r/TalesFromTheCreeps

I was born with an urge to dig.


Before I could recognize my parents’ faces, know my own name, speak my first word, learn to crawl, or even understand what digging was, the urge was already there. By the age of five, I had already made quite a few attempts.


When I was two, my mom left me unsupervised in Grandma’s small orchard after a rainy day. I tried digging a hole in the soft mud. It was perfect for my small hands, but the lack of resistance left me unsatisfied.


Two years later, while my parents were taking me on one of their forest trips, we stopped in a beautiful clearing where I tried using a stick to dig into the forest floor. The rich, black dirt caught my eye, but the resistance it offered was too much for my undeveloped muscles. Still, the small round hole left me somewhat satisfied, but wanting more.


Over the years, I had heard my father, Andrew, talk to my mother about “Miner’s Day.” It came once a year and brought amazing carousel rides, cotton candy, corn dogs, and, most importantly for me, fathers bringing their children to see the mine. I was too young to grasp most of it, but I’d picked up one thing from those conversations: a mine was somewhere people went to dig, and that was all I needed to know.


When the big day arrived, everything was exactly as my parents had described. Once I had my fill of fun and sweets, it was finally time to see the fabled mine I had heard so much about over the past few months.


Everything was going great. I struggled to comprehend the sheer size of the tunnel. I was so distracted by it that, before I even realized it, my father had lifted me into his arms and placed me inside a small mining cart that carried us deep underground.


The following hours passed in a blur. Then people began running in panic. My father carried me toward the exit as another person caught up with us. From fragments of their conversation, I gathered that a tunnel had collapsed and everyone was being evacuated.


Then everything went dark.


The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed. My mother sat crying beside me while my father nervously checked his favorite pocket watch every few moments. I knew something was wrong before anyone said a word. There was this intense pressure inside my head.


It took several years to fully recover. My father never did. The rock that struck my head left me with physical injuries, while the guilt over what happened to me consumed him. My grandfather’s disappearance that same day only made it worse.


On the morning of the second day after the accident, while I was still in the hospital, my grandmother called my father in a panic. His father had never come home. With the help of the police and volunteers, a search began. Before long, several people came forward saying they had seen my grandfather enter the mine on the day of the accident.


The focus of the search shifted immediately, but despite the enormous effort to clear the collapsed passages and search every corner of the mine, they never found him.


Eventually, the search expanded beyond the mine before being called off altogether. The official conclusion was that my grandfather had become trapped in an unmarked tunnel or cavern during the collapse. No one ever confirmed that explanation, or could explain why my retired grandfather had been there at all.


There is one thing I never told my parents. There was no reason to add to the pain and confusion they already carried. That day in the mine, while we were making our way through a tunnel, I turned around.


I saw my grandfather.


He was standing farther down the tunnel, smiling as he waved at me.


Before they released me from the hospital, my father had told me a great deal about my grandfather.


Years later, on her deathbed, my grandmother told my father the truth. His father had continued to go into the mine every day, even after retiring. She had kept it a secret because she didn’t want her son worrying about him.


“I should have told you sooner,” she said. “He never stopped going there.”


My father barely said a word. My grandfather’s health had already forced my parents to spend countless sleepless nights and considerable effort trying to convince him to retire early. In the end, she couldn’t let my father carry that guilt any longer.


I’m ashamed to admit it now, but none of that was on my mind. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something inside me had changed. I had to relearn how to walk, talk, and eat, but those were things I could regain. This was something entirely new.


The urge to dig was still there, buried beneath a primal fear that overwhelmed me whenever I considered acting on it.


My son, Andrew, was born today. It should have been the happiest day of my life. Instead, all I could think about was that it had been five years since my father disappeared. Or at least, that’s what I liked to tell myself. In reality, he had been disappearing long before that day. After the accident, he grew more distant with each passing year, and the rumors surrounding my grandfather only made things worse.


