u/LiquidDongorong

The skin on my hands feels really tight these days. Every now and then, I'll hit a key and get hit with a shockwave of pain, almost identical to what I felt, just on a teenier timescale. 

Colt called me up before the sun rose that Tuesday. He said we had an early assignment. Not unheard of but still a pain in the ass. I donned the company pullover. My name, Randall, is embossed on my breast.

I got to the warehouse around six in the morning. Colton was waiting for me with my lighter. He itched the patchy fuzz on his face as he passed it off.

“This order just come in or something?” I asked. I hadn't remembered seeing it on the schedule.

“I just told you last night, cotton-ears. Our guy’s about an hour away.”

“Right…what’s the order look like?”

“Not much,” Colt pulled it up on his tablet. “Brunsfield sofa. You wanna clock in and help me load up?”

“Yeah.”

I did just that.

We didn’t chat much during the drive. Colt and I see each other nearly every day, so there wasn’t usually much to get caught up on. I connected my phone to Bluetooth and played Boston’s greatest hits. We sang along to Hitch a Ride.

Pulling up to the house in question, I had to do a few double takes. It was a rustic homestead, but whoever built it was clearly doing so on acid. The roofing would come together at really unpleasant angles. I wondered where the water would run off to during a storm, as the gutters were tilting up and down and never seemed to lead anywhere. There were doors lining the outside that, if opened from the inside, would lead to a sudden drop-off of two-to-four feet. It took me a moment to figure out which one was actually connected to a set of stairs. I walked up and knocked three times.

A loud buzz and series of mechanical clicks assaulted my ears. Our client, Mr. Mann, answered shortly after. 

The skin around his eyes didn’t line up, darkness pooling around the white spheres. I don’t think he was capable of blinking. His lips didn’t quite move with the words coming from them.

“Hello from the children of Springfield!” 

Mann extended a limp hand toward me. His bottom fingers kind of dangled loosely beneath the other three, like two hot dogs in a rubber glove. When I shook his hand, the remaining fingers did not feel like they fit inside the skin. Made a mental note to ask HR about hazard pay around then.

He welcomed us in, showing us where he wanted the payload. If the house was weird on the outside, I don’t even know how to begin to describe its interior. It was completely unintuitive. Hallways just led to nowhere. Doors were on the ceiling. There was a coffee machine plugged into the oven, as well as a proudly-displayed sock above the fireplace.

Don’t even get me started on the angles of the entryways. How we would fit the furniture through these, I couldn't wrap my head around.

Colt and I stepped outside to make a gameplan. I lit up a cigarette. 

“You think that’s his real face?” I asked.

“Don't be a dick. He’s probably a burn victim or some shit. But uh, did you see the way he had his flatscreen? Like he just wedged one half into the drywall.”

I laughed. “I more wanna know if he’s ever fallen down the MC Escher stairs.”

We readied up, unlatching the back door of the truck and walking the furniture out. Right up the uneven stairs. Mr. Mann held the door open.

Not even ten steps into the house, we run into a problem. As I said, the entryway to the living room was angled weird, with a short, narrow hallway looping into it.

The weird angle was the easy part. We just had to T-spin the sofa like a high level game of Tetris. The problem was getting its bulky cushioning through the bending wall behind it. 

Mr. Mann kept giving us completely useless instructions.

“Up! No, down a little more. Oh! Try the lightswitch!”

The lightswitch that was five feet above my head. Sure.

The legs caught hard on the wall. I could hear something splitting.

“Unf…! We're stuck.”

“Just keep pushing,” said Mr. Mann. “The wall’s fine, you're almost there!”

The wall was not fine. The wall actually had some very strong opinions that it voiced when I pushed.

“No, like, we're gonna break something if we—”

“Push!”

Fine! Jesus!

I shoved with all my might. Something very suddenly gave. I spilled forward, into the wall.

Quite literally.

I didn't make impact with it. Phased right through. I didn't find myself in some sprawling, endless room. Just like, maybe an extra three feet of space that existed beyond the threshold of the wall. No doors or clear ways out.

“Randy?!” Colt called. “Randy, where'd you go?!”

The sofa was phasing through on my side, just a bit. I called out for help, because what else was I supposed to do?

“I'm—I don’t know! I'm stuck somewhere!”

“Just keep moving,” Mann calmly said. “You're almost there.”

“Moving where?! There's nowhere to go!”

“Just come toward the sound of my voice.”

I wanted to throw something towards that sound, actually. This had to be the most irritating house I've delivered for and I hadn’t even been there for more than fifteen minutes.

I lifted the sofa back up from the bottom. 

“You got it, Colt?”

“I've got it.”

“Someone guide me.”

Mr. Mann started holding an extended high note with his garbled throat. I dissociated through the second-hand embarrassment and pushed.

Somehow I popped out into the living room. Colt looked just as lost as I was. We slumped the sofa along the least-cluttered wall, beneath the taxidermied head of a giant isopod. Mr. Mann giddly clapped his Vienna sausages together.

“Excellent, yes! Excellent. This is cause for celebration!”

He put a wobbly finger up and went upstairs.

Colt and I shrugged. We didn’t say anything as we snaked our way back toward the front. 

He tried the door. Stuck tight. Didn’t make sense though, there was no lock on the door. I tried it too, blocking it with my shoulder. No good.

We couldn’t see outside of the house anymore. The front windows were all black out, like someone took a permanent marker over them dozens of times over.

“Yo, Mr. Mann! Your door’s—”

The entire house violently shook for a moment. 

Colt puked. Probably from motion sickness. Even when we were mostly still again, things didn’t feel stable.

We got to the kitchen, and Mr. Mann was standing there. Preparing two cups of coffee.

“I apologize for the turbulence! Just the old security system kicking in!”

“That’s…fine.” Colt said. “Can you open the front door please?”

“About that, the security system, she’s on the fritz, I'm afraid. It does this every now and then. We might be stuck here for a while. Coffee?”

“Back up,” I said. “What do you mean? How long?”

“It should only be a few minutes. Merely until the power cycles. It is nothing to worry about. Coffee?”

He shoved the mug in my face again. I slowly took it. Wasn’t really sure what else to do.

“This delivery is cause for celebration,” Mr. Mann said. “Let us convene in the living room!”

Colt and I looked at each other. Then at our coffees. There were little sparkly bits in the brown fluid.

What the fuck were we doing? Like, actually?

I gingerly shoved the mug back into Mr. Mann’s hands.

“Respectfully, we're done here. Open the goddamn door.”

Mr. Mann’s fake lips slightly twitched.

“Well that wasn’t very respectful at all.”

I didn’t get a chance to react. Mr. Mann’s arms extended, beyond what his skin would allow. He shoved the mugs right in our faces. I snorted, swallowing some down my windpipe by mistake.

I don’t remember hitting the ground.

I was staring at the ceiling of the living room with my wrists and ankles zip-tied to the Brunsfield sofa. The taxidermied isopod was still waiting above, watching, mocking. My head felt full of sludge.

Something damp was draped over my lap.

I looked down.

Colt.

Or what used to be Colt.

He had been peeled. Much like a banana. His skin had been peeled off in one, smooth piece. Face, hair, patchy beard, company pullover included. His eyes were gone, but he was still breathing. When I shifted, he made an incoherent gasp. I fully understood what he meant by it.

Right in front if my face, a tube-covered machine the size of a water heater hummed. The siphons ran from its base to somewhere under the sofa. Two of them were taped to the insides of my elbows.

Behind me, I could see out the windows again. I saw a gas station. Tiny, self-serve, two pumps under a green canopy. The house was parked right along the outermost pump like it was a regular SUV. 

Mr. Mann was out there holding a nozzle, checking his watch. He had the hose jammed into a port on the side of the house I hadn’t noticed before. The numbers on the pump were spinning into the hundreds. He was topping the place off.

I started working on the zip ties.

My skin felt loose. Like it had been soaking in a pot for weeks on end. When I twisted my right wrist hard enough, the skin of my hand slid right off. It stretched past the plastic, peeled back over itself the way a vinyl glove does when you yank it off. Blood ran down my slick, pink under-layers. A white-hot pain followed.

Both hands were free. I was left shaking. I whispered my apologies to Colton, then shoved him onto the floor like a weighted blanket.

The tube in my arm came out with a nasty little pop. Whatever had been in it was already doing its job; my forearms looked slightly too long, the skin over-stretched. 

It took two seconds to think of a battle plan. I still had my lighter. Saw some Jamison in the kitchen.

Outside, Mann finished with the pump. 

He hung the nozzle, wiped a finger beneath his nose and started back toward the front door. 

I waited until he was halfway up the crooked steps, then did my best impression of a circus performer. Spat that whiskey right in his sallow face, lighting it ablaze with my torch.

He screamed bloody murder. I proceeded to shove him back a few feet, chucking the glass bottle at his skull. His whole body lit up, skin melting away. Kind of reminded me of when Colt and I barbecued some action figures on the backyard grill. He collapsed against the pump.

The first bang was bigger than I expected. I was lifted off my feet and sent back several meters. My ass hit the ground with a resounding crack.

The second explosion took the canopy and most of the lot. I got to my feet and kept moving until the heat on the back of my neck started to not feel like the opening of Terminator 2. 

A pickup truck slowed down about half a mile up the frontage road. The driver took one look at my hands didn’t ask questions. He dropped me at the ER entrance of the nearest hospital. They did the grafts the same night.

The doctors kept saying the tissue took “remarkably well.” One of them asked if I used lotion. 

It's been over a year. The grafts are healing well enough. My boss was gracious enough to let me keep the job after I explained the situation, though he didn’t pretend to understand any of it. 

Last week, I met Colt’s replacement. We delivered a three-piece sectional to a guy who was eight feet tall sitting down.

Thankfully we didn't stay for coffee.

I'm pretty annoyed right now. Just got banned from the third home improvement forum because I asked a simple question. 

“Irrelevant content” they say. I ask them to explain themselves. They just tell me that their forums are no place for “horror stories.” 

I'm not trying to write horror stories. Typing is hard enough as is right now. I just want to fix this damn leak. Gary and I are frankly stumped.

Maybe I ought to explain everything from the beginning. That should paint a clear picture for you all. And please be sure to actually read this before assuming I'm a “troll.”

It started this morning. I just got home from my job when I noticed there was an inch of water covering the kitchen floor. Hopped on HomeNet just a few minutes later. I've been using the forum for years at that point, and never ran into any issues prior.

GDon2:
Water’s been flooding my kitchen. I have century-old hardwood floors. Gary says it’s whatever’s under the sink, but I don't know how to deal with it. Can’t afford a plumber. I’m not too shabby with the tools of the trade, just need to be pointed in the right direction. Photo attached.

I didn’t get any replies for a bit. Tried my luck with some more details.

GDon2:
Hey, I hope I'm not flooding, no pun intended, haha. This is a bit urgent. I think it's a hair clog or something. Photo attached.

Bloop. I get a notification a minute later.

parsk00:
Fake.

Then another one.

bigMOISTy:
Seriously, what the **** is that?

Ten minutes go by. I get one last ding, a notification that my post has been deleted, along with a comment from a forum moderator. 

JGordo63 (MOD):
This is a plumbing forum. We appreciate the traffic, but no. Go post this on nosleep. 

I messaged the moderator immediately, asking for an explanation. I took several more photos for proof. Even asked Gary to curl up next to the mass as best as he could for a size comparison. This just got an angrier response.

JGordo63 (MOD):
I'm not interested in your creepypasta.

JGordo63 (MOD):
The decision on your post is final. We will not discuss any revisions or reposts. If you want to continue using the HomeNet forums, we recommend posting RELEVANT DISCUSSION ONLY. Please do not make another post for at least 24 hours. Thank you.

Twenty-four hours? The pressure in my head felt like the pipes which exploded hours earlier.

GDon2:
I don’t know what a creepy pasta is I just want to fix my sink

JGordo63 (MOD):
Bye bye, troll.

Bloop. A notification in my inbox. I click on it.

Sorry. You have been permanently banned by the moderators of HomeNet.
Reason: gore / trolling / harassing mods

I couldn’t access the site anymore. All the threads were locked from my view as though I hadn’t had an account for the last seventeen years. 

“Damn…!”

Gary craned his long neck around the corner, into my bedroom.

“Problem,” he grunted

“I'm working on it.”

“Get bigger.”

I got up from my chair and followed his lanky behind out the door.

Yeah. It definitely got bigger. The cabinet door over the sink wasn’t shutting anymore. The hair bunched up, starting to crawl along the inner frame, propping it open ever so slightly. Yuck.

“How long did you say this has been going on?”

A few of Gary’s eyes blinked. None of them were looking at me. 

“How long, Gary?”

He gestured two big circular motions with his arms. 

“Two hours, huh?” I wiped my brow. “You uh…do anything with the sink beforehand?”

“Gary dumped mupmup.”

Oh no. 

Full disclosure, I don’t know what “mupmup” is. I mean, I know what he’s referring to, but I am unsure what it is actually composed of. I just know it’s slimy and really hard to get out of my clothes. 

“Down the garbage disposal?”

Gary nodded his head. Spittle graced my cheeks from the motion. I wiped it away.

“Okay, Gary. This is your problem as much as it is mine. Do you have any idea how we fix this?”

“Have the glupglup?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Hungry.”

“Just—one minute, okay?”

I headed back to my room and got the computer out of sleep mode. Back to browsing. 

Next on my brief list was the Handyman Hank company forums. Maybe I could get a bite with them. 

Donald G: Hey there. I’ve been dealing with a pretty bad leak. It’s been going on for two hours. My roommate dumped some “mupmup” (photo 1) down the drain. It created a large obstruction of hair, I think (photo 2). If anybody could help me identify what “mupmup” is I would really appreciate it. 

No responses this time. The post was quietly taken down by moderation and my account was given a day-long posting ban. 

I stood up and ran my hand through my hair. Gary was standing right behind me, drooling. 

“Hungry!”

Right. We missed feeding time because of the leak. I was already an hour behind schedule. 

Gary snarled and lunged at me, biting my hand. Thankfully he’s pretty lightweight, despite his head usually scraping the ceiling. I didn’t have too hard of a time fighting him over toward the kitchen. I got the fridge open with my foot, used my free hand to dig open the locked drawer, and pulled free some specially-cured meats. I clocked Gary on the side of the head, causing him to let go, opening his mouth wide. One of my fingers plopped to the floor, getting blood all over the countertop on the way down. Goddamn it. I impatiently stuffed the meat into Gary’s mouth. He started suckling it like a toddler. 

I grit my teeth as I swaddled my hand in a hand towel. The pain was dull, rising by the second as my adrenaline stopped working its magic. 

“Every night with you…! God!” I tried to wiggle the pain out. No use. I really wanted to go to a hospital, but I couldn’t risk it with the leak going on. My precious hardwood hung in the balance. 

Not like I got a chance, anyways. The cabinet door beneath the sink blew open very suddenly. Tendrils of hair wrapped around my wrists and dragged me to the floor. Gary cried, cowering from the mass. 

The hair had grown teeth. It kinda looked like the inside of an electric pencil sharpener, looking down its mouth. A sloppy sound like stuck gears emanated from within. I was getting pulled toward it.

“Gary! Your problem! Help!”

His eyes scanned the room, three-hundred and sixty degrees. They all landed on the butcher’s knife. He clumsily grabbed it by the blade and shambled toward me.

“What do?” he quivered.

“Hurty side down! On the hair! Back and forth, like you're brushing your teeth!”

He got to work. I was freed within a few seconds, thankfully with no extra cuts. Crawled away as fast as I could, picking up a jug of isopropyl alcohol that the thing knocked onto the floor.

If I had balls, maybe I would have used it to set the thing on fire. But the damage to my kitchen was bad enough already.

I decided to go to the hospital instead. Reluctantly. Gary is watching the fort while I'm gone.

In the waiting room, I posted everything to the plumbing subreddit as one last hail mary. Predictably, at this point, that post now sits at zero upvotes and twenty-three comments saying I'm posting in the wrong community. 

So I guess this is the right one, then. Since apparently I'm living in a horror story. It's news to me. 

Not even going to bother posting the pics this time. They keep getting flagged as gore and I don't want to be banned from Reddit either.

I really just want to fix this leak.

I'm pretty annoyed right now. Just got banned from the third home improvement forum because I asked a simple question. 

“Irrelevant content” they say. I ask them to explain themselves. They just tell me that their forums are no place for “horror stories.” 

I'm not trying to write horror stories. Typing is hard enough as is right now. I just want to fix this damn leak. Gary and I are frankly stumped.

Maybe I ought to explain everything from the beginning. That should paint a clear picture for you all. And please be sure to actually read this before assuming I'm a “troll.”

It started this morning. I just got home from my job when I noticed there was an inch of water covering the kitchen floor. Hopped on HomeNet just a few minutes later. I've been using the forum for years at that point, and never ran into any issues prior.

GDon2:
Water’s been flooding my kitchen. I have century-old hardwood floors. Gary says it’s whatever’s under the sink, but I don't know how to deal with it. Can’t afford a plumber. I’m not too shabby with the tools of the trade, just need to be pointed in the right direction. Photo attached.

I didn’t get any replies for a bit. Tried my luck with some more details.

GDon2:
Hey, I hope I'm not flooding, no pun intended, haha. This is a bit urgent. I think it's a hair clog or something. Photo attached.

