u/ReserveRemarkable730

“Welcome back Creepsters!” The familiar, nasally din of my favorite podcast co-host pumped through my dusty PC speakers. Casting the outline of a shadow on the office wall behind, my monitor’s glaring glow danced around me. All other corners of the cramped room were devoid of light. A smell of body odor mixed with stale pizza hung like a cloud in the air.

“Boy, have we got something special for you today! So, settle in, grab a snack, and be ready… to get creeped.” Co-host number two chimed in with their own gruff cadence, queuing up a mix of ghostly groans and shrill screams that was their opening theme. A chill of excitement ran down my spine.

The view of Scout with his muppet-like expressions and Elijah in his Russian nesting doll mannerisms was always a welcomed reprieve from the monotonous work in front of me. Greasy palms leaving sweat-prints across my keyboard, I typed on and listened. My ears buzzed pleasantly. Phantom Cast never failed to aid me in locking in.

“Oh boy,” Joints popped and creaked as I squirmed in my seat. Jaws stretched, forming a yawn. I had been at it for some time as the story’s narration continued, rear-end sore from constant sitting. My shoulders slouched forward as I craned my neck towards the blinding screen. My eyes burned as their lids pressed together into a squint. The furrow of my brow was so strong, it was verging on a cramp.

Our hosts were on one of their usual tangents, taking a break from the thrilling story in order to make wise cracks. Something about another rattrap… only real fans would understand. Every fiber of my being screamed in exhaustion, deciding it was my turn to rest as well.

“Time for a well-deserved break.” Vocal chords rasped from lack of use.

Chubby fingers smooshed against my phone screen from bottom to top as I scrolled through the Patreon comments. Switching from resting atop my desk to kicking under myself excitedly, it was the majority of movement my legs would get today. Other than the short walk to the bathroom. I chortled with glee every now and again, the office chair beneath me bounced on squeaking springs. Boy, were my fellow Creepsters hilarious.

Until I noticed it. There under the usual ‘Seven Sisters, check in!’ role call:

HereForHorror532 asrc bnji;

More than likely, the user’s cat had slunk across their keyboard, unfortunately hitting the enter key before they could notice or stop it. So, why did my gut sting like the pang of hammering nails? None of the comments beneath provided any explanation or solace. My shoulders crept towards my ears in a shrug. I figured they must have failed to delete it. In any case, it’s not like I could do much to help them.

Popping my head back up to my day job, these thoughts were interrupted by the echoing ring of a Teams call. I stumbled to put my phone down in a mad hurry, clanging it against my desk, and clicked the blue accept icon—the mechanism of my mouse springing to life.

—

I received the all-too-familiar chime of a fresh Patreon notification. In a blur, the work week at hand had whipped by. Unnoticed.

“Sunday already?” I whined, thrusting thin wire frames up the bridge of my nose. My mouse hovered over the ping momentarily, eyes scanning the now dimmed screen. Unsure if I should jump into the newest episode of Phantom Cast now, or wait until the droning of another work week tomorrow, my body buzzed as if poking a wasp nest. As much as I enjoyed my weekly episode, it was an eerie reminder of the corporate desk slavery ahead.

Taking too long to decide, the team chat erupted. Strangers thrust forth message after message in a mad dash to bully me out of AFK mode. The clock was ticking.

DanTheMan420 Come on man! Get your head in the game!

69_Anim3Luv3r_69 Your mom could play better than this…

My body slumped indignantly. Pudgy fingers oscillated nervously between rubbing the crease in my chin and scraping plaque from my yellowing teeth. I was all too familiar with the punishment I’d incur for leaving the game but, the curiosity rising through sedentary bones overpowered my guilt. The game’s audio stopped abruptly and I exited to the lobby. Reverberations of gun shots mixed with various character one liners were replaced with silence. Silence, and the wheezing cacophony of my own breath.

“Now, where was I…?” In a huff, I returned to my notifications. My knee bounced with anticipation, impatient to hear what our hosts had in store this week. But, not too impatient for a chug break. The can of thick, lukewarm, syrupy liquid crinkled in my clammy hand as I lifted it to my lips, smashing the play button with the other. Both vibrated in caffeine fueled suspense.

“Welcome back to Phantom Cast!” I mouthed along with Scout, copying his quirky mannerisms. Though, in a far more jerky and rehearsed manner. Cringing, my heart dropped at the realization I could never be as charismatic as my favorite hosts. “Erm, don’t quit your day job.” With a smirk, my quip fell on an empty room.

Two more minutes until my AFK penalty would be over. I clenched my maw, fists tightening, knuckles turning white with frustration. Being aware of the consequences for my actions didn’t make them any less irritating. Turning towards a familiar time-sink, I began scrolling the comments; hilarious and entertaining as usual.

Suddenly, a familiar name emerged. As if shining brighter than the rest, it caused my eyes to bulge in a panic. My body froze like a doe in headlights.

HereForHorror532 help

Thin hairs upon my pale skin straightened like needles. There was no explaining it away this time. Scrambling through the replies was of no help to me, or the individual requesting it.

CreepyGal123 It’s right behind you… isn’t it?

1of7sisters The creature gotcha, huh?

In any other circumstance, I’d snort with laughter, maybe even join in myself. However, the familiar pang returned to my gut. Stronger this time. The poster filled walls around me were closing in, chest growing tighter, as my vision tunneled. My bespectacled orbs traced over the comment again and again.

Closing out my game in desperation, I turned to the internet for answers. The light of my RGB keyboard cycled over my sweat glistened brow and the clacking of its keys resounded around me. Hours upon hours were spent scouring old Patreon comment sections, YouTube comment sections, and even the sub-Reddit. Nothing. Not a single hint of HereForHorror532 existed before last week’s upload.

A sound like the grinding of boulders traveled from my mandible to my ears and the taste of copper upon my tongue managed to pull me away. My chair squealed noisily against my weight as I leaned back, dizzy with obsession. The tiny quail heart in my chest could hardly take any more.

“This has to be a joke. A prank.” Reasoning with what my mind could not grapple was the only way I could pull this much attention off of it. I felt like a rat, caught in sticky, unforgiving glue. It was already deep into the night and my body felt far too pulled taught to allow for any shuteye. But I figured I’d have to try, or risk falling asleep at my desk the next day.

Fingers thumbing at the edge of my monitor for the power button, the room fell into near darkness. Nothing but the glimmer of the pale moon peeking through shuttered blinds illuminated the dusty, dank room. My eyes stung as the outline of my body stared back from the blackened screen. The bags underneath them tightened, and I leaned forward once more at the realization of another figure. There, behind me, was the jagged outline of another person. Yet, I lived alone.

The figure bent unnaturally, its contour was sharp, but remained motionless. It wasn’t just my breathing that filled the silence anymore.

“What the f-” A week’s worth of used dishes shattered to the floor as I swiveled around. Below me, the wheels of my chair screamed in protest as if it might collapse, and revealed nothing. No one.

Manic laughter ravaged my weary body and I slumped to the floor like an empty sack. I was letting my mind get away from me. And now, I had a mess to clean before I could attempt some meager semblance of sleep.

—

Sitting in another useless end-of-week one-on-one with my manager, their words were muffled under the ringing in my ears. The sound of flies buzzing in and out of the miasma of long since rotted food, newly piled upon my desk. Just as their droning squirmed in and out of my consciousness. Blankly, my deep-set, grey-ringed eyes bore into the screen, but focused on nothing. Only the words ‘letting you go’ snapped me back to reality.

“I’m sorry… what?” My heart jumped into my throat. I began anxiously picking at the skin of my cuticles until blood was drawn.

“Your performance has degraded significantly over the last week. You’ve been written up twice in the past 5 days for focusing on tasks unrelated to your work. We’re going to have to terminate your employment effective immed-” I closed the call, not caring to participate in this dog-and-pony show anymore.

“Pft. Whatever.” I rolled my bloodshot eyes, painfully hard, and scoffed. “I can just find a new job.”

My past few days were, in fact, spent researching HereForHorror532. Fixating, rather than working. Rather than sleeping, for that matter. The few answers I found, only led me to more questions.

I had gone so far as posting in the Phantom Cast sub-Reddit, but ended up deleting the call to action after all.

Help Finding User HereForHorror532

Calling all fellow Creepsters! I’m trying to find this Patreon user. They seem to be in need of some kind of assistance… If you are part of this sub, or know this person PLEASE dm me. I just want to help!

2 down-votes, no comments. Thanks for nothing, fellow Creepsters.

Now it was Sunday. Sitting in front of my screen, nothing more to research, nothing more to hunt down. I waited. As still and stuffy as the air around me, only breaking to lift the pot of coffee I had been drinking to my lips. I had switched from energy drinks, to cups of coffee, to entire pots in no time at all. An attempt to beat the sleepiness encroaching my nerves.

Ding.

“God damn it!” My head nearly hit the ceiling, sucking a sharp stream of air through my teeth as the scalding black liquid splattered onto my lap. Steam rose and the bitter bean aroma filled my nostrils. Grasping at random papers strewn across my desk, I mopped it up lazily.

I jerked around like a clumsy robot with impatience to view the new episode. It took me two or three rabid clicks to finally open it, ignoring the usual host pleasantries. Frenzied fingers clicked the refresh button over and over, waiting for comments to roll in. Minutes on my digital clock ticked by until minutes turned to hours. My gaze grew heavy, eyelids drooping when finally, HereForHorror532 materialized on the screen.

HereForHorror532 If you’re seeing this, it’s too late.

Pummeling my ribcage, my heart backflipped. The smells of the room surrounded me in a nausea-inducing medley. Heat rushed to my ears as my appendages grew numb.

Suddenly, the click of a latch and rusted hinges screaming overcame me. The closet door beside me slowly opened.

“Welcome back Creepsters!” The familiar, nasally din of my favorite podcast co-host pumped through my dusty PC speakers. Casting the outline of a shadow on the office wall behind, my monitor’s glaring glow danced around me. All other corners of the cramped room were devoid of light. A smell of body odor mixed with stale pizza hung like a cloud in the air.

“Boy, have we got something special for you today! So, settle in, grab a snack, and be ready… to get creeped.” Co-host number two chimed in with their own gruff cadence, queuing up a mix of ghostly groans and shrill screams that was their opening theme. A chill of excitement ran down my spine.

The view of Scout with his muppet-like expressions and Elijah in his Russian doll mannerisms was always a welcomed reprieve from the monotonous work in front of me. Greasy palms leaving sweat-prints across my keyboard, I typed on and listened. My ears buzzed pleasantly. Phantom Cast never failed to aid me in locking in.

“Oh boy,” Joints popped and creaked as I squirmed in my seat. Jaws stretched, forming a yawn. I had been at it for some time as the story’s narration continued, rear-end sore from constant sitting. My shoulders slouched forward as I craned my neck towards the blinding screen. My eyes burned as their lids pressed together into a squint. The furrow of my brow was so strong, it was verging on a cramp.

Our hosts were on one of their usual tangents, taking a break from the thrilling story in order to make wise cracks. Something about another rattrap… only real fans would understand. Every fiber of my being screamed in exhaustion, deciding it was my turn to rest as well.

“Time for a well-deserved break.” Vocal chords rasped from lack of use.

Chubby fingers smooshed against my phone screen from bottom to top as I scrolled through the Patreon comments. Switching from resting atop my desk to kicking under myself excitedly, it was the majority of movement my legs would get today. Other than the short walk to the bathroom. I chortled with glee every now and again, the office chair beneath me bounced on squeaking springs. Boy, were my fellow Creepsters hilarious.

Until I noticed it. There under the usual ‘Seven Sisters, check in!’ role call:

HereForHorror532 asrc bnji;

More than likely, the user’s cat had slunk across their keyboard, unfortunately hitting the enter key before they could notice or stop it. So, why did my gut sting like the pang of hammering nails? None of the comments beneath provided any explanation or solace. My shoulders crept towards my ears in a shrug. I figured they must have failed to delete it. In any case, it’s not like I could do much to help them.

Popping my head back up to my day job, these thoughts were interrupted by the echoing ring of a Teams call. I stumbled to put my phone down in a mad hurry, clanging it against my desk, and clicked the blue accept icon—the mechanism of my mouse springing to life.

—

I received the all-too-familiar chime of a fresh Patreon notification. In a blur, the work week at hand had whipped by. Unnoticed.

“Sunday already?” I whined, thrusting thin wire frames up the bridge of my nose. My mouse hovered over the ping momentarily, eyes scanning the now dimmed screen. Unsure if I should jump into the newest episode of Phantom Cast now, or wait until the droning of another work week tomorrow, my body buzzed as if poking a wasp nest. As much as I enjoyed my weekly episode, it was an eerie reminder of the corporate desk slavery ahead.

Taking too long to decide, the team chat erupted. Strangers thrust forth message after message in a mad dash to bully me out of AFK mode. The clock was ticking.

DanTheMan420 Come on man! Get your head in the game!

69_Anim3Luv3r_69 Your mom could play better than this…

My body slumped indignantly. Pudgy fingers oscillated nervously between rubbing the crease in my chin and scraping plaque from my yellowing teeth. I was all too familiar with the punishment I’d incur for leaving the game but, the curiosity rising through sedentary bones overpowered my guilt. The game’s audio stopped abruptly and I exited to the lobby. Reverberations of gun shots mixed with various character one liners were replaced with silence. Silence, and the wheezing cacophony of my own breath.

“Now, where was I…?” In a huff, I returned to my notifications. My knee bounced with anticipation, impatient to hear what our hosts had in store this week. But, not too impatient for a chug break. The can of thick, lukewarm, syrupy liquid crinkled in my clammy hand as I lifted it to my lips, smashing the play button with the other. Both vibrated in caffeine fueled suspense.

“Welcome back to Phantom Cast!” I mouthed along with Scout, copying his quirky mannerisms. Though, in a far more jerky and rehearsed manner. Cringing, my heart dropped at the realization I could never be as charismatic as my favorite hosts. “Erm, don’t quit your day job.” With a smirk, my quip fell on an empty room.

Two more minutes until my AFK penalty would be over. I clenched my maw, fists tightening, knuckles turning white with frustration. Being aware of the consequences for my actions didn’t make them any less irritating. Turning towards a familiar time-sink, I began scrolling the comments; hilarious and entertaining as usual.

Suddenly, a familiar name emerged. As if shining brighter than the rest, it caused my eyes to bulge in a panic. My body froze like a doe in headlights.

HereForHorror532 help

Thin hairs upon my pale skin straightened like needles. There was no explaining it away this time. Scrambling through the replies was of no help to me, or the individual requesting it.

CreepyGal123 It’s right behind you… isn’t it?

1of7sisters The creature gotcha, huh?

In any other circumstance, I’d snort with laughter, maybe even join in myself. However, the familiar pang returned to my gut. Stronger this time. The poster filled walls around me were closing in, chest growing tighter, as my vision tunneled. My bespectacled orbs traced over the comment again and again.

Closing out my game in desperation, I turned to the internet for answers. The light of my RGB keyboard cycled over my sweat glistened brow and the clacking of its keys resounded around me. Hours upon hours were spent scouring old Patreon comment sections, YouTube comment sections, and even the sub-Reddit. Nothing. Not a single hint of HereForHorror532 existed before last week’s upload.

A sound like the grinding of boulders traveled from my mandible to my ears and the taste of copper upon my tongue managed to pull me away. My chair squealed noisily against my weight as I leaned back, dizzy with obsession. The tiny quail heart in my chest could hardly take any more.

“This has to be a joke. A prank.” Reasoning with what my mind could not grapple was the only way I could pull this much attention off of it. I felt like a rat, caught in sticky, unforgiving glue. It was already deep into the night and my body felt far too pulled taught to allow for any shuteye. But I figured I’d have to try, or risk falling asleep at my desk the next day.

Fingers thumbing at the edge of my monitor for the power button, the room fell into near darkness. Nothing but the glimmer of the pale moon peeking through shuttered blinds illuminated the dusty, dank room. My eyes stung as the outline of my body stared back from the blackened screen. The bags underneath them tightened, and I leaned forward once more at the realization of another figure. There, behind me, was the jagged outline of another person. Yet, I lived alone.

The figure bent unnaturally, its contour was sharp, but remained motionless. It wasn’t just my breathing that filled the silence anymore.

“What the f-” A week’s worth of used dishes shattered to the floor as I swiveled around. Below me, the wheels of my chair screamed in protest as if it might collapse, and revealed nothing. No one.

Manic laughter ravaged my weary body and I slumped to the floor like an empty sack. I was letting my mind get away from me. And now, I had a mess to clean before I could attempt some meager semblance of sleep.

—

Sitting in another useless end-of-week one-on-one with my manager, their words were muffled under the ringing in my ears. The sound of flies buzzing in and out of the miasma of long since rotted food, newly piled upon my desk. Just as their droning squirmed in and out of my consciousness. Blankly, my deep-set, grey-ringed eyes bore into the screen, but focused on nothing. Only the words ‘letting you go’ snapped me back to reality.

“I’m sorry… what?” My heart jumped into my throat. I began anxiously picking at the skin of my cuticles until blood was drawn.

“Your performance has degraded significantly over the last week. You’ve been written up twice in the past 5 days for focusing on tasks unrelated to your work. We’re going to have to terminate your employment effective immed-” I closed the call, not caring to participate in this dog-and-pony show anymore.

“Pft. Whatever.” I rolled my bloodshot eyes, painfully hard, and scoffed. “I can just find a new job.”

My past few days were, in fact, spent researching HereForHorror532. Fixating, rather than working. Rather than sleeping, for that matter. The few answers I found, only led me to more questions.

I had gone so far as posting in the Phantom Cast sub-Reddit, but ended up deleting the call to action after all.

Help Finding User HereForHorror532

Calling all fellow Creepsters! I’m trying to find this Patreon user. They seem to be in need of some kind of assistance… If you are part of this sub, or know this person PLEASE dm me. I just want to help!

2 down-votes, no comments. Thanks for nothing, fellow Creepsters.

Now it was Sunday. Sitting in front of my screen, nothing more to research, nothing more to hunt down. I waited. As still and stuffy as the air around me, only breaking to lift the pot of coffee I had been drinking to my lips. I had switched from energy drinks, to cups of coffee, to entire pots in no time at all. An attempt to beat the sleepiness encroaching my nerves.

Ding.

“God damn it!” My head nearly hit the ceiling, sucking a sharp stream of air through my teeth as the scalding black liquid splattered onto my lap. Steam rose and the bitter bean aroma filled my nostrils. Grasping at random papers strewn across my desk, I mopped it up lazily.

I jerked around like a clumsy robot with impatience to view the new episode. It took me two or three rabid clicks to finally open it, ignoring the usual host pleasantries. Frenzied fingers clicked the refresh button over and over, waiting for comments to roll in. Minutes on my digital clock ticked by until minutes turned to hours. My gaze grew heavy, eyelids drooping when finally, HereForHorror532 materialized on the screen.

HereForHorror532 If you’re seeing this, it’s too late.

Pummeling my ribcage, my heart backflipped. The smells of the room surrounded me in a nausea-inducing medley. Heat rushed to my ears as my appendages grew numb.

Suddenly, the click of a latch and rusted hinges screaming overcame me. The closet door beside me slowly opened.

“Welcome back Creepsters!” The familiar, nasally din of my favorite podcast co-host pumped through my dusty PC speakers. Casting the outline of a shadow on the office wall behind, my monitor’s glaring glow danced around me. All other corners of the cramped room were devoid of light. A smell of body odor mixed with stale pizza hung like a cloud in the air.

“Boy, have we got something special for you today! So, settle in, grab a snack, and be ready… to get creeped.” Co-host number two chimed in with their own gruff cadence, queuing up a mix of ghostly groans and shrill screams that was their opening theme. A chill of excitement ran down my spine.

The view of Scout with his muppet-like expressions and Elijah in his Russian nesting doll mannerisms was always a welcomed reprieve from the monotonous work in front of me. Greasy palms leaving sweat-prints across my keyboard, I typed on and listened. My ears buzzed pleasantly. Phantom Cast never failed to aid me in locking in.

“Oh boy,” Joints popped and creaked as I squirmed in my seat. Jaws stretched, forming a yawn. I had been at it for some time as the story’s narration continued, rear-end sore from constant sitting. My shoulders slouched forward as I craned my neck towards the blinding screen. My eyes burned as their lids pressed together into a squint. The furrow of my brow was so strong, it was verging on a cramp.

Our hosts were on one of their usual tangents, taking a break from the thrilling story in order to make wise cracks. Something about another rattrap… only real fans would understand. Every fiber of my being screamed in exhaustion, deciding it was my turn to rest as well.

“Time for a well-deserved break.” Vocal chords rasped from lack of use.

Chubby fingers smooshed against my phone screen from bottom to top as I scrolled through the Patreon comments. Switching from resting atop my desk to kicking under myself excitedly, it was the majority of movement my legs would get today. Other than the short walk to the bathroom. I chortled with glee every now and again, the office chair beneath me bounced on squeaking springs. Boy, were my fellow Creepsters hilarious.

Until I noticed it. There under the usual ‘Seven Sisters, check in!’ role call:

HereForHorror532 asrc bnji;

More than likely, the user’s cat had slunk across their keyboard, unfortunately hitting the enter key before they could notice or stop it. So, why did my gut sting like the pang of hammering nails? None of the comments beneath provided any explanation or solace. My shoulders crept towards my ears in a shrug. I figured they must have failed to delete it. In any case, it’s not like I could do much to help them.

Popping my head back up to my day job, these thoughts were interrupted by the echoing ring of a Teams call. I stumbled to put my phone down in a mad hurry, clanging it against my desk, and clicked the blue accept icon—the mechanism of my mouse springing to life.

—

I received the all-too-familiar chime of a fresh Patreon notification. In a blur, the work week at hand had whipped by. Unnoticed.

“Sunday already?” I whined, thrusting thin wire frames up the bridge of my nose. My mouse hovered over the ping momentarily, eyes scanning the now dimmed screen. Unsure if I should jump into the newest episode of Phantom Cast now, or wait until the droning of another work week tomorrow, my body buzzed as if poking a wasp nest. As much as I enjoyed my weekly episode, it was an eerie reminder of the corporate desk slavery ahead.

Taking too long to decide, the team chat erupted. Strangers thrust forth message after message in a mad dash to bully me out of AFK mode. The clock was ticking.

DanTheMan420 Come on man! Get your head in the game!

69_Anim3Luv3r_69 Your mom could play better than this…

My body slumped indignantly. Pudgy fingers oscillated nervously between rubbing the crease in my chin and scraping plaque from my yellowing teeth. I was all too familiar with the punishment I’d incur for leaving the game but, the curiosity rising through sedentary bones overpowered my guilt. The game’s audio stopped abruptly and I exited to the lobby. Reverberations of gun shots mixed with various character one liners were replaced with silence. Silence, and the wheezing cacophony of my own breath.

“Now, where was I…?” In a huff, I returned to my notifications. My knee bounced with anticipation, impatient to hear what our hosts had in store this week. But, not too impatient for a chug break. The can of thick, lukewarm, syrupy liquid crinkled in my clammy hand as I lifted it to my lips, smashing the play button with the other. Both vibrated in caffeine fueled suspense.

“Welcome back to Phantom Cast!” I mouthed along with Scout, copying his quirky mannerisms. Though, in a far more jerky and rehearsed manner. Cringing, my heart dropped at the realization I could never be as charismatic as my favorite hosts. “Erm, don’t quit your day job.” With a smirk, my quip fell on an empty room.

Two more minutes until my AFK penalty would be over. I clenched my maw, fists tightening, knuckles turning white with frustration. Being aware of the consequences for my actions didn’t make them any less irritating. Turning towards a familiar time-sink, I began scrolling the comments; hilarious and entertaining as usual.

Suddenly, a familiar name emerged. As if shining brighter than the rest, it caused my eyes to bulge in a panic. My body froze like a doe in headlights.

HereForHorror532 help

Thin hairs upon my pale skin straightened like needles. There was no explaining it away this time. Scrambling through the replies was of no help to me, or the individual requesting it.

CreepyGal123 It’s right behind you… isn’t it?

1of7sisters The creature gotcha, huh?

In any other circumstance, I’d snort with laughter, maybe even join in myself. However, the familiar pang returned to my gut. Stronger this time. The poster filled walls around me were closing in, chest growing tighter, as my vision tunneled. My bespectacled orbs traced over the comment again and again.

Closing out my game in desperation, I turned to the internet for answers. The light of my RGB keyboard cycled over my sweat glistened brow and the clacking of its keys resounded around me. Hours upon hours were spent scouring old Patreon comment sections, YouTube comment sections, and even the sub-Reddit. Nothing. Not a single hint of HereForHorror532 existed before last week’s upload.

A sound like the grinding of boulders traveled from my mandible to my ears and the taste of copper upon my tongue managed to pull me away. My chair squealed noisily against my weight as I leaned back, dizzy with obsession. The tiny quail heart in my chest could hardly take any more.

“This has to be a joke. A prank.” Reasoning with what my mind could not grapple was the only way I could pull this much attention off of it. I felt like a rat, caught in sticky, unforgiving glue. It was already deep into the night and my body felt far too pulled taught to allow for any shuteye. But I figured I’d have to try, or risk falling asleep at my desk the next day.

Fingers thumbing at the edge of my monitor for the power button, the room fell into near darkness. Nothing but the glimmer of the pale moon peeking through shuttered blinds illuminated the dusty, dank room. My eyes stung as the outline of my body stared back from the blackened screen. The bags underneath them tightened, and I leaned forward once more at the realization of another figure. There, behind me, was the jagged outline of another person. Yet, I lived alone.

The figure bent unnaturally, its contour was sharp, but remained motionless. It wasn’t just my breathing that filled the silence anymore.

“What the f-” A week’s worth of used dishes shattered to the floor as I swiveled around. Below me, the wheels of my chair screamed in protest as if it might collapse, and revealed nothing. No one.

Manic laughter ravaged my weary body and I slumped to the floor like an empty sack. I was letting my mind get away from me. And now, I had a mess to clean before I could attempt some meager semblance of sleep.

—

Sitting in another useless end-of-week one-on-one with my manager, their words were muffled under the ringing in my ears. The sound of flies buzzing in and out of the miasma of long since rotted food, newly piled upon my desk. Just as their droning squirmed in and out of my consciousness. Blankly, my deep-set, grey-ringed eyes bore into the screen, but focused on nothing. Only the words ‘letting you go’ snapped me back to reality.

“I’m sorry… what?” My heart jumped into my throat. I began anxiously picking at the skin of my cuticles until blood was drawn.