Rumors travel fast in a small community like ours. I still remember one boy asking if I wanted to dig with my grandpa. My confusion made him laugh, and he told the others I would find out soon enough. Someone in my class claimed my grandfather was the one who caused the tunnel collapse. Other kids said people had seen him sneaking into the mine long after he retired to dig illegal tunnels.


It was only a short time before the physical bullying started. During a P.E. class, two kids pushed me down and held me in a pile of dirt. While holding me down, they called me a dirt-eater. Another time, I found rocks and dirt in my shoes. When I was out on break, someone put dirt and rocks in my sandwich, which cost me half a tooth. The stories became even more ridiculous from there.


The kids said my grandfather lured children into the mine to eat them, that he was half mole and cursed to eat human flesh, along with every other kind of nonsense people could invent.


At first, the rumors were manageable. Eventually, my parents transferred me to a school in a nearby town, where I lived with my aunt.


I wish my parents could have left as well, but my father’s job at the mine was our only source of income. More than that, he refused to leave. I once asked him why he didn’t just find another job. He looked at me as if I’d asked the stupidest question in the world.


“This is what our family does,” he said. “Your grandfather did it. I do it. You’ll do it too. It’s what our family has done for generations.”


Three years later, the mine closed, and that way of life ended.


We named our son Andrew in honor of my father. By the time he turned five, my mental health had deteriorated enough that seeking professional help was the only option.


While the accident almost ended my life, the worst thing it left behind was the mental anguish. It began with anxiety and poor sleep, and later turned into vivid, living nightmares. I would wake in the middle of the night overcome with dread, convinced someone else was in the room with me.


One night, I dreamed of waking up in a long, dark tunnel. Somewhere ahead, my father was calling my name, but I couldn’t see him. I followed his voice deeper and deeper, until the tunnel opened into a vast chamber. At its center was a hole so large I couldn’t see the bottom.


For years, I would jump out of bed, hit things, and scream in terror. Eventually, my wife began sleeping in a separate room. That worked for a while, but by the fifth year, her fear and frustration had led us to discuss separation. Then one night, I sleepwalked nearly halfway to my hometown, terrifying my wife and nearly costing me my job.


And here we are.


My psychiatrist prescribed Valium and antidepressants, but she also gave me one assignment: write everything down. She wanted me to describe my urge to dig, how my fear began, and every detail I could remember. She believed it would help her better understand my condition, and that it might also help my wife understand what I’ve never been able to explain.


My wife knows what happened in the mine and about my father’s disappearance. What she has never known is that, ever since that day, my urge to dig and my fear of digging have been fighting somewhere deep inside me.


I hope she’ll understand.


Writing this down has given me a sense of control I never thought possible. Maybe now I’m ready to tell her.


The next six months went better than I ever expected. My wife took everything surprisingly well and became more sympathetic toward me. Slowly, the tension between us faded. We talked more, spent time together again, and for the first time in years, it felt like we were becoming a family again.


The episodes slowed to about once a month, and with all the progress, my psychiatrist believed we were ready to try something new: exposure therapy.


We started small. I simply touched freshly dug-up soil from our garden and watched my wife dig small holes. The first time she handed me a handful of dirt, it felt strange. My hands were shaking, but nothing happened.


A few weeks later, I dug my own. It wasn’t much, but I was proud of it.


As the months went by, my nightmares disappeared as if they had never existed, replaced by dreams of my parents, my grandparents, and places from my childhood. One place stood out above all the others: the clearing where my parents had taken me years ago. I could still picture the clear air and the soft texture of the dark, rich dirt.


I couldn’t explain why the clearing kept appearing in my dreams. Maybe it was simply one of the few places from those years that had stayed with me.


After talking with my mother and doing a little research, I learned that a battle had taken place there during World War II. A small Russian unit had fought German forces occupying the nearby mine. The trees had been cleared to create a defensive position, which explained the large opening in the forest.