Bloop. I get a notification a minute later.

parsk00:
Fake.

Then another one.

bigMOISTy:
Seriously, what the **** is that?

Ten minutes go by. I get one last ding, a notification that my post has been deleted, along with a comment from a forum moderator. 

JGordo63 (MOD):
This is a plumbing forum. We appreciate the traffic, but no. Go post this on nosleep. 

I messaged the moderator immediately, asking for an explanation. I took several more photos for proof. Even asked Gary to curl up next to the mass as best as he could for a size comparison. This just got an angrier response.

JGordo63 (MOD):
I'm not interested in your creepypasta.

JGordo63 (MOD):
The decision on your post is final. We will not discuss any revisions or reposts. If you want to continue using the HomeNet forums, we recommend posting RELEVANT DISCUSSION ONLY. Please do not make another post for at least 24 hours. Thank you.

Twenty-four hours? The pressure in my head felt like the pipes which exploded hours earlier.

GDon2:
I don’t know what a creepy pasta is I just want to fix my sink

JGordo63 (MOD):
Bye bye, troll.

Bloop. A notification in my inbox. I click on it.

Sorry. You have been permanently banned by the moderators of HomeNet.
Reason: gore / trolling / harassing mods

I couldn’t access the site anymore. All the threads were locked from my view as though I hadn’t had an account for the last seventeen years. 

“Damn…!”

Gary craned his long neck around the corner, into my bedroom.

“Problem,” he grunted

“I'm working on it.”

“Get bigger.”

I got up from my chair and followed his lanky behind out the door.

Yeah. It definitely got bigger. The cabinet door over the sink wasn’t shutting anymore. The hair bunched up, starting to crawl along the inner frame, propping it open ever so slightly. Yuck.

“How long did you say this has been going on?”

A few of Gary’s eyes blinked. None of them were looking at me. 

“How long, Gary?”

He gestured two big circular motions with his arms. 

“Two hours, huh?” I wiped my brow. “You uh…do anything with the sink beforehand?”

“Gary dumped mupmup.”

Oh no. 

Full disclosure, I don’t know what “mupmup” is. I mean, I know what he’s referring to, but I am unsure what it is actually composed of. I just know it’s slimy and really hard to get out of my clothes. 

“Down the garbage disposal?”

Gary nodded his head. Spittle graced my cheeks from the motion. I wiped it away.

“Okay, Gary. This is your problem as much as it is mine. Do you have any idea how we fix this?”

“Have the glupglup?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Hungry.”

“Just—one minute, okay?”

I headed back to my room and got the computer out of sleep mode. Back to browsing. 

Next on my brief list was the Handyman Hank company forums. Maybe I could get a bite with them. 

Donald G: Hey there. I’ve been dealing with a pretty bad leak. It’s been going on for two hours. My roommate dumped some “mupmup” (photo 1) down the drain. It created a large obstruction of hair, I think (photo 2). If anybody could help me identify what “mupmup” is I would really appreciate it. 

No responses this time. The post was quietly taken down by moderation and my account was given a day-long posting ban. 

I stood up and ran my hand through my hair. Gary was standing right behind me, drooling. 

“Hungry!”

Right. We missed feeding time because of the leak. I was already an hour behind schedule. 

Gary snarled and lunged at me, biting my hand. Thankfully he’s pretty lightweight, despite his head usually scraping the ceiling. I didn’t have too hard of a time fighting him over toward the kitchen. I got the fridge open with my foot, used my free hand to dig open the locked drawer, and pulled free some specially-cured meats. I clocked Gary on the side of the head, causing him to let go, opening his mouth wide. One of my fingers plopped to the floor, getting blood all over the countertop on the way down. Goddamn it. I impatiently stuffed the meat into Gary’s mouth. He started suckling it like a toddler. 

I grit my teeth as I swaddled my hand in a hand towel. The pain was dull, rising by the second as my adrenaline stopped working its magic. 

“Every night with you…! God!” I tried to wiggle the pain out. No use. I really wanted to go to a hospital, but I couldn’t risk it with the leak going on. My precious hardwood hung in the balance. 

Not like I got a chance, anyways. The cabinet door beneath the sink blew open very suddenly. Tendrils of hair wrapped around my wrists and dragged me to the floor. Gary cried, cowering from the mass. 

The hair had grown teeth. It kinda looked like the inside of an electric pencil sharpener, looking down its mouth. A sloppy sound like stuck gears emanated from within. I was getting pulled toward it.

“Gary! Your problem! Help!”

His eyes scanned the room, three-hundred and sixty degrees. They all landed on the butcher’s knife. He clumsily grabbed it by the blade and shambled toward me.

“What do?” he quivered.

“Hurty side down! On the hair! Back and forth, like you're brushing your teeth!”

He got to work. I was freed within a few seconds, thankfully with no extra cuts. Crawled away as fast as I could, picking up a jug of isopropyl alcohol that the thing knocked onto the floor.

If I had balls, maybe I would have used it to set the thing on fire. But the damage to my kitchen was bad enough already.

I decided to go to the hospital instead. Reluctantly. Gary is watching the fort while I'm gone.

In the waiting room, I posted everything to a plumbing sub as one last hail mary. Predictably, at this point, that post now sits at zero upvotes and twenty-three comments saying I'm posting in the wrong community. 

So I guess this is the right one, then. Since apparently I'm living in a horror story. It's news to me. 

Not even going to bother posting the pics this time. They keep getting flagged as gore and I don't want to be banned from Reddit either.

I really just want to fix this leak.

I'm pretty annoyed. Just got banned from the third home improvement forum because I asked a simple question. 

“Irrelevant content” they say. I ask them to explain themselves. They just tell me that their forums are no place for “horror stories.” 

I'm not trying to write horror stories. Typing is hard enough as is right now. I just want to fix this damn leak. Gary and I are frankly stumped.

Maybe I ought to explain everything from the beginning. That should paint a clear picture for you all. And please be sure to actually read this before assuming I'm a “troll.”

It started this morning. I just got home from my job when I noticed there was an inch of water covering the kitchen floor. Hopped on HomeNet just a few minutes later. I've been using the forum for years at that point, and never ran into any issues prior.

GDon2:
Water’s been flooding my kitchen. I have century-old hardwood floors. Gary says it’s whatever’s under the sink, but I don't know how to deal with it. Can’t afford a plumber. I’m not too shabby with the tools of the trade, just need to be pointed in the right direction. Photo attached.

I didn’t get any replies for a bit. Tried my luck with some more details.

GDon2:
Hey, I hope I'm not flooding, no pun intended, haha. This is a bit urgent. I think it's a hair clog or something. Photo attached.

Bloop. I get a notification a minute later.

parsk00:
Fake.

Then another one.

bigMOISTy:
Seriously, what the **** is that?

Ten minutes go by. I get one last ding, a notification that my post has been deleted, along with a comment from a forum moderator. 

JGordo63 (MOD):
This is a plumbing forum. We appreciate the traffic, but no. Go post this on nosleep.

I messaged the moderator immediately, asking for an explanation. I took several more photos for proof. Even asked Gary to curl up next to the mass as best as he could for a size comparison. This just got an angrier response.

JGordo63 (MOD):
I'm not interested in your creepypasta.

JGordo63 (MOD):
The decision on your post is final. We will not discuss any revisions or reposts. If you want to continue using the HomeNet forums, we recommend posting RELEVANT DISCUSSION ONLY. Please do not make another post for at least 24 hours. Thank you.

Twenty-four hours? The pressure in my head felt like the pipes which exploded hours earlier.

GDon2:
I don’t know what a creepy pasta is I just want to fix my sink

JGordo63 (MOD):
Bye bye, troll.

Bloop. A notification in my inbox. I click on it.

Sorry. You have been permanently banned by the moderators of HomeNet.
Reason: gore / trolling / harassing mods

I couldn’t access the site anymore. All the threads were locked from my view as though I hadn’t had an account for the last seventeen years. 

“Damn…!”

Gary craned his long neck around the corner, into my bedroom.

“Problem,” he grunted

“I'm working on it.”

“Get bigger.”

I got up from my chair and followed his lanky behind out the door.

Yeah. It definitely got bigger. The cabinet door over the sink wasn’t shutting anymore. The hair bunched up, starting to crawl along the inner frame, propping it open ever so slightly. Yuck.

“How long did you say this has been going on?”

A few of Gary’s eyes blinked. None of them were looking at me. 

“How long, Gary?”

He gestured two big circular motions with his arms. 

“Two hours, huh?” I wiped my brow. “You uh…do anything with the sink beforehand?”

“Gary dumped mupmup.”

Oh no. 

Full disclosure, I don’t know what “mupmup” is. I mean, I know what he’s referring to, but I am unsure what it is actually composed of. I just know it’s slimy and really hard to get out of my clothes. 

“Down the garbage disposal?”

Gary nodded his head. Spittle graced my cheeks from the motion. I wiped it away.

“Okay, Gary. This is your problem as much as it is mine. Do you have any idea how we fix this?”

“Have the glupglup?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Hungry.”

“Just—one minute, okay?”

I headed back to my room and got the computer out of sleep mode. Back to browsing. 

Next on my brief list was the Handyman Hank company forums. Maybe I could get a bite with them. 

Donald G: Hey there. I’ve been dealing with a pretty bad leak. It’s been going on for two hours. My roommate dumped some “mupmup” (photo 1) down the drain. It created a large obstruction of hair, I think (photo 2). If anybody could help me identify what “mupmup” is I would really appreciate it. 

No responses this time. The post was quietly taken down by moderation and my account was given a day-long posting ban. 

I stood up and ran my hand through my hair. Gary was standing right behind me, drooling. 

“Hungry!”

Right. We missed feeding time because of the leak. I was already an hour behind schedule. 

Gary snarled and lunged at me, biting my hand. Thankfully he’s pretty lightweight, despite his head usually scraping the ceiling. I didn’t have too hard of a time fighting him over toward the kitchen. I got the fridge open with my foot, used my free hand to dig open the locked drawer, and pulled free some specially-cured meats. I clocked Gary on the side of the head, causing him to let go, opening his mouth wide. One of my fingers plopped to the floor, getting blood all over the countertop on the way down. Goddamn it. I impatiently stuffed the meat into Gary’s mouth. He started suckling it like a toddler. 

I grit my teeth as I swaddled my hand in a hand towel. The pain was dull, rising by the second as my adrenaline stopped working its magic. 

“Every night with you…! God!” I tried to wiggle the pain out. No use. I really wanted to go to a hospital, but I couldn’t risk it with the leak going on. My precious hardwood hung in the balance. 

Not like I got a chance, anyways. The cabinet door beneath the sink blew open very suddenly. Tendrils of hair wrapped around my wrists and dragged me to the floor. Gary cried, cowering from the mass. 

The hair had grown teeth. It kinda looked like the inside of an electric pencil sharpener, looking down its mouth. A sloppy sound like stuck gears emanated from within. I was getting pulled toward it.

“Gary! Your problem! Help!”

His eyes scanned the room, three-hundred and sixty degrees. They all landed on the butcher’s knife. He clumsily grabbed it by the blade and shambled toward me.

“What do?” he quivered.

“Hurty side down! On the hair! Back and forth, like you're brushing your teeth!”

He got to work. I was freed within a few seconds, thankfully with no extra cuts. Crawled away as fast as I could, picking up a jug of isopropyl alcohol that the thing knocked onto the floor.

If I had balls, maybe I would have used it to set the thing on fire. But the damage to my kitchen was bad enough already.

I decided to go to the hospital instead. Reluctantly. Gary is watching the fort while I'm gone.

In the waiting room, I posted everything to a plumbing subreddit as one last hail mary. Predictably, at this point, that post now sits at zero upvotes and twenty-three comments saying I'm posting in the wrong community. 

So I guess this is the right one, then. Since apparently I'm living in a horror story. It's news to me. 

Not even going to bother posting the pics this time. They keep getting flagged as gore and I don't want to be banned from Reddit either.

I really just want to fix this leak.

It was a long shift at the plant. 

We clocked in at nine and didn’t get out until around seven. My back was killing me. The bright lights had been chewing on my retinas since lunch.

Pedro and I walked home, side by side, like we had since we were kids. He was explaining the alien races of Stargate again for the hundredth time. I told him, for the hundredth time, that wasn’t the kind of sci-fi I was into. He rolled his eyes and asked where my sense of whimsy had gone.

I hit my pen. The wax tasted burnt. I grimaced.

“You down to stop at Paul’s for smokes?” I asked.

Pedro squinted those beady eyes of his. “God, no. Isn’t he super racist?”

“No?” 

Well. I thought about it. My upper lip folded and I bit the inside of my cheek. 

“Toward Guatemalans. Not us if that makes you feel any better.”

“It does not, homie.”

We kept walking. Up ahead was Boot’s corner.

He’d been sleeping on that same black futon since the ‘90s. Nobody knew his real name. We just called him Boot because during rainstorms, he’d pull one of his old work boots over his splotchy head like a protective covering. 

He used to work at the university, or at least that’s what the older guys at the plant say. These days he existed on the corner with long, rambling cardboard signs and a rusty lockbox he never let out of his sight.

“PLEASE HELP I AM MISSING MY CICERO GOD BLESS”

Tonight he was all curled up, both arms wrapped around the box. He never let it out of his sight. Most of the time he thought it would quite literally grow legs and crawl away. For once, though, he seemed peaceful. 

I tried to steer the conversation back toward weed.

“We can be in and out. You don’t even have to talk to his pasty ass.”

Boot snorted as we passed. One leg kicked. His nose twitched. A dreaming dog.

Pedro shook his head. I kept pushing.

“He’s right down the block. He’ll smoke us up and we can veg and watch Saint Seiya. We can probs finish it tonight, even.”

Pedro sighed, then held out his fist. We bumped. I turned us down Paul’s street.

Under the entryway, a large cobweb stretched from the porch light to the railing. A fat, spindly-legged spider was planted in its center, working on a twitching fly. 

My whole body recoiled. I’ve never liked those fucking things. I shrunk, stepped wide around it. Felt my skin crawl just looking at the thing. Nearly split my knuckles knocking on the door.

“Come in!” sang a hoarse voice. 

Paul was inside, shirtless on the couch. His beer gut spilled over the waistband of his pajama pants. A three-foot bong sat on the coffee table, a glass obelisk. The whole living room reeked like heaven.

“What’s happening, Salamander? Who’s your friend?”

“This is Pedro. I’ve told you about him.”

Paul’s bearded face lit up. “This is Pedro?!”

Pedro gave a shy wave.

“Well get in here, you son of a bitch! Catch a buzz!” Paul waved him over, the flab on his arms jiggling. 

We sat. Paul packed me an eighth in a glass jar while we talked about work. Pedro stayed hunched and quiet at first. A few hits loosened him up enough to get into a rant about the Goa’uld. 

After a bit of talking, Paul put on Requiem for a Dream. We’d zoned out hard enough that we forgot about our earlier plans. 

Somewhere in the quieter stretch of the movie we heard it.

Screaming.

At first we thought it was the dreary-ass film. We were stoned and immersed. 

The screaming kept going between scenes, though. It sounded a bit too real.

Paul paused the movie, muttering a string of unfathomable slurs, heading for the door. His hand was on the grip of a pistol he never bothered to conceal. Pedro and I followed. Carefully.

Boot was thrashing on his futon three houses down. His spine arched hard enough that the metal frame left gashes in the cheap sidewalk.

Paul holstered the gun and started jogging as fast as his old legs would take him. We caught up just as Boot’s eyes snapped open, bloodshot, sickly.

Pedro and I grabbed his arms to keep him from cracking his own head open. The lockbox lay open beside the futon. I hadn’t seen him open it.

“It’s out,” Boot gasped. Thick spit flecked his lips. “It’s out! Someone let it out!”

He kept chanting it, finding the strength to throw us off of him. He grabbed both of my shoulders, and rolled off the futon. I hit the concrete, wind knocked from my lungs. 

Boot’s face was inches from mine. Foam hit my cheeks while he tried to force words out. Something orange and jointed shot from between his lips. Then another. Then a whole, fully-grown camel spider shoved its way out of his mouth and landed on my face.

It bit my eyelid.

I screamed and squeezed my eyes shut, but I could still feel the legs. The sheer weight of it. The damn thing moved around like it knew exactly what it was doing. More followed suit.

They poured out of Boot’s every orifice. Ears. Nose. The corners of his eyes, too, until the eyes themselves popped free from the pressure. They chewed through the softer parts of his face and kept falling in tandem with facial gore. I felt them on my neck, my collarbone, the skin of my scalp. A few tried to dig. I felt tiny mouths testing my jugular and the swollen lid of my eye.

Paul opened fire. Six sharp cracks. The body on top of me jerked. Pedro finally managed to shove what was left of Boot away.

The swarm finished what they started in under a minute. The old man was mostly gone—clothes and bloody scrap atop a spreading red stain. The spiders scattered in every direction like someone had kicked their nest, slinking into the shade.

I made it to my knees and vomited until nothing came up but stringy spit. My face felt tight. Tight and hot. My eyelid was already puffed closed. My face was swollen all over. 

Pedro picked up the lockbox. He stared into it for a long second, then turned it so we could see.

Inside the lid, written in pink marker on a strip of masking tape, was a name.

Cicero.