“Your performance has degraded significantly over the last week. You’ve been written up twice in the past 5 days for focusing on tasks unrelated to your work. We’re going to have to terminate your employment effective immed-” I closed the call, not caring to participate in this dog-and-pony show anymore.

“Pft. Whatever.” I rolled my bloodshot eyes, painfully hard, and scoffed. “I can just find a new job.”

My past few days were, in fact, spent researching HereForHorror532. Fixating, rather than working. Rather than sleeping, for that matter. The few answers I found, only led me to more questions.

I had gone so far as posting in the Phantom Cast sub-Reddit, but ended up deleting the call to action after all.

Help Finding User HereForHorror532

Calling all fellow Creepsters! I’m trying to find this Patreon user. They seem to be in need of some kind of assistance… If you are part of this sub, or know this person PLEASE dm me. I just want to help!

2 down-votes, no comments. Thanks for nothing, fellow Creepsters.

Now it was Sunday. Sitting in front of my screen, nothing more to research, nothing more to hunt down. I waited. As still and stuffy as the air around me, only breaking to lift the pot of coffee I had been drinking to my lips. I had switched from energy drinks, to cups of coffee, to entire pots in no time at all. An attempt to beat the sleepiness encroaching my nerves.

Ding.

“God damn it!” My head nearly hit the ceiling, sucking a sharp stream of air through my teeth as the scalding black liquid splattered onto my lap. Steam rose and the bitter bean aroma filled my nostrils. Grasping at random papers strewn across my desk, I mopped it up lazily.

I jerked around like a clumsy robot with impatience to view the new episode. It took me two or three rabid clicks to finally open it, ignoring the usual host pleasantries. Frenzied fingers clicked the refresh button over and over, waiting for comments to roll in. Minutes on my digital clock ticked by until minutes turned to hours. My gaze grew heavy, eyelids drooping when finally, HereForHorror532 materialized on the screen.

HereForHorror532 If you’re seeing this, it’s too late.

Pummeling my ribcage, my heart backflipped. The smells of the room surrounded me in a nausea-inducing medley. Heat rushed to my ears as my appendages grew numb.

Suddenly, the click of a latch and rusted hinges screaming overcame me. The closet door beside me slowly opened.

My violent hacking woke me with a start. An itch buzzed behind my eyes, ears, and throat that I couldn’t scratch. Clothing clung to my body, weighted with cold sweat. On the mattress beside me, the crusted imprint left behind felt like a hallucination. Resembling a chalk outline from a crime scene, only what should have been clean, white lines were replaced with my own burgundy bile.

It took considerable effort to get out of bed. Sunlight crept through the curtains like an icepick through my optic nerves. My head spun with vertigo, my scraping joints motivated by a new wave of nausea, stomach swirling. Empty and raw. I thanked whatever God Vanja was always evoking for not letting me choke on my vomit as I slept.

On sheer autopilot, my mechanical limbs peeled the sheets from the mattress and left them in a heap on the floor. The scent of cloying stomach acid swirling with fruit permeated the room; compelling me outside in search of fresh air.

The morning atmosphere was hardly a reprieve. The dawn chorus was dead. No bird song. No cadence of insects. Only a howling low gale and the crunch of gravel below my boots as I meandered into the vineyard. Heeding the warning about the property line, I kept a lazy lookout. How would I know if I reached it? Was it marked? I supposed I’d know when I saw it.

I strolled along in a dissociative state when there, in the gap between two rows, my eyes fell upon a branch. Rising up like a dirt-coated arm reaching out from the ground. Grey and decaying, as if prying itself from the Karst land. Nothing in this place made sense. My psyche had become more of a fragmented mess than it ever was before this unconventional vacation; too muddled to notice, or care. It was all too easy to pass the image off as my mind playing tricks. Still, every twitch and jerk in my fascia was begging me to leave.

Turning down the next row. Then the next. Weaving my way through the vineyard, everything looked the same. Not that I’d expect row after row of grape vines to appear unique from one another, but every trail I traversed looked exactly the same. Trellises blurred together as I took a sharp left, another right. My pace quickened from a leisurely walk to a jog, and finally a full-on sprint. Clouds of dust kicked up around me in my panic, making it harder and hard to distinguish my surroundings. I was speeding down the same row over and over again, no matter which direction I turned. The identical stretch of land rolled endlessly before me.

Then there was that branch. Again and again, I saw it. The same clawing hand. Only, each lap revealed more ghastly features than the last. First, the hand. Then, a blackened, mud-caked wrist. Hanging from its skeletal joints was a faded, handmade friendship bracelet. I cut sharply into the row adjacent, now the arm had grown a shoulder. Rotting flesh stripped away, uncovering alabaster bone as it wrenched itself free from the surrounding ground. The stench of open decay assaulted my nostrils. No matter what I did, where I went, I couldn’t escape it.

I couldn’t will myself to see any more. Every sense pounded louder, and louder. From the frantic, feral thrumming in my chest, to the rapping in my ears, to my feet against the ground beneath. A hollow beating atop a subterrane. Panic seized my lungs. Squeezing my eyes shut, I charged blindly through a patch of gnarled vines. Vines that mimicked tiny wooden hands, pulling me back into the vineyard's maw. Razor-like thorns and rigid leaves gashed my skin and clothes. A tug-of-war that felt like an eternity.

With a frantic shriek, I tumbled forward. Infinitesimal shards of rocks burrowed into the pads of my palms and knees as the earth collided with me. Whipping my head around, I could’ve sworn I saw the full figure of a rotting corpse, looming among the trellises. But I was fresh out of curiosity and desperate to get out of this hellscape. Adrenaline forced my gaze away.

Scrambling to my feet, they began pounding limestone once more in a rush to my rental. Sweaty hands grasped at the handle for purchase before giving a final, violent tug. I threw my body haphazardly into the driver's seat, throwing the keys into the ignition. I didn’t care about the open driver-side door nor my hosts, didn’t care about my possessions nor my trip deposit. The only concern I had was watching this place disappear in my rear view mirror.

My heart leaped into my throat the moment the gleam from the tire pressure light reminded me of what I already knew. I certainly wasn’t going anywhere fast, anywhere at all for that matter, with a flat tire. Something my mind was increasingly trying to convince me wasn’t a mere accident as I had led myself to believe previously.

“FuuuuuUUUUCK!!!” White knuckles gripped the steering wheel as my scream wracked my bones. Jaw rigid with tension, I ground my teeth together until the taste of bleeding gums spread across my tongue.

My only option was to calm myself down. A level head would benefit me more than the rampage I was on now. I closed down my eyes and focused on my breath.

“Okay… okay. I just need to come up with a plan. I have no car, no wifi, no cell service.” Bringing my hands to rub my temples, I thought aloud. “Maybe Vanja has a phone?” It was as good of a plan as I was going to get.

Much to my chagrin, the horrors of this place weren’t quite over. Sweat stung the fresh gashes on my face as I strained my eyes open. The scene laid out before me, Vanja’s husband dragging a bloodied, dead livestock carcass, was yet another entrant in the series of agonies set upon me. His husky frame loomed just outside my open driver-side door. Blocking my only exit as massive, dried-blood-and-dirt-coated hands with bulky fingers like fibrous roots strained against dead weight. The animal’s limbs bent at abnormal, grotesque angles. In spite of his limp, I couldn’t help but notice the way in which he dragged the husk of a once thriving creature with ease; guts and all. Its insides oozed, creating a trail of his dastardly deed while Vanja stood by, ordering him around as a maestro conducts an ensemble. Had they been there this whole time?

My ears rushed with hot blood at the sight of her, overcome by a sudden frenzy of rage. Vision tunneling, my fists formed into tight balls as instincts overrode caution.

Fear and rationale abandoned my body as I shoved past him and charged towards the ancient witch with all my fury. The cadaver slipped from his stocky, hunched shoulders with a moist splat. That same smile, the one which never reached her eyes, remained stretched across her visage. What was wrong with her? She had to be the reason I was stuck here, the only constant in this entire equation.

“This will be our dinner tonight, dear.” A lined hand gestured towards her mute mate before I could manage a word. The man didn't look at me with indignation or shock; he didn’t acknowledge me at all. His deep-set, cavernous eyes fixed blankly on the empty space before him. “Would you like to join us?”

“W-what? No… NO!” My brain rattled around in my skull as I shook my head furiously. “I would absolutely NOT like that at all. I need to use your phone! NOW!” My demand was made in utter disbelief. The grin gradually faded from the corners of her lips.

Vanja and I froze in silence for far too long. The only sound hanging in the air around us was that of her ancient husband. His jaw hung lazily open. A throaty whir throbbed from his gullet. Not too dissimilar from the tectonic grinding that resonated through the limestone-covered Karst architecture. The crone’s now vacant expression caused my determination to waver.

“You foreigners are all the same…” Vanja tutted with malicious venom. “Entitled and selfish; all of you. You have no care for our land or our customs. You may have phone after dinner.” Her words expressed calculated disappointment layered with a sinister undertone. The hag was acting as unyielding as a snake preparing to strike. She uttered no threat, so why did I intuit the tingling urgency of my survival instincts kicking into overdrive? My nervous system buzzed like the pulsating drone of seismic reverberation. The fear of being perceived as an ignorant foreigner was replaced by a fear for my life.

“I’m sorry. You’re right, that works for me. I-I’ll be in my lodging until dinner time.” I fawned, hastily agreeing to her terms, and darted back towards the cottage before the odd pair could say or do anything else. By the time I made it back and peered out the window, I half expected them to still be standing there, watching me in her statuesque manner as if part of the Karst landscape themselves. Nonetheless, it was a ghost town outside now. Nothing but the trail of gore from our future dinner remained.

My time between this horror and the next was spent in nothing short of a manic state. Ripping apart the cottage, I snooped through every cabinet, drawer, nook, and cranny I could find. All I found were strange, handmade knick-knacks the likes of which I’d never seen before, worn leather-bound books and journals in handwritten scripts I couldn’t comprehend, items that appeared to have been left behind by what I assumed were previous lodgers. But nothing that could provide any assistance or solace to me.

By the time the place was nearly turned upside down, I crawled on weakened hands and knobby knees in a last-ditch attempt to find any answers, sweeping my palm along the underside of the couch. The coarse texture of a cross-hatch fabric brushed against my grip. The hand-woven linen of string-bound hardcover. At first glance it seemed as if the photo album had simply fallen to the floor and been tucked away by accident, but the more astute part of my brain knew it was placed with the intention of keeping secrets. A foreign script was engraved on the cover: везан за земљу. Far too unfamiliar for me to interpret.

The pages were thin and soft like preserved sheets of skin. I peeled them apart carefully, exposing photo after photo. Much like the family graveyard stocked with beloved husbands, this family heirloom was filled to the brim with photos of only women. Each one resembled Vanja. Indistinguishable. Passing the time flipping pages, carbon copies of her same penetrating expression stared back at me. From Victorian to modern stylings, but the face never changed. Her identical crooked grin, coarse, inky-black hair, and stabbing gaze that would no doubt haunt my nightmares covered each page from corner to corner in an uncanny collage; clearly put together by hand.

“I show you more photo when you join for dinner, dear.” Vanja appeared suddenly, hovering over me. Her bare feet moved silently across the stones. I yipped, putting a hand to my chest as if that could stop it from thumping out and onto the floor. The glare I shot in her direction paled in comparison to those piercing bulbs of hers.

“How did you… Where on earth-why are you…” I stammered, mouth moving faster than my mind. My hand moved from my chest to the open claw she extended down towards me. Her infirm frame helped me up with that same surprising sturdiness.

“Dinner is ready. You must join now, it is the final eve of the observance.” She barked, unsurprisingly glossing over my comment. Had it really been that long already?

I followed her in bewilderment, feeling helpless to resist.

—

Musk filled my nostrils as the tinny taste of precipitation-soaked pennies permeated my tastebuds like never before. Feeling as if my gums were replaced by cotton balls, my mouth grew drier and drier by the second. I swallowed hard and grasped the glass of yellowing tap water set before me. It clinked against the rustic china place settings as I brought it to my quivering lips.

Surveying the room, the antique chair beneath me creaked to the rhythm of the record player spouting scratchy hymns in the room over. The melodies grated my eardrums with cacophonous harmonies reaching for notes that shouldn’t exist. All around me were portraits of the same Vanja-looking woman. Some painted, some black and white, others captured by modern cameras. All identical to the photo book.

Clearing my throat, I attempted small talk.

“So, uh… Vanja. How long has this place been in your family?” My hands clutched at the delicate lace tablecloth, obsessively seeking tactile grounding. A heavy sensation like lead came over my tongue. The chill in my bones told me I shouldn’t be asking questions that I might not like the answer to.

“We have been tied to this land for centuries,” she announced, scurrying into the dining area and placing a plate of greying, pulpy meat at the center of the table. It appeared raw and rotting. “The bloodline must not break. It is what the land requires, what our Lord requires.”

At the head of the table, the matriarch sat herself and began serving our plates. The husband sat across from me at her command like an obedient pet. It was clear, as always, who was in charge here.

I gazed down at my plate incredulously, the saccharine smell making my stomach churn. My fork picked at the substance randomly as I searched for more to say. A way to keep my mouth busy, other than eating.

“You must not be rude!” Vanja spat suddenly, slamming her palm upon the table and sending dishes clanking against one another. Tiny droplets of spittle sprayed from her maw and landed upon my cheek. The record player began to skip, adding yet another layer to the already nightmarish setting. I blinked hard, unsure how to proceed. “You have become so frail. We only wish to fatten you up.” She cackled heartily. The transition of her tone was as artificially sweet as the aroma in her cooking.

With shaking digits, I spooned the most appetizing bite I could scavenge between pursed lips and grimaced. I refused to chew, swallowing loudly and following it with another large gulp of water. Strangely enough, I was becoming desensitized to the metallic flavor infused with everything that originated from this land. Yet, it did nothing to ease the pang in my gut.

It clearly didn’t bother her husband opposite me. He shoveled down bite after bite, all the while making harsh gurgling noises. His jaws ground together in a circular motion as if savoring every morsel.

“Is he… okay?” I shuddered, fearing he might choke.

“He is perfect,” Vanja cooed, rising from her chair. She positioned herself behind him, stroking the stringy, soaked strands of hair that clung to his greased forehead. “The men in our family must make a sacrifice, a promise to the earth, a blood contract. What comes from our land, must stay in our land. Our secrets, our ritual, our observance—remain bound here for all eternity.” Knobby fingers with browning, unkempt nails gripped his roughly stubbled chin before gradually splitting his jaws in two. There was a crudely cut, scarred nub squirming around where his tongue should be. My eyes frantically switched from his face to hers. Their unsettling grins were perfect carbon copies. Down to every feature. In abject horror, the realization promptly pierced through my confusion.

“But isn’t he your husband? What could he possibly be making such a sacrifice for?” Deep down I knew my suspicions were true, but I had to be sure. There were no photos of men in the family chronicle, after all. With a wink, she released her grip, leaning down to place a kiss on his brow like an impish pantomime.

“Yes. Just as mother’s husband was her brother, he is mine. We keep it in the family, as you foreigners say. You see, as the bloodline thinned, we lost ability to bear child. This earth requires our tending; we cannot part with it. We must invite guests to stay… forever. To become one with us, our Savior, and our land.” Any ounce of hospitality in her cadence, however false before, was gone now. No more dear pet names, no more two-faced niceties.

“Shh… You must sleep now,” Vanja whispered as she slunk behind me like a wildcat hunting its prey. She placed her witch hands on my shoulders and dug talon-like fingers into my collarbones.

Finally, the dots were connecting, just as the room began to spin. I was reeling from each new revelation but this was something different, something much worse. My eyelids grew heavy while the rest of my body began to feel light as air. There was no doubt now that the old woman had drugged me. Before I could take action, my head crumpled into the mess of meat in front of me with a blunt thud. Bringing her mouth to my ear, Vanja whispered one final utterance. “The land provides to us, when we provide to it.” I was paralyzed to fight back, consciousness fading like a flame deprived of oxygen.

—

I came to, surrounded by the smell of earth, the feeling of loose ground cocooning me, the vibration of a shovel pounding into rock. A hole in the earth was my new home. My lungs filled with particles of dirt and my chest grew heavy. Between the combination of drugs not fully worn off, restraints rubbing against my appendages, and heaps of limestone-infused soil, struggling was useless. All I could see was the radiance of a fire bouncing off the cave walls above me. All I could do was lay there helplessly as they called upon some faceless, nameless, eldritch horror.

“Zemlya zhyva, krov p’yet.”

"Земля жива, кров п’є”

“The earth lives, drinks the blood.”

Vanja’s wicked features came into view as she crouched and roughly snatched my bound wrist. Her black-veiled frame was aglow by the light of the pale moon. I was helpless to scream, nor could I cry out. Not for lack of trying, but all that came out was a strained whisper. My throat felt like sandpaper, my lungs were on the brink of collapse, filled with dust and ash that swirled about the cavern. Everything was closing in around me as the corners of my vision remained blackened and blurred.

She unsheathed a blade. I was reminded of the pristine cutlery set I had found in the cottage kitchen. This, too, was made from bone, only sharper, more jagged. Lethal.

Taking the blade to the tender skin of my wrist and splitting my veins open in an instant, she let the warm, vital fluid splatter onto the surrounding stones. Rich, carmine red contrasted the weathered geology. It bubbled and popped with a hiss. Imbibed into the greedy ground as if being consumed, assimilating my lifeblood with their land.

Next, she coerced the liquid into her cupped hand, spurting it from my slit skin and lifting it to her lips. Like a High Priestess, she devoured her wretched communion. I was a part of her now, part of their land. I thought back to our night in the cellar and wondered if the libations she fed me were really wine at all. Every act its own evil intention. I could see that now as Vanja stared down on me with a dour expression. The corners of her lips turned flat, no longer grinning. I was always going to be the vessel for this dark rite.

“Please…” I rasped feebly. “You don’t have to do this.” She didn’t acknowledge me. After all, there was no hope in persuading her to break free of this generational tradition. No hope in preventing the inevitable.

The sour smell of decay and their rolling chorus crescendoed. Shovelful after shovelful of dirt piled atop my useless body. I felt like a sack of meat being tenderized, already slaughtered. First my feet, then my legs, next my torso; saving my head for last. They needed me to bear witness. To be the observer of their observance. Each revelation hammered home the fact that I was never getting out of here. I had seen too much, knew too much. Just as they knew no one was coming to look for me.

As her chanting continued, a chorus of voices in multiple cadences and multiple languages came from her. One was her own, in plain English that I could understand. The other, an incomprehensible rumble that seemed to come straight from the limestone. A deep, tectonic grinding in her native tongue.

Though I couldn’t see the husband, I could hear him. For it was he who wielded the shovel, creating a disturbed squealing cacophony like an excited pig. The high-pitched chitters that emitted from his throat harmonized with Vanja’s chants rhythmically, acting as an eager conduit.

Something beneath me began to writhe. Pointed roots wedged against my back. I felt their sharp, cold edges begin to grasp at my clothing and skin, causing them to burst open like the juicy flesh of a ripened peach. The earth was hungry, pulling me deeper.

I was despondent. All I could manage was to stare listlessly at the cave ceiling where flames danced among lunar incandescence. The outlines of Vanja and her husband danced there, too. Alongside a shapeless, inky form. I couldn’t tell if it was just my eyes, still playing tricks on me. Even in my final moments, I was desperate to rationalize what I encountered in this place. After everything I’d witnessed.

My last thoughts were of every action that brought me here as my vision became eclipsed by falling earth; their chanting dampened by dirt compacting around my ears. From items obviously left by previous victims, to the absurdity of the rental ad. You’ll be dying to linger. From the mold toxicity undeniably poisoning my bloodstream, to the eerie gravestone carvings. Beloved Husband.

A final thought tugged at my psyche as the soil dragged me under, every orifice suffocated with terra. How much more would the land demand before the next harvest?

My violent hacking woke me with a start. An itch buzzed behind my eyes, ears, and throat that I couldn’t scratch. Clothing clung to my body, weighted with cold sweat. On the mattress beside me, the crusted imprint left behind felt like a hallucination. Resembling a chalk outline from a crime scene, only what should have been clean, white lines were replaced with my own burgundy bile.

It took considerable effort to get out of bed. Sunlight crept through the curtains like an icepick through my optic nerves. My head spun with vertigo, my scraping joints motivated by a new wave of nausea, stomach swirling. Empty and raw. I thanked whatever God Vanja was always evoking for not letting me choke on my vomit as I slept.

On sheer autopilot, my mechanical limbs peeled the sheets from the mattress and left them in a heap on the floor. The scent of cloying stomach acid swirling with fruit permeated the room; compelling me outside in search of fresh air.

The morning atmosphere was hardly a reprieve. The dawn chorus was dead. No bird song. No cadence of insects. Only a howling low gale and the crunch of gravel below my boots as I meandered into the vineyard. Heeding the warning about the property line, I kept a lazy lookout. How would I know if I reached it? Was it marked? I supposed I’d know when I saw it.

I strolled along in a dissociative state when there, in the gap between two rows, my eyes fell upon a branch. Rising up like a dirt-coated arm reaching out from the ground. Grey and decaying, as if prying itself from the Karst land. Nothing in this place made sense. My psyche had become more of a fragmented mess than it ever was before this unconventional vacation; too muddled to notice, or care. It was all too easy to pass the image off as my mind playing tricks. Still, every twitch and jerk in my fascia was begging me to leave.

Turning down the next row. Then the next. Weaving my way through the vineyard, everything looked the same. Not that I’d expect row after row of grape vines to appear unique from one another, but every trail I traversed looked exactly the same. Trellises blurred together as I took a sharp left, another right. My pace quickened from a leisurely walk to a jog, and finally a full-on sprint. Clouds of dust kicked up around me in my panic, making it harder and hard to distinguish my surroundings. I was speeding down the same row over and over again, no matter which direction I turned. The identical stretch of land rolled endlessly before me.

Then there was that branch. Again and again, I saw it. The same clawing hand. Only, each lap revealed more ghastly features than the last. First, the hand. Then, a blackened, mud-caked wrist. Hanging from its skeletal joints was a faded, handmade friendship bracelet. I cut sharply into the row adjacent, now the arm had grown a shoulder. Rotting flesh stripped away, uncovering alabaster bone as it wrenched itself free from the surrounding ground. The stench of open decay assaulted my nostrils. No matter what I did, where I went, I couldn’t escape it.

I couldn’t will myself to see any more. Every sense pounded louder, and louder. From the frantic, feral thrumming in my chest, to the rapping in my ears, to my feet against the ground beneath. A hollow beating atop a subterrane. Panic seized my lungs. Squeezing my eyes shut, I charged blindly through a patch of gnarled vines. Vines that mimicked tiny wooden hands, pulling me back into the vineyard's maw. Razor-like thorns and rigid leaves gashed my skin and clothes. A tug-of-war that felt like an eternity.

With a frantic shriek, I tumbled forward. Infinitesimal shards of rocks burrowed into the pads of my palms and knees as the earth collided with me. Whipping my head around, I could’ve sworn I saw the full figure of a rotting corpse, looming among the trellises. But I was fresh out of curiosity and desperate to get out of this hellscape. Adrenaline forced my gaze away.

Scrambling to my feet, they began pounding limestone once more in a rush to my rental. Sweaty hands grasped at the handle for purchase before giving a final, violent tug. I threw my body haphazardly into the driver's seat, throwing the keys into the ignition. I didn’t care about the open driver-side door nor my hosts, didn’t care about my possessions nor my trip deposit. The only concern I had was watching this place disappear in my rear view mirror.

My heart leaped into my throat the moment the gleam from the tire pressure light reminded me of what I already knew. I certainly wasn’t going anywhere fast, anywhere at all for that matter, with a flat tire. Something my mind was increasingly trying to convince me wasn’t a mere accident as I had led myself to believe previously.

“FuuuuuUUUUCK!!!” White knuckles gripped the steering wheel as my scream wracked my bones. Jaw rigid with tension, I ground my teeth together until the taste of bleeding gums spread across my tongue.

My only option was to calm myself down. A level head would benefit me more than the rampage I was on now. I closed down my eyes and focused on my breath.

“Okay… okay. I just need to come up with a plan. I have no car, no wifi, no cell service.” Bringing my hands to rub my temples, I thought aloud. “Maybe Vanja has a phone?” It was as good of a plan as I was going to get.

Much to my chagrin, the horrors of this place weren’t quite over. Sweat stung the fresh gashes on my face as I strained my eyes open. The scene laid out before me, Vanja’s husband dragging a bloodied, dead livestock carcass, was yet another entrant in the series of agonies set upon me. His husky frame loomed just outside my open driver-side door. Blocking my only exit as massive, dried-blood-and-dirt-coated hands with bulky fingers like fibrous roots strained against dead weight. The animal’s limbs bent at abnormal, grotesque angles. In spite of his limp, I couldn’t help but notice the way in which he dragged the husk of a once thriving creature with ease; guts and all. Its insides oozed, creating a trail of his dastardly deed while Vanja stood by, ordering him around as a maestro conducts an ensemble. Had they been there this whole time?

My ears rushed with hot blood at the sight of her, overcome by a sudden frenzy of rage. Vision tunneling, my fists formed into tight balls as instincts overrode caution.

Fear and rationale abandoned my body as I shoved past him and charged towards the ancient witch with all my fury. The cadaver slipped from his stocky, hunched shoulders with a moist splat. That same smile, the one which never reached her eyes, remained stretched across her visage. What was wrong with her? She had to be the reason I was stuck here, the only constant in this entire equation.

“This will be our dinner tonight, dear.” A lined hand gestured towards her mute mate before I could manage a word. The man didn't look at me with indignation or shock; he didn’t acknowledge me at all. His deep-set, cavernous eyes fixed blankly on the empty space before him. “Would you like to join us?”

“W-what? No… NO!” My brain rattled around in my skull as I shook my head furiously. “I would absolutely NOT like that at all. I need to use your phone! NOW!” My demand was made in utter disbelief. The grin gradually faded from the corners of her lips.

Vanja and I froze in silence for far too long. The only sound hanging in the air around us was that of her ancient husband. His jaw hung lazily open. A throaty whir throbbed from his gullet. Not too dissimilar from the tectonic grinding that resonated through the limestone-covered Karst architecture. The crone’s now vacant expression caused my determination to waver.

