. Cars going by, walking, wind blowing. The kind of
sounds you’d hear from a butt-call. But they were distorted, almost like someone
was imitating the sounds with their mouth.

Last night it changed. There was a voice. The voice had a tinny, metallic tone and
that same echo as when Mom called. The combination made the voice sound
inhuman and evil. The words weren’t sinister at all, but the way they were said
made me feel like I was in danger for the first time since I started this
investigation.

The first time, all he said was, “I’m on my way.” I tried to say, “Wrong number”
back, but whoever it was had already hung up. I got a call a little later and the
same voice said, “I’ll be there soon.” This time he didn’t hang up right away, so I
said he had the wrong number. A moment after I said this, he hung up.

On the third call, he said, “I can see your house now.” And, again, hung up
immediately. I kept waiting for another call any minute, but after a few hours, I
relaxed. I figure it really was a wrong number and they figured it out. I mean,
given the last two weeks, I have every reason to be a little jumpy.

I get about half-way through an episode of Gotham on the DVR before the phone
rang again. I don’t say anything immediately. Neither does he. After a minute or
so, he says, “I’m right outside.”

As soon as he said that, I heard a noise at the front door. I don’t know if I’ve ever
been so scared before. I don’t have any firearms, but I do have a machete. So I
grabbed it and went to the front door. I opened it ready for that hateful face from
the building site. Or worse. But my Dad was there, actually.
He asked what the machete was for. And I asked him what brought him out to my
house so late. It’s a long enough drive and Dad rarely visits anyway. He got pretty
irritated about that. He opened his flip phone (yep), and showed me a text
apparently from me. In the text, I asked him to come out immediately, “it’s an
emergency.” I told Dad I didn’t send him that text. I didn’t send him any text. I’ve
never lied to Dad before, and that carries weight. He believed me.

To be honest, though, I was glad he was there at just that moment. We had a
drink together and then he said he was going to get back home. I asked him a few
questions about Timmy before he left. He didn’t much want to talk about it, but
I’ll add what he told me into the account of what I learned.

After Flora disappeared, Dad and Matt were expressly forbidden to have anything
to do with Timmy. For Dad, that suited him just fine. Dad nevertheless told his
Mom that Timmy couldn’t have been responsible, since he’d just seen him at
Hyman’s general store. His Mom said there had always been something wrong
with that boy and she felt if Flora hadn’t gone to his home that day she’d still be
alive. While Dad and Matt hoped she was still alive, their Mom never really
believed she was. She said she saw a dove fly into the house the day after Flora
disappeared, but when she chased after it she couldn’t find it anywhere. Dad said
it was just grief and these kinds of supernatural beliefs were common then. I tend
to agree.

Timmy made no efforts to reach out to Dad or Matt either. He started keeping to
himself after Flora disappeared. They’d sometimes see him by himself at Hyman’s,
buying lots of food, way more than one boy should require. They never talked.
Suspicions about Timmy and concerns about his missing parents grew. The police
had looked around Timmy’s house a little, since it’s where Flora was last seen,
and found nothing. But now they were asked to search the house. They wouldn’t
say what was wrong or what they found in there. The rumor was Timmy’s parents
hadn’t been there in a long time and that the police had come out of the house
pale and upset. Small towns always have rumors. Hard to say if they're true or
false.

Timmy was placed with some distant relatives in the larger town an hour away.
They said he was strange and they didn’t like him. He was always up and walking
around at night. Sometimes he’d stop over the vents in the floor and just stare
into them.

After he’d been there for a bit, they started to hear him talking to himself in the
middle of the night. They’d come up to him to see what he was doing and there
was no-one else around. They started watching him. They noticed he only did this
when he was standing over the air vents. They even found him crouching down
over one once.

This girl, a third cousin of his, said it still creeped her out. Because she knows she
heard someone answering him one time. Those vents couldn’t have been more
than a foot and a half wide, she said, but she heard a man’s voice coming up with
the air. She couldn’t make out what was being said, but she heard laughter that
made her run and hide under her covers.

She said she thinks this part may have been a dream, but she always swore she
saw a finger poking up from the vent, too. She told her parents, but they said to
stop making up stories and he’d been through a lot.
Her sister said sometimes Timmy would walk out to the woods and just stand
there, staring into them. They asked him why he did that. He said he was waiting
to be taken. He went farther into the woods when she tried to talk to him more.

One time, the same girl said, she heard him talking into the air vents like usual.
She was tired and it was upsetting her, so she went to get her parents and have
him sent to bed. On her way, she noticed Timmy was still sound asleep in his
room. The talking had to be coming up from the vent all on its own.

They said Timmy would sometimes steal food from the house and take it out into
the woods. When he was caught, he said he had a treehouse. But they never saw
it if it existed. They’d sometimes wake up and find him staring at them in the
middle of the night. They had to start locking their doors.

They would whine to their parents to send him away all the time. But they were
careful not to do it when Timmy was around, because, despite everything, they
didn’t want to be mean. One time he asked them why they wanted him sent away.
They couldn't figure out how he'd heard.

He was living with them for nearly six months, when something happened that
changed him. They didn’t know what it was. But he stopped all of the weird
behavior all at once. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. He hardly ate. Then one day he
just ran away.

He’s been a missing person ever since. His parents never turned up to look for
him. There was no evidence either way. So the case went nowhere.
They also said years later, when his house burned down, pictures of the fire
appeared in the local newspaper. People talked about it for weeks, because in the
picture, the smoke looked just like the devil. Horns and everything. They tried to
find the newspaper in their closets, but neither of them could find it.

I include that part not because I believe in a horned devil that manifests itself in
smoke patterns. I think it’s interesting that his cousins thought he was so creepy
the devil would be in the smoke particles coming off his burning house.

That’s what I know about Timmy. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since, from
all I can find out. Same for his parents. Where his home was is just a lush field of
rhododendrons.

One last thing. After Dad left last night, I noticed my mailbox lid was up. I knew I’d
closed it earlier when I checked the mail. So I looked inside. I found an envelope
with a Polaroid photo inside. An old one, too. It was of me, Mom, and Dad all at
the park together. This park is actually the same place where Dad grew up. The
houses are mostly gone. Hyman’s general store is still there as a museum. I had to
be only four or five in the picture. I don’t even remember Mom going to the park
with us.

I wondered if Dad found it and stuck it in my mailbox. But Dad wouldn’t bother to
bring it to me if he had found it. He wouldn’t see the value in it. I kept looking at it,
wondering what it was doing there. It took me a surprisingly long time to see it. In
the background, in the thick Johnson grass, there was a man crouched down and
watching us. He was barely visible. I couldn’t discern his face or any expression in
his eyes. I just had a vague but real feeling he meant to do us harm.
I don’t want to be too alarmist. The "strange things" happening to me may all
have innocent explanations and I'm just jumpy. And I still want to get to the
bottom of things. My investigation’s hit a bit of a dead end. But I'll keep you all
posted.
(Part 5)
Confessions

Again, I have to thank you all for your input. I realize I’ve been stupid and glib. I’ve
always been passive and I don’t like getting too excited about things. Thinking
about it, maybe it all goes back to when I’d freak out over those flashing lights, my
Dad would tell me it was in my head. He downplayed everything… so now I just
kinda do the same. But still, it’s my character flaw, not his. I have to take
responsibility.

So I went ahead and called in a wellness check on my Mom. And I went ahead and
called the police about the photograph and strange text. I called Dad over, since I
knew they’d want to see his phone. This is where things got perplexing.

The police officer who responded seemed to know Dad pretty well. He was an
older man, about Dad’s age, maybe a little older. I’d never met him before. Dad
introduced him as “Kirby” and said they used to live a few houses from each other,
back where they grew up. Kirby did most of what I expected from the police. He
looked at the photograph. He checked out the text. He took my statement. He
decided to hold onto the photograph, just in case. But he said it wasn’t likely
there was anything the police could do about it.

Once he was done with me, he gestured for my Dad to come outside with him for
a talk. I don’t think he realized I saw. Dad told me to wait inside and he’d be back
in a moment. There have just been so many secrets lately. So I listened in at the
door.

“Does he know anything about it?” Kirby asked.

If Dad answered, I couldn’t hear it.

“That’s what this is, isn’t it? Sure looks like it.”

Again, no audible answer.

“What we did back then—“ he was saying, but Dad interrupted him to say, “It was
a long time ago. This here’s just a dumb prank.”

“Quit being stubborn and stupid, Francis!” he said. Nobody ever called Dad by
“Francis.” It was always “Frank” or “Frankie.” Calling him “Francis” was a good
way to break your jaw. So was calling him stupid. But Dad didn’t say anything back.

“What the hell else could this mean?”

“Smarten up,” Dad said. “We did the right thing, anyhow. You know it.”

“Says you. Says me, too. Someone might not agree. Watch yourself, Francis.”

Kirby got in his car and left right after that. Assuming “he” in the first question
was me, I can say I don’t know anything about what they were saying. I asked Dad
when he came back in. He didn’t get mad. He said it was just something that
happened a long time ago and to mind my own business. I told him this had
become my business. I reminded him that he told me about the pictures he found
in that old house because he thought I was old enough to hear it now. He said, “I
guess I was wrong.” That was that.

I tried calling Mom to see if she had any insight, but there was no answer. Not
unusual, though I’m still glad I called that check on her.

I called Uncle Matt next. To my surprise, he said he had something he wanted to

show me and he’d be over later. When he did come, what he showed me really
shook me up. And it made things make a little more sense. Maybe that’s why it
shook me.

Uncle Matt’s Confessions

Uncle Matt told me a lot more things happened when they were children than I’d
ever hear about. Not that he wouldn’t talk about them, but he didn’t think he
even could. Some of those things stuck with him, he said, and they’d bother him
all the time. What he used to have fun doing started to make him feel sick. He
thought about killing himself a few times. He even took himself to the Sanatorium
for a day. I had no idea about any of this! Neither did Dad, he said. He didn’t want
anyone to know.

He started seeing a therapist after this. Something Dad would’ve made fun of. I
don’t know if that’s true. But it’s what Uncle Matt thought. The therapist insisted
he try hypnosis sessions, because he was just holding back too much. He agreed.
What he brought with him was an old cassette tape the therapist let him keep of
one of those sessions. We put it in my CD/Cassette/Record player and listened.
On the recording, Uncle Matt was talking about the day Flora disappeared. He
said he remembered getting a call from someone asking him to come to Timmy’s.
He knew the person talking to him wasn’t Timmy. The person sounded weird and
frantic. He tried to tell the person ‘no,’ but this man kept saying he really was
Timmy and he was really lonely down here and he needed them to come listen to
“the music records” with him. Especially the new one.

On the recording, Uncle Matt said that he figured Timmy had to be there, at least,
and he wanted to hear the new record. So he got Flora and Dad. He didn’t bother
giving them any details about the phone call.

On the way there, Dad left to go meet a girlfriend or something, so he and Flora
went alone. When they got to the house, the front door was left open and they
could hear the song “Love Hurts” playing from upstairs. They’d heard the song
before, so they knew it wasn’t the new album. That was good, because they
wanted to listen to it for the first time all together.

When they got upstairs, Timmy wasn’t there. He remembered the room smelled
like burning tires. It never smelled like that before. Uncle Matt took the needle off
the record. Then he noticed Flora backed up into a corner and whimpering. Uncle
Matt looked where she was looking, because she was looking right at something.
He hadn’t seen it at all. But there was a man laying down under the bed. His face
poked out of the dark just enough for them to see his blank stare and huge smile.
His smile just didn’t look right. There was no happiness in it at all.

He started coming out from under the bed. The man was looking straight at Flora
and shouted, “I don’t see you in the dark anymore!” Uncle Matt stood between
Flora and the man, because he was scared for Flora. The burning smell was
stronger the closer the man got. He thought he’d seen the man before, a few
years ago. The man put “Love Hurts” back on and laughed. The laugh sounded
fake, like an animal imitating a human. He danced around them, laughing
sometimes and then screaming like he was in pain. He kept putting the needle to
the beginning of the track and dancing.

One time, when the man went to move the needle back to the beginning of “Love
Hurts,” Uncle Matt told Flora to get out. She ran, but the man put his hand on
Matt’s shoulder. “I like you when you sleep,” he said. He held Matt around the
neck and they danced backwards around the room, over and over. Sometimes he
made sounds like a wounded creature.

After a while, he let go and crawled back under the bed. He was lying on his back,
looking up at the mattress. Uncle Matt figured he could leave. He was scared to
try, because he thought the man might stop him. But he started out the room to
the stairs anyway. He looked back, just in case. The man wasn’t under the bed
anymore. He’d already gotten up and was just a few feet behind Uncle Matt. He
froze when Uncle Matt looked at him and didn’t move a muscle. Uncle Matt
backed the rest of the way, down the stairs, and out of the house. The man never
moved.

“If I just listened to my gut, we never would’ve gone there. If I kept Flora with me,
she might’ve been ok. If I’d been smarter and gone with her right away, she’d be
ok. All the time I know it’s my fault she’s gone and she ain’t coming back.”

That’s where the tape ended. Uncle Matt listened to the whole tape with me,
with his head down. He told me he really doesn’t remember it happening that
way at all. He said he was sure he’d told me the truth. But he wanted me to hear
this.

I think Uncle Matt was so traumatized by what happened, he isn’t able to

remember it. I don’t blame him. What’s on the tape matches up with the story my
Dad told me. So it’s probably right. Uncle Matt didn’t know who that guy was or
what happened to him, but if he was with Matt and Timmy was with Dad, that
guy couldn’t have been involved in what happened to Flora any more than Timmy
was. Or, at least, it’s not very probable.

Dad’s Confessions

Another bit of information just fell into my lap. It’s funny the way things all
happen at once. Like you’ll never have heard an old song, then suddenly you’ll
hear it three times in one day. Mom called later that same night. She wanted to
know what I’d called for. I told her about what I’d overheard Dad and Kirby saying.
She said she never wanted to believe it, but it must be true. I told her she had to
tell me and she agreed. What she told me isn’t what I’d expected at all.

She said a long time ago, a sad, lonely man was placed in the Sanatorium when
they found him living in the walls of the hospital. He had no family and no friends.
After they determined he was harmless, they released him. He wandered through
the woods for days. He wandered so far back, he got lost and was thirsty and
hungry. Then he found a house. He thought it was strange for a house to be in the
middle of the woods. But he needed food and water. An old man came to the
door and let him in. He had no idea how long he was in there. Something bad
happened in that house, so he ran and ran away from the house as fast as he
could go.
He ran until he came to a little one-store town, Dad’s hometown. Some of the
children in the town would talk to him and bring him sandwiches, because he
made them think he was a good ghost. One lonely boy in particular gave him a
place to stay. Timmy showed him music and got him all the food he wanted. He
taught Timmy all the tricks he’d learned in his life. Hiding and listening and
crawling. And the things he’d learned from the house in the woods. He got so
used to the boy, he would get mad if Timmy left the home or did anything but
spend time with him.

He tried to hide himself as much as possible, but when Flora disappeared, people
noticed him. They figured out he’d been staying with Timmy. And they figured he
did something to Flora. My Dad remembered what Flora had said about seeing a
man in the woods. And he remembered the voice in the bathroom sink. He riled
up everyone against the man. So he hid even more. He hid well enough everyone
thought he was just gone.

When he thought they’d forgotten about it, he figured he could go back to normal.
But they hadn’t forgotten. Dad saw him. He got some people in town together.
They chased him all the way to Dad’s house. Dad followed him under the house.
When he thought he’d cornered him, he followed him up through a hole in the
floor. It took him right under Dad’s bed. Dad saw there were trinkets and bedding
under there, like the man had been sleeping right under him all along.

Dad was so mad he dragged the man out. They beat him up. When they'd done
beating him, they burned him up. And when they'd done burning him, they buried
him. They never talk about it since. They agreed they just did what they had to do.
But what they did was murder.
That’s how Mom told it. It was such a weird story. It wasn’t like her to talk like
that. I asked her where she’d even heard the story. She just said it was another
one of those things Dad would say when he’d been in the gin. She said that one
took a lot of gin. It bothered him more than anything else.

I didn’t know whether to believe it or not. I changed the subject. I told her I called
a wellness check on her, because I was worried. She told me I shouldn’t have
done that. Why? She said I was wasting police time. She wasn’t even at her home.
She was on a business trip.

I guess this whole thing has made me bolder. The next day I confronted Dad
about what Mom told me. I asked him if it was true. He just asked, “Where did
you hear that?” I told him Mom said. I’ll never forget this for the rest of my life.
He placed his hands on my shoulders like he’s only done once before, when he
gave me the “life advice” I’d need after graduating high school. And he said, “Son,
I never told your mother that. And she’s not from our town.”

The way he said it, like he knew something was horribly wrong, scared the life out
of me. This mystery is upsetting my life and family in the worst way, because it’s
in my ideas. He brushed it off as Mom being a major B. I think there was
something more. I still don’t know if the story was true or false. He won’t give me
a straight answer. He won’t deny it, either.

Lastly, I did get a response on the wellness check. They were let into Mom’s home
by a house sitter. The sitter said she’s been in the home for a week and there’s
nothing to worry about. The officer called Mom and she backed up everything the
sitter said. Looks like Mom’s story checks out. The officer who called me said he
was running a trace on her cell phone anyway, because something wasn’t “sitting
right.”
I’m not sure where to go with this investigation next. I’m a little scared to keep
going, to be honest, even if I knew what to do next. If I find out anything more, as
always, I’ll share.
(Part 6)
It’s been a rough week. I haven’t been able to reply to comments. You’ll
understand why after reading. But I still needed to write this. Get it out. I don’t
think you know what a support you all have been.

After my last update, I did something I haven’t done since Mom left. I broke down.
I called Mom up and told her everything that’s been going on and how it’s been
affecting me. I told her I couldn’t take it anymore. I have a regular life I should be
leading. I have a job and friends. But I’m trapped in this maze of lies and secrets.
(Yes, I can get very dramatic.) She said she would book a flight immediately. Then
we’d get with my Dad and talk things over all three of us.

I told her she didn’t have to do that. I know she’s busy. Plus she and Dad still hate
each other. She told me she still loves Dad and always has, they just had too many
differences. He couldn’t accept her for who she was. But she always thought it
was their destiny to be together. Her happiness in life was the hope that we’d all
be a family, like we should be.

I don’t know if she was just saying this to make me feel better. It did make me feel
better. It also felt weird hearing Mom talk like this. She was never the most
emotional person. I thought that’s why she was a good fit for Dad—because you
have to be thick-skinned to be around him.

She said she’d see me soon to put an end to this. And she said, “I hope your Dad
makes the right choice.” I wondered what she was referring to, but she was gone
before I could ask.
I called up Dad right away to let him know, because her flight couldn’t take longer
than 4-5 hours. She’d be arriving in time for dinner. As I expected, this wasn’t
welcome news to him. But not for the reasons I expected. Turns out he’s been
getting reacquiainted with Betty Coffin. I said that seems like a strange
coincidence. But not at all. Telling the story reminded him of her. “Curves, son,” is
how he described her. She’d sent him a message a while back telling him she’d
gotten back into town. He’d just been too busy to write her back and then he
forgot. So happened they’d made dinner plans that evening, he’d be going to her
place (!).

Dad hadn’t really bothered much with relationships after he and Mom divorced.
He’d tried. Every so often he’d meet a woman he really liked and seemed to like
him. Well enough to introduce her to me. Something would always happen that
scared them away. He used to joke that he was cursed. I think he probably
internalized that. It was pretty much never his fault, though.

Sonya accused him of calling her in the middle of the night and telling her weird
things. I overheard the fight. I remember one of the things was, “You’d be so
much better without bones” and that he kept calling her “Jellyfish.” I know Dad
wouldn’t do that. He would never think of something so surreal in a million years.
But she believed it was him.

Andrea said she started to notice things in her house would move while she was
asleep and it only started when she started seeing Dad. Her CD collection, in
particular. She also said one night she woke up, because she heard Dad get up
and go to the kitchen. She looked out into the kitchen and saw him staring into
the fridge. She started drifting back to sleep again when she heard more noise.
The fridge door was still open, but she couldn’t see him anymore. This got her
mad, so she shouted for him to keep it down and close the fridge door. That’s
when Dad said, “What’s the hell’s going on?” He was still lying in bed right beside
her. She wouldn’t have anything to do with him after that.

Parker was my favorite of all Dad’s girlfriends. She was a tomboy type. She loved
camping and she’d traveled a lot, so I’d hear about all different countries from her.
She also talked about strange things happening while with Dad. Like hearing him
talk to her when he wasn’t in the house. But she didn’t let it get to her. They were
together for a while. One night she had an accident while driving out into a
remote stretch that leads to a dinky copper mining town nearby. She died a day
later in the hospital from complications. It didn’t seem important at the time, but
now I remember Dad wondering why she’d been driving out that way, anyway.
And her sister yelling at Dad that he’d told Parker to meet him out there.

There were other incidents. I probably don’t know about them all. But this one,
back when I got Dad set up on ICQ in like 2000 or so, he started talking to this
chick. He said she hit him up. He was a two-finger typer, so I imagine it took a
while to bang out messages. After he got interested enough to ask for pictures,
she sent him a zip file full of them. All pictures of himself with a black silhouette
(MS Painted into the shot). I traced the account as best I could and it got me to an
address: the general store out in the national park. He just wanted to drop it and
we did.

Anyway, with so much bad luck in love, I guess I was happy for him. He shouldn’t
be alone forever. It was just awful timing. I wondered if he was even putting her
in danger by dating her. But I couldn’t tell him that. I told him I’d deal with Mom
and he could have his date.

While I waited around for Mom to call and let me know she’d arrived, I decided to
search my house for holes, bedding and such. I don’t think that’s paranoia at this
point. But there were no holes under the bed. No nests in the closet. The
plumbing seemed secure, the vents blew air smoothly. Then I noticed the fridge
didn’t look straight. I actually thought I was being ridiculous, so I tried to distract
myself. I ended up pulling it out anyway. I never believed anything would be there.
But there it was, a little hole, size enough for a little boy to squeeze into.

I got a flashlight and my machete. I was so sure someone’s hand would grab me
the moment I put my head in. No-one was in there, though. The space was only
wide enough for a very slim man to stand very stiff. And I didn’t see any holes in
the wall where he could look into the next room (my bedroom). He would’ve just
been standing there staring into the darkness behind my fridge. What would be
the point? I kept wondering. Then I saw the doll. It was made of twigs and had my
face on it. Just looking made me feel uncomfortable. I refused to touch it. Call me
superstitious, but it felt unnatural. I’d only made that discovery when I saw
another doll behind it, bigger and seeming to watch the smaller doll. Its face was
a picture of someone who just looked evil. I don’t know what evil should really
look like. I just know this face made me feel like evil was there.

I’ve learned my lesson. I immediately called the police and requested Detective
Kirby. When he got on the line, before I had a chance to speak, he asked me if I
was ok and if I was alone. I answered yes to both questions, “as far as I know,” but
I wanted to know why. He said he’d been about to call me.

He said they’d just gotten word from the police department in my Mom’s town.
He hesitated. I figured they’d found someone broke into her house or a creepy
letter. But what he had to say was a lot worse than that. They’d found what they
believe to be her body deep in a wooded area. It was so remote, it was pure
chance a camper found her.
I assured him that whoever they found was not my mother. I had just spoken to
her. She was on her way. The line went silent. I insisted that I be allowed to make
an identification so they can drop this nonsense. Kirby said the body was past
identifying. She’d been dead for over a year. Dental records confirmed it was her.
The only identifiable thing was her Ramones t-shirt.

I hung up on him. I had no idea how to process this information. If someone tells
you the sky is brown and salt is sweet, do you accept it immediately? I had been
speaking to my Mom every two weeks for the last several years and never noticed
a change in her behavior or personality—until the last few days. If she was dead,
who was I speaking to all this time? It had to be her. I know my own mother’s
voice, her mannerisms. She knew everything my Mom should know.

So I started to wonder about this Detective Kirby character. Maybe he wasn’t on

the level. He seemed to have a strange hold over my Dad, calling him “Francis”
like that. So I called up the police department in Mom’s town. When I identified
myself, I was immediately transferred to a detective. He told me the trace on the
phone had come back. All calls from that phone were coming from my own town.
Moreover, the phone is even registered to a local address.

I felt an emptiness inside. I still feel it. It’s only gotten worse. I didn’t even have to
ask about Detective Kirby anymore. I asked anyway and it was confirmed. But I
already knew. It couldn’t have been my mother I’ve been talking to. She was dead.

I needed to let Dad know right away. I tried calling him. It went straight to
voicemail. I hoped this meant he was already with Betty and was safe. I decided
to look up Betty Coffin, so I could call her and reach him that way. I found her
number with an online phone lookup. It was a landline. I called it just in case.
Maybe someone in her household knew her cell number.
A young-sounding woman answered the phone. She sounded a little overexcited
to get a call, like she’d been waiting. I introduced myself and explained that I
really need to get through to Betty and it was an emergency. “Is this some kind of
joke?” she asked. I almost lost my temper, but she explained first. “My mother
has been missing for a week, sir.”

I called Detective Kirby back. I told him he had to get to Dad’s right away, because
he was in trouble. In as succinct a manner as possible, I told him what I knew. I
was hyperventilating. I don’t know how he understood half of it. I’m so glad he
listened and believed me, though.

I couldn’t stand just waiting at home. I got in my car and rushed to Dad’s. The
lights were on when I arrived. That was a good sign, I thought. The front door was
unlocked. When I walked in, I heard music. I recognized the song, actually. It was
Bobby Darin’s “Dream Lover”. I’d never heard Dad listen to anything but country.
But maybe he was trying to impress the girl. Maybe she came to his place instead.

I called out for him. But he didn’t answer. Dad’s always had such amazing hearing.
Even at his age, he could hear way better than me. And he was a great Dad. I
haven’t always made him sound great. But he’s my hero, y’know?

I knew something was wrong when he didn’t answer. I searched everywhere

downstairs. The damn song kept playing on a loop. It wasn’t even coming from
Dad’s stereo. I went upstairs next. The song started over just as I got to the top.
When I got to Dad’s bedroom, I saw where the music was coming from. A record
player was on his bed. I stared at it, not really comprehending why I was so afraid
to go near it. I wasn’t thinking straight. It took me too long to realize it. But the
song couldn’t be on loop. Someone had to be hand-looping it.

I backed into a corner involuntarily. I felt control of my bladder near slipping. I

even screamed when I heard something downstairs. But I heard them say, “Police,”
and I almost cried with relief.

The whole time, he was watching me. All I saw was an eye at first. Looking at me
through a hole in Dad’s box spring. I started to panic again. The officers, one was
Detective Kirby, drew their guns. I pointed to the box spring as a hand reached
out and set the needle back to the beginning of the song.

They demanded the man get out. He started to make awful sounds. I’d never
heard anything like it. Inhuman screams. And one intelligible thing in all the
screams, “Sleep in me!” Cold chills swept over me like only once before.

They finally dug him out. It was the man I’d seen at the building site. The weirdo
that shouted at me. The same one that gave me chills before. He was wearing a
dress and a wig, with some smeared make-up and a bloodied nose, but it was the
same man.

I could barely stand to look at the creature. But he wouldn’t stop staring at me. I
asked where Dad was and he said, in my mother’s voice, “Giving birth to you was
the happiest day of my life.” I felt nauseous.
Then, in a perfectly normal voice, in the most reasonable and yet most sinister
tone I’ll ever hear, he said, “He made me so, so lonely. But you don’t know. And
I’ll never say another word as long as I live.”

They took him away. So fast it felt like a dream. Detective Kirby took me with him.
I was left to go home and rest. Rest only came when I passed out. And while I
slept, they found Dad. The address my Mom's cell phone was registered to was
the same house where Dad found the photos. “Betty” must’ve called him out
there. He’d been stabbed in the neck multiple times. He’s the toughest guy ever,
so he was still alive when police found him. But it was too much. He didn’t make it.

That’s really all I can say now. This was almost impossible to write. I think I must
still be in shock to have written it at all. There’s a little more I need to say. But it’s
going to have to wait a few days.
(Part 7)
Loose Ends

I really wanted to just drop this. Crawl up in a ball and forget everything. But I
have to put all the pieces together. What I have of them, anyway. I owe it to my
Mom, Dad and myself. And to all of you for standing with me during this
nightmare.

After arresting that thing in my Dad’s house, police combed the old house, my
house, my Dad’s. They found material that’s helped to shed some light on the
events I described in the previous updates. Scraps of paper, a journal of sorts,
photographs, combined with additional information from others who grew up
with Dad.

What I want to do here is not give you each little piece of information. We’ve all
had enough mystery. I want to give you the whole story. And by the “whole story,”
I mean how I think it all fits together. It may not be 100% correct, but I wouldn’t
be sharing it if I didn’t think it was pretty close.

So, let’s start at the beginning. A schizophrenic was released from the Sanatorium
(really an asylum). He wandered the woods until he had some kind of episode
back there. He came out in the little town of Grand Greve. “Chawed Froy,” since I
have no other name for him. He went around convincing children to bring him
food, like the peanut butter and sugar sandwiches. When he met Timmy, he even
got a place to stay.

Chawed and Timmy skulked around together. He got sandwiches. Timmy was
interested in other things. In particular, the family that lived a few houses down.
They were the only kids around that would hang out with him. He particularly
liked Dad. Dad was handsome, tall, and athletic. So he got Chawed to ask Flora for
more than just sandwiches. He wanted to see Dad and Matt sleeping.

When Timmy’s parents found he’d allowed a hobo to squat in their home, though,
they got mad. They never beat Timmy. They just yelled at him. Then they tried to
kick Chawed out. So Chawed and Timmy killed his parents. Police first found the
blood stains in the house and then the bodies beneath it.

With his parents’ camera, Timmy started snapping photos of Dad, Matt, and Flora
while they slept. Flora noticed the light. She was just a lighter sleeper, apparently.
This didn’t stop Timmy. He kept taking pictures for over a year. Finally, one night,
Flora caught him. She told him she’d tell her Mom and that he was going to be in
big trouble.

The next day, Chawed called them over to listen to records. I would guess at
Timmy’s request, but who knows. When Timmy was coming back from buying
food, he saw Flora walking away from the house. He didn’t want her to tell on him
for taking the pictures. So he grabbed her and dragged her into the woods.

He didn’t kill her right away. In all the photos they found hidden in that house,
there was one faded photo of a teen girl. It was Flora. I’m sure of it. In the photo,
she was in some sort of a cabin. She wasn’t tied up. But she looked so, so
unhappy. The whole cabin seemed tinged with unhappiness. It was an awful-
looking place. She was twelve when she disappeared.

So she was kept somewhere after her kidnapping. Somewhere no-one ever
thought to look for her. Only Timmy and Chawed knew where she was. Probably
where Chawed hid while police looked for him. After Timmy thought it was safe
for Chawed to come out, my Dad was first in finding him and was involved in the
man’s murder. That much was confirmed for me by Detective Kirby.

Timmy was already at his cousin’s home by this time. He’d been taken as soon as
his parents were found. So wherever Flora was being kept, she was left alone
once Chawed died.

While he was at his cousins’, I think Timmy had a psychotic break. Chawed really
was his whole world. He’d drawn Timmy into his delusions. He talked to what he
thought was Chawed in the vents and in the woods, but I don’t think anyone was
there. No fingers poked out of the vent. Because, if it wasn’t all in Timmy’s head,
who was that?

After some time with his cousins who didn’t even like him, he ran away. He
probably had money stashed somewhere. Or maybe he just became a beggar.

My Dad, on the other hand, grew up and moved on. He met a beautiful gymnast
and married her. That’s where I come in. We were a reasonably happy family,
from what I understand. Until something happened that made Mom and Dad
resent each other. They divorced. Dad fought like hell for custody and Mom went
back west where she’d originally come from.

Not long after Mom was out of the picture, I started seeing the flashing lights.
When I told Dad and Uncle Matt, it terrified them. The possibility that I could end
up disappearing like Flora is just about the only thing that could terrify my Dad.
What I never knew is that after I told them about the lights, they went out to the
park together while I stayed with Uncle Matt’s wife. They spent all day looking for
the place they’d buried Chawed, but they found it. And they dug him up to make
sure he was really dead.

That’s why Dad was so insistent that the lights were just in my head or passing
cars. Because the guy they believed was behind Flora’s abduction was dead and
buried. And they had to believe it was him behind it, because if they didn’t, they’d
murdered an innocent man. (Since this man probably murdered Timmy’s parents,
he wasn’t that innocent. But they didn’t know that.)

Years later, when Dad found the pictures of me in that house, he knew he’d been
wrong. Whoever it was, he figured, was the same person taking pictures of Flora.
They’d murdered the wrong person and I was in danger. He went out looking for
anyone suspicious. Roughed up a few guys. But nothing came of it.

What I think happened is that Timmy was still obsessed with Dad. He did
something to sabotage Mom and Dad’s relationship. Then when Mom was out of
the picture, he inserted himself into the family in the only way he knew how. By
sneaking pictures of me while I slept.

I believe Timmy must’ve had our phones and home(s) bugged. He’d adapted to
being a shadow in our lives. Maybe he imagined he was something more. After a
while, this wasn’t enough to satisfy him anymore. He murdered my mother and
pretended to be her for a year. I think this gave him what he really wanted. To be
Dad’s wife and my mother.
His obsession with my Dad wasn’t just admiration. He was in love with him. He
resented my Mom, hated her even, for taking what he believed was his. He wasn’t
taking my picture because he wanted to scare me or abduct me. He thought he
was being motherly. He drew pictures of himself nursing me and Dad smiling
behind. And whenever Dad found a new girl he was interested in, Timmy had to
take her out of the picture, like a jealous wife. He believed his delusion
sometimes.

When I let him/Mom know that I was investigating these events, I think it made
him feel more important in our lives. I think it also threatened him. Becoming
aware of him was ruining his illusion that he wasn’t really my Mom. That’s when
he started acting out.

When he talked to me as Mom, telling me Dad had to make a choice, I think he

expected Dad to see him as Mom and fall in love. Betty Coffin’s body was found.
He killed her just to seduce my Dad into meeting him. The choice was between
Betty or Mom. Because Dad chose Betty, he killed him. He ran back to Dad’s
house and into the box spring, where he’d been living for a few weeks. The music,
the make-up and dress, was all supposed to be for Dad’s reunion with “Mom,” if
he’d chosen her.

I wish I hadn’t encouraged Dad to go on that date. If I hadn’t, he might still be

alive. The whole thing is so stupid. Insanity, obsession, and loneliness, all
unprovoked by us. I hate him and I want him to rot, but then I don’t even know
why. He really was just crazy...

Kicker
I wrote all of this feeling real sure of myself last night. It was therapeutic, at least.
I needed to put it all into some sort of order. This morning, I got news that just
shakes it all up. You all remember the Etch-a-Sketch, right? Like that. While
everything I said is, in a way, still true. There’s one very important part that’s
wrong. A part that makes a lot of it make no sense at all. Detective Kirby told me
they weren’t able to identify the man they caught at Dad’s home. However, they
could positively state who he wasn’t. This man was not Timmy Jean. Timmy is a
resident at a group home over three-hundred miles away, where he’s been for
the past four years. He’s practically a shut-in, Kirby says. He never goes anywhere.
Ever. The man they arrested has no identification, his prints aren’t in the system,
no dental records, nothing. And he’s so far stuck to his promise: he hasn’t spoken
since that night. Other prisoners avoid him like they’re afraid. They won’t say why,
just that there’s “something wrong.” And they’re right.

One Last Thing

The last thing I want to leave you all with is a strange story I heard from an old
friend of Dad’s. Dad’s friend is a ranger at the national park where Dad’s town
used to be. He said over the years he’s heard odd stories about things deep in the
woods. But one, from not too long ago, stands out. And he felt the urge to tell it
to me. I have no idea why. And I can’t say it connects to anything else. It has
nothing to do with my family or Timmy. It just feels like it fits, somehow.

A couple from out of town was in the area to do some hiking. The park connects
to the Appalachian trail, so lots of experienced hikers come through. They decided
to do a little off-trail hiking. As I mentioned before, there are miles of untouched
woods back there. So they had plenty of room for exploring.
After hours in the woods, the realized their compass wasn’t working at all. Their
phones had no signal, of course. They were lost. That deep in, the woods were
pretty dense and the sun was starting to set. They were experienced enough to
have adequate water, rations, and camping gear, so they didn’t panic. But they
kept walking, hoping to make it to a road or ranger’s camp.

When it got too dark to see, they started to set up camp. That’s when the girl tells
her boyfriend she can see a light. He looks and sees it to. It looks like artificial light.
They weren’t sure if they were still deep in the woods or not, but it felt eerie.
They walked carefully toward it, using an emergency flashlight.

They couldn’t hear any traffic as they got near and saw no other lights. But the
light seemed to be coming from a real house. A little aged, but no cabin or shack.
There was a clearing around the house, large enough for two people to walk side-
by-side.

The guy insisted they examine the perimeter first. His girlfriend thought he was
being ridiculous, but he told her he had a bad feeling about the place. She
thought the woods at night was just making him jumpy. Still, she went along.

Shingled roof, wood-sided walls, curtained windows, and even a front porch.
What they couldn’t find was a road. Or even a path or trail. Nothing but woods.
The woods surrounded the whole circumference as densely as any part of the
woods. That didn’t sit right at all.

But they needed help. They knocked on the only door. An older man answered
the door pretty quickly. He looked well-groomed, dressed in a nice shirt and pull-
over sweater. “Evening, strangers,” he says, like it was no big deal.
The boyfriend apologized for bothering him, and explained how they’d been
wandering the woods all day and his house was the first they found. The man was
understanding. He invited them inside and seated them in his living room. It was
nicely decorated and toasty inside.

They didn’t even notice her at first, but there was a woman seated in the corner
of the room. She didn’t say anything, but nodded politely to them when noticed.
The guy and girl exchanged glances. They felt horribly uncomfortable.

The man returned to the living room with a tray of tea. He set it in front of them,
then sat across from them. They poured themselves each a cup.

The man watched them very carefully. They didn’t like the way he scrutinized
them. The fire crackled and popped sinisterly, it seemed to them, behind him. The
tension of the silence kept mounting, so the guy decided to say something. He
noted that he hadn’t seen any roads or paths around the house. “Nope,” the man
agreed. So he asked how the man comes and goes. To this, he says he stays put.
How about supplies? The man leans back in his chair and looks at the guy
suspiciously. “You’re awful curious,” he says.

They heard a strange, wet thudding noise somewhere else inside the house right
then. The man doesn’t react, so they pretend to ignore it. But they were both
starting to get nervous being in the place.
The guy asked the man how far from the nearest road they were. He was
calculating in his head if they had enough battery to see them to it in the dark.
The man answered that they were very far from any road on all sides.

The girl said it was weird to her that it the place was so hidden. Because unless
someone knew it was there or stumbled on it by pure chance, no-one would ever
find it. There couldn’t be an address, after all, if there was no road.

The man asked which they were. And then said, “How do I know you didn’t come
here to kill me?”

They didn’t know what to say to that. They figured it was a joke and laughed
uncomfortably. But he just smirked at them. He excused himself then and
vanished around the corner into a dark hallway.

While they were alone, they looked around the room. There was a painting
hanging over the fireplace that kept catching the guy’s attention. He didn’t know
why. He hated art. It was a scene of a couple walking through a clearing. There
were thick shrubs around. Now that he looked at the painting more closely, he
saw something that he swore wasn’t there before. Staring out from one of the
shrubs was a man’s face, watching the couple with a look of pure hate. He was
really creeped out, but he didn’t want his girlfriend to see it.

They drank more of the tea, because it was warm. They’d taken a few gulps when
they noticed the girl in the corner again. They only noticed her this time because
she was shaking her head, almost imperceptibly. But she kept doing it. Shaking
her head and looking at the tea cups. She became perfectly still again when the
man returned.
The guy tried to explain to the man that they must be going. He didn’t feel well
and there had been way too many red flags to keep ignoring. But the words that
came out of his mouth were slurred and ineffectual. And he passed out.

When he woke up, he had an awful headache. He shook his girlfriend awake as
well. They realized they’d slept for some time. The guy suspected they’d been
drugged, but couldn’t be certain. The man was nowhere to be seen. Neither was
the woman. And their gear was missing.

They wanted to leave right away, but needed their supplies. They had no idea
how far from any roads they were. So they went searching the rooms of the
house. There were three doors down the hall. All led to bedrooms. They first two
were empty. So was the last, but it had their gear on the middle of a child’s bed.

They grabbed their stuff and prepared to leave. But the guy saw a curtain
covering an opening at the very end of the hall and he had to know. He pulled it
open. It was just a closet. The man and woman must’ve left the house, he thought.
Then he noticed his girlfriend’s face. She was terrified of something, so much she
was backing away and tugging at him. He looked back in the closet. It was the
man, crouched down naked in the bottom of the closet looking up at them with a
smile that crossed most of his face. But his eyes fixed them with the most
unmistakably intense rage. He started crawling out of the closet toward them on
all fours and making sounds like they’d never heard any living thing make before.

They ran out the house and straight into the woods. They moved as fast as
possible, cutting themselves and tripping several times. Something in their guts
kept telling them that man was right behind them, like the man in the bushes in
that horrible painting. And he was going to kill them.

They finally came out of the woods on a dirt road and from there slowly followed
it to a real road and found their way back to town. They told the park rangers
about it and were advised to keep the story to themselves.

Later, they looked the area up on Google Earth. It took them a while, but they
spotted the clearing in the woods. It was even deeper in than they’d thought. As
they zoomed in, the guy saw something weird in front of the house. He cleaned
up the image as best he could. Still a little blurry, but the couple knew what it was.
The man was standing in front of the house and looking straight up. Like he knew
they were watching. They sent the image to the rangers as proof.

I know there are still so many questions. What really happened to Flora? Was
Timmy dealing with someone else? How’d he know so much about Mom? Who
was that guy who got arrested? Why was the Ramones t-shirt on my Mom’s body?
I just don’t know…

So for now, that’ll just have to be

THE END.
I Was Abducted While Studying Abroad
A year and a half ago, I signed up to study abroad through my university. I was
nineteen and wanted to see a little of the world while going to college. My
scholarship fully covered it, so I applied and was quickly accepted.

My parents were thrilled to see me go and have an adventure, so they helped me

pack up and dropped me off at the airport. The connecting flights all went
smoothly, and I found myself at an airport in France.

One of the guides who worked with the university met me and a few others who
flew in at the same time. As a group of three, we were led to our dorm. In reality,
it was just a tiny apartment rented out for the three of us, but the guide referred
to it as our dorm.

I slept deeply that first night, I remember. The time change had really screwed
with my sleep pattern. It took me two days to get adjusted.

When I was finally on my feet, my first order of business was to get groceries
before school started. The other two girls had already gone, so I went alone. I've
never been particularly afraid of going places alone, even though I'm a girl. I had a
map and left most of my belongings locked in the dorm in case I was pickpocketed.

The trip was completely fine, until I stopped for a sandwich at some small cafe a
couple blocks from the dorm. You would think that something like this would
happen at a seedy bar or from peddlers handing out free drinks, but it happened
in complete daylight on a well-used street at a bright and happy cafe.
If I try hard, I think I remember looking at something behind me when I sensed
movement, then drinking my coffee. But that could be my mind making some
memory up. I had been sitting out in front of the cafe, plate and coffee in front of
me. There was decent foot traffic, and I was watching the people walk by,
sometimes almost kicking the table because of how far into the sidewalk the cafe
had placed the table.

The next thing I remember is waking up in a dark, large room. Not a bedroom. A
warehouse. I was curled up with my knees to my chest and lying on cold metal. I
was shivering pretty badly, and the cold helped sharpen up my senses.

I was facing a set of double doors that led into the warehouse-sized room. But my
view was partially obscured by bars. Metal, jagged, bars. I sat up immediately and
hit my head. Looking up, I saw more bars. I looked down. I was even laying on
bars.

My shivering took my attention again, and I realized that I was naked, laying on
freezing cold bars, in a freezing cold room. My skin was imprinted with marks
from the bars.

My breathing wouldn't slow down as I looked all around, facing forward. My cage
was a small cube, elevated off the ground with another cage below, cages to my
right and left, and a whole other row behind me. The bars were a half-inch thick
with three inch gaps.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," I whispered. The panic was like an iron vice
around my chest. I couldn't sit up, couldn't fully stretch out, and every piece of
metal I touched was freezing.
"Help!" I said. My voice was weak and dry, so I cleared my throat and tried again.
"Help! Help!"

"Hey, hey," someone cooed. I looked around and saw the other figures in cages
around me moving and leaning up a little.

"Down here," the voice said. I looked down, and there was the smallest girl I'd
ever seen. Her skin clung to her bones, and her hair was missing in patches. There
were purple bruises on her arms and side. One of her eyes was blackened.

"What's your name?" She asked as my breathing became rapid and overbearing.

"Al-Al-Alyssa," I stuttered. "What-wh-what the fuck is going on?"

"I'm Angela," she replied with a weak smile. Angela's head was slightly turned my
way, she didn't even bother trying to prop herself up. "Welcome to Hell. I'll try to
make your stay as comfortable as possible."

"Wh-what the fuck," I started crying, tears flowing freely.

"You've been kidnapped," Angela said. "For sex."

I sobbed even louder.

"Hu-human traffickers?" I cried.

"Yes," she sighed.

She let me cry for a few minutes. I don't know how long it was.

"Okay, you can stop now, Christ," one girl called out from a few cages down.

I tried to hold it in, but couldn't stop.

"Stop!" The girl shouted.

"Leave her alone, Kim," Angela said weakly.

“Crying doesn't help anyone," Kim snapped. "It just annoys all of us and gets you
beaten if they hear you."

Miraculously, that made me cry harder.

Kim kept quiet after that.

I cried myself to sleep, but kept waking up because of the uncomfortable position
and the cold. The only way I could change positions was to lie on my back and put
my feet on the ceiling or roll over and face the other way.

After a few hours, I had to go to the bathroom. And it wasn't going to be pretty.
The coffee and sandwich had rolled around in my stomach to create a big, big
problem.

"Angela?" I whispered.

"Yeah?" She said.

"I have to... go to the bathroom."

"Okay," she sighed, then started moving. I looked down to see her curling into an
even tighter ball underneath my head.

"I'm good, you can go," she said.

"What?" I asked.
"We don't get bathroom breaks. You just go," she said.

Horrified, I looked down. Sure enough, underneath her cage, was a metal pan that
had several piles of feces and a thin layer of piss. I shut my eyes and felt my eyes
sting with tears.

"I'm sorry, can you hurry? It's hard to stay curled up like this," Angela encouraged.

I sat up as much as I could and squatted in a corner where my feet had been. I
could see stains from old bathroom breaks and gagged through my tears.

The defecation squirted and dripped through the holes in the bars, landing in her
cage and falling through to the pan. Every girl groaned when they heard the tell-
tale sound of diarrhea. When I was done, I just lowered myself to the floor, my
head far away from that corner.

"I'm sorry," I sobbed. Angela just spread back out, avoiding that back corner, and
tried to sleep.

A few days of looking around gave me some more information. There were
sixteen cages: two rows of four, with four stacked on top of the other. The cages
were lined back-to-back and side-to-side. The bottoms looked like they were
drilled into the floor, and whenever I shook the cage, it didn't budge.
The bars that made the cages were imperfect. Little, jagged, rusted flakes and
branches of metal stuck out all over the place. I was pretty cut up a few days in.
Lying down was difficult because I had to maneuver around a certain metal spike
that refused to come off, no matter how hard I pried at it with my raw fingernails.

The warehouse ceiling was at least twenty feet up and the walls were at least ten
feet away in all directions. A set of double doors was the only visible entrance.
The warehouse had two sets of windows near the ceiling. They were covered with
cardboard and cloth, but still allowed a little light in during the day.

At night, our only source of light was from under the double doors.

With the light, I counted nine girls in total. Five on the front side, and four on the
back side away from the door. I was on the front side with Angela below me. We
were in between two cages on either side of us. The cages to my right and left
were empty, but both cages to the right of the door were filled, along with the
top cage on the end.

On the back side, the four girls were all on the bottom, filling all four of those
cages.

Kim was on the front side, top level. The only other one on the top with me.
I tried to find out their names, but many of them refused to answer. One girl told
me that "it didn't matter" and that "we'll be gone in a couple months anyway." I
decided to ignore the last part.

Every few hours, one of the double doors would open and a man would come in
with a tray full of small bowls and a stack of cups. He would start at the right of
the door and pass the bowl through first, then the cup. Once we all had our tin
cups and bowls, he would bring in a large bowl of steaming oatmeal and ladle a
serving into each bowl. Water was poured into the cup, and we began to eat.

No silverware was given, so I drank from my bowl like a cup every time. The
oatmeal was bland, but not disgusting. The smell of feces made the taste worse,
but it was bearable.

The guy would sit in a folding chair that he brought in and set a timer on his cell
phone. He would light a cigarette and smoke it while we ate. The whole area filled
with smoke, and I could see the strips of light from the windows piercing through
the smoke.

When the alarm went off, he would go cage-by-cage and yank the bowls and cups
from our hands. I don't know how long his alarm was set for, but it was fast
enough that I quickly gulped down my food and water.

One girl was interrupted once while eating and they had a little scuffle over the
bowl. He eventually reached a hand in and pinched her side. She screamed in pain,
and he grabbed the bowl.
Then, he would stack all the bowls, cups, and tray onto the wheeling cart, pick up
the folding chair with one hand, and leave. The door would click locked behind
him, and his cart would squeak away until it could no longer be heard.

I tried to get Angela to answer questions, but she would frequently fall asleep in
the middle of talking.

She had been there a few months already, but the people who were holding us
didn't seem to like her. Angela would be taken out of her cage, only to be beaten
and thrown around. She looked miserable, and had been here the second longest,
she said. She didn’t specify who had been there the longest.

"Apparently she's no good in the bedroom," Kim would say, loud enough to be
heard. Angela wouldn't reply.

Everyone else had only been here no more than a month, but their spirits were
long broken. Most of them just sat and stared into space the entire time. They
wouldn't even move when they had to use the bathroom: just do it while laying
down and not move.

I had to warn Angela every time I had to go, and I tried my best to hold it until she
was awake. I felt so awful for her: I could tell that drops of piss would bounce up
and hit her from the pan. She flinched every time.
I never heard Kim tell her bottom bunk that she needed to go. She just went.

But the girl underneath just silently accepted it, never complaining.

I think it was the end of my first week there, give or take a few days. The guard
came in, this time without any food. Instead, he had a large, tin bucket. The guard
locked the door behind him before coming further into the room. He set the
bucket down next to the row of cages, and opened Angela's door.

"Hey!" I shouted, afraid he was going to beat her. Angela told me to stop, and I bit
my tongue. The guard completely ignored me.

He pointed to the bins underneath our cages and gestured to the bucket. I willed
him to say something. I urged him to speak with all my mind. If I could get an
accent, or a language, maybe I'd know where I was.

Angela and the man stared at each other for a minute. And I mean a full minute.
She just stared him down, hunched over like she had scoliosis. His face went from
a blank expression to a glare.

Only then did Angela move and turn around. She leaned over with care, picked up
the first bin underneath our cages, and dumped it into the bucket. She shook it,
trying to get every last drop and bit of feces. Then, she slid it back under our cage
and moved on to the next one.

The guard followed her, staying a foot or so behind her.

They worked their way around the cages, and Angela moved slowly. I was sure
that she was relishing the freedom, stretching her legs the whole way. I was
jealous of her temporary freedom.

That jealousy quickly died.

The moment she dumped the last bin into the bucket and set the bin back under
the cage, she was struck across the head. Angela collapsed to the floor, rasping
for air. The man didn't move, just stood there as she tried to recover.

I cried out, but was ignored.

Angela raised her head and looked her assailant in the eyes. They stared again for
a minute, then he grew angry and kicked her face. Her head slammed into the
concrete, and I tried to see if she was okay through all the layers of bars.

I caught a glimpse of her face right before she hit the floor. She was smiling
broadly. Then the smile was gone as she was knocked unconscious.
Angela laid unmoving on the freezing concrete. Rather than picking her up, the
man used a foot and pushed her along. She rolled with his foot until they were
back on the front side of the cages again. Then, he picked her up and shoved her
inside the cage, jamming her legs to her chest so she'd fit.

Then he slammed the cage door, set the latch over the door, stuck the padlock
through the catch, and locked it tight.

With the bucket in one hand, he unlocked the door, opened it, and left.

The door locked behind him, as always.

[Part 2]
I couldn't tell you how long we were in that hell-hole. It could have been months,
for all I knew.

I was always cold, always uncomfortable, and always in pain. The bars cut my skin
up frequently, and sometimes it would be an especially bad cut. I could never
stretch out, and I was only allowed out of that cage three times total to clean the
bathroom bins. I relished those few minutes of freedom.

You would think that with trauma and boredom like this, I would learn to glaze
over the experience and just forget everything. But I remember. I remember
every detail. I can still feel the bars pressing into my back and the numbness in my
toes when the blood couldn’t quite reach, and the cold consumed them.

While I write these, I am practically reliving them.

I never was beaten like Angela while in Hell the first time. More often than not,
Angela was the one who was chosen to clean the bins. Each time, she was beaten.
I learned not to speak out. Once, when I yelled at the man, he came up to my
cage and yelled in some language that I now know is Russian. He reached his hand
through the bars, and I cried so hard that he stopped and nodded in satisfaction.

After such a long time, the double doors both swung open and in walked a tall,
blonde haired woman with, no joke, the ugliest face I've ever seen. It was
disfigured in what looked like a painful way. Her face was covered in scars that
looked like jagged claw marks. One of her eyes was permanently shut, and, as I
later learned, would turn purple when it got cold enough.
"Wake up," she said with slightly French accented English.

Hardly anyone budged.

That's when she pulled a 2x4 from behind her back and started ramming it against
the bars of our cages. A few girls screamed, me included.

"Shut the hell up!" The woman shouted. Her eye dragged over each and every
one of us.

"We have positions opening. Time for inspections."

I had an idea of what that meant, but before I could form a coherent thought,
freezing cold water flooded my face. I tried to scream, but the water filled my
lungs. I couldn't breathe, couldn't cry, couldn't see. As fast as it started, it stopped.
The gigantic man holding the gigantic hose moved on to the next cage, and I was
left trembling and gasping for air. He had walked in behind the woman, hose
extending out the double doors.

Every girl screamed at the cold water as it doused each one of us. After what felt
like an hour, the hose was shut off, and he left the room. Then he came back
without the hose. From his belt, he extracted a keyring and stopped at the far
right cage. He moved in the same order as when he distributed food.
Each girl was dragged out of her cage and tossed onto the concrete. The woman
with the disfigured face followed behind, shouting at each girl to get up and stand
straight. Each one obeyed, and it seemed that this had happened before.

When the man unlocked my cage, I considered my options. Kick the cage door to
hit him down, then run? Wait until I was lined up? The double doors were spread
open, and I could see a wide, long hallway.

I didn't have a chance to decide. The man grabbed me by my hair and pulled me
out. I fell to the concrete with a gasp. He let me drop the full height, and I was
luckily able to brace my head so it didn't hit the concrete.

"Get up!" The woman shouted, and I scrambled to obey. I stood up straight, arms
at my side and dripping wet, just like all the others.

The man moved around to the back side and began unlocking more cages. The
woman stayed between us and the door, shouting through us to tell the other
girls to get over here.

Soon, we were all lined up.

"Okay, filthy whores," she enunciated. "You've had your stay in Hell, now you
have a chance to get out. We have positions open for you to earn your way to
freedom. If you haven't guessed, it involves... work. I will personally inspect each
of you to make my choices."
She paced down the line, but paused when she came to Angela. Their eyes met,
and the woman's muscles seemed to flex, like she wanted to hit her but couldn't
muster the power.

"Why was she released?!" She suddenly shouted, breaking eye contact.

The man just stared straight ahead.

Angela took half a step forward, and immediately the woman cracked the 2x4
over her left shoulder. Angela cried and collapsed, clutching her shoulder in pain.

"Get back in your room, monstrous bitch," the woman demanded. When Angela
didn't move, she whipped her in the knee with the wood. Angela struggled to pull
herself to the cage. Her hands slipped on the grimy mix of feces and water that
was trying to go down the drain.

The woman hit her three more times before Angela was in her cage. The door was
slammed shut, and the lock put on.

I held my tongue and shut my eyes.

"That bitch is an example to you all of what happens when you disobey us. Do not
fight, do not resist, and you will earn your release soon enough."
The woman went down the line, grabbing a girl and moving her to the side. With
a flashlight, she looked each girl up and down, poking and prodding with her
fingers. She pulled hair, inspected teeth, and pinched body fat.

Each one was set back in line, and she moved to the next. The guard stood
between the line and the door. He was holding the 2x4 staff and watching us
intently, waiting for us to make a move. No one did.

The woman inspected me quickly, then moved on. There was no indication that
she thought I was good or bad. Her expression was a stone wall, hiding her inner
workings.

At the end of the line, the woman pushed the last girl back into line and walked to
the center, taking a few steps back.

"You, you, you, and you," she pointed, picking four girls out of the mix. I was one
of them. So was Kim.

"Come with me," she commanded us. Then she turned to the guard. "Ivan, make
the rest of them push the grime down the drain, then put them back in their
rooms."

Rooms. Fuck you, bitch.

She grabbed her staff from the guard, turned abruptly, and walked through the
double doors. The four of us followed, and we passed the threshold. It grew
instantly warmer.

"You are not to speak to anyone unless spoken to. You are worthless filth with no
standing in this building. You are lower than dirt and worse than cockroaches,"
she instructed as we walked. We all hung back, hesitant to follow but too scared
not to.

She saw how far back we were and threatened us with her wooden staff. We all
stuck close behind her.

"Your number one priority is to please the client," she said when we got to the
end of that wide hallway. Another set of double doors were there. The woman
fished out a keyring, stuck it in the handle, and opened one of the doors. We were
pushed inside, then she followed us in and locked the door.

I looked around. We were in a smaller hallway of doors on each side. The doors
looked typical, like the wooden, white-washed doors you'd find in a house. Four
were open out of the sixteen.

We were all led past every door until we came to one that had been hidden at the
very end. It was tucked away into an indent in the wall.

"Get cleaned up and back here in ten minutes," the woman growled, then shoved
us through the door, one-by-one.
The door slammed shut behind us, and was locked.

The room was nothing more than an open layout locker room, minus the lockers.
Spigots hung from the walls with dials underneath. There was a row of three
toilets on one side and a row of three sinks on the other. A tall, wooden cabinet
with a lock stood in one corner.

All of us caught on immediately and started our individual showers. The water
was freezing cold, so we were hesitant at first. The thought of being hit again
pushed me in, and I dove into the freezing rain. The others did as well.

We scrubbed with brushes that had been laid out on the floor. The water
streamed down the drain, changing from yellow, to brown, to clear.

We all used the toilets with real excitement. I’ve never been so happy to see a
toilet. I pushed out every last drop. Who knew when my next bathroom break
might be?

Three, heavy, wooden knocks sounded at the door, and we immediately shut off
the water. I looked around for a towel, but there weren't any. We stood there,
shivering and dripping with our arms crossed, until the door opened.

"Out! Now!" The woman yelled. We all shuffled out, trying to keep our legs
together to warm up.
Then, each of us was taken to a separate, closed door. It was opened, I was
shoved in, and the woman shut it behind me.

Another girl was sitting on the bed, staring at me with dull eyes.

"Are you a customer, or a whore?" She asked, bored.

"A-Uh," I stuttered.

"A whore, then," she sighed. Standing up, she moved across the room to a dresser.
A towel was pulled out of a bottom drawer and thrown to me. I snatched it off
the floor gratefully and began drying my wet skin.

"Small or medium?" The girl asked.

"M-Medium," I said through my shivering.

“Guess you weren't in Hell that long,” she commented.

She threw me a heavy nightgown, which landed on the floor. I finished drying off,
then put it on. I was already much warmer. I eyed the bed, which looked warm
and comfortable.
"Can't sleep yet. Still have to teach you some shit," the girl said. "I'm Lana. Your
name?"

"Alyssa," I answered.

"We'll call you Liz. It's easier to have short names here. Well, Liz, do you know
what's going on?"

"Kind of," I stammered.

"Stop stuttering. Speak confidently," she snipped.

I was shocked and scared. A girl my age was acting exactly like one of them.

"This is... the sex trade. Right?" I said.

"Correct. You get ten Rupees for each customer, sometimes more if they tip. You
can buy your freedom for one million Rupees. But that's not likely. You'll be better
off spending your money to make life more comfortable."

I was having a hard time processing everything, so I stayed quiet.

"When you get your own room, you'll have a dresser, a bed, a chair, and a mirror.
They'll give you some clothes to start, but you have to pay for more than that.
When you get your own room, I want that nightgown back."

"Okay," I said.

"Now, they only give us a couple of hours to teach you. Save your questions for
the end. Let's see what you know, first."

She reached into the dresser and pulled out a six-inch long, plastic cylinder. I
gulped, knowing immediately what it was.

After an hour of horrifying practice, and critique, she let me stop. I'd had sex
before, but this was so... artificial. Academic. It made me hate everything I'd ever
done before with every boyfriend I'd ever had.

"You should be good enough. You'll learn more along the way," she said, putting
everything away.

"How can you stand it?" I rasped. My throat was sore.

"You relax, but put effort into it."

I breathed out, and my breath rattled with a sob.

"Stop that right now," Lana insisted. "No crying. Not ever."

"What're they going to do, beat me?" I said in defiance.

"Or put you back in Hell," she suggested.

I shuddered.

"Do you... do you know Angela? In Hell?"

Lana laughed.

"Out of everything you could ask, and with everything that's going on, you ask me
about another girl who's stuck in perpetual Hell?"

She kept laughing, and I looked down.

"Angela was there when I got here. She still hasn't left?" Lana chuckled.
"No," I said.

"She must keep doing something wrong," Lana said, wiping a tear of laughter
from her eye..

I thought. I'd never seen her do anything wrong. Not even talk back. Not once.

Lana spoke up.

"Anyway, to answer any questions you're thinking of: no, there's no escape. Yes,
Scar-Face Bitch will kill you if you fight or try to get away, and your family
probably thinks you're dead. Better to just keep your head low and make life as
comfortable as you can."

I just closed my eyes and hugged my knees to my chest while we sat on the bed.

After a while of silence, Lana got up and pulled a puzzle from under the bed. She
worked on it for a long time while I just thought.

Eventually, Lana stood up.

"Guess they're not letting you out tonight. I'll be nice enough to share the bed
tonight, but that's it. If they keep you in here longer, you'll have the floor."
I nodded my appreciation. She slid her puzzle under the bed again, and we settled
in under the covers. The light switch was conveniently just above the bed. Lana
pressed it, and the room fell into darkness. The only light came from a bright,
green digital clock embedded in the wall near the ceiling opposite the bed. It told
the time. Nine-thirty-three. There was no AM or PM marker.

I rolled away from Lana and silently cried myself to sleep, just grateful to be out
Hell and in a bed.

The next day, they did put me in my own room. It had a dresser, a bed, a chair,
and a mirror, just like Lana said. And, like Lana said, there was one set of clothes
and a towel in the dresser. A set of blue lingerie. I started crying when I saw it, but
stopped myself.

Lana's demand came immediately to mind.

"Stop that right now. No crying. Not ever."

I stopped crying.

My first "customer" was brought in at 1:07, according to the clock. He was smartly
dressed in a nice, black suit. He was tall, too, with thinly wired glasses. I wanted to
scream. I wanted to hit, and punch, and cry, and yell, and destroy this fucking
creep.

But I didn't. I just sat on the bed. I watched him take his glasses off. Then his suit
coat. Then his shirt. Then his pants.

And I let him.

Afterward, he laid next to me sweating and chuckling to himself.

"Congratulations," he said. "You passed. Every other new girl today screamed and
fought. But you? You're fit for this."

I stayed silent. My eyes stung, but I blinked hard.

No crying. Not ever.

"I'm Jacob, by the way," he said, extending his hand in front of me like I'd shake it.
I laid away from him and ignored his hand.
"What's your name?" He said. He didn't have an accent. Possibly American, for all
I knew.

I didn't reply.

"You'll never get out of here if you act like that. What's your name?"

"Liz," I whispered.

"A pleasure to meet you, Liz. Listen, if you need anything, just ask to talk to me."

"What would I need?" I muttered defiantly.

"Anything," he said again. I could smell the mild fumes of alcohol on his breath,
and it made me recoil.

Without another word, he stood up, put on his clothes, and left. The door locked
behind him.

For the next few days, nothing happened. No customers were brought in. There
were just meals and hygiene breaks.
Every morning (which is a guess, it could have been evening, I don't know) at 9
sharp, we were let out of our rooms all together to shower, use the bathroom,
and brush our teeth. We were told to leave our clothes in the bedroom and go to
the shower room naked. The storage cabinet held the toothbrushes and
hairbrushes. We were required to return them to the cabinet under the watchful
eye of Scar-Face Bitch. We were frisked before returning to our room.