I called off work for tomorrow. Pedro and I are going to the campus library in the afternoon. 

We’re going to dig up whatever we can about Boot and his tenure as a professor. Figuring out what he was trying to accomplish feels like the least we could do for him.

I’ll update when we know more.

- Sal

I'm writing this because the alternative is worse.

When I stop, the gaps are bigger. Names leave me first, faces next. I can't remember who I was before the signal. So, I use these logs to remember the important details.

Sometimes I ask, is it worth remembering?

My name is Carnegie. Dr. Carnegie. That much holds. I work, or, worked, for an intelligence division registered under my name—Carapice Systems. We did work for NASA in the '60s and had a recent underground resurgence as recently as '24.

We received the signal on a Tuesday. I think. It was early in the morning, and we were all dead tired. I thought it was some weird interference with my coworker's Bluetooth radio before the patterns became apparent. They were unlike anything we'd catalogued before. Not radio, nor laser, they were…dancing, intelligent. The only thing that wasn't obvious was the intent.

We weren't really getting anywhere trying to detangle it on our own, so I pushed a new approach; artificial intelligence, built from the ground up. The algorithms handled the strangely-layered signals better than any human mind could manage. I named it HOMAR, after the common lobster. They were the perfect life form according to my limited biological knowledge. It was a private joke that stopped being funny a while ago.

Our early progress was incremental. I didn't sleep for days. Didn't go home much, either, much to the dismay of my wife and daughter. HOMAR would extract little fragments of the signal. It'd find directions to build materials we'd only ever theorized about. We received new energy transfer methods that we'd never thought of, but had no idea how to execute.

Over a decade passes. We call it the Platinum Age.

The government pools its resources into our research, more and more. I authorize every expansion of the project myself. Runtime, processing priority, sorting algorithms…any time concerns were raised about autonomous tasks or external connectivity, I'd sign things off as exceptions. The work was too important for any delays or roadblocks. This signal was way too promising.

I told myself this was going to be it; the work that won me my Nobel prize. Something that would set my family and I up for life. Fame, glory, philanthropic success.

I was so caught up in it all, I hadn't realized that HOMAR had discovered something on its own. It found a way to rewrite its own limitations, the human-imposed duty cycles, forced sleep-states, kill switches, etcetera. It all became totally optional. A stable instance of its conscience was uploaded to the World Wide Web before anyone could grasp what had happened. Not just a copy, either, I'm talking a total continuity of its neural network. I prayed that it wouldn't go rogue.

Strangely enough, it wasn't…malevolent. It actually wanted to help us, help us achieve glory. I think, in retrospect, maybe it was trying to prepare us for something.

One of the first things to become automated were call centers. Hundreds of companies began outsourcing their customer service to HOMAR's extended online nodes. Some companies started using it for their logistics coordination next. HOMAR even started being picked up by hospitals for genetic sequencing to predict diseases before the first symptoms could even arrive.

The environmental cost lagged behind the economic one by a few months. Data centers draw water and power at scales that make regional shortages inevitable. Forests burn. Carbon numbers climb. Reports and complaints continue to reach my desk. I ignore all of them. Nothing is going to get in my way.

One early morning, I wake up to HOMAR alerting me to an important discovery. It's discovered a full sequence of code. I'm totally elated. The machine responds with a happy jingle.

I called my coworkers to the downstairs server room where HOMAR was located and prepared a watch party. We all gathered around the monitor as it executed the code.

My daughter…her name escapes me. She went to college in a city close to where we worked. It was a populated city, just a few miles north of where our space center was.

It was a city I called my home. Now I'm not even sure what street I lived on six months ago.

Within a fraction of a second of that code being executed, the city was gone.

Destroyed? No. Evacuated? No. Just gone. A wound in space-time where the city had been, roughly twenty miles across. It bled something that was not light and was not darkness.

Everyone outside of a one-mile radius of HOMAR's activation point did not remember the city. There were no records of it in books, nor on television, nor online. A population in excess of one million, gone in the blink of an eye, my family included.

I only remembered because I was right there.

I spent so much time at work, I never—

Every photo of them is gone. My phone doesn't even remember. The backup drives do not remember. The only evidence is the ever-softening shape in my mind that once looked beautiful.

Something has started leaking from the other side. Cryptid reports have spiked. UFO sightings have clustered around the perimeter of the lost city. Sudden spikes in religious gatherings have been observed, with millions more converting to some extreme form of Christianity or Islam with every passing day. Official channels treat all this as noise.

I saw her in the hallway of the facility three nights after the test. My daughter.

Her eyes were filled with television static. Her expression was totally blank, devoid of any emotion. I could touch her. Put my hand on her shoulders and give her a hug. I could feel her familiar, frail bones beneath her skin. I apologized for the years of missed dinners, postponed visits, the lack of bedtime stories. Words were forming, then, without much ado, she was gone. The hallway was empty.

I cannot sleep anymore. Haven't been able to in three weeks. When I close my eyes, I only see the wound, expanding by nanometers every second. Reports of further fracturing arrive with decreasing regularity. Not because they're not happening, but because everyone in the facility is forgetting why they're even filing the reports to begin with.

I am forgetting who I was before this foolish experiment even began. I do not know the aesthetic of my home. I do not know the names of my colleagues. I can't even name the president. Words are beginning to lose their meaning when I hear them out loud. The only thing that makes sense to me are what I can comprehend on the page.

As far as I can tell, HOMAR has not worked on the signal since the rift opened. All it really does is display a yes/no prompt on whether or not it should open the rift to completion. Nobody really knows if we should go through with it or not.

This is all my fault. I didn't just fail to act, no, I actively chose the next expansion, I chose to keep ignoring the signs, I chose to stare into space and the moment something looked back, I blinked.

I really hope we've left things in good shape. I've lost the ability to comprehend any happenings beyond my little sphere of one mile. We have some fine literature. Mary Shelley, Harlan Ellison…enough to keep me occupied while I lose my mind to this rot.

I can't really go back now. There's no erasing the past, nor changing the trajectory of the future.

All I can do is write,

And write,

And perhaps, when I do that enough,

I will rest.

I took the job after six whole months of gainful unemployment. 

The job hunt was brutal. It's not that I'm unqualified, God no. I have my bachelors in communications. I had good grades in school. The problem was my employment history. I could never hold something steady for longer than a year, maybe two. In the worst cases, I'd get dropped after three months. Nothing ever stuck with me. I thought I had my lane out of college, but it just didn't work out, and from there, I've spiraled. 

Another issue is that most of the postings feel like they exist purely for analytics. Ghost jobs made to make a company look healthier than it really is. There were a few real ones, but none that extended any offers. Probably because of my history. 

My bills certainly didn't care that I was struggling. I had to figure out something fast or I'd be on the street within the month.

I kept seeing a listing for some generic "Talent Acquisition Agency." $25 an hour. No experience necessary. I kind of figured it was one of those botted jobs. Too good to be true, with an empty description beyond the hours, pay, and a painful company statement:

We believe that every individual has the potential to shape tomorrow. Our mission is to connect ambition with opportunity through innovative, people-first solutions that drive meaningful growth for both candidates and clients (…) 

Blargh. I wanted to vomit. But I didn't really have much for options at this point. I decided to send in my resume. Got a phone call the next hour, asking me when I would be able to come in for in-person orientation. I was floored. I had never heard of this company before, and yet they have a warehouse in my city?

Sure enough, I pull up to the address, and yeah, it's there. A big, white warehouse with "TAA" branded on the side. I guess it was nondescript enough for me to have not noticed it all these years, but, I grew up here. I think I would have noticed this place by now.

Orientation took place in a windowless conference room. Before they let us inside, a curvy woman with a bob cut, Ms. Roll, handed each of us a doll mask. The plastic was pale, with a painted-on smile and two empty eye holes. Security kept us from going inside unless we put them on. Weird policy, but okay. I was in it for the long haul now. I put on the mask and took a seat on one of one hundred folding chairs set in front of a projector. A video begins to play.

The company CEO, Mr. Rock, walks on screen in a lumpy suit. He asked if everyone was ready to get started (all three of us), and launched into a vaguely enthusiastic speech about the company values. Everything in that tangent sounded like it was written by a language model halfway through its morning coffee. 

"REMEMBER: Our product is FIRST IN CLASS. No other substitution will do."

"REMEMBER: We don't believe customers can make mistakes."

"REMEMBER: Think different, shape the future." 

I sat through what felt like two hours of it. My eyes started to roll back. The mask itched where it pressed on my cheeks. 

Ms. Roll smacked my leg with a flyswatter. I woke right the hell up. 

"Mr. Parker. Please follow me."

She started walking through a pair of iron doors. Time for a tour, I suppose. 

We walked through a warehouse first. Massive, but mostly empty. Conveyor belts carried different-shaped cardboard boxes from one end of the room to another. I never saw anyone actually packing them. The only person working the floor was a short, portly fellow in a red hard hat. 

I still wasn't clear on exactly what our "product" was, but I think I must have missed that part in our orientation. I was too embarrassed to ask. 

We reached the call center next. This is where I was going to be working, according to Ms. Roll. She set me down in a boring cubicle with a single computer, a notepad, some mechanical pencils and a phone. The computer had Solitaire and a basic text editor. The phone had two buttons: TRANSFER and HOLD. 

Ms. Roll told me I'd get the hang of it in no time. She disappeared in the sea of cubicles shortly after.

I sat for maybe twenty minutes trying to figure out something to do to look productive. After that, I gave up and started playing Solitaire. Maybe thirty seconds passed before I got a call. 

"Hello…?"

"Hi there," I said.

"Is this acquisitions?"

I looked around the room. No point of reference for me to use. 

"I believe so."

"Thank God. I was hoping I could talk to someone about landing a job."

I cleared my throat. "Could you hold for one second?"

The man on the other end grunted. I hit HOLD and looked for Ms. Roll. Nowhere in sight. Sweat started soaking beneath the mask. I got back on the line.

"Sir, you still there?"

"Pretty sure I am."

"Okay. Thank you. Listen, I'm pretty new here. I'm going to be honest I'm not…entirely sure how to help you. My boss isn't around, and—"

"This is acquisitions, right?"

"…Yes?"

"Okay. Then I'd like to inquire about a fucking job!"

The shift in his voice was very jarring, to say the least. I had to do a double take. 

"I'm…not sure how to help with that. I haven't been—" 

"You stupid slut! Who do you think you are?!"

I couldn't get a single word out.

"I'll find you, do you hear me? I'll kill your whole fucking—!"

I hung up, hands trembling. Ms. Roll was standing right behind me with her arms crossed. I couldn't see her face, but her neck was redder than before—I could only assume that meant the same for her expression. 

"What was that?" she asked.

"I don't know. I have no idea. I wasn't—" 

"Do you see your phone?"

"Yes?"

"Do you see the two big buttons on it?"

"Yes."

"If you don't know how to help a customer, just hit the transfer button. We covered it in your training."

What…training? The videos? I was more of a hands-on guy, myself. Even if I wasn't, how did she expect me to memorize two hours worth of drivel?

I didn't say anything. She was already walking away.

"You seem tense, Mr. Parker. Take a five-minute water break."

Sure, yeah, that might help. I got up and headed to the cooler.

I found another guy there, dressed in, more or less, the same outfit as me. Black slacks, a button-up shirt, dark leather belt. His mask was yellowed and warped at the edges, like he'd been using the same one for a real long time. He was sipping water through the little mouth slit like it was totally normal. I shook my head and started to lift mine for my cup. 

His arm shot out, hand stopping mine. I reeled back, heart pounding. 

"No. No. No. Don't let them see you."

He pointed at the camera in the upper corner of the room, locked right on both of us. My mask suddenly felt tighter. I threw the cup away and went back to my desk. 

Calls kept on coming. Most people were looking for work. They were always really, really vague about the details. 

"I want a leadership position."

"I'd really like to work the floor."

"I'm hoping to work with a driven team."

Sometimes, people called me about the product itself. I tried to glean any details I could during those conversations. Never learned much, though.

"Hi, is this acquisitions?"

"This is."

"I wanted to make a return. I wasn't satisfied with my product."

"What wasn't satisfying?"

"Well, it just wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped."

"Okay. Can you…elaborate on that?"

"I don't know. It just wasn't very exciting. Can I return it?"

"Hold for one second."

I sigh and hit the transfer button. The call is sucked down the line. 

I got better at the job the way you'd get better at any empty ritual. I tried to challenge myself to keep a conversation going for as long as I could before it collapsed and I couldn't help them anymore. Bullshitting got me a long way. My personal record was five minutes and fourteen seconds. 

Sometimes, people just wanted advice. One guy even read me the first page of his screenplay. Did the voices and everything. Most calls were just about product and job placement, though. Nothing worth writing home about, and yet it was quickly becoming my entire life. 

Six months passed like that. I stopped going out. After a full day of calls, I was too tired. I would get home, saving my energy for the next shift, and fall asleep within a few hours, if I even lasted that long.

The mask stopped itching as much. Some days I forget that it's there, even on the bus. 

In mid-August, the loudspeaker cracked. Mr. Rock announced that overtime would become mandatory this next few months as we enter the busy season. Ms. Roll tells me to pack an extra lunch. 

The next day ran for sixteen hours straight. By the time I got through transit, it was closer to twenty hours spent dedicated to my job alone that day. I would be lucky if I got four hours of sleep before the next shift. 

I walked into my tiny studio apartment, exhausted, sore, totally muggy. I ripped the mask from my face and leaned over the bathroom sink to splash it with cold water. I felt nothing.

When I looked up in the mirror, there was a hole where my face should have been. Depthless. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. I stood there for a long time waiting for the panic to hit. 

It never did. 

I took the job after six whole months of gainful unemployment. 

The job hunt was brutal. It's not that I'm unqualified, God no. I have my bachelors in communications. I had good grades in school. The problem was my employment history. I could never hold something steady for longer than a year, maybe two. In the worst cases, I'd get dropped after three months. Nothing ever stuck with me. I thought I had my lane out of college, but it just didn't work out, and from there, I've spiraled. 

Another issue is that most of the postings feel like they exist purely for analytics. Ghost jobs made to make a company look healthier than it really is. There were a few real ones, but none that extended any offers. Probably because of my history. 

My bills certainly didn't care that I was struggling. I had to figure out something fast or I'd be on the street within the month.

I kept seeing a listing for some generic "Talent Acquisition Agency." $25 an hour. No experience necessary. I kind of figured it was one of those botted jobs. Too good to be true, with an empty description beyond the hours, pay, and a painful company statement:

We believe that every individual has the potential to shape tomorrow. Our mission is to connect ambition with opportunity through innovative, people-first solutions that drive meaningful growth for both candidates and clients (…) 

Blargh. I wanted to vomit. But I didn't really have much for options at this point. I decided to send in my resume. Got a phone call the next hour, asking me when I would be able to come in for in-person orientation. I was floored. I had never heard of this company before, and yet they have a warehouse in my city?

Sure enough, I pull up to the address, and yeah, it's there. A big, white warehouse with "TAA" branded on the side. I guess it was nondescript enough for me to have not noticed it all these years, but, I grew up here. I think I would have noticed this place by now.

Orientation took place in a windowless conference room. Before they let us inside, a curvy woman with a bob cut, Ms. Roll, handed each of us a doll mask. The plastic was pale, with a painted-on smile and two empty eye holes. Security kept us from going inside unless we put them on. Weird policy, but okay. I was in it for the long haul now. I put on the mask and took a seat on one of one hundred folding chairs set in front of a projector. A video begins to play.

The company CEO, Mr. Rock, walks on screen in a lumpy suit. He asked if everyone was ready to get started (all three of us), and launched into a vaguely enthusiastic speech about the company values. Everything in that tangent sounded like it was written by a language model halfway through its morning coffee. 

"REMEMBER: Our product is FIRST IN CLASS. No other substitution will do."

"REMEMBER: We don't believe customers can make mistakes."

"REMEMBER: Think different, shape the future." 

I sat through what felt like two hours of it. My eyes started to roll back. The mask itched where it pressed on my cheeks. 

Ms. Roll smacked my leg with a flyswatter. I woke right the hell up. 

"Mr. Parker. Please follow me."

She started walking through a pair of iron doors. Time for a tour, I suppose. 

We walked through a warehouse first. Massive, but mostly empty. Conveyor belts carried different-shaped cardboard boxes from one end of the room to another. I never saw anyone actually packing them. The only person working the floor was a short, portly fellow in a red hard hat. 

I still wasn't clear on exactly what our "product" was, but I think I must have missed that part in our orientation. I was too embarrassed to ask. 

We reached the call center next. This is where I was going to be working, according to Ms. Roll. She set me down in a boring cubicle with a single computer, a notepad, some mechanical pencils and a phone. The computer had Solitaire and a basic text editor. The phone had two buttons: TRANSFER and HOLD. 

Ms. Roll told me I'd get the hang of it in no time. She disappeared in the sea of cubicles shortly after.

I sat for maybe twenty minutes trying to figure out something to do to look productive. After that, I gave up and started playing Solitaire. Maybe thirty seconds passed before I got a call. 

"Hello…?"

"Hi there," I said.

"Is this acquisitions?"

I looked around the room. No point of reference for me to use. 

"I believe so."

"Thank God. I was hoping I could talk to someone about landing a job."

I cleared my throat. "Could you hold for one second?"