“You foreigners are all the same…” Vanja tutted with malicious venom. “Entitled and selfish; all of you. You have no care for our land or our customs. You may have phone after dinner.” Her words expressed calculated disappointment layered with a sinister undertone. The hag was acting as unyielding as a snake preparing to strike. She uttered no threat, so why did I intuit the tingling urgency of my survival instincts kicking into overdrive? My nervous system buzzed like the pulsating drone of seismic reverberation. The fear of being perceived as an ignorant foreigner was replaced by a fear for my life.

“I’m sorry. You’re right, that works for me. I-I’ll be in my lodging until dinner time.” I fawned, hastily agreeing to her terms, and darted back towards the cottage before the odd pair could say or do anything else. By the time I made it back and peered out the window, I half expected them to still be standing there, watching me in her statuesque manner as if part of the Karst landscape themselves. Nonetheless, it was a ghost town outside now. Nothing but the trail of gore from our future dinner remained.

My time between this horror and the next was spent in nothing short of a manic state. Ripping apart the cottage, I snooped through every cabinet, drawer, nook, and cranny I could find. All I found were strange, handmade knick-knacks the likes of which I’d never seen before, worn leather-bound books and journals in handwritten scripts I couldn’t comprehend, items that appeared to have been left behind by what I assumed were previous lodgers. But nothing that could provide any assistance or solace to me.

By the time the place was nearly turned upside down, I crawled on weakened hands and knobby knees in a last-ditch attempt to find any answers, sweeping my palm along the underside of the couch. The coarse texture of a cross-hatch fabric brushed against my grip. The hand-woven linen of string-bound hardcover. At first glance it seemed as if the photo album had simply fallen to the floor and been tucked away by accident, but the more astute part of my brain knew it was placed with the intention of keeping secrets. A foreign script was engraved on the cover: везан за земљу. Far too unfamiliar for me to interpret.

The pages were thin and soft like preserved sheets of skin. I peeled them apart carefully, exposing photo after photo. Much like the family graveyard stocked with beloved husbands, this family heirloom was filled to the brim with photos of only women. Each one resembled Vanja. Indistinguishable. Passing the time flipping pages, carbon copies of her same penetrating expression stared back at me. From Victorian to modern stylings, but the face never changed. Her identical crooked grin, coarse, inky-black hair, and stabbing gaze that would no doubt haunt my nightmares covered each page from corner to corner in an uncanny collage; clearly put together by hand.

“I show you more photo when you join for dinner, dear.” Vanja appeared suddenly, hovering over me. Her bare feet moved silently across the stones. I yipped, putting a hand to my chest as if that could stop it from thumping out and onto the floor. The glare I shot in her direction paled in comparison to those piercing bulbs of hers.

“How did you… Where on earth-why are you…” I stammered, mouth moving faster than my mind. My hand moved from my chest to the open claw she extended down towards me. Her infirm frame helped me up with that same surprising sturdiness.

“Dinner is ready. You must join now, it is the final eve of the observance.” She barked, unsurprisingly glossing over my comment. Had it really been that long already?

I followed her in bewilderment, feeling helpless to resist.

—

Musk filled my nostrils as the tinny taste of precipitation-soaked pennies permeated my tastebuds like never before. Feeling as if my gums were replaced by cotton balls, my mouth grew drier and drier by the second. I swallowed hard and grasped the glass of yellowing tap water set before me. It clinked against the rustic china place settings as I brought it to my quivering lips.

Surveying the room, the antique chair beneath me creaked to the rhythm of the record player spouting scratchy hymns in the room over. The melodies grated my eardrums with cacophonous harmonies reaching for notes that shouldn’t exist. All around me were portraits of the same Vanja-looking woman. Some painted, some black and white, others captured by modern cameras. All identical to the photo book.

Clearing my throat, I attempted small talk.

“So, uh… Vanja. How long has this place been in your family?” My hands clutched at the delicate lace tablecloth, obsessively seeking tactile grounding. A heavy sensation like lead came over my tongue. The chill in my bones told me I shouldn’t be asking questions that I might not like the answer to.

“We have been tied to this land for centuries,” she announced, scurrying into the dining area and placing a plate of greying, pulpy meat at the center of the table. It appeared raw and rotting. “The bloodline must not break. It is what the land requires, what our Lord requires.”

At the head of the table, the matriarch sat herself and began serving our plates. The husband sat across from me at her command like an obedient pet. It was clear, as always, who was in charge here.

I gazed down at my plate incredulously, the saccharine smell making my stomach churn. My fork picked at the substance randomly as I searched for more to say. A way to keep my mouth busy, other than eating.

“You must not be rude!” Vanja spat suddenly, slamming her palm upon the table and sending dishes clanking against one another. Tiny droplets of spittle sprayed from her maw and landed upon my cheek. The record player began to skip, adding yet another layer to the already nightmarish setting. I blinked hard, unsure how to proceed. “You have become so frail. We only wish to fatten you up.” She cackled heartily. The transition of her tone was as artificially sweet as the aroma in her cooking.

With shaking digits, I spooned the most appetizing bite I could scavenge between pursed lips and grimaced. I refused to chew, swallowing loudly and following it with another large gulp of water. Strangely enough, I was becoming desensitized to the metallic flavor infused with everything that originated from this land. Yet, it did nothing to ease the pang in my gut.

It clearly didn’t bother her husband opposite me. He shoveled down bite after bite, all the while making harsh gurgling noises. His jaws ground together in a circular motion as if savoring every morsel.

“Is he… okay?” I shuddered, fearing he might choke.

“He is perfect,” Vanja cooed, rising from her chair. She positioned herself behind him, stroking the stringy, soaked strands of hair that clung to his greased forehead. “The men in our family must make a sacrifice, a promise to the earth, a blood contract. What comes from our land, must stay in our land. Our secrets, our ritual, our observance—remain bound here for all eternity.” Knobby fingers with browning, unkempt nails gripped his roughly stubbled chin before gradually splitting his jaws in two. There was a crudely cut, scarred nub squirming around where his tongue should be. My eyes frantically switched from his face to hers. Their unsettling grins were perfect carbon copies. Down to every feature. In abject horror, the realization promptly pierced through my confusion.

“But isn’t he your husband? What could he possibly be making such a sacrifice for?” Deep down I knew my suspicions were true, but I had to be sure. There were no photos of men in the family chronicle, after all. With a wink, she released her grip, leaning down to place a kiss on his brow like an impish pantomime.

“Yes. Just as mother’s husband was her brother, he is mine. We keep it in the family, as you foreigners say. You see, as the bloodline thinned, we lost ability to bear child. This earth requires our tending; we cannot part with it. We must invite guests to stay… forever. To become one with us, our Savior, and our land.” Any ounce of hospitality in her cadence, however false before, was gone now. No more dear pet names, no more two-faced niceties.

“Shh… You must sleep now,” Vanja whispered as she slunk behind me like a wildcat hunting its prey. She placed her witch hands on my shoulders and dug talon-like fingers into my collarbones.

Finally, the dots were connecting, just as the room began to spin. I was reeling from each new revelation but this was something different, something much worse. My eyelids grew heavy while the rest of my body began to feel light as air. There was no doubt now that the old woman had drugged me. Before I could take action, my head crumpled into the mess of meat in front of me with a blunt thud. Bringing her mouth to my ear, Vanja whispered one final utterance. “The land provides to us, when we provide to it.” I was paralyzed to fight back, consciousness fading like a flame deprived of oxygen.

—

I came to, surrounded by the smell of earth, the feeling of loose ground cocooning me, the vibration of a shovel pounding into rock. A hole in the earth was my new home. My lungs filled with particles of dirt and my chest grew heavy. Between the combination of drugs not fully worn off, restraints rubbing against my appendages, and heaps of limestone-infused soil, struggling was useless. All I could see was the radiance of a fire bouncing off the cave walls above me. All I could do was lay there helplessly as they called upon some faceless, nameless, eldritch horror.

“Zemlya zhyva, krov p’yet.”

"Земля жива, кров п’є”

“The earth lives, drinks the blood.”

Vanja’s wicked features came into view as she crouched and roughly snatched my bound wrist. Her black-veiled frame was aglow by the light of the pale moon. I was helpless to scream, nor could I cry out. Not for lack of trying, but all that came out was a strained whisper. My throat felt like sandpaper, my lungs were on the brink of collapse, filled with dust and ash that swirled about the cavern. Everything was closing in around me as the corners of my vision remained blackened and blurred.

She unsheathed a blade. I was reminded of the pristine cutlery set I had found in the cottage kitchen. This, too, was made from bone, only sharper, more jagged. Lethal.

Taking the blade to the tender skin of my wrist and splitting my veins open in an instant, she let the warm, vital fluid splatter onto the surrounding stones. Rich, carmine red contrasted the weathered geology. It bubbled and popped with a hiss. Imbibed into the greedy ground as if being consumed, assimilating my lifeblood with their land.

Next, she coerced the liquid into her cupped hand, spurting it from my slit skin and lifting it to her lips. Like a High Priestess, she devoured her wretched communion. I was a part of her now, part of their land. I thought back to our night in the cellar and wondered if the libations she fed me were really wine at all. Every act its own evil intention. I could see that now as Vanja stared down on me with a dour expression. The corners of her lips turned flat, no longer grinning. I was always going to be the vessel for this dark rite.

“Please…” I rasped feebly. “You don’t have to do this.” She didn’t acknowledge me. After all, there was no hope in persuading her to break free of this generational tradition. No hope in preventing the inevitable.

The sour smell of decay and their rolling chorus crescendoed. Shovelful after shovelful of dirt piled atop my useless body. I felt like a sack of meat being tenderized, already slaughtered. First my feet, then my legs, next my torso; saving my head for last. They needed me to bear witness. To be the observer of their observance. Each revelation hammered home the fact that I was never getting out of here. I had seen too much, knew too much. Just as they knew no one was coming to look for me.

As her chanting continued, a chorus of voices in multiple cadences and multiple languages came from her. One was her own, in plain English that I could understand. The other, an incomprehensible rumble that seemed to come straight from the limestone. A deep, tectonic grinding in her native tongue.

Though I couldn’t see the husband, I could hear him. For it was he who wielded the shovel, creating a disturbed squealing cacophony like an excited pig. The high-pitched chitters that emitted from his throat harmonized with Vanja’s chants rhythmically, acting as an eager conduit.

Something beneath me began to writhe. Pointed roots wedged against my back. I felt their sharp, cold edges begin to grasp at my clothing and skin, causing them to burst open like the juicy flesh of a ripened peach. The earth was hungry, pulling me deeper.

I was despondent. All I could manage was to stare listlessly at the cave ceiling where flames danced among lunar incandescence. The outlines of Vanja and her husband danced there, too. Alongside a shapeless, inky form. I couldn’t tell if it was just my eyes, still playing tricks on me. Even in my final moments, I was desperate to rationalize what I encountered in this place. After everything I’d witnessed.

My last thoughts were of every action that brought me here as my vision became eclipsed by falling earth; their chanting dampened by dirt compacting around my ears. From items obviously left by previous victims, to the absurdity of the rental ad. You’ll be dying to linger. From the mold toxicity undeniably poisoning my bloodstream, to the eerie gravestone carvings. Beloved Husband.

A final thought tugged at my psyche as the soil dragged me under, every orifice suffocated with terra. How much more would the land demand before the next harvest?

Vacation Rental: Arcadian Vineyard Cottage

“Find your serenity at this bucolic cottage in the countryside! Experience the simple pleasures of hand-picked produce, right in your own vineyard sanctuary. Bathe in the peaceful quietude of the traditional way of life— there are no neighbors for miles! Just you, the sun-soaked grapes, and scents of petrichor. Isolated— tranquil and still. You’ll be dying to linger by the end of your stay. So stick around; we have a place just for you! (Plus, a little wine and cheese never hurt anybody.)”

That was the ad that compelled me to spiral amidst agricultural roads, searching for my long-overdue escape from reality. Was it trying too hard? Absolutely. But who didn’t enjoy wine and cheese?

“Sign me up,” I whispered to no one, striking the keys of my laptop with determination, and finalizing the booking. An extended weekend getaway. That was all my vacation time afforded me, and Lord, I needed it. My mind and body were begging for leisure, screaming like rusted hinges.

Here I was, lost. Of course. Because God forbid one thing in my life goes smoothly. The GPS signal vanished hours ago, leaving me in an expanse of grey oblivion. A winding dirt road expanded before me, surrounded by fields as far as the eye could see. Everything looked the same out here.

“Come on, come on, come on!” I begged the inanimate brick that was my phone, smacking the now useless device against the dashboard. My shoulders sagged in surrender, heavy with the disappointment of these uncontrollable circumstances. Due to exhaustion from a hefty international flight, my muscles ached with the need for a proper bed.

“I’ll just continue to follow this road and magically end up where I’m supposed to be.” It was wishful thinking on my part. Even if sarcastically, maybe I could make it so. My mind was in vacation mode by now; delusional with misplaced optimism.

The path became more rugged, and I trudged on in the dated rental car. Its rusted frame rattled and groaned as the vehicle struggled to chug up yet another hill. Every rock or divot in the road sent the suspension into frenzied jerking. Having the steering wheel in a death grip, my hands threatened to cramp.

Coming to a stop at the first fork in the road, I pulled over with a sigh. The subtle smell of dirt kicked up by inadequate tires filled my nose and made my eyes sting. Fingers jabbed at my phone in an attempt to make the bars reappear… nothing. Dead zone.

“That’s just great.” I spoke aloud to myself, if only to fill the silence.

BANG!

In an instant, my heart battered against my rib cage. Arms turned to static, as my already fracturing mental state was shattered. A craggy hand occupied my window, the source of the noise that nearly stopped my heart. Attached to the hand was an equally craggy crone. The woman's blank face shifted into an inviting smile, as if putting on a mask. Almost too quick to notice. She pointed downward, and I took that to mean she wanted me to roll down my window.

It’s not like anyone else was coming to the rescue. My eyes darted from hers to the window crank in an uncomfortable silence that stretched too long. I willed my body as it yelped: Wait. Stop. Wary of strangers, but running out of options, I wound down the window an inch. Its un-lubricated mechanism protested in the same way my brain had been screaming: Something is wrong. Like a hot stove, I wanted to put my finger on it, but couldn’t.

“My apologies, you startled me.” Soft words came out tentatively, yet polite. “Could you direct me towards the Arcadian Vineyard Cottage?”

I dug into the booking app and hunted for the listing. My mind raced as a white screen confronted me. More than likely due to zero service… never mind the fact I had saved my trip information for offline viewing. Glitches happen, right?

“Hello, dear.” Her voice carried an unfamiliar, husky accent. Sickly sweet like honey, laced with something rancid. It wound up my nerves, already frayed and intolerant, as her wry smile revealed mottled teeth. “I would be the owner of said cottage. Foreigners often get lost around here. I saw you coming up the road from the mother-in-law's suite.”

Her tone felt too formal, almost theatrical. Something malevolent flickered behind her eyes. She looked like a woman who was once a farmer's daughter, turned hippie: Raven hair greying with age, Bohemian fashion sense, bare feet coated in dirt. Unique, to say the least. But her mannerisms betrayed that image. Too rehearsed, too forced. A contradiction that made my spine thrum like a chain pulled taut.

“If you’d like, I could hop in and direct you the rest of the way?”

I hadn’t seen any houses for miles. There was nothing but sweeping fields unfolding in all directions. How had she seen me when this was my first time seeing her? Looking at the surroundings and then back to her, she must’ve read the confusion in my expression.

“It’s just over this hill, dear.” Her smile was alarmingly wide, and her English almost too precise.

“How do I know that?” I questioned begrudgingly, no way of confirming the truth now. Something about this didn’t sit right with me. The rational part of my brain was screaming, causing my body to tense. The road behind seemed longer now than it had before. I had no concrete reason to doubt her but also, no reason to trust her.

“I show you.” Matter-of-factly, she slithered around the hood and to my passenger side. The imprint of her shriveled hand was left in the dust on the window like a dark omen. Pulling the handle with a pop, the elderly woman found no resistance. It was unlocked to my surprise.

“S-sure… uh—hop in?” It came out more like a question than an affirmation. Maybe my gut knew something my mind couldn’t come to terms with. I should have turned around. Gone back, chalked it up as a loss, and spent my long weekend off at home. But then, all the effort it took to get here would be for naught.

With a youthful energy, the woman sprang into action. Before I could finish my sentence, she had plopped down in my passenger seat; an earthy smell wafted into my nostrils. I tried not to worry about the dirt print she’d leave there.

So long, security deposit.

“As I said, it’s just over this hill.” Her skeletal hand pointed towards the road in front of us. She was an astute woman, sensing my hesitation. Never mind the fact that I had just let a stranger into my car. Had she even told me her name? I couldn’t recall if it was on the listing. In any case, I couldn’t reference that anymore.

Pulling back onto the road, I reasoned this was the best way to make conversation. Avoid more awkward silence.

“I’m sorry, but what did you say your name was?” My voice came out confidently, for once.

“Vanja…” In typical Slavic fashion, she shaped her J’s like drifting Y’s.

“Vanja Jurković.” Placing a staccato on each syllable, there was no question in my mind that she was a native of these lands.

Patiently, I waited for her to ask the same of me. But the question never came, and the air hung with only the sound of gravel clattering against weather worn wheel wells. Maybe she already knew my name from the booking. I shrugged with a sigh, attempting to pull my rigid shoulders away from my ears. I was eager to exit this metal cage.

Up, up, over the hill we went. It seemed much higher now than from the bottom; more of a mountain, really. As we crested the top, a boundless vineyard came into view. It had the same layout as advertised. Only now, under cloudy skies, did it come across as somber. Ominous.

Tenebrous trees arched over the road, scraping against the car doors like hands grasping for purchase. Claustrophobic. As if they might cling on and pull us into their grasp. Trapped, to become one with the land.

Before long, we stopped on a gravel driveway, brakes squealing in protest. Every fiber of my being was screaming, red flag. Yet, after all it took to get here, I felt compelled to stay. I sympathized with the woman, assuming it was pretty lonely here.

Against my better judgment, my hesitant hand lurched the shift stick into park. Vanja stepped out; she was surprisingly agile considering her frail frame. Perhaps she was younger than I gave her credit for. Or more certainly, years of working in the vineyard had strengthened her elderly stature.

A man came hobbling out of what I assume was the mother-in-law's suite. His uneven gait paralleled Vanja’s personality. A unique pair; I tried not to stare.

“Hello—”

“Oh, he doesn’t speak English, dear. Please, don’t concern yourself with my husband. He’s merely here to help with your luggage. We will be out of your hair shortly.” Vanja cut off our greeting bluntly as her husband flashed a gummy, toothless smile.

“Oh…” Dejected, my voice came as a defeat. “Well, please tell him thank you for me.”

“Certainly, dear.” I wished she’d stop calling me that. It was an endearing term, sure. However, her accent, combined with the language barrier, fell condescending on my ears. An attempt to make me feel less-than. Small.

I turned my attention from the odd couple to my surroundings. The homestead was undoubtedly shaped by its natural environment. Compact, monolithic structures rose and fell with the rolling hills like boats sailing on a turquoise sea. Its simple, well-defined architecture was assembled from local Karst limestone.

High-pitched stone roofs and limited, small windows braced against the Bora. Whose cold bite carried briny scents that cut through agricultural aromas. A contrast as sharp as the mountainous countryside itself. Maritime air tinged my taste buds with the salt of the coast.

Somewhere, a wind chime tolled a lonely melody, counterpoint to the soft rustle of hearty grapevines. Preternatural isolation settled over me. Peaceful, yet, unsettling all at once.

My brain itched to research the area further, something I should have done before arriving. I hadn’t made the time for more than a cursory investigation.

Looking over my wifi settings, one was available: The Vineyard.

“Could I have the wifi password, please?” I inquired, holding up my phone for Vanja. I would finally have enough time and quiet to educate myself on the region.

“We have no need for that here.” Her words sprang forth with a forced chortle. “I’m sure you’ll find an abundance of tranquil distractions during your stay.” Tacking it on as if she suddenly remembered I was their guest.

“Of course. Silly me…” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Not as if she said they did not have such things. This must have been their way of compelling guests to escape reality. So why did the crone make me feel foolish for asking? She started up the path to the main house, and I continued to lag.

“Your accommodations are this way, dear. Follow me.” In this place, I was always 2 steps behind.

Stepping over the threshold and into the open-concept layout, envy washed over me. A kitchen brimming with fresh produce, baked goods, handcrafted cooking utensils, and shelves stacked wall-to-wall with ancient recipe books. A smell like heaven, undercut, as if trying to conceal something sour.

Muted tones and an ambient glow enhanced the grounded environment. Built-in niches within the cottage mimicked natural caves native to the region. Organic wood floors whined like a wounded animal with each step as I made my way to the bedroom. Trailing after her, the rough stone walls leeched a soggy chill through my bones as we turned another corner. Vanja moved swiftly, and I nearly found myself lost again.

Her husband long since vanished, and my luggage was already waiting for me. For a man with so much trouble getting around, he nearly went unnoticed. Had I not seen him upon my arrival, I likely wouldn’t have known he existed.

“Here is your room and your things. Take advantage of the fully stocked kitchen—everything is cultivated, raised, and crafted by my husband and me on the property.” Her words were punctuated by pride. “Feel free to explore the garden terrace out back, the orchard to the east, and the vineyard to the west. There is a wine cellar at your disposal under the hatch in the kitchen. And if, for some reason, you still don’t have what you need, I’ll be here to fulfill any request. All that to say, make yourself at home, dear.” Confident and to the point, it was doubtful I’d want for anything in this place.

With a nod, she left me to my own devices. Finally.

Sagging onto the mattress, its springs groaned with the same exhaustion that flowed through my veins. Eyes burning with jet lag, their lids drooped closed like curtains. Sleep wrapped me like a blanket, without protest. Out cold.

—

I bolted upright, heart pummeling my chest. Darkness had fallen over the property in my inescapable slumber. Only, this wasn’t what startled me. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, my veins frosted over.

A silhouette, just outside the door frame. Crooked. Shoulders rising and falling with ragged, uneven breaths. Vanja's husband.

“What the…” My whisper faded into the black abyss.

Clumsily, I fumbled for the lamp switch. Moving as quickly as my half-asleep appendages would allow, light flooded the doorway; empty. The scent of earth and wine remained.

An ill attempt at restoring the apparition, I blinked forcefully; not likely.

Had I imagined it?

No, the hollow echo of footsteps across floorboards betrayed that thought. Down the hall and out the door as he skittered away like a spider who knows it’s been found. Creep.

I mulled over my options, lulling myself into a false sense of security yet again. I couldn’t exactly tell Vanja, Lord knows she’d take his side over mine. I still had two more days paid for. Nowhere else to go. No guarantee I’d find my way on my own.

Gears ground inside my mind. Perhaps he had his own backwards logic for observing me, the ignorant foreigner with a narrow world-view.

“There was no one there. The old cottage bones are merely settling.” My whisper bounced amongst the limestone walls. Providing scant solace.

Thoughts became a knotted ball of fear and confusion. Ears ringing; a musty smell like damp paper filled my nose. As if a balloon deflating, my lungs tightened. Throat raw, head pounding, it felt as though a low hum was buzzing in one ear and out the other. Into a coughing fit I went, chasing down the hallway after the ghost, or lack thereof. I needed a drink of water. Urgently.

Desperately filing through cabinets, my hand grasped the first glass in reach. I violently threw open the fridge, sending miscellaneous jars tinkling against one another in their drawers. No water. My only option was the tap.

The knob screamed as I doggedly twisted, and yellow-stained water sputtered forth. The only alternatives were farm-fresh milk or wine. Hardly the type to cure a coughing fit. I consumed in greedy gulps. The water permeated with a metallic bite like pennies left in rain. Barely a reprieve, but at least I could breathe.

Stalking around the house like a predatory animal, I checked every door and every window. Locked, or without the ability to open at all. This slowed my heart rate, only mildly. It was easier to convince myself nobody had been there… unless they had a key.

I shook my head, too hard, seeking to erase the thought. I was spiraling as quickly as the cottage was spinning around me.

In the midst of it all, my feet skidded to a halt. The glint of a carved lintel over the hearth stunned me. In my hurry, I almost hadn’t noticed. Only standing in this spot, under this lighting, could I see it.

“The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. Genesis 4:10”

What purpose could such a harrowing message hold?

I wasn’t exactly religious, but it wasn’t the sort of decor I’d like adorning my home, let alone one meant for guests.

Were they for protection or an invocation?

But, as I wandered the halls, it seemed increasingly commonplace. Hidden amongst the grotto-inspired furniture, a grape motif sewn with pale thread into a hand towel here, dainty cursive imprinted upon a faded floor mat there.

“All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Ecclesiastes 3:20”

One carving was odd, sure. But the pattern I discerned seemed deliberate. Strangely comforting. A sense of protection that, however false, lulled me back to sleep as I planted myself on the couch. Its cushions were soft enough to swallow me whole.

—

A moist, cool draft escaped the stone walls as if from some void beneath. For the first time since arriving, I was greeted by something placid.

Gently, my eyes fluttered open. The brief moment of serenity was interrupted by a pounding in my head. Rhythmic as a heartbeat. A symphony began inside my body, and my stomach gurgled for sustenance. I could barely remember the last time I’d eaten.

Drifting into the kitchen, I took Vanja’s advice and inspected the fresh produce. Ready for a tasty treat.

Nimble fingers plucked a perfect peach from its position. Painted in bold yellow with streaks of red and orange, not a single blemish. An artist’s perfect rendition. The morsel felt waxy in my palm. Warm, virtually pulsing.

Sinking my teeth in, tender flesh collapsed, sour pulp springing forth; a breath of decay on my tongue.

“Oh, God.” I retched into the sink. There was a faint writhing. Tiny, alive. Seed-like shapes that squirmed informed me they weren’t seeds at all. The peach in my hand fell to the floor with a sickly splat. Maggots still alive inside its flesh left it looking like an ablated heart; still beating on the tile.

Feeling like curdled milk, my body soured. I still needed to eat, my appetite ruined as it was. Head spinning, stomach roaring.

With no idea how long that fruit had been sitting on the counter, I figured I’d go straight to the source. Looks can be deceiving after all.

Between a heavy sigh and attempts to steady myself, I yanked on my boots and proceeded clumsily towards the orchard. I wouldn’t be eating a thing from that kitchen any time soon.

Gravel crunched under heavy footfalls, and the fresh air began to clear my mind. Marching up the slope, taking in deep breaths, my composure returned to me. The salty breeze pulsed through the air like echoes in an empty cave.