Towels were kept in our dresser drawer, so we had to stand shivering while being
inspected before being allowed to towel off.

I started keeping count of the days by scratching the underside of my bed with my
fingernail each time the clock hit 11:59. I would count the marks two at a time to
know how many days had passed. I got frequent slivers under my fingernails, but
the count kept me sane.

A previous tenant had had the same idea and marked another part of the bed. I
counted somewhere in the hundreds, if I remember right. I don't know if they
were marking days or half-days, but either way, it was disheartening.

Jacob was the one who brought the food to me. He would open the door, set it
down, and close the door quickly. Sometimes he winked at me. Other times, he
was too drunk to care.

For a while, I tried thinking through my situation. I'd heard Russian, French and
American accents, but we were paid in Indian money. I wasn't sure if that was
intentional to throw off our idea of where we were, but it made me question if we
were still in France.

When those thoughts didn’t produce meaningful conclusions, I spent my time

sitting next to the door and listening. It seemed that Jacob and another man had
the job of sitting in the hallway and watching all the doors. At night, Jacob and the
other man went home, and another two took their place.

The two, whoever they were, would talk for hours. Night watch was much more
talkative than the day shift. They talked about the news, the weather, current
gambling results, their families, their children, everything. Surprisingly, they spoke
English rather than any foreign language.

It was the only sense of normalcy I could have, so I would sometimes stay up far
past midnight just listening to their stories and conversation.

At one point, I was almost asleep by the door when I heard a lot of shouting. I
shook myself awake and listened intently. Somewhere, deep down, I was hoping
that the military was storming the place and I would be rescued.

One man was running up the hallway, towards the door that I assumed led to the
main part of the building where everyone else who ran this shithole was. He
threw open the door, screaming the same syllables over and over.

убийца! убийца!
Which sounds like: ubiytsa! ubiytsa!

The killer! The killer!

After only a couple of minutes, two or three sets of footsteps raced back the
other way. The man was with them, still yelling in Russian.

Their footsteps disappeared down the second hallway. Towards Hell.

[Part 3]
NOTE: Seems like most of the RemindMe comments are being removed
automatically for some reason. I will post pretty close to exactly 24 hours after
each post, just so you all know when to check back. Also, some of my comments
are not appearing.

The whole night, the hall was full of buzzing voices, and they didn't go away by
morning.

When Scar-Face Bitch let me out of my room, I glanced towards the group of four
men who were talking quickly amongst themselves.

"Move," Scar-Face Bitch hissed.

I did, and followed the other girls to the shower room. Knowing as much Russian
as I do now, I wish I could remember what the men were talking about, but I did
see how furtively they glanced towards Hell.

We all showered, and I tried to talk once again to Kim. I'd tried a few times, but
was quickly shut down each time.

"Do you know what happened last night? In the hall?" I asked her as we washed
our hair. She glared at me.
"Why would I know that?"

"Just asking around," I replied. Her attitude was becoming less intimidating and
more irritating each time we interacted.

After we all showered, we walked quickly to the doors of our rooms, arms folded
against the cold air. There, we waited until Scar-Face Bitch inspected us and
unlocked our door. I stood, staring straight ahead, as she knelt over and checked
between one girl's legs.

Fast as lightning, the wooden staff left the crook of her arm and slammed against
the girl's leg. She shrieked and dropped to the floor, clutching her shin.

Scar-Face Bitch looked around the hallway with intense fury.

"If you have a toothbrush up your cunt, pull it out RIGHT FUCKING NOW!" She
yelled. No one moved. No one breathed.

When no one responded, she looked down on the girl who was sobbing loudly. I
recognized her as one of the girls who had left Hell with me.

"Get up."
No response. Just crying.

Scar-Face Bitch hit her again with the staff.

"GET UP."

The girl hobbled to her feet, one hand on her shin and the other on her ribs.

"Take her to Hell," our captor commanded.

The men had all fallen silent and begun watching the scene. One walked over and
grabbed the girl by the arm.

"No! NO!" She shrieked the entire way as he dragged her by one arm towards the
doors. Another man opened them, and he dragged her through. He got halfway
towards the opposite end of the hall leading to Hell before the other man shut
and locked the doors.

Scar-Face Bitch stared at the closed doors and listened as her faint shrieking
continued. It was cut off with a distant slam.

"Like I said," she growled, looking each of us in the eye. "Who else has a
toothbrush up their cunt?"
No one moved.

"I guess we'll see for sure, won't we?"

Inspections passed without incident, and we were all let into our rooms.

A couple of hours later, Jacob entered the room. Instead of setting the food on
the floor, however, he closed the door and set the food on the dresser. Someone
locked it from the outside.

"Good morning," Jacob greeted cheerfully. His eyes told me that he wasn't drunk,
which I was grateful for.

"Hi," I said quietly.

"I won't ask how you are, because at this early stage you're still struggling, I bet.
But what do you need?"

"Something to do would be nice," I replied, thinking of Lana's puzzle.

"I might be able to do something about that. What would you like?"
"A chess set," I said.

One eyebrow raised, then he shrugged. "Not gonna judge you, sweetheart. You
get one freebie from me, then everything after that will cost you. You sure you
want to use your freebie on that?"

"Yes," I replied. "Please."

"Okay," he grinned. Hesitating, he took a look around the room, as if he might've

left something here, then he clapped once, which made me jump.

"Where's my sex?"

My face visibly fell. His grin widened and he winked.

Afterward, Jacob put his clothes back on and left. Over his shoulder, he assured
me that he'd get me a chess set. I just stared at the ceiling.

I realized, a couple hours later, that I hadn't had my period since I'd arrived. The
thought filled me with such panic that I struggled to breathe. I wanted to cry
again, but I didn't.
I prayed instead. I prayed and asked God to not let me be pregnant. Not with
Jacob's kid. Not with anyone's kid.

I promised myself that if I ever got pregnant, I would steal a toothbrush, sharpen
it, and kill the baby myself. Even if it meant stabbing my own stomach.

The next morning, at shower time, I built my resolve. We were allowed into the
shower room, and I fell into place beside Lana instead of Kim. She didn't talk to
me first, so I started.

"Periods," I said under my breath.

"'Scuse me?"

"I haven't had my period since I got here," I said in a rush. She laughed loud and
hard.

"They feed us birth control in our food. You get your period when they say you do.
Usually once every two months."

"Two months?!" I hissed. "Is that even... healthy?"

"How should I know? But it's painful as hell."

I grimaced at the thought.

We had inspections, then were sent back to our rooms. Two hours later, almost to
the dot, someone new showed up. A man with sleek, black hair that was greased
backwards. He had a pot belly and wore a sweater vest.

Jacob followed the man in, keeping the door open behind him.

"Here she is," he announced. "The prettiest one we have. And, one of the
youngest," he winked at the man. He looked uncomfortable, but not so
uncomfortable as to walk away.

"Her name is Liz, she's seventeen, and very experienced. Have fun!" With that,
Jacob stepped back into the hall and shut the door slowly. When the man wasn't
looking, he gave me the darkest glare through the door, daring me to contradict
him. I didn't.

The door clicked shut, and the lock sounded.

The man paused for only a second before lifting his fat arms and removing his
sweater.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

Now that I knew more about everything, I was trembling from head to toe. I had
put on the lingerie after showering since it was the only set of clothes I owned.
Now I understood why it was a fresh, new one this morning.

The man smiled shyly and walked towards me, completely naked. I resisted the
urge to shut my eyes as he leaned onto the bed.

"Hi," he smiled. His teeth were yellowed and crooked. I sat still and resisted the
urge to run. My stomach turned and my hands shook.

He leaned in and kissed me on the lips. When I didn't kiss back, he frowned and
pressed in, forcing his tongue into my mouth.

My stomach churned.

And I threw up. Right into his yellow, cigarette stained mouth. The puke was the
consistency of oatmeal, with small chunks and milky liquid. He gagged and
screamed, spitting puke onto the bed and the carpet. He threw up onto the floor
with loud gagging. Still spitting, he tried to put his clothes back on before the door
opened.
I just watched, wide eyed, as the door was thrown open and Jacob rushed in. He
took one look at the scene and knew what was happening.

"Mr. Volkov," he said apologetically, helping the man put his shirt on.

The man was yelling at Jacob in Russian, pausing every few seconds to spit on the
floor and clear the puke from his mouth.

I couldn't help it. As they left, I smiled. The smile had bad timing, because Jacob
looked over his shoulder at that moment. I stopped smiling when I saw his eyes.
His eyes were full of panic.

Not three seconds after Jacob guided the man out, Scar-Face Bitch threw the door
open. I wanted to scream, but I refused to give her the satisfaction. Scar-Face
Bitch dragged me by my arm and threw me into the hall.

The staff hit me multiple times, I don't remember how many. I was barely
conscious when a man picked me up by an arm and dragged me to the door. We
crossed the threshold, and the temperature dropped by several degrees.

When the door to Hell opened, I did start screaming.

The man tossed me onto the concrete when I started flailing. He locked the door,
turned on me, and grabbed at my clothes. I shouted and kicked, landing one kick
in his gut. He clutched at his stomach as I rolled to my feet and ran around behind
the cages.

The guard chased me, and I tried my best to keep the cages between us.

I stopped along the back end, and a hand shot out, grabbing my ankle. I screamed
in fear, and looked down to see Angela lying there, not looking at me, just staring
straight ahead.

"Angela," I cried. "Let go!"

Then, the man rounded the corner, advancing on me.

I tried to move, but Angela’s grip was tight. Despite my leg being covered in shit,
her hand held fast until the man managed to grab me by the hair. I screamed and
swung around at him, but he picked up my legs. Angela released my ankle and I
was thrown into the cage. The sharp, metal slivers pierced my skin, making me
grimace in pain. The cage door slammed shut, and the lock went through the
latch.

He slammed a hand against the cage hard in anger, then walked around the block
of cages towards the door. I was rasping for air and angry. Angry at the pain.

Angry at Angela.
“What the hell! I shouted. A few other girls stirred around us.

When I looked down, she was asleep. Her face was pale and her skin still clung to
her bones. My anger diminished. She looked weak and frail.

When the adrenaline subsided, I fell asleep.

I woke up later.

"Awake?" Angela asked.

"Yes," I said with a shuddering breath. The anger had drained away.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I sighed. There was a piece of metal cutting into my back, so I propped
myself up and reached around. The metal had drawn blood, tearing the back of
my lingerie.

"Are you okay?" I asked back. "You look so pale.”

"I'm fine," she said cheerfully. "Never better."

Her bruising was gone, but she still looked very sick.

“How is it outside of Hell?” She asked.

Despite the other girls in their cages around us, we had a full, lengthy
conversation. I tried to leave out as many details about comfortable living as I
could so she wouldn't be resentful of me. She listened and stared at one of the
high windows, smiling as she imagined life outside her cage.

"Hey, Angela," I said, embarrassed.

"Yeah?"

"I have to... go."

She grunted as she pulled herself away from the corner. "Go ahead."

They left me in there for somewhere around two days. At least, Angela told me it
was two. For both days, I only got water.
In the middle of day two, Scar-Face Bitch stormed into the room with a guard. She
crossed around to my end and pulled out her keys. The expression on her face
told me I wasn't leaving just yet.

The door to my cage swung open, and the grabbed my hair. I was thrown out of
the cage, dropping the few feet to the concrete. My knee flared with pain.

“Get cleaning!” Scar-Face Bitch shouted.

I got to my feet and walked toward the bin underneath our cage. Just as I picked it
up, her staff hit the back of my knee. I fell down, but the long bin caught between
my gut and the ground. The wind was knocked out of me as I fell around the bin
and into the puddle of excrement and piss.

“Keep doing that until she’s cleaned every drop of piss,” Scar-Face Bitch
commanded, handing the staff to the guard.

He nodded, and she stormed out.

I got up, holding my stomach. Looking around, I saw they hadn’t brought in a
bucket or any other tools.

“What am I supposed to do?” I gasped.

He just pointed at the drain around the front side, near the door. I sighed as I
realized I’d have to push all the excrement around the cages towards the drain.
Might as well dump all the bins first.

As I picked up the second one, I braced myself for impact. The staff hit me in the
ribs, and I fell into the row of cages. The bin clattered to the ground and I tripped
over it. My foot slipped, and my face skid down the bars. Metal slivers caught my
cheek and forehead. I yelled in pain, but didn’t raise my shit-covered hand to the
open wounds.

He chuckled. The fucker actually chuckled.

It went on like that for at least an hour. When I finally had all the mess on the
floor, I got to my hands and knees, pushing the shit into a pile slowly around the
side. He hit my back, legs, and ass a few times as I crawled around. Each time, I
winced or fell.

Finally, I dumped it all into the small, open hole that was the drain.

Next, I did the front side. That would have been easier if I hadn’t been hit. I could
have dumped it directly into the drain, but he kept hitting my legs and making me
spill it everywhere. Once all the bins were empty, I scooped it all into the drain.

I was breathing heavily with effort and pain. He watched me before pointing back
to the cage.
“Can’t I just hose off,” I wheezed. He answered with a staff to my foot. I cried out
and fell over, clutching my foot.

“Get in your room,” he growled with an accent.

The pain made me delirious and I laughed at “room.”

He kicked me, so I got up and hobbled around. Despite being covered in shit, he
shoved me up into the cage and locked the door. Then, he walked out of the
room and came back with the massive hose. He sprayed down the floor, washing
down all the remaining excrement.

When he was on the back side, he looked at me, then at the hose. He considered
spraying me, then chuckled and walked away. He put the hose away and locked
the door behind him as he left.

I laid there, covered in shit, blood, and piss. But I stayed proud of the fact that I
wasn’t also covered in tears. I hadn’t cried once. I’d yelled, but no tears.

Not even Angela said anything.

That night, I woke the sound of a rattling cage. I opened my eyes slowly and
looked down.

Angela was reaching through the bars, around, and working at her padlock. I tried
not to sigh with despair and sadness. Angela had obviously been mistreated for
months. She must be absolutely desperate to escape.

And suddenly, there was a click.

Angela fiddled around some more, and her padlock clattered to the concrete.

Oh my god. Oh my god.

She got out.

“Angela,” I whispered as she unhooked the latch and opened her door. She froze
and looked up. Our eyes met. She looked angry.

“Keep quiet,” she whispered back. Then she got out of her cage and stood in front
of mine.

“What’s the plan?” I said quietly.

“You’re misinterpreting this,” she replied. “The guard will be back any second. I
need your clothes.”

“My… clothes?”

“Hurry!” She hissed.

Awkwardly, I maneuvered my arms around in the cage, but couldn’t reach the
zipper in the back.

“Help,” I asked, and she did. She put her fingers through the cage and unzipped
my back. She helped me remove the cloth from my shoulders, and I managed to
get it the rest of the way off. It reeked of piss and shit, but she didn’t seem to care.

Without a second glance at me, she rushed around the cage to the doors.

“ANGELA!” I hissed in panic. She was going to leave me!

She pressed her ear to the door for a few seconds, then rushed back. Her bare
feet slapped against the concrete.

“I need you to stay quiet. Do not wake anyone up, do you understand?”
“Let me out, please,” I begged.

“Just trust me,” she said. “Please, stay quiet. Don’t make a noise. Pretend to
sleep.”

“Angela, what are you doing?”

Just then, the door opened, I turned my head slightly so I could see the door out
of the corner of my eye. A guard entered the room, the same one that had beaten
me, making one of his nightly rounds through Hell.

I turned back around, and Angela had disappeared.

The guard shut and locked the door, and I closed my eyes, pretending to sleep. I
heard him walk slowly around the block of cages, looking at each one. When he
rounded the corner, he must’ve seen Angela’s open door, because his footsteps
sped up as he walked toward the door.

There was a quiet thud, and the man started to cry out. His yell was cut off
immediately. I rotated in my cage so I could see what was going on.

Angela had come from somewhere in the room and attacked the man. She was on
his back, a strip of my clothes wrapped through his mouth, and another around
his neck. He walked around, reaching up to punch her and grab at her. With every
punch, she tightened the cloth around her hands and pulled harder. He was
panicking, running around the room and pulling at her with all his strength.

Somehow, with her small, emaciated body, she held tight. She rode him around
the room as he flailed.

One of her legs snaked down and wrapped around one of his legs. The guard
tripped, falling forward flat on his face. The sound was a dull thud, but loud
enough that I worried someone would wake up.

No one did. The cages stayed silent.

The guard stopped moving, but Angela held on for a while longer.

After what seemed like five minutes, she leaned back and just sat on his back for a
moment of rest. He must've fallen unconscious. Then, she used both hands to
pick up his head by the hair and slam his face into the concrete. It made a thick
crack against the pavement.

Crack

Crack

Crack.
On the fourth slam, she stopped. Her breath was labored as she pulled herself to
her feet. The clothing was unwrapped from his neck and mouth. She took it over
to a far corner of the warehouse and stuffed it somewhere I couldn’t see.

I silently watched as the scrawny girl struggled to drag the body to a far corner of
the warehouse, away from where she hid my clothes. She rustled around over
there for a while before I heard a sound I can only describe as a mixture of velcro
and fabric ripping. Liquid dripped in the corner, making loud splashes.

Angela reemerged from the darkness like a demon out of hell. Her face was
expressionless.

She walked slowly back over to my cage, breathing heavily.

“Let’s go,” I prodded quietly.

“I’m not leaving yet,” she whispered. Angela picked up her padlock, crawled into
her cage, and shut the door. The latch was set, and she slipped the lock through
the hole.

I felt my heart drop when the lock clicked.

[Part 4]
“What are you doing?” I practically sobbed. My voice caught on the words.

“He’s always been terrible. He was overdue to die."

I opened and closed my mouth, speechless.

“You could get us out,” I sobbed again.

“Not yet. Bitch still needs to get hers.”

“Scar-Face Bitch?! You're more interested in killing her than escaping?!” I shouted.

“Alyssa, quiet down,” Angela cautioned sharply. I was angry, but I obeyed. “I've
been here for a long time now. I have things to do before I leave. I don't want to
leave until they're done.”

“Then let me leave. Teach me how to open the lock! I won't tell anyone about you,
I'll just escape! Please!”

“If a girl disappears, there's a massive security shakeup. Routines, schedules, and
locks change. I know these routines now, I can't risk the change.”
Despite my promise, I let my tears flow openly. A tear, full of shit, landed in my
mouth and I sputtered for a minute.

“But, you just killed a guard!”

She shrugged as best she could. “Guards are expendable. Suicides are high in this
business. I slit his throat so they’ll think he killed himself. Bitch doesn't care if they
kill themselves, and the guards chalk it up to some superstitious entity called
ubiytsa.”

My mind flashed back to the voices in the hall, screaming.

убийца! убийца!

“You're going to be caught,” I insisted. My tone darkened. “And once you're

caught, my chance of escape disappears.”

“The Bitch won't kill me, and don't worry about me getting caught.”

I considered arguing, but didn't.

“How did you get out?” I asked.

“Those metal pieces that are rusting off make great lockpicks,” Angela winked.

Almost like a switch, Angela’s tone, expression, and voice changed. Before, she
was the fearless slave with a mission. Now, she reverted to her compassionate
side who attempted to make the best of the worst situation. The girl I met when I
first arrived.

“You should sleep. We won’t have long before someone comes looking for the
guard. We’ll be up all night while they investigate.”

We rolled over to sleep, but my mind wouldn't shut up. Angela was insane.
Completely insane. She was wasting her ability to get out of her cage on revenge.
And not just that, impossible revenge. Scar-Face Bitch had a guard with her
wherever she went. Angela would get herself killed, and everyone would still be
trapped here.

I opened my eyes and saw the metal slivers hanging from the bars. With one hand,
I twisted a loose one until it broke off in my hand. It was solid, yet thin. Guess I'd
have to learn lockpicking on my own.

I found another one just like it and broke it off. Shaking, I looked down at my leg.
There was only one way I was getting these out of here without suspicion.

With trembling fingers, I pressed one sliver to my thigh at an angle. I found a

wound that was already open and jammed the sliver inside. The pain made me
gasp, but I kept pushing until the metal was under the skin. It was deep enough to
be covered, but not so deep that it would be impossible to pull out.

Gritting my teeth, I put the other sliver to another wound. It went painfully in,
and came to rest near my knee. The skin around each wound was turning red and
heating up when I closed my eyes and tried to rest.

That barely lasted a few minutes.

The door opened, and another guard walked in. He shouted something in Russian,
and everyone stirred. The new guard walked quickly around the cages, looking us
up and down, then around the room.

He yelled again and, of course, there was no answer.

The guard left the room, and suddenly three large, overhead lights exploded with
brightness. All the girls in Hell cringed and cried out at the sudden brightness after
days, weeks, or months. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, it was so bright.

The man came back in and started yelling right away. I squeezed my eyes open
and saw the dead guard slumped against the far wall. It was so bright that I
couldn’t make out any details, but i could see red all down his front. Eventually, I
relented and closed my eyes.
I heard the other guards rushing around and talking loudly to one another.
Despite the noise, I fell asleep.

I didn't get a chance to talk to Angela more about escape. I was woken by Scar-
Face Bitch, who dragged me out of my cage by my hair and yelled at me to beg for
forgiveness.

I got to my knees and pleaded, sounding as authentic as possible. She slapped me

once, then led me to the shower room where I was given five minutes. I scrubbed
hard and fast, and used the toilet.

Just before Scar-Face Bitch knocked, I ran to the cabinet. It was tall and skinny,
but big enough for someone to hide inside. There was a lock on it, yet it wasn't
locked. Scar-Face Bitch depended on her inspections to find any missing items.

I tossed it open, ready to slam it shut if she walked in. A cup of toothbrushes, a
few hairbrushes, some toothpaste, cotton balls, makeup remover, and Q-tips.
They were laid out on two shelves. Underneath them was empty space.

The hard knock at the door made me jump, and I silently closed the cabinet and
made my way to the door. When I pulled the handle, shivering, Scar-Face Bitch
didn't pay any attention.
We walked to my closed door, and I let her inspect my whole body.

Before she unlocked the door, she got in my face.

"Do not ever throw up on a client again. If you do, you'll never come back from
Hell again. Understand?"

"Yes," I whispered.

Then, her eyes narrowed and she looked down at me.

"Where did your clothes go?"

I froze for a second.

"Th-the guard took them after I cleaned," I lied. The same guard who was now
dead in the corner. I was sure she wouldn't buy it.

Instead, she grunted her satisfaction. She unlocked my door, and I shuffled inside.
I laid on the bed, wrapped in Lana's nightgown that I still hadn't returned. The two
slivers had been painstakingly extracted from my skin and stuck into the
underside of my mattress. I also marked the few most recent days on the wood
slats underneath.

By then, I knew that escape had to be up to me. Angela had her own agenda, so I
couldn't completely rely on her to help. But she could be used.

It would just take time and the right opportunity.

Weeks passed after that. I remained locked up, bored, and plotting. Through the
semi-thin walls, I could hear the other girls seeing clients. Muffled, orgasmic yells
came into the room.

I wondered why they didn't bring clients to me. Were they afraid I might puke on
another one? If that was the case, why bother having me in the room? Just bring
out another girl and let her take my place while I remained in Hell.

The boredom was mind numbing. I slept a lot of the time, and at night I tried
picking the lock to my bedroom. It felt impossible because I had no idea what I
was doing. I could feel the pins moving up and down, but I didn't know that I
needed to apply torque to the lock while pushing the pins. I just sat there with
two metal slivers, jiggling quietly around the lock.
Despite having no success for weeks, I kept trying every night for at least an hour.

Eventually, Jacob did bring me another set of lingerie. It was after a week, I think.
Before that, some other guard had been bringing my food. When he came in, I
stared at the wall and ignored him. He knelt down in front of me and grabbed my
cheeks, forcing me to look at him. The action made my blood boil, but I held still.

"What the hell were you thinking?" He asked. I assumed he was talking about
puking on the client.

"He was disgusting," I spat.

"No one gives a shit. You're not allowed to have any clients until we're sure you'll
behave. Your freedom goes that much further away when you aren't making
money."

My laugh was harsh and dry.

"Don't try and get my hopes up, I'm never getting out of here. When has any girl
ever bought her freedom?"

His eyes narrowed at that.

"That's what I thought."

Suddenly, his hand dropped to my throat, and he shoved me down onto the bed. I
struggled to breathe when he pulled himself to his feet, using my throat as a
support.

"I need you to listen very carefully," Jacob hissed. He put his knees on the bed to
straddle me, pinning my arms.

"In a few weeks, there are some very important people coming. One of our guests
has chosen you as their little slut for the night. If you don't behave, I'll have to kill
you. This person is very, very important." His fingers tightened with every "very." I
started to see stars. My arms wouldn't move, and my legs flailed involuntarily.

He let his hand up, and I gasped for air.

"I was told not to leave a mark on you. Better heal fast," he said as he stood up. I
rubbed my neck and sat up, still breathing heavily.

"I can't bring your chess set anymore," he said over his shoulder. "You
understand."

Jacob went to the door, opened it, and reached outside. The bowl and cup were
in his hands when he returned, and he set them on the floor.

"Eat up, my little whore."

Then, he left.

I was shaking with anger while I ate.

After those few weeks, I had a miniscule idea. It could bellyflop entirely, but I
needed to risk something.

I bundled up Lana's nightgown and stood naked by the door, ready to be let out.
When the door opened, I walked out and dropped the cloth by my door on the
outside. Amazingly, Scar-Face Bitch didn't say anything.

All of us were dumped into the shower room and locked inside. I found a shower
spigot next to Lana.

"I have your nightgown to return," I said.

She rolled her eyes, even though she'd never mentioned it in all that time. "About
time, it's been weeks."

I showered quickly, then used the bathroom before going to the cabinet. I
grabbed a toothbrush and brushed my teeth vigorously. While I brushed, the
toothbrush snapped in half. It made no sound, and I quickly set the half with the
handle inside my mouth. I returned the brush portion to the cup.

I waited around awkwardly with the handle in my mouth while everyone finished
and our time ended. Scar-Face Bitch opened the door and shouted for everyone
to get out. I followed behind the girl I knew was next door to me.

She passed my door, and I stopped next to it. I leaned over to pick up the
nightgown, and let the handle drop out of my mouth into the bundle of clothes.
My hands quickly covered it up in the folds.

Lana was already in front of her door, so I quickly went over and handed the pile
to her.

"Here's your nightgown," I said. Very, very quietly, I added: "you can turn me in,
or you can go yourself, but tell Angela in Hell about the unlocked cabinet in the
bathroom."

Lana gave me a questioning look as she processed what I'd said.

"No matter what," I whispered.

"GET TO YOUR DOOR!" Scar-Face Bitch shouted. I quickly ran to my door and
stopped, standing straight.
Scar-Face Bitch started on my end, inspecting each of us. I kept my eye on Lana,
who was clutching the nightgown with uncertainty. I saw her look down and
move the folds around. It was clear when she saw the toothbrush.

Her face showed every calculation she made as she weighed her options. One way
or another, the handle would be found. The question was: "who would be
blamed?"

She looked at me, then down at the bundle in her hands. Then at Scar-Face Bitch,
coming closer.

"Miss," she whispered, but loud enough that we all heard her. Scar-Face Bitch's
face snapped in her direction, clearly irritated.

"Alyssa tried to return my nightgown that she borrowed, and I found this in it."
She held up the toothbrush handle. I clenched my teeth and got ready for the
beating. I was prepared to suffer for this.

Scar-Face Bitch snatched the handle from Lana's hand and inspected it. Then she
trained her eye on me. It rested on me for a few seconds before snapping back to
Lana.

"And you expect me to believe that she put that in there? For you?"

"Y-yes," Lana stammered.

Everyone saw Scar-Face Bitch's eye roll before she backhanded Lana. It wasn't a
particularly powerful strike, but Lana dropped the nightgown and fell into the wall
behind her. Scar-Face Bitch called for one of the guards, and he walked over to
grab Lana by the arm.

"No! No, no no no! NO! Please!" Lana begged as the man dragged her towards
the double doors. While they progressed out the door and down the hall towards
Hell, Scar-Face Bitch approached me.

"I don't know why you want back into Hell so badly," she snarled. "But your plan
backfired. Let's hope your friend doesn't hold grudges."

I tried my best to look disappointed.

I sat by my door all night, listening intently.

The guards talked, like normal, but I was trying to hear past them. I was trying to
listen to Hell. It was hard to hear, because they were talking in agitated voices
about the supposed suicide of their friend. They blamed Scar-Face Bitch for
bringing the evil entity into the building that was causing all the suicides and
sadness.
It was interesting to hear Angela’s prediction come true, but I strained hard to
hear anything else.

Nothing. Not a peep all night. No sign of Angela's escape or even an attempt.

In the morning, we were all led to the shower. Several girls glared at me.
Apparently, they'd had some time to bond together while I wasn't present. At
least, that's what it felt like.

I took my shower immediately, and watched with excitement as girl after girl
pulled on the cabinet, only to have it refuse to open. Kim, ever so brave, actually
knocked at the entrance and asked Scar-Face Bitch to come unlock the cabinet.

It made me cringe. Surely she would know something was up if the cabinet was
mysteriously locked in the morning?

But her face was normal as she walked in and locked the door behind her. Once it
was locked, she pulled the keyring from her belt and filtered through the keys
until she found the right one.

With one hand, she held it out to Kim.

"Unlock it," she said.

Kim was hesitant, but took the keyring. I held my breath, and my heart started
pounding. I pretended to focus on scrubbing my skin, but I kept one eye on the
cabinet as Kim approached.

Be cool, Kim. Don't scream, just help out.

The key went into the lock. Kim turned the key and pulled the handle.

The door exploded open, and Angela flew at Kim. Kim screamed, and everyone
watched in horror as Angela stabbed Kim over and over in the chest with a
sharpened toothbrush.

"DIE YOU FUCKING BITCH! I FUCKING HATE YOU! I'VE ALWAYS HATED YOU!"
Angela shrieked.

My hands were shaking as I looked over at Scar-Face Bitch. She saw my gaze and
turned her head towards me.

Scar-Face Bitch smiled at me just as Angela figured out she was stabbing the
wrong bitch.

The sounds of stabbing slowed down until they stopped. Angela looked up,
sharpened toothbrush clutched in her blood-stained hand. Her face was specked
with blood, and more blood ran down her body in streams.
Angela tried to get up and go after Scar-Face Bitch, but her strength was drained.
Her limbs couldn't hold her, and she fell over into the puddle of blood. The guards
entered the room just as she tried to get up again.

The toothbrush was kicked out of her hand, and one guard lifted her over his
shoulder. She fought feebly.

The man asked Scar-Face Bitch a question in Russian.

"Take her back to Hell," Scar-Face Bitch answered in English. Every guard in the
room was confused, but the one holding her obeyed right away.

"I told you she wouldn’t kill me!" Angela shouted as they left. “I told you! She’s a
weak BITCH!” Angela’s laugh was maniacal. She was certifiably insane.

The Bitch's eye fell on me, and every girl in the room hugged the walls. The only
sound would have been the dripping blood if three showers weren’t running.

Kim’s body bled out next to the cabinet. Everyone could tell she was dead. There
were at least ten stab wounds across her chest, and one in each eye. Blood oozed
slowly towards the nearest drain in the floor.

"Get the rest of them into their rooms," Scar-Face Bitch commanded the other
two guards. The other girls all filed out, leaving me standing under a cold shower
with Scar-Face Bitch between me and the door.
The door shut with a quiet click.

“Shit,” I hissed involuntarily.

[Part 5] – FINAL
“You have to be the luckiest bitch alive,” Scar-Face Bitch sneered. “I’d
congratulate you on your genius, but I don’t think you understand why you’re so
lucky.”

I swallowed and turned off the water without taking my eye off of her. She took a
step towards me, and I backed up.

“In two weeks, some of the richest clients we’ve ever treated will be coming here.
And for some reason, one of their rich asses chose you as their whore.”

Just like Jacob had said.

“He doesn’t want a scratch on you when he arrives. So, you are just the luckiest
bitch alive. No one lives through an attempt on my life,” she hissed.

“Tell that to Angela,” I whispered, but regretted.

“Angela is sick. She doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. Her mind is deranged.”

“That’s one hell of an excuse, coming from you,” I snorted.

“Watch your tongue,” she snapped. “After our rich client leaves, you’ll either be
dead or locked in Hell for years, I haven’t decided which is better yet. So, thank
your luck that you were chosen by this client. If it were anyone else, I would have
told them that you’d killed yourself.”

Scar-Face Bitch walked over and grabbed my arm. I let her lead me out of the
shower room in silence. All the other girls were in their rooms already, and
probably thought I was being killed.

“How did you know?” I asked as she threw open my door and pushed me inside.

She smiled darkly. “That cabinet’s lock is broken. Someone had to be inside
holding the door shut. You naive little whore.”

Then she slammed my door and locked it.

I spent the next week racking my brain for a plan. I spent every waking hour at
night practicing picking that lock.

No success. Not once.

Exactly seven days later, my door was thrown open by Scar-Face Bitch.
“Get out here. Inspections,” she growled.

“What?” I asked. Random inspections were not part of the routine.

She ignored me and moved on to the next door. I sighed and pulled myself off the
bed. In the hall, I stood beside my open door and stared ahead, like we were
supposed to. One by one, every girl was called into the hallway.

Glancing around, I noticed that the usual two guards had been replaced with four.
Two stood in front of the doors leading to Hell, and the other two stood in front
of the double doors leading to the rest of the building.

Shit, I thought. They’re here.

The rich assholes were early. I closed my eyes and tried to think of a plan.
Something. Anything. Even if I could get past the guards leading to either
entrance, one door held an unknown building with an unknown number of people.
And Hell’s only way out was through windows twenty feet up.

Scar-Face Bitch brought the last girl out, and everyone looked equally confused.
We all exchanged looks. Lana glared at me with a deadly stare. Her face and arms
were all cut up from the bars in Hell.

“Listen,” Scar-Face Bitch announced. “We have some very special guests coming
down here any minute. Behave or you’ll live in Hell for a month. Do not speak
unless spoken to. Do not attempt to make them your client. If they want you, let
them have you. Understand?”

“Yes,” we said in unision.

We stood there for a long time. Our legs grew sore, and we kept flexing them to
keep our muscles calm. Scar-Face Bitch sat in a chair from the guard’s usual
corner. The guards leaned against the wall, stealing envious glances at her chair.

Jacob was one of the guards by the doors leading to Hell. He kept stealing glances
at me. I avoided his eyes.

Suddenly, the double doors leading to the rest of the building opened. It was my
first glance past those dark, wooden doors. And all I could see was a flight of stairs
leading down to our floor.

Four people walked through the doors: a woman and three men. One man walked
in front, gesturing like a fucking tour guide. The woman walked right behind, and
the two men followed on either side of her.

“This is where the girls are kept. The rooms are designed to feel normal and cozy
while maintaining the security of our assets,” the man said.

Assets. Asshole.
All four of them spread out in the hallway, each looking a different direction.
Everyone except for the tour guide looked only a few years older than most of the
girls there.

The woman was looking at the tour guide. The man on her right, a tall, blonde guy,
was looking at the ceiling, then the doors. Anywhere except at us. The guy on her
left, shorter than the blonde guy but with dark brown, short hair, was looking
along the two rows of us girls. He held eye contact with each girl for a good ten
seconds. He made his way down the lines with his eyes.

“How many rooms are filled?” The woman asked.

“Currently, all rooms are filled and bringing in a profit,” the tour guide answered.

Lies. I hadn’t seen a client since the guy I puked on. Who were these assholes?

“We have a backlog down there,” the tour guide said, pointing towards Hell, “and
they’re dying to fill these spots. We have flexibility.”

I almost snorted at the officialness of his tone. Like he was displaying stocks and
options rather than human lives. My jaw clenched while I resisted the urge to run
at the tour guide. Then, the guy with brown hair made eye contact with me.

His expression was off putting to the point that I turned my head directly at him. I
watched his eyes leave mine and trace over my face. They didn’t go any lower,
but they inspected every inch of my head. His eyes tensed, and he walked directly
towards me.

The tour guide wasn’t perturbed and kept talking, but the woman watched the
guy approach me.

“Dee?” She asked.

The man didn’t slow down and when he got close to me, he raised his hand and
grabbed my cheeks between his fingers.

“Interesting,” he said so quietly that only I could hear. “Look me in the eye.”

I did so hesitantly.

“I’ll take her,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the woman. “Shouldn’t be too
long.”

“She’s--” Scar-Face Bitch spoke up, but cut herself off. Her expression showed
that she regretted speaking up. ‘Dee’ loosened his grip on my face and glanced
over his shoulder at Scar-Face Bitch.

“--reserved,” Scar-Face Bitch finished quietly. Even from my angle, I could see his
eyebrows rise.
“For whom?” He asked dangerously.

“We… have some very rich clients coming in a week. They’ve specifically asked for
her,” Scar-Face Bitch said, her voice growing in confidence.

Dee smiled slyly.

“Then they won’t mind if I break her in.”

He started to guide me into my room by my face, but the woman stepped forward.

“Dee,” she cautioned.

“I’m not interested in profits, Soph,” he answered. Then he spun me around and
shoved me into the room. He entered and shut the door behind him. It took a few
seconds, but I heard the door lock shut behind him.

“Name?” He asked.

“Liz,” I whispered.

“Speak up.”
“Liz,” I said again, louder.

He took a few steps forward, and I backed up to the bed and sat down.

“Why haven’t you escaped yet?” He asked bluntly, standing over me.

“Wh-what?” I stuttered.

“The guards are barely armed, these doors are flimsy as shit, and there’s barely
anyone here to guard you. Why haven’t you escaped yet?”

“I-- I don’t know… how to answer,” I replied, confused.

He punched the wall in frustration, and it made a sizeable dent.

“You haven’t even tried prying the walls apart to escape, have you?” He spun
around the room, looking everywhere. “The mirror is intact, I’d expect that to be
the first thing to go. The dresser is flawless. The door handle is scratched up at
least. Where are your lock picks?”

My throat swelled up. He was going to find my lock picks and murder me. His eyes
were dark and red. He didn’t look high, but he was definitely… off.
“Where are they?!” He shouted. I cowered and dropped to the floor, reaching for
them under the bed. He smiled when he saw that.

“Let’s have a look at what else is under here,” he said, kneeling down next to me
and looking under. His eye caught on the marked wood where I kept track of my
days, and he lowered even more.

“How long have you been here?” He asked.

“I’ve lost a few weeks worth of marks, so I don’t know for sure,” I answered
quietly.

I handed him my metal lock picks hesitantly, and he spun them around in his
fingers while he thought.

“Have you ever been to Hell?”

Before I could answer, he grinned sinisterly. “Of course you have, look at your
eyes.”

“It’s where I got those,” I confirmed, pointing to the lock picks. He held them out
to me, and I took them with surprise. I wanted to ask why he was letting me keep
them, but didn’t dare.
Dee reached into his pocket and pulled out a pocket knife. I flinched and pushed
myself away along the floor. He laughed, but started carving into the wood.

A… phone number. He carved a phone number into the wooden frame.

“If you ever get out of here, call me. I’d love to hear how you did it.” He stood up
and then dragged me to my feet by my arm.

“Who--” I started, then cut myself off, unsure what I wanted to ask. He raised his
eyebrows, waiting impatiently for me to finish.

“Whose side are you on?” I finished. He laughed a little too hard. This guy was
clearly not 100% there. Or he was too far ahead for me to keep up with.

“I’m on your side,” he answered with a menacing smile. “I’m here to make you
better, Liz. That’s the whole reason this is here. My partner tries to make it about
the money from prostitution, but I’m only interested in people like you. Fighters
who put in the minimum effort for not just survival, but escape.”

“I did try something last week,” I offered. His eyebrows raised in surprise. He sat
down on the bed and sat me down next to him.

“Tell me about it,” he practically drooled.

I told him about Angela and what she’d done. He drank up every detail, and I
could see his fists clenching with excitement.

“So close, but not quite there,” he whispered with a wink. “I can think of… three,
possibly four good ways to bring this place to its knees.”

“Tell me,” I rasped.

He waved a finger.

“Figure it out, then call me when you’re out of here.” He stood up. “I look forward
to seeing you on the outside,” he winked. If his crazy hadn’t already bled through,
I’d consider him handsome. He was young, attractive, and had his facial
expressions down to an art form.

“Wait,” I said as he turned towards the door. “You came in here to ask why I
hadn’t escaped yet? Not for sex?”

He laughed again. “Please, I didn’t even look at your body. I’m not interested in
sex that way, Liz. I came in here because, yes, I can see that you’re a fighter. You
remind me of someone. Nothing more.”

“How,” I interrupted again when he turned to the door. “How do I pick locks?”
A smile slowly spread across his face. “Bring me your lock picks and I’ll show you.”

It was the most confusing situation I’d ever been in while in incarceration, but he
showed me briefly how to pick the lock. When the lock quietly clicked open, he
quickly handed me the metal slivers. I dropped them to the side of the door.
There wasn’t enough time to hide them again, because he tossed the door open
and stretched his arms wide.

“That was just what I needed,” he announced to the hall. I followed him out to
stand next to my door. The other girls all looked like they’d jumped away from the
wall when the door flew open. The guards too.

The little tour had moved on towards Hell, it seemed. The double doors leading
there were wide open. Dee stretched again, then walked through the doors
without looking back. His stride was easy and relaxed.

I stood quietly with the other girls, all looking away from each other. Lana still
glared at me, and at one point made a throat-slitting gesture. I bowed my head
towards her, hoping it conveyed an apology. She still looked pissed.

I heard girls yelling from Hell since the doors were all open. Angela was yelling at
Scar-Face Bitch, who had apparently followed the parade into Hell.

Jacob kept trying to get my attention, and raised his eyebrows questioningly
when I did look. I ignored him.
The far doors to Hell shut, and the group of five walked into the hall. The other
set of doors closed, and the group stood in the middle.

“What do you think, ma’am?” The tour guide asked. The woman looked around,
contemplating.

“Just keep the profit flowing, and you won’t hear a complaint from me,” she said
at last. Her eyes dragged over me at the last instant, memorizing every feature of
my body. We locked eyes, and I looked away first.

The tour guide led them toward the stairs, and Dee looked over his shoulder on
the way out. He winked, then went up the stairs. Scar-Face Bitch stayed behind.

Who the hell was that guy? I wondered as the double doors closed again.

“Back in your rooms,” Scar-Face Bitch called once they’d closed.

That week found me at my best. I wasn’t brought a single client, again. Likely part
of the deal with the rich client coming in a week. It was fine by me, because I
reviewed everything Dee had said over and over in my head.
I can think of… three, possibly four good ways to bring this place to its knees.

Part of me wanted to pass him off as a crock who was making shit up to get under
my skin. But when he taught me how to pick the lock, I knew he probably wasn’t
joking.

Something about him was off, but the more I thought about it, the more I could
see his calculating interior always chugging away.

The guards are barely armed, these doors are flimsy as shit, and there’s barely
anyone here to guard you. Why haven’t you escaped yet?

Why haven’t you escaped yet?

I rolled that question around a lot. And the answer I came up with was fear. Fear
of pain. Fear of Hell. Fear of death.

And for the first time, I started to rationalize and actually think this through. Pain
here was inevitable. So was Hell. Death would come eventually, there’s no way
they would let me go free no matter how much money I made them.

It was escape, or die trying.

I stopped being scared. I started planning an escape.

The morning after Dee and the rest of them left, I covered my mirror with a sheet.
When Jacob first came in to bring food, he looked suspiciously under the sheet.

“I don’t want to look at myself anymore,” I explained. He avoided looking at me as

if Dee’s sexual advances had made me disgusting to him. I was fine without his
wanton stares.

He ignored the sheet after the second day. It just became normal to him.

While the rest of that week went on, and the orgasmic yells filled the hall, I got to
work. I lifted my mattress and removed one of the boards supporting my bed. It
was a few feet long and at least six inches wide. I propped it against my bed frame
on its side and kicked several times until it broke in half, making two wieldy spears.

I spent hours next to the metal frame, rubbing the end of each spear against it
until it sharpened to a dull but useful point. Each time someone brought meals, I
would stuff them under my mattress. They never inspected under there. A
security flaw.

I couldn’t practice picking locks because if I got it right, I’d have no way to re-lock
it. Instead, I played the motions over and over in my mind, hoping that the mental
practice would help me when it was time.
On the third day before the rich assholes showed up, I shattered my mirror. I
removed the sheet, laid it out on the bed, set the mirror on top, then another
blanket, and sat on it until I felt the silent cracking.

Upon lifting the mirror’s frame, I found dozens of large shards that would be
useful. Careful hits with my spears helped me shape them to have handles. I
ripped the end of my sheet into strips and wrapped it around the handles. When I
was finished, I had four decent mirror knives.

I tested one, and immediately discovered that slashing was the only way to use
these. If I stabbed someone with one, they would break.

Only cutting, no stabbing.

I set the mirror back up and re-covered it with the sheet. The remaining mirror
shards were laid out perfectly on the boards under my mattress and covered.

Jacob didn’t even look twice at the now shattered, but still covered mirror.

I cut some small slits in my lingerie so I could slip my three remaining knives in.
They held the blades with barely any outline. The overlapping fabric hid them
pretty well, despite being skin-tight. The lockpicks fit easily through the fabric at
my waist.
Lastly, I took a mirror shard and used it to see underneath my door at night. I
studied the entire hallway each night, looking for anything remotely useful.

The guards sat at a table next to the doors to Hell and talked each night. They
were big, Russian guys, with the exception of Jacob. I wondered more than once
what they were doing in France, and if we even were in France anymore.

My plans for when I left the building were simple: rip up my lingerie and wrap it
around my feet for makeshift shoes, and run for a few miles before knocking at
someone’s house and asking to use their phone.

It wasn’t flawless, but my weapons made me confident.

The day before the rich assholes arrived, Scar-Face Bitch called for us to line up. I
left all my materials in my room.

She lectured us on behavior and ensuring that we took the best care possible of
these clients. If we were out of line, we’d spend months in Hell. Same old threats.
Threats I no longer feared.

We were moved back into our rooms, and the night wore on. I forced myself to
sleep, convinced that tomorrow was the day I would act and I needed my rest.
At 9 exactly, we were led into the shower room. I’d been glared at the entire
week by every other girl. This time, Lana confronted me.

“Why aren’t you dead?” She asked in a dark tone. “Didn’t you get Angela into the
cabinet?”

“No, I didn’t,” I lied, matching her tone.

“Then why did Scar-Face Bitch corner you afterward?”

“Look,” I sighed, trying to ease the situation. Every other girl was watching the
conversation with sick interest. “I’m trying to get out of here. I can help you get
out.”

Lana frowned. “There’s no way out of here,” she said.

“Yeah? What are the walls made of?” I asked.

She looked confused.

“They’re cheap sheet rock with some wood studs. You could punch a hole in your
wall and crawl into the next room.”
“Bullshit,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, don’t believe me. But when I’m out, I’ll send the police
back to get you.”

Everyone snorted with Lana, but I saw more than a few girls looking my way while
we cleaned up.

I was surprised when the rich assholes didn’t arrive during the day. It seemed that
they preferred their whores at night, and everyone was antsy all day. No one saw
any clients, and you could feel the anticipation. You could also smell the fear.

Late in the evening, according to the clock, Jacob brought in several sets of
makeup and a curling iron attached to an extension cord.

“Your turn,” he said, setting it all on the floor before he locked the door. “Last one,
too. We have to rush before they get here.”

The makeup set was spread across the dresser, and the curling iron was set next
to it all, warming up.

Just as Jacob reached up to pull the sheet off the mirror, I spoke up.
“What’s your deal?” I asked. He halted and turned around.

“What?”

“Are you in love with me or something? You’re like the jealous stalker I never had.”

That got his blood boiling.

“The fuck did you say?” He hissed, moving towards me. I rested a hand behind my
back, touching one of the mirror knives.

“Go on, out with it. Tell me you’re in love and that you want me,” I antagonized
him. He growled and shoved me. I fell onto the bed, spread across it sideways. He
got on top and pushed down on my shoulders.

“You filthy fucking whore!” He enunciated, shaking me with each word. He never
saw the wood I’d hidden under my pillows. I slammed it into the side of his head
with as much force as I could muster. He growled in pain and relieved the
pressure on my chest.

I used my other hand to slip a mirror knife from my front and slide it across his
throat. It cut deep, but I ran it back the other way just in case. Blood spurted from
his neck, showering me in warm drops the size of hail. Jacob gasped and held his
hand to his neck. Blood seeped between his fingers.

I stood up as he fell to the side, covering my sheets in blood. My right hand

grabbed the spear, and I held it over my head.

“You fucking pervert,” I rasped before putting all my force into the spear. It struck
downward into his chest. I felt his ribs grind against it and break as it sunk deeper
and deeper. It stopped in his heart.

He thrashed for only a few seconds before losing consciousness.

A twinge of guilt hit my heart, but I yanked that out as hard as I pulled the spear
from his chest.

He deserved it.

“Help!” I screamed. “I need help in here!”

Another guard came running and fumbled with his keys outside the door. I
checked that all my weapons were in place, including the second spear by my feet.
Facing the door, I clutched hard at the spear, ready to fight for my life.
The door opened, and he never knew what hit him. I charged him and stabbed
the spear clean into his stomach. It got stuck halfway through, but I let go. It had
done its job. He yelled in pain and dropped to his knees. His hands cradled the
wood, and his eyes were wide with shock and fear.

I lifted the other spear into my hand and stepped past him into the hall. I made it
a point to kick the spear in his stomach as I passed. He started screaming then.

Shit.

I spun around to knock him over the head with my other spear, but it was too late.
The damage was done. Other girls were screaming at their doors, begging to be
let out. I looked around the hall to find it empty. Only two guards tonight, and no
sign of Scar-Face Bitch. She must be out greeting the rich assholes.

I ran towards Hell.

This decision had been made after a lengthy debate with myself. I knew exactly
what was beyond Hell’s doors, but I had no idea what was beyond the other
doors. There could be thirty more guards for all I knew.

But I knew for sure that Hell had windows and that it was partially underground.
Turns out, the doors to Hell were locked from my side. The twistable locks were
easy to use, and I let myself in. Guess they never expected someone to want into
Hell.

Once I threw the doors open, light spilled into the dark, freezing dungeon. The
second I opened the doors, the overwhelming smell hit me. I couldn’t have
forgotten it, but it was so overpowering that I hesitated for a fraction.

“Angela?” I called into the dark. The walls on either side didn’t hold light switches.
Damn.

“Angela?” I called again into the dark.

Nothing.

I walked from cage to cage, inspecting the shit-covered faces. No sign of her. It
wasn’t until I rounded the corner to the back row that I saw her. She was dangling
from the ceiling, her ankles and hands tied together and attached to a chain that
ran to the rafters high above. She was to the right of the door, closer to the wall
with the window.

“Angela!” I called, running until I was under her. If I reached on my tiptoes, I could
touch her hair. Her eyes were closed, probably unconscious. I was immediately
filled with an overwhelming exhaustion. My lack of nutrition was catching up with
me and I was expending energy too fast.
For a split second, I considered leaving Angela there. I had to get out while I still
could.

Suddenly, something charged at me out of the dark. Scar-Face Bitch rammed into
my side, and I skidded along the ground. My makeshift spear clattered along the
concrete into the darkness.

“I knew you’d try something. Your last night on earth, and you waste it trying to
rescue her,” Scar-Face Bitch sneered. I scrambled to my feet and moved toward
my spear. She pulled her staff from under her arm and threw it at me. It hit my
knees, and the cold made them tender. I cried out and tripped over the staff,
collapsing hard on the concrete.

“I knew he did something. I could tell by your attitude after he left. He told you
something that made you think you could get out of here.”

I picked up her staff and pulled myself to my feet.

“Actually,” I rasped. “This is all your fault.”

I took two steps forward and swung at her. The staff swung through thin air when
she moved out of the way. The momentum made me fall forward, and I caught
myself on my hands and knees. Scar-Face Bitch laughed at me. Then she punched
the side of my head. I rolled onto my back, gasping for air.
“There’s a reason we barely feed you,” she mocked, picking up her staff that I’d
dropped. Scar-Face Bitch hovered over me with a dark expression.

I closed my eyes, as if I were giving up. I could practically feel her smile. My hand
grasped the mirror knife, and I opened my eyes. The blade slit the side of her bare
knee, making her shriek in pain. I managed to roll away before the staff hit me.

From my hands and knees, I picked myself up and held the knife out.

“YOU FUCKING WHORE!” Scar-Face Bitch screamed. The girls in their cages all
stirred, including Angela.

Scar-Face Bitch dropped to one knee, put a hand to her other knee, and inspected
the cut. I took the time to look around the room. My eyes had adjusted to the
dark, and I saw it. The chain that held Angela descended to a wall support, where
it was wrapped around and padlocked in place.

Don’t think I was still looking for Angela’s safety. I was far past that. The chain was
my only way out of there.

“I will kill you,” I whispered at Scar-Face Bitch when she looked up. I was pacing
around her. She smiled.

“Come and try,” she invited.

I stooped, picked up my spear that I’d moved towards, and ran at her. I held the
spear close to me, aiming the dull point at her chest. She tried to jump up from
her knee, but I moved too fast. She just managed to push the spear out of the
way, which made me lose my balance and fall on top of her.

Screaming, I picked up my mirror knife and stabbed it into her arm, which was
defending her face. The mirror shattered, and I gasped as my hand slipped over
the sharp portion and cut myself. The blade had cut her as well, but not by much.

Scar-Face Bitch laughed and managed to punch the side of my jaw. I tried to roll
away, but she grabbed my hair and held me to her.

“I’ve wanted to kill you for so long now,” she threatened, punching me over and
over wherever she could.

I reached behind my back and grabbed at another mirror knife. It was just out of
reach because of our angle. So, instead, I grabbed her chest and clawed at her as
hard as I could. My fingernails weren’t sharp, but they were sharp enough. Her
skin split open, and she cried out in pain. A final punch landed on my cheek
before she shoved me away.

I rolled along the concrete and struggled to get to my hands and knees.

“Alyssa?” Angela called out weakly.

“Angela!” I yelled.

Scar-Face Bitch stood up and faced me, her arms spread out to invite me to attack
again.

Instead, I turned tail and ran for the doors to Hell. She grunted in surprise and ran
after me. I managed to slam the doors shut and flip the locks just as she reached
the door.

“I have keys, you stupid bitch!” She screamed through the doors. I turned to the
small door at my left and opened it. I found exactly what I’d hoped.

When Scar-Face Bitch opened the door with a red, furious face, I blasted her with
the firehose. She shrieked and ended up falling over because of the pressure. I
kept the hose behind me as I advanced into the room, keeping the nozzle trained
straight at Scar-Face Bitch’s ugly face.

“Angela!” I called over the sound of water. “Can you get down?!”

She quickly answered that she couldn’t.

I tried to think of a plan, and fast. For now, the hose was keeping her pinned to
the ground. Who knew how long that would hold.
Suddenly, she was backed up against the cage, and several fingers snaked through
the bars. They grabbed at her hair, arms, clothes, anything they could grasp. The
two girls in the cage grabbed hold of something and pulled it through the bars,
holding tight.

Shocked, I turned off the hose. Both girls were looking up at me with wide eyes.

I left, running for my spear. A couple of times, I almost slipped on the wet
concrete. I scooped the spear up as I ran and stuck it into the padlock. Pulling
down with all my force wouldn’t budge the lock. It wouldn’t split.

With trembling hands, I pulled the two slivers from my lingerie and set them into
the keyhole.

I never expected to have to break a lock while under such intense pressure. Scar-
Face Bitch screamed all kinds of threats at the girls, but they held fast and fought
off weak hands and grabs. Angela dangled above, trying to watch what I was
doing.

When the lock clicked open, I almost cried. The relief was so instantaneous that I
almost collapsed. It was the second wave of weakness I’d felt in only a few
minutes.

I unwrapped the chains from the pillar and slowly lowered Angela. Once she was
on the ground, I rushed over, dropped to my knees, and removed a mirror knife.
The rope around her wrists and ankles was cut loose, and she spread out on the
floor, rubbing her wrists.

“We have to go,” I insisted. “The other guards might show up any second.”

“I’m not leaving yet,” she sighed. With one hand, she took the mirror knife from
my hand. “The Bitch has to get hers.”

“Wait,” I said, keeping her from getting up. “Help me get out first. I need to get
help.”

She nodded.

The two girls managed to hold Scar-Face Bitch down as we moved the chain along
the rafter until it was near the wall. We created a knot at one end, and put Scar-
Face Bitch’s staff through it to form a seat for me. Angela snaked the chain
around the pillar to give her leverage.

Slowly, she put her weight into it and managed to hoist me until I could reach the
window sill. I watched her the whole time, and saw her determined face and
weak limbs. Somehow, she generated enough strength to pull me up, and I still
have no idea how.
Once I was up high enough, I hit the window hard with my spear. It took a few
swings, but the window shattered, spilling glass into the room and outside. With
my spear, I cleared the shards off the window sill before clutching the edge with
both hands.

Now, I had to somehow haul myself through the window.

I gave myself a few swings to get enough momentum, then pulled myself off the
swing. One arm grasped the outside edge of the window, and despite a moment
of weakness, I got my body onto the sill.

I gave Angela a thumbs up, and she gave one back. I saw the glint of the mirror
knife as she picked it up. I wish I could have heard what she said to the Bitch as
she approached. Scar-Face Bitch suddenly went very still when Angela stood over
her with a knife.

I watched with satisfaction as Angela jammed the mirror into Scar-Face Bitch’s
other eye. When the blade broke in half, she picked up both sides and jammed
them both back in. Scar-Face Bitch’s cry filled the entire place.

Below me was a five foot drop onto gravel. I let go, and sprawled out on the rocks.

Afraid I wouldn’t have time, I hobbled quickly through the gravel until I got to
some tall grass nearby. There, I made my makeshift shoes and ran through a field,
away from the building that had held me for ten months.
The area around the warehouse was farmland, and just to be safe, I got to the
nearest town before I knocked on a door. Call me paranoid, but I didn’t want to
risk the neighbors being in on anything.

And now, here I am. I was taken home from France after some haggling with the
U.S. Embassy over my missing passport. I got home eightish months ago, and have
been recovering ever since, both emotionally and physically.

The cops eventually found the warehouse despite my vague and unhelpful
instructions. When they did, the found all four guards, including Jacob, dead. The
girls must’ve killed the last two, because all their bedroom doors were unlocked
and open.

Scar-Face Bitch was found hanging from the chain. They never specified how
mangled her body was. The girls never turned to the police, or at least, not that
local one. I don’t even know where any of them were from, so I couldn’t go
looking for them.

Instead, I’m more than happy to keep all of that behind me now.

Except now, it’s been my two-hundred and eighteenth attempt to call that phone
number. I want to brag to Dee about what I did. I want to throw it in his face that I
did escape his prison. I keep telling myself that it’s not because I want to impress
him. Why would I want to impress a man who got excited about keeping me
hostage for almost a year just to “improve me?”
At least, that’s what I tell myself.

I’ve called that number two-hundred and eighteen times, and always got a
voicemail right after. Except, a couple of days ago, I got the message that the
phone number was no longer in service.

And so now I’m publicizing how I escaped in the hopes that Dee or whatever his
name is will read it one day, know who I am, and know that I won. I won against
them all.

The voicemail is still in my head, always playing.

“You’ve reached David King. Leave a message.”

Everybody has a Demon
Everybody has a demon, most people just don’t know it.

I do.

I can see them.

They perch on your shoulders or ride piggy back, whispering in your ear.
Sometimes they speak words soothing and sickly sweet, other times bitter and
venomous.

Some people’s demons are tiny and innocuous, even cute. Others are brutes;
stupid, foul, slovenly. Some are, in a word, abominations; twisted malevolent
perversions who revel in misery and suffering. Those are the worst kind.

You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their demon.

My demon’s name is Jack. Well, that’s what I call him anyways. They never tell
you their real names, and that’s OK by me. Jack fits him just fine.

I’ve known Jack for as long as I can remember, my whole life actually. He’s always
been around. When I was lonely Jack would play with me. When I was sad Jack
would crack jokes to make me laugh. When I was bored Jack would tell stories.
Jack always knew the right things to say.
When I was young I thought my parents could see him too. They called Jack my
‘Imaginary Friend’ and my mother would tell the other moms about how creative
her son Kevin is, he has such a vivid imagination.

Sometimes they would ask me questions about Jack, or they would ask him
questions about me. He would always answer, but I began to notice something
strange; they never seemed to react quite right. It was like they weren’t actually
hearing him. They’d become smug and condescending and say things like “I think
‘Jack’ is telling you to finish your green beans, don’t you think so honey?” I’d think
they were ignoring Jack on purpose and then I’d get frustrated and start to cry.

I was nine when I finally figured it out: they really couldn’t see him. They were just
playing along, they were the ones pretending; not me. They were fools. I knew
Jack was real, as real as anyone else. So I’d talk about him all the time, to my
parents, my teachers, the kids at school; to anyone who’d listen. I’d try to
convince them that Jack was real.

That’s when it stopped being cute and my parents started to worry about me.

Sometimes at night I’d lay in bed listening to them talking in the kitchen. My
mother would get weepy and my father would speak quiet soothing words like
balm. He’d say things like, “It’s just a phase. He’ll grow out of it. All kids go
through this, it just lasts longer for some.”

I’d lay there in bed with Jack by my side, comforting me. “Why can’t they see you?”
I’d ask.
“You have a gift. A special gift. They don’t,” Jack would say, smiling.

“Well why don’t they believe me? I’m their son! Why do they think I’d lie?”

“That’s just the way people are. You’re very young, Kevin. You have oh so much to
learn about the world. But I’ll always be here for you Kevin, you can count on me.
I’ll always be here for you.”

Around this time I started getting into trouble at school. The other kids would
make fun of me when I talked about Jack. They called me ‘Crazy Kevin’ and ‘Baby
Boy Kevy-Wevy’ and they would laugh and punch the air and tell me they were
beating Jack up. They would taunt me and push me down, and when I tried to
defend myself I would get in trouble. Kids can be so cruel to one another, and the
teachers weren’t much better. They’d tell me, “Well, stop talking about your
imaginary friend and the other kids will leave you alone.”

So I did.

I wasn’t a dumb kid. I knew they were making fun of me because I was different.
They didn’t have ‘Imaginary Friends’ and I did; and even though I knew Jack was
real, no one else thought he was. Imaginary Friends weren’t supposed to be real.
The unknown scared them. I scared them.

So I stopped talking about Jack and stopped talking to Jack. I ignored him,
pretended he wasn’t real.
Jack got angry.

Sometimes at night he would knock things over or throw things around my room
to get my attention. Sometimes he’d break things in my house and I’d get blamed.
Even worse, he started appearing in my dreams; tying me up and torturing me in
strange primitive rituals; chanting and carving esoteric symbols into my flesh. I’d
wake in a cold sweat, mind reeling. Jack would be hovering above my bed, quietly
watching as I slept.

Finally, when I couldn’t stand the torment anymore, I started talking to him again;
in whispers and only late at night while the rest of the house slept.

I explained the situation to him; about my parents, my teachers, the kids at school.
When I told him he smiled, he understood. Jack always understood. He told me
that EVERYBODY has a demon, just like me; they just can’t see it. They don’t know
it exists. He told me I was special, that I had a gift.

I was still doubtful, but Jack wasn’t upset. He told me I was so special that he was
going to get me another gift, just to prove it. Then he disappeared.

For the first time in my life I was alone. I felt so scared, abandoned, and utterly
alone. I was miserable.

A week passed and still no Jack. Was this how regular people lived out their lives?
So lonely all the time... how did they stand it?
Then I awoke one night and he was there standing over my bed like he’d never
left. I was so happy.

“Where did you go, Jack?” I asked.

“To get your gift of course.”

“But… where is it?”

“You already have it,” Jack answered.

“But where? You didn’t give me anything!”

“Shh, quiet child. It will all make sense in the morning. Go to sleep now Kevin. Go
to sleep child.” He sang me a lullaby in some ancient tongue as I drifted off.

I awoke the next morning as excited as a kid on Christmas, ready to run out of my
bedroom and see my new gift; but Jack grabbed me by the arm and spoke to me
sternly.

“You must make a promise to me Kevin. Whatever you see out there you must
promise NEVER to tell anyone about it. You must never speak of it aloud.
Otherwise your gift will disappear. Otherwise I will disappear.”
I promised.

“Promise me three times,” Jack said. So, I did.

“You’ve promised me thrice, never to speak of what you see. Do not forget your
promise, Kevin.”

We walked into the kitchen and I stopped dead in my tracks.

There at the breakfast table sat my mother and father. On each of their shoulders
perched a demon. On my mother’s sat a large puffy creature, a mix between a
bunny rabbit and a giant marshmallow, but with huge doughy eyes and long silver
fangs. On my father’s sat a long skinny worm-like creature with hollow eyes and
the face of a bat. It was was blue and translucent like ice, a cloud of steam rose
from its body. Its tail was coiled around my father’s neck.