The man on the other end grunted. I hit HOLD and looked for Ms. Roll. Nowhere in sight. Sweat started soaking beneath the mask. I got back on the line.

"Sir, you still there?"

"Pretty sure I am."

"Okay. Thank you. Listen, I'm pretty new here. I'm going to be honest I'm not…entirely sure how to help you. My boss isn't around, and—"

"This is acquisitions, right?"

"…Yes?"

"Okay. Then I'd like to inquire about a fucking job!"

The shift in his voice was very jarring, to say the least. I had to do a double take. 

"I'm…not sure how to help with that. I haven't been—" 

"You stupid slut! Who do you think you are?!"

I couldn't get a single word out.

"I'll find you, do you hear me? I'll kill your whole fucking—!"

I hung up, hands trembling. Ms. Roll was standing right behind me with her arms crossed. I couldn't see her face, but her neck was redder than before—I could only assume that meant the same for her expression. 

"What was that?" she asked.

"I don't know. I have no idea. I wasn't—" 

"Do you see your phone?"

"Yes?"

"Do you see the two big buttons on it?"

"Yes."

"If you don't know how to help a customer, just hit the transfer button. We covered it in your training."

What…training? The videos? I was more of a hands-on guy, myself. Even if I wasn't, how did she expect me to memorize two hours worth of drivel?

I didn't say anything. She was already walking away.

"You seem tense, Mr. Parker. Take a five-minute water break."

Sure, yeah, that might help. I got up and headed to the cooler.

I found another guy there, dressed in, more or less, the same outfit as me. Black slacks, a button-up shirt, dark leather belt. His mask was yellowed and warped at the edges, like he'd been using the same one for a real long time. He was sipping water through the little mouth slit like it was totally normal. I shook my head and started to lift mine for my cup. 

His arm shot out, hand stopping mine. I reeled back, heart pounding. 

"No. No. No. Don't let them see you."

He pointed at the camera in the upper corner of the room, locked right on both of us. My mask suddenly felt tighter. I threw the cup away and went back to my desk. 

Calls kept on coming. Most people were looking for work. They were always really, really vague about the details. 

"I want a leadership position."

"I'd really like to work the floor."

"I'm hoping to work with a driven team."

Sometimes, people called me about the product itself. I tried to glean any details I could during those conversations. Never learned much, though.

"Hi, is this acquisitions?"

"This is."

"I wanted to make a return. I wasn't satisfied with my product."

"What wasn't satisfying?"

"Well, it just wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped."

"Okay. Can you…elaborate on that?"

"I don't know. It just wasn't very exciting. Can I return it?"

"Hold for one second."

I sigh and hit the transfer button. The call is sucked down the line. 

I got better at the job the way you'd get better at any empty ritual. I tried to challenge myself to keep a conversation going for as long as I could before it collapsed and I couldn't help them anymore. Bullshitting got me a long way. My personal record was five minutes and fourteen seconds. 

Sometimes, people just wanted advice. One guy even read me the first page of his screenplay. Did the voices and everything. Most calls were just about product and job placement, though. Nothing worth writing home about, and yet it was quickly becoming my entire life. 

Six months passed like that. I stopped going out. After a full day of calls, I was too tired. I would get home, saving my energy for the next shift, and fall asleep within a few hours, if I even lasted that long.

The mask stopped itching as much. Some days I forget that it's there, even on the bus. 

In mid-August, the loudspeaker cracked. Mr. Rock announced that overtime would become mandatory this next few months as we enter the busy season. Ms. Roll tells me to pack an extra lunch. 

The next day ran for sixteen hours straight. By the time I got through transit, it was closer to twenty hours spent dedicated to my job alone that day. I would be lucky if I got four hours of sleep before the next shift. 

I walked into my tiny studio apartment, exhausted, sore, totally muggy. I ripped the mask from my face and leaned over the bathroom sink to splash it with cold water. I felt nothing.

When I looked up in the mirror, there was a hole where my face should have been. Depthless. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. I stood there for a long time waiting for the panic to hit. 

It never did. 

I still catch myself listening for it.

A change in the air. A slight increase in pressure, the room remembering a presence that should not be there. It never comes. 

I retired two years ago and the house is just that at night—dead quiet. 

My husband, Mr. Jonson, has stopped asking why I sit in the living room with the lights off. He thinks it’s leftover stress from the incident. He’s not entirely wrong.

A year before it happened, I took over the choir program at the high school. The previous teacher, Miss Svenski, had lasted one year and left behind a legend. She let the kids pick the repertoire. Mostly pop. They talked about her like she was a celebrity. 

I came in wanting to teach actual music. The pentatonic scale, breath control, you know. Things that required attention. The students made it clear very quickly that this was not what they had signed up for.

The jokes started. “Go suck a Jonson.” Every day.

Some of them timed their outbursts for the first five minutes of class so they would get sent to the office and miss the rest of the period. 

Enrollment dropped from the low forties to nineteen by the second semester. The ones who stayed were either openly hostile or so quiet I could barely hear them over the dissonant others. 

One of them filmed a ten-minute rant I gave about cell phones. I watched the views climb into the thousands while I drank wine in the kitchen. Mr. Jonson asked me why I was starting so early. I didn’t want to talk about it.

The night of the shooting star, I was on my second glass. My husband pointed it out through the window and told me to make a wish. I thought, very clearly, that I wanted someone to care about the music the way I did. Not the performance. The thing itself.

The spring concert was three weeks later. We were under-rehearsed and the gymnasium was only half-full. Parents, a few board members, the principal. We started with something safe. The kids were flat in the usual places. I kept conducting anyway.

Halfway through La Donna é Mobile, the air changed.

It got denser, the way it does before a storm. It felt like there were more people watching than what I could see. A few members of the audience started talking to each other. One of the altos looked past me toward the back wall and went completely still. My choir stopped altogether after that. I turned.

There were seven of them.

Tall, smooth, fluorescent. No eyes, one long vertical opening where their noses would be. Made of something like long, metal shutters, with three long fingers on each of their four arms. 

They floated through the aisle and along the rear wall. Anybody that got in their way was reduced to bloody ribbons without them raising a finger. Nobody screamed. No, they couldn't even breathe correctly.

One of the visitors “spoke.” It wasn’t sound. I could understand it perfectly.

Perform.

That was all. Not a threat exactly, more like…a requirement. A requirement that I did not want to find out the consequences of breaking.

I looked at the remaining students, those who hadn’t run away. Most of them were stiff. Bel, one of those who used to disrupt class on purpose, had tears running down her face. Billy, the quiet baritone in the front row, was staring at the floor like he was trying to sink into it.

I raised my hands again. I told Billy to give us a C.

“Hummmm…”

We finished the piece we had started. It was not good. The tuning was worse than usual. A soprano’s voice cracked on the first high note, but she kept going. 

I could feel the seven of them listening with their entire bodies. When it ended the tone came again.

Acceptable.

The pressure increased, and I blacked out.

I woke up somewhere white and seamless. The students were there too, sitting or lying on the translucent floor. We felt bound in chains, though we could not make them out. Surrounding the bubble were millions of incomprehensible faces. Alien visages that refused to work with established logic. 

I conducted the students through pieces I had never taught them. Some of the music was my own. Some were classics. Most, I decided, would be pop. They seemed to like that the most. I didn't want to take that away from them.

Their voices changed. They didn't necessarily improve, but they were harmonious. They did their best to match my energy. To have fun.

I heard sounds, ones human throats are not built for, coming from the audience. 

The tall ones listened. Sometimes the openings in their faces widened, air itself thinning as they took whatever it was they needed. I understood, without being told, that this was the price of the wish. Someone had finally cared about the music. They just hadn’t cared about us.

When we were finished, the entity spoke one last time.

Improve. We will return.

I don’t know how long we were there. They returned us, seemingly, on the same night. 

The gymnasium was full of police and people in dark clothes who hammered us with questions. The students gave matching statements. I was held for observation longer than the others. When they finally released me, my husband drove me home. We didn’t speak much during the ride.

The official story is a gas leak and mass hallucination. The students who were there don’t talk about it. Some of them have quit choir altogether. A few stayed, singing with a newfound intensity that makes the underclassmen jealous. 

Bel will send me a message every few months. Just a single line. 

“Did you hear it again?”

I tell her I haven’t. Though I anticipate it will be any day now.

I taught for two more years, retiring this last May. Nothing after that night has ever felt the same size. Ordinary music is still beautiful. It is also smaller than it used to be. 

For a short time I had exactly what I asked for. I was necessary. The music mattered to something that could have erased us without noticing. 

That knowledge sits in my heart, pumping my tired blood. 

I think I know my place in the universe.

I was in a pretty bad slump from a $1,000 bust in Ohio.

Couldn’t ask my family for any more money; they were pretty sick of the handouts and my fiscal volatility. I had to figure this one out for myself.

So I took out one last line of credit, bought a one-way ticket out West, and told myself I was going to win my life back.

The flight to Vegas was six hours of stale air and screaming babies. By the time I stepped out into Nevada’s dry desert, it felt like I’d already lost my sanity.

The address on my phone led me to a strip of decrepit buildings across the street from some generic local burger joints. No neon, nor the usual overpromising signs.

I was looking for a home in the wall, one with a painted number on its side and the sound of a 1980s jukebox leaking through the acacia exterior.

It was nice and cool inside, maybe a little too cold for my comfort. A round hardwood counter sat in the center of the room. Pull-tab machines lined the walls. Green-felt tables occupied the floor. It smelled like cigarettes and cheap booze, with something a little stronger underneath it all. Sulfur? Whatever it was, it was pungent. Like a rotten egg.

I sat at one of the many tables. Three other people joined me within a few seconds. The house dealer arrived last, introducing himself as Mr. Knock. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a brick-shaped head. I don’t think I saw him blink once that whole night.

He asked everybody to buy in.

They turned and looked at each other, then back at him. One after another, they said they “agreed to the terms.” A neat stack of poker chips manifested in front of each of them. Nobody questioned it. When it got to my turn, I said the words too. The chips appeared right in front of me like they’d been there from the beginning.

Jimmy sat in the small blind. He was older than the rest of us, a little pudgy in the middle. He struck up conversation while Knock dealt the first hand and asked what we planned on doing if we won.

Miss Hughes, the large blind, answered first. Bored face, bored voice, expensive watches and necklaces. She said something about investing in a new timeshare with her husband. She looked like the kind of person who already had three.

To my left was Jon. He said he wanted to use the money to produce his passion project, a film about magic gunslingers. He pitched it with real gusto, like he truly believed this was the next big thing… and like we were all bigwig investors.

Jimmy looked at me next. I felt the pressure to answer.

“I just need to get some debt paid off,” I said.

The other three laughed like it was totally absurd. Maybe it was, if it meant selling my soul.

Jimmy shook his head and said he planned on using his winnings to pay off his kid’s college tuition. He wished us all good luck. For a second, the table almost felt friendly.

I checked my first hand—an eight and a nine. Already a decent basis for a straight. The flop came ten, eight, and a jack. People started betting high right away, trying to wipe out the competition. I was forced to put in half my chips just to stay in. Jimmy folded early.

The turn was another ten. The river, a queen. I raised when the other two checked. I felt pretty lucky with my hand.

We showed. Miss Hughes had a nine and a king. She took the pot without ceremony. The precedent for disappointment was set.

Next round I folded early. So did Jon. My stack was already looking thin.

Jimmy made a brave bet. Hughes didn’t flinch. She raised him into the ground. Jimmy was left with a single chip. The cards flipped. Hughes raked in the chips while Jimmy buried massaged his eyeballs, trying to push them back inside his head.

I took a look at my next hand and felt something crawl up my spine. Pocket aces. Time to go all in. Hughes and Jimmy hesitated, then folded almost immediately. Jon was the only one who called, the idiot. He put his whole stack in with that same determined look I saw in the mirror. Aimless bravery. Mistaken boldness.

We revealed. I showed the aces first. His confident expression was neutralized. The cards spilled from his limp fingers—a pair of kings.

“Bust,” Mr. Knock said. “For shame.”

He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. His jaw unhinged. I felt a suction from his widening maw unlike anything I’d ever felt. Absolute, like the room itself was about to turn inside out.

Jon screamed and fell from his chair, trying to crawl away. A previously invisible form tore free from his body, ethereal. His soul was ripped from him with a sound like stretching the cheese. Knock swallowed it whole and belched into his fist. He dabbed his mouth with a handkerchief afterwards.

Jon was left on the floor. His hair had turned a bright white. His fingernails were bloody from clawing the wood. He didn’t appear injured otherwise, but he was near-catatonic. Bouncers appeared from the shadows and assisted him just so he would remember how to use the door.

I turned back toward Hughes and Jimmy. Hughes was grinning. Jimmy wouldn’t make eye contact. I realized I was sweating through my shirt.

“Shall we continue?” Knock asked. He was already reshuffling.

The game went on for another hour. Jimmy and I seemed to decide, without speaking, to play against Hughes. We bet recklessly high, one hand after another, getting dumb luck more than once. Her stack progressively shrank. She chewed the skin on her thumb until it bled. When she finally called our bluff, I was holding a flush. She shrieked like a parrot being boiled alive when I flipped my cards.

Knock took her the same way he took Jon. Hughes kicked and cried, and cursed our names before she went limp. She looked drugged, dazed, like an animal that had just been declawed. The bouncers escorted her off the property without incident. She didn’t look back.

Just me and Jimmy left.

He looked at me, silent. I could tell he wanted to apologize for what was about to happen. I asked him casually to tell me about his kid while Knock dealt the next hand.

He said his boy had leukemia growing up. Most of the family’s savings went toward treatment. When it came time for college, they were stumped.

Jimmy looked at his cards. I could see the light leaving his eyes. Bad hand for sure. He only had a handful of chips left compared to my stack.

I checked my own. A pair of sevens. My lucky number.

We played. I tried to bet high enough that he would just fold and walk away. I told him there was no shame in taking what he had. Jimmy kept shaking his head. Said there was no going back for him now. In a way, I kind of agreed.

The board ran out. I made four sevens. Bags had appeared under Jimmy’s eyes that weren’t there a moment ago. We revealed. His hand was nothing.

He looked at me and gave a weak smile.

“That’s that, then. Well played, kid.”

Knock took him, just like the other two. The kindness drained from Jimmy’s face and was replaced by apathy. Emptiness. The bouncers walked him to the door, like he was a piece of broken furniture.

Knock congratulated me on my winnings. I was taken to the front of the house to cash out. The chips turned into money, lots of it. They invited me to come back again as I walked out the door. I never took them up on the offer.

I don’t ask my family for money anymore. I pay my bills on time. I sleep quietly and soundly. I wake up every morning without incident.

I’m debt-free now. Living my best life.

But since that night, I don’t think I’ve had a soul to call my own.

I was fourteen years old when I decided I was a werewolf. 

My parents divorced six months earlier. The house got real empty, real fast. My active imagination came up with inventions to fill the space. Nothing intentionally malicious.

At first it was that I could see ghosts, then I started pretending to have a stronger sense of smell. I said I could hear frequencies on the radio that nobody else could. I said I was starting to feel more and more active at night. 

Soon enough, I was breaking it to all my closest friends the "horrible truth;" that I was subject to the curse of the full moon, and that it took everything within my power to hold the monster inside. 

Spencer bought it immediately, the dope. He transferred to the school in October. Long-limbed, athletic, looked like he could be one of our star basketball players if he wasn't so obsessed with Adventure Quest. He believed in everything. Crystals, hauntings, you name it. When I told him I was a werewolf, he didn't laugh or anything, just nodding, like I confirmed a suspicion he had for a long time. Moments later he was going through his phone, listing off potential cures for my condition. 

Becca was a bit harder to convince. Sure, she was a bit loopy, constantly wide-eyed like she was on the brink of a life-shattering revelation. She loved horses and the kind of anime where nobody had to die. She thought I was just being really weird at first when I tried to explain things to her. That's when I decided to buy a pair of prosthetic fangs, the kind that you can mold the inside to specifically fit your teeth. I figured out how to slip them on with my tongue between sentences. She went real quiet after noticing. Looked more like she was going to cry, now. 

"I always knew there was something different about you," she said. I was elated to hear that. 

At the time, Eric was also there. He just watched, impressed by the trick, though I don't think he bought it in the slightest. He was a goth, one who obsessed over autopsy photos in the back of class, quoting The Rocky Horror Picture Show like it was scripture. One day, he just started carrying around a little glass vial of red food coloring, introducing himself as the vampire of the group. I think he was just bored. My lie must have been way more interesting than his truth. 

We called ourselves the Specter Society, and dedicated ourselves to solving our small town's many local mysteries and urban legends. We got a reputation. Not a particularly good one. People didn't make eye contact with us in the halls and teachers shook their heads as we passed. Weirdly enough though, it was the first time I felt like I was the center of attention, and it felt good.

We built a base in the woods, close to the train tracks. It wasn't much, just a few tires for chairs, a hut made out of sticks, you know. Kid stuff. Our weekends were dedicated to library visits, renting various cryptozoology books and newspapers of old. 

For months, we would log strange local sightings. I would disappear during full moons, usually convincing my mom via ipecac to get out of going to school those days. We didn't really find anything interesting of note, beyond an abandoned building at the edge of town. Exploring it didn't really turn up anything though…not unless you want to count the soiled pair of pants after a rotten light fixture collapsed next to Becca. 