Gradually, an unexpected landscape came into view. A family graveyard, obstructed from the cottage windows by these never-ending hills. The placement in front of the orchard, yet hidden like a well-kept secret, was at best macabre. Sinister at worst.

I moved forward. The wind transformed into a chorus of moans and wails, alarms ringing in my ears. Yet, my feet advanced. Compelled by curiosity. Entranced. It was the gravestones themselves that caught my eye, a desire to understand what I was seeing.

Row after row. Some stubby, some lanky, round, jagged, new, and old. All of them were fashioned from cold limestone with the same handmade details as the entire vineyard premises. One thing remained consistent amongst them. The engravings:

Beloved Husband. No names, no dates, no women.

Darkness encroached the corners of my vision. Was I spiraling? Merely imagining all of this? I knew traveling to a remote part of an unfamiliar country might have its quirks, but all this confusion was the antithesis of what I came for. Unease rippled through my body.

With great effort, I pushed the questions from my mind. I needed to keep myself on track. Sane. Get some nourishment, and this would all begin to make sense again. I couldn’t continue to rationalize on an empty stomach, and I did not want to come across as even more ignorant than I already was.

Get to the orchard.

This was my only goal. After all, I could always investigate more later.

Pivoting on my heels and exiting the burial ground felt as if ripping myself from thick vines. Some presence pinning me here. Part of me knew it was silly to continue ignoring the signs right in front of my face, but the spinning in my head kept that rationale just out of reach.

Up the trail I went, at last, arriving at my intended destination. Sprawled out before me were picture-perfect lines of varying fruit trees. Vibrant shades of warm yellow, orange, and crimson sprang out from among the gnarled, brown branches. The breeze that rustled through this picturesque scene felt like whispers in my ears, beckoning me forward. The scent of damp earth and rotting leaves stuck to the air. Now this was the orchard paradise that Vanja had promised. Apples, plums, lemons, peaches, and more. The latter of which I’d likely avoid, though they appeared ripe and ready for harvest. I trudged onward like a marionette with invisible strings, motivated by the roaring in my gut.

Pulling the hem of my shirt up with one hand like a make-shift basket, I greedily plucked a variety of tasty treats with the other. Never in my life had I felt so at peace with being utterly out of control. Perhaps that was the charm of this place. The thought, along with the fresh air, placated me. If only for a moment before panic seized me once more.

Between twisted limbs like arthritic fingers, there in the bark of an ancient tree, a face. A human expression of agony. Mouth stretched impossibly wide across wood, eyes protruding from knots in the trunk. Sap weeped from the features wrapped in wood grain like scar tissue as if seeping with pus. Far too uncanny to be a carving. I stumbled back, temples throbbing like the slow, tectonic shift of limestone plates grinding together.

I all but fumbled my bounty in the dead sprint back to the cottage. The stone beneath my footfalls echoed a hollow, lonely howl. My legs felt leaden, as if the terra was grasping at the soles of my boots. It was hard to tell what was up and what was down anymore. I nearly missed the flat tire on my rental car as I darted back inside.

My mind grasped for the bandwidth to investigate; it appeared as though mangled by jagged stone. Likely something I neglected to notice on my drive up. The memory was a blur of unending hills and Vanja's sickly sweet disposition. Nothing could be done about it now.

Dashing through the threshold and slamming the door shut with all my body, I leaned my back against its cold hardwood and slunk to the floor. My chest heaved up and down with wheezing breaths.

One apple. All I managed to hold onto in the heat of the moment. Shaking hands raised the produce to my quivering mandible. Fluid gushed from its green skin as I bit into the flesh with gluttony, triggering a heavy burst of tears from within me. Tears of joy for finally obtaining some semblance of nourishment. Tears of confusion, relief, mania, rage, and fear. Its metallic taste and coppery juices pooled in my stomach like the stagnant waters of a cave. Sobs wracked my body until gnashing teeth frantically reached the apple's core.

My hand, still clutching the barren carcass of the apple, fell limply upon the cold stone. My grasp waned, allowing its core to roll away. I felt hollowed out. Dejected. Staring blankly at nothing in particular as a bitter film lingered upon my tongue; breaths grew shallow and tight in my chest.

Though my fraying nerves were only moderately calmed, it stood to reason my next course of action should be to seek respite for the migraine that scalded the back of my eyes like hot iron. Coming to my feet, my joints creaked in a whining, rusted cacophony that echoed off the limestone. Cursing myself for failing to bring my own medications, I began my frenzied search, tearing through built-ins one by one. One drawer held pristine white utensils, which seemed carved from bone. In the pantry, jar upon jar of gray, decaying preserves lined up in tidy rows. Their wetness glinted in the low light.

Why did everything here feel so confusing yet… so familiar? My thoughts were no longer my own, magnetized by an intangible influence.

Before long, my gaze fastened on a rustic teakwood cabinet. There in a shadowy nook. Though tucked away at first glance, it now dominated the space with a heavy, intent presence. The cabinet called me, and like a well-trained animal, I listened. Crawling over on wavering hands and knees, I opened it with fervor. Empty. Or so I thought. But as I reached inside, a small corroded handle flush against the bottom grazed my skin; a false bottom.

My heartbeat thumped in my ears like the panic of a rabbit signaling danger. Impatiently, I pulled the panel away with one fluid motion, letting it clatter to the floor. Its handle let out a delicate whine of protest. Within this dark cubby sat brown and orange bottles with white caps of varying shapes and sizes. Each one carrying a label inscribed with a date older than the last. 1924. 1941. 1958. Yet, their contents appeared unspoiled. Deliberate scratches erased the parts where a name would be. I couldn’t read the language on the bottles. Or rather, languages. One rattled with pills here, another swished with liquid there. No two were exactly alike.

"They’re old. They must take a lot of medicine," I murmured, clutching an ampoule.

Without warning, I suddenly felt a presence in the room and whipped my head around.

“Jesus Christ!” Yelping, my heart felt as though it could explode. Vanja was standing in the doorway. When did she get there? How long had she been there? Why hadn’t I noticed? Her presence was as still and silent as the limestone markers in her family graveyard.

My body flinched so violently that the glass vial in my clutches went sailing across the floor. It didn't shatter. Merely struck the floor with a dull, blunt thud, like a head rolling from a guillotine.

“Can I help you find something, dear?” Her face soured at my use of the Lord's name, mask slipping. Only for a heartbeat, before it retained its shape once more. “We do not disrespect that name here. He is the one who provides." She stepped closer, placing the back of her hand to my forehead.

"Come. You are ill. Our wine will cure it. We shall have tasting.” A warm smile spread across her face, exposing decayed teeth stained deep, vinaceous red.

I should have bolted. I should have walked beyond these hills and kept going until my feet bled. But I let her slip by and open the hatch to the cellar. Bottomless shark-like eyes remained locked onto mine. Vanja's smile never reached them.

“Come, come.” She cooed.

As we slunk down into the wine cellar, I noticed the walls and its stairway were congested with velvety, charcoal soot. I could sense that the substance bloomed and breathed from every crack and corner in the mortar, coming up from the earth and marking its territory. Vanja struck a match, lighting well-used candles strategically ordered around the space. Nearly every surface gleamed with a slimy sheen. This wasn’t your typical cellar. It was dank, filled to the brim with bottles and barrels. There was standing room to spare. I inhaled the stagnant air, filling my lungs with the quality of moist steel wool. A crunchy cough escaped my chest. The noise bounced to and fro between buzzing walls.

The wine bottles were marked with jerky, jagged Cyrillic script that seemed more like etchings in stone rather than print on paper. Still, I could read one part of each label. Scrawled out in my native tongue were more bible verses. The same cryptic invocations that littered the rest of the cottage. Each excerpt felt intended for my eyes. Vanja plucked one from the shelf, dropping it like a glass corpse on the oak bar alongside 2 pristine glasses.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24”

Bare-handed, Vanja yanked the cork from the bottle with a satisfying burst. Steam seeped from its lip. Just as I thought she would fill my cup, the beldam turned and cascaded a stream of rouge onto the earthen floor. My ears undoubtedly caught the sound of liquid sizzling, seeping into the ground as if guzzling the wine like a parched gullet. It gave off a fecund scent, laden with the intoxicatingly sweet aromas of ripe, fallen fruit. I assumed this was a local custom.

“Vezan za zemlju.” She said, reciting a verse in a tongue that sounded like eroding boulders.

“Excuse me?” Vanja steadily filled the glasses with a dark snicker. My face flushed bashfully.

“We don’t simply say cheers, dear. Here, we say vezan za zemlju. Bound to the ground.” I kept waiting for her to elaborate, but she only lifted her glass and patiently waited for me to lift mine. I did so, not wanting to embarrass myself any more than I already had.

“Vezan za zemlju.” Clink. We chimed in unison as our glasses crashed together. The expression on her visage told me my pronunciation could use a little work.

Vanja's eyes bore holes through mine as we sipped together. Maybe she was keen on ensuring I enjoyed her wine… in her own spine-chilling way. The wine was thick, almost coagulated. A familiar metallic film coated my tongue once more. I swallowed hard.

Glass after glass, we chatted. Vanja had suddenly taken an interest in me, asking questions about my life back home. But I couldn’t help feeling as if her demeanor was somehow empty, rehearsed. It seemed as though she had asked these questions time and time again through guest after guest. Perhaps due to the alcohol or the atmosphere of this place, I answered honestly and in detail to every question, yet received blunt, single-word replies in return. Either that, or some cryptic, pious quotation that I could not glean the meaning of. If I asked something about her, the topic of conversation always flipped back to me.

“Do you have family back home?” “Is anyone missing you?” “What about a lover?” “Where do you work?” and so on. Hairs on the back of my neck erected with fear at her line of questioning. I half expected her to ask for my dental records. But, as the wine flowed, so did my compliance.

As a drunken stupor encroached upon me, there was one warning she bestowed which caught my ears.

“Whatever you do, do not wander beyond property line.” Rap. Rap. Rap. Yellowing nails tapped rhythmically across the wine bottle's surface. “Caves hide in these hills, waiting for unfortunate souls to stumble inside and swallow them whole. I’d hate for you to be taken before your time, dear.” Her voice became a low, rasping hum. “And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, and all that belonged to them.”

Steady tapping stopped abruptly; Vanja’s head tilted down towards the floor, but her eyes stared up at me wildly through wiry eyebrows. I shifted in my seat unsteadily. Not a single idea of what to do or say in response to such a thing, stomach performing backflips.

“I uh… I-I’ll be careful. Thanks for the warning…?” My gratitude came out as more of a question; it seemed to appease the old bat, and that veneer of politeness returned once more.

After what felt like forever and no time at all, the bottle had been emptied. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold up my own fatigued form. 3 or 4 glasses deep, and Vanja's chalice remained full. I’d hardly noticed until she eased in front of me, glass droning against wood.

“Drink up, dear.”

“You don’t want any?” I asked, recalling the burgundy stains that littered her teeth.

“Trust me, dear, I have the pleasure of tasting an abundance of my own wine.” That familiar forced smile unfurled across her face, revealing said stained enamel. This was the first thing she had said in a long time that made sense, especially to my intoxicated mind. With a shrug, I brought the remaining liquid to my lips. No use in wasting wine—I drank voraciously.

My eyes drifted from hers to a shelf of jarred produce. Suspended in the nebulous juices of what seemed to be olives, I was convinced I saw an eye; milky white, dull blue iris, inky black pupil, and all. Boring deep into my soul, it most certainly blinked.

“Dear God-sh!” I sputtered between the wine flowing down my throat, choking uncontrollably. The final word came out as a strange, mashed-up correction, stemming from fear of her reaction to my use of the word Jesus earlier. I drew in gasps of spore-filled air after each croaking hack. As if emulating shards of shattering glass, my body jolted. Droplets of wine flung about the room like blood spatter. A few hit Vanja's face.

“I’m so sorry!” Springing to my feet, my eyes wildly searched for anything to wipe up the mess, unsure of what to do with my hands. But she blinked, collected each droplet from her skin with a jaundiced finger, and slurped it into her maw.

“You foreigners are like cat on hot brick.” A chuckle escaped her fissured lips. It was an odd idiom to advise someone that they are nervous or restless. If Vanja was one thing, it was certainly odd. “Let me help you to bed. The wine will help you rest.”

Cellar walls spinning around me, I wasn’t about to protest. I let her liver-spotted arm slip into mine as she guided me up the stairs and to my room, tripping along the way. My body soared so roughly into the bed that I thought I might take her down with me. But the woman and her sturdiness continued to surprise me.

The bed invited me in like a warm cocoon, while a cool draft pricked goosebumps on my skin. A contrast that left me without a care in the world. My body felt weightless, as if bobbing around a steadily, sickening carousel. I scarcely perceived the click of the light or her chittering “Goodnight, dear.” under the howling winds of the landscape, which lulled me to sleep.

My violent hacking woke me with a start. An itch buzzed behind my eyes, ears, and throat that I couldn’t scratch. Clothing clung to my body, weighted with cold sweat. On the mattress beside me, the crusted imprint left behind felt like a hallucination. Resembling a chalk outline from a crime scene, only what should have been clean, white lines were replaced with my own burgundy bile.

It took considerable effort to get out of bed. Sunlight crept through the curtains like an icepick through my optic nerves. My head spun with vertigo, my scraping joints motivated by a new wave of nausea, stomach swirling. Empty and raw. I thanked whatever God Vanja was always evoking for not letting me choke on my vomit as I slept.

On sheer autopilot, my mechanical limbs peeled the sheets from the mattress and left them in a heap on the floor. The scent of cloying stomach acid swirling with fruit permeated the room; compelling me outside in search of fresh air.

The morning atmosphere was hardly a reprieve. The dawn chorus was dead. No bird song. No cadence of insects. Only a howling low gale and the crunch of gravel below my boots as I meandered into the vineyard. Heeding the warning about the property line, I kept a lazy lookout. How would I know if I reached it? Was it marked? I supposed I’d know when I saw it.

I strolled along in a dissociative state when there, in the gap between two rows, my eyes fell upon a branch. Rising up like a dirt-coated arm reaching out from the ground. Grey and decaying, as if prying itself from the Karst land. Nothing in this place made sense. My psyche had become more of a fragmented mess than it ever was before this unconventional vacation; too muddled to notice, or care. It was all too easy to pass the image off as my mind playing tricks. Still, every twitch and jerk in my fascia was begging me to leave.

Turning down the next row. Then the next. Weaving my way through the vineyard, everything looked the same. Not that I’d expect row after row of grape vines to appear unique from one another, but every trail I traversed looked exactly the same. Trellises blurred together as I took a sharp left, another right. My pace quickened from a leisurely walk to a jog, and finally a full-on sprint. Clouds of dust kicked up around me in my panic, making it harder and hard to distinguish my surroundings. I was speeding down the same row over and over again, no matter which direction I turned. The identical stretch of land rolled endlessly before me.

Then there was that branch. Again and again, I saw it. The same clawing hand. Only, each lap revealed more ghastly features than the last. First, the hand. Then, a blackened, mud-caked wrist. Hanging from its skeletal joints was a faded, handmade friendship bracelet. I cut sharply into the row adjacent, now the arm had grown a shoulder. Rotting flesh stripped away, uncovering alabaster bone as it wrenched itself free from the surrounding ground. The stench of open decay assaulted my nostrils. No matter what I did, where I went, I couldn’t escape it.

I couldn’t will myself to see any more. Every sense pounded louder, and louder. From the frantic, feral thrumming in my chest, to the rapping in my ears, to my feet against the ground beneath. A hollow beating atop a subterrane. Panic seized my lungs. Squeezing my eyes shut, I charged blindly through a patch of gnarled vines. Vines that mimicked tiny wooden hands, pulling me back into the vineyard's maw. Razor-like thorns and rigid leaves gashed my skin and clothes. A tug-of-war that felt like an eternity.

With a frantic shriek, I tumbled forward. Infinitesimal shards of rocks burrowed into the pads of my palms and knees as the earth collided with me. Whipping my head around, I could’ve sworn I saw the full figure of a rotting corpse, looming among the trellises. But I was fresh out of curiosity and desperate to get out of this hellscape. Adrenaline forced my gaze away.

Scrambling to my feet, they began pounding limestone once more in a rush to my rental. Sweaty hands grasped at the handle for purchase before giving a final, violent tug. I threw my body haphazardly into the driver's seat, throwing the keys into the ignition. I didn’t care about the open driver-side door nor my hosts, didn’t care about my possessions nor my trip deposit. The only concern I had was watching this place disappear in my rear view mirror.

My heart leaped into my throat the moment the gleam from the tire pressure light reminded me of what I already knew. I certainly wasn’t going anywhere fast, anywhere at all for that matter, with a flat tire. Something my mind was increasingly trying to convince me wasn’t a mere accident as I had led myself to believe previously.

“FuuuuuUUUUCK!!!” White knuckles gripped the steering wheel as my scream wracked my bones. Jaw rigid with tension, I ground my teeth together until the taste of bleeding gums spread across my tongue.

My only option was to calm myself down. A level head would benefit me more than the rampage I was on now. I closed down my eyes and focused on my breath.

“Okay… okay. I just need to come up with a plan. I have no car, no wifi, no cell service.” Bringing my hands to rub my temples, I thought aloud. “Maybe Vanja has a phone?” It was as good of a plan as I was going to get.

Much to my chagrin, the horrors of this place weren’t quite over. Sweat stung the fresh gashes on my face as I strained my eyes open. The scene laid out before me, Vanja’s husband dragging a bloodied, dead livestock carcass, was yet another entrant in the series of agonies set upon me. His husky frame loomed just outside my open driver-side door. Blocking my only exit as massive, dried-blood-and-dirt-coated hands with bulky fingers like fibrous roots strained against dead weight. The animal’s limbs bent at abnormal, grotesque angles. In spite of his limp, I couldn’t help but notice the way in which he dragged the husk of a once thriving creature with ease; guts and all. Its insides oozed, creating a trail of his dastardly deed while Vanja stood by, ordering him around as a maestro conducts an ensemble. Had they been there this whole time?

My ears rushed with hot blood at the sight of her, overcome by a sudden frenzy of rage. Vision tunneling, my fists formed into tight balls as instincts overrode caution.

Fear and rationale abandoned my body as I shoved past him and charged towards the ancient witch with all my fury. The cadaver slipped from his stocky, hunched shoulders with a moist splat. That same smile, the one which never reached her eyes, remained stretched across her visage. What was wrong with her? She had to be the reason I was stuck here, the only constant in this entire equation.

“This will be our dinner tonight, dear.” A lined hand gestured towards her mute mate before I could manage a word. The man didn't look at me with indignation or shock; he didn’t acknowledge me at all. His deep-set, cavernous eyes fixed blankly on the empty space before him. “Would you like to join us?”

“W-what? No… NO!” My brain rattled around in my skull as I shook my head furiously. “I would absolutely NOT like that at all. I need to use your phone! NOW!” My demand was made in utter disbelief. The grin gradually faded from the corners of her lips.

Vanja and I froze in silence for far too long. The only sound hanging in the air around us was that of her ancient husband. His jaw hung lazily open. A throaty whir throbbed from his gullet. Not too dissimilar from the tectonic grinding that resonated through the limestone-covered Karst architecture. The crone’s now vacant expression caused my determination to waver.

“You foreigners are all the same…” Vanja tutted with malicious venom. “Entitled and selfish; all of you. You have no care for our land or our customs. You may have phone after dinner.” Her words expressed calculated disappointment layered with a sinister undertone. The hag was acting as unyielding as a snake preparing to strike. She uttered no threat, so why did I intuit the tingling urgency of my survival instincts kicking into overdrive? My nervous system buzzed like the pulsating drone of seismic reverberation. The fear of being perceived as an ignorant foreigner was replaced by a fear for my life.

“I’m sorry. You’re right, that works for me. I-I’ll be in my lodging until dinner time.” I fawned, hastily agreeing to her terms, and darted back towards the cottage before the odd pair could say or do anything else. By the time I made it back and peered out the window, I half expected them to still be standing there, watching me in her statuesque manner as if part of the Karst landscape themselves. Nonetheless, it was a ghost town outside now. Nothing but the trail of gore from our future dinner remained.

My time between this horror and the next was spent in nothing short of a manic state. Ripping apart the cottage, I snooped through every cabinet, drawer, nook, and cranny I could find. All I found were strange, handmade knick-knacks the likes of which I’d never seen before, worn leather-bound books and journals in handwritten scripts I couldn’t comprehend, items that appeared to have been left behind by what I assumed were previous lodgers. But nothing that could provide any assistance or solace to me.

By the time the place was nearly turned upside down, I crawled on weakened hands and knobby knees in a last-ditch attempt to find any answers, sweeping my palm along the underside of the couch. The coarse texture of a cross-hatch fabric brushed against my grip. The hand-woven linen of string-bound hardcover. At first glance it seemed as if the photo album had simply fallen to the floor and been tucked away by accident, but the more astute part of my brain knew it was placed with the intention of keeping secrets. A foreign script was engraved on the cover: везан за земљу. Far too unfamiliar for me to interpret.

The pages were thin and soft like preserved sheets of skin. I peeled them apart carefully, exposing photo after photo. Much like the family graveyard stocked with beloved husbands, this family heirloom was filled to the brim with photos of only women. Each one resembled Vanja. Indistinguishable. Passing the time flipping pages, carbon copies of her same penetrating expression stared back at me. From Victorian to modern stylings, but the face never changed. Her identical crooked grin, coarse, inky-black hair, and stabbing gaze that would no doubt haunt my nightmares covered each page from corner to corner in an uncanny collage; clearly put together by hand.

“I show you more photo when you join for dinner, dear.” Vanja appeared suddenly, hovering over me. Her bare feet moved silently across the stones. I yipped, putting a hand to my chest as if that could stop it from thumping out and onto the floor. The glare I shot in her direction paled in comparison to those piercing bulbs of hers.

“How did you… Where on earth-why are you…” I stammered, mouth moving faster than my mind. My hand moved from my chest to the open claw she extended down towards me. Her infirm frame helped me up with that same surprising sturdiness.

“Dinner is ready. You must join now, it is the final eve of the observance.” She barked, unsurprisingly glossing over my comment. Had it really been that long already?

I followed her in bewilderment, feeling helpless to resist.

—

Musk filled my nostrils as the tinny taste of precipitation-soaked pennies permeated my tastebuds like never before. Feeling as if my gums were replaced by cotton balls, my mouth grew drier and drier by the second. I swallowed hard and grasped the glass of yellowing tap water set before me. It clinked against the rustic china place settings as I brought it to my quivering lips.

Surveying the room, the antique chair beneath me creaked to the rhythm of the record player spouting scratchy hymns in the room over. The melodies grated my eardrums with cacophonous harmonies reaching for notes that shouldn’t exist. All around me were portraits of the same Vanja-looking woman. Some painted, some black and white, others captured by modern cameras. All identical to the photo book.

Clearing my throat, I attempted small talk.

“So, uh… Vanja. How long has this place been in your family?” My hands clutched at the delicate lace tablecloth, obsessively seeking tactile grounding. A heavy sensation like lead came over my tongue. The chill in my bones told me I shouldn’t be asking questions that I might not like the answer to.

“We have been tied to this land for centuries,” she announced, scurrying into the dining area and placing a plate of greying, pulpy meat at the center of the table. It appeared raw and rotting. “The bloodline must not break. It is what the land requires, what our Lord requires.”

At the head of the table, the matriarch sat herself and began serving our plates. The husband sat across from me at her command like an obedient pet. It was clear, as always, who was in charge here.

I gazed down at my plate incredulously, the saccharine smell making my stomach churn. My fork picked at the substance randomly as I searched for more to say. A way to keep my mouth busy, other than eating.

“You must not be rude!” Vanja spat suddenly, slamming her palm upon the table and sending dishes clanking against one another. Tiny droplets of spittle sprayed from her maw and landed upon my cheek. The record player began to skip, adding yet another layer to the already nightmarish setting. I blinked hard, unsure how to proceed. “You have become so frail. We only wish to fatten you up.” She cackled heartily. The transition of her tone was as artificially sweet as the aroma in her cooking.

With shaking digits, I spooned the most appetizing bite I could scavenge between pursed lips and grimaced. I refused to chew, swallowing loudly and following it with another large gulp of water. Strangely enough, I was becoming desensitized to the metallic flavor infused with everything that originated from this land. Yet, it did nothing to ease the pang in my gut.

It clearly didn’t bother her husband opposite me. He shoveled down bite after bite, all the while making harsh gurgling noises. His jaws ground together in a circular motion as if savoring every morsel.

“Is he… okay?” I shuddered, fearing he might choke.

“He is perfect,” Vanja cooed, rising from her chair. She positioned herself behind him, stroking the stringy, soaked strands of hair that clung to his greased forehead. “The men in our family must make a sacrifice, a promise to the earth, a blood contract. What comes from our land, must stay in our land. Our secrets, our ritual, our observance—remain bound here for all eternity.” Knobby fingers with browning, unkempt nails gripped his roughly stubbled chin before gradually splitting his jaws in two. There was a crudely cut, scarred nub squirming around where his tongue should be. My eyes frantically switched from his face to hers. Their unsettling grins were perfect carbon copies. Down to every feature. In abject horror, the realization promptly pierced through my confusion.

“But isn’t he your husband? What could he possibly be making such a sacrifice for?” Deep down I knew my suspicions were true, but I had to be sure. There were no photos of men in the family chronicle, after all. With a wink, she released her grip, leaning down to place a kiss on his brow like an impish pantomime.

“Yes. Just as mother’s husband was her brother, he is mine. We keep it in the family, as you foreigners say. You see, as the bloodline thinned, we lost ability to bear child. This earth requires our tending; we cannot part with it. We must invite guests to stay… forever. To become one with us, our Savior, and our land.” Any ounce of hospitality in her cadence, however false before, was gone now. No more dear pet names, no more two-faced niceties.

“Shh… You must sleep now,” Vanja whispered as she slunk behind me like a wildcat hunting its prey. She placed her witch hands on my shoulders and dug talon-like fingers into my collarbones.

Finally, the dots were connecting, just as the room began to spin. I was reeling from each new revelation but this was something different, something much worse. My eyelids grew heavy while the rest of my body began to feel light as air. There was no doubt now that the old woman had drugged me. Before I could take action, my head crumpled into the mess of meat in front of me with a blunt thud. Bringing her mouth to my ear, Vanja whispered one final utterance. “The land provides to us, when we provide to it.” I was paralyzed to fight back, consciousness fading like a flame deprived of oxygen.