I yelped in surprise and eight eyes turned towards me, four human and four
demonic. I made some excuse to my parents which calmed them down, but the
demons stared at me wide eyed; at first I thought they were angry, but then I
recognized that they were actually afraid. Afraid of me. Afraid that I could see
them. The bat-snake hissed something I couldn’t understand, but Jack barked
back in a gruff guttural language which echoed in our tiny kitchen. My parent’s
demons cowered before him submissively.

From that day forward I saw them everywhere I went. It was scary to be sure, but
at least I knew I wasn't the only one. Everybody has a demon.
Still, it could be overwhelming. There were so many, and they all knew that I
knew. They would say things to me, horrible things. They would brag about all the
twisted and perverted acts they had convinced their people to commit. They
would tell me about their people’s evil thoughts and dark secrets. The demons
delighted in recounting these tales in graphic detail.

Sometimes Jack would stop them, but sometimes he wouldn’t, or even worse he
couldn’t. Some of them were scarier than Jack, stronger than Jack, and there was
nothing he could do. Sometimes I would catch an evil glint in Jack’s eyes, and I
could tell that he was enjoying hearing about the all the wicked and foul deeds
other demons had convinced their people to do. He almost seemed jealous.

It became too much, I had to make some changes. I would walk to school, instead
of riding the bus. I began avoiding crowds, and started spending my free time
alone in my room or out hiking in the woods; but it was no use.

I started falling behind in school. It was impossible to concentrate in class with all
those demons glaring at me, whispering to me, laughing at me. I told Jack about
this, but he shrugged it off. He reminded me that this was a gift, that I was special.
He promised me that one day I would be glad I had it. I trusted him. Jack was
always there for me. Jack always took care of me.

Sometimes I felt afraid. I could always tell who the really bad people were by the
size and nastiness of their demon. I could see all the liars, the adulterers, the
rapists, the murderers, and the child molesters. They walked the streets, mingling
in secret with the good people and the normal people, like wolves among sheep;
and nobody knew but me. You’d be surprised just how many of them there are,
and there was nothing I could do about it.

At least, not yet.

That changed in the 10th grade when I met Elijah. Elijah was a bully, and he didn’t
try to hide it. He was a fat, ugly, hulking slab of a boy. He was stupid too, book-
stupid, or willfully ignorant at the very least; but when it came to bullying, he was
a genius. He had an uncanny ability to find a person’s greatest joy in life, and turn
it against them. He seemed to make it his personal mission to torment the smaller,
smarter, weaker, and more introverted kids, of which I was one.

He also had one of the nastiest demons I’d ever seen. It was a massive
hippopotamus-looking beast with twisted horns and breath like the grave. It lay
across his shoulders, making Elijah slouch when he walked.

The popular kids ignored most of us, but they despised Elijah. In his mind that was
our fault, and he made sure that we paid for it. He loved to trip kids in the hallway,
knock their books out of their hands, snap girl’s bras, fire spitballs in class and
generally make our lives a living hell.

Elijah’s specialty was stealing lunches, and he did it with aplomb. I never once saw
him buy a lunch or bring his own, he’d simply go from table to table taking what
he wanted from the ‘nerds’. He always made sure to take my milk. I don’t even
think he liked it, but he knew that I liked it; so he’d take it, chug it down, and
throw the empty carton in my face, laughing all the while.
Jack started whispering things to me. Telling me what a horrible person Elijah was.
Telling me all the nasty things he did when he was alone. Telling me how he
reveled in torturing and killing people's pets out in the woods. Telling me about
the things he would do to his little sister late at night. Telling me all the horrible
things he would do in the future. Telling me that if Elijah died, no one would miss
him.

I tried to ignore him; but the longer it went on, the more sense Jack seemed to
make.

The final straw came one day when Elijah caught me alone in the bathroom. I was
standing at the urinal peeing when I heard the door open and heavy foot steps
come up from behind.

“Aww look at this, is wittle crazy Kevy-wevy having a wittle pee pee break?” He
sneered. His breath was hot on my neck, like a foul breeze wafting from a garbage
dump on a scorching summer day. I ignored him, trying to finish the task at hand
as quickly as possible.

“What’s wrong faggot, you deaf or something?” He asked. I continued ignoring

him. Big mistake.

He kicked me hard on the back pack, smashing my chest into the urinal and my
face into the concrete wall. I saw stars and fell to the ground, my member still in
hand, still urinating.
“Ohhhhh noooo, look at that. Wittle Kevy fell down and wet himself! Here, let me
help you with that” I lay on the ground in a daze, and heard pants unzipping
somewhere above me. Then a warm putrid stream was pouring over my backpack
and down my legs and Elijah was laughing. I covered my head and pretended I
was somewhere else. When it was over I heard the door slam shut and from the
hallway Elijah yelling, “Hey everybody, check it out. Crazy Kevin pissed himself!” I
looked up and there was my demon, Jack. He was staring at me with a smirk on
his face.

“Ok, you win. Tell me what I have to do.”

Jack’s smile widened.

“Easy,” he said. “Switch to almond milk.”

For the next two weeks I packed my lunch with almond milk instead of my regular
2%. It tasted disgusting, but I hardly ever got to drink it anyways. Elijah stole it
from me every single day without fail, and he really seemed to enjoy the taste.

Then one day after school, a knock came at my door. It was a stranger, disheveled
and wild eyed, dressed in a cheap suit. His demon was a snake, red as venous
blood, venom dripping from its maw. He didn’t say a word, just handed me a
crumpled paper bag and walked away.
I opened the bag and pulled out a clear vial with a strip of masking tape on the
side. On the masking tape, in clear black sharpie marker, one single word was
written.

Cyanide

Jack was grinning again. “Tastes like almond,” he whispered.

I mixed it into my milk for tomorrow's lunch, and the next day I ditched the empty
vial in a dumpster on my way to school.

A few minutes after drinking my milk, Elijah was convulsing on the floor. I sat and
watched, casually munching on a taco. A few minutes after that he was dead. I
wasn’t sad; I actually felt good. Better than I had in a long time.

The cause of death was determined to be cerebral hypoxia, likely brought on by a

stroke. Very few mourned his passing.

I started missing more and more school, and a few months later I dropped out
completely. Not that I felt guilty, or thought I might get caught. No way. I just had
other more important work to do.

I got a job in a rough part of the city, working in a crumby old book binding factory.
The work was monotonous, but easy, and I soon saved up enough to buy a used
car and rent a shitty studio apartment. I worked second shift at the factory, from
3pm to 11pm. Most guys hated the hours, but I found them perfect for supporting
my extracurricular activities: finding bad people, and killing them.

My demon helped me. Jack was a real natural when it came to this. He helped me
track down people with particularly nasty demons and he’d tell me all the vile
things they had done. We stalked them like hunters, learning their patterns and
routines. Then he’d tell me the best way to kill them, and how to get away with it.

And I always got away with it.

Pimps, rapists, drug dealers, child molesters, human traffickers, I did them all.
Sometimes I made it look like an accident, or a suicide, or a robbery gone wrong. I
beat, stabbed, strangled, shot, and drowned. I even pushed one fat fucker on the
third rail of the subway. He fried just like bacon, even smelled like it.

Jack was always there for me, protecting me, making sure I got away with it.

The best part was, I never felt bad about it. Every person I killed was a wretched
excuse for a human being; they deserved it. I was making the world a better place.
Some might even say I was a hero. My conscious was clear, I slept like a baby.

Killing people become normal, fun even. It was my hobby and damn was I good at
it. Eventually I didn’t even think about it anymore. I just did it.

And that’s when it all came unraveled.

I was out on patrol one night, following the SUV of a mid-level drug dealer as he
made his pick ups. He must have made me because as we came to an intersection,
he slowed down and waited until the light was just changing from yellow to red,
then floored the gas pedal. I tried to follow, but I must have been a second too
late because a black BMW going the other way smashed into the side of my car,
T-boning me and sending me spinning through the intersection. My head must
have slammed into the steering wheel because I briefly lost consciousness. When
I came to my ears were ringing and stars danced before my eyes. Smoke drifted
from the front of my car.

Then I heard another noise: angry, screaming and cursing. The owner of the BMW
was striding towards me; a mountain of a man, face red, fists clenched, arms
swinging, spittle flying from his mouth as he screamed. I lurched from my seat to
face him, blood pouring from the gash on my forehead.

Straddling the man’s shoulders was one of the most horrific demons I had ever
seen. It was huge, round, pale white, and bloated like a corpse. Puss oozed from a
thousand sores covering it’s corpulent body. It had no arms or legs. Instead its
entire mass was one giant face consisting of two tiny beady black eyes, and one
enormous gaping mouth filled with row upon row of razor sharp teeth. A forked
tongue slithered snake-like through its fangs, flitting through the air searching for
a victim. I felt bile rising from my throat and fought it down.

As the man surged towards me I felt my rage rise, and I found myself thinking
about Elijah; about all the times he had teased me, tormented me, humiliated me.
I thought I heard a subtle whisper in my ear.
“Do it.”

My mind went blank. My vision went white around the edges. I felt like I was
trapped behind my eyes watching, unable to control what was happening. The
man was close, screaming in my face, he meant to hurt me. I reached into my
pocket. Then a flash of chrome in the street light. A hot torrent spraying me in the
face. The man’s eyes bulging with rage one moment, now rolling back into his
skull. His body slumping to the ground, my knife buried in his throat.

I looked to Jack for help, but he was laughing. Laughing like a madman, and
screeching something in that foul ancient language.

Realization set in. I’d done this man. Done him out in the open, at a city
intersection, under a street light, with no planning or forethought; with no escape
route and no plan for clean up. I turned on Jack in a panic.

“Are you just going to stand there laughing? Help me! Tell me what to do! How do
I fixed this?”

He was howling now.

“This one was all you, I had nothing to do with it. The man you just killed was a
politician, a city councilman. Perhaps no less of a criminal then the pimps and
gangbangers we normally kill, but this guy did it under the guise of law and order.
I didn’t make you do this, you chose this.”
I could almost feel my face go white as a ghost and the world began to spin
around me. I was stumbling towards the car, trying not to vomit, when I heard the
noise behind me.

BWEEP bip bip BWEEP

Followed by the scream of a siren. A cascade of red and blue light reflected off the
windows of my car and the shops around me. The cruiser peeled out from the gas
station across the intersection and rushed towards me.

I sat in the interrogation room for hours. Jack stood next to me smirking as the
detectives worked me over. It all came out. They found everything; enough
evidence in my car and my apartment to tie me to dozens of murders. They said it
would be a miracle if I got life in prison. The D.A. would go for the death penalty
on this one for sure. Then they were laughing, and their demons were laughing,
and Jack was laughing too.

My court appointed lawyer was a mousy man with thick glasses and mustard
stains on his suit jacket. His demon was a small skittering cockroach with the
sallow face of a dead baby. He did not seem optimistic about my chances. The
only hope to avoid the death penalty, he said, was to claim ‘guilty but insane or
mentally ill’.

“Have you ever felt like you weren’t in control of your actions? Have you ever
heard voices in your head telling you to do things? Someone speaking to you?
God, the devil, or demons?”
I pondered that for a moment. Jack was smiling but his stare was black. “Don’t
forget your promise,” he whispered. “You swore to me. You swore three times,
never to tell anyone.”

“I remember,” I replied. “But this is no gift. It’s a curse, and I’m glad to be through
with you.”

My lawyer looked confused. “Who are you talking to?”

“My demon,” I said. “Everybody has a demon, most people just can’t see them.
My demon is named Jack, and yes… he tells me to do things.”

Now I’m alone. Jack is gone, gone forever. I sit here in a straight jacket, within
these four padded walls, waiting for my pills. Waiting to forget. I’ll never see the
sunshine again.

Everybody has a demon. Everybody, except me.

UPDATE: Some people are asking how this story was posted if the author is in a
straight jacket. Perhaps I should have been more clear: he didn't actually write it,
he dictated it. My name is George Orson and I'm an orderly at the mental facility
where Kevin is being held. Kevin is probably the most sane patient I've ever had,
and its a shame what the system has done to him. I actually support his work, he
was making the world a better place even if his means were a bit... extreme.
We've spoke of his demons at length and I thought his story needed to be told. To
that end, I snuck an audio recorder into the facility and allowed Kevin to record
his story, then transcribed it and posted it here.
Two Facts You Should Probably Know
Here are two facts you should probably know:

Fact the first: When a human being is driven into a corner, you should never
underestimate the levels of stupid and dangerous they will resort to in order to
escape.

Fact the second: If a deal seems too good to be true, it is.

Normally, I wouldn't be the kind of guy you should be taking advice from. If I
wrote an autobiography, it'd be called "Jesus Wept." But in this very specific
instance, I have some valuable experience. It started, as most tragic stories tend
to, with a series of short-sighted mistakes.

About a decade or so back, I was a few years out of college and trying to build a
life for myself. I was single, educated, and driven - all the qualities someone needs
to succeed in life. Well, not the "single" part, but you get the idea. I had prospects,
some real potential - but, like Oscar Wilde once said, I can resist anything except
temptation.

Yeah. I was an English major.

I didn't get hooked on meth or porn or anything like that. No, my vice was the
thrill of chance. Gambling was the greatest rush I'd ever experienced - just giving
up control, letting the gods of probability and randomness decide your fate. I got
hooked, kept going to those damn casinos night after night. Looking back, I was
naive, I was foolish. It'd take an idiot, blinded by a lust for sensation, to not realise
another crucial fact: the house always - I repeat, always - wins.

To make a long, painful story short, at the tender age of 24 the local pit bosses
had taken me for all I was worth and then some. As a result, I was indebted to
some unsavoury characters who were not all that keen on giving me some leeway
on the money I owed them. I managed to pull together just shy of a hundred
dollars in a week doing odd jobs, but that was a fraction of a fraction of what I
was in for.

At the time, it seemed like a better idea to just piss away what money I had at a
local bar rather than carrying on my sad little exercise in futility. So that's exactly
what I did, and by virtue of a few gallons of the cheapest spirits you can possibly
imagine, I can't remember a great deal of what happened after that.

Next thing I know, I'm waking up in a puddle behind the bar, having been turfed
out for making an ass of myself. The electric buzz of the neon signs above my
head felt like I was taking a power drill to the frontal lobe, while the cold, filthy
water below my face helped to sober me up a smidgen. Just enough to make me
aware.

It was right then, in my lowest possible moment, that I met him.

"Hey there, buddy," He said, his voice pleasantly cheerful and melodic, "You look
like you need a helping hand. Thankfully, I've got two."
There was a gentle tug on both of my shoulders, pulling me upright. He leaned me
against a wall; I could finally take a better look at him.

To begin with, I wondered if I was hallucinating. He seemed so strange, so out of

place.

My Good Samaritan was about six and a half feet tall, but he was built like a pack
of uncooked spaghetti. A long, lean, string bean of a man. That being said, the
black-and-white pinstripe suit he was wearing still somehow managed to be form-
fitting, like it was just painted directly onto a featureless body. Above his collar -
fastened to the top button and held in place by a large and ugly bow-tie - sat a
pale, grinning head with black hair parted in the middle.

Truth be told, my initial thought after properly taking in the sight of him was as
follows: holy shit, I died in that puddle, and this is death himself come to collect
my pathetic soul. Sadly, that was not the case, I was, in fact, still alive.

"There we are, pal, that's a lot better, isn't it?" He said, kneeling down on his long,
rail-thin legs to look me in the eye, "We'll have you feeling like a million bucks in
no time. Never fear!"

While back then I just assumed that it was my drunken mind playing tricks on me,
I remember his eyes seeming strangely...yellowish. They had a kind of jaundiced
sheen to them, like sclera and iris just melted together into a single, formless
mass. Eyes like goddamn egg yolks.
"It's always such a shame to catch folks in a pickle, such a shame," He said, largely
to himself, I think, "Whatever happened to helping people out, you know? It's a
good feeling."

"Who are you?" I managed to choke out.

The kind stranger smiled and turned his sulphuric eyes towards me.

"You're asking the wrong person there, amigo, I'd tell you if I knew. Honest!" He
replied with a laugh, "What's your name, though?"

"Nate," I said, wondering if I was about to vomit or not, "Nate Wilson."

"Oh my god, that's such an awesome name!" The stranger said, as the sudden
explosion of interest on his face told me that he wasn't faking his misplaced
enthusiasm, "Nate Wilson. It has a ring to it, don't you think? God, what a great
name. You're a lucky guy, Nate. Lucky to have such a great name."

"Uhh, thanks, I guess."

There was a long, awkward silence after that. I sure as hell didn't know what to
say, and the stranger seemed more than content to just stand there and stare at
me, grinning like a freak. It felt like it was my responsibility to break that irritating
silence.
"Look, I really appreciate you helping me, buddy..." I began.

"Wait, you consider us buddies?" He asked. His tone was, at that stage,
ambiguous.

"I mean, you saved me from breathing alley-water, so I guess so, yeah."

This might seem hard to believe, because I definitely didn't believe it at the time,
but the stranger literally jumped up into the air and whooped loudly. A grown
man, behind a dive bar, doing that. It was like something out of a strange dream
that your one boring friend always wants to tell you about.

"This is fantastic!" He said, grinning ear to ear like he'd just won the fucking
lottery, "It's so wonderful to make new friends!"

He extended a spindly arm towards me, his hand open and his spidery fingers
outstretched.

"Put her there, friendo." He said.

And because that night wasn't weird enough already, you better believe I did.
"That's what I'm talking about," He said with another childish cackle, pulling me to
my feet with disarming levels of strength, "Through the power of friendship,
anything is possible."

Sure, he may have spoken like his only experience with the outside world was
watching Saturday morning cartoons, but he seemed innocent enough. A benign
weirdo, just trying to help people along his way. Though I must admit, the fact he
was reluctant to tell me his name was somewhat of a red flag for me.

"Now, I'm going to be completely honest with you, Nate," He began, his amber
gaze turned downwards in what might have been embarrassment, "There was a
reason I followed you out here. It wasn't just a stroke of good luck."

My heart immediately sank. I knew he was too good to be true - this was when he
stabbed me, cut me up, wore my skin as a suit and turned the rest of me into a
makeshift lasagna. Nobody was ever that happy at that hour of the night if they
had all their psychological ducks in a row.

"Well, if you're being honest," I said, swaying on my feet, still too drunk to defend
myself, "Would that reason happen to be my murder?"

He seemed shocked at first, then began to laugh.

"Do you think a murderer would be this friendly?" He asked.

"Molestation, then?"

"Jesus, no way, Nate. You're a good-looking guy, don't get me wrong, but you're
not really my type."

"Then what does a guy like you have to do with a guy like me?" I asked, the
needle on my internal emotive scale creeping from 'curious' to 'irritated.'

"Well..."

He paused again, as though searching for the proper words. He was looking at
everything but me.

"The bar," He finally said, "How much of what happened in there do you
remember?"

"Somewhere in the margin of nothing, I think." I said, now leaning against the wall
for support.

"You were talking to the bartender. Loudly," He said, bouncing up and down on
the balls of his feet, "I wasn't eavesdropping, not at all, I just happened to
overhear. You were talking about some kind of...money troubles."
I'd almost forgotten about them myself, but the second he said it, all the
memories came barreling into me like some nauseating tidal wave. I'd ranted and
raved, screamed at the top of my lungs. Debt. Debt. Debt. I got belligerent when I
felt they weren't showing me enough sympathy, and when I got belligerent, I was
rightly thrown out on my inebriated ass.

"Oh, don't worry about those," I said, my cheeks reddening with shame, "That's
not your problem. I'll deal with it."

"But Nate, you didn't sound like you could deal with it."

"What the hell is it to you?" I snapped back.

The stranger stopped talking, and began reaching into his jacket. I got a sudden
flash of paranoia that he worked for one of the casinos, and he was going to put a
bullet between my eyes.

"You're my best friend, Nate," He said, "And friends are meant to help each other
out of sticky situations, aren't they?"

He produced a stack of bills from a pocket inside his suit, and passed it over to me.

"Will this be enough?" He asked.

It was at this point that I was most open to the idea of this all being some crazy
dream. With the ferocity of a madman, I quickly counted the money this total
stranger, calling me his best friend, had handed to me.

Twenty-fucking-grand. It could bail me out, and then some.

"Holy shit," I said, though I can't remember if it was out loud or in my head, "I...I
can't possibly accept this."

"Please do," He said with another ear-to-ear grin, "You need it an awful lot more
than I do."

A sober me might have been too proud to indulge him, but - funnily enough -
drunk me had a far more realistic take on my level of desperation. I was a
desperate, desperate man, trapped in a corner.

Fact the first: When a human being is driven into a corner, you should never
underestimate the levels of stupid and dangerous they will resort to in order to
escape.

"But why?" Was the only question I could summon.

He smiled and shrugged.

"Because I like you," He said, "And I like helping people."

"But you've only just met me."

"So what? A friend is a friend is a friend. Why overthink it?"

I collapsed back against the wall, holding the stranger's twenty grand. It was a
way out of my dire situation.

"I'll pay you back. Every penny, with fucking interest, I swear to god." I said.

The stranger laughed.

"No need. I've got no shortage of money. Just take it and bail yourself out, okay?
Then promise me you'll stop gambling."

There were big, swollen tears running down my burning cheeks. The stranger's
kindness was baffling, but it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever experienced. He
was a true Saint in flesh and blood.

"I'll never gamble another penny." I said.

Without another word, I lunged forward and hugged him. A long, warm, tight
embrace. By the end, I could feel his emaciated limbs wrapped across my back.

"Thank you so much." I whispered, my tears dripping onto the shoulder of his suit.

"What are friends for, right?"

When I finally prized myself off of him, I just couldn't stop laughing - it was nerves,
probably. The stranger watched me, a kind of eccentric joy burning in his big,
yellow eyes. He seemed to like just observing.

"Oh, one more thing," He said, reaching into his jacket again, "A little something I
wrote up in the bar, just to help you out."

He passed me a piece of paper, folded into the size of a pamphlet. I didn't even
think to check it at the time, I just shoved it into the pocket of my filthy coat and
carried on thanking him. I needed that money, lord knows I did, but I couldn't just
take it without giving something in return.

"There must be something you want, man," I pleaded, palms open in deference to
his generosity, "Anything. I owe you my life, man, you just name your price. I can't
thank you enough."

The stranger grinned and stroked his narrow chin in contemplation.

"Now that's an irresistible offer," He said, almost jokingly, "You drive a hard
bargain, Mr. Wilson. Leave it with me, okay? I'm sure I'll think of something."

He began walking away after that, whistling - of all things - "Sunshine, Lollipops
and Rainbows" as he did so.

Now I was laughing again. Half out of giddiness, half in acknowledgement of the
sheer strangeness of the events transpiring around me. Right then, as I sat outside
a shitty bar, covered in dirty water, my own tears, and more than a little puke, I
was the luckiest human being on the planet,

"What do you give to the man who has everything?" I said aloud.

The stranger looked over his shoulder at me one more time, his odd eyes meeting
mine.

"Almost everything, Nate," He corrected, "Almost everything."

And just like that, the stranger was gone. Almost funny, isn't it? How someone
like that can have such a profound impact on your life, then just up and disappear
just as quickly. Like a comet, just trailing past. You only catch its light for a brief
instant, then it's dark again.
Using the stranger's money, I paid off my gambling debts in full, and still had a
little left over. I swore to stick to my promise, for my own sake and his. In the ten
years that've passed since that day, I haven't gambled a cent.

Once I was all square with the house, I finally took a moment to check the piece
of paper that he'd left me with. At first I only sort of skimmed it, and it didn't
make a great deal of sense to me: just a list of dates from 2007 to 2017, each
accompanied by a sentence fragment. It was only when I sat down and took a
long, hard look at what those fragments actually were that I realised the stranger
couldn't possibly have been human.

No, he was so much more than that.

It was a list of instructions, specific down to the days, minutes, hours, and
seconds. Where to be and what to do in order to maximise success at that given
moment. He'd left stock tips for companies that didn't exist, but would come into
existence exactly when he'd predicted they would. He'd left exact instructions on
which house to buy, and how to get it at the best price. Clothes to wear, jobs to
take, friends to make.

Fifth of October, 2009. Go to Starbucks in town. Meet Jessie O'Brien. 3:51:17 PM.

Two years later, Jessie O'Brien became Jessie Wilson. The stranger had even
engineered me meeting the love of my goddamn life, precise to the exact second
we'd first make eye contact.
I invested in the right stocks and pulled out of the wrong ones, avoiding company
deaths and market crashes like some financial Houdini. My capital skyrocketed
and my personal wealth just grew greater and greater.

Eighth of June, 2011. Buy House 10 Aspen Way. Don't Rent. 6:14:43 PM.

And so I did. Jessie and I moved into that big, gorgeous house once our
honeymoon was over. We were wealthy, healthy, and deeply in love - but
something was missing, something the stranger had accounted for, too.

Seventeenth of August, 2012. Conceive child with Jessie. 8:31:19 PM.

Our little girl is called April. The stranger picked it, not me. She's four now, and I
love her with all my heart.

The stranger, a man who I'd known for less than an hour, had steered the entire
course of my life in the best possible direction, out of nothing more than the
kindness of his heart. He'd saved me, he'd saved all of us. Even though it'd been
ten years since that day and I was drunk out of my mind at the time, I remember
every detail vividly.

That's why, as I was walking down the street this morning - my arms full of
grocery bags - when I heard someone singing "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows"
a few feet behind me, I recognised the voice instantly.
"Sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, everything that's wonderful is what I feel
when we're together!" His melodic voice sang, his tone screaming joviality,
"Brighter than a lucky penny, when you're near the rain just disappears, dear, and
I feel so fine!"

Without a moment's hesitation, I turned to face him. It looked like that strange,
strange man hadn't aged a day in an entire decade. He even wore that same
pinstriped suit that he had on the first night I met him.

"Just to know that you are mine." He finished the verse with a smile, and threw
open his arms.

"Jesus Christ," I said, my face cracking into a smile impossible to hide, "It's actually
you."

"The one and only, baby," He said with a laugh and a grandiose hand gesture,
"How's Jessie, by the way?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but he raised a hand, as though to politely silence

me.

"I'm sorry to drop in after - gosh, has it really been ten years? Jeez Louise, time
really does tend to get away from me," He said, "Anyway, the reason I'm here is
because I finally figured out what I wanted from you."
"Beg your pardon?"

"Ten years ago, you said you owed me something, anything," He replied, though I
almost heard it back in my own voice as he said it, "I couldn't decide at the time,
but I think I know now."

"Oh, of course! That's wonderful to hear, man," I said, my heart filled with a
sudden trepidation, "So, uh, what is it you want?"

The stranger gave that same ear-to-ear grin that he was wearing back behind the
dive bar in 2007.

"Well, I've thought about it for a long time, amigo, and I've finally made my
decision," He said, "I know what I want from you, Nate."

He paused to take a step closer to me. His eyes were just as golden in the daylight.

"I want your name, Nate."

I almost laughed to begin with, but I soon realised he wasn't joking. He was
deadly serious.

"My name?"
"Yes, Nate, I've always loved your name, it's so wonderful," He said, wringing his
hands with glee, "See, I've never had a name myself, and it's always left me
feeling a little left out, you know? I've wanted a name for so long, and I decided
just recently that the name I want is yours. I think it'll fit me just right."

This man had given me my entire life. He saved me from getting killed by casino
sharks back in '07, and every wonderful success I'd had since I owed entirely to his
decade-long itinerary. With all this in mind, who was I to turn him down this last
batshit crazy request?

If he wanted to go around calling himself Nate Wilson too, what right did I have to
stop him?

"Sure thing, buddy." I said with a smile.

He leaned forward and embraced me, almost crushing the groceries against my
chest.

"You have no idea how happy you've made me."

"It's the least I can do after all you've done for me." I replied.

The stranger - or rather, Nate Wilson - extended another spidery hand towards
me.
"Let's shake on it." He said, his voice elated.

And I did.

We went our separate ways after that. I walked home, and he ran off into the city,
singing and cackling with mirth. It brought me some peace of mind to know that
my debt to him was finally repaid, and that some simple token gesture was all
that I needed to do it.

When I arrived back at 10 Aspen Way, I saw April playing around with her toy
lawnmower in the front yard. I smiled and called to her, but she didn't respond.
She was too wrapped up in her fictitious duties.

I made my way inside with the groceries. Jessie was in the kitchen, cutting up
carrots. Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows blasted out of the radio. Today just
kept getting weirder and weirder.

"Hey, babe," I called to her, putting the groceries on the kitchen table, "You'll
never guess who I ran into this morning."

Jessie didn't respond. She just carried on chopping, and hummed to the tune.

"Babe? Everything okay?" I asked.

Still no response. At this point, I was beginning to get a little...worried.

With a peculiar heaviness to my every movement, I walked over to Jessie, and

placed a tentative hand on her shoulder.

It just went straight through. Straight though her goddamn body - like she was a
hologram, or I was. I recoiled with a short, sharp yelp, and fell against the kitchen
table. Again, no response from Jessie.

What the hell had happened?

"Honey, I'm home!" I heard a familiar voice call from the hallway outside.

Jessie suddenly perked up, turning her head towards the noise.

"Hi, sweetie," She said, "You were a while out there. I was beginning to get
worried."

The stranger walked into the kitchen, a smile stretched across his waxen face.

"Sorry about that, honey-bunny," He said, "I met an old friend in town. We had a
little catch-up."
As he said that last part, he threw me a sickening wink with one of his piss-yellow
peepers.

"Huh," Jessie said, "Anyone I know?"

She leaned forward and gave the stranger a kiss. The kind of kiss she always gave
me.

"Nah," The stranger said with a chuckle, "I don't think you've ever met him."

I felt like my mind was going to implode. Nothing going on was making any kind of
goddamn sense. The whole world had gone crazy.

April called from outside, something about the grass.

"You mind taking over the carrots for a sec, babe?" Jessie said to the stranger, "I
better go check on April."

"No problem, honey." He said, taking the knife from her hand and giving her
another kiss.

Jessie left the room, leaving just me and the stranger, all alone. I quietly fumed,
and he chopped carrots.
"What the fuck is going on?" I finally asked him, when I'd gained the modicum of
composure required to do so, "What have you done, you crazy fucking weirdo?"

He carried on chopping the carrots. His eyes never left the chopping board.

"My name is Nate, stranger," He said, "I'd really appreciate it if you called me by
it."

In my state of fury, I tried to grab him by the shoulder and turn him to face me. I
could actually touch him, but he wouldn't budge. It was like trying to move a
mountain.

"That's my name. This is my house. And that's my wife," I said to him, rage and
confusion rendering my voice a crackly mess, "I want you out of here and out my
life."

The stranger chuckled.

"See, that's where you're wrong, slick. All that changed hands," He said, "This is
Nate Wilson's house. Jessie is Nate Wilson's wife, and this is Nate Wilson's life.
And, by the terms of our recent deal, I'm Nate Wilson. And you, good buddy?
You're nobody."

"I won't accept that." I yelled, slamming my hand down onto the kitchen
countertop.
Without another word, Nate Wilson rammed the knife through my hand. There
was no pain, no blood. It just phased through, as though I no longer even existed.

"Word to the wise, stranger, reality marches on regardless of whether you accept
it," He said, as I pulled my hand away from the knife, "Everything you have,
everything you've tricked yourself into believing you earned, you got from my
instructions. You never owned this life, stranger, you just rented it from me, piece
by piece. Now, it's mine, and there's not a thing you can do about it."

He stuck the knife into the chopping board and turned around to me.

"Except, of course, leave, and let me, my wife, and my daughter get on with our
lives. Do you understand, stranger?"

I stood in crushing silence for a minute or two.

"But can I see them again?"

"Sure you can, you can see them any time you like, but only I can see you. Just like,
up until around an hour ago, only you could see me. It doesn't feel good, does it?
Being nobody. Being nameless."

The gravity of it all was finally closing in. I fell onto my ass and began to cry.
"God, I was so fucking stupid," I said, "How did I fall for all this?"

Nate Wilson shrugged and ate a piece of carrot.

"Don't blame yourself, buddy," He said, "I was waiting for centuries before I found
someone who I could interact with. It isn't your fault you happened to be that
person, or that you had such an awesome name at the time."

"My name..."

"You were only going to waste it, friendo. If I wasn't there that night, a heavy
would have broken your legs the next day, you'd have gotten into painkillers, and
OD'd a few months later. Nate Wilson becomes gravestone fodder. What a waste
that would have been, huh?"

"But what do I do now?"

"What I did, stranger," Nate Wilson said, eating another piece of carrot with
undue relish, "Ask around, find someone you can talk to. Might be this afternoon,
who knows? Sure, could be a week, month, year, decade, century, but I'm an
eternal optimist."

"A century?" I said, trying to ebb the stream of tears flowing out of me, "I can't
wait that long."
"You'd be surprised, pal. Patience is something you'll learn, being nameless. When
you finally do manage to wrangle yourself a name, you'll appreciate it a little
more this time. You'll make something of yourself."

Fact the second: If a deal seems too good to be true, it is.

"So is that it?" I asked, "Is that all you have for me?"

Nate Wilson nodded.

"I'm afraid so, good buddy," He said, "But you seem like a nice enough guy. I'm
sure you'll figure something out. You can always depend on the kindness of
strangers, don't you know."

As the man who had just stolen my entire existence carried on hacking up
vegetables, I left the room, walking out of the kitchen, through the hallway, then
out of the house entirely. I stole one last look at Jessie and April, my - no, his -
family, playing on the lawn, totally carefree. All smiles. They'd never even know
that I was gone.

Perhaps it was better that way, no heartache.

I whispered a goodbye that they'd never hear, and closed my eyes in a pointless
attempt to shut off the tears I knew would be coming either way. I set off into the
city after that, walking alone, in search of something - hell, anything - to call
myself.

And that was that. The story of my un-naming. Perhaps Nate was right, perhaps it
was his life all along. Maybe he'll live it better, live it kinder. He might be a better
father, a better husband, a better Nate.

I don't feel so attached to that name anymore.

But, if you know all this now, that means one good thing: you can read what I'm
writing. If you can read my words, perhaps you can hear them? And if you can
hear them, perhaps you can reply.

If so, I hope to hear from you soon. We have a lot to talk about, you and I, a lot to
discuss. I think I can do some great things for you, dear reader, dear friend. I'll
help you out of any bind you need, and I'll barely ask for anything in return.

Barely anything at all...

I was born on a child farm
“There is no free will.”

Those are the first words I ever read. I woke to them every day for many years.
They were written on a sign. The sign was hung above the opposite row of bunks
in the Sleeping Barn. I have no memories from before the farm; I assumed I was
born there.

None of the children there knew why we were here or where we came
from...nobody even knew how long we had been at the farm. Some children aged.
Some didn't. I can't remember much, but that's what happens when you are not
given too much to remember.

I remember always being deliriously hungry. We would be fed three small meals
a day, but before every one Headmaster Ranon Xinon would make us watch him
sprinkle a few drops of clear liquid from a label-less brown bottle on the food.
Then he would serve behind a steel door and slide out each meal through a
window so you never knew if your meal was poisoned. Most of us danced around
the edges of their food. Nobody was eager to dive in, not when we had seen a
dozen kids turn blue and die infront of us after picking the wrong meal. Several of
us rarely ate the food; I NEVER ate from my plate. I would scavenge what little
clean scraps there were in the garbage. I ate 4 crows (they are just as disgusting
as saying implies) and I would go full Renfield and eat flies, ants, dandelions,
cockroaches, clovers, pillbugs...anything living and somewhat edible. I would keep
the spiders. I had a special place for those.
 The 20 boys and 30 odd girls worked the fields that provided all the food to “the
farm”, a crumbling wood compound fenced by tall barbed wire and the
surrounding woods. Past that, the wilderness. Even though there wasn't
spotlights or guards, the farm was much more inescapable than a prison.

Every few weeks Headmaster Xinon would take the near 100 of us to the edge of
his farm, where he would blow a strange brass whistle; bloodshot German
Shepards sprang from the underbrush as if they had been waiting for his call,
mouths foaming as they gnashed their teeth on the rusted barbed wire,
threatening to break in and chew us alive as the Headmaster coldly smiled and
spoke with a voice that sounded like gunshots fired far away:

“They're old guard dogs gone rabid. I have learned...through one of you!..how to
train them so they only obey me, and if you run, they will kill you...or make you
wish you stayed here with ME.”

The farm never had answers. Very few people came, the rare delivery trucks, a
prison bus, a black tinted window Thunderbird that made a powerful turbine roar,
as if rocket engines were installed under the hood - and they only dealt with the
headmaster. The only person to leave with the driver of the Thunderbird.
 There was a rumor that we were not real kids at all, that Headmaster Xinon was
a demon who crafted us all from blood and ash. We never dared speak to the
Headmaster and asking a question was ludicrous, as a question would mean a
touch from his hard, cruel hand, an hand that made the surrounding air a pin-
cushion of pain that would sting your skin even if his hand grazed yours.

But above the poisonings, backbreaking labor and cleaning, scavenging for food
and never knowing a single day what was going on, we feared the nights worst of
all. Being exhausted from working in the fields all day wasn't enough to overcome
the fear to sleep. When it was darkest and the air had fallen still, we would hear
the headmaster's creaking footsteps just...appear in the center of the drafty barn
without any kind of warning. Sometimes we would hear him walk on the roof. Up
the walls. On the ceiling. I can still hear his breathing if I close my eyes, that sick
pig's wheezing agonized breath that sucked air in and out in a guttural exhaust.
The breathing and the footsteps would circle and circle until he heard someone
cry. That's when the taken would give one last cry before they were gone, along
with the Headmaster. The missing child would return to their beds in the morning
bearing new marks- a glancing finger left a nasty red and purple smear on one's
side, sometimes a black fingertips dotted their bodies. We would never say
anything about these marks to anyone; we were always afraid the headmaster
would hear, and give us matching marks to boots.

Sometimes he would touch you with his entire palm, leaving a wrinkled imprint as
raw and painful as hot iron brand. I had a few marks as well, but I considered
myself lucky that I only had a few marks, as far as I could tell.
I was one of 4 boys and 5 girls who cleaned the headmaster's home, the
farmhouse. I cleaned the bathrooms and emptied out the shit cisterns by slop-
bucket and rope. I cleaned the bathrooms and eventually I found a few loose
ceiling boards above the toilet when I was scrubbing for mildew, standing on the
windowsill. They were right above his toliet. I began thinking.

This was my life for what felt like many years- I swore I could have named 25
separate times the frost came, but we had no way to keeping track of time, not
even by our ages. I swore sometimes we would see a kid go from looking 13-14
back down to looking half that. Time made no sense at the farm, and I knew that I
wasn't going to get out by waiting. When I had woke one morning to find a
searing red hot handprint of headmaster Rannon Xinon on my upper arm, a hazy
starvation-induced plan emerged from the fog of my brain.

I went to the “special place” by the cisterns where I had kept every black widow
spider I had come across. I kept them behind a false brick on the side of the
farmhouse, where I had once collected 8 of them and discovered that black
widows were cannibalistic when grouped together. Only the strongest survived. I
kept hosting “tournaments” until 108 black widow spiders were reduced to 26 of
the most toxic, twitchy and bite-crazy widows you never want to meet. I was
bitten only twice, and came very close to an agonizing death both times. I knew
one bite wouldn't do a monster like Xinon in. I was set- I was ready to enact the
last stage of my plan when everything changed on a cold day in early December
when a helicopter as black as the Thunderbird made a couple of low circles over
the farm.

Ranon Xinon went insane. He poisoned half of the meals the day after the
helicopter came, and after breakfast, he took us all outside to form a queue
outside the chicken slaughterhouse. When he began leading us in 1 by 1, a few
joined me and ran. Judging from the screams, he caught most of the runners, but
he didn't catch me. I spent many nights fantasizing about this moment, when I
wasn't listening to his footsteps of sick breathing.

I put the black widows inside an old compartmentalized chocolate box

scavenged out of a wood pile, perfect for keeping each one locked away. I went
up through the floorboards and hid in the space in the bathroom. The
Headmaster may not sleep through this paranoia, but everyone's gotta go
eventually, even monsters. Those cisterns didn't shit themselves.

It was dark by the time that he arrived with his candle. The sound of him pulling
down his trousers and his simultaneous grunt masked the sound of me moving
the planks above him aside and pulling the lid off the box of 26 nightmares,
showering the headmaster with ravenous, crazed gladiators. My beauties began
biting the Headmaster as soon as they landed. The terror of the child farm, the
demon named the Ranon Xinon lied curled around his toilet, eyes swelling shut, a
mouth locked in a disgusted, surprised outrageous gurgle of horror as spams
racked his whole body. Before his eyes swelled completely shut, he saw my small
7 year old face peering down the hole in the darkness. The missing child. The
headmaster began to cackle.

“I knew this could happen. There is no free will. It's fine. I lived ten thousand years
already. I lived YOUR happy summers, wonderful marriages, fruitful successes.
Your life was beautiful beyond compare. That's why I-” he smashed a few spiders
scuttling around his face but I could tell he was fading fast. “...You and I are ghosts
now” where his last intelligible words before the Headmaster's breathing stopped.

I hid for 4 hours before carefully making my way to the window, the safest place
in the room. The spiders were done and gone.

The chopper returned with a convoy of armed men right before sunrise. I was the
only survivor of the farm. The captain of the operation was a man named Clinton
Moxley, Chief Field Investigator for the Hermetical Office. He adopted me, and I
took his last name. He was the one who named me Howard.
I told my father what little I knew. He corrected me on a few things- the
headmaster's name wasn't Xinon, it was a man named Clark P. Ganes, an
“anomalous individual”. The office he worked tracked the headmaster down
here...my father was the one in the Thunderbird.

Elder Moxley had told me about the time the office had captured the
Headmaster for study within one of their field labs. The subject grabbed Frank
Bernwiest's wrist, one of the team's eldest members. They saw Frank's 79 year
old face twist and contort until the winkles disappeared and the flesh had lifted
up on his face; in a few seconds of agony, Frank was a middle aged man again.

My father said that he personally stopped the other agents from interacting, as
they were gathering film evidence of the unique phenomenon associated with
Clark P. Ganes. Frank was known to be a formidable fighter but was helpless to
the touch of the Ganes. Every time Ganes's hand would land on Frank's bare flesh,
Frank would scream, turning more pubescent every second. Clark only let go
when Frank was a child again squirming in old man's clothes.

“He chooses victims who had good lives” my father would explain as he would
tuck me in, “His existence is the greatest evidence that Time is a physical
dimension, something that exists, and has always existed. He lives YOUR years in
just a few seconds. Frank was left with 9 bad years out of 79. You would think
being young again is a great, remember that he was left with the mind of a 9 year
old, without care of friends or family...you know that pain well, Howard. The
office didn't have the resources to care for Frank...we believe Clark Ganes is
responsible for over a hundred thousand homeless children across the world.
Frank was just one of them, another human with a used-up timeline..."

I asked the only father I knew why he adopted me. He brought me to the master
bathroom's dual mirrors and told me to take off my shirt.

“Because I owe you. You were an old man once, Howard. You were my mentor
and my partner within the office. You went into the farm by yourself to try to shut
it down. I had hoped that you would remember...anything about your past, but...I
see the Headmaster got to you too...” I looked behind me, using the set of mirrors
to see my own back for the first time, and seeing it covered in handprints.

That was many years ago. True to Headmaster's words, I had been a ghost among
the living since then. It's been hard even sleeping, especially now.

For the past few night, I have heard both the Headmaster's footsteps and rasping
breath next to my old-man bed. My father never said they found the
Headmaster's body. I know he wants me his farm back. He wants me back- he
wants ALL his children back.
I Kidnapped Somethings Sister.
And no, before you conjure up your own story about what that means, know
that I’m not a good guy. I didn’t kidnap her for good reasons and I didn’t do it for
her sake either. I did it for money and my own well being.

Now, before I get all the hate for what I’m about to say, just know this, at this
point I can kind of guess that I’m going to die soon. That being said let me start
this off.

I’m 36 years old, an alcoholic, no skills, no talents and dead ass broke.

As all depressed alcoholics do from time to time, I was looking for the meaning
of life at the bottom of a bottle. The best place to for me to do that was inside my
favorite rundown shitty bar. On a typical day it’d just be me and the other
regulars. Each had a story I’m sure but none of us spoke unless it was to ask for
more forget-me-juice.

That particular day was a little bit different. I saw a man step in I didn’t know.
Well three men to be exact. Two bigger men dressed a little too nice for a
rundown bar like mine and one dressed like a young Middle Eastern rock star. Tan
skin, leather jacket, gold chains, you name the stereotype and he’s got it.

Naturally my unimportant broke ass tried my best to ignore him, figuring he’s
more trouble than it’s worth. I order another beer and hear the young punk call
out,
 “Hey, that ones on me.” Talk about a thick Middle Eastern accent, this kid really
did have it all.

I could almost feel the hair gel swallowing up the room like some blob from an
old horror movie as he approached. Needless to say, even as a no brains lackey
like me, I knew this kids nice gesture came with a price. So I did my best to shake
my endless thirst along with my head to signal I was done for the night.

Unfortunately I heard the kids voice perk up again as he took a seat next to me
at the bar.

“Don’t listen to him, the nights just starting; besides I can tell when a guy needs
a little more drink in him.” His voice carried with it a certain salty yet sultry tone, a
tone that let me know that one, he was in charge and two, if I play nice so will he.

At this point leaving was out of the question. His two brawny friends just so
happened to stand directly behind my seat and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell
them to move out of my way. So instead I sat there, staring straight ahead at the
rows of cheap liquor and alcohol on the shelves behind the bar. The barkeep
preceded to hand me a fresh bottle of my favorite cheap brand before quickly
going to the far end of the shop and pretending we didn’t exist.

“So, my new friend, I’ve had some guys looking for someone like you. A guy
down on his luck who wouldn’t mind a little cash his way.” There was a brief
pause as he seemed to rack his brain.
 “Now Jack, it is Jack right? My men happened to see you go from here to your
shitty little apartment a few blocks away every night for the past few weeks. No
job?” I found it harder to ignore him now. He seemed to know a little bit more
about me than I’d like. Regardless I stayed quite.

“Well that’s what my men tell me. Must collect unemployment then? Trust me I
don’t want that for you. No family, no friends, no coworkers, that’s no way to live.
I can give you all of that my friend. I can take away your shit luck and give you
something great!” His tone shifted back and forth between being demeaning and
pitying me. The transition between the two was so smooth you’d think he was
born with the devils tongue. Still I knew bad news and this guy was it.

“Nah, I think I’m happy with my shitty little life.” I stared intently at the
untouched bottle of alcohol in front of me, trying hard to phase out of existence.

“Really? Is that why your Wife left you and took the kids? Deadbeat husband just
kind of your style? How long since you’ve seen them? 5 years or so?” I felt my
muscles tense up. He was getting to a very sore subject of mine. I think he noticed
as he tried to change his tactic.

“Friend, Jack, we can give you everything you want. You work two, maybe three
days out of the year and you earn a good chunk to live off of for the rest of that
year.” I’m not sure if it was his voice, his tone or his words, but I felt my body
starting to relax again. Hearing someone say all of this to my face really started to
remind me on how much of a useless sack of shit I really am. 5 years of being
unemployed, drinking and battling the one eyed monster by myself left me a shell
of who I used to be.
 I was a loving Father, Husband and Boss. Yes, Boss. I owned my very own small
penny stocks office for a while. Well, that is until one of my workers ended up
doing some fraudulent things and got me and my company sued and closed down.
I escaped from the jail time unlike him, but I was financially ruined. Thus why I
started drinking.

I knew I needed a jump start and I was slowly losing my ability to say no to this
man.

“Well, what’s the job?” I asked, my voice a shadow of itself. With that one
sentence I knew I dove into the shark tank.

“Simple my friend. All you have to do is take a vehicle we own, drive with a
passenger, drop him off when he says stop, ignore any sounds you might hear and
drop him back off where he says too. You’ll leave the vehicle with us and we’ll
drive you home in a separate vehicle. Nice and easy. Expect your payment the
next day and we’ll contact you with any other jobs that might pop up. If for any
reason someone asks you what you might be doing for a living, just be honest.
You’re a chauffeur to private individuals and have no idea what they do for a
living.”

Well, at this point I knew whatever this was had to be illegal. Sadly my morals
were just as empty as my pockets.

“Alright, I’m in as long as I just have to drive.” His face lit up with my words and
he bought me enough alcohol for me to turn from depressed jackass into a
distinctly optimistic jackass. I figured, maybe with the money I make I could earn
enough to get me back on my feet. Maybe I could even see my kids again.
 A week later I get a knock on my door. A truck was waiting outside and the man
knocking says he’s my passenger. I do exactly what they tell me to do. I drive, I
park, I wait, I drive off, drop off and go home. The pay was amazing, it wasn’t
quite the two or three times per year that I was promised, but with the lack of
knowledge on what I was doing, it didn’t matter. All I cared about was the easy
pay for the easy job.

Eventually I even made enough to put down on a small home and a not so
terrible car. A little bit more cash and I’d finally be ready to make the call to my
ex-wife.

Now here’s when things turn wrong. It starts off normal. I’m sitting in my house,
hear a knock, get dressed and open the door. This time there’s two men, both
burly and big. This was a first. Normally it’s just one guy who’s usually a small size.

‘Screw it’ I thought, ‘A jobs a job.’

They told me the payment upon completion was 70,000 US Dollars. I felt my
metaphorical jaw drop, this was the payment I was looking for. I quickly took the
keys and headed out with them.

When we hit the parking lot I saw another red flag. Normally the vehicle was a
rundown sedan or inconspicuous SUV, but today it was a beat up old white van,
the type utility companies sometimes drive around in. No windows on the outside
except for the front. I felt my stomach drop. Something was telling me to decline
this job. But another part reminded me of the $70,000 that could be in my hands
by the next day.

‘Fuck it, I doubt they would let me say no anyway.’

I walked up to the van while one of the two men walked up to the passenger
door and the other climbed in the back. I kept telling myself to stop thinking
about things. Just go with the flow in my own little world like I usually do. I
swallowed my worries along with my morals and took off.

The men had me drive them to an old industrial park; it was past working hours
so no one was really around. For a while it seemed like we didn’t have a
destination, we drove around a few blocks while my passenger was looking out
the window for something.

Eventually my headlights swung around to reveal a young girl, maybe around 7

or 8 years old, playing around by herself. She was giggling and yelling at what I
figured was her imaginary friend, the poor girl looked thin and dirty like she had
been spending the last few nights on the street.

I felt my foot subconsciously press on the gas when I saw her, I was praying we’d
just drive by this little girl and end up stopping at some drug dealer who needed
to be roughed up. No such luck.

“Pull up just past the girl. I’ll tell you when to drive off.” My passenger stared
intently at that girl and I instantly knew what was happening.
 ‘Fuck’ I thought, ‘fuck, fuck, fuck’. This is the type of job I was always worried
about. This is the type of job that made me hesitant to work like this in the first
place. Regardless I did what he told me too. I knew he was strapped with a pistol
and if I said no, I’d be dead and they’d take the girl anyway. Or at least that’s how
I justified it.

So I pulled up about 10 feet past the girl and stopped, heard the back doors
swing open and muffled screaming before a loud thump of a small body hitting
the metal floor of my van.

“Drive.” The man barked next to me. I obliged. I fought off tears; I didn’t want to
do this.

It got even harder to keep my calm when I realized how thin the metal sheeting
was that separated the front of the van from the back. I could hear her crying
from where I was sitting. My hearing even felt heightened, like my conscious was
telling me ‘look at what you’ve done, just listen to her, this is your fault’ and that’s
what I did, I listened.

“My brother will find me!” she cried out to the man in the back.

I heard him snort before saying, “Your families dead and I’d hate to break it to
you, you never had a brother. Even if you did, we burnt the whole fucking house
down with everyone inside.” There was a moment of silence before he added, “If
you’re lucky your granddad will pay for you, if not we’ll find someone who will.”
 “My Brother isn’t dead; I was just playing with him. He’s all dressed up for
Halloween!” another chortle came from the man. I thought my morals were shot
but this guy seems to really enjoy what he does.

“You were playing by yourself, if your minds already that far gone we might as
well just auction you off now.”

I prayed for this ride to end. Of course that meant it was the longest drive they
ever made me take. We left the city outskirts and went out into the countryside.
At least two hours had passed since we made the grab. Night was starting to fall
and for a while it was silent. The constant verbal assault by the thug in the back
left that poor girl speechless. She still refused to say her brother was gone no
matter how much the man told her about her family.

Goddamn it, I’m starting to tear up again just remembering this. I’m such a sick
fuck for doing what I’ve done. I’m sorry, let me hop back into this.

Anyway about 30 more minutes pass and I started to hear her sing;

“My Brother likes to bite, when he comes at night.

His eyes are black, and his skin is white.

He’ll come for you, and he’ll come to chew.

 He’ll –“ That’s as far as she got before I heard a loud smack and whimper
followed by the man yelling at her to shut up. I ground my teeth and kept driving.

After a while I was finally told to turn off a dirt road and keep going until I saw a
door in the ground. At first I was confused, but then I saw a cellar door out in the
middle of the tall prairie grass. It looked like a bomb shelter or something of the
sorts. It was made of thick metal and dug straight down into the earth. I drove off
road and parked next to it.

My passenger nodded at me and told me to wait before he got out. I heard the
back open slightly after that and then nothing. No one shut the back doors; hell,
no one even stepped out towards the cellar.

“Oh fuck” I whispered to myself. At this point there was practically no light
besides the light from my headlights and I’d be damned if I stepped out of the van
for anything. He told me to wait and that’s exactly what I planned on doing.
Besides there was something about the silence that surrounded me that was
wrong, for starters I didn’t hear any wind nor any movement outside.

Still I waited.

10 minutes passed and my resolution to stay in the vehicle stood strong.

20 minutes in and the silence was still overwhelming.

 30 minutes in and I swore I saw something crawling through the prairie grass,
something long with a white face.

40 minutes passed, I heard a girl giggling and whispering from the back of the
van.

“How long until he looks for us? I’m getting bored.” She dragged on the word in
a typically childish manner.

Now, normally if someone had heard that they might think “hey, I should step on
the gas and get the hell out of here.” I, however, just spent the last 3 to 4 hours
contemplating on how terrible of a person I am and how I deserve the worst
things that could happen to me.

And if that girl was still in the van, and if those two goons wandered off, then
maybe I could speed away with her and take her back to her grandpa’s place or to
the police. Hell I might just transfer all my savings to my kids and off myself
before that Middle Eastern kid could find me and do worse.

So I made my decision and I opened the driver’s side door. The ringing from the
dashboard alerting me the keys were still in the ignition nearly gave me a heart
attack. It was the only noise in this whole prairie and sounded so foreign to that
place.
 I took my time and glanced down the side of the van to the back while staying in
my cozy den of light. I couldn’t see anything back there and it wasn’t the type of
darkness that your eyes could adjust to either. It was thick, almost too thick. I
don’t know if there were clouds in the sky blocking out the moonlight and the
light from the stars, but I got no help from Mother Nature, so I pulled out my
phone and turned on its camera. Cliché I’m sure, but regardless I flipped on the
flash and held the camera’s button down. I could use that as a decent flashlight
for the quick check I planned to make.

I swallowed my unease and slid out of the van. My feet landed on the tall, dry
grass below me, it was nearly up to my shin. I arched myself downwards as I
slowly crept forward towards the open back doors, as if I could be sneaky while
holding the only light in a few hundred miles of darkness.

As I approached the cabin I swore I heard a ‘shh’ sound coming from behind the
rear of the van but it certainly didn’t sound like the girl, it was almost serpent like.
I held my phone out in front of me and crept along, glancing down at the grass in
case a snake was waiting for me.

Eventually the fateful moment came, I had to make the turn from the side of the
vehicle to the back and see what was inside.

I took a deep breath and turned quickly. My phones light swung over and
illuminated an empty metal cabin. Instantly I felt the hairs on my back stand up.
My instincts were telling me I was being watched by something, some sort of
predator. I turned towards where I felt the eyes on me and saw a face peering
over the side of the car doors. I must’ve let my finger slide off the cameras button
when I jerked backwards because I heard the shutter sound before everything
went pitch black on me. I propelled myself forward into a sprint towards the front
of vehicle. I could see the illumination of the interior of the van and that was my
guide.

I heard my feet quickly pattering on the grass along with something else's. They
sounded as if they were fast walking right behind me instead of running. It’s hard
to explain, it sounded like a strange shuffle as if it moved like a broken man.

It must’ve only been a few seconds to get from the back of the van to the
driver’s seat but it felt like so much longer. As soon as I slammed that door shut I
shifted into drive and skidded off down the dirt road I came from. I could feel that
thing looking at me through the driver side window but I refused to return its gaze.

Instead I drove and drove; I passed through the suburbs before hitting the city
limits. I couldn’t shake what I saw nor could I shake the feeling of being watched. I
drove into the busiest and most lit up section of the city that was full of clubbers
and professional night workers.

Strangely enough when I saw the red and blue lights come on behind me I felt
relieved. I had no idea what I did wrong to get stopped but I didn’t care.

I saw the cop walk from his patrol vehicle to my front window, he motioned for
me to roll down my window and I did.

“Hello, just pulled you over to let you know your back doors are wide open. I
don’t want you accidentally tapping any other vehicles or anything with the door-
“ I broke down in the middle of his speech.
 I cried, I laughed, I shook. I’m sure his first thought was that I was on some sort
of drug. I didn’t care. I’m a grown man and when that Cop spoke to me I felt
relieved, like this authority could help me in some way.

“Sir, are you alright? Do you feel safe to drive?” He stepped close to my window,
trying to smell for anything unusual I suspect. He didn’t have too, I would have
told him if I was on something.

“Officer, I kidnapped a girl, I don’t know who she was, I don’t know where I left
her, but she’s gone now.” I looked up at the officer and saw the shock sweep his
face. For an instant he seemed lost for words, and then his training kicked in. He
called in for back up, asked me to step out of the vehicle and apprehended me. I
didn’t resist.

When I was at the station I told them everything. Everything I’ve just told you, I
told them. They could pin a dozen or so crimes on me as the accomplice but the
only one they were really interested in was the one about the girl.

They didn’t believe me about the face I saw lurking behind the vans doors, that is,
until they saw the picture.

For now I’m on bond. I’ve agreed to testify on a half dozen people I worked for.

I haven’t seen that thing again, but his face still haunts me, so does that
experience. They never found the girl either. I have no idea where she could have
gone in the country fields but I wish her the best, I really do. As for me I assume
my time on earth is ticking down. I’m testifying against some big time criminals
and I expect to be offed either before or after the hearings.

The Cops offered to put me into witness protection, I might take the offer, but
I’m still a criminal, either way I feel like my times coming up.
The Barn in the woods
So when I was a little girl in rural east Texas (2nd grade) there was a mentally
unstable older black man that would walk up and down the country roads and
into town and back every so often. He had a sort of limp and talked to himself in
an angry fashion. His head was always bobbing slightly.

I felt sorry for him as he seemed to live nowhere and had no one to take care of
him so sometimes I would bring home my school lunch in a bag or something and
give it to him if I saw him near my grandmothers house. Nothing ever happened
to me and he never bothered anyone.

Fast forward 9 years and nothing has changed. The guy is still walking around all
crazy talking to himself, no one even notices him anymore. My friend Heather and
I are running through the woods owned by her parents as she is training for the
marines.

We go further into the woods than we've ever gone. We're not even on a path
anymore just running into the night following the full moon. We aren't scared
because nothing ever happens here. People leave cars unlocked at night ya know?

She stops suddenly when she sees an unknown trail tucked away across a creek.
(Her parents don't have 4wheelers or anything just horses so it's weird to see a
random trail.) So of course we have to check it out. We jog down the trail until we
come to this old medium sized dilapidated grayish barn. So fucking random. But I
love weird and creepy things so I'm like "let's check it out!" And she agrees
excitedly. But our mood changes when we see a 4 wheeler parked on the
opposite side of the barn.
 We go inside and it's clear someone is living in it. It smells like shit and piss.
There are a shit ton of old porno magazines strewn about the ground and bags of
personal stuff. Inside of one of the bags are children's clothing, some have blood
stains. This all took around 10 minutes. I recoil immediately my blood running
cold and whisper *we need to leave now, but Heather was already frozen in fear
staring at the barn exit.

"Someone is watching us crouched by the trees", she manages to say. She has a
backpack on and luckily has a flashlight. Quickly thinking she flashes in his
direction and in those 3 seconds I see an old black man with a 10 inch knife.

We book it out of the other end and don't even look back. We hear the sound of
him stating the 4 wheeler and just keep running. We know if we run an the
direction we are in we will eventually come to the highway. So he loses us as
there are no other trails and we make it out safe onto the road and run to her
house. The run back took about 30-45 minutes at most.

We tell her dad and he looks very disturbed and calls the police. Lo and behold
it's the "crazy" old black guy I used to give my lunches to and he is in fact not
crazy at all, doesn't even have a limp. He was a child rapist that had gotten out of
prison in Louisiana about 15 years earlier and had been on the run since then
hiding in East Texas.

He wasn't crazy at all it was just an act so everyone would dismiss him and leave
him alone. As for the bloody clothes, they belonged to 3 missing children whom
he killed and buried out there.
I'm 45 But I Have Only Lived Through 19 Years
As of right now I am 45 years old, but I have only really lived 19 years. Since I was
young my life would jump forward every time something terrible would happen
to me. The first time it happened was when I was 6 years old. That is the year that
my father was involved in a hit and run. I remember wanting to cry, but before I
knew it I felt like all of my grief was gone. I felt at piece, but I felt extremely
different. My mother came in my room and told me to get ready for school.

Somehow I knew where all of my clothes were, but they felt like they were much
too big to fit me. When I put my shirt and pants on I realized they fit me perfectly.
I went into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth, but when I walked
in I saw my own reflection. I was a lot taller than before, and my face looked a lot
more different. When I ate my breakfast my mother dropped me off at a middle
school.

After 30 seconds of confusion I suddenly knew which class to go to, and who my
friends were. I knew that I was in 7th grade since I was now 12. I knew that I had a
bully, but he was never really that bad. His name was James, and he was always
yelled at by his mother when she picked him up from school. My friend’s name
was Brian and he was obsessed with his music. Everything was okay with my life
for the next two years. I met my first crush, but she never liked me back. Brian
and I grew closer every day since we had the same classes, and James ended up
moving away.

Everything was fine until my 14th birthday when my grandfather had a heart
attack in our living room while I was blowing out my candles. After my mother
received a call telling her that my grandfather didn’t make it I started to cry. Just
moments later I open my eyes to find myself sitting at a red light. I looked to my
left expecting to see my mother driving, but found a steering wheel in front of me
instead.
 That is when I had my first meltdown. I screamed at the mirrors that showed a
face of a grown man, and I punched the steering wheel until my hands filled with
pain. I looked outside the car window when I managed to calm down and realized
that everything was different. I knew I was in the same city I always lived in, but
there were stores I never even heard of. The park I used to go to all of the time
was torn down and replaced with a mattress store. When I heard the car behind
me honking I started to drive to my house. I don’t know how I knew how to drive,
but somehow I knew what to do and it felt completely natural. I got to my house
to see an old lady sitting outside of the house. When I approached her to ask her
if she were lost I was struck with the realization that it was my mother. Fragile
and old, but still sitting there with the smile she always had for me. She asked me
how I did on the first year of college and I numbly told her that I received all A’s
and made it to the Dean’s list. I told her I was feeling sick and she told me to go to
my room with a worried look on her face.

When I got to my room I sat on my bed and began to remember everything that
happened the last 7 years. Brian moved away when I was 13, and my favorite
math teacher was found dead and lying on his desk completely still. He was dead
for 8 hours before they found him. Not much happened afterwards. I graduated
high school and went to my first year of college. The girl that I had a crush on is
now my girlfriend. We haven’t had sex yet, but we both decided to wait until we
were married.

After four years I graduated college and immediately found a wonderful job as
an editor. The day I graduated I got on one knee to propose to the love of my life
and she said yes. We decided that the next September would be the best time for
us to get married to get ourselves financially and emotionally prepared. Three
months before our wedding my fiancé passed away in a hospital. Knowing what
would happen and the depression of her dying hit me at once and I unwillingly
started to cry.

I then found myself sitting in a coffee shop drinking a regular iced coffee. I look
around to see where I am and found myself in the city I grew up in, but this time
everything was different. People have started to look lifeless and uninterested
with whatever they were doing. A baby was sitting at the table next to me just
staring at me without any type of emotion. The mother took a look at me and said
“What the fuck are you looking at?” I was blown away not by her statement but
by how monotone she said it.

I turned around and sat silently. I know that I am now 32 and I befriended James
when he moved next door to me. The fact that he bullied me when we were so
young did not affect how close we ended up getting. Two years after we became
friends James was found in his living room with his intestines wrapped around his
head and his organs spread around his body.

Before I start remembering anything else I ran to my mother’s house to make

sure she was still alive.