Things didn't really pan out interesting until we discovered a "pocket guide" written by a local author. It was mostly a history of the area we lived in, with historic photos and letters written from family to family. I wondered why we were reading through this when Eric told me to flip to the back. 

There we saw an entry on the Lying Man. 

The version depended on the letter you were looking at. Our common consensus seemed to be that it was a wives tale told to scare rowdy children who told too many fibs. A man who would appear to children late at night and make their tallest tales come true. Then, after making it true for a little while, he'd "collect" something from the children. The details on what that was never really lined up, but all of them were equally grim.

We decided that weekend to hole up in our fort late at night, in hopes that we can catch the Lying Man. They each came up with little white lies as bait, but nothing that we were genuinely keeping secret from each other. Nothing beyond what Eric and I were doing. 

Becca brought her flashlight, Spencer came with a bag of crystals, and Eric came equipped with his usual vial of "blood." 

The fort was colder than it normally was. We sat in a circle, shivering, waiting. Spencer lit a fire. All was quiet until we heard a branch snapping just a few meters away.

A cop walked out into the light, though none of us could name him. If I had to describe him, I would say he was a composite of every cop that worked in our town. There were familiar, discernible features but nothing that came together in a recognizable image. 

Spencer cussed beneath his breath. We were most certainly busted.

But the cop wasn't confrontational. Mostly just curious.

"What are you kids doing out here?" he asked. 

"We're looking for the Lying Man," Eric said matter-of-factly. He nodded toward me like I was the one who came up with the idea. I knew he had to be fucking we me at that point. 

The cop smiled. 

"There's no such thing as the Lying Man." He looked me right in the eyes.

"Well…we don't know that for sure," I said. "I mean, there's plenty of evidence—" 

"Tall tales," said the cop. "Like the ones you've been spinning to your friends, Berin."

How did he—?  I immediately seized up, heart jumping into my throat. I tried to apply my fangs, but remembered I had left them in my pocket. The cop laughed. 

"What's that look for? Did you think I wouldn't hear tell of your stories?"

"They're not stories," I growled. "Leave us alone. We're not doing anything illegal." 

"Show them." 

"What?"

The cop's grin split wider. 

"You've told them what you are. Show them."

All three of them looked at me with anticipation. A sweat broke down my forehead. I stammered.

"I-I don't want to hurt anybody. I can't control myself when—" 

The cop drew his weapon and pointed it at me. The woods went dead silent. 

"Show them," he cooed. 

I limply reached for the fangs in my pocket, only now realizing how small they were. My hands backed out, fingers fumbling over the edge. There was no fur waiting beneath my skin or claws beneath my nails. I just wanted to feel special. 

Everyone waited. They stared at me. They just stared. The silence grew unbearable. I could feel tears welling. I could feel their eyes, filling with gradual resentment.

The cop's expression softened. He looked satisfied, like he'd figured out how to unlock a stubborn door.

His joints cracked. The skin on his face stretched. His teeth fell out, one after another, onto the floor, replaced by growing, snarling fangs. Fur sprouted, in too thick of patches, enough to break through the skin. Blood and viscera slopped to the ground, the man's joints bending backwards and forwards, snapping into the place of a creature. 

His bloody jaws snapped, a maw wider than a yard. 

Spencer, the poor bastard, was standing closest to him at the time. The thing struck him once and he folded. I heard a snap like soaking wood snapping under the weight of a truck. Becca screamed.

We turned and ran. Becca tripped. She turned around, putting her hand out, trying to tame the beast.

The thing ate her up in two big bites. 

Eric grabbed my arm after I froze up, watching this. He dragged me along, my feet eventually catching up with his pace. We made it to the very edge of the woods. I thought we were in the clear.

CRUNCH.

I looked, and Eric was choking on his own blood. The thing had grabbed him by the base of his spine, fingers going right through his soft flesh. I heard a loud pop as the creature closed its hand. Eric's legs buckled out from beneath him. He let out a loud shout and fell to the ground. 

I don't know why, but I tried to fight it in that moment. I ran up to the creature, punched it, kicked it, tried to shove it away. It struck me upside the head hard enough that I was kissing the ground before the pain registered. 

"Thank you," the thing chortled. "I haven't been fed like that in sooo long."

I tried to rasp out a "please don't." Didn't even have the strength to beg for my life anymore. 

It didn't matter. The creature had no intention of killing us. 

"Mmmgh," it moaned. "Do keep up whatever it is you're doing. Your stories were mmmost satisfying…"

Patting its belly, the creature turned and left us both in the woods, bleeding out and losing consciousness. 

We both survived. Eric was in a pretty sorry state, though. The doctors said things like "permanent" and "paralysis from the waist down." He never accused me of anything, never exploded, none of that. The last time I saw him was in the hospital hallway. I could tell, just by looking at his eyes, that he never wanted to see me again. 

Sometimes, I'll rehearse in my head the way the night was supposed to go. There's a version where my fangs were real, and I put myself between that thing and my friends. That story never holds, though. 

When I see the full moon these days, I wince.

I was fourteen years old when I decided I was a werewolf. 

My parents divorced six months earlier. The house got real empty, real fast. My active imagination came up with inventions to fill the space. Nothing intentionally malicious, just, well, an active imagination that got a bit out of hand. 

At first it was that I could see ghosts, then I started pretending to have a stronger sense of smell. I said I could hear frequencies on the radio that nobody else could. I said I was starting to feel more and more active at night. 

Soon enough, I was breaking it to all my closest friends the "horrible truth;" that I was subject to the curse of the full moon, and that it took everything within my power to hold the monster inside. 

Spencer bought it immediately, the dope. He transferred to the school in October. Long-limbed, athletic, looked like he could be one of our star basketball players if he wasn't so obsessed with Adventure Quest.  He believed in everything. Crystals, hauntings, you name it. When I told him I was a werewolf, he didn't laugh or anything, just nodding, like I confirmed a suspicion he had for a long time. Moments later he was going through his phone, listing off potential cures for my condition. 

Becca was a bit harder to convince. Sure, she was a bit loopy, constantly wide-eyed like she was on the brink of a life-shattering revelation. She loved horses and the kind of anime where nobody had to die. She thought I was just being really weird at first when I tried to explain things to her. That's when I decided to buy a pair of prosthetic fangs, the kind that you can mold the inside to specifically fit your teeth. I figured out how to slip them on with my tongue between sentences. She went real quiet after noticing. Looked more like she was going to cry, now. 

"I always knew there was something different about you," she said. I was elated to hear that. 

At the time, Eric was also there. He just watched, impressed by the trick, though I don't think he bought it in the slightest. He was a goth, one who obsessed over autopsy photos in the back of class, quoting The Rocky Horror Picture Show like it was scripture. One day, he just started carrying around a little glass vial of red food coloring, introducing himself as the vampire of the group. I think he was just bored. My lie must have been way more interesting than his truth. 

We called ourselves the Specter Society, and dedicated ourselves to solving our small town's many local mysteries and urban legends. We got a reputation. Not a particularly good one. People didn't make eye contact with us in the halls and teachers shook their heads as we passed. Weirdly enough though, it was the first time I felt like I was the center of attention, and it felt good. 

We built a base in the woods, close to the train tracks. It wasn't much, just a few tires for chairs, a hut made out of sticks, you know. Kid stuff. Our weekends were dedicated to library visits, renting various cryptozoology books and newspapers of old. 

For months, we would log strange local sightings. I would disappear during full moons, usually convincing my mom via ipecac to get out of going to school those days. We didn't really find anything interesting of note, beyond an abandoned building at the edge of town. Exploring it didn't really turn up anything though…not unless you want to count the soiled pair of pants after a rotten light fixture collapsed next to Becca. 

Things didn't really pan out interesting until we discovered a "pocket guide" written by a local author. It was mostly a history of the area we lived in, with historic photos and letters written from family to family. I wondered why we were reading through this when Eric told me to flip to the back. 

There we saw an entry on the Lying Man. 

The version depended on the letter you were looking at. Our common consensus seemed to be that it was a wives tale told to scare rowdy children who told too many fibs. A man who would appear to children late at night and make their tallest tales come true. Then, after making it true for a little while, he'd "collect" something from the children. The details on what that was never really lined up, but all of them were equally grim.

We decided that weekend to hole up in our fort late at night, in hopes that we can catch the Lying Man. They each came up with little white lies as bait, but nothing that we were genuinely keeping secret from each other. Nothing beyond what Eric and I were doing. 

Spencer brought his flashlight, Becca came with a bag of crystals, and Eric came equipped with his usual vial of "blood." 

The fort was colder than it normally was. We sat in a circle, shivering, waiting. Spencer lit a fire. All was quiet until we heard a branch snapping just a few meters away.

A cop walked out into the light, though none of us could name him. If I had to describe him, I would say he was a composite of every cop that worked in our town. There were familiar, discernible features but nothing that came together in a recognizable image. 

Spencer cussed beneath his breath. We were most certainly busted.

But the cop wasn't confrontational. Mostly just curious.

"What are you kids doing out here?" he asked. 

"We're looking for the Lying Man," Eric said matter-of-factly. He nodded toward me like I was the one who came up with the idea. I knew he had to be fucking we me at that point. 

The cop smiled. 

"There's no such thing as the Lying Man." He looked me right in the eyes.

"Well…we don't know that for sure," I said. "I mean, there's plenty of evidence—" 

"Tall tales," said the cop. "Like the ones you've been spinning to your friends, Berin."

How did he—?  I immediately seized up, heart jumping into my throat. I tried to apply my fangs, but remembered I had left them in my pocket. The cop laughed. 

"What's that look for? Did you think I wouldn't hear tell of your stories?"

"They're not stories," I growled. "Leave us alone. We're not doing anything illegal." 

"Show them." 

"What?"

The cop's grin split wider. 

"You've told them what you are. Show them."

All three of them looked at me with anticipation. A sweat broke down my forehead. I stammered.

"I-I don't want to hurt anybody. I can't control myself when—" 

The cop drew his weapon and pointed it at me. The woods went dead silent. 

"Show them," he cooed. 

I limply reached for the fangs in my pocket, only now realizing how small they were. My hands backed out, fingers fumbling over the edge. There was no fur waiting beneath my skin or claws beneath my nails. I just wanted to feel special. 

Everyone waited. They stared at me. They just stared. The silence grew unbearable. I could feel tears welling beneath my eyes. The familiar sting of embarrassment. I could feel their eyes, filling with gradual resentment, burrowing into the back of my skull. 

The cop's eyes softened. He looked satisfied, like he'd figured out how to unlock a stubborn door.

His joints cracked. The skin on his face stretched. His teeth fell out, one after another, onto the floor, replaced by growing, snarling fangs. Fur sprouted, in too thick of patches, enough to break through the skin. Blood and viscera slopped to the ground, the man's joints bending backwards and forwards, snapping into the place of a creature. 

His bloody jaws snapped, a maw wider than a yard. 

Spencer, the poor bastard, was standing closest to him at the time. The thing struck him once and he folded. I heard a snap like soaking wood snapping under the weight of a truck. Becca screamed.

We turned and ran. Becca tripped. She turned around, putting her hand out, trying to tame the beast.

"Easy…please…you're okay, we…we aren't going to—" 

The thing ate her up in two big bites. 

Eric grabbed my arm after I froze up, watching this. He dragged me along, my feet eventually catching up with his pace. We made it to the very edge of the woods. I thought we were in the clear.

CRUNCH.

I looked, and Eric was choking on his own blood. The thing had grabbed him by the base of his spine, fingers going right through his soft flesh. I heard a loud pop as the creature closed its hand. Eric's legs buckled out from beneath him. He let out a loud shout and fell to the ground. 

I don't know why, but I tried to fight it in that moment. I ran up to the creature, punched it, kicked it, tried to shove it away. It struck me upside the head hard enough that I was kissing the ground before the pain registered. 

"Thank you," the thing chortled. "I haven't been fed like that in sooo long."

I tried to rasp out a "please don't." Didn't even have the strength to beg for my life anymore. 

It didn't matter. The creature had no intention of killing us. 

"Mmmgh," it moaned. "Do keep up whatever it is you're doing. Your stories were mmmost satisfying…"

Patting its belly, the creature turned and left us both in the woods, bleeding out and losing consciousness. 

We both survived. Eric was in a pretty sorry state, though. The doctors said things like "permanent" and "paralysis from the waist down." He never accused me of anything, never exploded, none of that. The last time I saw him was in the hospital hallway. I could tell, just by looking at his eyes, that he never wanted to see me again. 

Sometimes, I'll rehearse in my head the way the night was supposed to go. There's a version where my fangs were real, and I put myself between that thing and my friends. That story never holds, though. 

When I see the full moon these days, I wince.

I was fourteen years old when I decided I was a werewolf. 

My parents divorced six months earlier. The house got real empty, real fast. My active imagination came up with inventions to fill the space. Nothing intentionally malicious, just, well, an active imagination that got a bit out of hand. 

At first it was that I could see ghosts, then I started pretending to have a stronger sense of smell. I said I could hear frequencies on the radio that nobody else could. I said I was starting to feel more and more active at night. 

Soon enough, I was breaking it to all my closest friends the "horrible truth;" that I was subject to the curse of the full moon, and that it took everything within my power to hold the monster inside. 

Spencer bought it immediately, the dope. He transferred to the school in October. Long-limbed, athletic, looked like he could be one of our star basketball players if he wasn't so obsessed with Adventure Quest.  He believed in everything. Crystals, hauntings, you name it. When I told him I was a werewolf, he didn't laugh or anything, just nodding, like I confirmed a suspicion he had for a long time. Moments later he was going through his phone, listing off potential cures for my condition. 

Becca was a bit harder to convince. Sure, she was a bit loopy, constantly wide-eyed like she was on the brink of a life-shattering revelation. She loved horses and the kind of anime where nobody had to die. She thought I was just being really weird at first when I tried to explain things to her. That's when I decided to buy a pair of prosthetic fangs, the kind that you can mold the inside to specifically fit your teeth. I figured out how to slip them on with my tongue between sentences. She went real quiet after noticing. Looked more like she was going to cry, now. 

"I always knew there was something different about you," she said. I was elated to hear that. 

At the time, Eric was also there. He just watched, impressed by the trick, though I don't think he bought it in the slightest. He was a goth, one who obsessed over autopsy photos in the back of class, quoting The Rocky Horror Picture Show like it was scripture. One day, he just started carrying around a little glass vial of red food coloring, introducing himself as the vampire of the group. I think he was just bored. My lie must have been way more interesting than his truth. 

We called ourselves the Specter Society, and dedicated ourselves to solving our small town's many local mysteries and urban legends. We got a reputation. Not a particularly good one. People didn't make eye contact with us in the halls and teachers shook their heads as we passed. Weirdly enough though, it was the first time I felt like I was the center of attention, and it felt good. 

We built a base in the woods, close to the train tracks. It wasn't much, just a few tires for chairs, a hut made out of sticks, you know. Kid stuff. Our weekends were dedicated to library visits, renting various cryptozoology books and newspapers of old. 

For months, we would log strange local sightings. I would disappear during full moons, usually convincing my mom via ipecac to get out of going to school those days. We didn't really find anything interesting of note, beyond an abandoned building at the edge of town. Exploring it didn't really turn up anything though…not unless you want to count the soiled pair of pants after a rotten light fixture collapsed next to Becca. 

Things didn't really pan out interesting until we discovered a "pocket guide" written by a local author. It was mostly a history of the area we lived in, with historic photos and letters written from family to family. I wondered why we were reading through this when Eric told me to flip to the back. 

There we saw an entry on the Lying Man. 

The version depended on the letter you were looking at. Our common consensus seemed to be that it was a wives tale told to scare rowdy children who told too many fibs. A man who would appear to children late at night and make their tallest tales come true. Then, after making it true for a little while, he'd "collect" something from the children. The details on what that was never really lined up, but all of them were equally grim.

We decided that weekend to hole up in our fort late at night, in hopes that we can catch the Lying Man. They each came up with little white lies as bait, but nothing that we were genuinely keeping secret from each other. Nothing beyond what Eric and I were doing. 

Spencer brought his flashlight, Becca came with a bag of crystals, and Eric came equipped with his usual vial of "blood." 

The fort was colder than it normally was. We sat in a circle, shivering, waiting. Spencer lit a fire. All was quiet until we heard a branch snapping just a few meters away.

A cop walked out into the light, though none of us could name him. If I had to describe him, I would say he was a composite of every cop that worked in our town. There were familiar, discernible features but nothing that came together in a recognizable image. 

Spencer cussed beneath his breath. We were most certainly busted.

But the cop wasn't confrontational. Mostly just curious.

"What are you kids doing out here?" he asked. 

"We're looking for the Lying Man," Eric said matter-of-factly. He nodded toward me like I was the one who came up with the idea. I knew he had to be fucking we me at that point. 

The cop smiled. 

"There's no such thing as the Lying Man." He looked me right in the eyes.

"Well…we don't know that for sure," I said. "I mean, there's plenty of evidence—" 

"Tall tales," said the cop. "Like the ones you've been spinning to your friends, Berin."

How did he—?  I immediately seized up, heart jumping into my throat. I tried to apply my fangs, but remembered I had left them in my pocket. The cop laughed. 