—

I came to, surrounded by the smell of earth, the feeling of loose ground cocooning me, the vibration of a shovel pounding into rock. A hole in the earth was my new home. My lungs filled with particles of dirt and my chest grew heavy. Between the combination of drugs not fully worn off, restraints rubbing against my appendages, and heaps of limestone-infused soil, struggling was useless. All I could see was the radiance of a fire bouncing off the cave walls above me. All I could do was lay there helplessly as they called upon some faceless, nameless, eldritch horror.

“Zemlya zhyva, krov p’yet.”

"Земля жива, кров п’є”

“The earth lives, drinks the blood.”

Vanja’s wicked features came into view as she crouched and roughly snatched my bound wrist. Her black-veiled frame was aglow by the light of the pale moon. I was helpless to scream, nor could I cry out. Not for lack of trying, but all that came out was a strained whisper. My throat felt like sandpaper, my lungs were on the brink of collapse, filled with dust and ash that swirled about the cavern. Everything was closing in around me as the corners of my vision remained blackened and blurred.

She unsheathed a blade. I was reminded of the pristine cutlery set I had found in the cottage kitchen. This, too, was made from bone, only sharper, more jagged. Lethal.

Taking the blade to the tender skin of my wrist and splitting my veins open in an instant, she let the warm, vital fluid splatter onto the surrounding stones. Rich, carmine red contrasted the weathered geology. It bubbled and popped with a hiss. Imbibed into the greedy ground as if being consumed, assimilating my lifeblood with their land.

Next, she coerced the liquid into her cupped hand, spurting it from my slit skin and lifting it to her lips. Like a High Priestess, she devoured her wretched communion. I was a part of her now, part of their land. I thought back to our night in the cellar and wondered if the libations she fed me were really wine at all. Every act its own evil intention. I could see that now as Vanja stared down on me with a dour expression. The corners of her lips turned flat, no longer grinning. I was always going to be the vessel for this dark rite.

“Please…” I rasped feebly. “You don’t have to do this.” She didn’t acknowledge me. After all, there was no hope in persuading her to break free of this generational tradition. No hope in preventing the inevitable.

The sour smell of decay and their rolling chorus crescendoed. Shovelful after shovelful of dirt piled atop my useless body. I felt like a sack of meat being tenderized, already slaughtered. First my feet, then my legs, next my torso; saving my head for last. They needed me to bear witness. To be the observer of their observance. Each revelation hammered home the fact that I was never getting out of here. I had seen too much, knew too much. Just as they knew no one was coming to look for me.

As her chanting continued, a chorus of voices in multiple cadences and multiple languages came from her. One was her own, in plain English that I could understand. The other, an incomprehensible rumble that seemed to come straight from the limestone. A deep, tectonic grinding in her native tongue.

Though I couldn’t see the husband, I could hear him. For it was he who wielded the shovel, creating a disturbed squealing cacophony like an excited pig. The high-pitched chitters that emitted from his throat harmonized with Vanja’s chants rhythmically, acting as an eager conduit.

Something beneath me began to writhe. Pointed roots wedged against my back. I felt their sharp, cold edges begin to grasp at my clothing and skin, causing them to burst open like the juicy flesh of a ripened peach. The earth was hungry, pulling me deeper.

I was despondent. All I could manage was to stare listlessly at the cave ceiling where flames danced among lunar incandescence. The outlines of Vanja and her husband danced there, too. Alongside a shapeless, inky form. I couldn’t tell if it was just my eyes, still playing tricks on me. Even in my final moments, I was desperate to rationalize what I encountered in this place. After everything I’d witnessed.

My last thoughts were of every action that brought me here as my vision became eclipsed by falling earth; their chanting dampened by dirt compacting around my ears. From items obviously left by previous victims, to the absurdity of the rental ad. You’ll be dying to linger. From the mold toxicity undeniably poisoning my bloodstream, to the eerie gravestone carvings. Beloved Husband.

A final thought tugged at my psyche as the soil dragged me under, every orifice suffocated with terra. How much more would the land demand before the next harvest?

Vacation Rental: Arcadian Vineyard Cottage

“Find your serenity at this bucolic cottage in the countryside! Experience the simple pleasures of hand-picked produce, right in your own vineyard sanctuary. Bathe in the peaceful quietude of the traditional way of life— there are no neighbors for miles! Just you, the sun-soaked grapes, and scents of petrichor. Isolated— tranquil and still. You’ll be dying to linger by the end of your stay. So stick around; we have a place just for you! (Plus, a little wine and cheese never hurt anybody.)”

That was the ad that compelled me to spiral amidst agricultural roads, searching for my long-overdue escape from reality. Was it trying too hard? Absolutely. But who didn’t enjoy wine and cheese?

“Sign me up,” I whispered to no one, striking the keys of my laptop with determination, and finalizing the booking. An extended weekend getaway. That was all my vacation time afforded me, and Lord, I needed it. My mind and body were begging for leisure, screaming like rusted hinges.

Here I was, lost. Of course. Because God forbid one thing in my life goes smoothly. The GPS signal vanished hours ago, leaving me in an expanse of grey oblivion. A winding dirt road expanded before me, surrounded by fields as far as the eye could see. Everything looked the same out here.

“Come on, come on, come on!” I begged the inanimate brick that was my phone, smacking the now useless device against the dashboard. My shoulders sagged in surrender, heavy with the disappointment of these uncontrollable circumstances. Due to exhaustion from a hefty international flight, my muscles ached with the need for a proper bed.

“I’ll just continue to follow this road and magically end up where I’m supposed to be.” It was wishful thinking on my part. Even if sarcastically, maybe I could make it so. My mind was in vacation mode by now; delusional with misplaced optimism.

The path became more rugged, and I trudged on in the dated rental car. Its rusted frame rattled and groaned as the vehicle struggled to chug up yet another hill. Every rock or divot in the road sent the suspension into frenzied jerking. Having the steering wheel in a death grip, my hands threatened to cramp.

Coming to a stop at the first fork in the road, I pulled over with a sigh. The subtle smell of dirt kicked up by inadequate tires filled my nose and made my eyes sting. Fingers jabbed at my phone in an attempt to make the bars reappear… nothing. Dead zone.

“That’s just great.” I spoke aloud to myself, if only to fill the silence.

BANG!

In an instant, my heart battered against my rib cage. Arms turned to static, as my already fracturing mental state was shattered. A craggy hand occupied my window, the source of the noise that nearly stopped my heart. Attached to the hand was an equally craggy crone. The woman's blank face shifted into an inviting smile, as if putting on a mask. Almost too quick to notice. She pointed downward, and I took that to mean she wanted me to roll down my window.

It’s not like anyone else was coming to the rescue. My eyes darted from hers to the window crank in an uncomfortable silence that stretched too long. I willed my body as it yelped: Wait. Stop. Wary of strangers, but running out of options, I wound down the window an inch. Its un-lubricated mechanism protested in the same way my brain had been screaming: Something is wrong. Like a hot stove, I wanted to put my finger on it, but couldn’t.

“My apologies, you startled me.” Soft words came out tentatively, yet polite. “Could you direct me towards the Arcadian Vineyard Cottage?”

I dug into the booking app and hunted for the listing. My mind raced as a white screen confronted me. More than likely due to zero service… never mind the fact I had saved my trip information for offline viewing. Glitches happen, right?

“Hello, dear.” Her voice carried an unfamiliar, husky accent. Sickly sweet like honey, laced with something rancid. It wound up my nerves, already frayed and intolerant, as her wry smile revealed mottled teeth. “I would be the owner of said cottage. Foreigners often get lost around here. I saw you coming up the road from the mother-in-law's suite.”

Her tone felt too formal, almost theatrical. Something malevolent flickered behind her eyes. She looked like a woman who was once a farmer's daughter, turned hippie: Raven hair greying with age, Bohemian fashion sense, bare feet coated in dirt. Unique, to say the least. But her mannerisms betrayed that image. Too rehearsed, too forced. A contradiction that made my spine thrum like a chain pulled taut.

“If you’d like, I could hop in and direct you the rest of the way?”

I hadn’t seen any houses for miles. There was nothing but sweeping fields unfolding in all directions. How had she seen me when this was my first time seeing her? Looking at the surroundings and then back to her, she must’ve read the confusion in my expression.

“It’s just over this hill, dear.” Her smile was alarmingly wide, and her English almost too precise.

“How do I know that?” I questioned begrudgingly, no way of confirming the truth now. Something about this didn’t sit right with me. The rational part of my brain was screaming, causing my body to tense. The road behind seemed longer now than it had before. I had no concrete reason to doubt her but also, no reason to trust her.

“I show you.” Matter-of-factly, she slithered around the hood and to my passenger side. The imprint of her shriveled hand was left in the dust on the window like a dark omen. Pulling the handle with a pop, the elderly woman found no resistance. It was unlocked to my surprise.

“S-sure… uh—hop in?” It came out more like a question than an affirmation. Maybe my gut knew something my mind couldn’t come to terms with. I should have turned around. Gone back, chalked it up as a loss, and spent my long weekend off at home. But then, all the effort it took to get here would be for naught.

With a youthful energy, the woman sprang into action. Before I could finish my sentence, she had plopped down in my passenger seat; an earthy smell wafted into my nostrils. I tried not to worry about the dirt print she’d leave there.

So long, security deposit.

“As I said, it’s just over this hill.” Her skeletal hand pointed towards the road in front of us. She was an astute woman, sensing my hesitation. Never mind the fact that I had just let a stranger into my car. Had she even told me her name? I couldn’t recall if it was on the listing. In any case, I couldn’t reference that anymore.

Pulling back onto the road, I reasoned this was the best way to make conversation. Avoid more awkward silence.

“I’m sorry, but what did you say your name was?” My voice came out confidently, for once.

“Vanja…” In typical Slavic fashion, she shaped her J’s like drifting Y’s.

“Vanja Jurković.” Placing a staccato on each syllable, there was no question in my mind that she was a native of these lands.

Patiently, I waited for her to ask the same of me. But the question never came, and the air hung with only the sound of gravel clattering against weather worn wheel wells. Maybe she already knew my name from the booking. I shrugged with a sigh, attempting to pull my rigid shoulders away from my ears. I was eager to exit this metal cage.

Up, up, over the hill we went. It seemed much higher now than from the bottom; more of a mountain, really. As we crested the top, a boundless vineyard came into view. It had the same layout as advertised. Only now, under cloudy skies, did it come across as somber. Ominous.

Tenebrous trees arched over the road, scraping against the car doors like hands grasping for purchase. Claustrophobic. As if they might cling on and pull us into their grasp. Trapped, to become one with the land.

Before long, we stopped on a gravel driveway, brakes squealing in protest. Every fiber of my being was screaming, red flag. Yet, after all it took to get here, I felt compelled to stay. I sympathized with the woman, assuming it was pretty lonely here.

Against my better judgment, my hesitant hand lurched the shift stick into park. Vanja stepped out; she was surprisingly agile considering her frail frame. Perhaps she was younger than I gave her credit for. Or more certainly, years of working in the vineyard had strengthened her elderly stature.

A man came hobbling out of what I assume was the mother-in-law's suite. His uneven gait paralleled Vanja’s personality. A unique pair; I tried not to stare.

“Hello—”

“Oh, he doesn’t speak English, dear. Please, don’t concern yourself with my husband. He’s merely here to help with your luggage. We will be out of your hair shortly.” Vanja cut off our greeting bluntly as her husband flashed a gummy, toothless smile.

“Oh…” Dejected, my voice came as a defeat. “Well, please tell him thank you for me.”

“Certainly, dear.” I wished she’d stop calling me that. It was an endearing term, sure. However, her accent, combined with the language barrier, fell condescending on my ears. An attempt to make me feel less-than. Small.

I turned my attention from the odd couple to my surroundings. The homestead was undoubtedly shaped by its natural environment. Compact, monolithic structures rose and fell with the rolling hills like boats sailing on a turquoise sea. Its simple, well-defined architecture was assembled from local Karst limestone.

High-pitched stone roofs and limited, small windows braced against the Bora. Whose cold bite carried briny scents that cut through agricultural aromas. A contrast as sharp as the mountainous countryside itself. Maritime air tinged my taste buds with the salt of the coast.

Somewhere, a wind chime tolled a lonely melody, counterpoint to the soft rustle of hearty grapevines. Preternatural isolation settled over me. Peaceful, yet, unsettling all at once.

My brain itched to research the area further, something I should have done before arriving. I hadn’t made the time for more than a cursory investigation.

Looking over my wifi settings, one was available: The Vineyard.

“Could I have the wifi password, please?” I inquired, holding up my phone for Vanja. I would finally have enough time and quiet to educate myself on the region.

“We have no need for that here.” Her words sprang forth with a forced chortle. “I’m sure you’ll find an abundance of tranquil distractions during your stay.” Tacking it on as if she suddenly remembered I was their guest.

“Of course. Silly me…” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Not as if she said they did not have such things. This must have been their way of compelling guests to escape reality. So why did the crone make me feel foolish for asking? She started up the path to the main house, and I continued to lag.

“Your accommodations are this way, dear. Follow me.” In this place, I was always 2 steps behind.

Stepping over the threshold and into the open-concept layout, envy washed over me. A kitchen brimming with fresh produce, baked goods, handcrafted cooking utensils, and shelves stacked wall-to-wall with ancient recipe books. A smell like heaven, undercut, as if trying to conceal something sour.

Muted tones and an ambient glow enhanced the grounded environment. Built-in niches within the cottage mimicked natural caves native to the region. Organic wood floors whined like a wounded animal with each step as I made my way to the bedroom. Trailing after her, the rough stone walls leeched a soggy chill through my bones as we turned another corner. Vanja moved swiftly, and I nearly found myself lost again.

Her husband long since vanished, and my luggage was already waiting for me. For a man with so much trouble getting around, he nearly went unnoticed. Had I not seen him upon my arrival, I likely wouldn’t have known he existed.

“Here is your room and your things. Take advantage of the fully stocked kitchen—everything is cultivated, raised, and crafted by my husband and me on the property.” Her words were punctuated by pride. “Feel free to explore the garden terrace out back, the orchard to the east, and the vineyard to the west. There is a wine cellar at your disposal under the hatch in the kitchen. And if, for some reason, you still don’t have what you need, I’ll be here to fulfill any request. All that to say, make yourself at home, dear.” Confident and to the point, it was doubtful I’d want for anything in this place.

With a nod, she left me to my own devices. Finally.

Sagging onto the mattress, its springs groaned with the same exhaustion that flowed through my veins. Eyes burning with jet lag, their lids drooped closed like curtains. Sleep wrapped me like a blanket, without protest. Out cold.

—

I bolted upright, heart pummeling my chest. Darkness had fallen over the property in my inescapable slumber. Only, this wasn’t what startled me. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, my veins frosted over.

A silhouette, just outside the door frame. Crooked. Shoulders rising and falling with ragged, uneven breaths. Vanja's husband.

“What the…” My whisper faded into the black abyss.

Clumsily, I fumbled for the lamp switch. Moving as quickly as my half-asleep appendages would allow, light flooded the doorway; empty. The scent of earth and wine remained.

An ill attempt at restoring the apparition, I blinked forcefully; not likely.

Had I imagined it?

No, the hollow echo of footsteps across floorboards betrayed that thought. Down the hall and out the door as he skittered away like a spider who knows it’s been found. Creep.

I mulled over my options, lulling myself into a false sense of security yet again. I couldn’t exactly tell Vanja, Lord knows she’d take his side over mine. I still had two more days paid for. Nowhere else to go. No guarantee I’d find my way on my own.

Gears ground inside my mind. Perhaps he had his own backwards logic for observing me, the ignorant foreigner with a narrow world-view.

“There was no one there. The old cottage bones are merely settling.” My whisper bounced amongst the limestone walls. Providing scant solace.

Thoughts became a knotted ball of fear and confusion. Ears ringing; a musty smell like damp paper filled my nose. As if a balloon deflating, my lungs tightened. Throat raw, head pounding, it felt as though a low hum was buzzing in one ear and out the other. Into a coughing fit I went, chasing down the hallway after the ghost, or lack thereof. I needed a drink of water. Urgently.

Desperately filing through cabinets, my hand grasped the first glass in reach. I violently threw open the fridge, sending miscellaneous jars tinkling against one another in their drawers. No water. My only option was the tap.

The knob screamed as I doggedly twisted, and yellow-stained water sputtered forth. The only alternatives were farm-fresh milk or wine. Hardly the type to cure a coughing fit. I consumed in greedy gulps. The water permeated with a metallic bite like pennies left in rain. Barely a reprieve, but at least I could breathe.

Stalking around the house like a predatory animal, I checked every door and every window. Locked, or without the ability to open at all. This slowed my heart rate, only mildly. It was easier to convince myself nobody had been there… unless they had a key.

I shook my head, too hard, seeking to erase the thought. I was spiraling as quickly as the cottage was spinning around me.

In the midst of it all, my feet skidded to a halt. The glint of a carved lintel over the hearth stunned me. In my hurry, I almost hadn’t noticed. Only standing in this spot, under this lighting, could I see it.

“The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. Genesis 4:10”

What purpose could such a harrowing message hold?

I wasn’t exactly religious, but it wasn’t the sort of decor I’d like adorning my home, let alone one meant for guests.

Were they for protection or an invocation?

But, as I wandered the halls, it seemed increasingly commonplace. Hidden amongst the grotto-inspired furniture, a grape motif sewn with pale thread into a hand towel here, dainty cursive imprinted upon a faded floor mat there.

“All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Ecclesiastes 3:20”

One carving was odd, sure. But the pattern I discerned seemed deliberate. Strangely comforting. A sense of protection that, however false, lulled me back to sleep as I planted myself on the couch. Its cushions were soft enough to swallow me whole.

—

A moist, cool draft escaped the stone walls as if from some void beneath. For the first time since arriving, I was greeted by something placid.

Gently, my eyes fluttered open. The brief moment of serenity was interrupted by a pounding in my head. Rhythmic as a heartbeat. A symphony began inside my body, and my stomach gurgled for sustenance. I could barely remember the last time I’d eaten.

Drifting into the kitchen, I took Vanja’s advice and inspected the fresh produce. Ready for a tasty treat.

Nimble fingers plucked a perfect peach from its position. Painted in bold yellow with streaks of red and orange, not a single blemish. An artist’s perfect rendition. The morsel felt waxy in my palm. Warm, virtually pulsing.

Sinking my teeth in, tender flesh collapsed, sour pulp springing forth; a breath of decay on my tongue.

“Oh, God.” I retched into the sink. There was a faint writhing. Tiny, alive. Seed-like shapes that squirmed informed me they weren’t seeds at all. The peach in my hand fell to the floor with a sickly splat. Maggots still alive inside its flesh left it looking like an ablated heart; still beating on the tile.

Feeling like curdled milk, my body soured. I still needed to eat, my appetite ruined as it was. Head spinning, stomach roaring.

With no idea how long that fruit had been sitting on the counter, I figured I’d go straight to the source. Looks can be deceiving after all.

Between a heavy sigh and attempts to steady myself, I yanked on my boots and proceeded clumsily towards the orchard. I wouldn’t be eating a thing from that kitchen any time soon.

Gravel crunched under heavy footfalls, and the fresh air began to clear my mind. Marching up the slope, taking in deep breaths, my composure returned to me. The salty breeze pulsed through the air like echoes in an empty cave.

Gradually, an unexpected landscape came into view. A family graveyard, obstructed from the cottage windows by these never-ending hills. The placement in front of the orchard, yet hidden like a well-kept secret, was at best macabre. Sinister at worst.

I moved forward. The wind transformed into a chorus of moans and wails, alarms ringing in my ears. Yet, my feet advanced. Compelled by curiosity. Entranced. It was the gravestones themselves that caught my eye, a desire to understand what I was seeing.

Row after row. Some stubby, some lanky, round, jagged, new, and old. All of them were fashioned from cold limestone with the same handmade details as the entire vineyard premises. One thing remained consistent amongst them. The engravings:

Beloved Husband. No names, no dates, no women.

Darkness encroached the corners of my vision. Was I spiraling? Merely imagining all of this? I knew traveling to a remote part of an unfamiliar country might have its quirks, but all this confusion was the antithesis of what I came for. Unease rippled through my body.

With great effort, I pushed the questions from my mind. I needed to keep myself on track. Sane. Get some nourishment, and this would all begin to make sense again. I couldn’t continue to rationalize on an empty stomach, and I did not want to come across as even more ignorant than I already was.

Get to the orchard.

This was my only goal. After all, I could always investigate more later.

Pivoting on my heels and exiting the burial ground felt as if ripping myself from thick vines. Some presence pinning me here. Part of me knew it was silly to continue ignoring the signs right in front of my face, but the spinning in my head kept that rationale just out of reach.

Up the trail I went, at last, arriving at my intended destination. Sprawled out before me were picture-perfect lines of varying fruit trees. Vibrant shades of warm yellow, orange, and crimson sprang out from among the gnarled, brown branches. The breeze that rustled through this picturesque scene felt like whispers in my ears, beckoning me forward. The scent of damp earth and rotting leaves stuck to the air. Now this was the orchard paradise that Vanja had promised. Apples, plums, lemons, peaches, and more. The latter of which I’d likely avoid, though they appeared ripe and ready for harvest. I trudged onward like a marionette with invisible strings, motivated by the roaring in my gut.

Pulling the hem of my shirt up with one hand like a make-shift basket, I greedily plucked a variety of tasty treats with the other. Never in my life had I felt so at peace with being utterly out of control. Perhaps that was the charm of this place. The thought, along with the fresh air, placated me. If only for a moment before panic seized me once more.

Between twisted limbs like arthritic fingers, there in the bark of an ancient tree, a face. A human expression of agony. Mouth stretched impossibly wide across wood, eyes protruding from knots in the trunk. Sap weeped from the features wrapped in wood grain like scar tissue as if seeping with pus. Far too uncanny to be a carving. I stumbled back, temples throbbing like the slow, tectonic shift of limestone plates grinding together.

I all but fumbled my bounty in the dead sprint back to the cottage. The stone beneath my footfalls echoed a hollow, lonely howl. My legs felt leaden, as if the terra was grasping at the soles of my boots. It was hard to tell what was up and what was down anymore. I nearly missed the flat tire on my rental car as I darted back inside.

My mind grasped for the bandwidth to investigate; it appeared as though mangled by jagged stone. Likely something I neglected to notice on my drive up. The memory was a blur of unending hills and Vanja's sickly sweet disposition. Nothing could be done about it now.

Dashing through the threshold and slamming the door shut with all my body, I leaned my back against its cold hardwood and slunk to the floor. My chest heaved up and down with wheezing breaths.

One apple. All I managed to hold onto in the heat of the moment. Shaking hands raised the produce to my quivering mandible. Fluid gushed from its green skin as I bit into the flesh with gluttony, triggering a heavy burst of tears from within me. Tears of joy for finally obtaining some semblance of nourishment. Tears of confusion, relief, mania, rage, and fear. Its metallic taste and coppery juices pooled in my stomach like the stagnant waters of a cave. Sobs wracked my body until gnashing teeth frantically reached the apple's core.

My hand, still clutching the barren carcass of the apple, fell limply upon the cold stone. My grasp waned, allowing its core to roll away. I felt hollowed out. Dejected. Staring blankly at nothing in particular as a bitter film lingered upon my tongue; breaths grew shallow and tight in my chest.

Though my fraying nerves were only moderately calmed, it stood to reason my next course of action should be to seek respite for the migraine that scalded the back of my eyes like hot iron. Coming to my feet, my joints creaked in a whining, rusted cacophony that echoed off the limestone. Cursing myself for failing to bring my own medications, I began my frenzied search, tearing through built-ins one by one. One drawer held pristine white utensils, which seemed carved from bone. In the pantry, jar upon jar of gray, decaying preserves lined up in tidy rows. Their wetness glinted in the low light.

Why did everything here feel so confusing yet… so familiar? My thoughts were no longer my own, magnetized by an intangible influence.

Before long, my gaze fastened on a rustic teakwood cabinet. There in a shadowy nook. Though tucked away at first glance, it now dominated the space with a heavy, intent presence. The cabinet called me, and like a well-trained animal, I listened. Crawling over on wavering hands and knees, I opened it with fervor. Empty. Or so I thought. But as I reached inside, a small corroded handle flush against the bottom grazed my skin; a false bottom.

My heartbeat thumped in my ears like the panic of a rabbit signaling danger. Impatiently, I pulled the panel away with one fluid motion, letting it clatter to the floor. Its handle let out a delicate whine of protest. Within this dark cubby sat brown and orange bottles with white caps of varying shapes and sizes. Each one carrying a label inscribed with a date older than the last. 1924. 1941. 1958. Yet, their contents appeared unspoiled. Deliberate scratches erased the parts where a name would be. I couldn’t read the language on the bottles. Or rather, languages. One rattled with pills here, another swished with liquid there. No two were exactly alike.

"They’re old. They must take a lot of medicine," I murmured, clutching an ampoule.

Without warning, I suddenly felt a presence in the room and whipped my head around.

“Jesus Christ!” Yelping, my heart felt as though it could explode. Vanja was standing in the doorway. When did she get there? How long had she been there? Why hadn’t I noticed? Her presence was as still and silent as the limestone markers in her family graveyard.

My body flinched so violently that the glass vial in my clutches went sailing across the floor. It didn't shatter. Merely struck the floor with a dull, blunt thud, like a head rolling from a guillotine.

“Can I help you find something, dear?” Her face soured at my use of the Lord's name, mask slipping. Only for a heartbeat, before it retained its shape once more. “We do not disrespect that name here. He is the one who provides." She stepped closer, placing the back of her hand to my forehead.

"Come. You are ill. Our wine will cure it. We shall have tasting.” A warm smile spread across her face, exposing decayed teeth stained deep, vinaceous red.

I should have bolted. I should have walked beyond these hills and kept going until my feet bled. But I let her slip by and open the hatch to the cellar. Bottomless shark-like eyes remained locked onto mine. Vanja's smile never reached them.

“Come, come.” She cooed.

As we slunk down into the wine cellar, I noticed the walls and its stairway were congested with velvety, charcoal soot. I could sense that the substance bloomed and breathed from every crack and corner in the mortar, coming up from the earth and marking its territory. Vanja struck a match, lighting well-used candles strategically ordered around the space. Nearly every surface gleamed with a slimy sheen. This wasn’t your typical cellar. It was dank, filled to the brim with bottles and barrels. There was standing room to spare. I inhaled the stagnant air, filling my lungs with the quality of moist steel wool. A crunchy cough escaped my chest. The noise bounced to and fro between buzzing walls.