When I was 3 houses away I saw that my mother was rocking back and forth in
her favorite chair outside. I go up to her and try to hug her, but she pushed me off
and resumed rocking. I looked at her, but she refused to turn my way. When I
turned her to face me I fell back onto the ground. Her face was the same but her
lips were placed in a frown that immediately told me she hated everything about
me. Her eyes were pure black as she said “Don’t fucking touch me again if you
want to keep your hands.” It was monotone, but it made me start to shake in fear.
 I went three streets over to my house and I laid in my bed for the next three days
trying to figure out what the hell was happening. After three days I ran out of
food so I went to the store. Again, everyone is expressionless and just going
through the motions of shopping. One person was lying on the floor acting like he
was walking. I stared at him for a couple of minutes thinking of a way to help him,
but a lady hit him with the cart and started to drag him away.

I decided right then and there to just live my life as if nothing was different. I got
another job as a salesman and nothing happened for the next 5 years.

After five years I decided to revisit my mother. I drove there and pulled into her
driveway. She was still rocking on her chair and I walked up to her. I grabbed her
shoulder and lifted her head thinking she just drifted off, but her head fell off her
neck and into my hands. I screamed and dropped her head and it rolled to the
side of my foot. I look down and see that her face is littered with holes all across
her face. Maggots were going in and out of the holes and I turn around and go to
my car.

I start to cry and I know that I am about to lose even more of my life.

I woke up and found myself in a chair. The chair that is in front of the computer I
am posting this on now.

To tell you all that I remember everything now.

 About how I poisoned my math teacher’s apple I gave him at five pm after he
tutored me. I don’t know why I did it, but I was tired of seeing people I cared
about dying all around me. I remember slicing James’s stomach open and ripping
out his intestines and wrapping them around his face. I took out his organs and
spread them all around him. They never found his heart because I buried it beside
the tree we would always sit at and drink beers together. I am just tired of seeing
people dying all around me, and I don’t know why people have stopped showing
emotions. I don’t know why my mother was dead for so long without anybody
alerting the police or even an ambulance.

All I know is that I am not going to lose any more of my life.

Please don’t get close to me, because I will try my very best to hold onto the last
few years I have.
The Most Beautiful Garden
There are very few completely untouched places left in this world.

Everywhere you go, you find evidence of mankind’s encroachment; on a disused

hiking trail you’ll find a bottlecap or a crushed aluminium can, letting you know
that you are not the first – and definitely won’t be the last – human to visit that
place.

Certainly, there are some areas which are more untouched than others. I always
watch with intense fascination when documentary crews descend into some rare
piece of jungle that has never before been explored. I picture being one of the
first to lay eyes upon previously unseen places, and imagine what it’s like to
breath air untainted by car exhaust and pollution.

Sadly, those places are all almost gone now, or virtually inaccessible to someone
like me – an unremarkable nineteen-year-old girl from New Zealand.

But that lust for natural discovery never left me, and so I found my own realm of
mostly unexplored, unpolluted wonders.

The ocean.

Getting a diver’s certificate isn’t actually all that hard. The PADI Advanced Open
Water certification is basically all you need to free dive in local waters, and as long
as you’re medically sound, it’s just a matter of time and equipment – both of
which I had.

Around the coastlines you still find plenty of the same human garbage littering
the sea; floating scraps of net, rusty pieces of wreckage, beer bottles filled with
silt, and tangles of plastic. But the farther out you go, away from civilisation, the
more pristine things become – the more beautiful.

My first dive near Great Barrier Island was an especially exquisite experience,
and I ended up signing up to do conservation work so I could access the waters
that were off limits to regular visitors. I’d do days of back-breaking labour, carving
walking tracks in the sides of cliffs, then I’d have three days of bliss, diving in
waters where few other people had ever been before.

It really is like another realm down there. Spiky sea urchins crust the rocks, sharp
amongst branching corals and sea sponges. Shoals of fish swim around you
curiously, not recognising a human as anything more than an interesting anomaly.
They nibble at your fingers, then dart away. Everything is coloured a strange
yellow-blue-green, as though all red light has been stripped from existence, and
all is enchantingly serene – in that slow, soft world where even sound must
succumb to the calming depths of the syrupy seas.

Yet it was on one such diving trip that I found the most terrifying thing I’ve ever
seen in my life.

Sea caves hold a secret fascination all their own. Armed with a decent torch and
a complete lack of claustrophobia, you can explore places that may truly never
have been seen before. Sometimes they teem with life; crayfish making their
spiny homes inside clefts in the rock, wiggling their long antennae at you as you
invade their secret lair. In other caves, it’s just heavy silt and muddy rock, eerily
still and undisturbed, making you feel like some kind of tomb raider who has
stumbled upon the most ancient of ruins.

But on a bright and sunny afternoon in late January, I found something different.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those TV shows about weird animals, and how
some particular birds build a display with all kinds of shiny stones and seeds,
making a pathway up to their elaborate nest. In any case, what I found seemed to
mimic exactly that.

The mouth of the sea cave was wide and low, only just big enough for a person
to fit inside. Strewn all around the sandy entrance were pieces of smooth
coloured glass, arranged in a sort of haphazard mosaic. Kelp and unidentified
plants had been cultivated neatly along the edges, and large rocks of regular
shapes and sizes marked a kind of boundary to the bizarre underwater display.

I was curious, of course. Why was this here?

Had some other diver been coming here to build a little private art project?

Bringing my torch up and fingering the switch, I skidded over the top of all the
jewel-like, sea-polished glass, then pulled myself inside the cave mouth.

I screamed bubbles around my breathing regulator.

The cave was large inside. The walls had been heavily studded with sea glass, so
that when my torch hit the walls, it refracted brilliantly across the scene within.

Arranged all around the interior were the rotting bodies of men. Some hung
from twists of fishing nets, some lay partially entombed in coral. Their greenish-
grey limbs floated and danced morbidly in the swirl of current I had brought in,
making them seem as though their dead flesh was reaching for me.

It's hard to describe the exact feeling that bubbled up inside me at that moment,
but I do recall registering several layers of long human bones on the glass-
speckled cave floor, and my horrified realisation that there were a lot more dead
people in there, not just the floaters.

I kicked out strongly, pushing myself back through the cave mouth in a panic. My
breathing around the regulator was ragged and fast – too fast.

Then I was out in the open ocean, swimming for the boat, my mind crowded
with images of half-rotted skulls, their empty eyes stuffed full of bright sea glass.

I radioed in the cave discovery and headed for the docks. The only police officer
on the island lived on the other side, near the aerodrome, but he had been made
aware of what I had found. By the time I’d gotten over there to speak to him, he
had already called in a police dive team from Auckland and they were preparing
to head over to investigate.

I gave my statement as best I could, my voice quavering, still shocked by what I

had found. When I was done, they sent me back home to the mainland on the
next ship and said they would be in touch if they needed any further information,
but not to talk to anyone until they had checked out the cave.

I did as they said, and I tried to go back to my normal life, but I couldn’t get the
images out of my head. When I managed to sleep, I explored caves made entirely
of blue and green glass, containing the bodies of screaming men suspended like
flies in coloured amber.

And even though the dreams were utterly terrifying, and I always woke sweating
and gasping for air, they were bizarrely beautiful.

When I eventually received a call from the police, it was not what I expected.

The officer roundly denounced me for wasting police time and told me that if I
ever pulled another stunt like that, he’d see my diving license revoked. It took a
couple of confused minutes to get the full story out of him, but once I did, a new
kind of horror crept into my skull and hunched there, making me feel numb and
sick.

The cave had been completely empty.

The police divers found it with no trouble, exactly at the GPS coordinates I had
specified. But when they went inside, there were no bones, no corpses, not even
sea glass. Just an ordinary underwater cave, filled with silt.

Calmer now that he’d vented his anger, the officer told me that he understood
that ‘less attractive’ girls like myself often wanted their 15 minutes of fame and
sometimes made up stories like these for attention.

It was my turn to be enraged. I ended the call and threw the phone across the
room.
 I went back, of course, on my next trip to the island.

The cave was serene and empty, not a bone or body in sight. I dug in the silt for a
single fingerbone or a lone pebble of sea glass, but there was nothing.

I felt like a character in some TV drama, screaming “I know what I saw!” at a

crowd of onlookers.

This was not something I had imagined. It was certainly no whimsy invented by
an ugly girl who wanted people to pay attention to her. I’ve never been fond of
the limelight.

On my way out of the cave, I swam around the spire of rock that contained it,
hunting for something – anything – to prove that I wasn’t crazy.

And then I saw them.

Some twenty meters away from the cave, headed out to sea, I found three
pieces of sea glass.

Swimming on in that direction, I found another, then several more – as though

someone had dropped them in great haste, while fleeing the scene of the crime.

Following the trail was difficult; at times I had to swim around in big loops, to try
and find the next piece – and when my tank got low, I had to return to my boat.

But with patience and luck, I eventually found my way north of Kaikoura Island
and discovered another cave.

It was laid out the same as the first; the mosaic of sea glass at the entrance, the
rocks and the weeds placed just so. My torch on and my GoPro recording, I
wiggled my way inside the cave and fought down my fear to start looking around.
I had to capture as much evidence as I could.

The corpses were there, re-arranged now in their new home, rags of bleached
clothing fluttering on bloated grey flesh and white bone. The sea glass on the
walls was fresh and bright, newly polished from being moved through the seas
and sands.

Then I saw her.

Her pale green hands caught my wet-suited wrists, sharp nails of green glass
puncturing the neoprene. Tangled blue-green hair formed a medusa-halo around
her pale features, and she bared a mouthful of teeth, long and striped like sea-
urchin spines.

Before I could react, she released one wrist and tore the regulator out of my
mouth. I gulped salt water into my lungs in shock.

I’d heard that drowning is a peaceful way to go, but this was most certainly not
peaceful. The salt water burned my lungs and I reflexively coughed, then sucked
down more. The panic was overwhelming, overriding all common sense. I
struggled and tried to make for the cave mouth, but my captor kicked strongly
and dragged me towards the floating gallery of corpses.

And then I stopped drowning.

The burning in my chest and throat subsided, and I stopped gulping water, now
just sucking it in and out, as regularly as air.

The creature let go, but tore the camera away from my head.

“So much trouble,” she said, her words coming to me slowly through the water,
warped and echoing, “can come from such a small thing.”

“What are you?” I managed, still burping bubbles of air.

“A gardener,” she replied, gesturing to her array of bodies, glass and bones, “and
you disrupted my most beautiful garden.”

“You murdered these men, didn’t you?”

She nodded, her pale features hauntingly beautiful in the torchlight.

“Are you going to kill me, too?”

 She shook her head,

“No. But you must promise never to tell anyone about me. If you do not swear,
then you will join them.”

“I promise,” I said, “I swear I won’t tell anyone.”

“Words alone are not good enough.”

She bit through the index finger of my suit with those needle teeth, then did the
same to her own pale hand, and pressed our blood-trailing fingers together.

“Now swear it.”

“I swear I’ll never tell anyone.”

“Good.”

When I returned to land, I found that I couldn’t tell anyone, even if I wanted to.
The blood-oath she made me swear bound my lips to unnatural silence, should I
even consider telling anyone.

When the dreams wouldn’t stop, I went back to her garden of dead men,
somehow less afraid. And the cave was strangely beautiful, in an eerie and
terrible way, just like the flavour of my dreams. The bleached bones resembled
strange long jewels, pearlescent white and dappled with all the dancing colours of
the glass. The blue-grey-green mottled flesh of the dead men seemed simply a
fitting setting for their best display, a morbid counterpoint.

There would be new corpses sometimes, new men she had lured to their deaths
from only god knows where. But we would float in her cave of the dead, and she
would tell me about places in the ocean that I’d only dreamed of going, places
never seen by any eyes but hers.
 The more I visited, and the more we talked, breathing the water like air, the
more lovely her garden became to me.

She has gone now, to start a new garden, but she has left me to tend this one. It
is mine. And while I hold its power, I can go wherever I please in the ocean, as
long as I return before sunrise. Exploring the deep and untouched waters is so
effortless, now. I don’t even need any equipment, simply the time. And I have so
much time.

I still go back to land, of course. When one of my garden ornaments begins to rot
through, his tendons and ligaments parting like sodden spaghetti, I will slip onto
the beach, let some lucky man glimpse my newfound beauty, and take him back
to see my garden.

If you’re ever near Auckland, New Zealand, you really should come and visit.

I assure you that my garden is the most beautiful and marvellous secret wonder
left in this world – and even if it is the last thing that you ever see, it will have
been worth it.
The Stars Look Very Different Today
My name is Benjamin and I’m an astrophysicist. I may have just made a profound
discovery, though I doubt that I’m the only one. Surely, right now, hundreds of
scientists are coming to the same conclusions. You can check for yourself if you
don’t believe me—just wait until it gets dark, and then head outside. Of course,
unless you’re a trained astronomer with your star-charts handy, the odds are that
you might not notice anything strange at all.

My role in all this started only a few hours ago, although it feels like far longer. I
was taking readings of the cosmic background radiation in my University’s
observatory when I noticed something odd on one of the monitors. A patch of sky
was being analyzed by some software, likely initiated by one of my colleagues. I
noticed a sudden drop in the signal. If I hadn’t let my eyes wander over to the
screen at the exact right moment, I might not have seen anything at all.

The signal didn’t drop out entirely, it just decreased sharply and suddenly in
magnitude. Where before, the digital telescope’s pixels were reading 1s, they
were now reading 0s. To put this in layman’s terms as best as I can: the stars had
gone dark—but only a few of them. I looked around the building and the break
room, trying to find the person who belonged to the data. But I was completely
alone.

At this point, it was no more than a curiosity to me. Since my own data was still
compiling and since my favorite online card game was blocked by the University’s
firewall, I decided to head up to the roof to do some basic observations. I’m an
astrophysicist, not an astronomer, so I spend far more time gazing at computer
screens than at the stars themselves. But I remembered a bit of my
undergraduate credits, and dusted off the rooftop optical telescope. I did my best
to find the patch of sky that had experienced the sudden signal loss.
 I believed that I had found it, but it was unremarkable and I couldn’t tell if
anything was amiss at all. I hate to say it, but I gave up then and there. Since I still
had some time while my data compiled, I decided to be nostalgic and give the
heavens a quick scan. I peered at my favorite constellations, or at least, the ones
that I remembered. First I located Polaris, the star which through an accident of
axial precession was in a near-perfect position to guide mankind north for
hundreds of years. I checked out the Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux, brothers to
Helen of Troy and inspiration to the two-man space flights in the early 1960s.
Then, I looked to Orion, one of the first constellations that a freshman
astronomer will pick out. I traced out the form of the hunter the way I had
learned long ago. Orion’s left shoulder was Betelgeuse, a strangely reddish star.
His other shoulder was Bellatrix. Orion’s right foot was…it was missing. I
remembered that this was supposed to be the star Rigel, a distant high-energy
supergiant.

I couldn’t find it anywhere.

Stranger still, Orion’s belt—that famous straight line of stars—didn’t look quite
right either. Confused, I kept looking at the stars, wishing that I had retained more
of my undergrad astronomy. I looked for the brightest stars visible from my
position on the globe. Everything seemed fine. Capella was there. Sirius, the Dog
Star, was shining brightly. But then I noticed that Canis Major, the constellation
containing Sirius, was incomplete. The dog had no tail!

I couldn’t for the life of me remember that star, so I ran downstairs—past the
laboratory where my data was probably ready—to an unlocked classroom. I
grabbed a textbook off the shelf and started skimming. After a few minutes, I
found it. The missing star was Aludra, a distant star remarkable for its stability and
use as a standard candle. My triumph was short-lived, however, because I had no
idea what it all meant.

No Rigel, no Aldura, and a general sense of wrongness in the sky. I needed more
data.

I grabbed some more materials from the classroom; I intended to return them,
but I’m now just realizing that I forgot. Oh well.

I ran back up to the roof and started going over my observations with the proper
reference materials. The two stars that I had noticed missing were Rigel and
Aludra. However, other stars such as Betelgeuse, Capella, and Polaris were all
present and accounted for. I looked at an index of stars and finally saw a pattern:
the missing stars were further away than the others. Even though they both make
up parts of Orion’s body, Betelgeuse and Rigel are hundreds of light years distant.

I spent the rest of the evening doing a systematic survey of the night sky.
Unfortunately, there was an entire hemisphere between me and half of the
visible stars, but I gave it my best shot. My initial theory was confirmed: the stars
that were furthest away from Earth were missing.

But I refined my observations. Using the optical telescope and my basic star
charts, I came up with a long list of missing stars. I took these data points down to
the lab and started building a computer model. I used a 3D map of the galaxy, and
plotted out the missing stars.
 That’s when I noticed it: the data points all fell outside of a certain radius. There
was a nearly-perfect sphere of stars, with everything outside having simply
vanished. An interstellar radius, hundreds of light years wide, was trapping all the
visible stars and shutting out all others.

Since that discovery, I haven’t been able to stop myself from coming up with
crazy explanatory theories. Were the stars all destroyed? No, they couldn’t have
gone nova. We would have seen it. That colossal release of energy probably
would have destroyed the Earth. Had a chunk of the galaxy simply been trapped
in a giant sphere? It fit the data but it was crazy. What could do that? Who could
do it? And why? Does the sphere imply intelligence, or is it a natural form? Maybe
we weren’t in the Milky Way at all anymore. Perhaps our little sphere of stars was
removed—teleported—out of the galaxy. But that was just as impossible as
anything else.

I’ve taken some sleeping pills, to quiet my mind if nothing else. I’m sure that by
the time I wake up, the entire scientific community will be abuzz with this
information. But I’ll leave you with a few things before I crash.

The sphere, or whatever it is, outside of which all the stars have gone out—don’t
be narcissistic and think that it’s centered on Earth. I plotted the sphere and,
while Earth is inside it, we are not at the center. The perfect center, as best as I
can tell from my data, is an unremarkable G-class star located several hundred
light-years from Earth, known to me only though a search of the stellar catalogs.
I’ve no idea what this means.

Finally, and possibly the most disturbing thought I’ve had all night is this:
because of the speed at which light travels, and because of the radius of the
sphere—whatever happened to make the stars go dark, it happened over 700
years ago.
I just learned the horrible, impossible truth about a drug called
“adrenochrome.”
Please help.

Someone close to me may be connected to the disappearance and murder of

countless children; most of them refugees or otherwise disadvantaged - all
untraceable. All forgettable. And now, all dead.

He told me about a drug called adrenochrome that could produce a high beyond
any other. And unlike those other drugs, there are no ill effects. Quite the
contrary; there are substantial benefits from consuming it: greater health,
increased vivacity, and a host of other, smaller effects. Combine those with an
intense sense of euphoria and you have a substantial demand.

The issue is this: it is a derivative of the chemicals produced by the human body
when it is under intense, immeasurable fear.

My former friend, who confessed his involvement during a fleeting crisis of

conscience, insisted this was true and cited a number of dubious-looking studies
and fake news sites. But then there were the photos.

He didn’t allow me to make copies for fear of implicating himself personally, but
he’d been to a “farm,” he called it, in one of the Baltic states. There were photos
of countless people, all seemingly under the age of 15. They were naked and
chained to tables and walls and floors in a windowless room the size of a football
stadium. I couldn’t estimate how many there were.
 As he scrolled through the photographs and I debated killing him, I saw masked
men hovering over the victims and torturing them. As they were being tortured,
their blood was being drained into containers.

Other photos showed the production facilities - enormous rooms that looked like
chemistry labs where the blood was filtered and the compounds were extracted.

The worst, though, were the mass graves.

Men stood around them and laughed as they unloaded truckloads of carcasses
into pits. They used pitchforks to gather up anyone who had been left behind.

I asked him why he was allowed to take these pictures. He said no one would
believe it was happening. And he’s been right.

Rumors about facilities like this have been around for decades. Journalists have
tried to report on it, only to be laughed out of their editors’ offices. One journalist,
a Swede, came the closest to bringing it into the mainstream. He died, along with
his family, in a hideous house fire.

Listen to me: the pictures I saw were not faked. They were not staged. They
were, without any doubt, real.

And there’s one more thing. One more picture. Believe it if you want, I don’t care.
I need to get this off my chest.
 There was an image of adrenochrome users.

I don’t know what I expected. Well, I guess I do: strung out, gaunt, miserable-
looking addicts with despair and desperation in their eyes. It’s what we’ve all
associated with drug users thanks to heroin and crack and whatnot.

This was different.

The image was of a lavish conference room in a skyscraper. Where, I could not
determine. Syringes of the drug were sitting on gilded plates on a thick table of
polished wood.

I recognized the faces sitting around that table.

World leaders. Entertainers. Religious icons. All grinning. All happy. All ready for
their injection.

Seeing those familiar faces was the initial shock. It wasn’t the final one.

On the far side of the table, almost too small to be seen but still unmistakable,
was an iconic head of state. A recent one. He was laughing as he reached for his
syringe, but there was something unusual about his hand. It wasn’t its normal,
small, pink self. It was green.
It was webbed.

It was clawed.

It was reptilian.
A Letter of Recruitment From Life is Beta
Hello, most of you haven’t heard of me, but I work for an organization that has
saved your life probably more times than you know. We have all made our
sacrifices to work here. 2 weeks ago, I made my biggest sacrifice.

My name is James Green. I am 19 years old and my mother and father passed
away in an accident the night before. You know what the most messed up thing
about it is?

I knew about it, but I didn’t warn them. No, you can’t mess with destiny. Not for
something this meaningless to the world. That was a hard lesson for me to learn,
but I know I must make those sacrifices to continue working for the organization I
love and trust.

I work for Life is Beta.

We prevent catastrophes from happening, but we cannot stop every single death
from happening. That’s why I did not tell my parents they were going to die on
the way to a housewarming party. Some things are just not worth the time.

Why am I writing to you guys? It is because we need your help. What do we need
you to do? Well, that varies. You will either be a “carrier” which is someone that
constantly travels around the world (all expenses paid) and stops the disaster
from happening. We usually send out 6 to 20 “carriers” for a single project
depending on the workload.
 We also have people like me. We are the “tellers.” We hardly ever leave where
we live and we only stay in places Grant deems “safe.” Even though my parents
died in a car crash, Grant still recommended I stay there for the time being. It was
too risky for me to be seen.

We only have 15 tellers in our whole organization and 465 carriers. This used to
be enough, but we have lost quite a bit of our people in the last couple of days.

A couple of the tellers, myself included, reported multiple deaths occurring. We

couldn’t find the source at first, but after Grant dug around he found out that
there are other apps. They don’t do the same thing as us. Their main focus is to
eliminate or brainwash as many people as it could.

They don’t keep themselves hidden like we do. We have found 2 apps and 1
device so far New Eyes, Time is Money, and a child’s tablet. The previous 30
carriers we sent out to counterattack the apps have resulted in utter failure. None
of them came back. Half of them became obsessed with finding money through
Time is Money and ended up being pieced apart by people we couldn’t see. Seven
of them worked on the boy that told the future from the tablet and ended up on
the news the next day. Their bodies were missing, but their heads were found in
front of the local Walmart. The final eight never came back. They were still alive,
but whenever we contacted them they all said the same thing. “You are not part
of this. Do not talk to us. We are part of the next world.”

The thing is I did not see that coming. None of the tellers saw it coming. Grant
was silent for a while after that. For the first time, we truly felt hopeless.
 Three days ago a teller was found dead inside of her house. Not a gruesome
death. Just a shot through the head, but what disturbed us was the note written
in blood on the wall. “Life is Beta is dead. Join the New World.”

We all moved into the headquarters after that. We were all provided
transportation. I cannot give out the location, but if you decide to join you must
download the app. It will show you one of two things. A screen that says, “It’s not
Time” or an animated version of yourself floating in the middle of your screen. If
you get the “It’s not Time” screen don’t worry. You will be chosen in due time, but
if you get the other screen choose “kill.” Once you choose kill, you will receive a
phone call. Answer it and confirm your location with us. We will send someone
out to get you to our headquarters.

If you choose “be killed” you will set a target on yourself from our enemies
without any sort of support from us.

We don’t have much time left. As I type this out in our headquarters, I have
received the alert that 5 carriers and 2 more tellers were found in the eating hall,
dead. They had the app New Eyes downloaded. All seven of them were found
with knives shoved deep into their stomach and their eyes gouged out. I wish it
just stopped there, but my phone has started to buzz nonstop. When I turned on
my phone I noticed that nothing was different. While I started to put my phone
away I received a text from Grant. I tapped on the message and my phone buzzed
before jumping to a screen with me standing in the middle of a field. It was the
field I went with my parents all the time. My parents came into the screen and
walked up to me. As they got closer to me both of them started to chant, “Life is
Beta is dead, and so are you. End your life. Be free like us.” I saw a shadow out of
the corner of my eye.
 It took everything out of me to tear my eyes away, but as soon as I looked
towards the shadow it was gone and I was standing alone in my room. I shut the
phone off as quickly as I could, but the voices of my parents kept running through
my head, and I kept seeing the shadow crawling beside me. I tried talking to Grant
about it, but he was holding the shattered remains of his phone. Blood was
trickling down from his hands. I tried talking to him again, but he cut me off and
blurted out, “Give me a fucking second. I need to find this blur. It’s following me. I
see him. It’s because of this fucking app. Right when I opened the text that you
sent I saw shit I never wanted to see.” I tried talking to him, but he was silent
after that.

This is why we need more members. I know that it comes with risks, but this is to
save potentially millions of lives. A lot of us will die, but they need to be stopped.
People are dying in our organization as well as everywhere else. We are too weak
to stop these invisible killers. We don’t know where they came from or how they
operate. All we know is that every single second the apps either kill or take over
more lives.

Click this sentence to join our world. We have only made the Android version of
the app. If you have an Apple device I am sorry. We just don't have the space for
you in our headquarters as of right now.

You must allow third party app downloads to download the apk. If you can’t
figure out how to download it we do not want you to join us.
Fran and Jock
I was the last in a long line of grandkids on both sides of the family. No one has
ever said as much, but I'm pretty sure I was an "oops" baby; the result of one too
many glasses of wine and a couple over forty who thought unplanned
pregnancies were for teens.

Oops.

By the time I came along, both of my grandmothers had already passed away
and my grandfathers were elderly and lived in different states. Trying to
coordinate travel plans for a family of five, including an infant, was difficult on a
budget and neither of my grandpas were up to frequent trips, so visits were rare
and spaced out over long periods.

Still, both of my parents wanted me to have a relationship with them, so we'd

trade phone calls so they could hear my nonsensical baby babble, they'd write me
letters for Mom and Dad to read to me, and they'd get crayon scribbles in return.

When I was three, they both started to experience declines in health. First my
maternal grandpa, then my paternal one. Fearing the worst, Mom purchased a
pair of teddy bears, the kind that had recorders in them so you could record a
message that would play when the bear was hugged, and made sure to get a
message saved from both.

My mom's father died when I was four. A few days after his funeral, I was given a
white teddy bear with bright blue eyes that twinkled from beneath a plaid flat cap
and a green sweater. When I gave it a squeeze, I heard my grandpa's slightly
muffled voice from its stomach.
 "I love you, Sadie."

Two years later, after Dad's father passed, I got the other one. It was a slate gray
color and the stitching on his face gave him a rather serious expression for a
stuffed animal. A pair of red suspenders held up his tan trousers. I fell asleep
hugging it and my dad told me some years later, with tears in his eyes, that
randomly throughout that night, he kept hearing Grandpop's voice coming from
my room.

"I love you, Sadie."

I named my white bear Fran and my gray bear Jock and put them on a shelf
above my bed, where they sat throughout my childhood. Honestly, I didn't give
them much thought; they had become fixtures of my room, the same way the
lamp and dresser were. Every now and again, I'd come home from school to find
one of my parents standing beside my bed, looking up at the bears or giving them
a little squeeze. Even as time passed, they still recited their single phrase without
fail.

Aside from those instances, though, Fran and Jock were little more than dust
collectors from my childhood.

When I went away to college, the two didn't make the cut and were left behind
while I made my way out into the world for the first time. I think my parents were
a little disappointed that I wasn't more sentimental over the teddies, but any
memories I had of my grandpas were hazy at best and I didn't have the same
emotional connection that they did.

When Mom gently asked about whether I would like them when I moved into
my first apartment, I told her no, that they were probably better off with her.

"Ok." She said. "Well, they'll be here if you change your mind."

I was pretty confident I wouldn't.

The next time I went back to my parents' place was to housesit while Dad took
Mom on their long awaited vacation out west. He'd been promising her they'd go
for over thirty years and they were both buzzing with excitement. In typical Mom
fashion, however, she was also very nervous.

"You remember where all the financial documents are in case anything happens
to us, right?" She asked from the backseat at least six times on the drive to the
airport.

"Yes, in the white bin under your bed."

"And the wills?"

"Fireproof lock box in the back of your closet."

 "And th-"

"I think she's got it, hon." Dad said, reaching back to give her knee a squeeze.

Mom harrumphed and sat back. "Just call if you need anything."

"I'll be fine, don't worry! You're only going for a week."

"A lot can happen in a week." She said.

I grinned at her in the rearview mirror, unconcerned, and she made a face at me,
but seemed to relax.

After I dropped them off, I drove back to their place and started to make myself
at home again. I tossed my suitcase on my bed and went to the kitchen to make
some dinner and catch up on one of my shows. It had been a while since I'd had a
true, completely free week all to myself and I planned to take full advantage of it.
After I ate, I kicked up my feet, stretched out, and commenced "Lazy Lump" mode.

I managed to get almost three episodes in before I started to nod off. I checked
the clock over the TV and sighed. It was only just after eleven; was I really turning
into an old, early-to-bed woman already? The horror! I rolled off the couch and
shut off the tv and all the lights, plunging the house into a deep darkness.
 Even in the inky black, I didn't feel even a twinge of nervousness. I'd grown up in
the house, I knew it like the back of my hand, and all of its creaks and groans were
almost comforting. I made my way to my room and flipped on the light. It had
been at least five years since I lived there, but my parents hadn't done much to
change my room except store a few bits and bobs in the closet. They said it was
so I'd know I'd always have a place with them. I thought it was because changing
it would make the fact that I was out for good more real.

Whatever the reason, I appreciated the familiarity.

As I started to unpack my bag, my eye was drawn to the shelf over my bed. Fran
and Jock, ever vigilant, were sitting in the same spots they'd occupied for most of
my life. I don't know why, but I couldn't help but smile and reach out to them.

I took Fran down first and gave his little cap a tweak before squeezing him
around his stomach.

"I love you, Sadie." Grandpa said.

After putting Fran back, I did the same to Jock, who stared up at me with his
usual sternness even as I plucked one red suspender.

"I love you, Sadie." Grandpop said.

 It was the first time I'd listened to them in a while. Even if they didn't resonate as
deeply with me as they did my parents, I was glad to find their recordings still
worked.

A quick trip to the bathroom and a change into my pjs later, I was in bed and fast
falling asleep.

I can't say exactly what woke me. A nightmare, I figured, given that my heart was
beating quite quickly, but I couldn't remember any details. I took a deep breath
and rolled over, already falling half asleep again, and found myself face to face
with a dark figure on the pillow beside me. I yelped and sat up, grabbing at my
phone, my nearest source of light, and shined it towards my bed.

Fran was lying on his side beside me.

I let out a small chuckle and gave myself a little shake to dismiss the lingering
fright that he'd caused and picked him up.

"Did you fall off the shelf?" I asked him quietly. I must have put him back too
close to the edge earlier and gravity had done its duty.

I gave Fran a gentle squeeze.

"Get out."
 I stared down at the bear and blinked once, very slowly. I must be more sleepy
than I realized, I thought. I was hearing things. To prove to myself that it had just
been my imagination, I squeezed him again.

"Get out."

It was still Grandpa's voice, but instead of the soft warmth it had always had, it
sounded cold, almost menacing. I threw Fran across the room, where he hit the
wall.

From over my head, I heard Grandpop's more gravely voice.

"Get out."

I whipped around and looked up at Jock. He was sitting in the same place as
always, but now he was turned towards the door instead of facing forwards. Had I
put him down like that? I couldn't remember.

"Get out!" Grandpa's voice came from Fran again, louder this time.

"Get out!" Grandpop echoed from Jock.

The two went back and forth, their voices getting louder and louder, until I
slapped my hands over my ears and leapt from my bed. I wanted to scream, but
my voice was stuck behind my fear tangled tongue. I stumbled across my dark
room, chased by my long dead grandfathers' voices.

"I know you're down there!" Jock shouted with Grandpop's voice.

I froze. Down there? Down under the shelf? I glanced over my shoulder at the
gray bear staring silently down from over my bed. I had to get out of my room. I
had to get out of the house! I yanked open my door.

"I see you!" Fran said in Grandpa's voice.

I was halfway out into the hall, tears streaming down my face. I didn't know
what was happening, was I going crazy? Was I dreaming? All I knew was that my
two childhood toys were screaming threats at me and I had to get away from
them. I turned towards the stairs.

"You take one more step, I'll make sure it's your last!" Jock bellowed.

"Get out!" Fran roared.

From somewhere downstairs, a step creaked.

Someone else was in the house.

 They weren't yelling at me at all, I realized with a very strange mix of confusing
relief and newly formed horror. They were yelling at the intruder who was making
their way up the stairs, towards me.

"Get out!" My grandfathers howled together.

Footsteps clamored across the wood floor downstairs. Something fell over in the
living room with a loud crash, and again in the kitchen, before the back door
slammed against the counter as it was thrown open and a car engine rumbled to
life.

Somehow, I regained my wits enough to run to my parents room and look out
the window to the driveway below. An SUV was peeling backwards out into the
street. It slammed into the neighbor's mailbox, righted itself, and then screeched
off into the night.

A heavy quiet had fallen over the house again.

After waiting a few, long, tense minutes, I crept back across the hall and peeked
into my room. Fran and Jock were where I'd left them, both completely silent.
When they stayed that way, I hesitantly approached Fran, who was lying on his
side with his little flat cap beside him. I picked him up and, with trembling fingers,
squeezed his stomach.

"I love you, Sadie." Grandpa said warmly.

 I put his cap back on his head and gently put him back on the shelf beside Jock
and backed out of the room, watching them the whole time with wide eyes. As I
rounded the corner, heading downstairs to the phone, I heard Grandpop's voice
trailing after me.

"I love you, Sadie."

The police arrived a bit later, following my frantic call to 911. I filed a report,
leaving out the bit about my talking bears, and allowed them to collect whatever
evidence they could. Every so often, I found myself glancing at the stairs, almost
like I was expecting a repeat of whatever had just happened. It never came and
the cops wrapped it up, leaving me alone again.

When I called my parents to tell them about the break in, they immediately
wanted to rush home, but I assured them there was no need.

"Really," I said, "I don't think I have anything to worry about."

"We could be on the next plane." Mom insisted.

"No, I'm ok. Whoever that guy was, I'm pretty sure he won't be back."

It took a few more go arounds, but I eventually convinced them I was safe.
 And I felt it, too, for the most part. After the initial shock had worn off and I'd
had time to process what had happened, I really was ok. I couldn't explain it, I
couldn't tell anyone what had happened without sounding crazy, but I knew it had
been real and I knew, as long as I had Fran and Jock sitting on the shelf above my
bed, I could sleep easy.

A few days later, the cops did find the guy who broke in. He was a coworker of
my dad's who'd overheard he'd be out of town. He thought the house would be
empty and easy pickings. When he tried to tell them about the two crazy guys
upstairs and their violent threats, they rolled their eyes and laughed at him. He
was very surprised to hear that only a twenty-two year old woman had been in
the house during his botched burglary.

When I returned home to my apartment a week later, Fran and Jock were with
me. I keep them on the tv stand in the living room now, where they have a full
view of the front door. Whenever I start to feel a bit anxious about being alone,
I'll give each bear a little squeeze and smile as they speak.

"I love you, Sadie."

And now I respond. "I love you both, too."

My Son is Seeing Things I Can't on His New Tablet
Being a single father has always been hard for me, but it has been even harder
for my son. My wife passed away when my son was 3. She was admitted into the
hospital for pains in her midsection. Three days later, she passed away in her
sleep. My son never received the attention he needed. Since he was three, I had
to send him to my parent’s house while I worked and picked him up around 7. We
would eat dinner and watch a couple of shows with him, but I would sometimes
catch him looking at the empty seat next to him. Whenever he did that I would
always feel my eyes start to tear up. It really felt like he knew that was where his
mother used to sit.

Until he turned 4, he would go into my room and open up a heart shaped jelly
and place it on top of his sippy cup and place it on the desk my wife bought me
for our 5th anniversary. The last anniversary we spent together.

When he stopped doing his nightly ritual he started to grow more and more
distant with me.

It broke my heart, but I continued to work and spend less and less time with him.
By the time he was five he started to scream and shout whenever I picked him up.
My breaking point came when my father walked out of the house to wave
goodbye to my son and he yelled, “Take me back to daddy. I want daddy. Let me
go. Let me go!” With tears welling up in my eyes I got him into the car seat and
took him home.

I had money I saved up to start up my own restaurant, but I didn’t want to lose
my son. He was the remaining part of my wife I had left, and he meant more to
me than my life did. The first week of keeping him home with me was rough. They
were filled with my son constantly asking me when I would take him to mommy
and daddy, but I told him that we were going to stay at home for a little while. He
would scream and cry for almost for the remainder of the day until I fed him his
dinner and put him to bed.

Three days ago we went to Wal-Mart together to pick up some groceries. While
we were there I went into the electronics section to get a phone charger. My son
was standing close to me the whole time, but when I finally picked out a charger I
looked around and saw that he vanished. I started to run around the electronics
section until I saw him standing in front of a tablet. When I walked up to him I saw
that all of his attention was on the tablet. I looked at the price tag and without a
second thought flagged a worker and told him I wanted to buy one. My son
looked at me, and for the first time, he was smiling at me.

While I was purchasing the tablet the man that was ringing me up said, “Man,
this is the best tablet for the money. I bought it for my son, and he has been
learning so much from it. Now, I swear he’s teaching me stuff I never knew!” I
chuckled and handed him my card.

The entire car ride back my son begged me to take the tablet out of the box, but
I told him to wait till the morning. He huffed and sighed, but I could tell he was
excited for the morning.

After my son went to bed I spent about and house setting up the tablet. It’s one
of those “kid safe” tablets that allow the parents to restrict apps, amount of usage
time, and websites. Once I was satisfied with the restrictions I plugged the phone
and tablet up and went to bed.
 I woke up the next morning to my son bouncing on my chest. Teasingly, I asked
him, “What do you want?” He started to scream out tablet while I laughed and
unplugged the tablet and handed it to him. With a squeal of delight, he ran out of
my room. The distant sound of clicking from the tablet made me smile as I fell
asleep again. At 9:45 I woke back up again and walked out into the living room to
see my son was working on a little puzzle on the tablet.

The day went by smooth. When the 4 hour mark hit my son’s tablet locked up
and he brought it to me. I told him that he would have to play with something
else for 5 hours before he could play with the tablet again. I readied myself for a
fit, but he just smiled and said, “Okay!” before running off into his room.

Three hours later, I heard the sound of sirens coming from a distance and
stopping close to my house. I peeked out the house and saw two cops running
into my neighbor’s house. I opened the door and stepped out and saw my
neighbor open the door and walk outside with his arms up. My son walked out
the door and stood beside me. Before I could get him back inside he said, “He
fucked his dead wife. Did it after her skull with a hammer while she slept.”

I turned around and stared at him before asking, “You don’t say stuff like that,
Eric, who taught you that?” With a smile he looked up at me and asked, “Taught
me what, Jared?” While I tried to think of what to say he ran into the house and
into his room.

The entire time we ate dinner I tried talking to him, but he would just look up at
me and say, “Tablet” before resuming his meal. When he ate all that he wanted
he got off of his chair and went to his room. When I finished my dinner I went up
to his room and saw that he was already asleep. With a sigh, I walked in and took
his socks off before tucking him and giving him a kiss on his cheek.

I plugged up his tablet and my phone and attempted to sleep, but I couldn’t keep
my eyes closed. The concern for my son overwhelmed me, and after several hours
of tossing and turning I got out of bed and went through the entire tablet. Two
hours later, I finally plugged the tablet back up to the charger and went back to
bed.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to the sound of voices coming from the living
room. When I walked out to the living room my son pointed at the tv and said,
“Told you.” Our local news channel was talking about what my neighbor did. He
was convicted of murdering his wife and storing her body in his wine cellar. I felt
the blood rush from my face while I turned the tv off. My son got off the couch
and ran into my room. He came back out with his tablet and started messing
around with a couple of games on it.

I looked over his shoulder the entire time he was on the tablet. The only odd
thing he did was clicking on the browser and stayed on the page the front page
while staring at the screen with more fascination than the entire time he was on
his tablet. He kept staring at it until the screen blacked out and went to the lock
screen. Without a word, he handed the tablet back to me, but before he ran off
he looked at me and said, “Grandma and Grandpa killed my mom. They poisoned
her, but you were too stupid to know.”

I picked the tablet up and begged for it to tell me. When I unlocked the tablet it
just went to a black screen before white letters appeared on the screen. It said,
“Stupid Man.”
 My son and I went back to Wal-Mart to return the tablet, but when they tried to
process the refund they told me that the tablet was never on their system. I took
the receipt out of my pocket and gave it to them, but the girl looked at me and
said, “You need to leave.” When I tried to reason with her she just got madder
and said, “I’m tired of people thinking they can say whatever they want to me just
because I work here. My son loves me. He will always love me. Fuck off, you piece
of shit.” She threw my receipt back at me. When I picked it up off of the ground I
noticed that the receipt now only said one thing, “Just accept it. You’re a sad
excuse of a parent. Your son will never love you.”

After I put my son to bed I tried sleeping, but every time I started to fall asleep I
would hear my wife’s voice say, “You could have saved me, but you were just too
foolish.” Every time I looked up I would see my son standing at the doorway.

I woke up this morning after sleeping for just two hours. I don’t know who to
turn to. This is my last hope, Please guys. Help me. I’m scared, and for the first
time in my life I truly don’t know what to do.
The Quiet Room
The Quiet Room was an eight-foot by five-foot cell in the basement of a juvenile
detention center in Texas. My cell sat at the end of a narrow hallway. The bare
walls were painted white. The floor and ceiling were white as well. A steel door
with a small window was also solid white. On the floor rested a solid white
mattress. It was in this room that I spent the spring and summer of 1997.

Six months.

According to numerous studies, some of the scarier effects of solitary

confinement can take hold in a little under a few days. These symptoms include
delusions, hallucinations, insomnia, paranoia, uncontrollable rage, and distortions
of time or perception to name a few. So as I proceed with this story, I must inform
you that my recollection is incredible at best.

The why and the how of my placement in this facility are irrelevant. It was one of
many facilities in the mid-90's that existed to house out-of-control youth. I was
originally placed on a maximum-security wing and in a cell that could almost pass
for a dorm room if not for the steel door.

I stayed in that room for the better part of a year. That all changed when my
roommate decided that I was cute and felt it necessary to make an unwelcome
advance. I put him in the infirmary and I was given an extended stay in the quiet
room. I was fifteen.

It took three large men to forcibly move me to the quiet room. I was stripped
naked, put into a paper gown, and thrown into the room. I spent the first hour
screaming and kicking the door. I punched the glass window until my fist was
bloody. I screamed until my voice was hoarse. In my mind then and now, I had
done nothing wrong.

This changed nothing. I eventually fell into a fitful sleep on the cold mattress.
Without a pillow or blanket, the sixty-eight degree temperature felt like a
refrigerator. I woke up shivering several times. By the time breakfast was served, I
had already lost any concept of time.

Breakfast was finger food. Small slices of sandwiches and a styrofoam cup of
juice. This was my every meal. There was no variation. I'd receive three meals a
day and twice a day I'd be led to a small restroom in the hallway to use the toilet
or shower. I moved through the first few days under the expectation I'd
eventually be let out. I put on my best behavior and hoped I'd be allowed back in
the general population. This didn't happen.

Somewhere around week two, I asked the guard who was leading me to the
restroom when I could expect to go back to my unit. He laughed and said, "Didn't
they tell you?" I shot back, "No?" He pushed me into the restroom and said, "You
got ninety days for roughing up your roommate kid. You got another month for all
that hollerin' you did when we tossed you in."

I punched him square in the jaw. I'd like to say it had anything resembling an
effect on him, but I was a fifteen year old kid and he was a thirty-year-old ex-
marine. He beat me up one side and down the other before tossing me back in
the quiet room.

Doug never let me live that down. Each time he'd lead me from the quiet room
to the restroom he'd tease me about my punch. If Doug didn't work that day, I'd
get Stuart. Stuart was pushing sixty, but I knew better to try and push past him.
He had been one of the guys to drag me down there. For the next however many
days it was either Stuart or Doug. I began to recognize the days by who tended to
me.

Somewhere along the way, I started talking to myself. That isn't terribly
uncommon. At first I voiced both sides of the conversation, but eventually the
silence was unlocked by the sound of a voice not entirely different that mine. My
conversation partner may have been in my head, but as time went on I began to
picture them with a face and with their own voice. By the time I had been in that
room for a month, I could get lost in conversation with her. By the end of two
months I had forgotten that she wasn't real.

Her name was Amanda. She was fifteen and like me she was in isolation.
Sometimes she'd talk to me from the other side of the wall and sometimes she'd
sneak into my cell. Like me, she had fucked up parents that found her more
suitable as a scapegoat than a child. She had also punched a teacher and caught a
charge. I valued our conversations. I hated when Doug or Stuart would show up
and chase her away.

Eventually, Amanda started talking about escape. I laughed at the idea. Even still
she'd say, "It's easy. You're in here all day anyway. Just do pushups and shit.
Eventually you'll be able to fight your way out." I laughed, but I took her advice.
Each day when the guards were gone, Amanda would run me through pushups,
sit-ups, jogging in place, and punching the mattress.

I'd spend my days working out and my nights talking to Amanda as I tried to
sleep. The best nights where when she would curl up next to me on the mattress.
She was always so cold, but it felt better than sleeping alone. I'd wake each
morning and she'd be gone, but before long I could hear her knocking on the
other side of the wall.

I can't tell you how long this went on, but I can tell you that eventually I listened
to Amanda. Stuart came to lead me to the restroom and I punched him hard in
the middle of his chest. It knocked the wind out of him. I followed with a hard
punch to his face that all but broke my hand. He went down and I kicked him as I
ran down the hall. The door was locked.

I went back to grab his keys but he was already getting back on his feet. He had a
radio in his hands and had already said, "CSO to Isolation Ward." The CSO were
the closest thing the detention center had to a SWAT team. In less than a minute I
had men with riot shields pushing me back into my cell and hitting me with a
syringe of Chlorpromazine.

The CPZ shot would knock me out, but what I hated the most about it is that I
wouldn't see or hear from Amanda until it wore off almost twelve hours later.
However, when she returned she wasn't as kind as I remembered her. The first
words out of her mouth were, "God you are such a fuck up."

She may have been my friend in the beginning, but something changed with that
shot. I'd wake up in the morning to hear her say, "Looks like I'm gonna die in here.
Well, that makes two of us..." Sometimes she'd simply say, "You know the only
way out of here is in a bodybag, right?" By this point I had stopped talking to
Amanda. The things that came out of her mouth were becoming so fucked up that
I'd attack Stuart or Doug just to get a shot and some real sleep.
 What followed was an unknown amount of time where I violently attacked
anything that moved to ensure that the young woman I shared a cell with
wouldn't be able to ridicule me anymore. It makes sense if you don't think about
it. However, as much as I needed those shots, they were becoming less frequent
and the effects weren't lasting as long as they used to.

My dreams were no longer the safe haven they had once been. Amanda would
ridicule me there as much as she did in the quiet room. Eventually, she brought
her friend Mike with her. Mike was seventeen and a bit taller than I was. She'd
fuck him on the other side of the wall. Her moans and his grunts would keep me
awake as I tried to sleep. Each morning she'd come into my cell and say
something like, "Oh I'm sorry, did you have a crush on me? Please, like I'd ever let
you inside me."

I'd explode into a rage and attack Amanda only for Mike to throw me to the
ground and curse at me. Sometimes I'd just go for him and get my ass handed to
me. I don't exactly know when it occurred to me, but I eventually turned to the
only thing I could think of, prayer.

I'd move through Our Father's and Hail Mary's as Amanda taunted me. I'd say,
"Hail Mary full of grace..." and Amanda would say, "I thought you were crazy
when you were talking to me..." I'd say, "Our Father who art in heaven..." and
Mike would say, "You're just a pathetic faggot talking to thin air..." I spent days
begging God to either free me or kill me. I didn't really care which.

Amanda and Mike taunted me through my prayers and stalked me in my dreams.

I soon realized there was no point in praying in that direction. Utilizing my very
limited understanding of the occult I punched the wall until my knuckles were
bleeding and drew a pentagram on the floor in my blood.
 I uttered the words, "Satan, if you're down there, I could use some help."

Amanda and Mike disappeared.

The chilled air of the room turned to a comfortable summer heat. The lights
flickered for a moment and the pentagram was gone. Doug came shortly after
with a styrofoam plate of food and said, "Huh, not talking to yourself today?"

I ate my meal in peace for the first time in weeks. I proceeded to use the
restroom, shower and kick Doug square in the balls. I took my beating, received
my shot and slept peacefully for the first time in months.

I woke to a man I didn't recognize sitting in the doorway with a folding chair and
a clipboard. His employee badge read Dr. Benjamin Lyle. I groggily sat up and he
tossed me a granola bar saying, "Have a bite, we have some paperwork to go
through."

I sat cross-legged on the mattress and ravenously tore into the granola bar. He
spoke with a monotone voice and said, "By my count you've been in here for
three months. With all of your recent infractions I suspect you'll be in here for
another three months. Even still, they want me to do a full psychiatric
evaluation."

For the next three hours he sat there and asked me questions only to write my
responses on the legal pad or clipboard in his lap. Something about him left me
unwilling to push past him. That and I kinda hoped that I'd get another granola
bar if I behaved. As he finished up his questions he folded the chair and placed it
in the hall. He dropped his pen. As he gathered his belongings into an attache
case he'd left just outside the door, I picked up his pen and pulled it in close.

He laughed and said, "You really don't think you'll be able to keep that do you?"

I slowly extended my hand and he pulled it away from me and into his shirt
pocket in a fluid motion. As he closed the door he said, "I'll be back in a month, try
not to kill yourself, okay?" No sooner than he had closed the door I saw Doug
standing in the window with a breakfast tray. He slid it through the flap on the
door and said, "Gonna miss ya kid. Just kidding, but I won't be back. This is my last
day." I shot back, "Fuck you too Doug."

Doug never came back.

I was left to my own thoughts. I had no one to talk to, but then again I had no
desire to try and find Amanda or Mike. I can't say exactly how or why, but that
was my last day in the quiet room for a while. I simply got up and walked out. I
walked right out of the detention center and called a cab from a payphone.

A short plane ride later and I was back in my hometown. My parents were never
home and I started back to school. I made friends. I even found a girlfriend. I had
been free for about a month when my girlfriend caught me talking to myself and
said, "Who are you talking to hun?"
 I shook my head and said, "Oh, never mind." She smiled and kissed me on the
forehead. She took me by the hand and we walked to the cafeteria. We shared a
slice of pizza as a familiar voice pulled me back to reality.

"How long has he been like this?" Dr. Lyle said on the other side of the door.

A female voice I didn't recognize said, "He's been like this for weeks. He barely
eats and he almost never responds as he shuffles to the bathroom."

Dr. Lyle opened the door and said, "Son, can you hear me?"

I looked up and said, "How?"

He looked at me puzzled and replied, "How what?"

I replied, "How did I get back here? I was out?"

He turned to the woman in the hall and said, "The subject is showing distinct
signs of delusion and hallucination along with long episodes of catatonia. It is my
official opinion that prolonged isolation is causing schizoid episodes."

The woman replied, "He still has two months left on his sentence."
 Dr. Lyle said in a considerably angrier tone, "In two months I'm not entirely sure
there will be anything left to salvage. Call Rachel and tell her to meet me in my
office immediately!"

The woman storm off and Dr. Lyle said, "I'll do what I can son, but please, hold it
together."

Dr. Lyle shot down the hall and I was back in the cafeteria. I broke down into
tears as my girlfriend tried to comfort me. I caught a ride home from a friend and
spent the rest of the day in bed listening to the radio.

The next two months were hell. Depending on the day I'd either wake up in the
quiet room or at home in my bed. I spent my days in the cell begging any god that
would listen to release me. I spent my days at home begging any god that would
listen not to send me back.

Then one day, it ended. I was dragged from the quiet room and tossed back into
my old room. I was given a pair of khakis and a t-shirt. For the first few days I
enjoyed the blanket and pillow. A guard would sit outside my room in a chair and
keep notes. If I approached the door two more guards would appear and say,
"One more step and you go back downstairs."

I spent another month in my room, but it was a month of books and past-due
classwork. It was month of late-night radio from the guard station. It was a month
of real food and actual drinks. It was month where I slowly returned to something
that resembled sanity.
 I was released a month or two later. I rode a plane home with my mother.
Eventually, I made it home. I went back to school. I made friends. I even found a
girlfriend. From there, life returned to something that resembled normal.

Still, I'd wake up some nights in a cold sweat after dreaming that I was still in
that room. To be honest, that still happens from time to time. However, it's been
almost twenty years now and I'm considerably more well-adjusted than I was
then.

My issue at this moment is one that has me at my wits end. It's probably nothing.
It's just that something has been nagging at me for the last couple of weeks. I got
a phone call from a blocked number. The voice on the other end of the line simply
said, "I'm here if you need help."

The voice sounded aged, but even still I could have sworn it was Dr. Lyle.
I Write the Fake News
I'm a bad person.

It's okay; there's no need to jump in to reassure me otherwise. I'm not being self-
deprecating, just stating a simple fact. I actively contribute to the evil in the world.

I'm a writer. I write the fake news. You know the kind: anything that makes your
great aunt Linda post poorly spelled rants on Facebook, anything that confirms
the worst suspicions of your racist cousin, anything that makes your mom call you
to warn you about going to the mall alone.

It's so easy to do. Here, let me show you:

"Black Lives Matter planning a massive JIHAD? What the Obamas don't want you
to know!"

That took ten seconds. I literally just threw those words together. For the rest of
the article, I'll repeat a little bit of internet gossip from shady sources, cite a
couple of conspiracy theories, and just straight up invent some quotes. I'll have it
finished and online in thirty minutes. Twenty if I don't bother to spell-check.

I don't believe in any of the nonsense that I write, but it makes me, if not a
fortune, then enough to get by on with a minimal amount of work. And, really,
isn't that the dream?
 It was mine. At least it was until it became apparent that I'm a bad person.

I got the first email almost a week ago. I usually don't check my email during the
day, but something about the subject line of this one made me click. It only said
"Hello James." It caught my attention because it was sent to my writing email, and
I always use a pseudonym for anything I publish: Avery Stone.

The email read:

"Hello, James.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself formally. My name is

also James, and I am a big admirer of your work. I find it fascinating how a person
such as yourself can spin fresh yarns day in and day out. You've got a finger on the
pulse, James. You're quite the cultural empath.

I also find it fascinating how you can do what you do and still look yourself in the
mirror. That's the real talent at play here. Is it a lack of conscience? Are you
merely a sociopath? Or do you ignore the impact that you have on the world
around you?

Which is it, James?

Let me propose, if I may, a game. This game will allow us both a better
understanding of your inner workings. Let's see what you're made of, shall we?
 Oh, and James, if you delete this email, if you call the police or forward this along
to anyone, I'll kill the person you love best: you.

Deepest Regards

-James"

I initially dismissed the email. I got hate mail all the time. Occupational hazard, I
guess. Yes, the weirdo had my real name, but that could be found with just a little
googling. Still, I opted not to delete the email. I made a folder called "Crazy
Person" and dropped the email in there.

I managed to forget all about it, focusing instead on my creative works. With the
state of things right now, you can imagine the amount of fodder I have. Hell, I’m
even bordering on legitimate. I half expected to get a correspondent’s pass to the
White House.

And then, two days later, the second email came. The subject line read "For you,
James, step one."

It read:

"Greetings again, James.

 Are you ready to begin? I surely do hope so, as we will be proceeding without
your consent from this moment forward.

The first step is a simple one: contact your editor at the esteemed publication
PatriotJustice.net. Demand to have every article you've authored stripped from
the site. Regardless of the response, if the content is not removed by tomorrow
morning when you awake, there will be consequences.

Best of luck in your endeavors

-James."

Well, I certainly wasn't going to be doing that. First off, I had already signed away
any rights I had to the content when I published it. I mean, what was I going to do
with that stuff anyway? Second, there was no way that the editor would pull it. I
made a few hundred dollars an article, and so I knew that what the editor made
had to be absurd. He was not going to just pull those things down, not with the
number of clicks they got.

I threw the email into the "Crazy Person" folder with the first one and went on
with my day. Even though I was initially distracted, I got over it quickly, and
managed to write a couple of articles about a homegrown militia of proud
patriots and a jihadist plan to burn little blonde girls with industrial chemicals
found in chemtrails. It was good stuff, if I do say so myself.

That night I slept deeply. I had downed a couple of glasses of scotch (the good
stuff from Islay) and went to bed without a worry on my mind.
 That all changed when I woke up.

It was the stiffness that I first noticed, the difficulty in opening my eyes. I felt like
I used to in college after a night of slamming Four Lokos and trying to feel up
sorority girls with vomit in their hair. My mouth was dry and my face hurt. My
whole body ached in that deep way it does when you’re first getting the flu.
That’s what I assumed it was at first, a flu. It seemed bizarre to me. I mean, I
hardly ever leave my apartment--where would I pick up a virus? I sat on the edge
of my bed and rubbed my head against my open palms, trying to will the stiffness
to subside.

When I got up to take a piss, I felt the floor shift beneath me. My head swam and
I mentally calculated the amount of booze I’d had the night before. Not nearly
enough to do this.

My walk to the bathroom was slow and stuttering. I felt groggy and absent.
When I looked in the mirror, I saw why. Staring back at me was not me. I mean, it
was, obviously. But, it wasn’t. The man in the mirror looked puffy and swollen, his
eyes beady dots in a mass of shiny red flesh. I tentatively touched my face, feeling
the tight skin and pulsing heat beneath. It was as if I’d been stung by a multitude
of bees in the night. I thought I’d must have eaten something I was allergic to, but
I had no known allergies.

Then I remembered the email. I rushed over to my computer, and saw the new
unread message sitting in my inbox.
 “Good Morning, James.

I told you there would be consequences, did I not? You failed your first test, and
it was perhaps the easiest of them all. I can’t imagine that feels good.

Because the first test was the most straightforward, the simplest to comply with,
your punishment has been light. Perhaps the swelling will even subside with time.

The next punishment will be more severe. For this reason, it is in your own best
interest to follow my instructions completely. Your next task: log on to Facebook.
Find one of your articles. They’ve been shared enough that this should be a simple
task. Once you’ve located an article, your job is to convince one person who
believes the lies you tell, just one, that the article is fake. Now, James, does that
sound especially difficult?

You have one day. For your own sake, I wish you luck.

Warmest Regards

-James.”

I didn’t log on to Facebook. No, I wasn’t going to let that psycho tell me what to
do. Instead, I searched every inch of my apartment, all 200 square feet of it. There
had to be some way for this person to have done what he did. There had to be
some reason for it all. How did he turn my skin into this swollen, painful mess? I
looked down at my bloated hands, the skin stretched like an overfilled balloon
that could pop at any moment. I had to do something.
 I picked up my phone. He’d told me not to call the cops, but what else could I do?
As I began to dial, my text message alert popped up.

The text read: “You must be suicidal, James. Furthermore, what would you tell
them?”

I dropped the phone. What would I tell them? I got an email and now my skin
hurts? It sounded idiotic. There was no one in my apartment, no signs of break-in.
They’d just think I was having some sort of episode. I ran to my door, to find it
locked tightly from the outside. I banged my swollen fists against it, but heard no
response.

I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself. I could play along. Get it over
with and move out of this place, disappear. After all, how hard could it be to win
an argument on Facebook?

I logged in and quickly found one of my articles. It had a few hundred comments.
Surely among these people, I could find someone to convince.

I started typing. I laid out who I was and what I do. I made it clear that I wrote
the article and that I made it up. I posted link after link to reputable sources
debunking my own writing. It didn’t work. Everything I wrote was dismissed by
every commenter:

“Everyone knows Snopes has a liberal agenda.”

 “The Wall Street Journal is total MSM propaganda.”

“Your citing BBC? Come on, FAKE NEWS!”

I wrote and wrote all day. I bounced from article to article, tirelessly trying to
convince someone, anyone, that my articles were made up. I showed screenshots
of my works-in-progress, of emails where my editor asked for more
sensationalism (“PHOTOSHOPPED! I’m so sick of the MSM trying to discredit
independent journalists!”), but nothing worked.

By the time midnight rolled around, I was exhausted and defeated. I drank
energy drink after energy drink, convinced that if I could only stay awake, nothing
bad would happen to me.

It didn’t work. I fell asleep upright in my chair.

I awoke, in the early morning hours, to pain. My nerve endings felt as if they
were on fire, and the subtle back and forth movement of the air from my fan
ignited my skin.

Blinding sparks of light coursed behind my eyelids and I felt as if I could not
breathe. I staggered to my feet and made my way to the bathroom. Each step was
agony--it felt as if the skin had been stripped from my bare feet.
 A look in the mirror confirmed the source of my pain. My skin, still swollen from
the day before, was now raw and red, with jagged outlines in a deeper crimson
peppered along my body. Pustules had formed on the skin of my face, pale and
full of liquid. I started to hyperventilate, tears leaking from my eyes as the air
burned my throat and lungs.

Finally, I made my way back to my computer and turned it on. The next email
was there. I fought back tears and ignored it. Instead of opening the email, I
googled my symptoms. Maybe, I thought, if I knew what this was, I could work to
fix it myself. Maybe I wouldn’t have to open the next email.

I went down a rabbit hole of symptom checkers, one after another, until I landed
on the likely culprit. Chemical burns. I looked around my room until my eyes
landed on the slowly hissing air vent above my bed. I stood on my bed and closed
it tightly, inhaling pain as I did so. I laid back down on my bed, curled into the fetal
position. The sheets stung my skin and I could feel wetness where the pustules
had burst.

“Hello, James.

Pleased to note that you are up and around early this morning. There’s nothing
like an early start to make one feel on top of his life, no?

I have another task for you today. I have hope that you might complete it,
despite your abject failure to do so with yesterday’s assignment.
 Today’s may be the simplest of all. I would like you, if you would be so kind, to
call any friends that you may have and tell them what you do. Just call your
friends, James. Tell them who you are. You must speak to them on the phone, and
they must be a true friend.

You have one day to call all to whom this may apply.

With utter sincerity

-James.”

I read and reread the email. That was it? I could do that. I could do that and it
would all be over. I smiled, feeling the pinch of my skin and a warm trickle where
something burst.

Call my friends.

I sat down and started to make a list of contacts, true friends. I came up blank.
There was my editor, but we didn’t speak outside of work. A half dozen ex-
girlfriends, but they wouldn’t take a call from me.

Who else? I squeezed my eyes shut and thought. Visions of former college
roommates and fraternity brothers swam in front of me. None that I’d call a
friend. None that I’d spoken to in over five years.
 I scrolled through my contacts list. There were girls I met in bars who never
returned my calls. There were other writers who I had maybe exchanged five
words with.

I decided to stop trying to figure out what constituted a true friend. Instead, I
started calling. Seven people in a row hung up on me without speaking. The next
person called me an asshole first. The few people I was able to get through to
didn’t recall ever giving me their number and didn’t care what I did for a living.

I gave up. Defeated and in pain, I sat down on the bed and cried. The sound of a
text message gave me a sense of hope, until I saw who it was.

“Hello James. No friends? Well, I never would have supposed it. Good night.”

When I woke up this morning I couldn’t move. I stared in horror at my arms,

lying uselessly at my side while I tried to shift them. I was paralyzed. Despite my
immobility, pain lept along my nerve endings wherever my sheets touched my
skin. I began to scream, crying out for someone to hear me, to rescue me from
this nightmare. No one did.

Next to my bed, my laptop blinked to life. I strained my neck towards it, leaning
with the only part of my body that would move. There, on the screen, was an
email, already open.

“Good Morning, James. And what a fine morning it is. Don’t you agree?
 I have taken the liberty of installing a voice recognition software on your
computer. This will allow you to type without necessitating the use of your hands,
which I gather are quite incapacitated.

Your final task will require some speech-to-text, as I need you to profess your
true nature to the internet at large. Be ignored online and you will be ignored in
your physical state. Make yourself heard, James.

If you are able to successfully accomplish this, I may send someone to see about
feeding you. I’m quite afraid that the paralyzation is permanent, but it would be a
fright to have you starve to death in that woefully filthy apartment. Wouldn’t you
say?

May goodness and luck be on your side!

Your eternal servant

-James.”

So, you see, I’m a bad person. I really am. After a career of lying and spinning
alternative facts, I need you to believe me. Please, believe me.
Death seemed different when we were young
When you’re a kid, sickness and death takes on this weird, ethereal quality. For a
lot of us, it’s something that reaches out and touches people who aren’t you. I
don’t know how to explain this. It seems morbid as fuck looking back at it now,
but terminal illness and death had this weird appeal when we were young.