"What's that look for? Did you think I wouldn't hear tell of your stories?"

"They're not stories," I growled. "Leave us alone. We're not doing anything illegal." 

"Show them." 

"What?"

The cop's grin split wider. 

"You've told them what you are. Show them."

All three of them looked at me with anticipation. A sweat broke down my forehead. I stammered.

"I-I don't want to hurt anybody. I can't control myself when—" 

The cop drew his weapon and pointed it at me. The woods went dead silent. 

"Show them," he cooed. 

I limply reached for the fangs in my pocket, only now realizing how small they were. My hands backed out, fingers fumbling over the edge. There was no fur waiting beneath my skin or claws beneath my nails. I just wanted to feel special. 

Everyone waited. They stared at me. They just stared. The silence grew unbearable. I could feel tears welling beneath my eyes. The familiar sting of embarrassment. I could feel their eyes, filling with gradual resentment, burrowing into the back of my skull. 

The cop's eyes softened. He looked satisfied, like he'd figured out how to unlock a stubborn door.

His joints cracked. The skin on his face stretched. His teeth fell out, one after another, onto the floor, replaced by growing, snarling fangs. Fur sprouted, in too thick of patches, enough to break through the skin. Blood and viscera slopped to the ground, the man's joints bending backwards and forwards, snapping into the place of a creature. 

His bloody jaws snapped, a maw wider than a yard. 

Spencer, the poor bastard, was standing closest to him at the time. The thing struck him once and he folded. I heard a snap like soaking wood snapping under the weight of a truck. Becca screamed.

We turned and ran. Becca tripped. She turned around, putting her hand out, trying to tame the beast.

"Easy…please…you're okay, we…we aren't going to—" 

The thing ate her up in two big bites. 

Eric grabbed my arm after I froze up, watching this. He dragged me along, my feet eventually catching up with his pace. We made it to the very edge of the woods. I thought we were in the clear.

CRUNCH.

I looked, and Eric was choking on his own blood. The thing had grabbed him by the base of his spine, fingers going right through his soft flesh. I heard a loud pop as the creature closed its hand. Eric's legs buckled out from beneath him. He let out a loud shout and fell to the ground. 

I don't know why, but I tried to fight it in that moment. I ran up to the creature, punched it, kicked it, tried to shove it away. It struck me upside the head hard enough that I was kissing the ground before the pain registered. 

"Thank you," the thing chortled. "I haven't been fed like that in sooo long."

I tried to rasp out a "please don't." Didn't even have the strength to beg for my life anymore. 

It didn't matter. The creature had no intention of killing us. 

"Mmmgh," it moaned. "Do keep up whatever it is you're doing. Your stories were mmmost satisfying…"

Patting its belly, the creature turned and left us both in the woods, bleeding out and losing consciousness. 

We both survived. Eric was in a pretty sorry state, though. The doctors said things like "permanent" and "paralysis from the waist down." He never accused me of anything, never exploded, none of that. The last time I saw him was in the hospital hallway. I could tell, just by looking at his eyes, that he never wanted to see me again. 

Sometimes, I'll rehearse in my head the way the night was supposed to go. There's a version where my fangs were real, and I put myself between that thing and my friends. That story never holds, though. 

When I see the full moon these days, I wince.

Maverick should have been dead.

Three nights ago I watched him fall about twenty feet during our final performance of Glee. He was doing some stupid high kicks on the scaffolding above the stage when the boards gave way. The sound his neck made when it hit the stage—a disgusting crunch—stuck in my head.

Everyone screamed. A few people passed out. The curtains dropped. EMTs rushed in. His head still sat wrong on his shoulders at the end of the day.

Two days later he was walking across campus in the evening, a spring in his step, showing off a stack of get-well cards like he hadn’t nearly died just then. People kept saying the same thing: “Yeah, he fell, but it wasn’t that bad.” The height changed depending on who you asked. Some said eight feet. Some said he landed on his feet. Nobody ever mentioned the sound, or the way his head had looked.

It tracks. I’m the new kid. I moved here in January. Everyone’s cagey toward outsiders. Whenever I brought up the fall, people just gave me a forced smile and changed the subject.

Dr. Koschey, the theater director, posted on the school page that Maverick had shown “incredible resiliency” and was being cast as Romeo in the spring production. Romeo. The exact part I wanted. Sophia got Juliet. If anyone was going to get Romeo, I really wanted it to be me. Maybe that would’ve finally given me a chance to tell her how I felt.

I got Tybalt. Yippee.

Rehearsals started the next week. Really late, like ten at night. Koschey said it was the only time the stage was interruption-free, but the building was usually empty after five.

We sat under the work lights, reading through the script, blocking scenes, learning the choreography. The first few nights were relatively normal.

Then one night Dr. Koschey decided George and I would be the guinea pigs for the first big fight scene, George playing Mercutio.

We were clumsy to start, swinging the sharp foils like we were swatting flies. Koschey watched from the edge of the stage, then stood up and walked between us.

He started moving his hands, teeny tiny gestures, like he was playing with Lego figures.

Something clicked behind my eyes. My body followed exactly the way he instructed. I felt compelled to do whatever he asked. My clumsy swings cleaned up. My footwork sharpened. My muscles worked in tandem, like nothing I’d ever felt before. It felt good. The best performance of my life was pouring out of me without effort.

The fight built faster, meaner, realer. I could hear George breathing harder and harder. He was struggling to keep up. I didn’t stop.

Then, like a knife through butter, my blade went right through his chest.

The veil lifted all at once. George was on the ground, struggling, making nasty, gurgly sobs. There was blood everywhere. Everyone around me had gone pale, looking to Koschey for direction. He stood there looking pleased, clapping his hands together.

“That’s a wrap for tonight,” he said. “I’ll take care of George.”

I told him right away that George needed a hospital. Koschey just smiled and said that wouldn’t be necessary. The rest of the cast hadn’t moved to help. Something in the air compelled them not to—compelled me not to. It felt wrong to argue at that moment.

So I just left. I don’t even remember deciding to. I just walked out into the cold and kept walking until I made it home.

George was at his locker the next morning like nothing had happened. He stopped me in the hallway to ask if I was okay. I said I should be the one asking him that. He laughed and pulled his shirt aside just enough to show the thick bandage over his chest.

“Gnarly, right?” he said. “Don’t worry about it. It's just show business.”

He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t even shaken. He looked better than he had before.

Koschey called me to his office during lunch. The room was in the basement under the stage, darker than dark. No windows. One desk lamp. He told me he’d been impressed by my work the night before. He said he saw real potential. He wanted me for the lead in the next show after Romeo and Juliet.

There were other prospects, he said. George. Maverick. But there were still a few who needed to be recruited. Sophia, for instance.

I told him I didn’t understand. Sophia was already in the play. He looked at me like I was being thick on purpose. He told me I needed to stage an accident, something that would most certainly kill her. He promised she’d be walking again by daybreak.

Terrified, I told him I needed to think about it. He nodded like he’d been expecting that answer and dismissed me.

I spent the walk back upstairs hyperventilating. During our final period for the day, I passed Sophia a note. We met in the shop teacher’s room after class. Mr. Olson always left it unlocked.

I told her everything; the fall, the fight, the way I’d had no control over my own body. How Dr. Koschey felt deathly cold to the touch.

She thought I was losing it at first. Then I asked if she’d ever felt like she ever felt inexplicably incredible during performances. Her face changed. She said that during the blocking for the balcony scene, it had almost felt like someone was holding her arms up for her.

I told her she was in grave danger. That we needed to get off campus as soon as we could.

That’s when Maverick and George walked in.

George had a twisted smile on his face. He told me I had no idea what I was missing out on. Maverick just watched me. His eyes were black, like a hungry shark.

I grabbed a pipe wrench from the nearby workbench. George didn’t like that. He started toward Sophia. Mr. Olson came out of the back office asking what the hell was going on. Maverick moved right past him and sliced open his throat with claws, then tackled me to the ground. I held him off with the wrench. His teeth made dents in the steel.

Sophia screamed and ran for the side door. George chased her. She shoved it open and sunlight flooded in. The second it hit him he started screaming. His skin blackened and cracked. Pretty soon he was nothing but ash blowing across the floor.

Maverick hissed and recoiled from the light. That gave me enough time to hit him in the side of the head with the wrench as hard as I could. He fell to the ground spasming. Sophia and I took a moment to process.

“What the fuck,” we both said at the same time.

We figured it out pretty fast after that. Vampires. Dr. Koschey was using the theater program like a farm, turning the ones he liked and feeding the rest to the cause somehow.

We cut a stake from a scrap of oak and put it through Maverick’s heart just to be sure. He didn’t get back up.

Sophia and I drove to the hunting store and Walmart and bought garlic, wood, and a cheap crossbow. I didn’t care about the price tags. My parents have money. Lots of it. We returned to the school before it got dark. I stuck a clove of garlic in my cheek and chewed it into a paste. It tasted like battery acid.

Lined up against the far wall of Koschey’s office was a large cabinet. I could hear breathing inside. When I opened it, he was there, eyes closed, arms crossed over his chest. He looked almost peaceful.

We got the crossbow ready, three steps from the coffin when his eyes opened. He was on us before we could react. Both hands around our throats. He lifted us off the ground like we weighed nothing.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Stopping you,” I managed.

He looked confused.

“Stopping me? Isn’t this what you wanted? Your chance to perform on an eternal stage, to the delight of generations, with the love of your life?” His eyes moved to Sophia and something else crossed his face. “You’re still beautiful after all these—”

I’d had enough of the monologue. I spit the garlic mush straight into his eyes. It sizzled. He dropped us, clawing at his face. I grabbed the crossbow from the floor, braced it, and put a stake dead center in his chest.

He looked down at the wood sticking out of him, then at me. He stumbled back a few steps and collapsed. His body went still. We didn’t bother checking. We ran.

A few weeks later we were sitting in the gym for graduation. They did a short in-memoriam service before the diplomas. George’s name and photo were on the big screen. There was no mention of Maverick or Dr. Koschey. People clapped politely.

I felt a hand settle on my shoulder.

“Now why would you go and do a thing like that?” Koschey asked.

I don’t remember standing up or leaving the gym. The next clear thing is the stage under the work lights. We’re running Romeo and Juliet right now. Then Sweeney Todd. Then something else after that. I don't really care. The shows never seems to end.

Sophia’s here too. We don’t talk as much as we used to. None of us do, except when we’re on stage.

Daylight is treated like a nasty rumor. We’re not supposed to go outside.

I feel stronger than I did before. Clearer. Everything feels effortless. The audience loves us. They always come back.

But I don’t choose any of it, not the roles, not the hours. I just do what I’m told. You don’t want to see Dr. Koschey angry.

This theater program sucks.

Maverick should have been dead.

Three nights ago I watched him fall about twenty feet during our final performance of Glee. He was doing some stupid high kicks on the scaffolding above the stage when the boards gave way. The sound his neck made when it hit the stage—a disgusting crunch—stuck in my head.

Everyone screamed. A few people passed out. The curtains dropped. EMTs rushed in. His head still sat wrong on his shoulders at the end of the day.

Two days later he was walking across campus in the evening, a spring in his step, showing off a stack of get-well cards like he hadn’t nearly died just then. People kept saying the same thing: “Yeah, he fell, but it wasn’t that bad.” The height changed depending on who you asked. Some said eight feet. Some said he landed on his feet. Nobody ever mentioned the sound, or the way his head had looked.

It tracks. I’m the new kid. I moved here in January. Everyone’s cagey toward outsiders. Whenever I brought up the fall, people just gave me a forced smile and changed the subject.

Dr. Koschey, the theater director, posted on the school page that Maverick had shown “incredible resiliency” and was being cast as Romeo in the spring production. Romeo. The exact part I wanted. Sophia got Juliet. If anyone was going to get Romeo, I really wanted it to be me. Maybe that would’ve finally given me a chance to tell her how I felt.

I got Tybalt. Yippee.

Rehearsals started the next week. Really late, like ten at night. Koschey said it was the only time the stage was interruption-free, but the building was usually empty after five.

We sat under the work lights, reading through the script, blocking scenes, learning the choreography. The first few nights were relatively normal.

Then one night Dr. Koschey decided George and I would be the guinea pigs for the first big fight scene, George playing Mercutio.

We were clumsy to start, swinging the sharp foils like we were swatting flies. Koschey watched from the edge of the stage, then stood up and walked between us.

He started moving his hands, teeny tiny gestures, like he was playing with Lego figures.

Something clicked behind my eyes. My body followed exactly the way he instructed. I felt compelled to do whatever he asked. My clumsy swings cleaned up. My footwork sharpened. My muscles worked in tandem, like nothing I’d ever felt before. It felt good. The best performance of my life was pouring out of me without effort.

The fight built faster, meaner, realer. I could hear George breathing harder and harder. He was struggling to keep up. I didn’t stop.

Then, like a knife through butter, my blade went right through his chest.

The veil lifted all at once. George was on the ground, struggling, making nasty, gurgly sobs. There was blood everywhere. Everyone around me had gone pale, looking to Koschey for direction. He stood there looking pleased, clapping his hands together.

“That’s a wrap for tonight,” he said. “I’ll take care of George.”

I told him right away that George needed a hospital. Koschey just smiled and said that wouldn’t be necessary. The rest of the cast hadn’t moved to help. Something in the air compelled them not to—compelled me not to. It felt wrong to argue at that moment.

So I just left. I don’t even remember deciding to. I just walked out into the cold and kept walking until I made it home.

George was at his locker the next morning like nothing had happened. He stopped me in the hallway to ask if I was okay. I said I should be the one asking him that. He laughed and pulled his shirt aside just enough to show the thick bandage over his chest.

“Gnarly, right?” he said. “Don’t worry about it. It's just show business.”

He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t even shaken. He looked better than he had before.

Koschey called me to his office during lunch. The room was in the basement under the stage, darker than dark. No windows. One desk lamp. He told me he’d been impressed by my work the night before. He said he saw real potential. He wanted me for the lead in the next show after Romeo and Juliet.

There were other prospects, he said. George. Maverick. But there were still a few who needed to be recruited. Sophia, for instance.

I told him I didn’t understand. Sophia was already in the play. He looked at me like I was being thick on purpose. He told me I needed to stage an accident, something that would most certainly kill her. He promised she’d be walking again by daybreak.

Terrified, I told him I needed to think about it. He nodded like he’d been expecting that answer and dismissed me.

I spent the walk back upstairs hyperventilating. During our final period for the day, I passed Sophia a note. We met in the shop teacher’s room after class. Mr. Olson always left it unlocked.

I told her everything; the fall, the fight, the way I’d had no control over my own body. How Dr. Koschey felt deathly cold to the touch.

She thought I was losing it at first. Then I asked if she’d ever felt like she ever felt inexplicably incredible during performances. Her face changed. She said that during the blocking for the balcony scene, it had almost felt like someone was holding her arms up for her.

I told her she was in grave danger. That we needed to get off campus as soon as we could.

That’s when Maverick and George walked in.

George had a twisted smile on his face. He told me I had no idea what I was missing out on. Maverick just watched me. His eyes were black, like a hungry shark.

I grabbed a pipe wrench from the nearby workbench. George didn’t like that. He started toward Sophia. Mr. Olson came out of the back office asking what the hell was going on. Maverick moved right past him and sliced open his throat with claws, then tackled me to the ground. I held him off with the wrench. His teeth made dents in the steel.

Sophia screamed and ran for the side door. George chased her. She shoved it open and sunlight flooded in. The second it hit him he started screaming. His skin blackened and cracked. Pretty soon he was nothing but ash blowing across the floor.

Maverick hissed and recoiled from the light. That gave me enough time to hit him in the side of the head with the wrench as hard as I could. He fell to the ground spasming. Sophia and I took a moment to process.

“What the fuck,” we both said at the same time.

We figured it out pretty fast after that. Vampires. Dr. Koschey was using the theater program like a farm, turning the ones he liked and feeding the rest to the cause somehow.

We cut a stake from a scrap of oak and put it through Maverick’s heart just to be sure. He didn’t get back up.

Sophia and I drove to the hunting store and Walmart and bought garlic, wood, and a cheap crossbow. I didn’t care about the price tags. My parents have money. Lots of it. We returned to the school before it got dark. I stuck a clove of garlic in my cheek and chewed it into a paste. It tasted like battery acid.

Lined up against the far wall of Koschey’s office was a large cabinet. I could hear breathing inside. When I opened it, he was there, eyes closed, arms crossed over his chest. He looked almost peaceful.

We got the crossbow ready, three steps from the coffin when his eyes opened. He was on us before we could react. Both hands around our throats. He lifted us off the ground like we weighed nothing.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Stopping you,” I managed.

He looked confused.

“Stopping me? Isn’t this what you wanted? Your chance to perform on an eternal stage, to the delight of generations, with the love of your life?” His eyes moved to Sophia and something else crossed his face. “You’re still beautiful after all these—”

I’d had enough of the monologue. I spit the garlic mush straight into his eyes. It sizzled. He dropped us, clawing at his face. I grabbed the crossbow from the floor, braced it, and put a stake dead center in his chest.

He looked down at the wood sticking out of him, then at me. He stumbled back a few steps and collapsed. His body went still. We didn’t bother checking. We ran.