The wine bottles were marked with jerky, jagged Cyrillic script that seemed more like etchings in stone rather than print on paper. Still, I could read one part of each label. Scrawled out in my native tongue were more bible verses. The same cryptic invocations that littered the rest of the cottage. Each excerpt felt intended for my eyes. Vanja plucked one from the shelf, dropping it like a glass corpse on the oak bar alongside 2 pristine glasses.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24”

Bare-handed, Vanja yanked the cork from the bottle with a satisfying burst. Steam seeped from its lip. Just as I thought she would fill my cup, the beldam turned and cascaded a stream of rouge onto the earthen floor. My ears undoubtedly caught the sound of liquid sizzling, seeping into the ground as if guzzling the wine like a parched gullet. It gave off a fecund scent, laden with the intoxicatingly sweet aromas of ripe, fallen fruit. I assumed this was a local custom.

“Vezan za zemlju.” She said, reciting a verse in a tongue that sounded like eroding boulders.

“Excuse me?” Vanja steadily filled the glasses with a dark snicker. My face flushed bashfully.

“We don’t simply say cheers, dear. Here, we say vezan za zemlju. Bound to the ground.” I kept waiting for her to elaborate, but she only lifted her glass and patiently waited for me to lift mine. I did so, not wanting to embarrass myself any more than I already had.

“Vezan za zemlju.” Clink. We chimed in unison as our glasses crashed together. The expression on her visage told me my pronunciation could use a little work.

Vanja's eyes bore holes through mine as we sipped together. Maybe she was keen on ensuring I enjoyed her wine… in her own spine-chilling way. The wine was thick, almost coagulated. A familiar metallic film coated my tongue once more. I swallowed hard.

Glass after glass, we chatted. Vanja had suddenly taken an interest in me, asking questions about my life back home. But I couldn’t help feeling as if her demeanor was somehow empty, rehearsed. It seemed as though she had asked these questions time and time again through guest after guest. Perhaps due to the alcohol or the atmosphere of this place, I answered honestly and in detail to every question, yet received blunt, single-word replies in return. Either that, or some cryptic, pious quotation that I could not glean the meaning of. If I asked something about her, the topic of conversation always flipped back to me.

“Do you have family back home?” “Is anyone missing you?” “What about a lover?” “Where do you work?” and so on. Hairs on the back of my neck erected with fear at her line of questioning. I half expected her to ask for my dental records. But, as the wine flowed, so did my compliance.

As a drunken stupor encroached upon me, there was one warning she bestowed which caught my ears.

“Whatever you do, do not wander beyond property line.” Rap. Rap. Rap. Yellowing nails tapped rhythmically across the wine bottle's surface. “Caves hide in these hills, waiting for unfortunate souls to stumble inside and swallow them whole. I’d hate for you to be taken before your time, dear.” Her voice became a low, rasping hum. “And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, and all that belonged to them.”

Steady tapping stopped abruptly; Vanja’s head tilted down towards the floor, but her eyes stared up at me wildly through wiry eyebrows. I shifted in my seat unsteadily. Not a single idea of what to do or say in response to such a thing, stomach performing backflips.

“I uh… I-I’ll be careful. Thanks for the warning…?” My gratitude came out as more of a question; it seemed to appease the old bat, and that veneer of politeness returned once more.

After what felt like forever and no time at all, the bottle had been emptied. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold up my own fatigued form. 3 or 4 glasses deep, and Vanja's chalice remained full. I’d hardly noticed until she eased in front of me, glass droning against wood.

“Drink up, dear.”

“You don’t want any?” I asked, recalling the burgundy stains that littered her teeth.

“Trust me, dear, I have the pleasure of tasting an abundance of my own wine.” That familiar forced smile unfurled across her face, revealing said stained enamel. This was the first thing she had said in a long time that made sense, especially to my intoxicated mind. With a shrug, I brought the remaining liquid to my lips. No use in wasting wine—I drank voraciously.

My eyes drifted from hers to a shelf of jarred produce. Suspended in the nebulous juices of what seemed to be olives, I was convinced I saw an eye; milky white, dull blue iris, inky black pupil, and all. Boring deep into my soul, it most certainly blinked.

“Dear God-sh!” I sputtered between the wine flowing down my throat, choking uncontrollably. The final word came out as a strange, mashed-up correction, stemming from fear of her reaction to my use of the word Jesus earlier. I drew in gasps of spore-filled air after each croaking hack. As if emulating shards of shattering glass, my body jolted. Droplets of wine flung about the room like blood spatter. A few hit Vanja's face.

“I’m so sorry!” Springing to my feet, my eyes wildly searched for anything to wipe up the mess, unsure of what to do with my hands. But she blinked, collected each droplet from her skin with a jaundiced finger, and slurped it into her maw.

“You foreigners are like cat on hot brick.” A chuckle escaped her fissured lips. It was an odd idiom to advise someone that they are nervous or restless. If Vanja was one thing, it was certainly odd. “Let me help you to bed. The wine will help you rest.”

Cellar walls spinning around me, I wasn’t about to protest. I let her liver-spotted arm slip into mine as she guided me up the stairs and to my room, tripping along the way. My body soared so roughly into the bed that I thought I might take her down with me. But the woman and her sturdiness continued to surprise me.

The bed invited me in like a warm cocoon, while a cool draft pricked goosebumps on my skin. A contrast that left me without a care in the world. My body felt weightless, as if bobbing around a steadily, sickening carousel. I scarcely perceived the click of the light or her chittering “Goodnight, dear.” under the howling winds of the landscape, which lulled me to sleep.

My violent hacking woke me with a start. An itch buzzed behind my eyes, ears, and throat that I couldn’t scratch. Clothing clung to my body, weighted with cold sweat. On the mattress beside me, the crusted imprint left behind felt like a hallucination. Resembling a chalk outline from a crime scene, only what should have been clean, white lines were replaced with my own burgundy bile.

It took considerable effort to get out of bed. Sunlight crept through the curtains like an icepick through my optic nerves. My head spun with vertigo, my scraping joints motivated by a new wave of nausea, stomach swirling. Empty and raw. I thanked whatever God Vanja was always evoking for not letting me choke on my vomit as I slept.

On sheer autopilot, my mechanical limbs peeled the sheets from the mattress and left them in a heap on the floor. The scent of cloying stomach acid swirling with fruit permeated the room; compelling me outside in search of fresh air.

The morning atmosphere was hardly a reprieve. The dawn chorus was dead. No bird song. No cadence of insects. Only a howling low gale and the crunch of gravel below my boots as I meandered into the vineyard. Heeding the warning about the property line, I kept a lazy lookout. How would I know if I reached it? Was it marked? I supposed I’d know when I saw it.

I strolled along in a dissociative state when there, in the gap between two rows, my eyes fell upon a branch. Rising up like a dirt-coated arm reaching out from the ground. Grey and decaying, as if prying itself from the Karst land. Nothing in this place made sense. My psyche had become more of a fragmented mess than it ever was before this unconventional vacation; too muddled to notice, or care. It was all too easy to pass the image off as my mind playing tricks. Still, every twitch and jerk in my fascia was begging me to leave.

Turning down the next row. Then the next. Weaving my way through the vineyard, everything looked the same. Not that I’d expect row after row of grape vines to appear unique from one another, but every trail I traversed looked exactly the same. Trellises blurred together as I took a sharp left, another right. My pace quickened from a leisurely walk to a jog, and finally a full-on sprint. Clouds of dust kicked up around me in my panic, making it harder and hard to distinguish my surroundings. I was speeding down the same row over and over again, no matter which direction I turned. The identical stretch of land rolled endlessly before me.

Then there was that branch. Again and again, I saw it. The same clawing hand. Only, each lap revealed more ghastly features than the last. First, the hand. Then, a blackened, mud-caked wrist. Hanging from its skeletal joints was a faded, handmade friendship bracelet. I cut sharply into the row adjacent, now the arm had grown a shoulder. Rotting flesh stripped away, uncovering alabaster bone as it wrenched itself free from the surrounding ground. The stench of open decay assaulted my nostrils. No matter what I did, where I went, I couldn’t escape it.

I couldn’t will myself to see any more. Every sense pounded louder, and louder. From the frantic, feral thrumming in my chest, to the rapping in my ears, to my feet against the ground beneath. A hollow beating atop a subterrane. Panic seized my lungs. Squeezing my eyes shut, I charged blindly through a patch of gnarled vines. Vines that mimicked tiny wooden hands, pulling me back into the vineyard's maw. Razor-like thorns and rigid leaves gashed my skin and clothes. A tug-of-war that felt like an eternity.

With a frantic shriek, I tumbled forward. Infinitesimal shards of rocks burrowed into the pads of my palms and knees as the earth collided with me. Whipping my head around, I could’ve sworn I saw the full figure of a rotting corpse, looming among the trellises. But I was fresh out of curiosity and desperate to get out of this hellscape. Adrenaline forced my gaze away.

Scrambling to my feet, they began pounding limestone once more in a rush to my rental. Sweaty hands grasped at the handle for purchase before giving a final, violent tug. I threw my body haphazardly into the driver's seat, throwing the keys into the ignition. I didn’t care about the open driver-side door nor my hosts, didn’t care about my possessions nor my trip deposit. The only concern I had was watching this place disappear in my rear view mirror.

My heart leaped into my throat the moment the gleam from the tire pressure light reminded me of what I already knew. I certainly wasn’t going anywhere fast, anywhere at all for that matter, with a flat tire. Something my mind was increasingly trying to convince me wasn’t a mere accident as I had led myself to believe previously.

“FuuuuuUUUUCK!!!” White knuckles gripped the steering wheel as my scream wracked my bones. Jaw rigid with tension, I ground my teeth together until the taste of bleeding gums spread across my tongue.

My only option was to calm myself down. A level head would benefit me more than the rampage I was on now. I closed down my eyes and focused on my breath.

“Okay… okay. I just need to come up with a plan. I have no car, no wifi, no cell service.” Bringing my hands to rub my temples, I thought aloud. “Maybe Vanja has a phone?” It was as good of a plan as I was going to get.

Much to my chagrin, the horrors of this place weren’t quite over. Sweat stung the fresh gashes on my face as I strained my eyes open. The scene laid out before me, Vanja’s husband dragging a bloodied, dead livestock carcass, was yet another entrant in the series of agonies set upon me. His husky frame loomed just outside my open driver-side door. Blocking my only exit as massive, dried-blood-and-dirt-coated hands with bulky fingers like fibrous roots strained against dead weight. The animal’s limbs bent at abnormal, grotesque angles. In spite of his limp, I couldn’t help but notice the way in which he dragged the husk of a once thriving creature with ease; guts and all. Its insides oozed, creating a trail of his dastardly deed while Vanja stood by, ordering him around as a maestro conducts an ensemble. Had they been there this whole time?

My ears rushed with hot blood at the sight of her, overcome by a sudden frenzy of rage. Vision tunneling, my fists formed into tight balls as instincts overrode caution.

Fear and rationale abandoned my body as I shoved past him and charged towards the ancient witch with all my fury. The cadaver slipped from his stocky, hunched shoulders with a moist splat. That same smile, the one which never reached her eyes, remained stretched across her visage. What was wrong with her? She had to be the reason I was stuck here, the only constant in this entire equation.

“This will be our dinner tonight, dear.” A lined hand gestured towards her mute mate before I could manage a word. The man didn't look at me with indignation or shock; he didn’t acknowledge me at all. His deep-set, cavernous eyes fixed blankly on the empty space before him. “Would you like to join us?”

“W-what? No… NO!” My brain rattled around in my skull as I shook my head furiously. “I would absolutely NOT like that at all. I need to use your phone! NOW!” My demand was made in utter disbelief. The grin gradually faded from the corners of her lips.

Vanja and I froze in silence for far too long. The only sound hanging in the air around us was that of her ancient husband. His jaw hung lazily open. A throaty whir throbbed from his gullet. Not too dissimilar from the tectonic grinding that resonated through the limestone-covered Karst architecture. The crone’s now vacant expression caused my determination to waver.

“You foreigners are all the same…” Vanja tutted with malicious venom. “Entitled and selfish; all of you. You have no care for our land or our customs. You may have phone after dinner.” Her words expressed calculated disappointment layered with a sinister undertone. The hag was acting as unyielding as a snake preparing to strike. She uttered no threat, so why did I intuit the tingling urgency of my survival instincts kicking into overdrive? My nervous system buzzed like the pulsating drone of seismic reverberation. The fear of being perceived as an ignorant foreigner was replaced by a fear for my life.

“I’m sorry. You’re right, that works for me. I-I’ll be in my lodging until dinner time.” I fawned, hastily agreeing to her terms, and darted back towards the cottage before the odd pair could say or do anything else. By the time I made it back and peered out the window, I half expected them to still be standing there, watching me in her statuesque manner as if part of the Karst landscape themselves. Nonetheless, it was a ghost town outside now. Nothing but the trail of gore from our future dinner remained.

My time between this horror and the next was spent in nothing short of a manic state. Ripping apart the cottage, I snooped through every cabinet, drawer, nook, and cranny I could find. All I found were strange, handmade knick-knacks the likes of which I’d never seen before, worn leather-bound books and journals in handwritten scripts I couldn’t comprehend, items that appeared to have been left behind by what I assumed were previous lodgers. But nothing that could provide any assistance or solace to me.

By the time the place was nearly turned upside down, I crawled on weakened hands and knobby knees in a last-ditch attempt to find any answers, sweeping my palm along the underside of the couch. The coarse texture of a cross-hatch fabric brushed against my grip. The hand-woven linen of string-bound hardcover. At first glance it seemed as if the photo album had simply fallen to the floor and been tucked away by accident, but the more astute part of my brain knew it was placed with the intention of keeping secrets. A foreign script was engraved on the cover: везан за земљу. Far too unfamiliar for me to interpret.

The pages were thin and soft like preserved sheets of skin. I peeled them apart carefully, exposing photo after photo. Much like the family graveyard stocked with beloved husbands, this family heirloom was filled to the brim with photos of only women. Each one resembled Vanja. Indistinguishable. Passing the time flipping pages, carbon copies of her same penetrating expression stared back at me. From Victorian to modern stylings, but the face never changed. Her identical crooked grin, coarse, inky-black hair, and stabbing gaze that would no doubt haunt my nightmares covered each page from corner to corner in an uncanny collage; clearly put together by hand.

“I show you more photo when you join for dinner, dear.” Vanja appeared suddenly, hovering over me. Her bare feet moved silently across the stones. I yipped, putting a hand to my chest as if that could stop it from thumping out and onto the floor. The glare I shot in her direction paled in comparison to those piercing bulbs of hers.

“How did you… Where on earth-why are you…” I stammered, mouth moving faster than my mind. My hand moved from my chest to the open claw she extended down towards me. Her infirm frame helped me up with that same surprising sturdiness.

“Dinner is ready. You must join now, it is the final eve of the observance.” She barked, unsurprisingly glossing over my comment. Had it really been that long already?

I followed her in bewilderment, feeling helpless to resist.

—

Musk filled my nostrils as the tinny taste of precipitation-soaked pennies permeated my tastebuds like never before. Feeling as if my gums were replaced by cotton balls, my mouth grew drier and drier by the second. I swallowed hard and grasped the glass of yellowing tap water set before me. It clinked against the rustic china place settings as I brought it to my quivering lips.

Surveying the room, the antique chair beneath me creaked to the rhythm of the record player spouting scratchy hymns in the room over. The melodies grated my eardrums with cacophonous harmonies reaching for notes that shouldn’t exist. All around me were portraits of the same Vanja-looking woman. Some painted, some black and white, others captured by modern cameras. All identical to the photo book.

Clearing my throat, I attempted small talk.

“So, uh… Vanja. How long has this place been in your family?” My hands clutched at the delicate lace tablecloth, obsessively seeking tactile grounding. A heavy sensation like lead came over my tongue. The chill in my bones told me I shouldn’t be asking questions that I might not like the answer to.

“We have been tied to this land for centuries,” she announced, scurrying into the dining area and placing a plate of greying, pulpy meat at the center of the table. It appeared raw and rotting. “The bloodline must not break. It is what the land requires, what our Lord requires.”

At the head of the table, the matriarch sat herself and began serving our plates. The husband sat across from me at her command like an obedient pet. It was clear, as always, who was in charge here.

I gazed down at my plate incredulously, the saccharine smell making my stomach churn. My fork picked at the substance randomly as I searched for more to say. A way to keep my mouth busy, other than eating.

“You must not be rude!” Vanja spat suddenly, slamming her palm upon the table and sending dishes clanking against one another. Tiny droplets of spittle sprayed from her maw and landed upon my cheek. The record player began to skip, adding yet another layer to the already nightmarish setting. I blinked hard, unsure how to proceed. “You have become so frail. We only wish to fatten you up.” She cackled heartily. The transition of her tone was as artificially sweet as the aroma in her cooking.

With shaking digits, I spooned the most appetizing bite I could scavenge between pursed lips and grimaced. I refused to chew, swallowing loudly and following it with another large gulp of water. Strangely enough, I was becoming desensitized to the metallic flavor infused with everything that originated from this land. Yet, it did nothing to ease the pang in my gut.

It clearly didn’t bother her husband opposite me. He shoveled down bite after bite, all the while making harsh gurgling noises. His jaws ground together in a circular motion as if savoring every morsel.

“Is he… okay?” I shuddered, fearing he might choke.

“He is perfect,” Vanja cooed, rising from her chair. She positioned herself behind him, stroking the stringy, soaked strands of hair that clung to his greased forehead. “The men in our family must make a sacrifice, a promise to the earth, a blood contract. What comes from our land, must stay in our land. Our secrets, our ritual, our observance—remain bound here for all eternity.” Knobby fingers with browning, unkempt nails gripped his roughly stubbled chin before gradually splitting his jaws in two. There was a crudely cut, scarred nub squirming around where his tongue should be. My eyes frantically switched from his face to hers. Their unsettling grins were perfect carbon copies. Down to every feature. In abject horror, the realization promptly pierced through my confusion.

“But isn’t he your husband? What could he possibly be making such a sacrifice for?” Deep down I knew my suspicions were true, but I had to be sure. There were no photos of men in the family chronicle, after all. With a wink, she released her grip, leaning down to place a kiss on his brow like an impish pantomime.

“Yes. Just as mother’s husband was her brother, he is mine. We keep it in the family, as you foreigners say. You see, as the bloodline thinned, we lost ability to bear child. This earth requires our tending; we cannot part with it. We must invite guests to stay… forever. To become one with us, our Savior, and our land.” Any ounce of hospitality in her cadence, however false before, was gone now. No more dear pet names, no more two-faced niceties.

“Shh… You must sleep now,” Vanja whispered as she slunk behind me like a wildcat hunting its prey. She placed her witch hands on my shoulders and dug talon-like fingers into my collarbones.

Finally, the dots were connecting, just as the room began to spin. I was reeling from each new revelation but this was something different, something much worse. My eyelids grew heavy while the rest of my body began to feel light as air. There was no doubt now that the old woman had drugged me. Before I could take action, my head crumpled into the mess of meat in front of me with a blunt thud. Bringing her mouth to my ear, Vanja whispered one final utterance. “The land provides to us, when we provide to it.” I was paralyzed to fight back, consciousness fading like a flame deprived of oxygen.

—

I came to, surrounded by the smell of earth, the feeling of loose ground cocooning me, the vibration of a shovel pounding into rock. A hole in the earth was my new home. My lungs filled with particles of dirt and my chest grew heavy. Between the combination of drugs not fully worn off, restraints rubbing against my appendages, and heaps of limestone-infused soil, struggling was useless. All I could see was the radiance of a fire bouncing off the cave walls above me. All I could do was lay there helplessly as they called upon some faceless, nameless, eldritch horror.

“Zemlya zhyva, krov p’yet.”

"Земля жива, кров п’є”

“The earth lives, drinks the blood.”

Vanja’s wicked features came into view as she crouched and roughly snatched my bound wrist. Her black-veiled frame was aglow by the light of the pale moon. I was helpless to scream, nor could I cry out. Not for lack of trying, but all that came out was a strained whisper. My throat felt like sandpaper, my lungs were on the brink of collapse, filled with dust and ash that swirled about the cavern. Everything was closing in around me as the corners of my vision remained blackened and blurred.

She unsheathed a blade. I was reminded of the pristine cutlery set I had found in the cottage kitchen. This, too, was made from bone, only sharper, more jagged. Lethal.

Taking the blade to the tender skin of my wrist and splitting my veins open in an instant, she let the warm, vital fluid splatter onto the surrounding stones. Rich, carmine red contrasted the weathered geology. It bubbled and popped with a hiss. Imbibed into the greedy ground as if being consumed, assimilating my lifeblood with their land.

Next, she coerced the liquid into her cupped hand, spurting it from my slit skin and lifting it to her lips. Like a High Priestess, she devoured her wretched communion. I was a part of her now, part of their land. I thought back to our night in the cellar and wondered if the libations she fed me were really wine at all. Every act its own evil intention. I could see that now as Vanja stared down on me with a dour expression. The corners of her lips turned flat, no longer grinning. I was always going to be the vessel for this dark rite.

“Please…” I rasped feebly. “You don’t have to do this.” She didn’t acknowledge me. After all, there was no hope in persuading her to break free of this generational tradition. No hope in preventing the inevitable.

The sour smell of decay and their rolling chorus crescendoed. Shovelful after shovelful of dirt piled atop my useless body. I felt like a sack of meat being tenderized, already slaughtered. First my feet, then my legs, next my torso; saving my head for last. They needed me to bear witness. To be the observer of their observance. Each revelation hammered home the fact that I was never getting out of here. I had seen too much, knew too much. Just as they knew no one was coming to look for me.

As her chanting continued, a chorus of voices in multiple cadences and multiple languages came from her. One was her own, in plain English that I could understand. The other, an incomprehensible rumble that seemed to come straight from the limestone. A deep, tectonic grinding in her native tongue.

Though I couldn’t see the husband, I could hear him. For it was he who wielded the shovel, creating a disturbed squealing cacophony like an excited pig. The high-pitched chitters that emitted from his throat harmonized with Vanja’s chants rhythmically, acting as an eager conduit.

Something beneath me began to writhe. Pointed roots wedged against my back. I felt their sharp, cold edges begin to grasp at my clothing and skin, causing them to burst open like the juicy flesh of a ripened peach. The earth was hungry, pulling me deeper.

I was despondent. All I could manage was to stare listlessly at the cave ceiling where flames danced among lunar incandescence. The outlines of Vanja and her husband danced there, too. Alongside a shapeless, inky form. I couldn’t tell if it was just my eyes, still playing tricks on me. Even in my final moments, I was desperate to rationalize what I encountered in this place. After everything I’d witnessed.

My last thoughts were of every action that brought me here as my vision became eclipsed by falling earth; their chanting dampened by dirt compacting around my ears. From items obviously left by previous victims, to the absurdity of the rental ad. You’ll be dying to linger. From the mold toxicity undeniably poisoning my bloodstream, to the eerie gravestone carvings. Beloved Husband.

A final thought tugged at my psyche as the soil dragged me under, every orifice suffocated with terra. How much more would the land demand before the next harvest?

Vacation Rental: Arcadian Vineyard Cottage

“Find your serenity at this bucolic cottage in the countryside! Experience the simple pleasures of hand-picked produce, right in your own vineyard sanctuary. Bathe in the peaceful quietude of the traditional way of life— there are no neighbors for miles! Just you, the sun-soaked grapes, and scents of petrichor. Isolated— tranquil and still. You’ll be dying to linger by the end of your stay. So stick around; we have a place just for you! (Plus, a little wine and cheese never hurt anybody.)”

That was the ad that compelled me to spiral amidst agricultural roads, searching for my long-overdue escape from reality. Was it trying too hard? Absolutely. But who didn’t enjoy wine and cheese?

“Sign me up,” I whispered to no one, striking the keys of my laptop with determination, and finalizing the booking. An extended weekend getaway. That was all my vacation time afforded me, and Lord, I needed it. My mind and body were begging for leisure, screaming like rusted hinges.

Here I was, lost. Of course. Because God forbid one thing in my life goes smoothly. The GPS signal vanished hours ago, leaving me in an expanse of grey oblivion. A winding dirt road expanded before me, surrounded by fields as far as the eye could see. Everything looked the same out here.

“Come on, come on, come on!” I begged the inanimate brick that was my phone, smacking the now useless device against the dashboard. My shoulders sagged in surrender, heavy with the disappointment of these uncontrollable circumstances. Due to exhaustion from a hefty international flight, my muscles ached with the need for a proper bed.

“I’ll just continue to follow this road and magically end up where I’m supposed to be.” It was wishful thinking on my part. Even if sarcastically, maybe I could make it so. My mind was in vacation mode by now; delusional with misplaced optimism.

The path became more rugged, and I trudged on in the dated rental car. Its rusted frame rattled and groaned as the vehicle struggled to chug up yet another hill. Every rock or divot in the road sent the suspension into frenzied jerking. Having the steering wheel in a death grip, my hands threatened to cramp.

Coming to a stop at the first fork in the road, I pulled over with a sigh. The subtle smell of dirt kicked up by inadequate tires filled my nose and made my eyes sting. Fingers jabbed at my phone in an attempt to make the bars reappear… nothing. Dead zone.

“That’s just great.” I spoke aloud to myself, if only to fill the silence.

BANG!

In an instant, my heart battered against my rib cage. Arms turned to static, as my already fracturing mental state was shattered. A craggy hand occupied my window, the source of the noise that nearly stopped my heart. Attached to the hand was an equally craggy crone. The woman's blank face shifted into an inviting smile, as if putting on a mask. Almost too quick to notice. She pointed downward, and I took that to mean she wanted me to roll down my window.

It’s not like anyone else was coming to the rescue. My eyes darted from hers to the window crank in an uncomfortable silence that stretched too long. I willed my body as it yelped: Wait. Stop. Wary of strangers, but running out of options, I wound down the window an inch. Its un-lubricated mechanism protested in the same way my brain had been screaming: Something is wrong. Like a hot stove, I wanted to put my finger on it, but couldn’t.

“My apologies, you startled me.” Soft words came out tentatively, yet polite. “Could you direct me towards the Arcadian Vineyard Cottage?”

I dug into the booking app and hunted for the listing. My mind raced as a white screen confronted me. More than likely due to zero service… never mind the fact I had saved my trip information for offline viewing. Glitches happen, right?