I was eleven when I first started thinking about this. We’d just started secondary
school; it was January, late January, which I guess is why I’m thinking about it now.
I always get sad in January. That January, back in 2002, started something that I
could never put back in its bottle. There was a miasma of death and decay in the
air. It hadn’t been long since 9/11, and the ripples of that terrible event were still
being felt strongly, even to us, here in the UK. Everyone was gloomy; the world,
even to our young minds, felt just that little bit darker, that little bit more
dangerous.

January 18th, 2002. That was the Friday night that Elizabeth Jackson’s older
sister committed suicide. She walked out to the woods, alone, and she took a load
of pills and lay down at the bottom of the huge oak tree we’d climbed as kids, and
drifted away. They didn’t find her until Sunday. It wasn’t really one of those big
missing persons deals. Sandy Jackson was seventeen, at college, she could stay
out over the weekend if she wanted. I don’t really know the details as to whether
someone realised she was missing, or whether that lone dog walker found her
body before anyone realised something was up.

Elizabeth Jackson was in Year 10. Myself and my friends were in Year 7, and we
didn’t really know Lizzie back then. But the next week, at school, it was all about
Elizabeth. Not Sandy, as you might have expected. Sure, there were words said
about Sandy - she’d been a former pupil of our secondary school before going on
to sixth form - but Lizzie was here, now, she was the one with the dead sister. The
sister who, against all odds, inexplicably, had taken her own life on a cold January
night, alone in the woods.

My best friend in school was Emma Fitzgerald. We’d been together since
Kindergarten. We did everything together. Emma was a small, pale girl, quiet. I
was the loud one, the class clown, at least insomuch as girls could get away with
things like this when surrounded by early-teen boys who wanted attention. I say
this with no arrogance, but Emma followed me. I led, she followed. It’s important
to get this out there. I’m less of a leader these days, but back then, I was in charge.

Every time we walked through the school between classes, together as usual,
Emma and I would see Lizzie Jackson. She always had a crowd around her; usually
girls, a couple of boys including her boyfriend at the time. Some teachers too,
sometimes. Lizzie Jackson was the centre of attention that January as her sister’s
body lay cold in the ground. Lizzie was there. Sandy was not. It made sense to us.

It’s weird thinking of it like this, but Lizzie became something of a celebrity to
Emma and I. It’s morbid, and I know it’s fucked up, but we developed this severe
desire to get to know the girl with the dead sister. We wanted to know what she
knew. We wanted to know why Sandy had done it. And, I think, part of us wanted
some of Lizzie’s celebrity to rub off on us. I know, I know, it’s callous and totally
disregarding of the nature of death. We were kids.

Okay, I was a kid. I think Emma knew, deep down, that my obsession with Lizzie
and her dead sister was a bit fucked up. I was the one who loved horror movies,
horror novels. I was the one who made Emma sit up watching horror marathons
on DVD. I was the one who begrudgingly forced her to play Ouija board with me.
 I was the one who had a fascination with death.

I was a troubled kid. I’d been expelled from primary school just before our last
year; the worst year of my life, in which I was separated from Emma and had to
attend a school across town. I don’t know. I had a problem with authority. I’d do
this thing where I’d say really fucked up, violent stuff to the other kids. One time,
when I was seven, I got sent to the headmistress’s office for carrying around a
dead cat we’d found on the playground. I wasn’t hurting it or messing with it, I
was just… carrying it. I didn’t understand why the cat being dead made it less of a
cat.

Secondary school was a new start for me. My parents never believed in things
like psychiatrists, and so I didn’t get the diagnoses I have now until I was well out
of school. Until the events I’m talking about here had long since passed. But it’s
important to know, I’m not mentally ill. I simply see the world differently than
most of you do. I guess the term they like throwing around is ‘sociopath’ but I find
that unfair, or at least the stigma attached to it. I’m not a bad person. The world is
just different to me. If you could get inside my head, you’d understand.

So I managed to hype Emma up into regarding Lizzie Jackson as this almost

mythological figure, the girl whose sister died. To us, she had a magical quality;
she’d endured something we couldn’t even begin to imagine, and we wanted to
know what that felt like. My grandpa had died a few years before, but that didn’t
feel the same somehow. We’d never been close. I’d never really received any
attention for it.

The teachers would throw around words like ‘stoic’ and ‘brave’ when they talked
about Lizzie, assuming us students weren’t in earshot, and for sure we never saw
Lizzie crying publicly, not after the first few days anyway. Which is why on that
one day, February 8th, when we heard the sobbing coming from the toilet stall,
Emma and I didn’t assume for a second that it might be Lizzie.

If you’ve been a teen girl in secondary/high school, you’ll know it’s totally not
uncommon to hear girls weeping in the toilets. I mean, fuck, we have to deal with
a lot, don’t we? Getting our first periods, our breasts growing or not growing, the
sudden attention of boys and the raging hormones, the way men treat us the
second we even hint at being sexual beings. And just, school shit. It sucks. Being a
teen girl fucking sucks. I had to learn this. I was sort of barreling through girlhood,
oblivious, unaware of why I was different to the boys around me. I wasn’t a
tomboy; I loved skirts, I knew that once I had the body for it I wanted to be sexy,
but I didn’t really grasp the differences. Emma did, and it was one of the few
areas in which she led, and educated me.

But, I digress. A girl crying in the toilet could’ve meant anything. It was only as
Emma and I stood at the sinks, trying to prolong the time before we arrived at
French class, that we saw the toilet stall door open and Lizzie Jackson walk out,
her eyes red, her face blotchy. Lizzie shot us a smile. She was one of those seniors
who always had a kind word or a pleasantry for the younger girls. Most year 10s
and 11s regard year 7s as amoebas, if that, but Lizzie was always nice. I think
that’s partly why we became so obsessed with her.

She walked to the sink beside me. I stared at her for a moment. Emma was trying
to catch my attention; we were in the presence of our goddess here. I felt no
nervousness or hesitation.

“You alright babe?” I asked Lizzie, trying to emulate the older girls I’d heard so
many times before.
 Lizzie seemed to find my question funny. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just…”

“Your sister,” I finished. Emma was looking at me wide-eyed, as if broaching the

subject was some forbidden taboo.

“Yeah,” Lizzie said. She looked relieved, as if my understanding helped her,

somehow.

“Why did she do it?” I blurted out. Emma looked horrified.

Lizzie laughed gently again. “She was…” she began.

The bell rang. I cursed the gods of school timetables.

“Gotta go,” Lizzie said, and hurried off, but not before placing a hand gently on
my bare forearm.

Her touch burned me for the rest of the school day. Not in a bad way, just in a
way that felt meaningful to me for reasons I couldn’t quite comprehend. I found
myself unable to speak much, failing to take part in classes in the way I usually did;
bluntly, rudely, disruptively. I could barely even speak to Emma as she wittered on
during afternoon break about Lizzie, and how I might have upset her.
 We were walking home from school. Emma and I lived close by, and our route
took us past the entrance to the woods where Sandy had taken her final breath.
We were talking about something; I forget what, it seems unimportant now. Up
ahead, we saw Lizzie. She was standing at the entrance of the woods, alone,
seemingly lost in thought. When we approached, she looked up at us, with
recognition.

“I was waiting for you two,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

We walked through the forest in total silence. Eventually, Lizzie stopped in front
of the tree that I’d somehow known we’d reach. As if the events of the last month
were always going to culminate in me standing in front of the familiar old oak tree,
with my best friend and the girl with the dead sister.

“This is where she did it,” Lizzie said.

I nodded.

“She left me a note,” Lizzie went on. “Nobody knows this. She left me a note and
I found it on Friday evening. She died three hours later. I could’ve stopped her, I
could’ve…”

“Why didn’t you?” I asked.

“She asked me not to. She was so sad. She…”

 Emma let out a soft gasp, then ran to Lizzie and threw her arms around her as
Lizzie began to sob. I stood, watching curiously, interested in the exchange of
emotions between two girls who had never really spoken before.

“She did it for me,” Lizzie said, and I thought I understood. Oh, how wrong I was,
but my juvenile mind thought I understood. “She did it for me, and now I hear her
every night. Every night…”

She began to sob harder. Emma squeezed her tight and Lizzie hugged back. I felt
like I should be feeling a pang of jealousy. That kind of reaction was familiar to me;
this nagging sense that I should be feeling something. I hadn’t quite learned how
to deal with it back then.

Emma and Lizzie eventually extricated themselves from one another and we all
stood, in silence, looking at the base of the tree. People had placed flowers there,
a small teddy bear, written tributes. I longed to paw through them all, to see what
people had been saying to the dead girl. But even I knew that to do so would be
tasteless with Lizzie present. So instead we looked. I made a note to come back
myself, alone, probably even without Emma, but I never did. Too much happened
afterwards, and Sandy Jackson faded from my memory for a while.

Eventually, Lizzie checked her watch. “Shit, it’s late,” she said, and Emma giggled
at hearing an older girl swear. “We’d better go. It’ll be dark.”

Lizzie didn’t come to school the next week. I was a bit sad, really. I’d been hoping,
probably stupidly, that we’d be able to hang out. It felt like something had passed
between us. After a couple days I mentioned it to Emma, and I could detect a
sense of caginess in Emma’s reply.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Emma reassured me, changing the subject back to our
history assignment.

“How do you know?” I pushed harder. Emma was silent for a while.

“I spoke to her,” she said. “On the phone.”

It turned out that Emma and Lizzie had been speaking on the phone every night
since the Friday we went to the tree. This was another one of those moments
where I knew I was supposed to feel something; resentfulness, envy, betrayal at
having to force my best friend to offer up this information. Instead, I saw it as an
opportunity.

“Find out what you can,” I told her. “Find out why Sandy did it. I want to know.”

Emma, hesitantly, agreed.

It was Friday the 15th of February. Valentine’s Day had been and gone. Some of
the other girls had been ribbing me for receiving no less than three Valentine’s
cards, stuffed into my locker. I knew enough to know they were jealous, and the
jibing was mostly in good spirits, so I wasn’t bothered. It utterly baffled me to
think that there were three people out there who might secretly like me, but I’d
be lying if I said I was interested at the time. I hadn’t quite caught on to the fact I
was supposed to like boys. I had other things on my mind.

Emma had been distant with me, and I’d assumed that like the other girls, it was
about the Valentine’s Day cards. She hadn’t received a single one, which surprised
me because she was very pretty. I’d thought about sending her one so she didn’t
feel left out, but worried about anyone else seeing me slip the card into her locker
and being branded the dreaded ‘gay’. I knew how my year treated Gavin Blake,
and how the homophobic slurs constantly accompanied him wherever he went,
all the time. All because some lads started a rumour that he was staring at their
dicks in the changing room. Gavin Blake did not turn out to be gay, and I did, so
there’s irony for you. Anyway.

Emma was distant, and I’d made assumptions, and I was going to question her
about it after PE. We were in the gym, doing those stupid horse things you have
to jump over, and all manner of other shit. The girls were down one end and the
boys down the other, and I was showboating for the boys as I could see them all
looking at us in our stupid short little gym skirts the school creepily made us wear.
Another thing you don’t realise how fucked up it is until you’re a bit older. I heard
a scuffle behind me as I was mounting the horse to an audience. I turned to look
and there was Emma, on the floor, a drop of red on her lips.

She’d had a seizure. I sat with her in my gym clothes in the foyer as we waited
for the ambulance. She seemed fine, if a bit groggy, and had a major headache,
but I sat with her anyway. The school couldn’t reach her parents, and I asked to
go with her in the ambulance, but they said no. I couldn’t get hold of her for a
couple days after that. She was in for ‘observation’. I had nobody to take me to
the hospital to visit her, so I was stuck trying to call her house all weekend, getting
repeatedly told by her dad - a good humoured man who was clearly getting
frustrated by my badgering - that no, Emma wasn’t home yet.
 It surprised me that she was in school the next Monday.

“It was nothing,” she told me, softly. Her face was paler than usual, and her eyes
heavy with black bruise-like bags. I gave her a hug, as I knew girls were supposed
to do to each other when they were friends, and told her to get better.

When she had the second seizure on the Wednesday, I knew it wasn’t nothing.
This time, she and I were alone at the back of the playing fields, near where the
seniors went to illicitly smoke. I used to like just watching them, and I’d drag
Emma along. This time, she begged me not to tell anyone, gathered herself up off
the ground, and insisted we carry on as if nothing had happened.

In the days and weeks that followed, it became clear that Emma was very sick.
Already thin, she was losing weight. She’d frequently drag me to the bathroom so
she could go and throw up. She had three more seizures, two of which we
covered up, the third of which sent her back to the hospital. This time, I was able
to get the number to call her direct in her hospital bed.

“They have to do some tests,” she told me. “I’m gonna be in here for a while.”

“You’ll be fine,” I replied. “You’re strong.” It was the kind of thing I’d heard
people tell Lizzie, after Sandy died. It seemed apt.

“I’d love it if you could come visit me,” Emma said.

 Going to visit Emma meant getting a bus by myself into the city. Now, I was a
confident, boisterous kid in my comfort zone, but going into the city terrified me
and I had no idea why. I could barely manage it with Emma and her parents, let
alone by myself. But I knew that it would be expected of me as Emma’s best
friend. In school, every time someone asked me how Emma was, I knew I could
provide a more interesting story if I’d actually seen her in person. So I did. I went.
And the sight of my best friend in that hospital bed has been burned into my mind
to this day.

Emma lay there, a frail and fragile thing, a tiny skeleton under the covers. Her
hair had started falling out; her beautiful blonde hair. I picked up a lock of it from
the pillow and wound it in my fingers.

“But how are you doing?” Emma asked me in a croaky voice. I shrugged. I was
fine.

We talked for a while, and I asked what was wrong. The doctors didn’t know,
Emma said. They were baffled. But she said this with a smile, a knowing smile,
and that smile stayed with me as I rode the bus back home nervously. Emma was
holding something back. But what? I called her house and spoke to her parents,
pretending I was asking if Emma was home yet. This time, I got her mum, and she
unloaded her grief on me. Whatever Emma was holding back, her parents and the
doctors were not aware of it. Unless her mum was lying to me too, the doctors
really did have no idea what was wrong with Emma.
 Somehow, this lack of knowledge gave my stories some extra weight at school
the next week. Everyone crowded around me, wanting to hear what was wrong
with their classmate.

“Oh, it’s terrible, she looks awful!” I said, stringing the story out in a way that I
can recognise today was utterly tasteless. The other kids didn’t seem to mind,
though. They hung on my every word. People I barely knew, people who’d barely
given me a passing glance took this excuse to come up to me and ask how Emma
was doing. Everyone wanted a piece of the sick girl pie, and I was their window
into that mystical, ethereal world of death and sickness.

Eventually, Emma came back to school part time, and the attention I’d been
getting dropped away overnight. Now, the kids had the subject of their own
intrigue, right there in front of them. They could see the tiny, stick-thin almost-
bald girl who was sick, somehow. Was she dying? Was it cancer? Was it the
dreaded meningitis?

“Is it catching?” I overheard one boy ask, and he said it with such a reverent tone
that I genuinely think he was hoping the answer was ‘yes’.

The constant crowd around my friend made it very hard for me to get to her.
Again, I had that feeling that I should be feeling something. That anger, jealousy,
something like that was expected of me. I, who was used to being the centre of
attention, became a shadow in the background, a wallflower when all they
wanted was their wilting violet, Emma.

This is why, eventually, I went to look for Lizzie. I knew that if Emma was the
woman of the moment, Lizzie no longer would be. She’d had her fifteen minutes
of fame; Sandy’s flowers were rotted now, nobody visited the tree under which
she’d died, and Lizzie too would’ve been forgotten as ‘the sister of the dead girl’
and simply ‘someone who was sad’. But I couldn’t find Lizzie. I asked some of her
friends. Apparently she hadn’t been in school for weeks. She’d never come back,
it seemed. They were unwilling to talk to me, suspicious of a Year 7 asking about
their friend who, to them, was an adult to my child.

So I adopted my new role of shadow, and I watched, and I listened. The rumour,
it seemed, was that Lizzie had suffered a complete breakdown in the wake of her
sister’s death and had been carted off to a mental asylum. This seemed so hard
for me to equate to the lively if sad girl that Emma and I had spent the evening
with just weeks before. Lizzie, locked up, medicated, maybe in a straitjacket?
Impossible. But the more I heard, the more this seemed to be the truth. I even
snuck into the headmaster’s office, revisiting my delinquent days, and found out
that yes, indeed, Lizzie was in hospital. And yes, it was a psychiatric hospital. I
knew from the name because… I just did, okay?

Time passed. Emma got sicker, and I became more invisible. And then came the
day that Emma didn’t show up for school. I’d spoken to her the night before on
the telephone; we’d had to resort to communicating after school in this way
mostly; she was too surrounded at school to spend time alone with me, and too
sick to hang out with me after, so we spoke until she was too exhausted to do so
each night, or until her mum came in and demanded that she rest. She’d seemed
fine the night before, actually, and even told me she thought she was beginning
to feel a little better.

As our call had ended, she’d said the strangest thing. “I’ve had enough of being
sick,” she said. “It’s not working how it should. It’s time for the next step.”
 I’d assumed she meant recovery, but oh how wrong I was.

For the next few days, I was back as the centre of attention again. Everyone
wanted to know what was up with Emma. But I didn’t know myself! I’d called her,
every night, over and over again, but there was never any answer. Not from her,
not from her parents. I knew I’d have to go round in person and visit her.

And I was going to. I really was. Then the next day at school, in form room
(Emma and I were in the same form), our teacher asked for quiet and made an
announcement.

“Class, I have some terrible news. Your classmate and friend, Emma Fitzgerald,
passed away on Monday. I have no further details at this time, but if any of you
need a councillor,” - he looked pointedly at me here - “then the school nurse is
available at any time.”

I sat in stony, stunned silence as the rest of the class turned to stare at me. They
were sad, of course they were, Emma was popular if a little withdrawn to all but
me. But they knew she was mine, they knew Emma and I were an inseparable duo,
they knew that Emma’s death was my moment, my situation. I stared forwards,
my eyes focusing on the whiteboard, at another class’s lesson plan. I said nothing.
I didn’t move. Then slowly I got up from my seat, walked out the class, walked out
the school, and kept on walking.

I spent the next few days on autopilot. I avoided everyone, all the while wishing I
had someone - no, wishing I had Emma - to talk to about what had happened.
This wasn’t what we’d thought it would be like. There was no intrigue, no mystery,
no beauty to this. I wasn’t some ethereal girl touched by death who floated
through the corridors with glittering eyes and a ghostly beauty. This wasn’t what
Lizzie had experienced, it wasn’t what I was experiencing. All I could feel was this
sense of hollow, gnawing loss, perhaps the first truly strong emotion I’d ever lived
through. And I hated it. Death was evil. Death was this evil, wicked thing that took
the only person I loved away from me, and left me without anyone to talk to
about it.

People came up to me to ask how I was, to try and get the details, to find out
what I knew (nothing), and I lost my shit at them. I snapped, every time; I called
them vultures, ghouls, I told them they’d never cared about Emma. I summoned
all this rage that I’d never knew had been bubbling up inside me and aimed it at
them. And of course, being kids, they soon stopped trying. I wasn’t stoic, or strong,
nor was I beautiful or graceful. I wasn’t Lizzie, with the dead sister, I was that
weird, angry, fucked up girl whose best friend had snuffed it. I was regarded with
curiosity, suspicion, trepidation, and then when Gavin Blake’s dad lost a leg in a
car crash, I was forgotten entirely.

Emma had been in the ground for a month when I got the letter. I hadn’t been
able to bring myself to attend her funeral. A stuffy church service filled with
hypocrites hadn’t struck me as the right way to say goodbye. So I’d said goodbye
to her myself, alone, every night, either in my room or in any number of our
favourite places around the town. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and I was
starting to feel like maybe I could do this, maybe I could survive without her.

I’ve kept the letter. It was short, confusing, and written in Emma’s handwriting.

*Dear Violet,
 If you’re reading this, then I’m dead. But I will always be with you. I know you,
Violet, and so I know you’re not okay. You’re not okay with me gone, and you’re
not okay with me here, either. You hide your pain, your loneliness, but I know the
life you’ve lived, I know the things you’ve experienced, and I know what they
might do to you. Just as Sandy knew, with Lizzie, and made the ultimate sacrifice
for her.

I want to be with you, forever. I want to protect you, forever. That’s all I’ve ever
wanted. And now, with this, I can.

I couldn’t face committing suicide, couldn’t deal with the idea of my parents
believing they’d failed me somehow. Maybe I’m a coward, but slowly poisoning
myself was the only way I could think of. I hope, when you’re reading this, that
they’ve never discovered that my death was self-inflicted. I hurried things
towards the end because I saw what this was doing to you, and I wanted to be
there for you properly. Maybe I’ve already found you before this letter has.
Maybe we can laugh about this together already. I don’t know. I don’t know how
it works. But if I haven’t found you yet, I will, dear Violet, and you’ll never have to
be alone again.

Yours always, Emma*

I was utterly, totally confused. Of course, I knew the traumas to which she
referred, the things she knew I’d lived through. Emma knew my own, terrible life
as well as she knew her own, but I’d had no idea it bothered her so much. It didn’t
bother me. I lived with it. I was stoic, strong, I thought. But now, somehow, for
some reason, Emma had ended her own life to help me? Why? What did that
achieve?
 I kept the letter to myself and had a terrible six months. My brain felt like it was
tearing itself apart. I became angry, violent, hateful to myself and others. When I
was alone, I cursed Emma using the most foul, evil language I could think of. I told
her I hoped she was rotting in Hell. I told her I was glad she was dead. I lied, lied,
lied to my dead best friend and I didn’t really even know why. Emotions were a
new thing for me, and I hated Emma for bringing them to the surface.

How the school let me stay, I’ll never know. I did everything I could to disrupt my
time there, and somehow whenever the teachers gave me that look of sympathy,
of understanding, and tried to reason with me instead of kicking me out on my ass,
it made me even angrier. No matter the darkly morbid things I’d blurt out in class,
the work I failed to turn in, the cruel things I said, they regarded me with pity. I
was the girl with the dead best friend, and it felt like that was all I’d ever be, no
matter how I tried to push people away.

All the while, this dark and evil voice inside of my head encouraged me to keep
doing it. It told me to do things, things I’d never even consider; cut them, kill them,
shoot them. That will push people away. That will keep me safe. It scared me. I
scared myself. I no longer knew if I could hold these impulses back. Which is why,
a few days into the summer holidays, my 12 year old self shrugged off her fear of
the big wide world and went to the bus station, with the aim of disappearing into
the crowd, travelling up-country, somehow reinventing myself until the girl I was
could be left behind. I had no plan, just a shitload of money I’d acquired over the
years, and the clothes on my back.

I intended to catch a night bus, because that seemed a suitable way to begin my
life of exile. The bus depot was almost empty, save for a man in a suit who kept
eyeing me unpleasantly, and a young woman with scraggly hair and a gaunt face
who was pacing back and forth, talking to herself. When the woman approached,
I clutched my purse tighter and prepared for one of my violent outbursts. But
when I looked up into her eyes, recognition dawned.

“Holy crap. Lizzie?”

We sat together, silently, neither of us wanting to be the first to break the spell
of reconnection. Lizzie occasionally muttered under her breath, talking to
someone, someone that wasn’t me. It scared me, slightly, and hurt me to see this
vivacious girl reduced to… whatever she was now. I decided to break the silence,
maybe getting her to focus on something would help her.

“So Emma died,” I told her. Lizzie looked at me curiously, surprised.

“Yeah? She did?”

“Yeah. She… I, oh darn it,” I said. “Look.”

For the first time, I took Emma’s letter out of my purse and showed it to another
person. Lizzie read it, her eyes darting frantically over the page. Then she read it
again, and again. She handed me the letter back with shaking fingers.

“Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she whispered.

 “What?” I asked. “You know what it means?”

“There are… things you don’t know about me,” Lizzie said. “Something…
someone, who was making my life very hard. Only Sandy knew. And she… fuck,
she found this dumb thing online about channeling one’s energy in death, and
guardian angels, and all manner of hippy crap.”

I frowned. Swallowed. My throat was dry.

“Sandy is dead because she wanted to protect me,” Lizzie explained. “She did it
for me. She thought she could be with me in death, to protect me from the bad
man. It’s… it’s insane…”

Suddenly, my mind shot back to all those months ago. To Emma, talking to Lizzie
on the phone every night. That thing I should’ve been jealous of, but wasn’t.

“You told Emma about this, didn’t you?” I asked.

Lizzie nodded softly. “I needed to talk to someone. I had so much guilt, so many
regrets. Sandy threw her life away with what I thought was some bullshit spiritual
mumbo-jumbo. You can’t even imagine how terrible I felt knowing she’d done this
to protect me, somehow. Well, I guess maybe you can now actually.”

My body went cold. Emma. Poor, misguided, trusting, gullible Emma, the
perpetual follower to my leader. She’d listened to Lizzie, pretending to be a
shoulder to cry on, and all the while she’d been making plans of how she could do
what Sandy had done, how she could protect me.

I hated myself more than I ever had before.

Lizzie and I watched as a bus pulled up outside, and drove away minutes later. I
had no idea what to say. No idea how to get rid of this crushing feeling of self-
hatred and despair. So I made a joke.

“So uh, I guess it didn’t work, huh?” I said, smiling bitterly.

Lizzie looked at me, and I’ll never forget the terror in her eyes. “You haven’t…
she isn’t…?”

I grabbed her hand. “What? What’s wrong?”

Lizzie’s face was pale. “It worked,” she whispered. “It worked. But the dead can’t
protect us. The dead are not peaceful. They are tortured. They are hateful. Sandy,
she… whispers to me. I hear her every night. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. She’s
attached to me. My dead sister lives on, in my head. She tells me to…”

Lizzie rolled up her sleeve. I looked at her arm. Strange, arcane symbols had
been carved there, angry wounds against her olive skin.
 “It’s not my flesh she tells me to carve these into,” Lizzie whispered.

A dark, harrowing laugh echoed throughout the bus station. Both Lizzie and I
looked around, terrified. The creepy suit dude was sitting there, apparently
unfazed. He hadn’t heard a thing.

“You stupid fucking whore,” someone hissed. It was Emma’s voice, but distorted,
hateful. Dark, dangerous, evil. “You selfish cunt. My pain is your pain. My torment,
yours. Until we can be together in death, we’ll be together in life.”

Lizzie was rocking back and forth on her chair. “The dead can’t protect us, the
dead can’t protect us.”

“Sandy’s here,” Emma hissed. “She wants you to tear her dumb bitch sister
apart.”

I looked at Lizzie. Lizzie looked at me.

“Why don’t you both go play with that guy?” another voice said. From the look
on Lizzie’s face, I could tell it was Sandy. Sandy sounded even crueller than Emma,
if that was possible. Like the extra time in… wherever they were had warped her
even further. My blood ran cold as I imagined what these voices might sound like
in a year, two, ten.
 “I know you have a knife in that purse,” Emma hissed at me. “Look at him,
staring at your teenage tits. Isn’t he just asking for a gutting?”

Lizzie’s hand found mine. We gripped each other tightly. My bus pulled in.

Fourteen years. I’ve lived with Emma in my head for fourteen years. She hasn’t
changed too much. I haven’t let her. Mostly, I don’t give into her, and I think
that’s kept her relatively sane. Same for Lizzie, although Lizzie cracks more than I
do. Sandy’s a lot more assertive than Emma. I don’t envy Lizzie at all here.

We lived rough for a long while, together. We survived. Somehow. Maybe Emma
and Sandy did help us, after all. They taught us how to look after ourselves, how
to keep ourselves safe. They lamented whenever we avoided danger, and they
cheered when terrible things happened to us, but defiance goes a long way,
y’know?

Lizzie and I live together now, in a tiny cheap apartment. We rarely go out. It’s
not safe for us to be around others for too long. We look out for each other, keep
each other grounded, and we know that when one of us hears a terrible voice in
the night, the other will be there to keep them safe.

Like I said, we rarely give into Sandy and Emma’s demands.

We’re not in love, really. We’re lovers these days by convenience. How could we
let anyone else into our lives, knowing that every moment we spent with them,
our deceased loved ones would be telling us to carve their guts out? Emma and
Sandy try to turn us against one another, but so far we’ve resisted with only
minor harm. We keep to ourselves. The dead can’t protect us, but maybe we can
protect each other. We focus solely on each other, and that keeps us just about
sane.

But there’s one thing we both know for sure. We haven’t always resisted Sandy
and Emma. We’ve done things. Terrible things. And I know that when either of us
dies, we’ll be going to the place our loved ones are in right now. Whichever of us
dies first, we’ll be attached to the other, spiritual parasites like Sandy and Emma.
And, oh god, I hope I die first, because I don’t think I could live with Lizzie, Sandy
and Emma in my head. I don’t know what I’d be capable of.

Because I have to be honest; sometimes, the things Emma suggests, the things
she wants…

I think I’d enjoy them.

Haha guys my parents think I'm a virgin but I’m kinda, like... not lol.
Yeah so for those who don’t know me I’m Madison. I told a story about my
stupid sister, then my gross brother, then my poor hot gay friend Kevin. If you
don’t know those stories, I kinda hate you because they’re really important and
like who the h*ck do you think you are coming in here and acting like you’re going
to read about my first time and not care about the other things that are
happening in my life? You should go, like, assistant manage a small diner or
something just as sad lol.

Omg anyway guess what? I’M GONNA TELL YOU A STORY!! :D

This is gonna sound soooooo creepy and weird but you’ll read it anyway because
I’m awesome and it’s fun to read stuff about people who are better than you lol.
Omg btw I love Katniss Evergreen. Random. But yeah don’t worry it’s not like it
was my uncle or anything gross like a dog or hippo or something.

Ok so maybe like 18 months ago this really cute guy snuck into my room. You
know how vampires have to get invited into your room before they can come in
your room and visit you in your room? Yeah this wasn’t like that because he
wasn’t a vampire. This guy just kinda came in through the window and sat on the
side of my bed.

I was like what are you doing here and got all mad because I didn’t have my hair
right and I was wearing my ugly fleecy pants instead of my hot fleecy pants and he
was okay looking but not like stupid Kevin’s hot dumb brainless head but I didn’t
know Kevin back then so he was better than okay I guess.
 I wanted to call Dad to come beat the guy up but there was something about
him that was kinda cool. He was like gray like a rock or a cloud or gay poetry stuff
and had cool red eyes and a really big mouth. He started rubbing my hair which
was annoying but I couldn’t move for some reason then he whispered in my ear:

“Madison you’re going to be a mom someday.” Then his fingers got really long
and skinny and he put them behind my eyes.

I was like um gross and no thank you but I didn’t say it because I still couldn’t
move and then everything got all dark and I woke up kinda sore and stuff. And ew
not there.

And that’s the story! You guys are lucky I’m good at setting a mood otherwise
that would’ve seemed even weirder and creepier than it was.

But yeah, that was my first time with the gray man.

Wanna know why I’m telling you all this? Obv you do lol.

Welllllllllllllllllll GUYS I’M GONNA BE A MOM!!!

Ok ok ok you can’t tell my parents but it’s not like they can see the little baby yet
anyway because it’s growing behind my eyes but I can already feel its tiny little
hands pushing on the eye cords or whatever they’re called. Good thing I’m not
ticklish lol.
 There’s only one person I told and that’s poor gay Kevin so I could make him feel
jealous but he just kinda drooled and said uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh because
he’s annoying but so hot but I know he wished he was the one who put it in me
and not the gray man. It’s funny because I’d forgotten all about the gray man until
the little baby started growing over the weekend! It’d been years and I thought
babies were made in nine months and in a uterus but mine is gonna be cool so
that’s why it’s different.

Another weird thing - I’ve always always always hated babies! I was so happy
when my little brother died and until he came back I had to hear him crying and
stuff every time I bent his knee back when Mom or Dad wasn’t looking. But now,
I’m so excited to be a mom. What could be better than another little Madison
running around? Literally nothing, that’s what.

I’m going to be the coolest mom. I’ll let my baby have parties and vape and talk
to Black God and wear whatever she wants and never have to learn Spanish if she
doesn’t want.

Check this out - when Gina died it was exactly one year after the gray man came
to visit. I never even connected that! I was so excited to have my bedroom all to
myself I didn’t even think of the dates being the same! Btw guys it is SO COOL to
still have a room to myself and I won’t even mind sharing with the baby.

But yeah at school I didn’t want to tell people about the baby except Kevin but
get this! Karen said something bad about my hair and said it wasn’t really blonde
but brown like I’m an Italian or something and I got real mad and all of the sudden
a little baby hand came out of my eye and cut Karen’s throat open lol. NOBODY
saw it happen, either! Karen was laughing at me and then her neck was all
shooting blood and stuff and she died and everyone was sad and I pretended to
be sad but I wasn’t sad even though I have to go to a little vigil and say I’m sad.

I’m so not sad. My baby is awesome and I’m so glad the gray man put it in me. I
just don’t know when I’m going to tell my parents. It seems like they’re never
home anymore.
The Green Man
Where I grew up, in a small town on the very outskirts of a larger city, I always
knew I was home when I saw The Green Man.

On a small hill, overlooking the library and town hall, it loomed large and shaggy;
a conifer tree of some sort, which had weathered so many storms that it had
become misshapen and lopsided.

When you approached from the south, it looked for all the world like a hunch-
backed giant, his arms hanging to the ground and his head bowed, as though
there were a great weight pressing on his shoulders. Local legend was that it had
been there since the first settlers arrived, and that it was over a thousand years
old.

When my parents took us to the city, I’d always look for The Green Man as we
drove through the low hills of the countryside, and when his hunched shoulders
and drooping arms came into view, I felt strangely comforted by his huge, ancient
presence.

On the day I left home to join the navy, I made a garland of daisies and hung it
around one of the huge, hoary knots that sprang from the ancient trunk, then I
said goodbye to that faithful landmark and went to sea.

It was five years before I returned home, and I was shocked to see how much it
had changed. The Green Man still greeted me as my father drove us home from
the train station, but all around our formerly quiet town were new signs of
industry – heaps of turned earth, surveyor’s marks, heavy machinery, and the
incessant sounds of construction.

My mother explained that it was the sprawl from the city, slowly eating up the
space around it. Land was cheaper around here, and city dwellers didn’t mind
driving for an hour through pleasant fields to get to work. So many of the old
farms had been bought up and annexed for subdivisions, to be filled with the
fancy condo-styled homes now being built.

My father claimed it was good for the town, which had been slowly dying for
generations, he said. But I didn’t believe a word of that. Our town had always
maintained a steady population – and just as many people stayed as left it,
because it wasn’t a bad place to live and raise a family.

All the new construction made me feel quite heartsick; I was a vegetarian and a
keen supporter of conservation, but I’d never considered myself any sort of
hardcore eco-warrior or anything like that.

So I smiled and waved to the workers as I walked through town, ignoring their
wolf-whistles and catcalls, as well as the sounds of their hammers and saws.

This was just progress. It had been bound to happen someday.

My duties at sea kept me away for another five years before I could berth near
home again. I kept constant contact with my folks over the phone and through
letters. This was before all the convenience of the Internet, and I think it
somehow made those brief communications more powerful, more poignant. As I
drove the rental car through the new condos and manicured parks, The Green
Man still rose above the town on his hill, shaggy yet majestic, an indomitable
guardian from ages past, and an enormous green anchor in the changing
landscape. I was so relieved to see it was still there that I parked the car at the
library, then sat under his dappled shade and made a new garland of daisies for
him – the old one rotted away nearly a decade ago.

For the first time, I also noticed how old my parents were becoming; my
mother’s hair was still dyed burgundy as always, but my father was thin – too thin
– and grey showed strongly at his temples. He complained about his ‘gut issues’
making his appetite unreliable and I told him to see the family doctor.
 My stay was too short, of course. My mother hugged me and told me to come
home more often, then urged me to find a boyfriend and settle down. An
unmarried woman of twenty-seven was a crying shame, she said, but I didn’t have
the heart to tell her that I had no interest in marrying.

Not that I could, had I wanted to.

I managed to visit twice in the next five years, greeted each time by the
comforting green landmark. My mother no longer harped on at me about finding
a man – I think she had finally begun to admit to herself that I didn’t have any
interest in them.

My father was thinner and greyer. He’d been diagnosed with bowel cancer,
which was the reason why I was back home again sooner than usual. I hugged his
bony, coat-hanger shoulders and tried not to cry, urging him to follow the
treatments the doctors suggested. But I knew he was a stubborn old man, and
that he’d do whatever he thought best, even if it killed him.

Upset and lost in my thoughts, I found I had wandered through the wide streets
and up to the library, where The Green Man squatted peacefully, watching over
us all.

I walked up the side of the hill, gathering daisies, but stopped when I saw
surveyors and building contractors on that lush piece of land.

“What are you doing?” I asked them.

“Land’s been bought off the council by a developer, miss,” said one of the
workers, “going to bulldoze it and build a gas station.”

“But what about the tree?” I asked, aghast.

He shrugged, idly scratching his ribs with dirt-rimed fingernails,

 “Dunno. Probably cut it down.”

Appalled by the idea, I ran up the rest to the slope and stood with my back to the
gnarled bole of The Green Man.

I had to stop this.

I wrote letter after letter, begging the council to reconsider. When they rebuffed
me, I hired a lawyer with my copious savings and began waging a war of stalling
tactics and red tape. I managed to delay them for two bitter years before I could
get long leave and come home.

As my car crested a rise and I saw the familiar bulk of The Green Man, my eyes
misted up so much I had to pull over and cry. I had won – for now – and the tree
remained standing. The air was chilly and stank of diesel and sawdust when I
climbed up the hill, but The Green Man was as wild and verdant as ever when I
hung my garland of daisies on him.

But the very next day, when I went back into town, there was a hole in the sky.

Where The Green Man once stood, there was now nothing but a stump, and a
huge and terrible ache in my chest.

I called the council right away, to find out what had happened. They claimed to
know nothing about it. Further questioning of the locals told me that they’d heard
the noise of chainsaws in the night, but thought little of it, with all the
construction still going on.

Eventually I found the culprit – the man who had tried to buy the land in the first
place.

“Why did you do it?” I hissed, my hands balled into fists.

 He was a short, fleshy man, like a caricature come to life. He ashed his cigarette
and laughed at me,

“It’s only a five thousand dollar fine for destruction of council property. And now
that god-awful eyesore is gone, they’ll sell me the land, and you, my dear, can
fuck off back to the ocean and lick all the foreign clams you like.”

My left hook laid him out like a sack of thrown potatoes, and I walked away with
blood on my knuckles. It was small satisfaction, but I thought it was all I would
ever get.

The forlorn stump of The Green Man bled thick, sticky sap, surrounded by a
whirlwind of broken sticks, needles and branches. I sat on the ruined landmark
and sobbed until my lungs hurt, not caring about the sap soaking into my jeans.

He was gone.

There’s an old saying that misfortune comes in threes, and the second piece of
bad news was that my father was in hospital, having collapsed out on the farm.
The doctor suspected that the cancer had spread to his liver, and he was awaiting
a biopsy and further tests.

I tearfully offered him some of my own liver, and hugged him until he protested.

“It’s all right,” he said, “I’m just sorry you lost your fight over The Green Man. A
lot of us locals had your back, you know. Town won’t be the same without him.”

And it wasn’t. Everywhere I walked, it felt like there was a void. Some kind
stranger had already planted a sapling beside the ruined stump, but it wasn’t the
same.

Anger boiled hot and vicious inside me, and I wished I’d done more than just
break the nose of the fat asshole who had robbed the town of a piece of its
identity.
 And as I walked through the alley between the new supermarket and the old one,
the third piece of misfortune arrived.

I think I gave a good accounting of myself, but I don’t recall much, probably due
to the concussion. It seems the aggrieved property developer didn’t take kindly to
a small-town lesbian knocking him out cold on his doorstep, so he sent some
goons to pay back the compliment.

In the same hospital as my father, the view outside my window was cruel; the
empty hill, where bulldozers and diggers were already beginning to make the land
flat for construction.

Closing my good eye and clenching the fingers of my unbroken hand, I let the
tears come, but I was unsure if they were sadness, rage, or something else.

They told me that my recovery was remarkable.

So remarkable that I had to feign ongoing pain, even though I felt fitter than I
ever had in my life. I lay in bed for five days longer than I needed to, just to keep
up appearances.

As I faked a limp while walking out the front doors of the hospital, I saw one of
my attackers from the alley stumbling into the lobby. He was coughing and
hacking like he’d inhaled most of a bonfire, pink-and-red speckled froth dribbling
from his mouth and splattering on the white floor.

I learned later, through the reliable local grapevine, that he died of a massive,
systemic lung infection. The doctors believed the cause was fungal, probably from
working on one of the sites where they were knocking down old buildings. At the
time, I thought it ironic justice, but when his partner in crime – the one who had
broken my hand and jaw – died two weeks later of some virulent gastrointestinal
bug, my own gut coiled with dread and I cosied up to the records clerk at the
hospital to find out as much as I could.
 The case was a horrible one, the clerk told me over coffee. The poor man had
apparently picked up intestinal parasites from somewhere – probably from the
same site as the other man. They seemed immune to every drug thrown at them,
and had grown out of control, reproducing rapidly and in great numbers.
Eventually their silky, segmented bodies had torn through most of his soft
abdominal organs, and their young had rushed through his bloodstream, choking
him of precious oxygen.

After our meeting, I checked back in on my father, who was doing much, much
better. His most recent biopsy had come back clear, and the latest round of
chemo seemed to be doing the trick. Colour had returned to his cheeks and he
gave me a strong hug, weight already settling back onto him.

“I heard that those thugs got what was coming to them,” he said, “maybe The
Green Man is still looking out for us, eh?”

At those words, I shivered involuntarily.

His recovery was short-lived, like an army rallying before the final defeat. The
cancer metastasised so quickly and atypically that the doctors could do nothing
more as it spread into his bones and then invaded all his major organs. My
mother and I watched him die on a ventilator, his body pumped so full of opiates
that he was practically already dead.

We held each other for a long time after that, neither of us crying, neither of us
saying anything. I made most of the funeral arrangements myself, my mother
comfortably bundled up inside a group of her old friends, other local wives and
mothers, who would take care of her through her grief.

I know what you’re thinking, because I thought the same thing at the time.

Somehow it was all connected.

 I didn’t want to believe that. I mean, who would? But when my mother also fell
ill, I began to connect the dots.

Every person I touched was getting sick.

It happened fast, far faster than I could possibly process. After my mother got
sick, so too did the hospital clerk I’d had coffee with. Then one of the nurses who
had treated me, and the childhood friend who had hugged me after my father
had died. Confused and distraught, I tried to avoid acknowledging that I was the
connecting factor. But when the flowers I’d placed on my father’s gravesite
refused to stop blooming, I was forced come to terms with what was happening.

The Green Man had given me a parting gift.

I wrote a letter to the property developer I’d punched in the nose, saying I was
sorry, and that I’d like to shake his hand and make amends. He accepted, and we
met on the site of the new gas station, where I made a great show of being
contrite and insincerely squeezed his hand.

As I did so, I imagined all of the multitudes of lifeforms inside his body growing
out of control, tearing him to pieces until there was nothing left but a pile of
worm-eaten bones and gelatinous goop.

He died on the same day as my mother – he with great holes eaten into his face
and groin from an uncontrollable strain of syphilis not seen for decades, she from
a brain-eating amoeba.

As more and more people began to fall ill with different diseases, I holed up
inside the family home, stewing morbidly on the loss of my parents. With the
death of the property developer, I had confirmed what I had feared – that I was
some sort of biological King Midas, and everything I touched grew out of control.

I walked through my mother’s little orchard by the chicken coops. Every blossom
I touched bloomed instantly into an apple or an apricot, beautiful and perfect.
The Green Man had poured his power into me, I think, putting thousands of years
of lifeforce into my body, to be released into everything I touched.

People were scared now, and even the locals had started to move away from
town, rumouring that it was infected or cursed. With the population dwindling,
most of the property developers stopped coming, too. Many of the remaining
vacant farmlands were left to go to seed, which I helped along by wandering at
night in bare feet, leaving vast clots of weeds and wild daisies in my wake.

Those developers that stayed on, I sought out. These were the people who had
ruined our town, the selfish, evil creatures who had started the chain of events
that had killed my parents. If I couldn’t get close enough to touch them on the
arm or brush their shoulders, then I would creep around their homes in the city
and run my hands over their expensive wooden houses until they teemed with
termites and the buildings collapsed on them while they slept.

Eventually, there was no one left but me.

The town is empty now, weeds and trees growing through everything. While it is
still marked on some maps, even the roads are almost gone; reclaimed by nature.
The city never came any closer, seeming to shrink away from the power of The
Green Man.

I found the stump of the old tree, blackened and burned in a garbage pit behind
a factory. I tried pouring all that power back into it, to bring The Green Man back
to life, but not even the smallest drop of sap remained.

But at least while I live, the reclaimed land will be safe. Anyone who comes near
these days is greeted by some barefoot hippy woman in her early thirties, who
will give them a warm hug and put a garland of daisies in their hair.
 And when your belly is torn open by tapeworms, or fungus fills your lungs like
wax, I’ll add the rich fertiliser of your blood and bones to the soil on the growing
hill where The Green Man once stood, to await his return.
The Man of 1,000 Riddles
When you live in a small town like I do, you get to know almost everyone. When
I say small, I don't mean like, 5,000 people small--I mean small. My town has a
population of a whopping 743. Yep. 743 people live in this town and I know pretty
much all of them. Do I know them all by name? Of course not, but I know of them.
For example: there's a family that lives about three blocks from my house. They
horde newspapers, trash, food, etc. They smell bad, barely leave their house and
I'm pretty sure they're not even human. We all call them "The Hills Have Eyes".
Petty and mean, I know, but that's what everyone calls them. I don't call them
that, personally, but I did meet the brother of the family and he was nice; he just
smelled really, really bad.

The most interesting character is the old homeless man who lives behind the
bakery here in town. Troy, the owner of the bakery, doesn't make him move and
he feeds him bread whenever he can. We have no idea what his name was, but
everyone called him "The Riddler". No, he didn't wear a green suit or anything,
but anyone who talked to him, he said he'd give them a prize if they guessed one
of his riddles. The riddle changed day-by-day and they ranged from easy to hard. I
never talked to him or saw him before, but I heard of him. I'm a hermit; I prefer to
stay inside and play video games than do anything else. I don't have many friends
besides my two best friends, Josh and Dylan, but other than that, no one else. The
most interesting characteristic about me is the scar on my left arm. It's really cool
looking, but the story isn't. When I was eleven, I was attacked by a dog and had a
big chunk of my arm bitten that required a lot of stitches and even physical
therapy to be able to move my arm and wrist again; the most painful year of my
life.

Five days ago, my mom told me to head down to Troy's bakery and pick-up her
order; she had placed an order for 3 loaves of Italian bread. I sighed, put on my
coat and drove the mile and a half to pick up the order. When I arrived, Troy
greeted me with a smile. Like I said, I knew Troy, but we weren't close; he and my
mom were, though. I'm pretty sure they were fucking each other, but I didn't
want to think about it. I paid the price and left, but the moment I walked out of
the building I was greeted by The Riddler himself. He smelled incredibly bad, but
surprisingly, not as bad as the Hills Have Eyes family. I faked a smile, nodded and
went to leave, but he stopped me again.

"If you can guess my riddle, I'll give you a prize!"

I shook my head and politely declined, but I gave the man a fresh five dollar bill,
but to my surprise, he refused.

"No no, I do not need your money. Guess my riddle and I will give YOU a prize!"

I politely declined and told him I had to go bring the bread home to my mother
before dinner, and he politely agreed. Me would smile and pat me on my
shoulder.

"That's fine. Tell Dena I said hello."

I stood back in awe... how did he know my mother? And how did he know I was
her son? I faked a laugh, got into my car and drove the mile or so back home. I
made sure to make a lot of turns and whatnot to throw him off, just in case he
was following me. When I arrived home, I gave my mom the loafs of bread and
asked her if she knew the homeless man that lived behind Troy's Bakery.
 "Never met him before, but Troy's told me a lot about him. He gives him bread
and even bought him a portable heater for Christmas. Troy is such a nice guy!"

Now I was convinced they were fucking. Gross. I shrugged it off as maybe Troy
had told the homeless man about my mother and I and proceeded to lock myself
in my room, play some video games and voice-chat with Josh and Dylan.

"I met The Riddler today", I said, chuckling whilst taking a drink of my soda.

"That dude is pretty cool. I answered one of his riddles once; he gave me a dollar.
I guess he just likes making people happy" Josh said.

"Yeah man, I answered one last week. He gave me a dollar as well. I think the
prize is always a dollar, but that's really cool of a homeless man that do that. I
tried to give the dollar back to him, but he refused. Seems like a really cool guy,
honestly", Dylan said in between sips of his drink as well.

Maybe I should just answer his riddle the next time I saw him; after all, it
couldn't be that hard, right? The next morning I got up and drove to Troy's bakery
to see if the old man was there. Sure enough, he was outside in the back of the
store, propped up against the wall, portable heater next to him and reading a
book someone must have gave him. He saw me, closed his book and got to his
feet.

"If you answer my riddle, I will give you a prize!" he said in a raspy tone. I smiled
and nodded.
 "Okay. Shoot."

He cleared his throat.

"What gets harder to catch the faster you run?"

I thought about it a moment and answered.

"Your breath?"

"Bingo!" he replied in a happy voice. He reached in his pocket to pull out the
prize.

"No need for that sir!"

Instead of pulling out a dollar bill, he pulled out a card of some sort. It had a blue
color on the back and it was encased in a protective sleeve. He held it out face
down and nodded for me to take it. Reluctantly, I grabbed the card and flipped it
over. There is where I saw it---a Charizard pokemon card from generation 1. I've
wanted one ever since I was a kid, but never told anyone. I didn't tell my parents
because back in the day, this card went for well-over 40 dollars by itself at most
card shops. I always bought a pack and flipped toward the middle hoping to see
Charizard there. One time I flipped to the middle and saw the 4 Fire Energy attack,
the Star at the bottom and thought it was Charizard; alas, it was only Ninetails. I
stood in awe at what I was holding, but somehow found the strength to look at
the old man.

"How di---how did you get this?! I've wanted one of these since I was a kid!"

"I know", he said, smiling.

"You know?" I questioned.

He would merely chuckle and pat me on my shoulder.

"Take it. Have fun, Sam."

"How do you know my name? How do you know who I am? Who are you?"

He merely smiled and sat back down, opened his book and continued to read. I
glanced down at the book and recognized the title: it was Stephen King's "The
Gunslinger" from his Dark Tower series; it was my favorite book.

"Hey! I love that book; it's my absolute favorite!"

"I know", he replied with a smile.

 At this point, I was incredibly confused, scared, but bewildered. How did this
man---a man I have never met before in my life---know so much about me?

"How?" I questioned.

He just chuckled and continued to read. I tried to ask him questions, but he
ignored me and continued to read. I went to walk away but he said something
that stopped me in my tracks.

"You know who I am"

I turned around and faked a smile.

"I'm sorry sir, but I do not know who you are"

"Yes you do, Sam. Just think hard and it'll all come together. Tell Dena I said
hello"

I slowly walked away, newly acquired Charizard card in hand and went home. I
hopped onto my computer and voice chat with Josh and Dylan and told them
what happened.

"I just talked to The Riddler again. His riddle was easy and he gave me a prize,
like he promised"
 "Was it a dollar?" Josh said while laughing.

"No dude, it was a Charizard pokemon card, mint condition in a protective sleeve.

"What?" both exclaimed at the same time.

"Yeah, I couldn't believe it either. I've wanted one since I was a little kid but
never told anyone. He also knew my name, which was weird"

"Maybe he's your real father!" Josh laughed.

"Shut up", I responded with a laugh at my own.

We played for a few hours until I decided to call it a night. I laid in bed and tried
to sleep, but all I could think about was what the old man said. "You know who I
am", "Think hard, Sam". I kept thinking and thinking about the man and the two
times I had met him. I remembered his eyes---hazel, like mine. I remembered his
hair color---brown, like mine. He had big bushy beard that was brown and white
from age; his face was covered in wrinkles as well. I closed my eyes and thought
hard when I remembered what I saw when he handed me the card earlier in the
day.

He had a scar on his left arm.

The same scar that was on mine.

The Black Library
There are two things in this world that can surmount any obstacle ever created.

The first of these is love.

Our capacity to love creates in us a drive and purpose that goes beyond survival.
We do insane and superhuman things in the name of love, things that would not
be possible under any other circumstances. Tiny women lift wrecked cars off their
injured husbands. Men carry their wives through ten miles of snow to get them to
a hospital. Parents sacrifice their lives for their children.

Such is the power of love.

But there is another force that is just as powerful as love.

Human intelligence.

We will never know who first discovered how to make fire, but that act sparked a
revolution. It expanded our minds, giving us the power to shape the world around
us. What seemed impossible became possible. Jungles could be turned into fertile
farmlands, mountains could be ground down into blocks of stone to build grand
towers and high walls.

With the power of our intelligence we conquered diseases, tamed nature, walked
on the Moon, and sent our likeness on a golden disk to the edge of our solar
system and beyond.

And when love and intelligence collide, truly impossible things can happen.

Having an eidetic memory has been a boon for most of my life.

The ability to store and recall anything is the dream of every school child, because
with that gift, exams become nothing to fear, largely a mindless exercise in easy
recall.
It was so simple for me, when I hit the age where standardised testing began.

For the other children, the concept of ‘one hundred percent’ seemed some sort of
mythic uncertainty; a shibboleth signifying unattainable success. For me it was a
constant – a variable as certain as my memory.

They pushed me ahead in school until it became clear that I had both a perfect
memory and a stupendously high IQ. Then, with very little discussion and even
less warning, I was shipped off to university at the tender age of fourteen, where
older, wiser students gawped at the child in their midst who still wore pigtails and
Rainbow Brite sneakers.

I may have been embarrassed by my youth and lack of worldliness, but they were
more embarrassed by being academically trounced by someone who still had
braces on her teeth and sparkles on her backpack.

Eventually I finished my first degree, then a second, then my third. By the time I
was twenty-five I had a post-doctoral fellowship, was lecturing classes under
tenure, and had received a special research grant.

But better than all the academic success in the world, I was in love.

It would do a disservice to my lover to lavish praises on her character and beauty.

When you are truly, mindlessly, besotted with someone, a heady haze of your
own bias surrounds them, buffing away every flaw until they shine like the most
precious stone in existence.

Thoughts of her warm, soft skin consumed my mind during the day, and I longed
for the nights, to be with her, inhaling the dusky natural perfumes of her body
and listening to her chatter about her day at work.

Others may have disagreed, but to me she was the most perfect person in the
whole world.
I knew that Tess was depressed – and had been since before we met. In my
arrogance, I thought I could cure her, that I could achieve what generations of
psychologists and peddlers of pharmaceuticals could not.

On the bad nights, she would just sob until she shook with fatigue. She would lie
awake for hours, her traitor mind tormenting her with the kinds of ‘what if?’
scenarios a normal brain can so easily dismiss. I would hold her and tell her it
would all be okay. I’d talk about our bright future, and how eventually we would
just live in the countryside where she could pull weeds and prune rose bushes;
activities which soothed her bruised synapses and helped banish the dark
thoughts.

When the call eventually came, I knew what had happened as soon at the police
officer introduced himself on the phone.

Tess was gone.

I tried to process her death as the text books described; denial, anger, bargaining,
depression, acceptance. I seemed to flip fluidly between the first and the second
stages, angry at myself for not doing enough to stop her suicide, unable to believe
that this was the end of her, that she was gone forever.

Science could not assuage my grief, regardless of which studies I read, no matter
how promising a piece of research seemed at first. And I read everything I could
find. I sought for any kind of answer to the question of Tess’s death, any way of
making myself okay with her abrupt exit from this existence.

Every rational, logical, reasonable source of information told me that she was
gone, that while there might be cellular activity on a basic level in the brain for
some ten minutes after death, that did not mean any part of Tess could have
survived her suicide.

Hopeless, broken, and lost in self-isolation, I started looking elsewhere.

Religion offered me hope in the form of every flavour of afterlife, but I’d
abandoned religion long ago. After all, Tess and I were lesbians; so if the Christian
gospels were true, she now languished in a lake of fire, being eternally tormented
for the sin of homosexuality. Still, reading through the various beliefs of other
cultures throughout the world bought me a sort of temporary peace. And so I
persisted, gathering esoteric tomes from different universities, using my influence
as a child prodigy to purloin particular pages from antique anthologies. I began to
feel as though I was being led on a sort of academic scavenger hunt, because
every time I found a new piece of information, it appeared to provide clues about
where to find another.

And so, with the desperate need to fill the empty hole left in my life where Tess
had been, I pursued those tenuous connections until I reached the end.

The monastery was quiet, as I’d always imagined such a mountain-top retreat
would be. But these monks wore robes of black velvet, the sheen of the rich fabric
at odds with the tales told about monkish austerity. And the fingers of the monk
who led me inside the grey stone walls to meet the librarian were heavy with gold.

Clearly this was no ordinary religious order.

The librarian greeted me jovially, and asked if I’d like coffee – it was genuine Kopi
Luwak, he explained, one of the most rare and expensive types of coffee in the
world. When I declined, he simply smiled, busying himself with preparing his brew
in the small kitchen to the side of his office.

“We never thought we’d have a student come to us, not within our lifetime,” he
said, as the smell of the aromatic beans filled the room, “So you do us a great
honour.”

“Why is that so unusual?”

He pointed a manicured nail at my manila folder of scanned and copied pages,

“It takes a rare level of genius to decipher the map to this monastery, the sort
that is only born once into any generation. And even then, it takes a particular
kind of motivation to push such an individual in our direction.”

“The library?” I prompted, impatient now.

He placed his coffee down carefully, then indicated the brocade chair in front of
his expensive looking desk. I sat down, and he studied me silently for a moment.

“What do you know about the library?”

“My research indicates it’s a trove of information that survived the burning of
Alexandria. Books older than the Dead Sea Scrolls, unaltered, and perfectly copied,
which have survived the trials of time.”

“But you also know it’s more than that, don’t you?”

I nodded,

“There are common themes in the stories I found. Men entering the library, and
then leaving it after three years. In those stories, they emerge with knowledge
that shouldn’t have existed in their time. How to create and fold steel thousands
of years before smelting was discovered, how to make gunpowder, or engines,
well before even the rudiments of those methods were organically discerned.”

“There is a contract,” he said, his brown eyes turning serious, “and it is deeply
binding. Binding on a level you may not yet comprehend.”

“I figured as much, otherwise the rest of the world would already know about this
place.”

“Will you sign?”

I considered for a moment, then nodded.

“I have nothing else to live for.”

The stairs wound down into the darkness beneath the monastery cellars, curving
out of sight. The librarian left me there, telling me that what I sought was at the
bottom.

Regarding that shadowed spiral of steps, fear finally thrilled through me. I’d felt
quite numb up until that point, perhaps not truly processing that what was
happening was real. Was this actually genuine? Was there really a library at the
bottom of these stairs? Perhaps these genial, well-appointed, lavish-living monks
accumulated their obvious wealth by kidnapping idiot academics with too much
free time. That seemed far more likely, but if I left now, I knew I would spend the
rest of my life lying awake tormented by genuine ‘what-ifs’, not just the inflated
ghosts that had haunted my Tess.

The darkness closed around me like a blanket as I took another turn down the
descending stone stairwell. I kept my hand on the wall, that and the regular
height of the slab stairs the only things keeping me from stumbling in the lack of
light.

I shuffled along like that for a long time. Several times I thought about giving up
and going back, but I reasoned that perhaps this was another test, much like the
ones that had brought me to the monastery. The faintly luminous hands of my
wrist watch told me that two hours had passed, and my ears had popped over an
hour before. How deep underground I was, I couldn’t fathom, but it was definitely
well below sea level.

My mouth was dry. I wished I’d accepted that coffee, or at least had something to
eat or drink before I’d begun my descent. It was cold now, cold enough to make
me shiver and curse my lack of a decent jacket or coat.

When my teeth started chattering uncontrollably, thoughts of returning to the

surface became stronger. The darkness was so oppressive, so cold. But the
thought of climbing back up three hours’ worth of the steep stone stairs made my
stomach lurch with fear and exhaustion.
Yet I needed to decide, and soon. The longer I continued my descent, the longer
that journey back up would become.

Surely there had to be an end? Eventually, the builders of these stairs must have
been forced to stop, unable to tunnel any further into the bedrock of the
mountain.

And at the very moment I mustered that thought, I found the last step.

My foot dropped into empty air, but I was too tired to even reflexively pull it back.
I had been in a trance-like rhythm for hours now, hand on the wall, shuffling the
next foot down. Off balance, I scrabbled to grip the smooth wall, trying to dig my
nails into the stone.

To no avail.

As I fell into the icy darkness, fear welled up within me, a great ball of gas colder
than the cosmos, expanding up from my bowels and compressing my lungs. The
terror erupted from my lips in a scream that was so loud it ripped through my
brain and tore my consciousness away.

The cell was dim. A ruddy glow emanated from some sort of dull red quartz set
into the ceiling, providing little more light than a bulb in photographic dark room.
There was no door, just walls of smooth black stone. The pallet on which I lay
appeared hewn from the same stone as the walls.
At the foot of the bed were some neatly piled clothes, all deepest black; a robe,
gloves, and a pair of slippers. I still wore my own clothes, but it was chilly in the
cell, and the dark attire looked soft and warm.

Clearly there was a way into the cell, I reasoned, else how did they get me in here?
Perhaps one whole wall was a door, the hinges cunningly hidden by the corner of
the cell.

Welcome warmth engulfed my hands as I pulled on the gloves. The black slippers
would not fit over my sensible shoes, so I removed my own footwear first. Lastly,
the robe, which proved wonderfully comfortable as I pushed my arms through the
thick sleeves and pulled the hood up over my head.

As if in response to donning the clothes, the light in the room brightened

incrementally, and the outline of a door became visible. It swung open,
noiselessly, revealing a red-lit corridor.

With no other choices available, I stepped out of the cell, and immediately
regretted it.

The black robe shrank tight around my body, so sudden and constricting I felt
instantly unable to breathe. The black collar snapped up over my mouth and nose,
and I tore fruitlessly at it in a wave of powerful claustrophobia.

I let out an involuntary yelp of panic, but the sound was absorbed completely by
the thick black cloth that muffled my face. My breathing was fast – too fast – I
was sucking in air in short gasps, and I was becoming light-headed. I needed to
calm myself, to use reason, my most powerful and faithful weapon, to get
through this situation.

Hunched against the wall, I tried to ignore the oppressive tightness of the black
clothes, telling myself that they were not rigid, I could still breathe.

The panic abated, and my panting breaths slowly returned to normal.

Straightening up, my gloved hand spread against the smooth stone to steady
myself, I once again had the suspicion that I had just passed another test.
As I walked through the black corridor, others emerged, from cells apparently
identical to my own. Clad in the black robes, only their eyes faintly visible under
shadowed brims of their hoods, they all looked the same. As I joined the dark
river of bodies that flowed along the corridor, I realised, with an involuntary
shiver, that we were also all exactly the same height.

It was as if the robes, gloves and slippers had erased every shred of our
individuality. I tried to talk, of course, to ask questions. But every word I spoke
vanished into the black muffler over my face, never reaching the ears of the
others around me.

The queue of robed figures eventually emptied out into a hall, so large and so
dimly lit that I could see neither roof nor walls. As the others stopped and began
to spread out in that fathomless space, black desks of stone rose smoothly and
noiselessly from the floor. One for each student in the room.

I knew this place. I had read this legend.

Were it possible to scream, I would have. I wondered how many of the others
were screaming, under the tight cloth covering their faces. Surely, they had read
the same tales as I had during their own research, and must be coming to the
same conclusion.

Letters of red fire appeared on the black stone desk before me, and I memorised
them reflexively. Instantly, they vanished, and were replaced by new words,
describing events recorded in no human history book.

If what I had researched was true, then this place, this classroom, was housed in
no earthly realm.

And if I did not memorise all the words presented to me, and do so before all of
my peers, then as the last person to leave this room, my soul would be forfeit to
Lucifer himself.
Sweating and shaking, I forced my eyes to absorb the page of flickering scarlet
letters, then another, then another. Nearby, one of the other students must have
realised their predicament, because they tried to tear off their robes. They
twisted and turned, pulling and grabbing at the unyielding cloth in a perversely
silent and terrible dervish dance. Eventually, they began to smash their head
repeatedly into the sharp edges of the obsidian desk, until they collapsed.

The other students stared silently, just as I did.

As the bloodied desk slid slickly back into the floor, hands emerged from the
stone around the fallen student. Corpse grey, long-nailed and covered with pale,
shaggy fur, they pulled the body into the ground with the only sound I had heard
thus far; a whisper of black cloth on stone and the clicking of claws.

For now, the rest of us might be safe; Hell had already claimed a soul for today.