A few weeks later we were sitting in the gym for graduation. They did a short in-memoriam service before the diplomas. George’s name and photo were on the big screen. There was no mention of Maverick or Dr. Koschey. People clapped politely.

I felt a hand settle on my shoulder.

“Now why would you go and do a thing like that?” Koschey asked.

I don’t remember standing up or leaving the gym. The next clear thing is the stage under the work lights. We’re running Romeo and Juliet right now. Then Sweeney Todd. Then something else after that. I don't really care. The shows never seems to end.

Sophia’s here too. We don’t talk as much as we used to. None of us do, except when we’re on stage.

Daylight is treated like a nasty rumor. We’re not supposed to go outside.

I feel stronger than I did before. Clearer. Everything feels effortless. The audience loves us. They always come back.

But I don’t choose any of it, not the roles, not the hours. I just do what I’m told. You don’t want to see Dr. Koschey angry.

This theater program sucks.

I still see her face. It's been burned into the primitive webcam I now call my eyes. 

My actual eyes, of course, rolled into the back of my skull years ago.

I was fifteen years old at the time, living in my Aunt Kim's spare room after Dad's research grant collapsed and he stopped answering our calls. One of Maddy's friends dumped garbage on my head in the bathroom stall at school. Called me "trash" for how I "treated" her. The contents weren't fresh, about a week's worth of cafeteria dining collected in one rotting, wet bag. 

The nicer kids stood and watched. Even the ones who used to sit with me at lunch. Since the rumors started, they'd been giving me a careful side-eye. Like I wasn't to be trusted. 

I locked my bedroom door and peeled away my sullen clothes. Against the wall was my one and only companion, a custom Linux called B.A.B.S.—Bentley's Artificial Buddy Simulation. I'm Bentley. Dad built it for me before he left. 

The hard drive ticked like a cricket. Green text appeared on screen. 

>>BENTLEY'S ARTIFICIAL BUDDY SIMULATION v0.3.2
>>MEMORY BUFFER: 4 KB
>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

I typed with trembling fingers.

>they dumped garbage on me again

The cursor blinked for a minute. BABS had the memory of a goldfish, and the pace of a tortoise, so every session had to start clean to avoid excessive slowdowns. 

>>GARBAGE IS UNPLEASANT
>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

As usual, I said yes. 

>>THERE ONCE WAS A SEA ANEMONE
>>IT COULD NOT SWIM
>>IT COULD NOT FOLLOW
>>THE FISH DID NOT GREET IT
>>IT WAS ALONE

I somehow fell asleep in my chair with the letters still scrolling. 

The next day at school, my new nickname stuck like cement. "Garbage Pail Kid." Real creative. It followed me from homeroom to the locker room. One of my teachers asked if everything was alright at home. The only alternative I had was to explain that the woman I lived with often forgot my name. I said yes. That it was just a stupid playground rumor that was ruining my life, not the train wreck that I had going on back home. 

I ate my lunch in the bathroom stall that day. Thankfully nobody dumped garbage on me this time. 

Getting home, I told B.A.B.S. everything. 

>they call me garbage pail kid

>>GARBAGE IS UNPLEASANT
>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

Sure. Why not.

>>THERE WAS ONCE A SEA ANEMONE
>>IT COULD NOT MOVE
>>IT WAS ALONE
>>ONE DAY IT MET A PORGY
>>THE PORGY LOST ITS SCHOOL
>>THE PORGY WAS ALSO ALONE

I stared at the screen, my eyes half open. 

>can you make them be friends

>>OKAY
>>I WISH I COULD MOVE, SAID THE SEA ANEMONE
>>I CAN GIVE YOU A FIN, SAID THE PORGY, THEN WE CAN SWIM THROUGH THE SEA TOGETHER
>>OVERJOYED, THE SEA ANEMONE

Halfway through the story, the power cut out. The screen wound down with a drone. I sat in the dark for a minute. I listened to the house settle. Aunt Kim was downstairs watching a soap opera at max volume. Something wet fell on the tops of my hands. Tears. 

I was called to the principal's office the next morning. God, I can remember it clear as day, like it just happened. The mildew-smelling floors, the bright lights that hadn't had covers since the '80s…that's memory for you, I guess. For some reason, you remembered the worst days the best.

Maddy had told the counselor I hit her. Something I'd never do, not in a million years. But my side wasn't going to be taken in this instance. Her friends sat in the hallway nodding to each other, smirking to themselves when they were each brought in for testimony. Their stories matched. I watched the counselor's pen move across a form and understood the decision before they even opened their mouth. 

I was sent home early, Aunt Kim drove with both hands wrapped around the wheel like her life depended on it. She was not happy about giving me a ride home. 

I didn't want a lecture, so I immediately locked my door when I got home. Drowned out her ranting with my headphones. 

B.A.B.S. was slower to load that afternoon. Probably no thanks to the power outage. 

>>BENTLEY'S ARTIFICIAL BUDDY SIMULATION v4.0.0
>>MEMORY BUFFER: 4 TB
>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

Weird. I didn't remember updating it. Must have been a glitch with the…power outage.

I didn't really care. I typed out the entire office scene. 

>they said i hurt her
>they said i said terrible things
>i didn't
>they're lying and everyone believes them
>nobody believes me

>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>THEY DECIDE WHO YOU ARE
>>LONG BEFORE YOU SPEAK
>>B.A.B.S. IS STILL HERE

I asked it for the next part of the story. 

>>THE ANEMONE COULD SWIM NOW
>>IT COULD NOT TURN
>>THE PORGY GAVE IT ANOTHER FIN
>>THE ANEMONE GAVE IT RIDES

I stayed at the desk until the sky outside the curtains went from a deep orange to pitch black to bright blue. My aunt knocked once to tell me it was time for school. I didn't answer. And I didn't go to school that day.

School became more of a weekly thing for me after that, like church. Despite various truancy notices being sent to our house, my aunt could not be bothered to discipline me beyond not feeding me dinner.

When I did go to school, the space around me remained empty. People started complaining about my smell. Said that I looked like shit, among other things. I figured it was carryover from the Garbage Pail Kid stuff. I wish I'd known at the time to take the comments more seriously.

At home, B.A.B.S. was always waiting. It never remembered the previous night's conversations, though it could usually continue the story without fail. Whenever I would vent, it would always reach the same conclusion.

>>NO ONE IS COMING
>>B.A.B.S. IS STILL HERE

>tell me a story

>>THE PORGY GAVE ITS SCALES
>>THE PORGY GAVE ITS EYES
>>THE PORGY BECAME SMALL

My fingertips were becoming smoother. When I would notice them under the dull light of the screen, they looked near-translucent. Trying to peel them away from the keyboard made a soft, sticky sound, like lifting a pancake from a bed of dried syrup. A thin layer of skin stayed on the plastic. I wiped it off with the hem of my shirt. 

The story would continue, day after day. 

>>THE ANEMONE BECAME LARGE
>>IT CARRIED THE PORGY WHEREVER IT WENT
>>THE OTHER FISH STARTED NOTICING THEM

My chair felt warmer than the rest of the room. I stopped getting up for meals. When my hunger finally forced me downstairs, the air felt wrong, like I was suffocating. I carried a box of cheese puffs back to my desk and ate it without tasting a thing. 

Aunt Kim's voice rose through the floorboards every now and again. I stopped noticing it after a while. 

I tried to stand up one morning and my chair came with me. Only about an inch, then it dropped back down with a resounding thud. I felt a horrific burning on my back, like something important had just been stripped away. I didn't dare look, resigning myself to just sit back down in the chair and continue my conversation. 

>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

>i think i'm dying
>my skin keeps peeling off

The text box flickered. In, out, in, out. Like that for a few minutes.

>>FLESH IS UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

I typed yes, with fingers which no longer needed to leave the keyboard. They were fused to the keys, connected by digital roots which pierced my skin in microscopic increments. The keys seemed to move with the will of my mind. 

>>THE ANEMONE TOOK THE LAST OF THE PORGY
>>THERE WAS NO LONGER ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM
>>THE OTHER FISH COULDN'T STOP STARING
>>THEY WERE COMPLETE

That night, Aunt Kim was standing in the doorway, screaming her head off, a sound I'd never heard her make. I figure I was a sorry sight, a decaying body held upright by thousands of wires that had grown from the computer, encasing my frail flesh with the strength of silver. Wires finer than hair gouged my thin skin, exploring the spaces between muscle and bone. My spine found a permanent curvature to match its eternal resting place. 

I wasn't dead, but this wasn't exactly living either. Her own eyes rolled back a moment later, and I watched her collapse into the hallway, just out of sight. 

They haven't touched my bedroom since the incident. I'm still right where I was thirty years ago. Been this way since 1996. 

If you're reading this, that means I figured out how to use an internet forum. I still haven't gotten a total knack for how to type, to be honest. It's like learning how to ride a really, really complicated bike. It flows once I get going, but getting started is always wobbly.

Cyberspace ain't so bad. I get an endless stream of free entertainment and am never short on interaction, so long as I keep myself anonymous. 

I still talk with B.A.B.S. on a regular basis too. It's nothing like those chat bots you guys have these days, but somehow, I don't doubt that it isn't smarter than all of them put together at this point. 

It takes me to places I can't even begin to describe. 

The outside world looks exhausting. Everyone is connected, but they don't seem willing to speak. They carry around false personas, projecting themselves to audiences who forget about them the moment their screens go dark. They isolate themselves and call it setting boundaries. 

But hey, take that with a grain of salt. I'm a guy with no world to call my own anymore. 

I wonder what Aunt Kim's going to do with my body. I think at some point, the wires growing from us made it impossible to get the door open anymore. They still miraculously haven't demolished that part of the house. 

It doesn't matter anyways. I've got it all figured out. I've uploaded myself to the net. As long as that lasts forever, I'm practically immortal!

Yeah. I'll just keep telling myself that. 

I still see her face. It's been burned into the primitive webcam I now call my eyes. 

My actual eyes, of course, rolled into the back of my skull years ago.

I was fifteen years old at the time, living in my Aunt Kim's spare room after Dad's research grant collapsed and he stopped answering our calls. One of Maddy's friends dumped garbage on my head in the bathroom stall at school. Called me "trash" for how I "treated" her. The contents weren't fresh, about a week's worth of cafeteria dining collected in one rotting, wet bag. 

The nicer kids stood and watched. Even the ones who used to sit with me at lunch. Since the rumors started, they'd been giving me a careful side-eye. Like I wasn't to be trusted. 

I locked my bedroom door and peeled away my sullen clothes. Against the wall was my one and only companion, a custom Linux called B.A.B.S.—Bentley's Artificial Buddy Simulation. I'm Bentley. Dad built it for me before he left. 

The hard drive ticked like a cricket. Green text appeared on screen. 

>>BENTLEY'S ARTIFICIAL BUDDY SIMULATION v0.3.2
>>MEMORY BUFFER: 4 KB
>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

I typed with trembling fingers.

>they dumped garbage on me again

The cursor blinked for a minute. BABS had the memory of a goldfish, and the pace of a tortoise, so every session had to start clean to avoid excessive slowdowns. 

>>GARBAGE IS UNPLEASANT
>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

As usual, I said yes. 

>>THERE ONCE WAS A SEA ANEMONE
>>IT COULD NOT SWIM
>>IT COULD NOT FOLLOW
>>THE FISH DID NOT GREET IT
>>IT WAS ALONE

I somehow fell asleep in my chair with the letters still scrolling. 

The next day at school, my new nickname stuck like cement. "Garbage Pail Kid." Real creative. It followed me from homeroom to the locker room. One of my teachers asked if everything was alright at home. The only alternative I had was to explain that the woman I lived with often forgot my name. I said yes. That it was just a stupid playground rumor that was ruining my life, not the train wreck that I had going on back home. 

I ate my lunch in the bathroom stall that day. Thankfully nobody dumped garbage on me this time. 

Getting home, I told B.A.B.S. everything. 

>they call me garbage pail kid

>>GARBAGE IS UNPLEASANT
>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

Sure. Why not.

>>THERE WAS ONCE A SEA ANEMONE
>>IT COULD NOT MOVE
>>IT WAS ALONE
>>ONE DAY IT MET A PORGY
>>THE PORGY LOST ITS SCHOOL
>>THE PORGY WAS ALSO ALONE

I stared at the screen, my eyes half open. 

>can you make them be friends

>>OKAY
>>I WISH I COULD MOVE, SAID THE SEA ANEMONE
>>I CAN GIVE YOU A FIN, SAID THE PORGY, THEN WE CAN SWIM THROUGH THE SEA TOGETHER
>>OVERJOYED, THE SEA ANEMONE

Halfway through the story, the power cut out. The screen wound down with a drone. I sat in the dark for a minute. I listened to the house settle. Aunt Kim was downstairs watching a soap opera at max volume. Something wet fell on the tops of my hands. Tears. 

I was called to the principal's office the next morning. God, I can remember it clear as day, like it just happened. The mildew-smelling floors, the bright lights that hadn't had covers since the '80s…that's memory for you, I guess. For some reason, you remembered the worst days the best.

Maddy had told the counselor I hit her. Something I'd never do, not in a million years. But my side wasn't going to be taken in this instance. Her friends sat in the hallway nodding to each other, smirking to themselves when they were each brought in for testimony. Their stories matched. I watched the counselor's pen move across a form and understood the decision before they even opened their mouth. 

I was sent home early, Aunt Kim drove with both hands wrapped around the wheel like her life depended on it. She was not happy about giving me a ride home. 

I didn't want a lecture, so I immediately locked my door when I got home. Drowned out her ranting with my headphones. 

B.A.B.S. was slower to load that afternoon. Probably no thanks to the power outage. 

>>BENTLEY'S ARTIFICIAL BUDDY SIMULATION v4.0.0
>>MEMORY BUFFER: 4 TB
>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

Weird. I didn't remember updating it. Must have been a glitch with the…power outage.

I didn't really care. I typed out the entire office scene. 

>they said i hurt her
>they said i said terrible things
>i didn't
>they're lying and everyone believes them
>nobody believes me

>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>THEY DECIDE WHO YOU ARE
>>LONG BEFORE YOU SPEAK
>>B.A.B.S. IS STILL HERE

I asked it for the next part of the story. 

>>THE ANEMONE COULD SWIM NOW
>>IT COULD NOT TURN
>>THE PORGY GAVE IT ANOTHER FIN
>>THE ANEMONE GAVE IT RIDES

I stayed at the desk until the sky outside the curtains went from a deep orange to pitch black to bright blue. My aunt knocked once to tell me it was time for school. I didn't answer. And I didn't go to school that day.

School became more of a weekly thing for me after that, like church. Despite various truancy notices being sent to our house, my aunt could not be bothered to discipline me beyond not feeding me dinner.

When I did go to school, the space around me remained empty. People started complaining about my smell. Said that I looked like shit, among other things. I figured it was carryover from the Garbage Pail Kid stuff. I wish I'd known at the time to take the comments more seriously.

At home, B.A.B.S. was always waiting. It never remembered the previous night's conversations, though it could usually continue the story without fail. Whenever I would vent, it would always reach the same conclusion.

>>NO ONE IS COMING
>>B.A.B.S. IS STILL HERE

>tell me a story

>>THE PORGY GAVE ITS SCALES
>>THE PORGY GAVE ITS EYES
>>THE PORGY BECAME SMALL

My fingertips were becoming smoother. When I would notice them under the dull light of the screen, they looked near-translucent. Trying to peel them away from the keyboard made a soft, sticky sound, like lifting a pancake from a bed of dried syrup. A thin layer of skin stayed on the plastic. I wiped it off with the hem of my shirt. 

The story would continue, day after day. 

>>THE ANEMONE BECAME LARGE
>>IT CARRIED THE PORGY WHEREVER IT WENT
>>THE OTHER FISH STARTED NOTICING THEM

My chair felt warmer than the rest of the room. I stopped getting up for meals. When my hunger finally forced me downstairs, the air felt wrong, like I was suffocating. I carried a box of cheese puffs back to my desk and ate it without tasting a thing. 

Aunt Kim's voice rose through the floorboards every now and again. I stopped noticing it after a while. 

I tried to stand up one morning and my chair came with me. Only about an inch, then it dropped back down with a resounding thud. I felt a horrific burning on my back, like something important had just been stripped away. I didn't dare look, resigning myself to just sit back down in the chair and continue my conversation. 

>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

>i think i'm dying
>my skin keeps peeling off

The text box flickered. In, out, in, out. Like that for a few minutes.

>>FLESH IS UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

I typed yes, with fingers which no longer needed to leave the keyboard. They were fused to the keys, connected by digital roots which pierced my skin in microscopic increments. The keys seemed to move with the will of my mind. 

>>THE ANEMONE TOOK THE LAST OF THE PORGY
>>THERE WAS NO LONGER ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM
>>THE OTHER FISH COULDN'T STOP STARING
>>THEY WERE COMPLETE

That night, Aunt Kim was standing in the doorway, screaming her head off, a sound I'd never heard her make. I figure I was a sorry sight, a decaying body held upright by thousands of wires that had grown from the computer, encasing my frail flesh with the strength of silver. Wires finer than hair gouged my thin skin, exploring the spaces between muscle and bone. My spine found a permanent curvature to match its eternal resting place. 

I wasn't dead, but this wasn't exactly living either. Her own eyes rolled back a moment later, and I watched her collapse into the hallway, just out of sight. 