“Hello, dear.” Her voice carried an unfamiliar, husky accent. Sickly sweet like honey, laced with something rancid. It wound up my nerves, already frayed and intolerant, as her wry smile revealed mottled teeth. “I would be the owner of said cottage. Foreigners often get lost around here. I saw you coming up the road from the mother-in-law's suite.”

Her tone felt too formal, almost theatrical. Something malevolent flickered behind her eyes. She looked like a woman who was once a farmer's daughter, turned hippie: Raven hair greying with age, Bohemian fashion sense, bare feet coated in dirt. Unique, to say the least. But her mannerisms betrayed that image. Too rehearsed, too forced. A contradiction that made my spine thrum like a chain pulled taut.

“If you’d like, I could hop in and direct you the rest of the way?”

I hadn’t seen any houses for miles. There was nothing but sweeping fields unfolding in all directions. How had she seen me when this was my first time seeing her? Looking at the surroundings and then back to her, she must’ve read the confusion in my expression.

“It’s just over this hill, dear.” Her smile was alarmingly wide, and her English almost too precise.

“How do I know that?” I questioned begrudgingly, no way of confirming the truth now. Something about this didn’t sit right with me. The rational part of my brain was screaming, causing my body to tense. The road behind seemed longer now than it had before. I had no concrete reason to doubt her but also, no reason to trust her.

“I show you.” Matter-of-factly, she slithered around the hood and to my passenger side. The imprint of her shriveled hand was left in the dust on the window like a dark omen. Pulling the handle with a pop, the elderly woman found no resistance. It was unlocked to my surprise.

“S-sure… uh—hop in?” It came out more like a question than an affirmation. Maybe my gut knew something my mind couldn’t come to terms with. I should have turned around. Gone back, chalked it up as a loss, and spent my long weekend off at home. But then, all the effort it took to get here would be for naught.

With a youthful energy, the woman sprang into action. Before I could finish my sentence, she had plopped down in my passenger seat; an earthy smell wafted into my nostrils. I tried not to worry about the dirt print she’d leave there.

So long, security deposit.

“As I said, it’s just over this hill.” Her skeletal hand pointed towards the road in front of us. She was an astute woman, sensing my hesitation. Never mind the fact that I had just let a stranger into my car. Had she even told me her name? I couldn’t recall if it was on the listing. In any case, I couldn’t reference that anymore.

Pulling back onto the road, I reasoned this was the best way to make conversation. Avoid more awkward silence.

“I’m sorry, but what did you say your name was?” My voice came out confidently, for once.

“Vanja…” In typical Slavic fashion, she shaped her J’s like drifting Y’s.

“Vanja Jurković.” Placing a staccato on each syllable, there was no question in my mind that she was a native of these lands.

Patiently, I waited for her to ask the same of me. But the question never came, and the air hung with only the sound of gravel clattering against weather worn wheel wells. Maybe she already knew my name from the booking. I shrugged with a sigh, attempting to pull my rigid shoulders away from my ears. I was eager to exit this metal cage.

Up, up, over the hill we went. It seemed much higher now than from the bottom; more of a mountain, really. As we crested the top, a boundless vineyard came into view. It had the same layout as advertised. Only now, under cloudy skies, did it come across as somber. Ominous.

Tenebrous trees arched over the road, scraping against the car doors like hands grasping for purchase. Claustrophobic. As if they might cling on and pull us into their grasp. Trapped, to become one with the land.

Before long, we stopped on a gravel driveway, brakes squealing in protest. Every fiber of my being was screaming, red flag. Yet, after all it took to get here, I felt compelled to stay. I sympathized with the woman, assuming it was pretty lonely here.

Against my better judgment, my hesitant hand lurched the shift stick into park. Vanja stepped out; she was surprisingly agile considering her frail frame. Perhaps she was younger than I gave her credit for. Or more certainly, years of working in the vineyard had strengthened her elderly stature.

A man came hobbling out of what I assume was the mother-in-law's suite. His uneven gait paralleled Vanja’s personality. A unique pair; I tried not to stare.

“Hello—”

“Oh, he doesn’t speak English, dear. Please, don’t concern yourself with my husband. He’s merely here to help with your luggage. We will be out of your hair shortly.” Vanja cut off our greeting bluntly as her husband flashed a gummy, toothless smile.

“Oh…” Dejected, my voice came as a defeat. “Well, please tell him thank you for me.”

“Certainly, dear.” I wished she’d stop calling me that. It was an endearing term, sure. However, her accent, combined with the language barrier, fell condescending on my ears. An attempt to make me feel less-than. Small.

I turned my attention from the odd couple to my surroundings. The homestead was undoubtedly shaped by its natural environment. Compact, monolithic structures rose and fell with the rolling hills like boats sailing on a turquoise sea. Its simple, well-defined architecture was assembled from local Karst limestone.

High-pitched stone roofs and limited, small windows braced against the Bora. Whose cold bite carried briny scents that cut through agricultural aromas. A contrast as sharp as the mountainous countryside itself. Maritime air tinged my taste buds with the salt of the coast.

Somewhere, a wind chime tolled a lonely melody, counterpoint to the soft rustle of hearty grapevines. Preternatural isolation settled over me. Peaceful, yet, unsettling all at once.

My brain itched to research the area further, something I should have done before arriving. I hadn’t made the time for more than a cursory investigation.

Looking over my wifi settings, one was available: The Vineyard.

“Could I have the wifi password, please?” I inquired, holding up my phone for Vanja. I would finally have enough time and quiet to educate myself on the region.

“We have no need for that here.” Her words sprang forth with a forced chortle. “I’m sure you’ll find an abundance of tranquil distractions during your stay.” Tacking it on as if she suddenly remembered I was their guest.

“Of course. Silly me…” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Not as if she said they did not have such things. This must have been their way of compelling guests to escape reality. So why did the crone make me feel foolish for asking? She started up the path to the main house, and I continued to lag.

“Your accommodations are this way, dear. Follow me.” In this place, I was always 2 steps behind.

Stepping over the threshold and into the open-concept layout, envy washed over me. A kitchen brimming with fresh produce, baked goods, handcrafted cooking utensils, and shelves stacked wall-to-wall with ancient recipe books. A smell like heaven, undercut, as if trying to conceal something sour.

Muted tones and an ambient glow enhanced the grounded environment. Built-in niches within the cottage mimicked natural caves native to the region. Organic wood floors whined like a wounded animal with each step as I made my way to the bedroom. Trailing after her, the rough stone walls leeched a soggy chill through my bones as we turned another corner. Vanja moved swiftly, and I nearly found myself lost again.

Her husband long since vanished, and my luggage was already waiting for me. For a man with so much trouble getting around, he nearly went unnoticed. Had I not seen him upon my arrival, I likely wouldn’t have known he existed.

“Here is your room and your things. Take advantage of the fully stocked kitchen—everything is cultivated, raised, and crafted by my husband and me on the property.” Her words were punctuated by pride. “Feel free to explore the garden terrace out back, the orchard to the east, and the vineyard to the west. There is a wine cellar at your disposal under the hatch in the kitchen. And if, for some reason, you still don’t have what you need, I’ll be here to fulfill any request. All that to say, make yourself at home, dear.” Confident and to the point, it was doubtful I’d want for anything in this place.

With a nod, she left me to my own devices. Finally.

Sagging onto the mattress, its springs groaned with the same exhaustion that flowed through my veins. Eyes burning with jet lag, their lids drooped closed like curtains. Sleep wrapped me like a blanket, without protest. Out cold.

—

I bolted upright, heart pummeling my chest. Darkness had fallen over the property in my inescapable slumber. Only, this wasn’t what startled me. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, my veins frosted over.

A silhouette, just outside the door frame. Crooked. Shoulders rising and falling with ragged, uneven breaths. Vanja's husband.

“What the…” My whisper faded into the black abyss.

Clumsily, I fumbled for the lamp switch. Moving as quickly as my half-asleep appendages would allow, light flooded the doorway; empty. The scent of earth and wine remained.

An ill attempt at restoring the apparition, I blinked forcefully; not likely.

Had I imagined it?

No, the hollow echo of footsteps across floorboards betrayed that thought. Down the hall and out the door as he skittered away like a spider who knows it’s been found. Creep.

I mulled over my options, lulling myself into a false sense of security yet again. I couldn’t exactly tell Vanja, Lord knows she’d take his side over mine. I still had two more days paid for. Nowhere else to go. No guarantee I’d find my way on my own.

Gears ground inside my mind. Perhaps he had his own backwards logic for observing me, the ignorant foreigner with a narrow world-view.

“There was no one there. The old cottage bones are merely settling.” My whisper bounced amongst the limestone walls. Providing scant solace.

Thoughts became a knotted ball of fear and confusion. Ears ringing; a musty smell like damp paper filled my nose. As if a balloon deflating, my lungs tightened. Throat raw, head pounding, it felt as though a low hum was buzzing in one ear and out the other. Into a coughing fit I went, chasing down the hallway after the ghost, or lack thereof. I needed a drink of water. Urgently.

Desperately filing through cabinets, my hand grasped the first glass in reach. I violently threw open the fridge, sending miscellaneous jars tinkling against one another in their drawers. No water. My only option was the tap.

The knob screamed as I doggedly twisted, and yellow-stained water sputtered forth. The only alternatives were farm-fresh milk or wine. Hardly the type to cure a coughing fit. I consumed in greedy gulps. The water permeated with a metallic bite like pennies left in rain. Barely a reprieve, but at least I could breathe.

Stalking around the house like a predatory animal, I checked every door and every window. Locked, or without the ability to open at all. This slowed my heart rate, only mildly. It was easier to convince myself nobody had been there… unless they had a key.

I shook my head, too hard, seeking to erase the thought. I was spiraling as quickly as the cottage was spinning around me.

In the midst of it all, my feet skidded to a halt. The glint of a carved lintel over the hearth stunned me. In my hurry, I almost hadn’t noticed. Only standing in this spot, under this lighting, could I see it.

“The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. Genesis 4:10”

What purpose could such a harrowing message hold?

I wasn’t exactly religious, but it wasn’t the sort of decor I’d like adorning my home, let alone one meant for guests.

Were they for protection or an invocation?

But, as I wandered the halls, it seemed increasingly commonplace. Hidden amongst the grotto-inspired furniture, a grape motif sewn with pale thread into a hand towel here, dainty cursive imprinted upon a faded floor mat there.

“All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Ecclesiastes 3:20”

One carving was odd, sure. But the pattern I discerned seemed deliberate. Strangely comforting. A sense of protection that, however false, lulled me back to sleep as I planted myself on the couch. Its cushions were soft enough to swallow me whole.

—

A moist, cool draft escaped the stone walls as if from some void beneath. For the first time since arriving, I was greeted by something placid.

Gently, my eyes fluttered open. The brief moment of serenity was interrupted by a pounding in my head. Rhythmic as a heartbeat. A symphony began inside my body, and my stomach gurgled for sustenance. I could barely remember the last time I’d eaten.

Drifting into the kitchen, I took Vanja’s advice and inspected the fresh produce. Ready for a tasty treat.

Nimble fingers plucked a perfect peach from its position. Painted in bold yellow with streaks of red and orange, not a single blemish. An artist’s perfect rendition. The morsel felt waxy in my palm. Warm, virtually pulsing.

Sinking my teeth in, tender flesh collapsed, sour pulp springing forth; a breath of decay on my tongue.

“Oh, God.” I retched into the sink. There was a faint writhing. Tiny, alive. Seed-like shapes that squirmed informed me they weren’t seeds at all. The peach in my hand fell to the floor with a sickly splat. Maggots still alive inside its flesh left it looking like an ablated heart; still beating on the tile.

Feeling like curdled milk, my body soured. I still needed to eat, my appetite ruined as it was. Head spinning, stomach roaring.

With no idea how long that fruit had been sitting on the counter, I figured I’d go straight to the source. Looks can be deceiving after all.

Between a heavy sigh and attempts to steady myself, I yanked on my boots and proceeded clumsily towards the orchard. I wouldn’t be eating a thing from that kitchen any time soon.

Gravel crunched under heavy footfalls, and the fresh air began to clear my mind. Marching up the slope, taking in deep breaths, my composure returned to me. The salty breeze pulsed through the air like echoes in an empty cave.

Gradually, an unexpected landscape came into view. A family graveyard, obstructed from the cottage windows by these never-ending hills. The placement in front of the orchard, yet hidden like a well-kept secret, was at best macabre. Sinister at worst.

I moved forward. The wind transformed into a chorus of moans and wails, alarms ringing in my ears. Yet, my feet advanced. Compelled by curiosity. Entranced. It was the gravestones themselves that caught my eye, a desire to understand what I was seeing.

Row after row. Some stubby, some lanky, round, jagged, new, and old. All of them were fashioned from cold limestone with the same handmade details as the entire vineyard premises. One thing remained consistent amongst them. The engravings:

Beloved Husband. No names, no dates, no women.

Darkness encroached the corners of my vision. Was I spiraling? Merely imagining all of this? I knew traveling to a remote part of an unfamiliar country might have its quirks, but all this confusion was the antithesis of what I came for. Unease rippled through my body.

With great effort, I pushed the questions from my mind. I needed to keep myself on track. Sane. Get some nourishment, and this would all begin to make sense again. I couldn’t continue to rationalize on an empty stomach, and I did not want to come across as even more ignorant than I already was.

Get to the orchard.

This was my only goal. After all, I could always investigate more later.

Pivoting on my heels and exiting the burial ground felt as if ripping myself from thick vines. Some presence pinning me here. Part of me knew it was silly to continue ignoring the signs right in front of my face, but the spinning in my head kept that rationale just out of reach.

Up the trail I went, at last, arriving at my intended destination. Sprawled out before me were picture-perfect lines of varying fruit trees. Vibrant shades of warm yellow, orange, and crimson sprang out from among the gnarled, brown branches. The breeze that rustled through this picturesque scene felt like whispers in my ears, beckoning me forward. The scent of damp earth and rotting leaves stuck to the air. Now this was the orchard paradise that Vanja had promised. Apples, plums, lemons, peaches, and more. The latter of which I’d likely avoid, though they appeared ripe and ready for harvest. I trudged onward like a marionette with invisible strings, motivated by the roaring in my gut.

Pulling the hem of my shirt up with one hand like a make-shift basket, I greedily plucked a variety of tasty treats with the other. Never in my life had I felt so at peace with being utterly out of control. Perhaps that was the charm of this place. The thought, along with the fresh air, placated me. If only for a moment before panic seized me once more.

Between twisted limbs like arthritic fingers, there in the bark of an ancient tree, a face. A human expression of agony. Mouth stretched impossibly wide across wood, eyes protruding from knots in the trunk. Sap weeped from the features wrapped in wood grain like scar tissue as if seeping with pus. Far too uncanny to be a carving. I stumbled back, temples throbbing like the slow, tectonic shift of limestone plates grinding together.

I all but fumbled my bounty in the dead sprint back to the cottage. The stone beneath my footfalls echoed a hollow, lonely howl. My legs felt leaden, as if the terra was grasping at the soles of my boots. It was hard to tell what was up and what was down anymore. I nearly missed the flat tire on my rental car as I darted back inside.

My mind grasped for the bandwidth to investigate; it appeared as though mangled by jagged stone. Likely something I neglected to notice on my drive up. The memory was a blur of unending hills and Vanja's sickly sweet disposition. Nothing could be done about it now.

Dashing through the threshold and slamming the door shut with all my body, I leaned my back against its cold hardwood and slunk to the floor. My chest heaved up and down with wheezing breaths.

One apple. All I managed to hold onto in the heat of the moment. Shaking hands raised the produce to my quivering mandible. Fluid gushed from its green skin as I bit into the flesh with gluttony, triggering a heavy burst of tears from within me. Tears of joy for finally obtaining some semblance of nourishment. Tears of confusion, relief, mania, rage, and fear. Its metallic taste and coppery juices pooled in my stomach like the stagnant waters of a cave. Sobs wracked my body until gnashing teeth frantically reached the apple's core.

My hand, still clutching the barren carcass of the apple, fell limply upon the cold stone. My grasp waned, allowing its core to roll away. I felt hollowed out. Dejected. Staring blankly at nothing in particular as a bitter film lingered upon my tongue; breaths grew shallow and tight in my chest.

Though my fraying nerves were only moderately calmed, it stood to reason my next course of action should be to seek respite for the migraine that scalded the back of my eyes like hot iron. Coming to my feet, my joints creaked in a whining, rusted cacophony that echoed off the limestone. Cursing myself for failing to bring my own medications, I began my frenzied search, tearing through built-ins one by one. One drawer held pristine white utensils, which seemed carved from bone. In the pantry, jar upon jar of gray, decaying preserves lined up in tidy rows. Their wetness glinted in the low light.

Why did everything here feel so confusing yet… so familiar? My thoughts were no longer my own, magnetized by an intangible influence.

Before long, my gaze fastened on a rustic teakwood cabinet. There in a shadowy nook. Though tucked away at first glance, it now dominated the space with a heavy, intent presence. The cabinet called me, and like a well-trained animal, I listened. Crawling over on wavering hands and knees, I opened it with fervor. Empty. Or so I thought. But as I reached inside, a small corroded handle flush against the bottom grazed my skin; a false bottom.

My heartbeat thumped in my ears like the panic of a rabbit signaling danger. Impatiently, I pulled the panel away with one fluid motion, letting it clatter to the floor. Its handle let out a delicate whine of protest. Within this dark cubby sat brown and orange bottles with white caps of varying shapes and sizes. Each one carrying a label inscribed with a date older than the last. 1924. 1941. 1958. Yet, their contents appeared unspoiled. Deliberate scratches erased the parts where a name would be. I couldn’t read the language on the bottles. Or rather, languages. One rattled with pills here, another swished with liquid there. No two were exactly alike.

"They’re old. They must take a lot of medicine," I murmured, clutching an ampoule.

Without warning, I suddenly felt a presence in the room and whipped my head around.

“Jesus Christ!” Yelping, my heart felt as though it could explode. Vanja was standing in the doorway. When did she get there? How long had she been there? Why hadn’t I noticed? Her presence was as still and silent as the limestone markers in her family graveyard.

My body flinched so violently that the glass vial in my clutches went sailing across the floor. It didn't shatter. Merely struck the floor with a dull, blunt thud, like a head rolling from a guillotine.

“Can I help you find something, dear?” Her face soured at my use of the Lord's name, mask slipping. Only for a heartbeat, before it retained its shape once more. “We do not disrespect that name here. He is the one who provides." She stepped closer, placing the back of her hand to my forehead.

"Come. You are ill. Our wine will cure it. We shall have tasting.” A warm smile spread across her face, exposing decayed teeth stained deep, vinaceous red.

I should have bolted. I should have walked beyond these hills and kept going until my feet bled. But I let her slip by and open the hatch to the cellar. Bottomless shark-like eyes remained locked onto mine. Vanja's smile never reached them.

“Come, come.” She cooed.

As we slunk down into the wine cellar, I noticed the walls and its stairway were congested with velvety, charcoal soot. I could sense that the substance bloomed and breathed from every crack and corner in the mortar, coming up from the earth and marking its territory. Vanja struck a match, lighting well-used candles strategically ordered around the space. Nearly every surface gleamed with a slimy sheen. This wasn’t your typical cellar. It was dank, filled to the brim with bottles and barrels. There was standing room to spare. I inhaled the stagnant air, filling my lungs with the quality of moist steel wool. A crunchy cough escaped my chest. The noise bounced to and fro between buzzing walls.

The wine bottles were marked with jerky, jagged Cyrillic script that seemed more like etchings in stone rather than print on paper. Still, I could read one part of each label. Scrawled out in my native tongue were more bible verses. The same cryptic invocations that littered the rest of the cottage. Each excerpt felt intended for my eyes. Vanja plucked one from the shelf, dropping it like a glass corpse on the oak bar alongside 2 pristine glasses.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24”

Bare-handed, Vanja yanked the cork from the bottle with a satisfying burst. Steam seeped from its lip. Just as I thought she would fill my cup, the beldam turned and cascaded a stream of rouge onto the earthen floor. My ears undoubtedly caught the sound of liquid sizzling, seeping into the ground as if guzzling the wine like a parched gullet. It gave off a fecund scent, laden with the intoxicatingly sweet aromas of ripe, fallen fruit. I assumed this was a local custom.

“Vezan za zemlju.” She said, reciting a verse in a tongue that sounded like eroding boulders.

“Excuse me?” Vanja steadily filled the glasses with a dark snicker. My face flushed bashfully.

“We don’t simply say cheers, dear. Here, we say vezan za zemlju. Bound to the ground.” I kept waiting for her to elaborate, but she only lifted her glass and patiently waited for me to lift mine. I did so, not wanting to embarrass myself any more than I already had.

“Vezan za zemlju.” Clink. We chimed in unison as our glasses crashed together. The expression on her visage told me my pronunciation could use a little work.

Vanja's eyes bore holes through mine as we sipped together. Maybe she was keen on ensuring I enjoyed her wine… in her own spine-chilling way. The wine was thick, almost coagulated. A familiar metallic film coated my tongue once more. I swallowed hard.

Glass after glass, we chatted. Vanja had suddenly taken an interest in me, asking questions about my life back home. But I couldn’t help feeling as if her demeanor was somehow empty, rehearsed. It seemed as though she had asked these questions time and time again through guest after guest. Perhaps due to the alcohol or the atmosphere of this place, I answered honestly and in detail to every question, yet received blunt, single-word replies in return. Either that, or some cryptic, pious quotation that I could not glean the meaning of. If I asked something about her, the topic of conversation always flipped back to me.

“Do you have family back home?” “Is anyone missing you?” “What about a lover?” “Where do you work?” and so on. Hairs on the back of my neck erected with fear at her line of questioning. I half expected her to ask for my dental records. But, as the wine flowed, so did my compliance.

As a drunken stupor encroached upon me, there was one warning she bestowed which caught my ears.

“Whatever you do, do not wander beyond property line.” Rap. Rap. Rap. Yellowing nails tapped rhythmically across the wine bottle's surface. “Caves hide in these hills, waiting for unfortunate souls to stumble inside and swallow them whole. I’d hate for you to be taken before your time, dear.” Her voice became a low, rasping hum. “And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, and all that belonged to them.”

Steady tapping stopped abruptly; Vanja’s head tilted down towards the floor, but her eyes stared up at me wildly through wiry eyebrows. I shifted in my seat unsteadily. Not a single idea of what to do or say in response to such a thing, stomach performing backflips.

“I uh… I-I’ll be careful. Thanks for the warning…?” My gratitude came out as more of a question; it seemed to appease the old bat, and that veneer of politeness returned once more.

After what felt like forever and no time at all, the bottle had been emptied. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold up my own fatigued form. 3 or 4 glasses deep, and Vanja's chalice remained full. I’d hardly noticed until she eased in front of me, glass droning against wood.

“Drink up, dear.”

“You don’t want any?” I asked, recalling the burgundy stains that littered her teeth.

“Trust me, dear, I have the pleasure of tasting an abundance of my own wine.” That familiar forced smile unfurled across her face, revealing said stained enamel. This was the first thing she had said in a long time that made sense, especially to my intoxicated mind. With a shrug, I brought the remaining liquid to my lips. No use in wasting wine—I drank voraciously.

My eyes drifted from hers to a shelf of jarred produce. Suspended in the nebulous juices of what seemed to be olives, I was convinced I saw an eye; milky white, dull blue iris, inky black pupil, and all. Boring deep into my soul, it most certainly blinked.

“Dear God-sh!” I sputtered between the wine flowing down my throat, choking uncontrollably. The final word came out as a strange, mashed-up correction, stemming from fear of her reaction to my use of the word Jesus earlier. I drew in gasps of spore-filled air after each croaking hack. As if emulating shards of shattering glass, my body jolted. Droplets of wine flung about the room like blood spatter. A few hit Vanja's face.

“I’m so sorry!” Springing to my feet, my eyes wildly searched for anything to wipe up the mess, unsure of what to do with my hands. But she blinked, collected each droplet from her skin with a jaundiced finger, and slurped it into her maw.

“You foreigners are like cat on hot brick.” A chuckle escaped her fissured lips. It was an odd idiom to advise someone that they are nervous or restless. If Vanja was one thing, it was certainly odd. “Let me help you to bed. The wine will help you rest.”

Cellar walls spinning around me, I wasn’t about to protest. I let her liver-spotted arm slip into mine as she guided me up the stairs and to my room, tripping along the way. My body soared so roughly into the bed that I thought I might take her down with me. But the woman and her sturdiness continued to surprise me.

The bed invited me in like a warm cocoon, while a cool draft pricked goosebumps on my skin. A contrast that left me without a care in the world. My body felt weightless, as if bobbing around a steadily, sickening carousel. I scarcely perceived the click of the light or her chittering “Goodnight, dear.” under the howling winds of the landscape, which lulled me to sleep.

Vacation Rental: Arcadian Vineyard Cottage

“Find your serenity at this bucolic cottage in the countryside! Experience the simple pleasures of hand-picked produce, right in your own vineyard sanctuary. Bathe in the peaceful quietude of the traditional way of life— there are no neighbors for miles! Just you, the sun-soaked grapes, and scents of petrichor. Isolated— tranquil and still. You’ll be dying to linger by the end of your stay. So stick around; we have a place just for you! (Plus, a little wine and cheese never hurt anybody.)”

That was the ad that compelled me to spiral amidst agricultural roads, searching for my long-overdue escape from reality. Was it trying too hard? Absolutely. But who didn’t enjoy wine and cheese?

“Sign me up,” I whispered to no one, striking the keys of my laptop with determination, and finalizing the booking. An extended weekend getaway. That was all my vacation time afforded me, and Lord, I needed it. My mind and body were begging for leisure, screaming like rusted hinges.

Here I was, lost. Of course. Because God forbid one thing in my life goes smoothly. The GPS signal vanished hours ago, leaving me in an expanse of grey oblivion. A winding dirt road expanded before me, surrounded by fields as far as the eye could see. Everything looked the same out here.

“Come on, come on, come on!” I begged the inanimate brick that was my phone, smacking the now useless device against the dashboard. My shoulders sagged in surrender, heavy with the disappointment of these uncontrollable circumstances. Due to exhaustion from a hefty international flight, my muscles ached with the need for a proper bed.

“I’ll just continue to follow this road and magically end up where I’m supposed to be.” It was wishful thinking on my part. Even if sarcastically, maybe I could make it so. My mind was in vacation mode by now; delusional with misplaced optimism.