Every day was the same; we would rise, put on our jet robes and the door would
open. Then we would all file into the cavernous classroom, where we would
frenetically memorise the words of fire, desperately trying not to be the last one
to finish. After we returned to our cells, the door would close and the robes
would loosen, allowing us to take them off and regain our individuality. Those
same grey hands that had taken the first fallen student would emerge from the
wall, clutching dull pewter plates of rich foods and carved goblets of exotic drinks.

When I was done eating and drinking, they would emerge once more to take
away the plates and cups.

I knew the reason for the robes; I’d figured it out on the second day. Our demonic
tutor did not want us to know who the other students were. That gave me a
valuable clue towards figuring out another part of the puzzle, because the
librarian had told me himself that someone like me was only born once every
generation.
The classroom must exist outside time itself. That was the only way there could
be so many students.

Initially, I had been confident, being one of the first to finish almost every day. But
as the lessons became more complex and I had to truly understand every concept
instead of just memorising text, I began to slip several places.

Against whom was I studying? If the classroom was truly outside time, then it
could be anyone. The man to my left could be Aristotle, the one on the right
Einstein – or even Da Vinci. My former confidence became tainted with fear and it
began to affect my concentration. When the frightening day came that the
classroom was almost empty when I finished, I knew I had to do something more.

Alone in my cell, unrestricted by the cloying wrap of black fabric, I lay on the
stone pallet and wracked my brains for an answer to my predicament. If I was
truly up against the very greatest minds of history, then I didn’t stand a chance. I
knew I was good. My intelligence was leagues beyond anyone I’d known in life,
but that meant I was smart enough to realise that with all of human history
stacked against me, the odds were very bad.

As I mulled over all my experiences thus far, my mind kept returning to probe one
singular fact: the anonymity of the robes was not complete. I had already picked
out certain individuals with particular habits. One of them nervously tugged at
their hood periodically, as though worried the others would see their eyes.
Another always ensured they took the desk at the far, left-hand corner of the
room, circling it once before sitting. And both of them always left the room early,
but never first. That was unusual in itself, since the other students I’d marked by
their behaviours fluctuated wildly in their placement. These two were clearly so
sure of themselves, so monstrously clever, that they could practically choose
when they would finish.
But that still didn’t tell me who they were. The man in the corner, if he was in fact
a man, might be Johann Goethe or Nicola Tesla; or it could be some unknown
who never made it into the history books. Even worse, if the classroom was
outside of time in every direction, as I suspected, he might be from the distant
future, where humanity had perfected itself to a level beyond imagining.

This information was critical in some way, I knew it. Our headmaster, Lucifer,
could just as easily have made us study alone, in our cells, doing away with the
need to interact with the others at all. He must have wanted us to see each other,
to be aware of our peers. The obvious reason for this would be to instil fear, to
motivate us to study harder – but in a classroom outside the bounds of time, why
would that even matter?

There was no-one to see my triumphant grin when I realised I had my answer.

You couldn’t leave the hall until you had finished the lessons. Oh, you could get
up and walk around, but if you approached the door without finishing, the grey
hands would catch you and drag you into the black stone, your soul forfeit to our
Headmaster.

I waited until the lesson was something I wouldn’t struggle with too much. It
seemed that none of my remaining peers had a memory quite as perfect as mine,
since I was always the first to finish those lessons that were comprised of sheer
volume of information. That day, the last page lay in front of me, unread, waiting
for me to glance at it and burn the letters into my memory. I kept my eyes
purposefully averted.

The figure in the corner, whom I’d named Leonardo for the sake of convenience,
stood up as the red glow faded from his desk. As he did so, I finished my own
work, but waited. He paced through the rows of students, eventually reaching the
door – and as he did so, I also stood and made my way out.
Along the corridor we walked, me keeping several paces behind him. I knew
which room was his because I’d memorised the number of steps. As his door
swung open, I took six running strides towards him on my soft, silent slippers,
then smashed his head against the obsidian-sharp edge of the door. He dropped
immediately, dark blood gouting from his hood. His own slippered feet twitched
and spasmed, and one arm flapped in a palsied seizure, slapping noiselessly
against the stone.

As the grey hands emerged to pull him down into the darkness, I knew I had
found my edge.

I would never be the last one to leave the classroom.

If the others knew what I’d done, they didn’t give any indication of it. I switched
up my mannerisms and moved desks regularly, so that if any of the others had
been observing me as I had them, they couldn’t possibly track me. I always
watched the corridor behind me as I left the classroom, to ensure that nobody did
to me what I had done to Leonardo.

In the first year, I murdered ten of my peers – the brightest and the best, and
therefore my strongest competition. But I monitored myself carefully for any
signs of over-confidence. I could never let down my guard, because if I had
figured out this deadly loophole, then so too could another student.

And indeed, when my mental headcount came up short one morning, I felt a
strange thrill. It seemed another murderer had joined me in the Devil’s classroom.

He was careful, very careful. I took me months to unriddle who he was, and
during that time, the paranoia gripped me like one of the giant, shaggy grey hands.
Every walk through the black corridors was riddled with fear.

In the end, it turned out his technique was simple; he would simply wait until only
he and one other student were left in the cavernous classroom, then he would kill
his unsuspecting peer by bashing his head into the desk. It was so crude and
uninspired that I laughed to myself in the dim light of my cell, realising that his
modus operandi was born of desperation, rather than true cunning.

I had to kill him, of course. He was going about it completely the wrong way; by
killing off the worst students, he was only hastening our own demise. He died on
the day I crawled deliberately slowly through my work, ensuring we were the last
two left. As he came to bludgeon my face into the sharp stone, I struck his knee
with my foot, then threw him sideways into the desk. The struggle was brief; it
seemed that with the robes constricting us to the exact same size and shape, my
greater experience as a killer won out. There was a chance I was not the greatest
mind in this classroom, but I suspected I was now the best murderer.

The others had noticed the declining numbers, of course they had. None of us
were stupid people. Strange, silent alliances had formed, where little groups
would sit together, wait for each other, and leave together. With silent hand
gestures, I’d been invited into one such group, and I played along – for if I marked
myself as an outsider, they might unriddle my dark secret.

The lessons were incredible now; imparting insights far beyond the reaches of
ordinary science. The origins of the universe were clearly revealed to me, along
with the fundamental laws that bind everything together. If Einstein were present,
he must have cursed himself for a fool, as the lessons we learned made him seem
like a plodding idiot, woefully out of his league.

On the day that one group of students stood mid-lesson and attacked another
group outright, the uninvolved students just stared, their eyes shocked in the
depths of their hoods. I wanted to tear off my mask and scream at them, to ask
them what the fuck they thought would eventually happen in a competition
plotted by Satan himself?
The fight was long and brutal, the only weapons being soft-gloved fists, feet, and
the obsidian furniture. Those not involved just watched, knowing that today’s
quota was more than full. The rest of us could take our time studying.

Counting on that, when the others had left, I stayed behind. There was blood
pooled and splattered everywhere, though it was hard to see on the dark floor.
Fragments of bone and hair clung to the desks, here a severed finger had been
missed by the hands of our ghastly cleaners.

But amongst it all I found something wonderful, something game-changing.

Along the edge of one desk, the obsidian had fractured, and a razor-sharp shard
lay on the floor, nearly invisible. Picking it up, I pushed it carefully into my sleeve.

Now I had what no other student had.

A weapon.

In game theory, such an advantage instantly marks you out. As soon as you reveal
that you have such a thing, others will want to take it off you. An uneasy truce
reigned in the classroom now, with no group willing to risk a confrontation, lest
the fight lower their numbers. The hand signals became increasingly complex,
each group developing a distinct ‘language’ which the outgroups didn’t
understand. But with my memory, I could replay the gestures in my mind, and
teach myself the dialects, giving my group a vital edge.

I think my group knew I was the original killer, the one who had started it all. They
deferred to me and feared me. In my periphery, I saw one refer to me as ‘The
Ripper’, spelling out the letters individually in our crude sign language.

Betrayal happened regularly now that we could communicate. The game became
less about the lessons, and more about politics. We still studied, but the learning
of forbidden knowledge had taken a distinct back seat to the wheeling and
dealing that had become commonplace. After watching one group sacrifice the
smartest man they had to ensure their tribe’s survival, I knew we had reached a
turning point.

Soon there would be anarchy.

It started on the walk through the corridor, before we had even divided off into
our groups, before we had exchanged the secret handshakes that confirmed our
membership of the cliques. Students just started leaping at one another. A man
came at me and we struggled, a perfect physical match in our arcane robes. An
elbow from another fighter knocked him off balance and I pressed the advantage,
knocking him down and headbutting him in the nose.

When the madness slowed, then stopped, the grey hands began to claim the
dying and seriously injured. With a nod, one of the survivors pointed toward the
classroom.

Not knowing what else to do, we slipped and skidded through the pools of blood,
the hems of our robes leaving dark trails into the classroom. The footprints left by
our sopping slippers marked the paths to our sparsely-spread seats.

There were only five of us left.

They jumped me on the way out. I finished first, and the other four all rose
together, not a hand signal between them. They knew who I was. Everyone knew
who everyone else was by now. We had spent two full years together in this place.

The first man went down in a tangle of robes. I’d nicknamed him Byron, but unlike
his bombastic namesake, he was not a fighter. The other three circled me,
glancing at one another, askance, still unsure quite how to handle me now that
Byron’s limp body was being pulled through the floor.

Shakespeare and Curie stood to either side, while Gauss circled, trying to get
behind me. With a snarl only heard in my own head, I turned and threw myself
upon the figure sidling up to me, the obsidian shard slashing through his collar
and deep into his throat. The other two were instantly on top of me, but they
hadn’t seen the black knife. It licked out vengefully, leaving Shakespeare flailing
and already falling, a jet of blood pumping from the stump of his wrist.

As Curie and I scrambled to our feet, she simply bowed her head and shrugged,
admitting defeat. The shard of obsidian went through her eye and into her brain,
killing her instantly.

The shaggy grey paws pulled the dead into the bowels of the earth, and for the
first time, I was alone in the vast classroom.

The robes loosened their constrictor grip, and I pulled down the muffler with
blessed relief, gasping for air.

“Well done,” crooned a voice from the darkness.

Black shelves full of books began to rise from the floor.

The knowledge in the library is exquisite, and I’ve barely begun to taste it. There
are tomes from so far forward in time that it will take me decades of study even
to begin to comprehend them.

But I know that’s not why I’m here. That was just the cherry on the sundae, or the
cheese in the trap.

You see, Lucifer didn’t just want someone brilliant. The classroom always has
been – and always will be – a ruse. Intellect isn’t unique, but intellect combined
with raw, animal cunning? That’s really special. Almost as special as human
intelligence coupled with true love.
And I am special.

There is a book, he tells me, that is not in this library. The only book that he
doesn’t own.

The book of Life and Death, which resides in Heaven.

All I need to do to bring Tess back to life, is to wrest that book from its owner and
erase her name. Then she will return to me, as if she had never been taken.

And with the infinite knowledge of the Black Library, I can fix her.

But that’s enough for now; I have work to do – bringing down Heaven is going to
take some planning, and I need a new weapon if I’m going to succeed.

Fortunately, I’m no longer confined to the Black Library, I can come and go as I
please. I can do anything I please.

And I do know where to find the perfect blacksmith.

Pig Iron
I’ve heard it said by many that you don’t become a blacksmith; instead you are
born a blacksmith.

The knack for working metal seems to be as innate as an artist’s talent, a writer’s
skill or a musician’s ear. It can be taught, yes, but a true master can only be forged
from the right stock.

And I’ll tell you now – without the slightest hint of arrogance – that I am quite
likely the greatest blacksmith who has ever lived.

Everything to which I turn my hand is flawless. Each piece of steel is wrought in

crystalline perfection, the symmetry of the atomic structure uncanny, unnatural. I
have forged blades for collectors, enthusiasts, the rich and the famous; each of
them the newest pinnacle of my craft, and unmatched by any other blacksmith on
this Earth.

Amongst those in the know, I go by the name ‘Wayland’ – a tribute to the English
god of the forge. If you haven’t heard of me before now, then it’s because you
lack the aesthetic sensibilities to appreciate my work – or the money to pay me
well enough for it.

But having completed my metallic Magnum Opus, I feel it is time for the world to
know my story.

‘Pig Iron’ in the business is the base product you get from archaic smelting
methods. It can be consolidated and refined from there in the forge, to ease the
impurities from the iron, but that is inferior to modern smelting procedures –
hence why smiths usually order bar stock from modern smelters rather than
making their own steel.

Once in a blue moon a customer will want a sword or knife forged from raw
materials – for example, some enterprising idiot will want a blade forged from ore
he’s mined himself and I’ll have to work it down into something that can be
shaped with hammer and forge.

But the phrase ‘Pig Iron’ gave me a curious idea.

What if you could literally smelt iron from pigs?

The idea wasn’t so preposterous; as with human blood, pigs bind iron into
haemoglobin. To extract that iron, the water would need to be boiled off from the
blood, then the dried proteins would become the base ‘ore’ for the smelting –
using charcoal and calcium to take up the bulk of the impurities and leaving the
molten iron to flow out the bottom of the kiln.

I’d calculated that getting enough iron to make even a small blade would take the
blood of over one hundred pigs. Getting that volume of pig blood wasn’t a
problem, given my financial status, but processing it to the pre ore state posed
some interesting problems.

I chose to fabricate a huge copper cauldron in which to boil the blood, something
that could be easily cleaned between batches of organic materials and something
that wouldn’t taint the ore I was producing. The first batch was a disaster; the
blood caught, and I was left with little more than rank-smelling charcoal.

But with practice, I refined the time and temperature until I had produced enough
material to begin the smelting process.

I admit it felt a little odd, pouring ladles of powdered pig blood into a coke and
lime furnace. I pondered for a moment if this was something a sane person would
do, but then dismissed the idea.

None of the greatest minds in human history were sane by the standards of
ordinary folk.
The bloom steel from the bottom of the furnace was orange and tacky, like Hell’s
taffy, and I levered it out of the charcoal with tongs, then took it to the forge to
consolidate into a cake of rough pig iron.

It had worked.

You could indeed make pig iron from pigs.

The knife was beautiful; I’d carved the handle from a butcher-bought pig’s femur
and polished it up until it gleamed like ivory. But I felt unsatisfied by the final
product. It seemed such a waste that I’d used so little of the pigs themselves.

The next blade I planned better; it would be larger, for starters – the blood of
roughly three hundred healthy hogs should be sufficient. The coke and lime for
the kiln would be rendered from the drained flesh and bones of my porcine
victims; I would use every part of the pigs I could in the process – right down to
using their fat to render oil for the temper.

It wasn’t an easy process, and I was inexperienced at dressing carcasses. After all,
I was a blacksmith, not a butcher.

But after a month and a half of gruelling work the task was complete, and I held
aloft a beautiful pigsteel sword, set with tusks and polished bone, and bound with
pig leather.

And in holding it, I felt a curious sense of power that I had never experienced
before.

In a moment of madness, drunk on my success, I roared with exultation and

brought the sword down on the horn of my anvil.

Metal should have struck metal with a belling clash, but instead the pigsteel
sheared into the iron as though the anvil was flesh, lodging halfway into the metal.
What had I created?

The sword hung in the shop on the wall opposite the door, the unusual design
ready to greet any new visitors. The very day after I forged it, a client happened to
visit.

He was the usual sort; expensive suit and shoes, money dribbling from every
vowel he uttered. I didn’t recall his name or face, but a lot of these wealthy exec
types were practically clones.

“I’d like to buy that sword,” he said, pointing to the pigsteel blade, “would you
prefer cash, cheque or transfer?”

“Not for sale,” I told him, “that was a personal project.”

His lips twisted in disappointment, then he gave an oleaginous smile full of too
many teeth.

“Ten million,” he whispered.

I shook my head again, running a hand over my latest delivery of stock, looking for
the perfect bar.

“One hundred million.”

Shouting from outside the workshop halted the conversation and I brushed past
him, letting ash and charcoal from my leather apron streak his immaculate white
cuffs. Outside was a homeless chap of some sort. Occasionally I got drifters
passing through my property, but most didn’t bother me – this one, however, was
gesticulating wildly at the forge and shouting.

“Destroy the sword!” he ranted, “or do not destroy it – but if you give it to this
man, the wrath of God will come down upon ye!”
Wiping my blackened palms on the back of my jeans, I stalked toward the wild-
haired, rag-clad hobo.

“Get off my property.”

At this statement, the suit standing behind me chuckled, low and malicious.

“And you can clear off too,” I snarled, pointing to the gates.

“As you wish,” he said, then paced over to his fancy black car, parked in the gravel
driveway.

The hobo was already gone, scrambled off into the scrub behind the shop while
my back was turned.

For the rest of the day an uneasy feeling followed me, distracting me from my
work.

Two more unhinged religious zealots confronted me over the next two weeks; the
first at the supermarket, ranting ‘destroy it, destroy it, or it will destroy you’. The
second just screamed at me from an alley, something about unclean blood and
blades of fire.

I have to admit; I was mildly unnerved.

The woman that arrived at the forge shortly after though... now damn, how are
you supposed to keep your wits around something like that?

She was breathy-voiced, as voluptuous as a Botticelli and dressed in a crimson

skirt and blazer number. I felt blood rush to my groin the moment she started
talking.

She was after the sword, of course.

“You’re beautiful,” I told her, “but you can’t have it. It’s special.”
“Oh I know”, she purred, “and so are you.”

I think I laughed then, it was all very Hollywood, no matter what my libido was
telling me.

Thanking her for her visit, I told her to get lost and decided to keep the sword in
the house, where clients couldn’t see it.

Which turned out to be a decision that saved my life.

The smell of burning woke me and my alarm clock informed me that it was just
past midnight.

Stumbling out of bed saved me from the first stroke.

The eiderdown exploded in a cloud of feathers as something struck it with enough

force to shake the bed.

“Lights!” I screamed, lurching to the dresser, against which the pigsteel blade
rested.

Brilliant light flooded the bedroom, throwing everything into stark relief.

Impaled through the bed was a flaming sword – and holding it was a creature of
white and gold, pale eyes without pupil or iris, and a massive pair of bizarrely
jointed wings rising behind it.

The pigleather grip of the sword felt hot in my hand as I brought the blade up.

Snarling like a white-and-gold tiger, the being wrenched the flaming blade from
the mattress and swung it at me.

The force of the parry should have put me through the wall, but a curious
strength suffused me. As blades rang out upon meeting, the light of the flaming
sword died – the fire being sucked into the pigsteel.
The white creature dropped its weapon as though stung, then screamed in rage,
its perfect white features distorting into alien, impossible planes.

Fear drove me, I think, though perhaps it was more than that. Fueled by the
unnatural strength, I pressed the advantage and punched the blade through the
chest of the creature.

Golden fluid gouted from the wound, and the being shrieked in agony and terror.

”No,” it managed, trying to pull the pigsteel free, ”NO!”

Twisting the blade harder, I was rewarded with another screel of pain and rage.

As the pale light faded from its eyes, the alien figure smiled,

“Pig Iron alone cannot protect you from the host of Heaven” it whispered.

Then it was gone, leaving a smouldering mattress, a mess of feathers and the
pigsteel blade – still coated in golden liquid.

She was back the next day, the woman in red.

“I can help you,” she said, all pretence of seduction dropped now.

“Protect me from the wrath of all of Heaven's angels?” I replied, with a bitter
laugh.

“Yes.”

“Is this where you offer me a bargain for my soul?”

She smiled then, calm, pleasant, relaxed.

“What if I could help you make a better weapon; one that could make you
untouchable to both Heaven and Hell?”

The sword hung at my side now, ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

“And what would that information cost me?”

Perching on a corner of a sawhorse, she folded her arms.

“Let’s just say that my employer has a vested interest in seeing you make this
weapon.”

Recalling the terrifying threats from the alien, angelic thing that had tried to kill
me just hours ago, I rested my hand on the pommel of the pigsteel sword.

“OK, I’ll do it. Tell me how to make it.”

“It’s the same process,” she explained, no emotion touching her voice, “except
instead of pigs, we use something a little more potent.”

“Humans,” I breathed.

And with her wild gush of malefic laughter, I knew in that instant that I was truly
damned.
I Was Almost In The Lucky 47 Club
Jack Meyer was the nicest man I ever knew. He ran an ice cream shop in our
neighborhood, and everyone flocked to it year round. He never closed for cold
season, partly because it wasn't that cold around here and partly because some
people crave ice cream mid winter. He was kind to every one of his customers. He
was fair on prices, and even gave discounts for larger families-- like mine.

He was an all around good guy, and he loved making people smile. He hand-
churned all of the ice cream he sold, and worked hard to keep his shop open and
pristine. Mr Meyer's wife died a few years ago, and since then he's been working
hard and running the shop all on his own. Sad story that one was, she had a heart
attack on their 47th anniversary. Their love story was adorable.

That anniversary wasn't for their wedding, it was for the day they went on their
first date. They were young lovers-- extremely young-- and had been living next
door to each other for their entire lives. As the story goes, a 6 year old Jack asked
the 8 year old May out for a picnic in his backyard. Best friends for years
afterwards, and their official relationship began in their early teens. I remember
how old Miss May would blush when he told people that story.

”Oh Jack, that was ages ago! It doesn't count!”

”Of course it does, I swear that was the day I fell in love with you.”

The whole neighborhood was distraught when they'd heard of May Meyer's
death. She was the sweetest woman, part of what had always made the little
shop so pleasant. She made my first visit to the shop a happy and memorable one.
”Hello there young man, who might you be?”

”I'm Joshua Shepherd,” My young face had smiled up at her.

”You can call me Miss May, what can we get you?”

I ordered ice cream for myself and two of my younger sisters who were waiting at
a table by the door. I had to run back and ask what kind of ice cream the girls
wanted, and Miss May waited patiently for me to return. Mr Meyer scooped up
three cones and passed them to May, who handed them to me with a grin.

”Free of charge,” She smiled.

I stared at her in awe, never knowing a free treat in my life. She shooed me away
with a hand gesture and another grin, and I've never forgotten that small act of
kindness. The only reason our parents had sent us off to the shop that day was so
that they could fight over finances in private, and my mother seemed both
surprised and relieved when we arrived home without spending a penny. I think
Miss May’s kind gesture was part of the reason that we splurged a few times a
year and bought the whole family ice cream at once.

Things changed after Miss May passed away, but Jack has always kept a pleasant
atmosphere about the shop. The biggest change was her absence, but a notable
difference was his new promotion. It was pretty special since it wasn't advertised.
On your 46th visit to his store you'd find out that your next visit was free.
A few weeks ago I hit visit number 46. When Mr Meyer revealed to me that my
next visit would be free I was ecstatic, and when he asked me not to advertise it I
agreed. Not that the cost was expensive for me-- since I'm living alone and have a
decent paying job now-- but I enjoyed being part of something special. I forgot
about my free visit until a few days ago, and that's when I realized the significance.
The odd number was in honor of his late wife, and it gave me warm thoughts.
How sweet, it's just like Mr Meyer to still be doing kind acts in memory of Miss
May.

The idea of a free visit brought back my fond memories of Miss May, and I was
excited to be a part of honoring her kind soul. I decided to head into the shop the
next evening, I didn't want to forget about the special visit. Jack's face lit up as I
entered the shop.

“Josh!” He exclaimed happily, “Lucky number 47!”

“Hey Mister Meyer, thanks for the free visit,” I smiled at him, his joy was
contagious.

“Not just a free visit, young man, I also have a surprise! Can't tell anyone ‘bout
your visit though, don't want them young ones getting greedy and coming in
more just to be in the Lucky 47 club.”

I was excited about whatever he considered a surprise. No one ever talked about
having a 47th visit, likely out of respect for Mr Meyer’s request. I liked that it was
a surprise. It's no fun to destroy a nice gesture with greed, it was the random and
surprising nature that made visit 47 so much like something Miss May would have
done. This deal he offered was not about saving money, it was about honoring
her.

He explained to me the surprise, a serving of a flavor he had created in honor of

May called “Lucky 47”, and the opportunity to come behind the counter and learn
how he churned the ice cream. At the end of the visit I would be dubbed an
official member of the secretive Lucky 47 club. Suffice to say I was thrilled at the
idea of adding the new memory of the shop to the similar memories from when I
was young.

“Now I'll give you a bigger serving than normal, you're probably the eldest I ever
had become a Lucky 47,” He chuckled, but I knew I was an oddity for coming back
to the neighborhood I had grown up in just for some nostalgic ice cream.

He served up a big bowl of the flavor, and set off behind the counter to clean up
before it was time to close. I was excited about the portion sizing, it was the
biggest I had ever seen anyone get from the shop in the near 12 years I'd been
coming here. The ice cream was delicious, a creamy French vanilla with swirls of
fudge and chunks of toffee. I couldn't pinpoint what else was put into it, but the
aftertaste was odd. Mr Meyer had just gone into the back of the shop to fetch
something when I bit into something odd.

Upon spitting the hard object into my palm I was concerned-- it was a piece of a
tooth. I figured the toffee had chipped one of mine, so ran my tongue around my
mouth searching for the broken tooth. No dice. I checked with my finger and still
found no jagged edge. It suddenly dawned on me that the tooth that I had spit
out did not belong to me. I was disgusted and desperately wanted to leave
without embarrassing Mr Meyer. He always took great pride in his product, and
would be devastated to learn that there had been a major mistake made in this
batch.

How do you even accidentally drop a piece of a tooth in your ice cream? It wasn't
impossible, but it was repulsive enough for me to bail out on the rest of the Lucky
47 perks. I stood to leave and a wave of dizziness washed over me. Instantly I had
an intense feeling of something being very wrong in the shop.

I stumbled towards the door, my vision blurring as my body swayed

uncontrollably. I heard heavy footsteps approaching from the back of the shop.

“Hey boy, you didn't finish your ice cream!” The footsteps quickened towards me,
and I tried to speed up my own tipsy steps.

I may have been nearly forty years younger than him, but whatever he had put in
Lucky 47 was leveling the playing field. Being younger and stronger didn't matter
when every movement felt like swimming through wet cement. Before he caught
up to me I managed to wrench open the door to the shop and fall onto the
pavement face first.

I had blacked out as I hit the ground, and I later came to in the hospital with a
crowd of doctors and police surrounding me. Questions and confusion berated
me throughout my stay and the few days since I've been back home. I've told the
police about my experience, and how kind Mr Meyer had always been to
everyone.
Since that day I've heard rumors and seen news reports about Mr Meyer's shop.
The shop has been shut down, Jack Meyer is missing, and they found several
bodies stored in the back freezer with the ice cream. They were all young, kids
and teens who had gone missing in the years since May Meyer died. I can only
assume that something snapped in Mr Meyer when his wife died.

I suppose it makes sense that word never spread about Jack Meyer's secret Lucky
47 club, no one lived long enough to tell.
"Palette Cleanser"
I collect typos.

Roadside hotel signs, vulgar Japanese candy, church bulletins with an overactive
spellcheck – I’ve always been tickled by foul-ups of the English language. Sofie got
me started on it when we were kids: she swiped a fish market sign for “Fresh Crap
– $3.99.” I remember the two of us back in our room, giggling over a dirty, dirty
swear as only kid sisters could see it. The plastic had that oily fish blood smell, and
fresh seafood still reminds me of rainy spring days, the flowers vibrant outside
and the plastic slick with fish scales, giggling along with my best friend like the
kids we were.

Over time my friends joined in, brought me wacky newspapers or texted me

pictures, triple-checked their emails to me. But Sofie was always my biggest
supplier. She had a knack for sniffing typos out, and I think she took pride in being
the best at it, ever since Fresh Crap. So I guess it’s not surprising that she was the
one to find Palette Cleanser.

It was a Ukrainian restaurant that closed before she could take me, but she
painted a pretty picture: racks of golden pastries and pastel-pale vegetables, and
those vivid clashing patterns of Eastern European blankets and clothing. Giant
shelves of spices, sacks of caraway and cardamom and cloves, and a row of little
glass jars crammed in the corner, with cryptic color swirls and frantic Cyrillic text
crowding out the only English on the label: “Palette Cleanser.”

We figured it was just some weird pickled Russian root, like ginger for sushi: you
know, a palate cleanser. So a few months later when my sister brought over some
fusion cuisine stuff, I cracked it open. There were about sixty pieces in the bottle,
pure white and thick, crystalline, more like chips of shale and not something you’d
expect to reset your taste buds. I was skeptical but Sofie was watching me, and
she looked so excited, so proud of what she’d found for her sister, and I’ll never
tell her this but she’s the reason I didn’t just throw the bottle out right then.

The flake of “Palette Cleanser” dissolved on my tongue in seconds, but I couldn’t

taste it. I waited a bit longer, tried to swish it around in my mouth, and I was so
focused on my taste buds that it took me a while to notice my vision was changing.

The room started…fading, I suppose. I could still see everything, it wasn’t blurring
out. I just felt like I was losing something. I started to panic as spots went in and
out of my eyes: it felt like when you stand up too quickly and your vision goes
black and painful, and you need to sit back down. I remember Sofie noticing me
but I have no idea what she said: I don’t think I lasted ten more seconds before
passing out.

I woke up in a hospital bed to my sister’s voice. I opened my eyes to see her

leaning close to me, but at a glance she looked completely naked. I startled away,
but then looked again and realized she was still wearing the same dress: I just
couldn’t distinguish between her skin and the fabric. I was staring, panicking even
more when I noticed I’d ripped the IV out of my hand. The blood running down
my wrist was black. I looked at the heart monitor and it was covered in grey and
white squiggles and beeps but no blues, no reds, no green blinking lights. It was
completely gone.

The colors were all gone.

It took me months to adjust, and that time wasn’t fun. I stopped browsing
Instagram. Didn’t want to go hiking, or paint, even things like cooking felt worse. I
just couldn’t take knowing that I was missing a big chunk of the info. My job used
color codes, and I suppose I messed up on a guess one too many times. Did you
know the Americans with Disabilities Act doesn’t protect the colorblind? I liked
that job. I liked the people. And I lost it to Palette Cleanser.

As bad as I was, Sofie was miserable. She blamed herself, and she was intent on
fixing this for me, or maybe getting vengeance. I think she would’ve set up a case
against the restaurant, but it had closed months ago without leaving a trace. She
couldn’t find records; the landlord, the license, everything had just vanished. I
hated seeing her feel guilty, but every time I mentioned it she just seemed to
blame herself more. She wanted to make things better in any way, and maybe
that’s why she got me into astronomy. It was such a great idea: after all,
stargazing is just points of light on a black background. I could do that and still see
the beauty. We bonded over that like we’d bonded over fish markets, like we’d
bonded over Fresh Crap. After a few months, with Sofie’s help and my family’s
encouragement, I learned to live with it. And then the colors started coming back.

Green came back first; it was the grass one morning that freaked me out. I’d
grown so used to seeing nothing but light and dark that another piece of data in
the mix wrenched my brain hard. I rushed to the living room and saw our neon
green chairs, shrieking with color, but also plenty of other spots in the room: the
walls, my sister’s desk, even the sky outside was different somehow, just a touch.
Green is in so, so many things, and I could see it again. Sofie came in twenty
minutes later to find me sprawled on the faint green carpet, sobbing with joy.

Yellow came next, then violet. We couldn’t figure out the order, it didn’t follow
“Roy G. Biv”, CMYK, additive or subtractive colors, anything like that – believe me,
we checked everything. But the long and short of it is that eventually, the full
rainbow had returned. I had all the colors back.
And then more kept coming.

You know how reds and greens look the same to some people, even though the
colors are very different? Every color started splitting like that. A whole new
rainbow opened up in the crannies between the first one, full of colors I can’t
name and you can’t see. And when it finally seemed like I couldn’t take any new
colors, it changed again. My night vision got better, or Sofie would turn on the
microwave and the kitchen would light up like someone had turned on a
floodlight that only hit me.

The night sky stopped being points of light. The universe gives off so much, and
we see so little. I’d take Sofie out and describe the heavens to her with each “new”
color, all the swirls and wrinkles of the once-black sky that now only I could
describe. Sparks of light, rippling curtains across and around and coming from the
stars. Outer space was the one place where all the pieces seemed to fit together,
and I felt like I understood it more than anyone could, even with their high-power
telescopes and imaging. Spectroscopy is a joke compared to what I could see.

Sure, some of this was probably light spectrum stuff. You know that chart,
ultraviolet on one end and infrared, microwave on the other side? And all we get
is the tiny sliver of visible light in the middle. Imagine if you saw that whole thing.
Imagine if you saw what was beyond its edges. I think sound has its own color. So
does death.

I could never describe them to you. How would you explain color to a blind
person? To me, you’re all blind.
You lucky bastards.

Things got worse. Did you know that radio waves are everywhere? So are
neutrinos. A billion of them go through us every second, and I started to see them
flash by. Toward the end I was convinced I was seeing everything: emotions,
truths, even time, expressed in bands of light. There were so many colors firing in
every direction that they started to crisscross into white blotches like TV static.
Even the night sky started to lose definition, started to all glom together and fill in
the gaps as I was lost in a sea of white noise. It didn’t matter if it was day or night,
or if I closed my eyes. I saw it all, all at once, and it was burning me. Then one day,
I woke up color-blinded. Just an expanse of vibrating white strands, a blazing
inferno of colorless light.

That night, I told Sofie to go to the fusion place again. I had the same food, at the
same time of the night, and then I shook out another flake from the bottle. I woke
up in the hospital once again, in a world of black and grey.

Humans can make pretty much anything a routine, I think. Sofie and I have the
process all figured out. I work from home towards the end each time, where
we’ve built a pseudo-Farraday cage. It keeps things out for a while, blocks some of
the more boring lights, but eventually even my small safe little world is pierced
through with the more terrifying colors, the ones lurking far off the ends of that
gamma-to-radio spectrum, colors primordial or divine or some unfathomable mix
that I’m certain I was never supposed to know. And then I take another flake and I
wake up at home and there’s Sofie, sitting at the foot of my bed holding an apple,
and she smirks a little and asks me “what color is this?”

She’s the one who gets me through the bad times at each end. She’s helped me
tell our family, she’s helped me keep it a secret, she’s still found me typos every
so often, something to lift the spirits. She’s still looking for the manufacturer of
Palette Cleanser; everything has been a dead-end. The Cyrillic words on the label
are untranslatable, and when she posts them on message boards the responses
are confusing, vitriolic, even hostile. She’s still working on it, though, because
she’s the only other person who knows Secret Number One.

That the colors are coming quicker. Last cycle, it took eleven weeks for green to
show up. This time it was ten. There’s an urgency to my sister’s searching, and it
feels like there’s an urgency to the colors as well. I can’t explain it, but it doesn’t
only feel like they’re just "coming quicker." It feels like they’re rushing to get here.
I don’t know what from. I’m worried, and Sofie’s even worse, and we don’t know
what to do. We try to put it off, we try to experiment with the flakes, but in the
end it always goes white and then it all goes grey again, and again, faster every
time. In our rapidly diminishing window of peace in the middle, right after the
strange colors start, we lie out under the stars and I tell her as much as I can
about the sky.

Her favorite constellation is an obscure star cluster near Orion, one of the darkest
places in the night sky. Depending on the time of year, we have a great view. I tell
her about the rainbow waves coming from it, the bursts of color and light, a
fireworks show of inconceivable hues that mingle together to form something
good out of all our confusion and pain. When she looks at the spot, she only sees
a black patch in the starscape, but then I tell her about the colors she can only
imagine and her face lights up in wonder. It’s her last source of comfort. And
maybe that’s why I haven’t told her Secret Number Two.

That I don’t see any of that when I look near Orion. In fact, I don’t see anything at
all in that spot, not even when other lights or colors pass in front of it. I haven’t
told her that her favorite patch of black is truly black, solid black, even in the
middle of the day, even when it dips below the horizon. There’s a black spot on
my field of vision throughout the day and it rises back up with the night sky: an
ugly, gaping hole punched clean through the fishscale rainbow of celestial light. I
Googled the cluster and in the past few months, we’ve lost track of several stars.
Nobody important is worried yet. But they will be.

As the months race forward and I gain color after impossible color, I tell my sister
bright lies about the black spot in the sky. When my vision fills with the white of
universal light, the black spot remains, even when I close my eyes, even when I
look away. I can’t do anything to change it. It has stayed with me through the
cycles.

I see everything. Always. All at once. So believe me when I say there is nothing
there.

And the nothing is growing.

The Good Shade Hotel
I was out of work and looking for something to pay the rent until I could find a
new job that was in my field, when I saw the add. I'd been scrolling through job
listings when it caught my eye, Several positions open at The Good Shade Hotel.
$40+ per hour. Well damn, that was way more than decent pay to work in a hotel.
I was shocked that they'd even have open positions if they're paying that much,
but it seemed to be my lucky day. I mean sure I lived in a huge city, but it was odd
that I'd never heard of the place when it obviously was making a lot of money.

I figured it must be extremely classy and high maintenance, and I was prepared to
put up with some rich jerks if it meant a sweet paycheck. There was no address or
phone number, just an email. I shot out a reply containing my resume, and kept
looking through the other offers on the site. Before I found anything else that
might be worth applying for, my inbox pinged. The people at the Good Shade
were quick in their response.

Dear Mr. Stephens,

It has come to our attention that you would like to apply for a position at The
Good Shade Hotel. Your resume has been taken into account, and we require you
to answer several follow-up questions so that you may be considered for the job.

Then came a series of questions, some were normal and others were extremely
odd. I thought maybe they were trying to rule out anyone who might be crazy. No
one wants psychotic hotel staff after all, right?

Have you had prior experience working in customer service and/or hospitality?
Yes, both. Prior experience in a small motel.

Would you be comfortable filling out an NDA form?

Yes.

Would you be comfortable working in a remote location?

Yes.

Are you willing/able to drive a long distance to attend work?

Yes.

Are you willing/able to work night shifts?

Yes.

Which type(s) of position(s) are you looking for?

Any available, preferably not housekeeping, but willing if need be.

Have you had any issues with mental illness?

No.

Do you take any medications? If yes, please list.

No.

Do you believe in paranormal/supernatural/extraterrestrial beings?

Not really, there's no proof of them. Unsure of my beliefs in the afterlife.

How many people live in your household?

Only myself.

What is your marital/relationship status?

Single, never married.

Have you ever heard of our hotel?

Only in the job listing I responded to.

Do you contain 100% human genetics?

As far as I know, yes.

What caused you to apply for work here?

I am unemployed, have experience in this type of work, and could honestly use
the money.

Please list any questions or concerns below your responses, we will respond to
your application promptly. An affirmative response to your application will come
with an email containing the details of your job placement, and a few documents
requiring signature. Thank you for applying at The Good Shade Hotel.

- A. Smith, Owner & Manager.

Like I said, some super odd questions. I wasn't about to turn it down though, I
needed the money. I didn't think much of the odd questions anyways, the only
logical explanation was that they had a bad experience with a psycho employee or
two. If I was paying that much to employ someone, you're damn sure I'd want to
make sure they didn't think they were E.T. I answered every question as truthfully
as possible and sent the email back, confident that I'd be getting the job.
My confidence was not misplaced, I received the affirmative response within the
hour. I was overjoyed, this job paid so well that I'd never want to look for a
different one. The new email gave me an address that I was to be at at exactly
4pm the next day. I would be working as a receptionist-- 40$ an hour to answer
phones, put reservations into computers, and give out room keys-- it would be
simple. Maybe not the most stimulating work, but tolerable.

The drive out to the address I was given was odd. I passed through a tunnel I had
been through a few times before, but I could swear that I didn't recognize the
area I was in after coming out of the tunnel. I pushed my confusion aside, figuring
that the landscape had changed since my last time in the area. I arrived at the
address after over an hour of driving, it was remote and surrounded by forest.

The building itself was grand. 15 stories high, beautiful architecture. The trees
surrounding the hotel were probably the tallest I'd ever seen in my life, they
seemed to scrape the sky. Somehow the hotel managed to look perfectly normal
amidst the beautiful natural environment that stretched far into the distance. It
was the only building for miles around, and it was well hidden. It occurred to me
that the guests likely paid very well for this sort of seclusion, it was deeply
peaceful.

When I entered the building I found it to be dark and elegant. The place was so
classy that the paycheck suddenly seemed reasonable. It wasn't the biggest hotel,
but it was probably the fanciest one I'd set foot inside in my entire life. The lobby
seemed cavernous, and my steps seemed to echo as I walked up to the front desk.

Behind the desk stood a pretty redhead, she smiled as I came forward.
“How can I help you, sir?” She asked politely in a sweet sing-song voice.

“Oh, uh.. I'm here for the receptionist position,” I shook myself mentally, I had
been staring.

She giggled at my flustered state, “I'll let Mister Smith know you've arrived.”

I resumed my staring as she walked away, there was something different about
that girl. She returned with a tall man in tow. We shook hands and introduced
ourselves, but I found myself distracted by the smiling redhead. Mister Smith
seemed to notice my waning attention, he led me behind the desk and into an
office.

“Quite the nuisance that Alphaea is,” He chuckled fondly.

“Alphaea?” I questioned, the unusual name felt odd on my tongue.

“Ah yes, I believe she is calling herself Alice now. Kind creature, when she wants
to be. She's here from time to time to help out, you shouldn't experience any
negative side effects,” He replied, seemingly lost in thought.

I had no idea what he meant, but I assumed he meant the immediate attraction I
felt for her. She must have a history of fellow employees lusting after her.
“Ready for your entry meeting?” He asked abruptly, apparently back on track.

I nodded, and the meeting that followed left me confused and-- to be entirely
honest-- a little freaked out. He went over the questions from my application, we
discussed them in slightly more detail, and he provided more information about
the job and it’s requirements. I had to sign a form before we even began talking
about the position. Fortunately, a loophole I’ve found in the contracts does not
disallow me from posting my entire experience in a place that most of the world
thinks is for fictional tales. I know that this place holds the truth, you know it too.
This is the one place where I can freely talk about my experience, and I’m so
thankful to be able to get it all off of my chest.

Anyways, the rest of the meeting brought to light some of the reasons why I may
not be allowed to speak of the job or the guests, but it initially made me wonder if
perhaps my boss was insane.

“100% human genetics?” He questioned as he looked over my application, “Very

good, the guests have been missing having someone of your appeal.”

Then he began listing the details of the position. I would mainly be working at the
front desk, there may be occasional instances when I am requested by a guest to
deliver items to their room. They may also request too look at me for a maximum
of 5 minutes, with zero physical contact. I am to avoid any physical contact--
including accidentally brushing against the clients. The contract requires three
months minimum attendance before I may opt out, and opting out comes with
what he called a “mandatory deconditioning”. Opportunities to opt out and be
debriefed are provided at three month intervals, attempting to quit before one of
the intervals breaks the rules of the contract.

He listed off the consequences of breaking the contract at such a speed that I
barely understood them, and followed up by saying, “I think you’ll do wonderfully
here, Mr. Stephens.”

I was kind of dazed from all the information, but signed the contract. My boss
might be a little crazy, and the requirements might be slightly odd, but the money
wasn’t something I could pass up. How bad could it be?

My first shift was that very evening, I'd be working the desk alongside Alice.
Mister Smith came up to the desk as I adjusted the nametag he had given me,
Tyler Stephens, H.S.

“Alph-- Alice,” He sighed, “Be nice to this young man, it's hard to find people like
him.”

She pouted for a moment, then nodded. Smith shifted his gaze to me and held
out his hand. It contained a small vial of milky liquid.

“If you start to become delusional, a drop in each eye,” He turned and walked
away.
I looked to Alice in confusion, “It's in your contract,” She said, “That'll kill any
negative side effects if you happen to touch the wrong guest, or spend too much
time with me.”

She gave a wide smile, and for a moment her teeth looked unnaturally sharp. I
slipped the vial into my pocket, feeling incredibly skeptical about the entire job. It
was too late to back out though, I had already signed the contract. The beginning
of the shift was slow, no guests had come to check in or out. I found myself
staring at Alice again, her nametag caught my eye. Alphaea, I.C.

“No last name?” I asked.

She glanced at her nametag, “Don't have one, at least not one that would fit or
make sense on a nametag,” She shrugged.

“And the letters? H.S, I.C?”

“Homo Sapien, Illecebrōsa Cur. Scientific name in your case, the Shades decided
mine,” She said nonchalantly, typing something into the computer.

“Illecebrōsa Cur? Shades? What?” I laughed, thinking it was some kind of joke on
the newbie.

“Charming Mutt,” She said dryly, “Their sense of humor is immaculate. It doesn't
pay to be one of a kind.”
I stared for a moment, looking for a hint that she was joking. Her face remained
completely serious.

“Oh…” I responded, not sure what to say.

She started laughing at of nowhere, and I was relieved for a moment.

“You really have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, huh?”

“I’m a really overpaid receptionist, and I’m the victim of the weirdest hazing ever?”
I said with a nervous laugh.

She giggled again, “I could tell you, but I think it’d be more fun to watch you
gradually realize what you’re part of,” She paused, looking around the empty
lobby, “I’ll tell you this though. The name has a reason, all of our guests are
Shades of some sort. I’m one as well, in fact you’ll probably be the only person
roaming around wearing an H.S for the entirety of your employment.”

“I have no idea what a Shade is,” I told her.

Her response was a wide smile, revealing rows of shark-like teeth. I took a step
back, letting out another nervous laugh. I was afraid.
“They're real, wanna touch?” She asked, the amusement on her face was plain to
see.

I shook my head no, unable to respond. She shrugged and turned back to the
computer. I wasn't sure what to think, but I was now wholeheartedly aware that
this girl was not human. The room fell silent, I had no idea how to start a
conversation after seeing that.

Alice's voice broke the tension, “Sylvia should be here in exactly two minutes.”

I nodded, still not trusting myself to say something that wouldn't have me eaten
by those teeth. She was right though, I watched the clock on the far wall tick the
time away. Exactly 120 ticks later the front door opened.

A girl who had to be no older than 12 entered. She was a horrifying mess. Covered
in dirt and blood, her left arm was bent at an unnatural angle and a bone was
protruding grotesquely from her forearm. She dragged her right leg behind her,
the ankle quite obviously broken, and a deep gash in her forehead was pouring
blood. My first instinct was to scream, and my second was to run to help.

Alice yelled for me to stop, but I ignored her. I ran to the young girl.

“Ohmygod, are you okay? Do you need me to call you an ambulance? What
happened?” The words erupted from my mouth, hardly a space for breath
between them.
She stared blankly into the distance, not acknowledging my panicked questions, I
reached out for her and Alice yelled from near the desk, “STOP!”

Too late. I gripped the girl's shoulders and stared at her. Her eyes were glazed
over with a milky white, and she let out a piercing scream when my hands made
contact. Before I could blink she was gone. My hands were grasping at empty air.
She had simply and entirely disappeared from the lobby.

“You moron!” Alice yelled at me again.

I started at her, nowhere near understanding what had just occurred.

She sighed as she saw my face, “Now she's going to loop. She'll be back in an
hour.”

“What?”

“You're not supposed to touch the guests,” She stated, sounding annoyed.

“We need to call the police, she was seriously hurt!” I was freaking out.

“She was seriously dead,” She said dryly, “The phones here don't make calls to
911 anyways. She's a Shade. Stop panicking. You'll get used to it.”
I couldn't think of any response to that. I still hadn't fully grasped what this job
was all about. I suddenly realized that I had no feeling in my hands, I clutched
them close to my chest to discover that they were cold as ice. Instantly the feeling
spread, deep into my chest and up my arms. I was freezing, and began shivering
violently as I walked back to the desk.

Alice glanced at me when I arrived beside her, and let out another exasperated
sigh.

“Give me the vial, tip your head back,” She ordered.

I pulled it out from my pocket while she took an eye dropper from a drawer in the
desk. I watched as she squeezed the end of the dropper to pull liquid from the vile.
The milky substance turned a pale purple as it entered the dropper. I leaned my
head back and allowed her to put a drop in each of my eyes. As she tucked the
vial back into my pocket and put away the dropper I felt the cold leave my body.

“When Sylvia gets back I'll deal with her,” She said calmly, “Maybe you should just
watch for the first couple of days. There's a lot to learn about the different types
of Shades that we room.”

I nodded, and sat patiently. I looked over the fine print in my contract while we
waited, Early dismissal from any staff position will result in an extremely painful
deconditioning process. It is highly recommended to wait the entire three month
period so that we may provide a nearly painless process. Based on what I had
already seen tonight, I didn't want to know what these people considered a
painful process. I'd stick out the job for three months, and quit if I couldn't handle
the insanity.
Soon enough Sylvia came back. She looked exactly the same as she had an hour
ago. I resisted the urge to both scream and vomit. Alice called out to her.

“Hi Sylvia, sweetie!” She walked over and knelt in front of the mangled girl,
“Welcome back to the Good Shade, I'm sorry to tell you again, but you're dead.”

Sylvia's head snapped toward Alice at an inhuman speed. She nodded, seeming to
think for a moment.

“We have room U344 available for you,” Alice told her, holding out a key card.

The girl nodded again, took the key, and shuffled her way towards the elevator.
When the doors shut behind her I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
Alice walked back over and sat at the desk.

“There's no one else scheduled for tonight, you could probably nap until the shift
ends.”

“Yea, I might…” I started, then curiosity got the best of me, “U344?”

“Oh, Mister Smith forgot to tell you? Well, we have 50 floors of underground
rooms,” She told me, “A lot of the guests prefer it.”
I don't know why it surprised me, after everything else that had happened. I was
sitting next to a girl with shark teeth, and we had just let a mangled corpse into
the hotel. What else?

“I don't know how I'm going to manage the next three months without having
nightmares,” I laughed, but the statement was entirely serious.

“Oh honey,” Alice giggled, “You'll see much worse, trust me.”

I stared at her sharp teeth and felt a chill run through me. She wasn't wrong
about that.
Our Hotel Celebrates The Strangest Holidays
“Happy Apocalypse Day!” Diana greeted me cheerfully from behind the front desk.

What now? I had been working at the Good Shade for several weeks at this point,
and had just started to become accustomed to all the things that go on. I could
finally check-in guests, and I was learning more about the types of people that
stayed in the hotel. Not all of them were bad, but most were terrifying.

I was already starting to lose track of how many times a guest had smelled me. On
the bright side, apparently my scent is delicious. Perhaps not the best compliment,
considering it's probably something that would make me more likely to end up a
victim. Diana didn't seem too impressed when she saw such a thing occur to me
for the first time.

A tall, pale woman had entered the hotel a few days after I started the job. She
looked like death-- literally. She was beautiful in a dark way, and I found myself
compelled to walk up to her as soon as our eyes met. Long black hair cascaded
down her back, matching in color with her eyes. If the grim reaper was
personified as a gorgeous woman, then that's what I was staring at.

She was as tall as me, a surprising attribute considering that I'm 6’1”. She leaned
close to me as I came to a halt in front of her. Her lips hovered mere centimetres
away from my neck, and her breath felt cold on my skin. I trembled due to the
fear of what she may be, but also because I was suddenly awash with a deep lust
for her. She laughed, a deep and alluring sound as she backed away.

“You smell delicious, young man,” She purred as she walked around me.
I didn't trust my legs to walk, so I simply stared as she took long graceful steps
towards Alice.

“Marise, he's new. Don't play with the staff,” Alice chastised her.

“Shame, it gets lonely at the hotel.”

“No it doesn't,” Alice laughed, “You bring in more unregistered guests than
anyone else. You keep turning people and there will be none left to feed on.”

Abruptly I felt the rush of desire leave my body, leaving only the traces of fear. I
walked hesitantly up to the women, and Marise glanced at me with a pout.

“What if I get hungry?” The pout transformed into a smile, revealing her sharp
elongated canines.

Alice sighed, “You know Smith provides for the guests, and I've already asked you
once not to mess with our new staff member. Get out of his head.”

Marise shrugged and broke her gaze with me. I stood there confused until she left
with her room key.
“Don't let the guests play with your head,” Alice scolded me once Marise was out
of sight.

“What do you mean?” I questioned, still confused about the encounter.

“The desire, her teeth? She does it to everyone. It's not real, you have to steel
yourself mentally so that it's not so easy for Shades to get in your head.”

I nodded, “What about her teeth?”

“You think mine are scary? Hers are just plain hideous, but almost equally as
dangerous.”

I took what she had told me into account, and have worked on locking down my
brain since then. By the time “Apocalypse Day” arrived I had a minor grasp on
how to protect my mind, but at the same time I was plagued with nightmares of
jagged teeth. I came into work that evening exhausted, the nightmares had made
sleep nearly impossible.

“Apocalypse Day?” I questioned with a yawn.

“It's a sort of holiday at the hotel. I mean, if holidays meant a ton of extra work,”
She was vigorously typing things into the computer as she spoke, “That’s the
downfall of being in the hotel business though. It makes for an interesting night at
least.”

I watched as she pushed chestnut colored hair away from her tanned face. She
was pretty this way, short and curvy with dark green eyes. She noticed me staring.

“What?”

“I'm just not used to Diana yet, what was wrong with Alice?”

“Nothing, I just needed to change bodies so I could move on undetected,” She

shrugged at me as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I'm not sure if I'll ever get used to Alphaea switching names and bodies, it was
definitely confusing the first time she came in as Diana. I nodded in understanding
at her explanation, but wished she would let me call her by a single name. She
requested that I call her by the name of the body so that she wouldn't slip up
around other humans. I doubt she ever slips up though, I'm pretty sure she just
gets a laugh out of my confusion.

“So what exactly is this so-called holiday?” I got back on task, not wanting to be
blindsided tonight.

“Years ago-- back in the time of Al Capone-- there was a group of men who
thought themselves Demon Hunters,” She glanced up from the screen to make
sure I was paying attention, “Their leader led them to believe the apocalypse was
imminent. He brought them here on the claim that this hotel was run by demons.”

I listened intently, her tone made it obvious that their visit to the Good Shade
didn't end well.

“I'll tell you the rest later,” She cut the story short as two young men entered the
hotel.

“Hi, welcome to the Good Shade hotel,” She smiled sweetly at the new guests.

“Damn, this place is pretty remote,” The taller of the pair spoke, “Stumbled on it
by luck.”

“Mhmm, we don't advertise much,” The edges of her smile tightened as though
she knew what would come next.

“So is the place where that massacre happened? Do you know where they died?”
He asked casually as they walked up to the desk.

I took in their appearances, they seemed almost normal. The taller guy sported
short blonde hair, he had an arrogant air about him. The shorter one had dark
hair, and he practically dragged the bags he was weighted down with. He didn't
seem to be as thrilled about being here as his friend was.
“Do you need a room for the night?” Diana ignored his question.

“Can you tell me what happened that night? It's the anniversary you know, those
men came into this forest,” The blonde ignored her in return.

She rolled her eyes, “Do I look old enough to remember that?”

“Fine, whatever, we'll take a room. Can we film here, and in the area?” He sighed
and gestured to the bags.

“The other guests probably won't want to be on camera, but do what you want
without bothering anyone. Names for the room, please,” She was typing the
booking into the computer as she spoke.

“I'm Eric, my friend here is Tim. I'm actually doing research on a mass killing that
hasn't been publicized,” He leaned in like he was expecting this would get her to
talk.

“I take it that means you didn't come here because you found some sort of
advertisement or invitation?”

Eric simply shrugged, apparently annoyed by the lack of information Diana

offered. She held out a key card silently, and gripped his hand when he reached
for it.
“Only use the third elevator, don't leave your room after 11pm, and enjoy your
stay in room 217,” She smiled, her eyes seemed to turn into deep black pools as
she stared into him.

He yanked his hand away and began walking, “Crazy. C’mon Tim, let's go set up in
the room.”

She frowned, “Not long enough,” She muttered under her breath, “Tyler, will you
make sure those two make it to their room okay? Third elevator only. The other
staff aren't here yet.”

I nodded and quickly jogged to catch up with the men near the elevators. They
were trying to enter the wrong one. Eric seemed frustrated, while Tim seemed
slightly scared.

“Swiping your key card will only work on the correct elevator,” I told them.

We moved to the third elevator, and I took a few of the heavy bags from Tim. As
soon as we entered the elevator Eric began speaking again.

“So, do you know about the massacre?” He asked me.

“I'm pretty new here, you're the first person to mention it,” I replied.
He told the story as we made our way to the room. Apparently this occurred
almost a hundred years ago, most of the story was small town rumor. A group of
men had followed a preacher out into the woods, they believed he was leading
them to stop the apocalypse. As the tale goes, the men never came back and their
families believed something in the woods had killed the entire group. No one
knew where exactly the men had gone, and there has been conspiracy theories
about it being a cult that committed a group suicide.

Variations of the story included the men finding a haunted building and being
tortured by malevolent forces, or the preacher turning on them and slaughtering
the group. The only solid fact that Eric had was that this forest was the one where
the men had disappeared.

I nodded and made understanding noises at the right moments, this information
seemed to coincide with what Diana had been telling me before. I helped them
bring the bags into the room, and was about to leave when a question popped
into my head.

“Why are you filming at the hotel?”

“This is the only place around for miles, no one has ever heard of it, and everyone
who has come looking for answers has gone missing. When we stumbled upon
this place I figured someone here must know what's going on.”

“Maybe,” I muttered halfheartedly.

Oh the people here know what's going on, I thought. Why else would they
celebrate a holiday called Apocalypse Day?

When I returned to the lobby Diana gave me a curious look, “Learn anything
interesting from your fellow humans?”

“I suppose,” I shrugged, knowing she didn't plan on enlightening me any further.

I didn't have much time to dwell on the fact that she was leaving me clueless yet
again. Guests seemed to pour into the hotel in an endless stream. Human and
Shade alike came to stay. It wasn't uncommon to have human guests, people like
to roam the forest and are always relieved to find that there's somewhere to rest.
None of them remember the hotel once they leave, we have staff that make sure
of that.

The influx in guests was apparently due to the holiday. Half the human guests
were out ghost hunting for the missing men, and I wasn't sure what about this
day appealed to the Shades. By the time we had gotten the flood of guests into
their rooms it was almost 11pm. I was entirely exhausted at this point, and
couldn't keep my eyes from closing as I took a seat behind the desk.

I awoke a short time later to the sound of a disagreement.

“You need to go back to your room,” Diana said sternly.

I was still half asleep and hardly heard the response from a familiar male voice. I
stood, trying to collect myself, and saw a group of people enter the hotel. Diana
noticed that I was awake.

“Take care of the guests,” She barked at me as she took Eric's arm and led him
away quickly.

The group was made up of about ten men, and they seemed angry. It only took a
moment of them crying out for redemption upon demons before I recognized
who they must be. I couldn't pinpoint which of them might be the so-called
preacher. As they got closer I faced a horrifying realization. They were all
obviously Shades, and they were mutilated beyond belief.

Suit sleeves dangled limply, lacking arms to fill them. It was a near sea of red,
blood splatter could be found in abundance on each one of them. Eyeless sockets,
mouths sewn shut, limbs snapped and mangled, and missing chunks of flesh.
These men had been brutally torn apart. I was used to seeing awful things, but
hadn't yet witnessed anything of this magnitude. I stood staring, absolutely
shocked by the scene in front of me. The gruesome visual was paired with a
soundtrack of enraged shouts.

“Demons come forth!”

“We shall end the bringers of the apocalypse!”

“The night of your reckoning has come!”

My stupefied state was interrupted by the sound of elevator doors opening. A tall
man in a pristine black suit came over and stood in front of the gruesome mob.

“My followers, welcome to the reckoning!” He gave an eerie smile to the group,
who responded by dropping to their knees.

They sang out praises and gratitude, the man who stood before them was their
preacher. By this point a throng of guests had heard the commotion and crowded
around the edges of the lobby. The humans were easy to distinguish, they bore
panicked expressions and some even screamed at the sight. Other guests held on
to them and kept them from running away.

“Friends,” The man gestured towards the edges of the room, “Let history repeat
itself, Apocalypse Day has arrived!”

He laughed like a madman, and the room was suddenly chaotic. Shades
descended upon the human guests, tearing them apart or dragging them away.
The preacher ran through the room, laughing as his razor sharp nails cut through
his flock of mutilated followers. The men dissipated when he made the violent
contact, but the blood and screams were not lost. The guests kept the sound alive
as they tore each other apart.

I was backed against the wall behind the front desk, shivering with fear. The
guests had gone crazy, this place wasn't safe. I don't know how I could have
thought I would get used to being around such murderous creatures. Suddenly
Diana was besides me, blood dripped from her shark-like teeth and ran down her
chin. She looked at me with curiosity, but her eyes were inky black pools. I shrunk
away from her.

She rolled her eyes at me, “I had to take care of Eric, he was getting too
aggressive while asking about the hotel. I see the festivities have started.”

I stared at her speechless, and she seemed to suddenly realize the depth of my
fear.

“This is what the holiday is for, a cheat day of you will. The guests go wild to
celebrate the massacre. Not a great day for your kind, but you're safe. You're with
me, I'll protect you,” She said reassuringly as the darkness faded from her eyes,
but the fresh blood dripping from her chin didn't make me feel any better.

She hooked her arm through mine as we watched the brutal chaos surround us. I
couldn't help but feel afraid that she'd suddenly turn on me, I wasn't sure if she
was safe to be near. As if the universe had set out to prove me wrong, someone
clutched at my free arm and tried to pull me into the disaster.

Diana bared her teeth at the woman holding my arm, “This one is mine,” She
growled in an inhuman voice.

The stranger backed away, returning to the grotesque show. We sat there and
watched until the violence died down and the guests had returned to their rooms.
The lobby was awash with blood and bits of flesh, and I felt sick to my stomach.
Diana patted me on the back as she stood.
“Congratulations, you've made it through your first hotel holiday,” She smiled,
“Your shift is being extended. We need to check in the morning to see how many
guests we lost.”

I hesitated before speaking, unsure if my voice would work, “Won't people come
looking for them?”

“We have people to take care of that, and people to clean all of this up.
Everything is fine, it's just another day at the hotel. You should get some sleep
before we check the rooms in a few hours.”

I laid down on the soft couch in the office, but I couldn't sleep. I'd never get the
scene I witnessed out of my head, and I feared for my life more now than I ever
had before. Just another day? How was this considered a holiday? I was so
exhausted that I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I fell asleep to fearful thoughts.

How was I supposed to stay sane when I still had nearly two months left on my
contract? How was I supposed to get used to their idea of holidays? I didn't
understand how they could be so nonchalant about massacring guests. I felt a
deep sadness for the human guests who had thought this hotel was a safe haven
amidst a dangerous forest.

This place might end up being the death of me, and every time something crazy
like this happens I flash back to the words I was told on my first day.
You'll see much worse, trust me.

Those words still remain true. Apocalypse Day may have been violent and
gruesome, but it wasn't the most terrifying night of the job.
An App Called "New Eyes" Has Taken Over Our Town
I don’t remember what my wife and I were arguing about, but it lasted for more
than three days. About three weeks ago, I came home from work and prepared
myself for the incoming argument, but when I walked in through the door my
wife jumped into my arms and planted me with kisses. Pleasantly surprised by the
change of pace, I started to relax and asked her what the kisses were all about.

While rushing back to the kitchen she yelled out, “I’ll tell you after dinner, honey!”
She brought out a large pizza from Papa John’s and I let out a quiet chuckle. She
was never much of a cook. I couldn’t blame her. She was the town’s only dentist
so she was almost always busy. We watched a little bit of tv while we ate, but my
mind was distracted. It wasn’t like her to end an argument so abruptly.

As soon as I finished off the last slice of pizza my wife put her phone on my lap.
The screen was filled with a pink background and little blue dots that floated
around the screen leaving trails that vanished after a second. I looked at her, but
with a soft voice she whispered, “Tap the screen three times and don’t take your
eyes off of the phone.”

Feeling curious, I tapped the screen three times and the screen went dark for a
couple of seconds. I started to look back at my wife, but the screen flashed a
white light twice and bounced to a park.

It was the park that I used to go to with my mother and father, but the park was
demolished 7 years ago and both of my parents passed away while the park was
still standing. On the phone screen I saw myself walking around the park looking
depressed, but a smile quickly took over my face when my mother and father
walked up to me. Both of them looked like the last time I saw them, but they
looked perfect.
My father didn’t have a limp on his right leg, and my mother didn’t need a cane to
walk. We all walked around the park while we walked around and I could hear,
inside of my head, my mother talking about how proud of me she was. My father
kept making the same corny little jokes he used to make. As we made our way
around the park for the fifth time the screen shut off and I noticed that I had a
smile on my face.

It was only for a short time, but I was completely at peace for the first time in my
life. I looked at my wife and she asked, “What did you see?”

With a teasing voice I said, “Don’t tell me you didn’t look at what I was watching.”
She laughed and scooted up closer to me while saying, “It doesn’t show the other
person what you are watching. If someone tries to see what you are looking at
they will only see a black screen.”

After I told her about seeing my parents and the park I asked her where I could
get the app. She told me that a friend of hers gave it to her because it was still in
development, but she could send it to me through Bluetooth. I don’t really know
much about phones so I let her handle that when we walked back into our room.
After she put the app on my phone I put it on my side table and plugged the
charger in. The app was called New Eyes. The icon for the app was a bright pink
box with a small pair of eyes inside. I thought about opening up the app, but
something in my mind stopped me from clicking it. That night I fell asleep to the
sound of my wife letting out happy sighs.