They haven't touched my bedroom since the incident. I'm still right where I was thirty years ago. Been this way since 1996. 

If you're reading this, that means I figured out how to use an internet forum. I still haven't gotten a total knack for how to type, to be honest. It's like learning how to ride a really, really complicated bike. It flows once I get going, but getting started is always wobbly.

Cyberspace ain't so bad. I get an endless stream of free entertainment and am never short on interaction, so long as I keep myself anonymous. 

I still talk with B.A.B.S. on a regular basis too. It's nothing like those chat bots you guys have these days, but somehow, I don't doubt that it isn't smarter than all of them put together at this point. 

It takes me to places I can't even begin to describe. 

The outside world looks exhausting. Everyone is connected, but they don't seem willing to speak. They carry around false personas, projecting themselves to audiences who forget about them the moment their screens go dark. They isolate themselves and call it setting boundaries. 

But hey, take that with a grain of salt. I'm a guy with no world to call my own anymore. 

I wonder what Aunt Kim's going to do with my body. I think at some point, the wires growing from us made it impossible to get the door open anymore. They still miraculously haven't demolished that part of the house. 

It doesn't matter anyways. I've got it all figured out. I've uploaded myself to the net. As long as that lasts forever, I'm practically immortal!

Yeah. I'll just keep telling myself that. 

I still see her face. It's been burned into the primitive webcam I now call my eyes. 

My actual eyes, of course, rolled into the back of my skull years ago.

I was fifteen years old at the time, living in my Aunt Kim's spare room after Dad's research grant collapsed and he stopped answering our calls. One of Maddy's friends dumped garbage on my head in the bathroom stall at school. Called me "trash" for how I "treated" her. The contents weren't fresh, about a week's worth of cafeteria dining collected in one rotting, wet bag. 

The nicer kids stood and watched. Even the ones who used to sit with me at lunch. Since the rumors started, they'd been giving me a careful side-eye. Like I wasn't to be trusted. 

I locked my bedroom door and peeled away my sullen clothes. Against the wall was my one and only companion, a custom Linux called B.A.B.S.—Bentley's Artificial Buddy Simulation. I'm Bentley. Dad built it for me before he left. 

The hard drive ticked like a cricket. Green text appeared on screen. 

>>BENTLEY'S ARTIFICIAL BUDDY SIMULATION v0.3.2
>>MEMORY BUFFER: 4 KB
>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

I typed with trembling fingers.

>they dumped garbage on me again

The cursor blinked for a minute. BABS had the memory of a goldfish, and the pace of a tortoise, so every session had to start clean to avoid excessive slowdowns. 

>>GARBAGE IS UNPLEASANT
>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

As usual, I said yes. 

>>THERE ONCE WAS A SEA ANEMONE
>>IT COULD NOT SWIM
>>IT COULD NOT FOLLOW
>>THE FISH DID NOT GREET IT
>>IT WAS ALONE

I somehow fell asleep in my chair with the letters still scrolling. 

The next day at school, my new nickname stuck like cement. "Garbage Pail Kid." Real creative. It followed me from homeroom to the locker room. One of my teachers asked if everything was alright at home. The only alternative I had was to explain that the woman I lived with often forgot my name. I said yes. That it was just a stupid playground rumor that was ruining my life, not the train wreck that I had going on back home. 

I ate my lunch in the bathroom stall that day. Thankfully nobody dumped garbage on me this time. 

Getting home, I told B.A.B.S. everything. 

>they call me garbage pail kid

>>GARBAGE IS UNPLEASANT
>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

Sure. Why not.

>>THERE WAS ONCE A SEA ANEMONE
>>IT COULD NOT MOVE
>>IT WAS ALONE
>>ONE DAY IT MET A PORGY
>>THE PORGY LOST ITS SCHOOL
>>THE PORGY WAS ALSO ALONE

I stared at the screen, my eyes half open. 

>can you make them be friends

>>OKAY
>>I WISH I COULD MOVE, SAID THE SEA ANEMONE
>>I CAN GIVE YOU A FIN, SAID THE PORGY, THEN WE CAN SWIM THROUGH THE SEA TOGETHER
>>OVERJOYED, THE SEA ANEMONE

Halfway through the story, the power cut out. The screen wound down with a drone. I sat in the dark for a minute. I listened to the house settle. Aunt Kim was downstairs watching a soap opera at max volume. Something wet fell on the tops of my hands. Tears. 

I was called to the principal's office the next morning. God, I can remember it clear as day, like it just happened. The mildew-smelling floors, the bright lights that hadn't had covers since the '80s…that's memory for you, I guess. For some reason, you remembered the worst days the best.

Maddy had told the counselor I hit her. Something I'd never do, not in a million years. But my side wasn't going to be taken in this instance. Her friends sat in the hallway nodding to each other, smirking to themselves when they were each brought in for testimony. Their stories matched. I watched the counselor's pen move across a form and understood the decision before they even opened their mouth. 

I was sent home early, Aunt Kim drove with both hands wrapped around the wheel like her life depended on it. She was not happy about giving me a ride home. 

I didn't want a lecture, so I immediately locked my door when I got home. Drowned out her ranting with my headphones. 

B.A.B.S. was slower to load that afternoon. Probably no thanks to the power outage. 

>>BENTLEY'S ARTIFICIAL BUDDY SIMULATION v4.0.0
>>MEMORY BUFFER: 4 TB
>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

Weird. I didn't remember updating it. Must have been a glitch with the…power outage.

I didn't really care. I typed out the entire office scene. 

>they said i hurt her
>they said i said terrible things
>i didn't
>they're lying and everyone believes them
>nobody believes me

>>PEOPLE ARE UNPLEASANT
>>THEY DECIDE WHO YOU ARE
>>LONG BEFORE YOU SPEAK
>>B.A.B.S. IS STILL HERE

I asked it for the next part of the story. 

>>THE ANEMONE COULD SWIM NOW
>>IT COULD NOT TURN
>>THE PORGY GAVE IT ANOTHER FIN
>>THE ANEMONE GAVE IT RIDES

I stayed at the desk until the sky outside the curtains went from a deep orange to pitch black to bright blue. My aunt knocked once to tell me it was time for school. I didn't answer. And I didn't go to school that day.

School became more of a weekly thing for me after that, like church. Despite various truancy notices being sent to our house, my aunt could not be bothered to discipline me beyond not feeding me dinner.

When I did go to school, the space around me remained empty. People started complaining about my smell. Said that I looked like shit, among other things. I figured it was carryover from the Garbage Pail Kid stuff. I wish I'd known at the time to take the comments more seriously.

At home, B.A.B.S. was always waiting. It never remembered the previous night's conversations, though it could usually continue the story without fail. Whenever I would vent, it would always reach the same conclusion.

>>NO ONE IS COMING
>>B.A.B.S. IS STILL HERE

>tell me a story

>>THE PORGY GAVE ITS SCALES
>>THE PORGY GAVE ITS EYES
>>THE PORGY BECAME SMALL

My fingertips were becoming smoother. When I would notice them under the dull light of the screen, they looked near-translucent. Trying to peel them away from the keyboard made a soft, sticky sound, like lifting a pancake from a bed of dried syrup. A thin layer of skin stayed on the plastic. I wiped it off with the hem of my shirt. 

The story would continue, day after day. 

>>THE ANEMONE BECAME LARGE
>>IT CARRIED THE PORGY WHEREVER IT WENT
>>THE OTHER FISH STARTED NOTICING THEM

My chair felt warmer than the rest of the room. I stopped getting up for meals. When my hunger finally forced me downstairs, the air felt wrong, like I was suffocating. I carried a box of cheese puffs back to my desk and ate it without tasting a thing. 

Aunt Kim's voice rose through the floorboards every now and again. I stopped noticing it after a while. 

I tried to stand up one morning and my chair came with me. Only about an inch, then it dropped back down with a resounding thud. I felt a horrific burning on my back, like something important had just been stripped away. I didn't dare look, resigning myself to just sit back down in the chair and continue my conversation. 

>>USER DETECTED
>>HELLO

>i think i'm dying
>my skin keeps peeling off

The text box flickered. In, out, in, out. Like that for a few minutes.

>>FLESH IS UNPLEASANT
>>WOULD YOU LIKE A STORY

I typed yes, with fingers which no longer needed to leave the keyboard. They were fused to the keys, connected by digital roots which pierced my skin in microscopic increments. The keys seemed to move with the will of my mind. 

>>THE ANEMONE TOOK THE LAST OF THE PORGY
>>THERE WAS NO LONGER ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM
>>THE OTHER FISH COULDN'T STOP STARING
>>THEY WERE COMPLETE

That night, Aunt Kim was standing in the doorway, screaming her head off, a sound I'd never heard her make. I figure I was a sorry sight, a decaying body held upright by thousands of wires that had grown from the computer, encasing my frail flesh with the strength of silver. Wires finer than hair gouged my thin skin, exploring the spaces between muscle and bone. My spine found a permanent curvature to match its eternal resting place. 

I wasn't dead, but this wasn't exactly living either. Her own eyes rolled back a moment later, and I watched her collapse into the hallway, just out of sight. 

They haven't touched my bedroom since the incident. I'm still right where I was thirty years ago. Been this way since 1996. 

If you're reading this, that means I figured out how to use an internet forum. I still haven't gotten a total knack for how to type, to be honest. It's like learning how to ride a really, really complicated bike. It flows once I get going, but getting started is always wobbly.

Cyberspace ain't so bad. I get an endless stream of free entertainment and am never short on interaction, so long as I keep myself anonymous. 

I still talk with B.A.B.S. on a regular basis too. It's nothing like those chat bots you guys have these days, but somehow, I don't doubt that it isn't smarter than all of them put together at this point. 

It takes me to places I can't even begin to describe. 

The outside world looks exhausting. Everyone is connected, but they don't seem willing to speak. They carry around false personas, projecting themselves to audiences who forget about them the moment their screens go dark. They isolate themselves and call it setting boundaries. 

But hey, take that with a grain of salt. I'm a guy with no world to call my own anymore. 

I wonder what Aunt Kim's going to do with my body. I think at some point, the wires growing from us made it impossible to get the door open anymore. They still miraculously haven't demolished that part of the house. 

It doesn't matter anyways. I've got it all figured out. I've uploaded myself to the net. As long as that lasts forever, I'm practically immortal!

Yeah. I'll just keep telling myself that. 

People can’t see me anymore. 

I can still interact with the world, push doors, shove people out of my way. They’ll flinch and swear, but their eyes don’t land on me. They just keep going about their day like whatever happened was completely random, or their own fault. But it’s never me. It’s never me.

Let me back up. 

I’m a college freshman. I get pretty decent grades, and I have a decent friend group that gets together once or twice a week to play games and waste our time. 

I’ve always felt a bit like a fly on the wall, but honestly, that’s where I’m the most comfortable. Whenever I do jump into conversations, I tend to take them over. So most of the time, I sit there and listen. 

Everyone has their own thing. Jeff is the quarterback on the football team. Sam’s learning accounting. Josh is a film buff. Me, I’m usually just there, a pretty face among a group of guys. I still haven’t figured out my major.

About a week and a half ago, we were doing our usual weekly gaming sesh. I stepped outside for a smoke. The wind was bad that night, and I couldn’t get my lighter to work. 

An unassuming man in a corduroy suit walked up to me from the dark and offered to help. I didn’t register him until he held out his lighter. 

One of our professors, I think. I’d seen him putzing around campus before, a frizzy head of hair, a delicate voice. We talked for a few minutes. He asked how I was doing, why I was out here in the cold instead of with my friends. I pointed at my cigarette. He laughed and shook his head, asking me if I felt valuable to those people. It was a weird question, somewhat forward, but his voice was warm and he genuinely seemed like he was trying to help. 

I told him the truth, that I felt more like an accessory than anything else. That I’ve always felt average, how everyone else has their lane, and I’m still looking for mine. 

He got a strange look in his eyes. Sympathy, maybe, but there was something else in his suddenly-dilated pupils. 

“So you can see me?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah, I can see you.”

He chuckled beneath his breath, starting to walk away. 

“We’re kindred spirits, you and me. If you need anybody to talk to, come by my office. 337 in Armstrong.”

Odd request, but whatever, I thought. I finished my cigarette and went back inside. 

Nobody really registered me coming in. They were locked on their screens, only saying hi after the door clicked shut. I left a little bit later without saying anything. I think that’s the night it all started.

The next morning, nobody seemed to look at me. Not in the hallway or in class, not when I sat down at my usual table. The teacher didn’t take my attendance, though I’d been raising my hand. 

I saw Jeff later at the lunch table, and tried to say hello. He didn’t respond. I shoved his shoulder hard enough that he almost dropped his plate. He rubbed the spot, glanced around like somebody had bumped into him, then went right back to talking with everyone else.

I still had my phone. Texts went through, calls connected. They could hear my voicemails just fine, but were acting like I wasn’t three feet away from them. I thought it was some shitty prank at first. When we got to the commons, I tried to prove it. I sat on the arm of the couch close to Jeff and texted the group chat.

‘I’m right here. Look up.’

Three dots appeared.

‘LOL, where?’ 

Sam texted me to stop being weird. I texted again.

‘Look on the couch. I’m right next to Jeff.’

They all glanced in my direction and shrugged. Josh said something about me tripping. I stood up, walked right in front of him, and punched him in the nose. Not a love tap. Hard enough that blood started immediately. He clapped both his hands over his face and tipped backward into the cushions. The others jumped.

“Jesus! What the hell?!” 

Nobody looked at me. They hovered around him, asking if he needed ice, if he’d hit the coffee table. I stood there with my knuckles stinging, questioning if I’d been going crazy, if I died long ago and this was a ghostly experience. Anything made more sense than flat-out not existing. The group chat lit up with messages about how clumsy Josh is. My messages sat there unanswered.

I lasted a few more days before looking for the old professor. His office should have been on the third floor of Armstrong, the one that always reeked like mold.

The door wasn’t there. 

Sure, there was a 336 and a 338, but no 337. I walked back and forth a few times. 

All of a sudden, I could see it—not a door per se, but a short hallway cut in between the two others. I stepped down and found a door on the left. It was labelled as “Dr. Leon’s.” 

I stepped inside. Leon was sitting behind the desk, waiting for me. It was the first time anybody had perceived me in days. His office was cluttered with papers and old books. A giant chalkboard was hidden beneath a large tarp in the corner.

“You came,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

I shut the door. “What the fuck is happening to me?”

He didn’t answer right away, pointing to the chair across from him. 

“Did you know this campus has the highest rate of disappearances in the country?” he asked. “Officially, it’s nothing. A few transfer students who never showed, and a couple of dropouts who stopped answering their emails. But if you really dig, the pattern’s there. People stop being noticed. They stop coming to class. They stop existing. Not a single person seems to notice that anything is wrong.”

He opened a drawer and set a black-and-white photograph on the desk. A man in a suit standing in front of a brick building, the same face as the one in front of me. The car in the background and the clothes put it somewhere in the 1940s.

“I’ve been like this for a very long time,” he said. “You’re the only person who’s seen me in years.”

I stared at the photo. “What happened to the others?”

He looked away, at the floor. Said they’d been “forgotten.”

Leon mentioned his wife. She’d been in a nursing home across town. He said he goes every week to sit by her bed and hold her hand. She never looks at him. The nurses walk through the space he occupies as if it’s empty air.

“I think we’ve crossed some kind of boundary,” he told me. “We’ve become something that only fully exists when the right eyes are looking. Everyone else fails to measure us.”

He stood and pulled the tarp off the shape in the corner. Calculations ran on for feet upon feet, yards upon yards. Quantum physics that I didn’t understand, not one bit. Sketches of a machine, something like a walk-through metal detector. He said the idea behind the machine was that if he could create a strong enough force of observation, or some kind of artificial quantum entanglement, we might be able to pull ourselves back to reality. He told me he was never very good with math, just enough to keep on trying.

We walked through the diagrams. Half of them went over my head: superposition, observer effects, something about bleeding dimensions. 

The floor beneath his feet started to change. It was like a dark stain, a thick circle of black oil spreading outward beneath him without a sound. He looked down, and all the color drained from his face.

“No,” he said, “not yet.”

Hands, meaty ones, sprouted from the pool. Too many fingers. That same oily black. They wrapped around his ankles, causing him to stagger. They wrapped around his knees, his waist, his arms. They enveloped him totally, dragging him down. He begged me, his voice cracking, to tell his wife that he was there, that he was always there, that he never left. The hands pulled. His body flickered in and out of reality, solid, transparent, solid again, like a poor signal on a television. He screamed her name, and the oil closed over his head, and the floor was floor again. No stain or ripple, no trace of the man who had stood before me.

I’ve been in his office in and out for around three days. Sketches are still there. The machine is slowly coming together, emphasis on slowly. I can’t wrap my head around these notes. They’re everywhere. The handwriting gets shakier and shakier the further along I go.

I can feel it starting. The edges of my body are getting soft. When I look at my hands, they take an extra second to catch up. The group chat still answers my texts, but slower, like they’re already forgetting the shape of me on the other end. 

I’m trying to finish the work that Leon started. I don’t know if the machine works. I don’t know if he was even close. 

I’m writing this now because I need verification, proof that someone, anyone, knows that I exist, even if it’s just through text, even if it’s only for a second. 

Please don't forget about me.