The path became more rugged, and I trudged on in the dated rental car. Its rusted frame rattled and groaned as the vehicle struggled to chug up yet another hill. Every rock or divot in the road sent the suspension into frenzied jerking. Having the steering wheel in a death grip, my hands threatened to cramp.

Coming to a stop at the first fork in the road, I pulled over with a sigh. The subtle smell of dirt kicked up by inadequate tires filled my nose and made my eyes sting. Fingers jabbed at my phone in an attempt to make the bars reappear… nothing. Dead zone.

“That’s just great.” I spoke aloud to myself, if only to fill the silence.

BANG!

In an instant, my heart battered against my rib cage. Arms turned to static, as my already fracturing mental state was shattered. A craggy hand occupied my window, the source of the noise that nearly stopped my heart. Attached to the hand was an equally craggy crone. The woman's blank face shifted into an inviting smile, as if putting on a mask. Almost too quick to notice. She pointed downward, and I took that to mean she wanted me to roll down my window.

It’s not like anyone else was coming to the rescue. My eyes darted from hers to the window crank in an uncomfortable silence that stretched too long. I willed my body as it yelped: Wait. Stop. Wary of strangers, but running out of options, I wound down the window an inch. Its un-lubricated mechanism protested in the same way my brain had been screaming: Something is wrong. Like a hot stove, I wanted to put my finger on it, but couldn’t.

“My apologies, you startled me.” Soft words came out tentatively, yet polite. “Could you direct me towards the Arcadian Vineyard Cottage?”

I dug into the booking app and hunted for the listing. My mind raced as a white screen confronted me. More than likely due to zero service… never mind the fact I had saved my trip information for offline viewing. Glitches happen, right?

“Hello, dear.” Her voice carried an unfamiliar, husky accent. Sickly sweet like honey, laced with something rancid. It wound up my nerves, already frayed and intolerant, as her wry smile revealed mottled teeth. “I would be the owner of said cottage. Foreigners often get lost around here. I saw you coming up the road from the mother-in-law's suite.”

Her tone felt too formal, almost theatrical. Something malevolent flickered behind her eyes. She looked like a woman who was once a farmer's daughter, turned hippie: Raven hair greying with age, Bohemian fashion sense, bare feet coated in dirt. Unique, to say the least. But her mannerisms betrayed that image. Too rehearsed, too forced. A contradiction that made my spine thrum like a chain pulled taut.

“If you’d like, I could hop in and direct you the rest of the way?”

I hadn’t seen any houses for miles. There was nothing but sweeping fields unfolding in all directions. How had she seen me when this was my first time seeing her? Looking at the surroundings and then back to her, she must’ve read the confusion in my expression.

“It’s just over this hill, dear.” Her smile was alarmingly wide, and her English almost too precise.

“How do I know that?” I questioned begrudgingly, no way of confirming the truth now. Something about this didn’t sit right with me. The rational part of my brain was screaming, causing my body to tense. The road behind seemed longer now than it had before. I had no concrete reason to doubt her but also, no reason to trust her.

“I show you.” Matter-of-factly, she slithered around the hood and to my passenger side. The imprint of her shriveled hand was left in the dust on the window like a dark omen. Pulling the handle with a pop, the elderly woman found no resistance. It was unlocked to my surprise.

“S-sure… uh—hop in?” It came out more like a question than an affirmation. Maybe my gut knew something my mind couldn’t come to terms with. I should have turned around. Gone back, chalked it up as a loss, and spent my long weekend off at home. But then, all the effort it took to get here would be for naught.

With a youthful energy, the woman sprang into action. Before I could finish my sentence, she had plopped down in my passenger seat; an earthy smell wafted into my nostrils. I tried not to worry about the dirt print she’d leave there.

So long, security deposit.

“As I said, it’s just over this hill.” Her skeletal hand pointed towards the road in front of us. She was an astute woman, sensing my hesitation. Never mind the fact that I had just let a stranger into my car. Had she even told me her name? I couldn’t recall if it was on the listing. In any case, I couldn’t reference that anymore.

Pulling back onto the road, I reasoned this was the best way to make conversation. Avoid more awkward silence.

“I’m sorry, but what did you say your name was?” My voice came out confidently, for once.

“Vanja…” In typical Slavic fashion, she shaped her J’s like drifting Y’s.

“Vanja Jurković.” Placing a staccato on each syllable, there was no question in my mind that she was a native of these lands.

Patiently, I waited for her to ask the same of me. But the question never came, and the air hung with only the sound of gravel clattering against weather worn wheel wells. Maybe she already knew my name from the booking. I shrugged with a sigh, attempting to pull my rigid shoulders away from my ears. I was eager to exit this metal cage.

Up, up, over the hill we went. It seemed much higher now than from the bottom; more of a mountain, really. As we crested the top, a boundless vineyard came into view. It had the same layout as advertised. Only now, under cloudy skies, did it come across as somber. Ominous.

Tenebrous trees arched over the road, scraping against the car doors like hands grasping for purchase. Claustrophobic. As if they might cling on and pull us into their grasp. Trapped, to become one with the land.

Before long, we stopped on a gravel driveway, brakes squealing in protest. Every fiber of my being was screaming, red flag. Yet, after all it took to get here, I felt compelled to stay. I sympathized with the woman, assuming it was pretty lonely here.

Against my better judgment, my hesitant hand lurched the shift stick into park. Vanja stepped out; she was surprisingly agile considering her frail frame. Perhaps she was younger than I gave her credit for. Or more certainly, years of working in the vineyard had strengthened her elderly stature.

A man came hobbling out of what I assume was the mother-in-law's suite. His uneven gait paralleled Vanja’s personality. A unique pair; I tried not to stare.

“Hello—”

“Oh, he doesn’t speak English, dear. Please, don’t concern yourself with my husband. He’s merely here to help with your luggage. We will be out of your hair shortly.” Vanja cut off our greeting bluntly as her husband flashed a gummy, toothless smile.

“Oh…” Dejected, my voice came as a defeat. “Well, please tell him thank you for me.”

“Certainly, dear.” I wished she’d stop calling me that. It was an endearing term, sure. However, her accent, combined with the language barrier, fell condescending on my ears. An attempt to make me feel less-than. Small.

I turned my attention from the odd couple to my surroundings. The homestead was undoubtedly shaped by its natural environment. Compact, monolithic structures rose and fell with the rolling hills like boats sailing on a turquoise sea. Its simple, well-defined architecture was assembled from local Karst limestone.

High-pitched stone roofs and limited, small windows braced against the Bora. Whose cold bite carried briny scents that cut through agricultural aromas. A contrast as sharp as the mountainous countryside itself. Maritime air tinged my taste buds with the salt of the coast.

Somewhere, a wind chime tolled a lonely melody, counterpoint to the soft rustle of hearty grapevines. Preternatural isolation settled over me. Peaceful, yet, unsettling all at once.

My brain itched to research the area further, something I should have done before arriving. I hadn’t made the time for more than a cursory investigation.

Looking over my wifi settings, one was available: The Vineyard.

“Could I have the wifi password, please?” I inquired, holding up my phone for Vanja. I would finally have enough time and quiet to educate myself on the region.

“We have no need for that here.” Her words sprang forth with a forced chortle. “I’m sure you’ll find an abundance of tranquil distractions during your stay.” Tacking it on as if she suddenly remembered I was their guest.

“Of course. Silly me…” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Not as if she said they did not have such things. This must have been their way of compelling guests to escape reality. So why did the crone make me feel foolish for asking? She started up the path to the main house, and I continued to lag.

“Your accommodations are this way, dear. Follow me.” In this place, I was always 2 steps behind.

Stepping over the threshold and into the open-concept layout, envy washed over me. A kitchen brimming with fresh produce, baked goods, handcrafted cooking utensils, and shelves stacked wall-to-wall with ancient recipe books. A smell like heaven, undercut, as if trying to conceal something sour.

Muted tones and an ambient glow enhanced the grounded environment. Built-in niches within the cottage mimicked natural caves native to the region. Organic wood floors whined like a wounded animal with each step as I made my way to the bedroom. Trailing after her, the rough stone walls leeched a soggy chill through my bones as we turned another corner. Vanja moved swiftly, and I nearly found myself lost again.

Her husband long since vanished, and my luggage was already waiting for me. For a man with so much trouble getting around, he nearly went unnoticed. Had I not seen him upon my arrival, I likely wouldn’t have known he existed.

“Here is your room and your things. Take advantage of the fully stocked kitchen—everything is cultivated, raised, and crafted by my husband and me on the property.” Her words were punctuated by pride. “Feel free to explore the garden terrace out back, the orchard to the east, and the vineyard to the west. There is a wine cellar at your disposal under the hatch in the kitchen. And if, for some reason, you still don’t have what you need, I’ll be here to fulfill any request. All that to say, make yourself at home, dear.” Confident and to the point, it was doubtful I’d want for anything in this place.

With a nod, she left me to my own devices. Finally.

Sagging onto the mattress, its springs groaned with the same exhaustion that flowed through my veins. Eyes burning with jet lag, their lids drooped closed like curtains. Sleep wrapped me like a blanket, without protest. Out cold.

—

I bolted upright, heart pummeling my chest. Darkness had fallen over the property in my inescapable slumber. Only, this wasn’t what startled me. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, my veins frosted over.

A silhouette, just outside the door frame. Crooked. Shoulders rising and falling with ragged, uneven breaths. Vanja's husband.

“What the…” My whisper faded into the black abyss.

Clumsily, I fumbled for the lamp switch. Moving as quickly as my half-asleep appendages would allow, light flooded the doorway; empty. The scent of earth and wine remained.

An ill attempt at restoring the apparition, I blinked forcefully; not likely.

Had I imagined it?

No, the hollow echo of footsteps across floorboards betrayed that thought. Down the hall and out the door as he skittered away like a spider who knows it’s been found. Creep.

I mulled over my options, lulling myself into a false sense of security yet again. I couldn’t exactly tell Vanja, Lord knows she’d take his side over mine. I still had two more days paid for. Nowhere else to go. No guarantee I’d find my way on my own.

Gears ground inside my mind. Perhaps he had his own backwards logic for observing me, the ignorant foreigner with a narrow world-view.

“There was no one there. The old cottage bones are merely settling.” My whisper bounced amongst the limestone walls. Providing scant solace.

Thoughts became a knotted ball of fear and confusion. Ears ringing; a musty smell like damp paper filled my nose. As if a balloon deflating, my lungs tightened. Throat raw, head pounding, it felt as though a low hum was buzzing in one ear and out the other. Into a coughing fit I went, chasing down the hallway after the ghost, or lack thereof. I needed a drink of water. Urgently.

Desperately filing through cabinets, my hand grasped the first glass in reach. I violently threw open the fridge, sending miscellaneous jars tinkling against one another in their drawers. No water. My only option was the tap.

The knob screamed as I doggedly twisted, and yellow-stained water sputtered forth. The only alternatives were farm-fresh milk or wine. Hardly the type to cure a coughing fit. I consumed in greedy gulps. The water permeated with a metallic bite like pennies left in rain. Barely a reprieve, but at least I could breathe.

Stalking around the house like a predatory animal, I checked every door and every window. Locked, or without the ability to open at all. This slowed my heart rate, only mildly. It was easier to convince myself nobody had been there… unless they had a key.

I shook my head, too hard, seeking to erase the thought. I was spiraling as quickly as the cottage was spinning around me.

In the midst of it all, my feet skidded to a halt. The glint of a carved lintel over the hearth stunned me. In my hurry, I almost hadn’t noticed. Only standing in this spot, under this lighting, could I see it.

“The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. Genesis 4:10”

What purpose could such a harrowing message hold?

I wasn’t exactly religious, but it wasn’t the sort of decor I’d like adorning my home, let alone one meant for guests.

Were they for protection or an invocation?

But, as I wandered the halls, it seemed increasingly commonplace. Hidden amongst the grotto-inspired furniture, a grape motif sewn with pale thread into a hand towel here, dainty cursive imprinted upon a faded floor mat there.

“All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Ecclesiastes 3:20”

One carving was odd, sure. But the pattern I discerned seemed deliberate. Strangely comforting. A sense of protection that, however false, lulled me back to sleep as I planted myself on the couch. Its cushions were soft enough to swallow me whole.

—

A moist, cool draft escaped the stone walls as if from some void beneath. For the first time since arriving, I was greeted by something placid.

Gently, my eyes fluttered open. The brief moment of serenity was interrupted by a pounding in my head. Rhythmic as a heartbeat. A symphony began inside my body, and my stomach gurgled for sustenance. I could barely remember the last time I’d eaten.

Drifting into the kitchen, I took Vanja’s advice and inspected the fresh produce. Ready for a tasty treat.

Nimble fingers plucked a perfect peach from its position. Painted in bold yellow with streaks of red and orange, not a single blemish. An artist’s perfect rendition. The morsel felt waxy in my palm. Warm, virtually pulsing.

Sinking my teeth in, tender flesh collapsed, sour pulp springing forth; a breath of decay on my tongue.

“Oh, God.” I retched into the sink. There was a faint writhing. Tiny, alive. Seed-like shapes that squirmed informed me they weren’t seeds at all. The peach in my hand fell to the floor with a sickly splat. Maggots still alive inside its flesh left it looking like an ablated heart; still beating on the tile.

Feeling like curdled milk, my body soured. I still needed to eat, my appetite ruined as it was. Head spinning, stomach roaring.

With no idea how long that fruit had been sitting on the counter, I figured I’d go straight to the source. Looks can be deceiving after all.

Between a heavy sigh and attempts to steady myself, I yanked on my boots and proceeded clumsily towards the orchard. I wouldn’t be eating a thing from that kitchen any time soon.

Gravel crunched under heavy footfalls, and the fresh air began to clear my mind. Marching up the slope, taking in deep breaths, my composure returned to me. The salty breeze pulsed through the air like echoes in an empty cave.

Gradually, an unexpected landscape came into view. A family graveyard, obstructed from the cottage windows by these never-ending hills. The placement in front of the orchard, yet hidden like a well-kept secret, was at best macabre. Sinister at worst.

I moved forward. The wind transformed into a chorus of moans and wails, alarms ringing in my ears. Yet, my feet advanced. Compelled by curiosity. Entranced. It was the gravestones themselves that caught my eye, a desire to understand what I was seeing.

Row after row. Some stubby, some lanky, round, jagged, new, and old. All of them were fashioned from cold limestone with the same handmade details as the entire vineyard premises. One thing remained consistent amongst them. The engravings:

Beloved Husband. No names, no dates, no women.

Darkness encroached the corners of my vision. Was I spiraling? Merely imagining all of this? I knew traveling to a remote part of an unfamiliar country might have its quirks, but all this confusion was the antithesis of what I came for. Unease rippled through my body.

With great effort, I pushed the questions from my mind. I needed to keep myself on track. Sane. Get some nourishment, and this would all begin to make sense again. I couldn’t continue to rationalize on an empty stomach, and I did not want to come across as even more ignorant than I already was.

Get to the orchard.

This was my only goal. After all, I could always investigate more later.

Pivoting on my heels and exiting the burial ground felt as if ripping myself from thick vines. Some presence pinning me here. Part of me knew it was silly to continue ignoring the signs right in front of my face, but the spinning in my head kept that rationale just out of reach.

Up the trail I went, at last, arriving at my intended destination. Sprawled out before me were picture-perfect lines of varying fruit trees. Vibrant shades of warm yellow, orange, and crimson sprang out from among the gnarled, brown branches. The breeze that rustled through this picturesque scene felt like whispers in my ears, beckoning me forward. The scent of damp earth and rotting leaves stuck to the air. Now this was the orchard paradise that Vanja had promised. Apples, plums, lemons, peaches, and more. The latter of which I’d likely avoid, though they appeared ripe and ready for harvest. I trudged onward like a marionette with invisible strings, motivated by the roaring in my gut.

Pulling the hem of my shirt up with one hand like a make-shift basket, I greedily plucked a variety of tasty treats with the other. Never in my life had I felt so at peace with being utterly out of control. Perhaps that was the charm of this place. The thought, along with the fresh air, placated me. If only for a moment before panic seized me once more.

Between twisted limbs like arthritic fingers, there in the bark of an ancient tree, a face. A human expression of agony. Mouth stretched impossibly wide across wood, eyes protruding from knots in the trunk. Sap weeped from the features wrapped in wood grain like scar tissue as if seeping with pus. Far too uncanny to be a carving. I stumbled back, temples throbbing like the slow, tectonic shift of limestone plates grinding together.

I all but fumbled my bounty in the dead sprint back to the cottage. The stone beneath my footfalls echoed a hollow, lonely howl. My legs felt leaden, as if the terra was grasping at the soles of my boots. It was hard to tell what was up and what was down anymore. I nearly missed the flat tire on my rental car as I darted back inside.

My mind grasped for the bandwidth to investigate; it appeared as though mangled by jagged stone. Likely something I neglected to notice on my drive up. The memory was a blur of unending hills and Vanja's sickly sweet disposition. Nothing could be done about it now.

Dashing through the threshold and slamming the door shut with all my body, I leaned my back against its cold hardwood and slunk to the floor. My chest heaved up and down with wheezing breaths.

One apple. All I managed to hold onto in the heat of the moment. Shaking hands raised the produce to my quivering mandible. Fluid gushed from its green skin as I bit into the flesh with gluttony, triggering a heavy burst of tears from within me. Tears of joy for finally obtaining some semblance of nourishment. Tears of confusion, relief, mania, rage, and fear. Its metallic taste and coppery juices pooled in my stomach like the stagnant waters of a cave. Sobs wracked my body until gnashing teeth frantically reached the apple's core.

My hand, still clutching the barren carcass of the apple, fell limply upon the cold stone. My grasp waned, allowing its core to roll away. I felt hollowed out. Dejected. Staring blankly at nothing in particular as a bitter film lingered upon my tongue; breaths grew shallow and tight in my chest.

Though my fraying nerves were only moderately calmed, it stood to reason my next course of action should be to seek respite for the migraine that scalded the back of my eyes like hot iron. Coming to my feet, my joints creaked in a whining, rusted cacophony that echoed off the limestone. Cursing myself for failing to bring my own medications, I began my frenzied search, tearing through built-ins one by one. One drawer held pristine white utensils, which seemed carved from bone. In the pantry, jar upon jar of gray, decaying preserves lined up in tidy rows. Their wetness glinted in the low light.

Why did everything here feel so confusing yet… so familiar? My thoughts were no longer my own, magnetized by an intangible influence.

Before long, my gaze fastened on a rustic teakwood cabinet. There in a shadowy nook. Though tucked away at first glance, it now dominated the space with a heavy, intent presence. The cabinet called me, and like a well-trained animal, I listened. Crawling over on wavering hands and knees, I opened it with fervor. Empty. Or so I thought. But as I reached inside, a small corroded handle flush against the bottom grazed my skin; a false bottom.

My heartbeat thumped in my ears like the panic of a rabbit signaling danger. Impatiently, I pulled the panel away with one fluid motion, letting it clatter to the floor. Its handle let out a delicate whine of protest. Within this dark cubby sat brown and orange bottles with white caps of varying shapes and sizes. Each one carrying a label inscribed with a date older than the last. 1924. 1941. 1958. Yet, their contents appeared unspoiled. Deliberate scratches erased the parts where a name would be. I couldn’t read the language on the bottles. Or rather, languages. One rattled with pills here, another swished with liquid there. No two were exactly alike.

"They’re old. They must take a lot of medicine," I murmured, clutching an ampoule.

Without warning, I suddenly felt a presence in the room and whipped my head around.

“Jesus Christ!” Yelping, my heart felt as though it could explode. Vanja was standing in the doorway. When did she get there? How long had she been there? Why hadn’t I noticed? Her presence was as still and silent as the limestone markers in her family graveyard.

My body flinched so violently that the glass vial in my clutches went sailing across the floor. It didn't shatter. Merely struck the floor with a dull, blunt thud, like a head rolling from a guillotine.

“Can I help you find something, dear?” Her face soured at my use of the Lord's name, mask slipping. Only for a heartbeat, before it retained its shape once more. “We do not disrespect that name here. He is the one who provides." She stepped closer, placing the back of her hand to my forehead.

"Come. You are ill. Our wine will cure it. We shall have tasting.” A warm smile spread across her face, exposing decayed teeth stained deep, vinaceous red.

I should have bolted. I should have walked beyond these hills and kept going until my feet bled. But I let her slip by and open the hatch to the cellar. Bottomless shark-like eyes remained locked onto mine. Vanja's smile never reached them.

“Come, come.” She cooed.

As we slunk down into the wine cellar, I noticed the walls and its stairway were congested with velvety, charcoal soot. I could sense that the substance bloomed and breathed from every crack and corner in the mortar, coming up from the earth and marking its territory. Vanja struck a match, lighting well-used candles strategically ordered around the space. Nearly every surface gleamed with a slimy sheen. This wasn’t your typical cellar. It was dank, filled to the brim with bottles and barrels. There was standing room to spare. I inhaled the stagnant air, filling my lungs with the quality of moist steel wool. A crunchy cough escaped my chest. The noise bounced to and fro between buzzing walls.

The wine bottles were marked with jerky, jagged Cyrillic script that seemed more like etchings in stone rather than print on paper. Still, I could read one part of each label. Scrawled out in my native tongue were more bible verses. The same cryptic invocations that littered the rest of the cottage. Each excerpt felt intended for my eyes. Vanja plucked one from the shelf, dropping it like a glass corpse on the oak bar alongside 2 pristine glasses.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24”

Bare-handed, Vanja yanked the cork from the bottle with a satisfying burst. Steam seeped from its lip. Just as I thought she would fill my cup, the beldam turned and cascaded a stream of rouge onto the earthen floor. My ears undoubtedly caught the sound of liquid sizzling, seeping into the ground as if guzzling the wine like a parched gullet. It gave off a fecund scent, laden with the intoxicatingly sweet aromas of ripe, fallen fruit. I assumed this was a local custom.

“Vezan za zemlju.” She said, reciting a verse in a tongue that sounded like eroding boulders.

“Excuse me?” Vanja steadily filled the glasses with a dark snicker. My face flushed bashfully.

“We don’t simply say cheers, dear. Here, we say vezan za zemlju. Bound to the ground.” I kept waiting for her to elaborate, but she only lifted her glass and patiently waited for me to lift mine. I did so, not wanting to embarrass myself any more than I already had.

“Vezan za zemlju.” Clink. We chimed in unison as our glasses crashed together. The expression on her visage told me my pronunciation could use a little work.

Vanja's eyes bore holes through mine as we sipped together. Maybe she was keen on ensuring I enjoyed her wine… in her own spine-chilling way. The wine was thick, almost coagulated. A familiar metallic film coated my tongue once more. I swallowed hard.

Glass after glass, we chatted. Vanja had suddenly taken an interest in me, asking questions about my life back home. But I couldn’t help feeling as if her demeanor was somehow empty, rehearsed. It seemed as though she had asked these questions time and time again through guest after guest. Perhaps due to the alcohol or the atmosphere of this place, I answered honestly and in detail to every question, yet received blunt, single-word replies in return. Either that, or some cryptic, pious quotation that I could not glean the meaning of. If I asked something about her, the topic of conversation always flipped back to me.

“Do you have family back home?” “Is anyone missing you?” “What about a lover?” “Where do you work?” and so on. Hairs on the back of my neck erected with fear at her line of questioning. I half expected her to ask for my dental records. But, as the wine flowed, so did my compliance.

As a drunken stupor encroached upon me, there was one warning she bestowed which caught my ears.

“Whatever you do, do not wander beyond property line.” Rap. Rap. Rap. Yellowing nails tapped rhythmically across the wine bottle's surface. “Caves hide in these hills, waiting for unfortunate souls to stumble inside and swallow them whole. I’d hate for you to be taken before your time, dear.” Her voice became a low, rasping hum. “And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, and all that belonged to them.”

Steady tapping stopped abruptly; Vanja’s head tilted down towards the floor, but her eyes stared up at me wildly through wiry eyebrows. I shifted in my seat unsteadily. Not a single idea of what to do or say in response to such a thing, stomach performing backflips.

“I uh… I-I’ll be careful. Thanks for the warning…?” My gratitude came out as more of a question; it seemed to appease the old bat, and that veneer of politeness returned once more.

After what felt like forever and no time at all, the bottle had been emptied. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold up my own fatigued form. 3 or 4 glasses deep, and Vanja's chalice remained full. I’d hardly noticed until she eased in front of me, glass droning against wood.

“Drink up, dear.”

“You don’t want any?” I asked, recalling the burgundy stains that littered her teeth.

“Trust me, dear, I have the pleasure of tasting an abundance of my own wine.” That familiar forced smile unfurled across her face, revealing said stained enamel. This was the first thing she had said in a long time that made sense, especially to my intoxicated mind. With a shrug, I brought the remaining liquid to my lips. No use in wasting wine—I drank voraciously.

My eyes drifted from hers to a shelf of jarred produce. Suspended in the nebulous juices of what seemed to be olives, I was convinced I saw an eye; milky white, dull blue iris, inky black pupil, and all. Boring deep into my soul, it most certainly blinked.

“Dear God-sh!” I sputtered between the wine flowing down my throat, choking uncontrollably. The final word came out as a strange, mashed-up correction, stemming from fear of her reaction to my use of the word Jesus earlier. I drew in gasps of spore-filled air after each croaking hack. As if emulating shards of shattering glass, my body jolted. Droplets of wine flung about the room like blood spatter. A few hit Vanja's face.

“I’m so sorry!” Springing to my feet, my eyes wildly searched for anything to wipe up the mess, unsure of what to do with my hands. But she blinked, collected each droplet from her skin with a jaundiced finger, and slurped it into her maw.

“You foreigners are like cat on hot brick.” A chuckle escaped her fissured lips. It was an odd idiom to advise someone that they are nervous or restless. If Vanja was one thing, it was certainly odd. “Let me help you to bed. The wine will help you rest.”

Cellar walls spinning around me, I wasn’t about to protest. I let her liver-spotted arm slip into mine as she guided me up the stairs and to my room, tripping along the way. My body soared so roughly into the bed that I thought I might take her down with me. But the woman and her sturdiness continued to surprise me.

The bed invited me in like a warm cocoon, while a cool draft pricked goosebumps on my skin. A contrast that left me without a care in the world. My body felt weightless, as if bobbing around a steadily, sickening carousel. I scarcely perceived the click of the light or her chittering “Goodnight, dear.” under the howling winds of the landscape, which lulled me to sleep.