I woke up three times that night, and each time I woke up I saw my wife glued to
her cell phone. I tried asking her what she was doing, but she didn’t respond to
any of my questions. When I woke up the next morning she was still asleep. I
gently shook her till she woke up and I noticed instantly that she barely got any
sleep at all the night before. Her eyes were bloodshot red and her face was a lot
more pale than usual. I asked her if she was okay and she just nodded at me
before going into the restroom and got ready.

It was the same thing every single night after that. Last week, she started to
refuse to eat or drink any water. I tried to take her to the doctor, but she refused
to go with me.

I couldn’t take it anymore. Five days ago I called 911 and silently waited next to
my wife while she kept staring at the black screen on her phone. When the
paramedics arrived they quickly picked her up and managed to strap her onto the
gurney while she screamed and flailed her arms and legs around.

Two days ago, I noticed something that has made me start to panic. I work at the
local bakery as the cashier. When I walked into work both of the bakers were
standing together and staring into their phones. When I walked up to them to see
what they were looking at I only saw a solid black screen. They were both smiling,
but their smiles quickly vanished when I snatched their phones from their hands
and placed them on the counter. I gave the phones back to them a couple
minutes later, but I told them to not use them out in the open while we worked.

Almost all of the customers that walked into our store were glued to their phone.
When I asked for their order they would respond back in monotone voices. Even
the repeat customers that always asked how my day was would just come up and
slam money on the counter while telling me what they wanted. If I asked them a
question they would ignore me.
Stressed and scared out of my mind, I went home as soon as my shift ended at 4
pm.

I called out of work yesterday. I just couldn’t handle whatever was going on. I
thought about visiting my wife in the hospital, but I decided to just go the next
day. My phone buzzed twice, but when I clicked the power button there wasn’t a
notification. It was “New Eyes” blinking from a bright pink to a deep red.
Disgusted, I shut my phone off and fell asleep before the sun went down.

I woke up today at 10:45 and prepared myself to go see my wife since it was an
off day. After I got dressed, I went to my car and drove to the hospital. The first
thing I noticed was the lack of cars in the parking lot. When I walked inside and up
to the front counter there was no one there. Ten minutes of waiting later, I lost
my patience and checked the log book behind the counter. My wife was in room
203.

Once I found the room I walked inside and saw two nurses sitting in the corner of
the room staring into their phones. My wife was lying on the bed staring into her
phone. Her cheeks were sunken in and the skin on her face has started to sag. I
greeted her, but she did not respond. With tears of stress rolling down my cheeks,
I grabbed at my wife and begged her to speak to me, but like the lifeless doll she
has become, she did not respond back with a single word.

Only when I grabbed the phone out of her hand did she acknowledge my
existence. She pointed her finger at me and began to scream. With a raspy voice I
never heard her speak in she yelled, “You are not real life. This is not real life.”
Before I could stop them the nurses ran up to my wife and repeatedly stabbed her
with their knives. The whole time my wife laughed while saying, “This is not real
life. I know. I know. I’m coming. Accept me with open arms.”

After my wife went silent they turned to me and started walking towards me
while chanting, “You aren’t. No. You aren’t part of the new world.”

I ran out of the hospital before they could reach me. I got into the car and drove
like a madman until I pulled into my driveway. I tried calling the police, but every
time they answer I hear someone breathing heavily into the phone while
whispering, “New world is coming. You aren’t one of use. Give yourself up. We
will accept you with open arms.”
My uncle had "brain bubbles"
My mother called me a few days ago. She was crying, and reminded me that it
was her brother Brian’s birthday. I was surprised to hear that name; she hadn’t
talked about him in so long that I’d completely forgotten what happened. When I
told this story to my buddy, he mentioned that Reddit loves creepy government
stuff – so here’s the tale of my family’s dark mystery. I’ll tell you what I know first,
and then I’ll tell you how I know.

My uncle Brian was a “scrubber” for a private company contracted with the US
government. His job (or the job of his entire team, rather) was to retrieve or
destroy secret, top-secret, and alleged “above-top-secret” data from sunken
military vessels. This included anything from documents, storage drives, cargo,
weaponry, dog tags/identification cards, and corpses. He would also scrub
identifying marks on ships, strip indicators of country of origin, and salvage
valuable parts of the craft. His duties were not limited to these, but these are the
most interesting and relevant.

Brian performed deep sea dives between 1969-71, then again from 1980-81. We
don’t know much about his life between those two periods, but we do know that
he was stationed at a “training facility” somewhere in the arctic circle, probably
Greenland or Canada. During that time, he only visited his home in Arizona for 6
weeks per year, and was forbidden from doing all kinds of weird things. He was
not allowed to purchase office supplies or typewriters, could not spend money at
all except with a checkbook issued to him by his employer, could not go into a
bank for any reason, could not handle cash, could not go to large gatherings or
drink alcohol, etc. They wouldn’t even let him smoke cigarettes. He was forbidden
to write anything down and therefore would never handle a pencil, couldn’t talk
about his job, and refused to even touch a phone, with one exception.
Brian had to call a phone number every six hours, regardless of the time of day.
He would wake up in the middle of the night to make the call, which always
pissed off his wife. Whenever he made that call, he always spoke casually, as if
talking to an old friend, and had conversations that never amounted to more than
idle chit-chat. I only heard these calls once in my life, and only in retrospect did I
realize that they were heavily coded. What he was actually saying, we will never
know. Even when someone called for Brian, he wouldn’t take the phone; he
would only touch it or speak if he dialed the number. I have never seen such a
paranoid person in my life, but in my young age, I found his behavior harmless
and amusing.

My uncle mysteriously disappeared in 1999, when I was twelve years old. I had
only met him twice, and by that time he was retired. I was too young to
remember him the first time we’d met, but the second occasion I actually tried to
block out – and pretty much have, until this conversation with my mom.

When we visited him for a week in Phoenix, he was glum the entire time. The man
was singularly unfriendly, and appeared scarcely aware of anything but his own
private thoughts. He was more pensive and withdrawn than anyone I’d ever
known, as if he’d retreated entirely from this planet and left a functioning body
behind. He looked over his shoulder all the time, even on the couch, and always
watched the rear-view mirror when my mom drove us out to dinner. I remember
him constantly doing weird things, like inspecting the light switches in his own
home, unscrewing the little plates and poking around, then putting them back on.
He looked up in the air each time he walked outside, as if he expected a brick to
fall on his head, or maybe a helicopter to snap a photo of him. He only ever spoke
in short and stilted sentences, cautious not to divulge anything that could get him
into trouble. Brian seemed like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders,
and a flood of confessions just behind the dam of his teeth. I found myself
wondering about him each night as I tried to fall asleep.
One night during that visit, Brian snapped. I don’t know what caused it, but he
had a massive freak-out and started acting like he was on hard drugs. In the
middle of a normal conversation on the couch, he started shrieking about how he
was “sick of all the games” and didn’t “wanna be a gerbil anymore.” To my
mother’s horror, he lunged at me and tried to strangle me. He kept screaming to
my mom that he was going to “twist the head off, show you all the circuits!” and
went on and on about how there were cameras in my eyes and microphones in
my ears. He bit me, and when he saw that I bled, he snapped out of the episode
and burst into tears.

My mom tried to call 911 from the house phone, but it wouldn’t connect. She
frantically dialed the number on his barren fridge, and a woman answered. My
mom told her that Brian was acting crazy, and said she needed police and an
ambulance. The woman told my mom that she’d phone Brian’s doctor
immediately, and that everyone should just sit tight. (I refused to go to the
hospital anyway; I’m a lifelong emetophobe and hospitals make me nauseous.)

In less than an hour, a man showed up at the door. He called himself “Doctor S.”
The doctor was dressed in ordinary slacks and a button-down shirt, and had a
clean shave. I remember noticing the roughness of his hands when he shook mine.
He was big, but too well-spoken to be some bruiser. I have trouble explaining
what I mean, but the plainness of his appearance and the calm of his demeanor
felt very menacing to me, like he was about to murder every person in the house,
Patrick Bateman-style. The thing I remember most about him, however, was that
he carried the acrid stench of chemicals, as if he’d been varnishing wood or
something.
The doctor had a quiet conversation with my uncle on the back patio, and then he
politely excused himself and left. He told my mom and I that “Brian is going to be
fine, he just needs a bit of rest. I’ll order a prescription and you can pick it up for
him tomorrow.” When my mother asked if it was dangerous to be alone with
Brian, the doctor just laughed and said “Not anymore. I promise.” He squeezed
my shoulder and walked away.

Two things really disturbed me about “Doctor S.”’s visit. The first was that
between hello and goodbye, the man wasn’t there any longer than four minutes.
What could he possibly have said to Brian in that amount of time? And second,
when I ran upstairs to watch the doctor drive away, he didn’t get into a car. He
literally walked out of the neighborhood.

Brian immediately seemed better after his meeting with the doctor. He
apologized to me, and ate dinner with us. He was in much higher spirits, like he’d
been relieved of every burden he carried.

My mom and I slept in the guest room with the door locked that night, simply
because we had no idea what to expect from him. Brian was like his precious light
switches: on or off, and nothing in between. But in the middle of the night, I woke
up to my mother shouting. The house was dark, the patio door was wide open,
and Brian was gone. He didn’t take anything with him – not his shoes or his
checkbook or watch. His car still sat in the garage, and keys on the counter.

We tried to call the number on the fridge, but the line was disconnected. The
phone wouldn’t dial out at all.
Early the next morning, a bunch of men showed up to the house. They took all
Brian’s possessions away in boxes, and asked my mom and I a ton of really
strange, nonsensical questions – things like, “Did Brian ever tell you his favorite
color?”

“What food does he hate the most?”

“Is he good with kids?”

“Did he ever go to church?”

“What is your earliest memory of him?”

“Was he right or left-handed?”

The interrogation left us baffled. I was really confused by all of this, but my
mother was downright mortified. No matter what answers she gave, they always
doubted her, and told her she must be wrong, and gave some ridiculous
explanation as to why. On the other hand, they never questioned a single thing I
said. I still don’t understand what the point of all that was.

Almost a year later, after the shock of his disappearance began to settle into a
dull pain, my mother decided to sell her car. Under the floor of the trunk, tucked
into the spare tire, she found a VHS tape. It was from Brian. He probably left it
there while we were asleep.
In it, Brian was standing way out in the desert somewhere. He looked a few years
younger, and appeared to have not slept in days. He described the nature of his
work to my mom, and some of the things he’d seen and done. I pieced together
everything I know about him from this tape and some conversations between my
mom and Brian’s ex-wife.

I haven’t seen the tape since we found it, and I’m sure my mom got rid of it, as
Brian instructed. But here are the things I remember best – the weirdest and
scariest things he found while working sunken ships and submarines:

-Rooms that remained pressurized, where people appeared to live for weeks after
the submarine sank. Some of the sailors appeared to have lost their minds and
wrote all over the walls or killed each other

-Loud banging sounds on the hull and in passageways. These wrecks were mostly
from WWII and the Cold War, some Vietnam – so years or decades old. But Brian
swore he heard “SOS” in Morse code on more than one occasion. He even claims
he once heard “LEAVE”

-Frozen bodies that looked mummified, suspended in the wrecks with smiles on
their faces (the skin freezes and flakes off, revealing a ‘grin’)

-The body of a young woman who appeared to have died much more recently
than anyone else on the ship. She was wearing a flowing white dress, and “looked
like an angel” when Brian found her. She wasn’t desiccated like the other bodies;
her skin was pristine, despite being locked in a British submarine that sunk in the
1940’s and now lays at the bottom of the North Sea

-Strange things on Soviet ships. Human experiments, fetuses in bottles, remains

that looked both human and animal, cages, chains, extensive prison networks in
the bowels of one nuclear-class icebreaker in the Arctic, etc. Brian claims he
found the body of what looked like a baby, floating in a laboratory, but its limbs
were 2-3 feet long and dangled together like a dead wasp’s. When he moved it, it
broke apart and dissipated in the water. Very few bones at all

-Brian talked of discovering a passenger jet that had never been reported missing.
It crashed into the ocean and sank. All of the corpses were still buckled into their
seats. The unusual thing was that the jet had sunken next to an old ship, and the
corpses on the jet all wore dog tags that were traced to that ship. It was as if
someone had played a practical joke by moving the dog tags, but my twelve-year-
old mind imagined the corpses of the ship walking across the sea floor and
buckling themselves into the crashed jet, hoping it would take them back to their
families

-Scrubbers going mad in the depths. Two of Brian’s friends went missing during a
dive off the Alaskan coast. One of them was found sealed inside a room of the
submarine they were exploring, a door that could only be locked from the outside.
He was nearly dead of hypothermia, and swore that a woman without a face had
put him there. The other managed to remove a small part of his helmet, instantly
killing himself because of the pressure difference

-There’s more, and I’ll try to remember/ask my mother if anyone is interested

In the years after Brian’s disappearance, strange men visited me once in a while,
always asking about Brian. They found me in random places and always asked
random questions. They were always polite, but never identified themselves. No
matter where my mom and I moved, they found us. One time, a substitute
teacher showed up to my high school biology class in Senior Year and gave the
standard lecture, but at the end of the day, he asked me if I had any relatives who
worked in the government, and if I could remember what my uncle’s favorite
color was. On another occasion in college, my then-girlfriend/now-fiancée and I
went to a bar for a friend’s birthday, and the bartender kept trying to serve me
alcohol (I don’t drink) and then asked me if I’d ever consider moving to Phoenix.
He told me his buddy Brian used to live out there, and asked me if I’d ever been
scuba diving. At the end of the night, he asked how my mother was doing – and
used her full name.

Most recently, while jogging the forest trail near my house in California, a guy on
a bicycle stopped me and told me I looked just like a guy he once knew – Brian, a
dude he met in the Navy. He mentioned that they lost touch, and said, “Last I
heard, he was out livin’ in the desert or somethin’, far away from the ocean. He
hated the ocean.” I replied sarcastically that he probably went to Phoenix, and the
guy’s expression went cold as a dead fish. He said, “That’s right. He’s happier
there, I’m sure of it.” Then the man rode off. The one thing all these people had in
common was that they reeked of chemicals, just like “Doctor S.”

Brian’s ex-wife Jill once told me “Your uncle had brain bubbles,” and told me that
the crazy things he’d say were the result of brain damage from diving. The
mixture of gasses, pressure, and tight spaces, coupled with other stressors of the
job could certainly do real harm to a person’s mind. But then again, Jill also
worked in the government; that’s how they met, and after Brian disappeared, she
acted like she barely remembered him at all. It was almost as though she wanted
me to dismiss him as a nut job.
And come to think of it, she always smelled like chemicals too.
There Was Something Wrong With Our Last Foster Child
When I was younger I wanted kids more than anything else in the world, I still do.
Children are just tiny little blessings, even when they act like hellions half the time.
It was for this reason that when I discovered I would never be able to carry
children of my own, I decided I wanted to be a foster parent.

I was in the system for a while as a child, and I know first-hand that not every
family a child is sent to is an ideal home. There are some truly vile human beings
that take in children. I wanted to be one of the ideal homes, one of the houses
that makes you forget the fact that you've lost or been taken from your family,
and makes your stay feel like a real home.

My husband was happy to do this with me since alternative methods of having

our own children were well out of our affordable range. We fostered children for
years, and though every child has had their own issues and challenges I have
loved them all. There was one child we took in that was different though, the last
child we ever provided a temporary home for.

Kevin wasn't immediately different than other children we had cared for, but
there was always something offputting about him. He was quiet, withdrawn
almost. It wasn't uncommon for children who came from less fortunate situations,
but I didn't have any solid information about his past.

For some reason unknown to me, the organization wouldn't tell me anything
about him other than name and age. I'm usually always given at least a minimal
briefing on a child's past, I have to know what could trigger them. There are
always topics to avoid, and different ways to be sensitive to different situations.
With Kevin we had go in blind.
I was left to draw my own conclusions as to what horrors he might have seen. He
didn’t appear to have any visible scars, and when I tried to hug him he didn’t
flinch-- a good sign, children of abuse flinch whenever there are arms raised. I had
no interest in pressing him for where he came from, I figured as he got
comfortable he would open up to me.

So I began the all-star treatment that I'd had success with in the past. We let him
choose a color to paint his room and did it all together. I should have taken note
of the color he jumped to right away, but I just wanted to make him happy. Giving
him the power to make choices was one of the first steps to him feeling safe, and
so we painted his room an obnoxious blood red.

When I asked Kevin what else he might like to decorate his room with, he thought
on it for a long moment. I had expected him to blurt out firetrucks or super
heroes, but I had been wrong.

“Maybe some skulls or fire or both!” This was the first excited thing I had heard
come out of his mouth, and truthfully I was a bit disturbed.

I laughed it off in the moment, thinking he had just been acting out. Just one of
many red flags that I would ignore during his stay.

Within a few weeks of his arrival we decided that he should be more integrated
into the family, since it was obvious he would be a long term foster. My husband's
parents had always been so great with our fosters, so I was very excited to take
Kevin to meet them for the first time. My father-in-law was almost immediately
uncomfortable and excused himself, and while there were the few times they
would be in the same place he never stayed very close to Kevin. It was like he
knew that something was wrong with him.

My mother-in-law had tried harder to get along with Kevin, she was a very kind
and gracious woman, and I am eternally grateful to her for everything she has
done. After that first meeting she sent me a text message about how something
seemed very off with Kevin, and that her husband requested future meetings to
be away from their home.

This was the point I decided to try to ask Kevin about his past. I figured I might try
asking if he had been to certain places as a way to ease into asking where he had
lived before, but before I could get much out he seemed to sense my unease.

“Are you scared of me mommy? All of my mommies are scared of me.” He

smirked.

“All of your mommies? Of course not sweetheart. Why would you say that?” I
tried to keep a smooth expression despite my concern at his statement.

“Don’t worry, you will be scared soon.” He stared at me blankly for a long
moment and then started laughing hysterically.

After that comment, Kevin refused to say anything else on that topic. I asked him
why his mommies were scared of him, and he was silent. As you could probably
guess, I was confused and slightly worried by this, but the organization hadn't
given me anyone to contact-- I'd only seen his social worker when he arrived, but
they hadn't given me her contact number and I'd never met her before that day.
This left me confused and with no one that I could ask for clarity, so I decided to
call my father-in-law to ask him just what exactly had happened between him and
Kevin.

When I asked him why he'd been so uncomfortable he was silent for a long while,
"You're afraid." He finally spoke.

"What?" I asked.

"I hear it in your voice. You're nervous, or you're afraid. It’s him."

I wasn't sure how much to tell him. At the time it had worried me that he seemed
so discomforted by a child-- and I'll admit that I myself was definitely worried
about Kevin. It couldn't be good for the poor kid to feel that people were scared
of him though, especially with him saying it's happened before.

"Kevin's been acting very strange," I finally said, "And I just want to know why you
were scared of him."

"It's his eyes," He said.

"What?"
"Look at his eyes," He said, "Look at them, and then I want you to talk to the
people at that organization. Tell them you can't take care of him. I'm not having
that thing near my son."

For a second I thought I had to be mishearing. My father-in-law was a quiet man,

but he was kind in every way. He loved children. He was not in the slightest the
type of person to call anyone a thing.

"You just called Kevin a thing," I finally said in shock. "He's-"

"It's not a he..." His voice was quiet, "I’ve heard of kids with eyes like that. Always
smiling at awful things, teeth too sharp, but the parents still tried to spend time
with them. One parent worked with me. I only met the kid once, the day he set
the building on fire. Twenty people died. Kevin is just like him. Get him away from
you."

He hung up abruptly.

I put down the phone and turned around-- only to see Kevin in the doorway,
watching me.

I vividly remember the mix of emotions that ran through me as I felt my

expression flicker from attempted parental understanding to fear and then back.
Kevin stood there almost dourly and appeared to be looking past me, but I knew
he had been watching. I opened my mouth to say something and he whirled
around and left. It wasn't with a quick stride, but an entitled and determined one.
One of those "you can't do anything about it" sort of walks.

As he left the room we made just a split-second of eye contact, but it was enough
for me to notice something dark and hard in his eyes. I could narrowly see
through the hallway to his room from where I was standing, and as he shut the
door I swear his face blossomed from a scowl into a too-sharp smile.

I was afraid, my father-in-law was right about that. And worse, I was angry at
myself for being afraid. This was a boy who needed someone. I had been in his
position not too long ago, and my husband and I had agreed to step up and be a
rock for kids like him. We had done it successfully many times before, but
something about Kevin-- the process, the way others reacted to him-- was
different.

I went down the list of my options. I could call social services and ask for help, but
I didn't have the worker's number and without going down to the offices there
was no way to verify I was who I said I was over the phone. I could go down there,
but I'm ashamed to say I was scared of leaving Kevin unattended in his blood-red
room with his shark eyes and sharp grin.

I reasoned my best chance was to get in touch with the only person with more
experience raising little terrors than I had: my foster mom. I was grateful to her
for all she'd done, but I'd never told her, and when I aged out of care-- to put it
lightly-- we hadn't been on the best of terms.
I called her that very night. Well, first I poured a glass of wine and locked myself in
the basement spare-room with the phone. Kevin and my husband were in bed,
and I wanted to keep this particular conversation secret from both of them. I’m
not sure what I thought Sherri-- my foster mom-- could do to help, but I didn’t
want to worry my husband, and I really didn’t want Kevin listening in again.

It was late, past midnight, but Sherri’s always been a night owl. She answered the
phone after two rings with an alert “Hello?” and expressed cheerful but
somewhat wary surprise when I identified myself. We fought like alley cats when I
was a teenager, but as adults our relationship has leveled out. I respect and even
love Sherri, but we don’t talk a lot. She knew something was up. The fact that I
was even calling meant something was up.

“What’s the matter, honey?” She asked, hearing the strain in my voice.

I broke down. I hadn’t planned to. I’d planned to have a very responsible, logical
discussion with her about this new, somewhat damaged, child in my life. But after
the first couple sentences it all just came pouring out. His eyes, his adult
demeanor, his fascination with fire, how unsettling it was just to be in the same
room with him. I told her he hadn’t done anything-- anything! He was quiet and
well-behaved. He did his chores and cleaned up after himself and never argued or
complained or terrorized the house like you’d expect any seven year old boy to do.

And that was the problem-- despite his mild-mannered exterior, there was
something deeply wrong about him. Something bubbling under the surface,
waiting to boil over into violence and disaster. No, Kevin hadn’t done anything.
But for some reason I and every other adult around me couldn’t shake the feeling
that he would.
“It’s like living with a ticking bomb,” I remember saying, “And the timer’s broken,
and you don’t know if it’ll go off in 30 years or 30 seconds.”

Sherri was silent for a long time. I almost laughed when I hiccupped a little. I’d
been talking for what felt like hours, and honestly I felt better just having gotten it
all out there. Like the problem couldn’t possibly be so huge, since I was able to
explain it all. I felt a little ridiculous, actually. Maybe Kevin just had unsettling eyes.
It didn’t mean anything.

Then Sherri exhaled shakily, a sound of true fear, and my blood ran cold.

“Of course,” She said softly, almost to herself, “You don’t remember. How could
you? You were barely ten.”

“What?” I asked, “What does that mean?”

I had memories from way earlier than ten. I remembered the traumas of my
youth very clearly actually, from before my father was arrested. Hard or painful
memories tend to stick, etched firmly into the mind’s eye, while easy lives-- like
the one I had once Sherri took me in-- tend to blur together. That’s the brain's
awful irony. You don't get to keep the content bits.

Sherri sighed. When she spoke, the whisper was so soft I had to strain to catch the
syllables coming through the phone’s speaker.
“The way you just described that boy...” Sherri breathed, “I know exactly what
you’re talking about.”

“How?” I asked.

I was excited now. She had answers! Maybe another foster kid who’d lived with
us had been like Kevin. Maybe she knew what to do.

“Katie,” She hesitated, her voice shook, “When you first came to me, only a
couple weeks after your tenth birthday… The way you described that boy is
precisely, to the detail, how I would have described you.”

For a long moment, it felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“And two months later,” Sherri continued, her voice thick with tears, “You started
a fire that burned your elementary school to the ground.”

My legs trembled and I nearly dropped the wine glass.

"What?" I asked, sinking down onto the floor. I couldn't process what Sherri had
just told me. I had started a fire? I had burned a school to the ground? That didn't
make any sense. I've never felt the urge to light a fire. I've known plenty of kids
with pyromania-- some I fostered, some I met when I myself was a foster child--
but I had never been one of them.
Moreover, I couldn't remember doing this. Surely I'd remember doing something
this horrendous, this awful. The human mind is capable of hiding memories, of
burying the more traumatic ones, but surely burning down the school was
something I'd remember.

"Sherri, that's impossible," I told her, "That doesn't make any sense!"

Sherri sighed, "You should come over, Katie, this isn't something that can be
explained over the phone."

After I hung up, I woke my husband and told him where I was going.

"It's the middle of the night," He said sleepily, "Can't you talk to Sherri
tomorrow?"

"No," I replied, "I've got to talk to her about this now."

I spent the car ride wracking my brain, trying my hardest to remember my tenth
year on this earth. I couldn't remember a thing about it. I had vivid memories of
my ninth birthday party, but after that, everything seemed to become fuzzy and
jumbled in my mind. Had something happened to me when I was ten? Was my
mind blocking out some horrific trauma?
The porch lights were on when I pulled up to Sherri's house. I saw her waiting for
me in the window, and she opened the door before I even knocked. She looked
worriedly at me.

"We need to talk," She said as I followed her into the living room.

Even though she'd had the room redone, it still felt exactly the same. I sat next to
Sherri on a recently reupholstered couch and she handed me a large, battered-
looking scrapbook.

"What is this?" I asked.

"What do you remember about being ten?" Asked Sherri.

I shrugged, "I remember having a slumber party for my ninth birthday.”

Sherri sighed, "Do you remember Elsbeth Morton?"

I'd met Elsbeth Morton in first grade. We'd been best friends throughout
elementary school. We'd been thick as thieves, and I'd slept over Elsbeth's house
so many times I'd practically been one of the family. In fact, I have memories of
Elsbeth begging her parents to adopt me.
The Mortons had had a small jungle gym in their backyard, and Elsbeth and I had
spent hours playing on it. Her younger siblings, Stefan and Imogene, would join us
and we'd take turns pushing each other on the swings and racing down the slides.
The Mortons had been like the siblings I'd never had but always wanted.

Try as I might, though, I couldn't remember what had happened to Elsbeth after
the fifth grade. Had the Mortons moved? If so, why hadn't Elsbeth and I remained
in touch? It's not like we wouldn't have been able to write letters or call each
other. In fact, we would've been excited about the idea of being pen pals.

"Yeah, I remember Elsbeth," I said.

I flipped through the scrapbook. A photo of me, Elsbeth, Stefan, and Imogene
beamed up at me. The four of us were each sitting on a swing. According to the
caption, Elsbeth and I were ten, Stefan was six, and Imogene was two. The
Morton siblings all had blonde hair; Elsbeth's was pulled back into pigtails. We
were all smiling at the camera.

Something about the photograph sent a chill down my spine. Something about
my expression made me uncomfortable and a little frightened. I didn't look happy,
like the Morton siblings did. Even though I was smiling, I looked empty, almost
hollow. There was something monstrous gleaming in my eyes that reminded me
of the way Kevin looked. It was like I was thinking about hurting Elsbeth and her
siblings.

I quickly turned the page. A yellowed newspaper article had been glued to it. The
headline read, Child Killed In Mysterious Fire. I skimmed the article. The Jefferson
Elementary School had caught fire and burned down in the middle of the night.
Amid the rubble, the police had found the charred remains of Stefan Morton. The
six-year-old had been found tied to a chair in one of the classrooms.

I flipped through the scrapbook, frantically skimming through more articles about
the tragic fire. Although it was clearly a case of arson and kidnapping, the police
were baffled, and no one had ever been caught. Someone had abducted little
Stefan Morton in the middle of the night, brought him to the elementary school,
and then set both him and the school on fire.

Reading about it made me feel sick to my stomach. I looked over at Sherri and
was stunned to see tears in her eyes.

"What makes you think I did this?" I asked.

"The morning after the fire, I went into your room to wake you up," She sniffled,
"You were fast asleep in bed and covered in soot. You were covered head to toe
in ashes, and you smelled like gasoline. I knew in my heart you'd set that fire."

"Why didn't you call the police?" I asked.

"Because when you opened your eyes and looked at me, you had changed. You
were normal. A completely and totally normal child. I asked you what had
happened and why you were so dirty, but you didn't know. You kept telling me
that you just couldn't remember anything. We got you cleaned up, then I made
you breakfast. After you ate, you helped me with chores around the house. You
were so normal. So completely and utterly normal."
"I don't understand."

Sherri shrugged, "Neither do I. One day I was terrified of you, genuinely fearing
for my life whenever we were alone together, but then, after the school burned
down and poor Stefan died, you were a regular little girl."

"But if you thought I killed Stefan, why didn't you call the police?" I was beyond
confused.

Sherri sighed again, "I didn't have any proof, aside from all the soot. For all I knew,
you could've sleepwalked downstairs to the fireplace. I knew deep down that
you'd been the one who killed Stefan and burned the school down, but I couldn't
figure out how. That school was nearly seven miles away, much too far to walk for
a child. It had been locked for the night. I don't know where you would've gotten
the gasoline or how you would've gotten Stefan out of his house without his
parents noticing. I just told myself that you'd sleepwalked downstairs and played
in the fireplace."

"But you were scared of me! Why'd you keep me if you were so scared?"

"I told you," said Sherri, "The morning after the fire, you woke up and you were
perfectly normal. As more time passed, you became more and more like a regular
little girl. I convinced myself that I'd imagined all the negativity and maliciousness
I used to feel whenever you were around. I convinced myself that you were just a
troubled young girl trying to adjust to a new foster home-- which you were,"
"I didn't want to believe that you'd ever been evil in the first place." She abruptly
leaned forward, "Are you sure you don't remember what happened?"

I shook my head, "I don't remember anything from when I was ten. It's like a big
blank spot in my mind."

Sherri sighed heavily, "And you don't remember what happened to the Mortons?"

I shook my head again, "Did they move or something?"

"One month after the fire, Elsbeth killed her little sister."

I gasped. I remembered Elsbeth as a sweet and caring girl. She had loved Imogene
more than anything. Elsbeth had taken the role of big sister very seriously when it
came to her. She helped Imogene get ready for daycare every day, dressing her
ruffled dresses and putting ribbons in her hair. Elsbeth was fiercely protective of
her sister; I remember her yelling at a boy who had accidentally pushed Imogene
on the playground. Elsbeth's face had grown bright red, and she'd actually made
the little boy cry. There was no way she'd ever hurt her baby sister.

Sherri was nodding at me, as if silently telling me that yes, Elsbeth had indeed
hurt her beloved sister.
"Elsbeth came over to play about a week after Stefan died," She started, "And
there was something wrong about her. She scared me just as badly as you once
did. In fact, I wouldn't leave the two of you alone. I was convinced that she'd hurt
you. She had this malicious look in her eyes," Sherri shuddered, "I knew deep in
my bones that if I left the two of you alone, she'd hurt you in some way. I made
the two of you play in the kitchen, where I could keep an eye on you."

"What happened to her? What did she do to Imogene?"

"She drowned little Imogene in the bathtub," Sherri replied, "Her mother found
her standing over the tub and laughing, just laughing. Elsbeth was sent to a
mental institution."

I didn't remember any of this. Even though Sherri had told me the entire story, I
didn't remember a thing. I didn't remember Stefan's death, nor the burning of
Jefferson Elementary. I didn't remember the creepy playdate or Imogene's death.
I didn't remember a single thing from my tenth year.

"Why don't I remember this?" I asked.

Sherri shook her head, "I don't know, Katie." She patted my hand, "But over the
years, I've come to think of it like an infection."

"An infection?"
"Something infected you, took you over, made you evil," She said, "And when it
was done, it left. It left you and went into Elsbeth."

I swallowed, "And whatever it is, it's in Kevin now.”

"Maybe."

"I have to help him," I told her, "I have to find out what this thing is and get it out
of him before he hurts someone."

After leaving Sherri's house my first instinct was to make sure Kevin was still at
home and in bed. I was weary by the time I got home, but thankful to find Kevin
snoring in his bed. I wanted to immediately look into more information about
what I was dealing with, but I had no idea where to start. My brain was fried and I
needed to sleep before I could dig deeper.

I panicked when I woke up in the morning, the bliss of my slumber giving way to
the revelations of last night. I still wasn't sure where to begin, but I thought my
safest bet was to start with my husband. As soon as Kevin left to catch the school
bus I told Jeremy all about my conversation with Sherri, and what we thought was
happening with Kevin. He laughed at first, thinking it was a joke.

“Are you sure Sherri hasn't gone nuts?” He had asked with a grin. Noticing that
my demeanor remained serious he collected himself, “Alright, so what are we
supposed to do about this?” His face shifted to a look of concern, and I could only
imagine that believing in what I was telling him tested every ounce of the
psychiatrist he was.

“I'm not sure, but maybe you know someone who could help? If this is something
that's being passed around there has to be some kind of record, right? I can't
imagine that no one has ever seen a psychiatrist about an issue like this.” I told
him, unsure if I was asking the right questions. It seemed only logical that if you
had a child with these kinds of issues that you'd seek out professional help.

“I don't know if I can find that kind of information, babe,” He gave me another
worried glance, as though this revelation may break my heart, “If it's not been
discussed before, any information about specific patients with this kind of issue
will be confidential.”

“Well I figured that, but there must be someone who thought it was an extremely
unusual case and sought out help. Or maybe someone who's seen it several times
and decided to look further into it, or document it?” I had not been confident
broaching the subject in the first place, and my lack of in-depth psychiatric
knowledge seemed more apparent as he tried to convince me not to get my
hopes up.

He squeezed my shoulder reassuringly, “If there's been a case study, or it's in any
medical journal, I'll do whatever I can to find the documentation.”

I nearly cried with relief, even if there was nothing to find I was still elated that I
had someone to help. My hopes were definitely held high. I had one final
question, “Hun… How hard do you think it would be to find a patient who was
admitted to an institution?”
“Still in one? I think you'd have to find the person who admitted them, I don't
exactly have a list of every patient who has ever been admitted, and I couldn't
give you that information if I did.”

His answer satisfied me, and I kissed him goodbye so that he could leave for work.
I had my own work to do. With the house to myself for the day I began to scour
the internet for information about the Morton family. Local information came
first, the news articles about the tragic fire. Looking through the online archive of
the newspaper, I saw that they also ran a few other stories on the Mortons. Local
Girl Murders Sister, one of the headlines read.

I skimmed over the articles, they only confirmed what I had already been told. I
glanced through older news for a minute until a my phone rang. My heart sank as
I heard the voice on the line.

The principal of Kevin's school sounded mortified as he spoke, “There's been an

incident concerning Kevin, we're going to need both you and your husband to
report to the school immediately.”

I looked at the clock, he'd only been gone less than three hours. What could he
have done?

“I'm on my way,” I felt sick to my stomach as the call ended. I immediately dialed
Jeremy as I collected my purse and keys.
“Hey Jere, there's a problem with Kevin. They need us at the school right now,” I
said.

“Um, yea. I'll head right out,” He sounded confused and distracted.

“You okay, hun?” I was concerned, I didn't know how well I could handle it if
something else was wrong right now.

He cleared his throat, “Ah, yea. I was able to find out about a doctor from some
colleagues, but I have to tell you in person. It's not much yet.” He still sounded
odd, but I didn't have the time to question him right then.

“Okay well, I'll see you at the school. Love you.” I was confused about the way he
had been speaking, but now wasn't the time to dwell on it.

I needed to see what on earth could have happened at the school. As I drove the
thoughts all plagued me at once. Article, school incident, fire, Morton family,
doctor. My search for answers about Kevin was pulling up so many new questions.

I attempted to calm myself as I drove to the school, I was already an emotional

driver and the stress of all the unknowns waiting for me at Kevin's school was
almost too much to bear.

I pulled up to the school and braced myself for a moment on the steering wheel.
"Whatever happens in there, we will figure it out." I said to myself.

I hopped out of the car and started to make my way towards the office, Jeremy
came in right as I took a seat. He looked sick, like he had literally been vomiting
the whole way here.

“Honey, are you alright?” I rubbed my hand across his back.

“Yeah, it’s been a weird day..” He trailed off. “Have you heard anything yet?”

“No, I sat down right before you walked in. What did you have to tell me about
that doctor?” I wasn’t interested in wasting any time at this point.

“It’s weird. I don’t know if this is the best place to get into it,” He whispered, “Has
something to do with a doctor conducting a clinical trial on kids,” He visibly
shivered.

“It’s some really weird stuff babe. I feel uncomfortable just knowing about it.”

“Clinical trial? What kind of…” I trailed off as someone approached us.

“Kevin’s parents, I presume?” It was the principal, “Right this way,” He extended
an arm towards an office near the back of the room.
We stood and walked in to see Kevin sitting in a chair looking terrified and
covered in blood.

I immediately rushed towards him, tears involuntarily escaping my eyes. “What

happened baby?” I pushed the hair out of his face. His face.. It was.. Different.

“Kevin here had a bit of an episode, he states he doesn’t remember what

happened, but there was another child involved so we had to contact you.” The
principal leaned against the wall behind his desk.

“It appears there was an accident in Gym class. Kevin was playing with another
student under the bleachers. The bleachers in our Gymnasium are collapsible, I
am not sure if you are familiar…” He cleared his throat.

I glanced at my husband and the expression on his face was a look of horror.

“Kevin managed to escape from under them in time, but the other child did not.
He has been rushed to the hospital in critical condition,” He paused, “I’m sure
Kevin had nothing to do with it, he seems to be in a bit of shock.” His principal
looked at him with concern that seemed genuine.

“I thought it was important you were both here to take him home and have him
checked out, just in case.”
“Thank you.” I wrapped my arms around Kevin and squeezed tightly. He started to
cry softly.

“I don’t remember, mommy.” He whispered in my ear.

This was not the Kevin that left for school this morning, which was a huge relief
for half of me, the other half was on fire. That meant that it had spread again.

I looked over at my husband who seemed to be in shock as well. “Let’s get you
two home,” I spoke as I stood, squeezing Jeremy’s shoulder lightly. He stood
without a word and followed me out.

We all got into my car, I thought it would be best if he wasn’t driving at the
moment. The ride home was silent. When I pulled into the driveway and put the
car in park everyone sat there for a moment.

“Why don’t we do something fun to cheer everyone up?” I looked back at Kevin.
He cracked a small smile. “Let’s get you cleaned up first sweetheart.” We went
inside and once Kevin had gotten in the shower I immediately returned to Jeremy
for answers.

“What about this trial?” I sat beside him on our bed.

“That’s just it, there were no medical elements. It was all psychological, seemed
to be missing a lot of info. I don’t think this is an illness they are passing around,
this sounds like… something else,” He leaned back and let his head hit the pillow.

Despite whatever Jeremy had discovered, it was a relief to know Kevin was okay.
In some small way it meant that our nightmare was over, but it was cold comfort
next to the bloody clothes in our hamper, next to knowing what was coming, and
furthermore next to seeing the state my husband was in.

We are a team, because when you're dealing with children who have been
through trauma you have to be, but this was unlike him. Jeremy and I sat in near
silence. I could hear Kevin humming in the shower through the wall-- a brand-new
habit-- and I briefly smiled despite everything.

“So, how do we stop it?” I looked at him desperately.

He lay there for a moment before answering, “We don’t.”

"What do you mean 'we don't'?" I asked.

"Well it goes away on its own, doesn't it?"

He looked pained, lying there half on the bed with his feet on the floor and his
arms crossed.
But others could die. Would die.

I didn't have to say it. He knew. The fact sat between us, so heavy it could have
sunk through the bed.

He told me a bit about the trial he'd read about, about how it was so unethical it
had to be done with private money in secret and published in a small disreputable
parapsychology journal. About the way the doctors had confined a group of
children behind thick steel, and how when they left they were all as violent as
patient zero had been. About how he recognized one of the few names in the
article because of how close it was to the name of the organization that assisted
in Kevin's placement.

Jeremy sat up suddenly, as though he had just remembered something vital. He

pulled a manilla envelope out of his work bag.

“I found Elsbeth Morton, though.” He said.

“You did?”

He nodded. I opened up the envelope. It contained a medical file about Elsbeth. It

stated what I already knew: that her brother had died in a mysterious fire and
that she had killed her younger sister a week later. After a complicated trial, she
had been sent to a mental institution. Her parents had fought tooth and nail to
keep her out of more serious trouble, insisting that she hadn’t been in her right
mind when she’d killed Imogene.
It named the place she was sent to, and I left immediately in search of answers.

When I arrived an orderly in a crisp white uniform led me to Elsbeth Morton’s

room. Elsbeth sat on the floor, her long blonde hair falling over her face. She was
hunched over a pile of paper dolls, carefully dressing them in little dresses.l

“Elsbeth?” Called the orderly, “You have a visitor.”

Elsbeth looked up at me. Her blue eyes were blank and glazed, as if she wasn’t
really seeing me. I cleared my throat nervously.

“Hi, Elsbeth,” I said, “I don’t know if you remember me. It’s Katie...we grew up
together--”

Elsbeth’s eyes snapped into focus, filling with a fierce, angry light. She sprang to
her feet, tossing the paper dolls aside. She rushed forward, and stopped inches
from me.

“You monster!” She hissed, her voice was sent a chill down my spine, “You killed
Stefan!”

I shook my head. “No, Elsbeth, I - I don’t remember--”

She pointed at me. “You said if we got rid of Stefan, my parents would adopt you.
You said so!”

“That-- that doesn’t make any sense--”

Elsbeth nodded at me, “I remember. We were on the swings with Imogene. We

were playing princesses. We were playing, and he threw mud at us. Stefan threw
mud all over your new purple dress, and you said that my parents would adopt
you if we could get rid of him.”

I remembered the swingset and the purple dress, but I didn’t remember any
feelings of hostility towards Stefan. He’d been your typical irritating little brother,
but I’d never hated him.

“I don’t remember any of this,” I told her.

“You said if we got rid of him, then you could come and live with us, and we could
all be sisters. I wanted to be sisters. You and me and Imogene. I wanted it so bad,
I didn’t even tell anyone that you were the one who killed Stefan!”

“Elsbeth, I don’t remember it,” I told her. “I wasn’t myself. Something evil came in
and took over--”

“YOU MADE ME KILL IMOGENE!” Elsbeth reached out and struck me, slapping me
hard across the face. I stumbled backwards, clutching my burning cheek. The
orderly had been standing near us, watching over us carefully. He rushed forward
now, placing himself between Elsbeth and myself.

“I think you’d better go now,” He said to me.

“YOU KILLED STEFAN!” Screamed Elsbeth, “You did it so we could be sisters!”

Other orderlies appeared, surging through the corridors. Elsbeth was grabbed by
two huge, burly orderlies. She began to thrash, kicking and shrieking.

“You said we’d all be sisters if Stefan was gone!” She screeched.

“Elsbeth, I’m sorry!” I cried. “I don’t remember what I did. I don’t know what I did.
I’m so sorry--”

“You made me kill Imogene!” Elsbeth screamed the same words over again, “You
made me do it so my parents would adopt you!”

An orderly grabbed me by the arm and began to escort me down the hall, away
from Elsbeth. I twisted, turning my head in an attempt to look at her. She was
being dragged in the opposite direction, wriggling and thrashing and trying
desperately to get away.
“Don’t mind her,” said the orderly. “She’s not well...but you probably already
knew that.”

“What’s going to happen to her?” I asked.

“We’ll sedate her. She just needs a little rest.” The orderly must’ve seen the look
of concern on my face, because he forced a smile and quickly said, “She gets over-
excited very easily. A nice rest will do her good.”

My heart sank. Poor Elsbeth. How had she gotten this way? What had the
infection done to her?

“Listen, I know you’re not supposed to divulge any confidential patient

information, but I need to know as much as I can about what she’s been through,”
I said.

“There’s not much I can tell you,” He replied.

He looked at me expectantly. I opened my purse and rummaged through it,

pulling out my wallet. “I only have fifty dollars,” I said, showing him the cash.

The orderly nodded and took the money. “After she was brought in, her parents
found a diary. She wrote at length about how to ‘get rid of’ her brother and sister
so that her parents would adopt her best friend.”
My throat ran dry. He didn’t realize that he was talking about me, otherwise he
wouldn’t have said anything, bribe or no bribe. “Do they think that Elsbeth or her
friend killed Stefan?”

The orderly shrugged. “The diary didn’t say who did it,” he said. “It’s highly
unlikely that two ten-year-old girls were able to lure that boy outside in the
middle of the night without anyone noticing. Not to mention that the school
where he was killed was several miles away and was locked for the night.”

“Do you still have the diary?” I asked.

The orderly shook his head. “Elsbeth’s parents destroyed it,” He said, “They didn’t
want their only remaining child to go to prison, so they got rid of any evidence
that she had planned to kill her siblings.” He glanced at me. “I’m sorry, but I don’t
know anything else.”

We stood in the doorway, looking out into the parking lot. I started to rummage
around my purse for my car keys when I remembered the weird, unsettling look
that had once been in Kevin’s eyes. According to Sherri, it had also once been in
my eyes, and Elsbeth’s as well. I turned to the orderly.

“Were you here when Elsbeth was brought in?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said the orderly. “Why?”

“What did she look like?” I asked. “Was there anything off about her? Anything
weird or creepy?”

“You mean her eyes?” asked the orderly.

I nodded.

The orderly shrugged. “Well, before she was officially brought in, people said that
she had the spookiest look in her eyes,” he said. “Like she was plotting your
murder or something. I saw a picture of her from the crime scene-- the one where
she killed her sister in the tub. She looked scary, downright demonic, but it
must’ve been a trick of the light or something, because she wasn’t like that when
she arrived. When she got here, she just looked lost and confused, like she didn’t
know where she was.”

I swallowed and nodded. Elsbeth probably had no memory of killing Imogene. She
probably had a blank space in her mind, just like I did, and just like Kevin probably
did. Whatever evil thing had compelled me to kill Stefan-- if I actually did-- had
passed on into Elsbeth, then had vanished once it had compelled her to kill
Imogene, before somehow resurfacing in Kevin.

I thought about what I could do on my way home. Our only option would be
keeping the next child in our care, far apart from kids who weren't safe yet-- safe
like Kevin. I became a foster parent because I wanted to help other people, but
can you help everyone? Can you protect everyone?
I don't think so. As hard as I tried I wasn't able to take in the child who had been
infected. Several families transferred their children to new schools after the
accident with Kevin, and the infection went through a series of children in happy
biological homes. I lost track of who had caught it, the last known place was an
accident at Disneyland. It could be anywhere now.

There’s nothing I can do, but I've realized that I wouldn't be able to handle
another infected child. I'd lose my mind over being unable to stop it. I don't know
where it's gone, but I'm sure it's still out there somewhere. If a child in your home
starts acting strange like this, please find a way to end this. I'm sorry that I
couldn't.

This is why Kevin was the last foster child we ever raised. I couldn't face the
thought of caring for another murderous child. He has no recollection of the
darkness he held. He loves his home with us. I was the first mommy who wasn't
scared of him, and I'll be his last mommy.
An open letter to my husband
A friend of mine recently bought a second hand laptop from a busy garage sale,
the seller said that the thing won't turn on. Being the nerd that he is, my friend
got it working and found a strange letter saved on it. He mailed it to me after I
asked him if I could share it here. So here goes:

"Dear Matthew,

I'm writing to you to tell you that I know everything that you do not want me to
know. I know you must dread hearing this- especially coming from me, but I really
need you to listen to what I have to say.

A few years ago I watched you come home every night smelling of alcohol with
your eyes drooling out of their sockets, I waited for you, resolute to see you arrive
safely. Yet you never so much as muttered a quick greeting into my direction and
you always just went straight to your computer where you started gaming
sessions that persisted into early mornings. You even fell asleep at the desk
sometimes like an old bum, leaving me isolated in that bed that felt far too big for
me alone.

I watched you not care about your persona, and I understood it to an extend.
Many articles online claim that people tend to let themselves go because they
don't expect their partners to lose attraction, and we have been together for 13
years after all. I stomached your disgusting habits and bad odour, because I care
for you.

You tested my patience a few months ago when I watched you not come home at
all until morning and as stalkery as it may sound, I followed you sometimes.
Lurking outside the pubs that you entered, I watched through the windows as you
took the same seat in the dark corner every night and ordered one beer after the
other until you passed out. Bartenders took pity on you 'cause for some reason
they never once threw you out.

And then last month I followed you again, expecting for your nightly routine to be
the same. But it wasn't. There you sat at the bar with your posture more
confident than before while you spoke to a beautiful woman seated next to you.
Needless to say, you shattered my heart that night and as I sat in the car outside
so many questions passed me. How could I have been so stupid as to let things go
this far? Your attraction to me had become questionable, but how could I not
think to do something about it? You were the person I was meant to spend
forever with, but this betrayal made me certain that you were a mistake.

I hated you after that, even though I never hated you directly. Through my
bitterness I made sure you had only freezing showers when you came home at
night, I replaced your fresh sandwiches with rotten ones when I had the chance, I
dumped half a liter of cat piss on your side of the bed and I pulled the covers from
your body every night.

Then the day came that changed everything. You woke up sober and dressed
neatly, even went so far as to shave your face and this suspicious behaviour had
me trailing you once more as soon as you left the house. I watched from afar as
you bought nice flowers and what seemed to be a picnic basket, of course you
were preparing to meet her and that was something I didn't want to watch. But
something made me follow you still. You took me by surprise as your journey led
into the cemetery, I kept my distance as you paused near a grave for what
seemed like hours. It took me a considerate amount of time to recognize the tears
on your cheeks, 'cause I swear I had never seen you cry before. You left the
flowers on the grave and walked away with the basket still in hand. I went home
after that, I didn't need to see anymore.

I'm in the kitchen as I'm writing this on your laptop and you're in the bathroom.
It's nearly 1:30 and that woman I saw you with at the bar is still sound asleep in
our bed. But I understand it now, Matthew. Now I know why you're sobbing
faintly in the bathroom and why my name stood on that gravestone. I understand
and I forgive you, you can stop grieving now and be with that stranger on my side
of the bed with a clear mind. Just remember that I'll be near and watching over
you as I always had, for once your lifetime ends you'll belong to me again."

The laptop has refused to turn on after I got this copy.

A Toxic Situation
Death brings out the beast in people. Grief combined with a chance at money and
a sudden reminder of your own mortality is a terrible combination, but one that I
never thought my family would have to worry about. My parents both got along
with their siblings, my grandparents all made their final wishes very clear, and
everyone agreed that they would work together to ensure peace and fairness for
those left living.

It was great, in theory.

And then my maternal grandparents passed within three weeks of each other. It
was sweet, in a way; they'd been together for over fifty years and once Grandpa
died, Grandma told us that she wasn't long for a world that didn't have her
Michael in it. She just felt it in her bones. She slipped away in her sleep just days
before her ninety-first birthday, Grandpa's wedding band resting in her hand.

Knowing that she was at peace with her husband again made dealing with the loss
of them so close together a bit easier, even if the sting was still so sharply felt,
and we buried her at his side beneath a single headstone bearing both of their
names.

They left behind two children, five grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren,
all of whom had been their pride and joy and all of whom they'd planned to
provide for.

After a week of mourning and remembrance, Mom felt ready enough to start
going through Grandma's estate and called her brother, Ford, to see about getting
things underway. I was at her house, sitting across the kitchen table from her to
offer moral support in case she got emotional.

After a few traded pleasantries, she paused and then said, "I'm not worried about
it; I'd just like to get it done. I'm...it's still hard and this part just makes me feel like
a vulture picking through her things."

"I'll take care of it, Abby." I heard Uncle Ford say.

"Have you called her attorney yet?" Mom wasn't one to brushed off so lightly.
"We should set up a meeting and go over her documents to make sure
everything's in order."

There was a hurried response and then a distinct and final, "Bye, Abigail."

Mom hung up and pinched her chin lightly, a telling sign that something was
bothering her.

"Everything ok?"

"I hope so." She said, but her tone was doubtful.

"What did Uncle Ford say?"

"Not much, just that he was 'handling it' and not to worry."

We exchanged a glance. While we wanted to trust in Ford, alarm bells were

starting to ring in the distance.

When Mom next spoke to Ford, he told he'd set aside some of their parents'
things for her, but that she didn't need to make the hour drive up to their house,
he'd just ship it to her. It was the first in a long line of attempts that Ford made to
keep Mom away from Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Every time she wanted to go up, he would have some excuse about it not being a
good time or how she shouldn't burden herself. Mom tried to stay patient with
him, but the more he hemmed and hawed, the shorter her fuse became.

"Look, Ford, I'm going up whether you like it or not, ok?" I heard her saying when I
walked in one Friday for our weekly dinner. "I don't need your permission, I have
as much right to it as you do! More so, even, since Mom wanted my daughter to
have it!"

I met Dad in the living room and started to ask what was going on, but he just
shook his head. "They've been at it for over an hour." He said.

"Ford's still being a prick?"

"Yeah. But don't call your uncle a prick, at least not until your mom's off the
phone and can agree with you."

We shared a giggle, but there was some tension in it. Mom and her brother had
always been close, but since Grandma had died, they couldn't speak without
getting into fights. When Mom came storming in, she paused long enough to give
me a kiss before starting a rant about Ford's latest misbehavior.

"You know what he said to me? He said that he doesn't care if Mom wanted
Jenna to get the house; it wasn't in the will, so it's not enforceable! Of course it's
not in the will, Jenna was barely a teen when that thing was written and they
didn't even own it then, but it was one of Mom's last wishes and he damn well
knows it!"

My younger sister was a down-on-her-luck single mother to a little boy and

Grandma and Grandpa had promised that if she still didn't have a house when
they passed, Jenna could have their's. It was a newly built, but rather small two
bedroom house that was a definite upgrade from the apartment she was living in.
My grandparents had only lived in it a year before their deaths. To hear that Ford
was trying to take that away from her immediately made my blood boil.

"Prick!" I said and Mom heartily agreed.

"So what do we do?" Dad, trying to be the voice of reason, asked. "Do you want
to get an attorney?"
"If he's going to be acting like that? You bet I do."

Now that she was motivated, Mom was on a warpath. She hadn't been so
concerned with her inheritance or the estate's things before, but when Ford
threatened to keep the house from Jenna, he practically lit a fire beneath her feet.
She consulted with a probate attorney of her own and had him draft a stern letter
to Ford and Grandma's estate attorney requesting a copy of Grandma's final
documents and they walked through the process of filing a claim should it come
to that.

Ford responded with radio silence and the attorney, who we suspected was being
directed by Ford, was being very slow to respond.

Finally, when Mom got tired of waiting, she called me at home.

"Your dad and I are going to your grandparents' house tomorrow; do you want to
come?"

"Sure. Should I bring a torch or pitchfork?"

"You can leave the snark." She said snippily.

"Sorry." Mom still had a way of making me feel so small even though I was in my
mid-thirties.
"No, I'm sorry, Ford's just got me wound up. Never thought I'd see my own
brother acting like this! We always promised Mom and Dad that we'd split
everything evenly, just like they wanted, and now he's trying to shut me out while
he gets up to God knows what."

"It's ok, Mom, we'll get it sorted tomorrow."

"I hope so. I don't want things to progress any further. My parents would be so
upset."

I met my parents at their house and we all rode together up to my grandparents'.

It was a long, tense drive and Mom kept asking if she was overreacting and if this
was a bad idea. Dad and I tried to reassure her that she was in the right and that
she was just trying to make sure her parents' final wishes were respected, but the
doubt continued to worm its way around in her head.

When we pulled into the driveway, Mom became quiet and stared at the house
where Grandma had passed. Tears shined in her eyes. It was the first time she'd
been back since the funeral a couple months before and it was clear that she
hadn't expected it to have such an effect on her.

She inhaled slowly and shakily. "Ok, let's go in."

But when we tried the key in the front door lock, it didn't budge.
"Son of a bitch." Dad muttered. "He changed the locks."

"Then we'll wait for him." Mom said, and her voice was like ice.

It took a few hours, but as Mom had predicted, Ford and his wife, Arletta, came
rolling up like they owned the place. Their smiles immediately vanished when
they saw the three of us already parked in the narrow driveway.

"What are you doing here?" Ford demanded as he stepped out.

"You changed the locks." Mom said. I could see that it was taking a lot to maintain
her composure.

"That's not a crime." Arletta sniffed dismissively from over Ford's shoulder.

"Actually, it might be." Dad said. "You don't own the property, the estate does."

"Stay out of it, George." Ford snapped. "This has nothing to do with you."

"I told you he'd try to get involved. He's always been way too interested in your
parents' money!" Arletta said.
That set Mom off. She started screaming at them, they started screaming back,
and Dad and I got between them so they screamed around us. Somehow Dad
talked them in to taking their argument inside, where we found most of my
grandparents' belongings boxed up. What was left out had colored stickers on
them.

"What the hell, Ford?" Mom waved a hand towards a pile of stickered items.

"We're just, uh, dividing things up. The kids flew in and picked what they
wanted..." He actually seemed to deflate a bit, like a child who'd been caught with
their hand in the cookie jar.

"You mean your kids!"

"We needed the house cleared out and you were no help." Arletta said.

"You told us not to come!"

"Need it cleared out? Why?" Dad put a hand on Mom's arm to help calm her.

Before Ford could answer, Arletta stuck her nose in the air and declared they
were moving in.

No amount of hands on her arm would calm Mom then.

"You're going to hear from my lawyer!" Mom shouted over her shoulder as Dad
and I dragged her back to the car.

"I told you she'd sue!" Arletta was screeching from the doorway. "When we got
that letter, didn't I tell you? Didn't I?"

Ford shut the door before she got a chance to say any more.

If legal matters move slowly for the living, it seems to take an eternity when the
dead are involved. Mom no longer spoke directly to her brother and the two
conversed solely through their attorneys and court filings.

"It's not about the money." She told us tearfully time and time again. "It's about
what Mom and Dad wanted."

We knew that, but Ford and Arletta were doing their best to make sure no one
else did. Tales of my dad's controlling nature and greediness circulated through
the family and mutual friends and my mom was painted as being crazy and
vindictive. I watched as the weight of my uncle's lies started to wear Mom down,
deepening the lines in her face and rimming her eyes with dark circles. Dad was
more stoic, but the resentment that was building was not the kind Ford would
ever be able to recover from.

It festered on for almost a year like this and, the entire time, Ford and Arletta had
been living in my grandparents' house while Jenna continued to get by in her
inner city apartment. She assured our parents that it was fine, but we could all
see the strain she was under. She'd had a chance to get out and my uncle had
stolen it, and pretty much everything else of any worth, from her.

Finally, after watching my family go through so much pain and suffering, I had to
do something about it. None of us had even attempted to appeal to Ford since
that last disastrous visit, so I took it upon myself to make the trip back up to the
house, alone this time, in the hopes of talking some sense to him.

It was evening when I arrived and the lights over the front porch were off. I
noticed as I climbed out of my car that the lawn had grown long and unkempt,
which was very unusual for Uncle Ford. Even if he was a prick, he was a very
fastidious homeowner.

A glance behind me revealed the mailbox was bulging with unretrieved mail and,
at the front door, almost a week's worth of newspapers were scattered around
the welcome mat. I briefly wondered if Ford and Arletta had gone on vacation,
but that was wrong, I felt it in my slowly twisting gut. They wouldn't have risked
the house for an extended period when it still wasn't lawfully their's. It opened up
too many opportunities for Mom. It didn't make sense.

My palms were becoming clammy and I clenched my hands into fists. It did little
to stop the apprehension, cold and spider-like, from creeping up my back.
Suddenly I found myself wondering if this had been such a good idea, coming all
of this way alone without having told anyone. My resolve to mend my fractured
family was fast fading, but then I thought of my mother and how hurt and
unhappy she'd been, and I grit my teeth painfully.
I was just being stupid and looking for excuses to leave.

I pressed the doorbell and listened as it rang hollowly inside, a loud, tinny
intrusion in the silence.

No one answered.

After a few more rings, I tried the handle. Locked. Determined not to be so easily
dissuaded, I circled the house, first trying the side door into the garage and then
the back. The slider had been left unlatched.

Slowly, cautiously, I pulled it open.

"Uncle Ford? Arletta?" I called out.

The humid air pressed heavily against me as I stepped inside, enveloping me in a

thick, moist warmth. Oddly, the strong odor of horseradish filled the kitchen, but
it didn't appear that anyone had cooked recently. Dirty dishes were piled in and
around the sink, but even from where I stood, I could tell that the remnants of
food were old and crusty, not fresh. Beneath that strange horseradish scent, they
stank of old meals left too long in the heat.

I walked through quickly and was relieved to see a light in the living room. As
angry as I was at Ford and Arletta, I would be comforted by their presence. Just
having company, even their's, would help calm my jumpy nerves.
"Uncle Ford?" I said again as I walked through the arched doorway. "It's m-"

I stopped short with a strangled cry.

The emaciated shell of my uncle was sitting in the easy chair in front of the dark
television, a book opened across his sunken stomach. Crusted trails of mucus and
blood ran from both nostrils, down over his cracked lips and stubbled chin, onto a
stained and stinking shirt that obviously hadn't been changed in a while. Large
patches of hair had fallen or been torn out and the scalp beneath was dry and
covered in fat scabs from where he'd picked with filthy nails.

The only reason I even knew he was alive was because of the harsh, rattling
wheeze that forced itself out of him with every labored breath.

"Uncle Ford!" I shouted, but he didn't move.

I fell backwards into the hall, gagging and crying and confused. From across the
house, a door creaked open.

"Arletta?" I leaned against the wall for support and stumbled towards the sound.

The oppressive air made it hard to breathe and I felt like I was choking. The smell
of horseradish was getting steadily stronger the closer I got to the bedroom. My
eyes watered, my lungs burned, everything in me was screaming to get out, but I
had to find my aunt.

"Arletta!"

She was standing in the bedroom doorway, her arms outstretched to either side,
clinging to the frame with claw-like fingers. She was thin beneath her nightgown,
and when she looked at me, her eyes were bright and wild with fever. She bared
her yellowed teeth and swollen, bloody gums.

"You!" She snarled. "What are you doing here?"

"What's going on?" I asked desperately. "What's wrong with Ford? With you?"

"Your mother!" Her voice was high and tight. "Look at what she's done to us!
We've been so stressed. We can't eat or sleep and think straight because of her!
She just keeps attacking us for no reason!"

"What're you talking about? She was just trying-"

"We've always been so good to her, and your dad too, and now they're being so
selfish, trying to take our home! I tried and I tried to talk to her, but she just
responded through that lawyer of hers! I told Ford she'd sue us. I told him your
dad would make her. He always wanted your grandparents' money and she was
going to give it to him! That selfish bitch!"
"Arletta, you're sick!"

"It's because of her! If she hadn't been so demanding, if she'd just left us alone..."

She started to rake her hands through her hair and it came away in stringy clumps
between her fingers.

"And now she's sent you. She's sent you to take it! That bitch, after all we've done
for her parents, she wants it all, that bitch!"

"Arletta-"

She straightened suddenly and fixed her watery gaze on me.

"I won't let you!" She shrieked and then she charged down the hall.

She made it halfway before she tripped on the hem of her nightgown and fell face
first on to the floor. I threw myself at the front door and grabbed at the deadbolt
with shaking hands. Behind me, Arletta pushed herself onto her hands and knees,
looked around dazedly, and vomited a thick stream of red, frothy mess as I fled
outside.
Arletta and Ford were rushed to the hospital once the ambulance arrived and I
was made to stay for hours, answering questions and trying to help the police
understand what had happened. That was especially difficult when I didn't know
myself. No one did. Their kids, who all lived out of state, hadn't been keeping in
touch very much and they'd been fired from their jobs for increasingly erratic
behavior and poor attendance. Anyone who would have noticed their declining
states just ignored them.

It wasn't until their medical team, who'd been working around the clock to
stabilize them, finally linked their symptoms that we started to make sense of
everything.

Toxic mold poisoning.

After that, it was as simple as taking a sledgehammer to a wall.

Lazy construction practices had led to improper external sealing around the roof
and moisture had gathered inside the walls of my grandparents' house. It was the
perfect breeding ground for black mold, which had infested almost every room. It
was the source of the horseradish smell and, despite Aleta's continued belief that
it was really Mom's doing, the cause of her and Ford's terrible sickness.

Their unwillingness to leave the house meant that they'd been exposed to it so
constantly and for so long that they were left with permanent memory issues,
respiratory conditions, and chronic, debilitating headaches. Life for them would
never be normal again.
I know it sounds cruel, but I was glad that it had happened to them. If it hadn't
been for their greed, my sister and nephew, two far more innocent people, would
have suffered that same fate. Sometimes I feel like an asshole for being grateful
that it was them. I really do believe you should never wish any ill on anyone, prick
or otherwise, especially if they're family.

But then I remember how I'd hear Mom crying in the night, how much anguish
they caused both her and Dad, how much needless heartache they brought into
our family, and the teeniest tiniest little voice in the back of my head sneers, "It
couldn't have happened to a nicer couple" and I can't help but agree.
I was almost involved in a school shooting
I’ve been wanting to get something off of my chest for a very long time. The only
person who knows the whole story is my wife, and she didn’t find out until we
were already engaged. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about this, because anyone
who knows will think ill of me. It’s been fifteen years since these events took
place, so I finally feel safe enough to talk about them anonymously.

I had a really hard time in high school. Traumatic events in my childhood

combining with hormonal changes didn’t make me the most easy going guy. I’d
consider myself handsome now, but at the time I was 5’4’, paler than fresh linen
and bone thin. My hobbies were all indoors and solitary in nature and I found it
hard to make friends. I was the “lone wolf” that everyone warns you about.

The only friend I had in the world was my creative writing teacher, Mr.Artis. He
was an older guy but I think he saw some of himself in me. He let me hide out in
his office to avoid the jocks who taunted me daily. We would talk about writing
and what we were reading, but most of the time we just talked about life.

He had talked me down a few times. I was massively depressed, suicidal even. I
never went through with my plans because he was always there for me. He talked
me through things that I thought no one else would understand. He understood
the anger like no one else did. I hated the boys who would bully me, I hated the
girls who would giggle at me as I walked by, I hated the teachers who turned a
blind eye, or the ones, like my gym teacher, who almost encouraged it.

I think if it weren’t for Mr.Artis, I wouldn’t be here to tell my story. If I hadn’t had
him to talk to, to confide in, the self loathing and anger and disgust would have
bubbled over a lot sooner than it did. I’m thankful for that.
My Junior year of high school, Mr.Artis got sick. They didn’t tell us what he had,
but he missed almost a month of classes. Not having anyone to talk to, took a toll
on me. I wasn’t allowed in his office alone, so I lost my hiding place. Being around
more often meant that I was an easier target. The assholes who tormented me
day in and day out, stepped up their game.

Almost every day was torment. The bullying escalated from just taunting me to
physically hurting me. I was punched square in the nose one day, another time,
they slammed my hands in my locker door and locked it shut.

On top of everything going on at school, my mom and dad had been fighting for a
while. The week of the event, my mom left. Neither of my parents understood me,
but mom tried. Leaving me alone with my father is something that I still haven’t
forgiven her for, fifteen years later.

I know what I did was stupid. I know that it was the most drastic solution to
something that would change over time. I didn’t see it that way though. My dad
kept a gun in the attached garage. It was loaded and tucked away for emergency
situations, like going to the shooting range with his buddies.

On Monday, I took the gun to my room. Dad didn’t notice that it was missing,
because the drawer where it’s kept is mostly empty. I posed with it in the mirror,
practicing my icy stare. I knew right away what I wanted to do, although the
thought of just using it to blow my own brains out crossed my mind a few times. I
didn’t want to go out like that though, I wanted to leave a lasting impression.
I counted the bullets in the gun seventeen times; there were only three. I didn’t
know where to find more ammo, so I knew that I would have to make every shot
count. One bullet was for John Carter the asshole who filled my locker with piss
filled balloons. The second bullet was for Mike Wallace who catfished me for
weeks pretending to be a girl in our class, and then stood me up when I asked
“her” out. The final bullet was for myself, I didn’t want to go to jail, and I sure as
hell didn’t want to keep living.

On Friday morning I tucked the gun into the waistband of my jeans, wearing a big
hoodie to cover the bulge. Everything felt different, entering the school, like I was
dreaming. The school itself almost looked like a set, on a tv show, all conversation
blurring like background murmurs. I suppose, looking back, that I had detached
myself emotionally from the situation.

I was calm and collected as I walked the halls, looking for my victims. I was early
and classes hadn’t started yet, but I figured John Carter would be in the gym
shooting hoops. I made my way down the corridor that lead to the athletics wing
with determination.

“Harold!” I heard a familiar voice and stopped. I turned to see Mr.Artis standing at
his office door, “Come in, I need to speak with you.”

“Hey- ah, it’s good to see you,” I awkwardly smiled back at him, “Listen, I’m kind
of busy right now, can this wait?” I was a man on a mission, I didn’t want to lose
momentum.

“No it can not, come in.” His tone was kind, but the sternness was undeniable. He
held open the door to his office and entered behind me.
I asked him why he had wanted to see me, but he simply stated that he wanted to
talk. He asked me how things had been while he was away but I didn’t want to
talk. The answers I gave him were short, cold, nothing like my usual self. I could
tell that he knew that something was up, but didn’t want to push me.

As I leaned back in the chair, wishing he would just leave me alone, my sweatshirt
lifted slightly, the bulge becoming more evident.

“Harold,” Mr.Artis whispered, “What on earth is that for.”

My cheeks turned bright red with embarrassment at being caught, and my heart
started to pound in my ears. I knew it was over then. Mr.Artis was cool, but he
was still a teacher. I assumed that the police and my parents would be called, that
I would be kicked out of school and possibly sent to prison.

I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. Words got caught in the back of my throat, my
eyes welling up with tears and I just broke. The weight of the world which I had
been carrying finally broke my back and all I could do was sob. Mr. Artis didn’t say
a word, just waited for me to compose myself. When I finally did, I told him about
everything that had been going on. I had never cried in front of him before, and
the emotion that flowed out of me was surprisingly relieving.

When the tears stopped and I had run out of things to say, Mr.Artis held his hand
out for the gun.
“Are you going to have me arrested?” I asked.

“No. What good would that do?” He asked.

I couldn’t stop apologizing, but Mr.Artis’ eyes were kind as he told me that
everything was going to be ok. He told me that he understood what I wanted to
do, but that it was the wrong solution. Comforted by his presence and finally
being able to get everything off my chest, I almost agreed with him.

I gave Mr.Artis the gun, which he said that he would dispose of. I knew my dad
would be livid that it went missing, but that was a problem for another day. I
thanked Mr.Artis for everything and went to class.

I was late to Spanish, but I told the teacher that I was in the nurse's office. Seniora
Miller didn’t question it, my eyes were still red and my nose was runny. The rest
of the class was uneventful, but just as the bell was supposed to ring, the principal
came over the speaker with an announcement:

“May I please have everyone’s attention. Last night, at 8:06 p.m. our school lost a
beloved member of our faculty. Mr. Gideon Artis found peace last night, after a
lifetime struggling with a hereditary disorder. There will be a service on Tuesday,
for anyone who would like to attend, and all counselors will be available all week
for any student of faculty member who would like grievance assistance. We will
now have five minutes of silence, for Mr.Artis.”
There were gasps around the classroom as the announcement played, but Seniora
Miller quieted us down. We bowed our heads out of respect and sat in silence.

I often ponder what happened that day. I wonder if Mr.Artis was a ghost, but
seemed so real. My mental state that day was far from sane, and it’s possible that
I hallucinated the whole thing; my subconscious finding a way to stop me from
making a terrible mistake.

The biggest mystery of all, is that of the gun. I know I took it from my dad’s
drawer, I remember counting the bullets, over and over again. I remember the
way it felt, heavy in my waistband, and I know that I handed it over to Mr.Artis.
The next weekend my dad went to the shooting range, and I was ready for hell
when he couldn’t find it. Except that he did find it, it was right there in the drawer,
still loaded with three bullets.

I can’t explain the events that took place, but I guess a part of me wonders if
Mr.Artis just wanted to look out for me one more time.
The Bible Has Become My Personal Hell [Part 1]
For the last three years, I worked alongside forty other “problem” teens between
the age of 12 to 17.

How did I get here?

I was fourteen and I was caught with a joint in my pocket. It was going to be the
day I tried smoking weed for the first time with my friend.

I was only suspended for a week, but my parents were very religious. They
consulted with their pastor, but the only suggestion he could give us was to take
me into rehab. We didn’t have money for that so my mother grabbed my arm and
led me out of the church with my father walking closely behind her. While we
were walking to our car in the parking lot a man ran up to my father and said,
“Rehab isn’t the only way! Give me 10 minutes of your time. I promise it will be
worth it.”

My father gave the man an awkward smile and started to get in his car when the
man blurted out, “It’s free and we can guarantee that your son will come back as
the man God meant for him to be.” With a small grunt, my father got out of his
car and started talking to the man. I tried pressing my ear up to the window to
catch what they were saying, but after a couple of minutes of listening to muffled
voices, my man walked away with a satisfied grin on his face. When my father got
into the car he said, “Aaron, you are gonna have to pack up your stuff up tonight.
They are picking you up at 4 in the morning.”

I kept asking him who was picking me up, how long I was going to be gone for,
where I was going, but he did not say a single word to me.
After three years of being in this fucking hellhole, I still don’t know why I’m here.

I am not any better person of a person. We don’t do anything that benefits our
life. I do the same thing every single day. At 6 am I wake up and wake up my
“elder” before I rush to the dining hall. If I’m lucky I will be able to eat the same
breakfast every single morning, eggs and a piece of toast. After breakfast, we
clean our dishes and walk to “Truth Hall” and spend the next 12 hours flipping
through Bible after Bible making sure imperfections were not found. After we
inspect each Bible we would put a tiny mark on the bottom right corner of each
page.

Elders are people that turn 18 while they are here. They don’t work, but they get
punished every time we make a mistake with our inspections.

Punishment is a little different here. The elder gets nailed to a cross and placed in
the middle of the dining room. Everyone else grabs a rock from a pile provided by
our “Deliverers.” As soon as we all pick up a rock we have to throw it as hard as
we can at the elder until he dies. If we run out of rocks and the elder is still
breathing then another elder gets crucified next to him. The most we had at one
time was three elders ascended in the middle of the dining room.

This morning I woke up a little earlier than everyone else. I got dressed into my
outfit, a simple white shirt, white sweatpants, and brown leather sandals. After
getting dressed I woke up my elder and ran towards the dining room. When I ran
through the doors into the dining room I saw a deliverer sitting at the table alone.
I wasn’t scared of them because they were the ones that monitored us, punished
the elders, and worked for whatever was holding us hostage. I was scared about
how they always kept their faces covered with a white mask with the word
“sinner” written in red on the top of the hat. It was also how they laughed
whenever we were forced to kill our elders for what something that isn’t even
their mistake, but the scariest thing about them was how they communicated
with each other. It was in a sort of low guttural sound I could not figure out, but
whatever it was, it sent chills throughout my body when I heard them speak to
each other.

I tried to quietly walk past him, but he grabbed my arm and pointed at the seat in
front of him. There was already a plate of bacon, eggs, sausage, and pancakes. I
quickly sat down and stared at the food. My mouth was watering at the sight of
good food, and I started to scarf the food as fast as I could into my mouth. Within
5 minutes I was staring at an empty plate of food. A chuckle came from within the
mask, and the deliverer handed me its plate of food. I gratefully took it and ate
the next plate of food a little slower. After I finished my food the others started to
come into the hall. When I looked up to thank the deliverer I stared at an empty
seat.

The day went by normally until the end of my shift. When the bell rang, we all put
down the Bible we were examining and went to the dining hall for dinner. I was
the third to walk in, but before I walked through the doors I heard screaming. I
ran inside and ran to the other two guys that were standing in front of the cross
to find a deliverer lying on the ground. The first thing I noticed was that it was a
man. As I walked up to him he turned to face me and I saw that the other side of
his face was completely burned to a crisp. The eye was nothing more than a
puddle of white and black liquid barely staying in place. The other side of his face
was filled with words. I bent down and got a closer look at his face.

They were words I was completely familiar with.

Scriptures from the Bible.

He held his hand out towards me and started to wail out, “Lies. Lies. It’s. It’s all
just lies. May God deliver you from the evil. May he grant you peace.”

Other deliverers quickly came into the dining hall after he went silent. They
dragged him out and disappeared in the long dark hallway. By the time we were
done with dinner we saw other deliverers getting dragged into the same hallway.

The last deliverer was dragged on his stomach and I threw up into my plate of
food as soon as I saw its backbone sticking straight up. Strips of meat hung from
the bone and the flesh that was around the backbone looked to be bitten off.

I don’t know what came over me, but I ran out of the dining room and started
running towards my room when I ran right into a deliverer. When I got up it
grabbed my arm and pointed towards the hall the deliverer’s slept in. I followed
the deliverer to an open room and sat down. When I sat down on a chair the
deliverer took off his mask and grinned at me.

A woman was staring at me. She had a face that belonged to an angel, but it was
covered by the word “Mary” on her forehead and several verses of scripture
written all over her face.

When I gained the courage, I looked at her and asked her if she could help me
escape. With a sad look on her face, she shook her head and softly said, “No.”
With slight frustration, I asked her, “Why? Why can’t you help me leave?” With
tears running down her face she said, “I don’t know where we are. None of us do.
If we don’t do as they say we lose our life like you guys do. We aren’t any higher
up than you. We just gain certain perks.”

We were silent before I asked her, “Do you have anything that can get on the
internet?” She nodded yes and handed me a laptop from underneath her bed.
Before she handed it to me she said, “We have tried to get people to track our
location, but every single time someone from the outside gets a location they go
to the spot only to find out that it’s useless. This place is untraceable.

I’m writing to you guys for help. Please don’t try to find us. It’s useless. Just give
us suggestions. We need to escape before we all lose our lives.
The Bible Has Become My Personal Hell [Final]
We did not work today.

Everyone was in a panic.

We had two men dressed in red robes come in and look around for a couple of
hours before they grabbed a deliverer and dragged him into the room the furnace
was. Despite the distance, I clearly heard a voice start pleading for his life. When
no one was looking I ran up to the door and pressed my ear lightly against it. I
managed to catch what they were saying.

Deliverer: “I promise. I swear. I don’t know what the fu-“ I heard a slap and my
blood ran cold. Two voices spoke at the same time. A low guttural voice that
sounded like it belonged in the depths of hell and a completely monotone voice.

Them: “Do not use foul language in the temple of God servant. You’re useless.
You deserve nothing. You deserve death.”

After that, the deliverer let out a scream so loud I had to pull my ear away from
the door. It was the scream of pure agony. I ran back out into the dining hall and
sat down next to my elder. He looked at me and asked me what I heard. I just
shook my head at him and placed my head on the cold metal table.

A couple of minutes later, I heard the door open and slam shut. Before I managed
to raise my head I heard gasps fill the room. When I looked at the two men in red
robes walk up to us I noticed they were each carrying something. The person on
the left carried a lump of flesh while the one on the right carried the skin of the
deliverer.

They placed the flesh and skin on a table and started to walk out the door. Before
they walked through the door they turned to us and spoke in unison, “The food is
on the table. The answer for your salvation is on the table. Make use of the
blessings we have given you. No more work. No more food. This is now your
personal hell. The only way out is through God’s word.”

I didn’t care anymore. I know a man died, but I needed to get out. So did
everyone else. If I have to investigate a dead man’s skin I was more than willing.
With a deep breath, I grabbed the skin and flipped it over to see what was written
on the forehead section.

“Luke 15:11-32”

I called out, “Someone get me a Bible. Let’s get this shit figured out.”

A girl ran up to me with a Bible in her hand and tossed it to me before running
back to her seat. I flipped it to the passage and quickly glanced over it. It was the
tale of the Prodigal Son.

For those who don’t know.

Kid was a spoiled little shit. Asked his rich father for his inheritance like a dumb
ass and went to a nearby city and spent all of his money. Ran back home like a
little bitch and what do you know. Father still loves him and he lets him go back
home and live with them.

Most Christians know the story, and honestly, it is definitely heartwarming, but
how was that going to help us? When I looked back up from the Bible I saw my
elder standing next to me examining the bottom portion of the skin. He looked at
me and pointed to where the man’s right ankle once was and said, “These are the
only words that are not part of the Bible.”

I took a look at it and my blood ran cold.

“Deliverers, elders, and workers. Out of all of you. There will only be one prodigal
son.”

Everyone quickly crowded around us and demanded answers. With a shaking

voice, I blurted out that they wanted us to kill each other. The last one to survive
will get to leave. After I explained it out, I tried to tell them we could all work
together to find a way out, but within seconds the dining hall filled with swinging
fists and blood. I quickly ran to the other side of the dining hall and saw the
transition from people ganging up on one person to taking each other out one by
one.

Within minutes, only one deliverer, 3 elders, and 2 workers remained. The mask
was ripped off of the deliverer, and I got a good look at her face. It was the one
that led me to her room. The one that let me get this message out. I tried to think
of a way to help her out, but in the middle of my thoughts, I saw out of the corner
of my eye an elder running at me as fast as he could. Without a second thought, I
dropped to the ground as he got close and saw him trip over me. Before he could
even get up I ran past him and ran to my room. When I walked into my room I
saw my elder sitting next to his bed sobbing out loud.

Slowly, I walked up to him and saw blood seeping through his shirt. I grabbed his
shoulder and turned him around and tore off his shirt to see if I could help him.
Upon first glance, I knew he was far beyond help. All around his midsection his
skin was missing and his flesh was slowly bubbling up and melting away.

With a groan, he looked up at me and said, “You need to get out. I didn’t want to
die. I ran here to escape, but. But. Fuck man. I don’t know. My body started to
feel like it was on fire. What the fuck are you still doing here? Get out. Get out!”

I ran out and saw the deliverer standing in front of my door. She had a knife in her
hand and stared at me with a small smile on her face.

I raised my hands and turned my back towards her and leaned against the wall.
She let out a short laugh and said, “Follow me.” I turned around and saw that she
was walking towards her room. I ran up to her and tried to ask her what she was
doing but she didn’t say a single word back. When she got to her room she lied on
her bed and said, “I marked an X where my heart should be. I wanted to die on
the bed I slept my whole life. With a million questions buzzing around my head,
the only one I managed to ask was, “Why?” She shrugged and said, “This is all I
know. I was born into this like the other deliverers. We don’t know who controls
us. If I escaped I wouldn’t know what to do. I don’t have parents to go to. Why I
chose you to survive? Well, that is because you are the only one who decided to
sit with me. You are a pig when it comes to good food, but I enjoyed the
momentary company. It’s time. Do it now.”
With a soft voice, I whispered, “Thank you” and plunged the knife into her heart. I
stood next to her until she took her last breath.

The doors are opened now.

Before I head back into the world to live or be killed by whatever was leading this
workforce I leave you this.

Religion is a powerful thing. It can be used for something good or something

beyond evil. We don’t know which is which. The Bibles we made were not for
some type of cult. They were for the churches around the Midwest. It was led by
a pastor by the name of Drew Harris.

I lived through 3 years of hell to become a prodigal son

One Missed Call
I am a fairly heavy sleeper. It usually takes someone actually shaking me to wake
me up. Last night I woke up for apparently no reason. Groggy and upset I was
awake I looked at my phone to see how much time I had left to sleep before I had
to get up to get ready for work. I've burned a lot of bridges in my life time and it
hurts me to say it but I don't really have any friends other than my brother and
my best friend who lives with me. When I looked at my phone to check the time I
noticed I had a missed call from a number not saved in my phone, they left a voice
mail.

The time on the voice mail was 38 minutes after midnight. Odd I thought, usually
my drunk desperate acquaintances don't call me for a ride until after the bars
close at 2:30 am. Opening the voice mail I hear a female voice I immediately
recognize as an ex girlfriend from several years ago. She's crying.

The best I can translate through the sobs is "Please call me, I'm going to do
something bad. I can't take it anymore. The pain is too much." After that I can
hear her trying to talk but I can't understand what she is saying.

I work as a 911 dispatcher and I usually have to talk someone off the edge of
suicide at least once per night but it is usually someone I don't know and I don't
know why, but not knowing a person some how makes this easier. I knew I had
the skills to save her life.

I called her back and for the first 5 minutes or so I couldn't even understand her.
Finally I had her calmed down enough that I could understand her and she was
able to hear what I had to say. She had gotten fired and went home to her
boyfriend upset and looking for support. He hit her and then threw her against a
wall and screamed at her for screwing up again. She told me she was on her way
to go to see snow one last time before she ended it. She told me she was going to
silent rock to die.

I talked to her the 45 minutes or so it took me to drive to silent rock. I got her
calmed down and I made her agree she wouldn't kill herself until she talked to me
and then still didn't have a reason to live. When I got there she was shivering in
the cold and still crying. I've never seen anyone or anything so happy to see
another human. I put her in my car and looked around for her car but it was no
where to be seen, I still have no idea how she got to a place so far from her house.

She was silent the whole drive home. When we got to my house I grabbed her a
blanket and a pillow and laid them on the couch. She hugged me and thanked me
for saving her life. I put "That 70's show," a show I remember her loving from
when we dated. Once she drifted off to sleep I sat there for another hour making
sure she was actually out. I went to my room and went to sleep.

I woke up the next day and the blanket I'd laid out for her was folded and the
pillow was on top. She was gone, probably to go repair the damage that had been
done the night before. I went to work. When I got off work I called her to see how
she was fairing and to make sure she was still stable. A male voice I didn't
recognize answered the phone.

"Hello?" I replied "Hey, i'm worried about Sabrina, she had a rough night and I'm
just checking in on her."

I'll never forget the response I got, "Is this some horrible joke? What asshole
thinks its funny to torment a father a month after he's lost his daughter."
The line disconnected. I pulled up the phone number in my phone to call her back
and I noticed that I had a missed call from her exactly one month prior. I don't
know what exactly happened that night but I visited her grave today and I still
don't believe it. Please don't sleep with your phone on silent, you might miss the
most important call of your life.

**Edited to fix a line that was written poorly, sorry for the mistake. I had to get
pretty drunk to get the courage to write this story out. Thanks everyone for your
support and kind words.
You'll Never Even Know
Surveillance is a growing fact of life these days, but I now believe we've expanded
the scope of human sight to dangerous levels. I'm not a master hacker by any
means, but I was definitely able to Google a script to break into my neighbor's
new smart home system. Believe me when I say that ignorance is bliss and that
you can never go back once you know the truth.

I'm not some creep. The idea first started as a random thought when I heard my
fifty-something neighbor bragging to someone else on his porch about his new
smart home system. He claimed the security system and all the devices in his
house were wired to the same voice command box, and he sounded rather proud
of it. He claimed it was perfect security.

Of course, after overhearing a claim like that floating in through my open window,
I made a single search and found a dozen hits for scripts that would break into the
brand he'd described. I laughed to myself and then left it at that.

But temptation has a funny way of lurking in the back of your mind. Every few
days the thought would randomly pop into my head: I had the power. Why not
take a peek? It would be good for a laugh if nothing else. It's not like he would
have installed cameras in his bathrooms or anything.

Nah.

No.
Eh, maybe—no, I shouldn't.

But then Spring Break arrived, and, while sitting at my computer, I happened to
glance out the window and see the neighbor's daughter coming home from
college. The temptation to use the script had already been percolating in me for
weeks; the veins in my extremities constricted painfully as I realized I was actually
going to do it. During my brief glimpse down into their yard, I'd seen what looked
like a startlingly attractive girl, and I couldn't connect that image to the weird girl
next door I'd last seen in high school.

It wasn't a creeper thing. I just wanted a better look to understand what I'd seen. I
told myself I'd take one quick look and then be done with it. While loading up the
script, I promised myself I'd delete it right after. Yeah, that was the right thing to
do. No harm done, and if I got caught somehow, I could just claim it was a one-
time accident. That sounded reasonable.

A black window scrolled text down my screen rapidly for six seconds, and then—I
was in.

Nerves thrilling, I watched breathlessly through a security cam feed in the living
room as the girl came in, greeted her brother and father, and then headed
upstairs. It was definitely the same girl I remembered, and she'd definitely gotten
absurdly pretty in the last year somehow. After settling into certainty, I closed the
feed, deleted the script, and then spent a paranoid hour clearing my computer of
any evidence of what I'd done.

For maybe a week I sat at home terrified that the police would break down my
door and taze me at any moment, but that's the funny thing about temptation:
when no consequences followed, the urge to look began eating away at me again.
I had a few drinks one lonely night and then went for it before I could change my
mind.

The son was watching television in the living room. I couldn't see what he was
watching from the angle of the camera in the living room, but he seemed zoned
out.

My neighbor himself was sitting in the kitchen working on his laptop. Again, I
couldn't see what he was doing from my angle, but he was certainly downing
coffee as he worked.

My pulse quickened as a hallway feed caught the daughter going from her room
to the bathroom in just a towel to take a shower.

Ok, borderline creepish, I told myself, but it's not like I could see in the bathrooms
or the bedrooms, right? Just to confirm that I couldn't, I tried the various devices
around the house that the neighbor had connected to his system. Most were
named with random numbers and letters, but I did find that household devices
had many more sensors than we gave them credit for. A microwave in the kitchen
had some sort of crude light sensor, and the system sent me its data as an
incredibly blurry video feed. A big blob of darkness moved in place in front of a
bright rectangle of light, and I realized I was looking at my neighbor on his laptop
from a different angle. In fact, many devices in the house had crude light sensors
or audio pickups, and I could hear the shower running upstairs on one while
listening to the son's show on another.
This was all proceeding as one might expect, and I might have gone down a very
dark path if I hadn't stumbled upon the unthinkable. One of the devices with a
very long and very random name showed me a blurry feed somewhere
unrecognizable. I switched back and forth comparing the patterns of light from
the cameras, but this device seemed to be looking out on somewhere altogether
different. Was it the basement? It was darker than the others, but not too dark to
obscure strange grey blurs moving on black.

I kept switching until I found a security camera near a basement window. It was
the only one down there, but it showed enough that I could compare blurs. It was
less that the objects were moving and more that the fuzzy sensor made the
objects appear to move simply because it was so bad, but I pinpointed a poster, a
chair, and a mirror before coming to an impasse with the final blur. This one I
could only see on the sensor. There was nothing on the video feed. Peering closer
and closer, I tried to make sense of the blob of grey and white pixels as it moved
around the basement. There—and there—recognizable landmarks among the
junk, but no sign of it on the high res camera.

What was I seeing? Was the sensor just defective? What device was it even part
of? I managed to narrow it down to a forgotten digital clock that must have been
running on batteries, but nothing about this made sense. I looked up a script to
sharpen video data and I let everything run all night.

In the morning, I pulled myself up, got a coffee, sat down at my computer—and
then froze. Repeatedly, I played the confusing horror the script had produced. The
blur of grey and shadows had become coherent, but not in any natural way;
instead, it appeared that I was looking at an androgynous grey humanoid form
with a pillowcase over her head. Since this was just a graphical best guess, her
glitchy movement brought out severe unease and disgust in me as I watched her
jerkily walk around the basement. She appeared to be able to navigate despite
the pillowcase covering her face, and she even made it up a few steps toward the
basement door before her random movements took her back down.

What the hell was I seeing?

For two days I watched that thing stumble around my neighbor's basement
before she finally went all the way up the stairs. It was four in the morning and all
of three of them were asleep; this time, she seemed to move with purpose. She
was still not visible on any high resolution camera, but I tracked her from sensor
to sensor by her twitching blur. After so long watching her unfocused form, I was
beginning to get a sense of where her legs and arms were by the movement and
patterns of the grey; each limb moved as if on different conflicting joints. When
she walked, it was as if her ankles, knees, and thighs each wanted to go opposite
directions, and the conflict was only resolved by odd rotations and strange body
angles.

Gripped by terror, I watched her slowly ratchet her way through the kitchen and
toward the second set of stairs. There was no doubt in my mind that she was
heading for the bedrooms. My knuckles went white as I gripped the edge of my
table; finally, as she clambered up and out of sight of the sensors, I panicked. She
still wasn't visible on the hallway camera, but I knew I had to do something.

But what? If I called the house, they would have my phone number, and they
would start asking questions as to why I'd called at four in the morning. There was
no way I could pretend it was random. The only reason I even had my neighbor's
cellphone number was that I'd heard him say it out loud the week before on one
of my feeds.
What could I do? Desperate to act—or to at least see what was happening—I left
my computer and crept to a window in another room. From here, I could see into
my neighbor's daughter's window, and my entire body ran with prickly terror as I
spied a strange grey anti-glow in her room. The sharpening script had not been
wrong; it'd merely been inadequate. My eyes still interpreted the inexplicable
entity as an androgynous humanoid with a pillow case over its head, but it moved
through the space of the girl's room like a depressed carving etched into reality
itself. I could feel why it didn't show up on cameras: it was something
otherworldly; something not entirely there, or something visible only as an
artifact of organic human perception. This was a creature outside the realm of
human knowledge and observation, and I guessed that it was making its move
now only because it believed itself to be unseen.

It jerked and twitched forward to lean over the neighbor's daughter as she slept.

Quickly and quietly, I slid open my window, removed the screen, and threw a
quarter at the glass panes opposite.

I ducked down immediately after and clutched the floor in abject terror. The rap
noise had been excruciatingly loud. Had the entity snapped its pillow-case
covered head toward the sound? Had it seen me? I had no way of knowing.

Or did I?

Crawling back to my room, I checked the feeds. Apparently completely

unperturbed by my noise, the entity had begun ratcheting her way back down the
stairs. It was not fleeing to the basement. I watched as it approached the small
table by the front door and began going through the mail stacked there. It
carefully picked out one envelope and crumpled it into oblivion in a blurry grey
hand. Then, it moved to the kitchen, where it touched the keyboard on my
neighbor's laptop repeatedly for nearly a minute. What was it doing?

It returned to the basement to move in lurking circles, and I sat and stared at it
half-awake until a shout from both my computer and my open window jolted me
to full awareness. It had been my neighbor in his kitchen; he'd yelled loud enough
for me to hear it for real. Stalking back and forth while talking on the phone, he
was insisting he hadn't sent any compromising emails.

He'd been fired from his job.

In the front hall, his son was busy looking through the pile of mail. He asked his
sister and father repeatedly if any college acceptance letters had come in, but his
father was too busy arguing on the phone, and his sister hadn't seen any.

But I had.

What type of entity were we dealing with here? It hadn't physically harmed
anyone, but it was still lurking in their home every hour of every day, and it had
made invisible moves against them by sabotaging my neighbor's job and his son's
college career.

At long last, my neighbor seemed to convince the other end that his account had
been hacked, but he was somber and concerned about how it would reflect on
him at work. The son continued on with his day, oblivious to the fact that his
acceptance letter had come in—and been destroyed.

It was then that I began to think about the timeline of what had happened. I'd
resisted the urge to spy on my neighbor's family for weeks. Indeed, beyond that,
he'd lived there for years. If the entity had been in his basement this entire time,
then perhaps they were not physically at risk. There'd been plenty of
opportunities to hurt them directly. No, this was something else. This was a
specter of misfortune; a curse; an information parasite. But my neighbor had not
been particularly unlucky as far as I knew, not until—

Not until he'd gotten the surveillance system.

A bunch of little complaints I'd heard him make suddenly began to add up. Things
had been inexplicably going wrong for everyone in his family recently. Alarm
clocks had been failing to go off at the proper time, emails and texts had been a
bit weird, and each of the three members of his household had a general growing
frustration with life. It was undermining them. It was literally lurking in the
basement—lurking out of sight—and sabotaging them, and they had no idea.

But where had the entity come from? Almost all of the devices and cameras had
been there before. The only difference was that they had been integrated. Did
observation have an effect on the physical universe? I was no quantum physics
expert, but I knew that observation was a crucial part of existence. Did
overlapping connected layers of observation somehow enable this entity to slide
into our world? When you put all the pieces together, did the whole add up to
more than the sum of the parts?
I began thinking up a plan of action that involved sneaking over there and turning
off all their devices in the hopes of banishing the entity in their basement, but, as
I did so, I looked down and to the left at my cellphone. It sat quietly glowing on
the table, for I had moved my hand above it and activated its motion sensor.

Then, I looked up and noticed the webcam above my monitor that I always kept
pointed at myself.

Then, I looked to my right at my television, itself containing a sensor, and the

gaming console beside it that also had sensors to detect my motion.

Microphones. Cameras.

Everywhere.

I'd applied for so many internships last summer and gotten none.

I'd missed dates and lost budding relationships because of texting troubles.

Everything had felt hard and difficult lately—thus why I was sitting alone on my
computer most nights.

I sat without breathing for nearly twenty seconds. There would be no plan. There
would be no action taken. My neighbors would have to fend for themselves. I let
out my breath, put my hands back on my mouse and keyboard, and loaded up a
computer game. It would look like I'd given up—to anyone watching.
My Best Friend Became a Murderer
My buddy Gavin had always tried to be a superhero. Yes. You read that right. Not
he always loved superheroes – not even that he always wanted to be a superhero.
He made a costume and mask when we were in middle school and had been
crusading around the neighborhood to ‘stop crime’ all the way till I was a
sophomore in high school. I’m sure you’ve heard about people like this in the
news; like the people in that movie Kick Ass. Gavin and I lived in the St Cloud
projects and, even though I doubt he helped in anyway, there was a lot of crime
and drug dealing to go around.

The most difficult thing for Gavin, I think, was that we lived in Minnesota, a state
that doesn’t allow wearing masks in public. While most beat cops that came
around our neighborhood laughed at Gavin and his masked antics, there was one
cop that would have none of it: Officer Mitchell. He had a real hard-on for Gavin,
or The Depths as he called his alter ego, and would always demand he take the
mask off and not go around disguised in public. More on him later.

In truth, Gavin’s outfit was pretty sweet. It was all black, the fabric was flowing
but not too baggy and the mask was made of this tough black plastic. It looked
kinda like a skull, and the eye lenses were a piercing silver tint. He’d actually been
working on it for a year. Every night after school, instead of hanging out or doing
his homework, he’d go into the basement and sew up his costume. I kept telling
him he could just buy a Halloween getup from K-Mart, which would be a lot less
traceable, but he insisted on making his own.

As you can probably gather, he was big into Batman and, just like the character,
would only ‘work’ at night. This helped him avoid Officer Mitchell a few times
when being chased down so he wouldn’t be unmasked. The outfit was perfect
camouflage for the dark alleyways.
A lot of people, including teachers and most of the grownups in the projects, had
figured that Gavin was mentally unstable or retarded. I never thought that was
accurate though. If I’m being totally fair, Gavin was an averagely smart kid who
was just preoccupied with things that took away from him ever getting good
grades or learning anything that would get him a job. And he wasn’t crazy;
he’d…just been through a lot.

His parents divorced when he was five. Before you dismiss this experience as just
another typical 21st century reality, you should know that his father was in deep
gambling debt and his mother was hooked on crack from the Minneapolis Crips.
I’ll let you imagine how this all played out for young Gavin when the three of
them were living under the same roof. They didn’t so much divorce as they
separated and really neither of them was fit to raise Gavin so he went to live with
his grandfather. When his grandpa croaked he went into foster homes, getting
passed along seven times in four years. He eventually landed back in St Cloud with
his older third cousin Howie, twice removed. Howie did shift work at a
supermarket warehouse and didn’t have much time or patience for Gavin so you
can imagine what their relationship was like.

I actually remember going along with Gavin, or The Depths, a few times when he
scoured the streets at night for trouble. I don’t know why but for some reason he
was never bothered with me knowing his ‘secret identity.’ In truth, when you live
in the ghetto, there’s little your neighbors don’t know about you. Anyway, I
remember one night I tagged along with The Depths after we’d heard news of a
serial rapist in the area. I wasn’t in costume but he was, as well as Durwood, his
sidekick. Now, trying to be a superhero in real life is pretty pathetic but being the
side kick to a faux-superhero? That’s got to be the shits.
We mostly drank coffee and soda, freezing our balls off on a street corner and
spying on the opposite side, looking for anything suspicious. Now, Durwood and I
after an hour and a half had had enough. There was nothing there except a few
drunks, ranting crazies, and maybe a hooker in a long trench coat. The Depths,
however, refused to call it a night, insisting we’d find the rapist. Not long, we saw
this tall man wearing baggy, layered clothing, who kept circling the block, over
and over again.

“That guy keeps circling back,” Gavin hissed through his mask. Durwood and I
looked at each other and, even though we weren’t friends, we could read the
concerned panic in the other’s eyes. I think we both knew the shit was about to
hit the fan when we heard Gavin’s paper cup hit the sidewalk. Gavin, like a
shadow crossing your room when a car goes by at night, lurched forward and ran
to the other side. He got right up and grabbed the guy by the lapels of his coat,
yelling at him, demanding to know his whereabouts on such and such a date. A
struggle ensued. I watched from the other side, paralyzed. Durwood stood next to
me like a statue.

A fist flew from the man and he shouted, “The fuck’s with you freak? Get the fuck
off!” Gavin then retaliated with one of those karate punches he’d taught himself
from online videos and it did rock the guy back a few steps. Then the next thing I
saw brought a swell of feverish heat bubbling to my otherwise shivering body.
From out of the guy’s steep pocket he brought out a gleamingly silver, snub nose
revolver. He pointed it, titled to the side at Gavin’s head. “Get the fuck off me,
bruh!”

Gavin didn’t move and I thought then that it was over but he suddenly reached up
and grabbed the guy by the wrist. The wrist of the hand holding the gun. I sunk
back into the shadows and heaved, watching the grey barrel teeter and sway in
several directions as the two of them grappled for it. Without a word, Durwood
ran forward to the scene. I watched in abject horror, as he got closer to the point
of the flaying firearm. I sunk deeper into the darkness. I then leapt and waxed
cold upon the thunder of the gun’s shot.

The bullet ricocheted across the concrete and the weapon fell from the man’s
hand as both Gavin and Durwood pushed him to the ground. I don’t know if it was
the second person or the gun firing but the man scrambled to his feet and
scampered away. I watched the two of them panting, Gavin much more than
Durwood. Then, before they walked back across the road, Durwood stooped
down and picked something up from off the sidewalk. When they brought it over
we saw that it was a small plastic packet of meth. The guy had been a drug dealer,
which would explain why he’d been circling the block over and over. The allusive
serial rapist was never found.

Durwood seemed the most embarrassed about the debacle. Gavin figured he had
still stopped injustice. Me? I stopped tagging along. But I know that most of his
crusades ended up in street fights, some he lost some he won. Sometimes he’d
get unmasked but, that was okay; they didn’t know who he was anyway.

I stopped paying much attention. Around this time I was starting to think ahead a
little bit; I was going into high school and wasn’t too glad to be put into the lowest
set class in one of the worst schools in the city. Gavin wasn’t going to high school.
He was instead focusing on his crime-fighting career. Truth is, he was terribly
behaved and was probably suffering from undiagnosed ADHD. In retrospect, our
school just couldn’t support him.

The worst came about when Gavin collected up his paper route money and
Christmas cash (and some pilfered dollars from Howie’s wallet, I suspect) to buy a
police radio. Like the karate moves he’d taught himself, he soon figured out what
each of the coded numbers stood for.

Three days after this purchase, our projects got introduced to Officer Mitchell. He
went door to door with a sketch of the mask that Gavin wore as The Depths.
Luckily for Gavin, no one in the projects talks to cops, especially when it’s about
someone who lives there. This usually applies to drug dealers and gangsters but
they didn’t make an exception for a mildly disturbed would-be superhero.

Officer Mitchell came to my door last. My mother, who was home, told him she’d
never seen anyone wearing that mask before, but called me over to take a look.
Mitchell had told her that he believed the suspect was a child. I took a look and
immediately recognized the skeletal quality of the mask. Regardless, I shook my
head no. The officer then kneeled down and looked into my eyes. He smelled like
burnt coffee and sweat, and his face was puffy and his eyes were cold – shifty.
“Are you sure about that, son? No idea who this character could be?”

Again, I shook my head no. He then stood up and adjusted his uniform then
thanked my mother. He left, but I knew he knew I was lying. I felt a chill go up my
spine and it lingered there long after he’d left.

After that, and with much prodding from me and Durwood, Gavin finally decided
to stop going out at night. “Alright,” he told us. “I’ll wait for something big over
the radio.” This wasn’t exactly reassuring but was enough to settle my nerves for
the time being.
One night, the three of us were hanging out in Howie’s cramped basement,
playing X-box and sipping on some of the canned beer from the fridge, the police
radio occasionally buzzing in the background.

After we’d got to the penultimate level of the game, the radio buzzed rather
loudly with: “Car 64 be advised, 261 and possible 217 in progress on Yonge and
Lexington.” Durwood and I heard it but neither of us paid it any mind. Gavin,
though, he sat right up, his ears perked, dropping his controller to the floor. “10-4,
this is Car 64, on pursuit to location, over.”

Gavin jumped up, rushing toward the radio and putting his ear right next to the
speaker. Durwood and I were still sitting on the carpet but my head was turned.
“What’s up, Gavin?”

“Shhh!” he hissed then promptly put his ear back to the radio. “There’s a rape
happening ten blocks from us.” At that moment I felt cold wash over me. I turned
off the game and listened with him. Several minutes crawled by of nothing, just
the low frizzle of the radio static. Then we heard the officer’s voice return:
“Dispatch, this is Car 64, we have a 217, requesting medical, over.” I didn’t need
to know the codes to figure out what happened. The rape victim was dead.

“Roger, Car 64. Is the suspect in the area? Over.”

“Negative, dispatch. Suspect is reported to be a number 1 male, possibly local.

Witnesses say he fled scene going west off Furlington. Notify all cars of situation.”
“10-4.”

Durwood’s hand was then clasped on Gavin’s shoulder and I could see he was
writhing. “Maybe they’ll catch him,” I said pathetically.

“He’s right,” Durwood jumped in. “No point in going over there. Come on, calm
down.”

It took a few minutes of restraining him, but Gavin agreed to stay in the basement.
We turned on the TV and channel surfed for a bit, mostly watching cartoons.
Durwood and I each popped open a new beer. Gavin didn’t even finish his already
opened one. Didn’t even touch it. Or even look at it. He just sat there, next to the
radio, his eyes staring lifeless at nothing.

The next day, I saw the front cover of the newspaper: HIDEOUS RAPE-MURDER
ON YOUNGE AND LEXINGTON! Police Officer’s are in hot pursuit of evasive culprit

This wasn’t good. I didn’t see Gavin for two weeks straight. I called his house a
couple times but each time I either got an answering machine or his cousin, telling
me he was out and didn’t know where he was. I was scared then. This was bad.

All I knew was the detail of the suspect as they were relayed on the radio:
Number One male. It didn’t take me long to find out that Number One meant
black. I didn’t want to know how The Depths was going about finding the guy.
By the third week, on a Wednesday’s afternoon after school, I heard an
uncommon sound for our block, coming outside my window: heavy tires
crunching over the ragged pavement. Anytime a car came through our projects, it
usually meant one thing: cops. I looked out my window to see a squad car had
pulled into our block and was slowly creeping toward Gavin’s house. My mind
filled with fears of the worst and I dashed down the steps and flew out to our
front stoop. I watched Officer Mitchell emerge, his face rigid, his movements stiff
and sudden. He then jerked open the passenger door and there was Gavin, his
face exposed, bloodied, one eye blackened and swollen shut, his hands cuffed
behind him.

Mitchell dragged Gavin toward the door, Gavin giving little resistance and
showing even less mental presence. The policeman wrapped his knuckles hard on
the door but no one ever came. Howie was working double shifts that week and
hadn’t been home. I looked around and saw everybody on our block watching out
the windows or over the fences (those that had fences).

“Where the fuck is your parental unit?” Mitchell demanded, shaking Gavin’s
bound form violently. Gavin shrugged. Mitchell gave him another shake and
shouted in his face. I could feel the eyes of our block peering heavier on both of
them.

Officer Mitchell must have felt it too because after taking a long glance at the
scene around him, he went behind Gavin and took the cuffs off. Gavin was about
to unlock his door and go into his house, but not before Officer Mitchell clasped
his hand against the door and brandished Mitchell’s mask in front of his face in a
squelching grasp.
“Listen to me, you little shit,” he said low, but it carried in an echo so I could hear
it. “Do yourself a favor and throw this and that faggotty outfit in the trash. I see
you wearing it again anywhere and I will arrest you for suspicion of mischief and
we’ll see if we can even get a hate crime charge tied to you, eh?” He then threw
the mask hard at Gavin’s feet. Hate crime. Oh Jesus, I thought. Had Gavin actually
been going around the neighborhood harassing random black guys because of
what he’d heard on the radio?

Officer Mitchell grabbed his heavy belt under his paunch and adjusted his
trousers. “Your guardian or parent will be called later this week to inform them of
the situation. Have a nice day.”

The eyes of the projects faded back into the houses as Mitchell’s prowler peeled
off and Gavin’s door slammed shut. I was glad to know Gavin was okay and
thought at the time the whole thing was over. Looking back, I now know how
wrong I was.

The next day, I invited Gavin over and the two of us hung out in my room. We
were there to play cards but, mostly, I needed to know what had happened. The
first thing I asked was about the shiner he had. “Did that prick Mitchell do that to
you?” He shook his head, almost smiling. “Nah, this was from one of the rapists.”

At this I must have looked at Gavin with complete confusion. He then relayed to
me how there had been more than one rapist-murderer – that there had in fact
been five – maybe ten who were involved in killing the girl. “Gang rape,” is the
term he kept using. “I swear to you, Corey, there’s literally hundreds of them.”

“What do you mean?”

His eyes shifted to my door, perhaps checking that it was closed then he leaned
close and said. “The blacks.”

My heart started pounding in my chest. Was I really hearing this?

He then told me how, John Dyke, at whose house he had stayed on his two-week
hunt, had told him about the uncontrollable lust that apparently all blacks have
for raping white women. This theory wasn’t surprising; John Dyke had grown up,
just a few years before us, in our projects, and was now an active Nazi skinhead.
What shocked me was that Gavin had bought this crap. For Christ sake, the girl
who’d been killed hadn’t even been white!

“I’m not even going to bother fighting street crime anymore,” he lectured on.
“The real criminals that are sucking our community dry are being protected by the
government: the immigrants taking our jobs, the blacks and Spanish spreading
drugs, the queers and lesbians poisoning our families.”

I had to stop him right there. Both my parents are Ukrainian Jews so you can
imagine how pissed I was getting. Also, Gavin, Durwood and I were from three of
only five white families in a majority Hispanic ghetto. How the fuck could he
believe all this neo-Nazi bullshit?

“You’re being an asshole,” I told him and I could feel myself shaking, not used to
standing up for myself, and especially for other people. “John Dyke is a fucking
Nazi, everything you’re saying now is wrong. And what you’re doing around the
city is worse. It-it’s racist!”
He then told me in a cold, automatic monotone that racism doesn’t exist. I lost it
at that point. We both got into a big shouting match and by the end, Gavin called
me a Commie-Kike and stormed out of the room. I couldn’t get his words out of
my head the whole night and I kept shaking and grinding my teeth together.

In the week that followed, I mostly stayed in my room after school. When I
checked my Email account, I saw there was a message from Durwood. Oh great,
the sidekick, I thought. Figuring it was Gavin’s attempt to make recompense,
without apologizing, by proxy, I deleted the message without reading it and got
on with my homework.

The next day there was another message from Durwood. Again I dumped it
without reading. On the third day I had calmed down a bit over the whole thing
and was legitimately curious. To my surprise, the message had nothing to do with
Gavin. Durwood’s message was a simple Hey, how’s it going. He even asked me
about what homework was like in freshman year. Nothing to do with what had
transpired between Gavin and me at all. Pleased with the friendly hello, I
responded in kind, asking him how he was doing. Fifteen minutes later there was
a reply and we ended up chatting into the late evening till midnight. We
continued doing this over the next couple nights and actually started hanging out
after school. It was kind of nice since we only knew each other through Gavin,
who seemed to be no longer in the picture. It was great that I had a new friend
without completely separating myself from my past circle.

Over the next month I found out he and I had a lot in common. One Friday night
when we were munching on nachos and cheese at the local arcade, he confided in
me what it was like being Gavin’s sidekick.
“It was fucking horrible, man,” he commiserated, shaking his head, which was
hanging very low. “Everything he wanted to do since he was five and I was three I
had to go along with. He wanted to play Lone Ranger; I was Tonto. And any
bullshit adventure he wanted to do, I got stuck tagging along.” He interrupted
himself with a joyless scoff. “Did he ever tell you about the time when he was
nine and he wanted to live out in the wilderness so he made me go with him to
camp out in woods at Barrette Park? Shit, by the time they found us, I had poison
ivy all over my arms and had eaten a goddamn grub. Yuck!”

“Well, why did you go along with him?” I asked. “How did you two even end up as
friends?”

“Because,” he said with long emphasis. “His mother went to school with my mom.
I guess she felt obligated after what happened.”

I nodded my head for a bit. That did make sense for the initial relationship. But…

“I mean,” I began again. “Why did you just do what-ever he said? You don’t have
to do what he wants just because he’s your friend or your mom wants you to.
You’re your own person.”

He then hid his eyes behind his hands. I soon realized he was holding his head,
looking as if he was about to be sick. I then heard him say, in a weak, weak voice,
“There’s more. There’s more, he…he just had – has this power over me. I
just…just can't get loose of him. Fuck!”
Not knowing what to do and very uncomfortable, I patted him on the shoulder
and told him it’d be all right. I suppose there was more he could have told me, but,
honestly, I didn’t want to know.

Life was much easier for the next couple of months. No more craziness, no more
bullshit. For the first time in my life, I was actually friends with someone who
wasn’t toxic and wasn’t so demanding of my time. I was actually doing well in
school and there were talks of putting me in a higher set class for next fall.

After Easter weekend, however, I got back in touch with Gavin. It was early in the
morning – I mean 5 AM early. I could hear my phone vibrate on my bedside table.
I picked it up without looking at the call ID and answered.

“Hello?” I said, rubbing my eyes.

“Corey!” I heard Gavin’s voice crack. “You-you gotta let me come over. Jesus, I
need your help!”

Hearing the panic in his voice jolted me awake. I pressed the phone closer to my
ear. “Calm down, what’s happening?”

“There’s a news story out about me. They’re saying I killed Officer Mitchell!”

My nerves locked. My body completely froze. No.

“Listen,” I heard him beg over the phone. “I’m about ten minutes away. I’ll sneak
in through your backyard door to the basement. Your parents should still be
asleep, right?”

“Yeah,” I muttered just audible, hoping in fact he wouldn’t hear it.

“Great!” he exclaimed, and I bit my lip hard. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Wait!” I stopped him, and to my relief the call was still in progress. “Why can’t
you hide at Dyke’s? He’s further away from your house.”

I could hear him suck his teeth through the receiver. “John’s gone. He’s been
outta town for a while now. I got nowhere else to hide, man!”

“Alright, you can stay in my room for the day until I get back from school. Then
we’ll have to figure something out for you.”

He thanked me and I heard the short quiet chime of my phone, indicating the call
had ended.

Having all this time to wait, my mind whirling from this sudden revelation, I
searched the Internet on my phone. Not long after, I found a news article titled ST
CLOUD COP SLAIN BY MASKED MAN, which was complete with a video.
Apparently, Officer Mitchell had responded to a robbery that took place at a
convenience store. I watched the video. The video was from a security camera
videotaping the outside of the storefront. I could see, even in the grainy quality
and the microscopic screen of my phone, one of the windows had been broken.
Just then, as Officer Mitchell was walking out of the front door, I saw it – a
shadow, moving fast right toward him. He turned his head just before the figure
ran into him, but not fast enough. He fell to the ground clutching his side. The
article said he had been stabbed with a knife. I then watched in absolute horror as
the cop reached for his gun holster and the darkly veiled figure grabbed at it too,
the two of them struggling until their was a sudden flash and the officer lay
motionless on the ground, a spray of dark fluid staining the concrete behind his
head. The figure then shot his lifeless person twice more before dropping the
revolver and turning to leave. As it turned, I paused the video. The face was
covered in a black skeletal mask, with piecing silver tinted eyes. The same from
Gavin’s costume.

Gavin had still not arrived. Unsure how many knew the costume was his, I quickly
dialed 9-1-1.

When Gavin got to my house, he was out of breath, panting and soaked with
sweat. I got him a glass of tap of water and sat him down on my bed. He then told
me the story in his own words:

“Listen, last night I was at home, okay? I – I had been out on patrol for a long, long
while and had caught a cold. For the last few days I’ve been in bed.”

I looked at Gavin closely. I could tell he wasn’t sick.

“You said you weren’t going on patrol anymore,” I deliberated each word.
“Yeah, yeah!” he snapped, hastily. “But they're two fugitives reported in the news
who were suspected of being in St Cloud!”

I had heard nothing of this.

“I saw the video,” I told him. “The guy was wearing your costume.”

“That’s the thing!” Gavin begged, reaching up at me and grabbing my shirt. “I

haven’t warn that costume in months now. I swear to God, I threw it out in the
trash. I told ya; John and I were focusing on organizing strikes against immigrants
who were taking our jobs. I wasn’t going out and bustin’ heads no more! And
here’s the other crazy thing. There’s no way I could have known that a robbery
had taken place.”

I listened, analyzing each word. He had mentioned details about the case that I
knew from the news report. But of course he would; he probably saw the news
story, which was why he was panicked. Still….

“That’s the thing,” he rambled on, his eyes wide, pulling harder on my shirt.
“Three days ago, the police radio went missing. I don’t know where it is.” I put my
hands on his arms and tried to ease them off of me. Just then there came a hard,
echoing knock from the front door. “Police! Open up.”

Gavin swivelled his head in the direction of the sound. He turned to look at me
and seemed to search my face before springing up to look out the window.
“Police…” he muttered, and his voice carried just enough for me to hear it. “But
how…?” He then turned. I stood up. I was ready to dash out the room but, for
some reason, I couldn’t. “You!” he yelled, pointing his finger accusingly at me.
“You called the cops.”

I just stood there, stupid and silent, holding my arms up to try to gesture for him
to be calm. Without another second of hesitation, he sprang on me and began
hitting me in the side with his knees and fists. My life flashed before my eyes, as
did the thought that I was alone with a killer.

“Help!” I screamed, hoping the police outside would hear me. “Help!” I wailed
and was soon cut off by a blow to the jaw. I raised my hands defensively over my
head and curled up, trying to block his blows that were striking down hard all over
my body. I didn’t hear the front door get broken down, or even my bedroom door
slam open, but I did hear Gavin scream as he was pulled off by two police officers.
They then proceeded to pin him to the floor and cuff his hands. My skin was
throbbing from the speed of my pulse and I didn’t feel any pain, though in truth I
was badly beaten up. They hauled Gavin off kicking and screaming, explaining he
was under arrest for the murder of Police Officer, Sergeant Jerome Fergus
Mitchell.

It didn’t take them long to find Gavin guilty. They found the costume in the trash
in front of his house, although he swore to God he had gotten rid of it well before
the murder took place. Beyond that, they had motive; everyone in the projects
had seen Gavin berated by Mitchell, and knew what being a costumed crusader
meant to him. Still, it was like pulling teeth to get people to testify. Only thing was,
they never found his police radio. Gavin’s court appointed lawyer tried use this
fact to raise doubt, since the prosecution kept arguing that Gavin had been
known to have a police radio, which would explain how he knew the robbery took
place and how he knew Officer Mitchell would be there since he knew his car
number.

They ended up trying him as an adult and gave him 25 to life. I couldn’t believe
this had happened to him even with what he had done. Christ, he wasn’t even
sixteen.

By the time I was nearly done high school, the entire neighborhood had forgotten
about Gavin. It was pretty much taboo to talk about him and even Durwood and I
avoided the subject. But honestly, with time we didn’t care. We had both turned
things around.

When Durwood finished middle school, he went to the same high school I did,
which made school so much better since I had my best friend to hang out with. By
the time I was in my senior year, we had both joined a few school clubs (no teams
I’m afraid) and started a games club of our own and after moving up to some
college prep classes, my grades were finally improving. I had attended a careers
workshop and had made up my mind to go into an apprenticeship program for
electricians. Durwood asked me about it later and decided that he would do the
same thing after he graduated.

The summer after my senior year, Durwood and his mother were moving out to
Minneapolis. I was sad to see him go but I could understand that maybe it was the
best for him to leave all the bitter memories behind. The day he was going to
move I helped him pack.
Around lunchtime, we were in his room, all of his things in tiny cardboard cubes
around us. We took a break as we were both beat. Then his mom called him and
he asked me to wait for him. After a few minutes I got bored and tried to lift a few
more boxes. Now all of the boxes had been light up until now, mostly filled with
clothes. This box I lifted was unexpectedly heavy and when I eased it off the stack,
it fell from my grip and crashed to the floor. The sealed top opened up on impact
and all the items spilled out on the carpet. I rushed to get everything back in the
box and that’s when I saw what had given it so much weight – a black metallic
radio. It was a police radio. Gavin’s police radio. The same he swore had gone
missing three days before the murder took place. I sat there, staring at it. I then
heard steps creak outside the room, and the door squeaking open…
Locked Away
Six months. That's how long almost half of the new hire last when they become
social workers. Some will tell you it's the pay, others will tell you it's the stress,
still others will complain about poor training or case overload or the broken
system. But that's all bullshit. The reason they quit is always the same; the kids.

They haunt you. They break your heart. They force you to see how horrible the
world can really be. They break you down one tear at a time. You want to make
everything ok for them and help them and love them, but instead, you take them
from the only family they've ever known and place them with strangers who may
or may not hurt them all over again. The kids often don't understand why they
can't stay home and you can't explain it in a way they really accept. Sure, Mommy
and Daddy do bad things, but they're Mommy and Daddy and that's all that
matters.

No matter how hard you try to follow up, no matter how many calls you make,
drop ins you perform, papers you fill out, you're constantly aware of the fact that
you can't save them all and none of it is their fault.

Despite that, I made it past that six month mark, and then the six year mark, and
before I knew it, almost a full, often torturous decade had passed. I was an old
hand at thirty-nine, what my supervisor deemed a case-working unicorn, and I
had somehow avoided the burnout that I'd seen consume so many of my
coworkers. I genuinely liked some aspects of my job and viewed the rest as a
necessary evil that I had to contend with.

I might not have been able to save them all, but I'd be damned if I wasn't going to
get as many as I could.
I already had twelve active cases when Beatrice dropped a new folder on my desk.

"Hope you didn't have any plans this afternoon." She said with that humorless
smile of hers, the one she wore whenever she gave us a new child.

"Just a stroll through the park before lunch, a bite to eat atop the Eiffel Tower,
maybe some shopping in London, then off for my weekly tai chi in Shanghai." I
replied while I finished my latest batch of case notes.

"All in a day, huh?"

"I like to stay busy."

"Well then I've got good news for you." She said, a clear end to our little back and
forth. "Just got a report from the PD, they need some assistance."

"Is it bad?" I glanced at the folder she'd brought over.

"Bad enough that you're needed over there immediately."

"Where am I going?" I was already starting to gather my things.

"Law firm on the other side of town; Carsner and Carsner. They do family law."

"One of their clients' kids?" I asked as I slung my purse over my arm.

"No. The senior partner's."

I'd seen ads all over for the Carsner firm. It was hard to get from one place to
another without seeing Ed Carsner's face smiling down at you from a billboard
advertising the family business. Even as I sat at a stop light, waiting to turn on to
his firm's street, he was perched on high above me, a streak of bird dropping
running down one cheek.

I'd always thought he looked a bit slimy in a lawyerly kind of way. Apparently I'd
been right.

I followed the trail of flashing red and blue lights into firm's parking lot, where I
showed my ID and found a spot amongst the gathering of police cruisers. With my
all but empty file under one arm and my purse under the other, I inhaled deeply,
squared my shoulders, and stepped out.

"Thanks for coming out so quick." Cam Belton, a ruddy faced detective I'd worked
with on previous cases, met me at the front door. "I'm going to warn you, this is
a...a pretty nasty situation. Did Beatrice fill you in at all?"

"Not much, just that it's the lawyer's kid."

"Yeah, that's a start." He said. Usually Cam was quick with the gallows humor, the
kind of guy who worked as hard at keeping everyone's spirits up as he did on the
job, but today he was subdued and entirely serious.

Anything involving kids tended to have that effect.

"So fill me in."

"We got a call from a cleaning lady this morning saying she heard strange sounds
in the basement; she thought someone had broken in. Instead they found the
boy."

"What was he doing down there?"

"As far as we can tell? Living."

When the police had first gone into the basement and found the source of the
noise, a small boy pounding on a locked door down a previously blocked hallway,
they didn't know what to make of it. The boy had shot past them and started
tearing around the basement as they chased him, making a mess of things. Papers
and files had been thrown from shelves and whatever supplies had been stored
down there were strew across the cement floor in his panic. The boy had
managed to squeeze himself behind an old filing cabinet against the wall and the
officers had had to pry him, kicking and screaming, out.
Something was obviously very wrong with the child. He was tiny from
malnourishment, naked, and caked in layers of filth from head to toe. Fat white
insects scurried through his matted hair. The stench that rose off of him was one
of the worst the officers had ever encountered. After a brief struggle during which
the boy tried to bite and scratch them, one of the officers managed to wrap him
in their jacket and they carried him upstairs.

I could hear his distressed, upset shrieks from down the hall.

"Has he said anything? His name? Age?" I asked.

"No." Cam said. "I...don't know if he can speak. Before you go see him, come with
me. I want you to see something."

He led me down to the basement, past the destruction caused by the boy,
through a narrow hallway that had been blocked off behind a wire shelving unit,
and down another set up steps. A heavy metal door stood slightly ajar at the
bottom and, from within, a heavy, foul odor emanated.

"Ugh! What is that?" I asked, throwing my arm across my nose.

"We think this is where he was kept."

"Kept?"
Cam waved me forward and pulled the door open wider. A single, naked bulb
burned over the room, barely bigger than a walk in closet and made of concrete
and stone. A small cot, ragged and disgusting, was against one bare wall. A bucket
was against another. Bodily waste had overflowed from it and been tracked and
smeared across the room. Aside from a few threadbare blankets and a lumpy
pillow, there were no comforts or decorations.

In the far corner, a dark puddle of thick sludge had gathered.

"What is this?" I choked on the question.

Cam grimaced against the room and its smell. "We think this is where he lived.
Carsner's at the station for questioning, so we'll know more soon, but until then,
we're putting together the story as best we can."

The sludge, Cam continued, had belonged to a woman that they believed was the
boy's mother. It looked like she'd been dead for weeks and was in an advanced
stage of decay.

"There was some evidence that he..." Cam trailed off and rubbed the back of his
neck in agitation. "There were some teeth marks in the flesh and one of her
fingers had been removed. We found it on the cot. It looked like it had been
chewed on."
I excused myself and ran upstairs to vomit out in the bushes. No sense in
contaminating a crime scene.

I didn't go back down.

By the time I saw the boy, he was exhausted, but still combative, and the
paramedics who were trying to examine him had to sedate him for their safety
and his own. He continued to struggle more and more weakly until he was under
the drug's effect completely. As we rode to the hospital, I studied his gaunt face,
so pale beneath the dirt and grime, and found no peace there, even in sleep.

When he woke up, he looked around the unfamiliar, sterile room and at all of the
strangers surrounding his bed, and he started to cry.

Ed Carsner held out for days without talking, but as the charges piled up, his
lawyers advised him to cut a deal and spill all the proverbial beans before it went
to trial. There was just something about him that they thought a jury might find
unsympathetic.

The boy, Elijah, was indeed Carsner's son, but an illegitimate one. In true tale as
old as time fashion, he'd gotten his secretary pregnant during an affair. Instead of
paying her off or sending her away, however, he'd given the story a twist. He'd
lured her down to the old storage room where they used to meet for their
afternoon trysts, one that had been part of the original building and very few
people even knew about, and locked her in.
She gave birth to Elijah eight months later, alone, in the dark, with no assistance
from Carsner.

He kept them both locked down there for four years. He couldn't bring himself to
kill them, he said, he loved them. They were his little secret family. He'd bring
them food and spend a bit of time with them every day, which made it almost
reasonable in his twisted mind. It wasn't like he could ever let his real wife find
out about them. That would have ruined him.

All the while, her family continued to hunt for her, unaware that she was just
below their feet the whole time.

Janelle, Elijah's mother, eventually succumbed to a long term illness and died on
the floor of her cell, leaving her young son alone with her corpse. Carsner, upon
finding the body, decided that having the boy on his own was now too much
trouble. He meant to lock the door and never return.

But someone found the secret passage leading down to the old storage room. A
cleaning woman, going about her duties in the basement, heard a slamming
sound coming from the long hallway hidden behind a shelving unit. Afraid
someone was attempting to break in, she'd called the cops, leading to the
discovery of a traumatized little boy beating the door and his dead mother.

Even with his plea, Carsner was still handed down a minimum fifteen year
sentence and ordered to set up an extensive trust for Elijah that would see to his
care for the rest of his life. I don't consider that enough though. Elijah, although
clean and fed and safe, doesn't speak. He doesn't play or attempt to associate
with other people. When he draws, it's only ever a four walled room with a single
door and a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

I will never think his punishment was enough. Elijah's case was one of the worst
I'd ever witnessed and I'm still not sure it's something anyone can recover from.
Ed Carsner didn't just kidnap a woman and her child; he committed murder twice
over. He killed a mother, but also parts of his own son that he will never get back;
his childhood and his innocence, and there is no amount of money that will ever
be able to bring any of it back.