That discovery only made me more curious. The thought of finding an old coin, spent ammunition, or some forgotten relic seemed exciting. More importantly, it gave me the perfect excuse to leave the house and use the metal detector my wife had gifted me for my birthday. In reality, people had likely recovered anything valuable decades ago, but there was no harm in looking.


The moment I stepped into that clearing, I forgot all about the metal detector. All I could think about was the first hole I had dug there as a child. The rich, dark soil seemed even more beautiful than I remembered.


What had I been so afraid of?


Hunger hit when I was about a meter down. By then, the hole was maybe a meter and a half across. I’d been widening it as I dug, trying to keep the sides from caving in.


Sitting here now with a sandwich, it’s honestly surprising how far I’ve gotten. I’ll finish my meal and continue for a few more hours, just to see how deep I can go. Who knows, maybe I can come back and dig some more another time.


Looks like I overestimated what I can still do. I went at it for maybe another hour and my body gave up, so I picked up everything and went home, right? Then why am I still in the hole?


At first, I couldn’t make sense of what had happened. It was hard to see, and for a moment, I thought I’d fallen asleep and collapsed. Once my eyes adjusted, I looked up. The opening was far above me.


Pieces of wood lined the walls, seemingly placed there for reinforcement and climbing. It took everything I had to make it out. My hands are raw and bloody, and I’m covered in cuts and bruises. My mouth is dry, with grit caught between my teeth. This constant hunger is eating me from the inside.


The ground seemed to shift beneath my feet. I stumbled, and everything went black. When I came to, there was no light this time, only pitch darkness.


Luckily, my phone is still with me. The battery is down to 30 percent, and there is no signal, but the screen still gives me enough light to see in the dark.


There is no wood this time, but there are plenty of tools used for digging. Why isn’t this place collapsing on me? I genuinely don’t know.


I sat in the dark, wondering what to do, when my hand brushed against something rough but smooth and icy cold. I turned my phone toward it and saw a strange rock. It looked carved.


Tracing its surface, I found a narrow crack outlining a section of rock. Beyond it, a passage vanished from view. It was a long shot, but the thought that this might be an old tunnel from the mine gave me hope. For the first time since waking up down here, I could see a way out.


It feels like there is nothing left in me, but somehow my body is still standing. I grabbed a mining pick from the pile of tools and struck the section of rock. In a few hits, it gave way, sending me plummeting into the hole.


The fall came at an odd angle, my left hand taking the impact and breaking two of my fingers. A piece of my T-shirt is holding them together for now. The pain was intense, but at least it was manageable.


It looks like this is a really old tunnel. Using my phone’s light to guide me along the walls, I occasionally come across strange markings carved into the stone, most of which I don’t recognize. The only ones I recognize so far are 1914, an iron cross, and, later, a sickle and hammer.


After wandering in the dark for what felt like a really long time, my phone battery ran out. With the wall as my only guide, I kept moving until I stumbled upon an oil lamp.


To my surprise, its wick was still burning.


I don’t know how much time had passed by the time I emerged from the tunnel. After so long in the dark, the warmth of the sun felt better than anything I could remember.


It took only twenty minutes to reach my car, and another twenty to get to my childhood home. When my mother saw me walk through the door, she hugged me and started crying. Once things calmed down, she asked a question that caught me off guard:


“Where have you been this past year?”


It took a moment to register: I’d been missing for an entire year. Keeping my composure, I tried to reassure my mother that I was alright, that I wasn’t going anywhere.


She looked at me for a moment before asking, “What happened to your job at the mine?” The shock must have shown on my face because she quickly clarified.


The last time she had seen me, I was heading toward the mine. Apparently, a company working to reopen the mine had hired me.


I have no memory of it.


Before taking a bath, I looked in the mirror and was shocked by how much weight I had lost. Dirt covered me from head to toe, and bruises marked my torso. Maybe from the fall?


I enjoyed a few bites of food while my phone was charging and started getting really drowsy. I unplugged it and slipped it into my pocket. I wanted to call my wife and child before sleeping, to make sure they knew I was alright, but the moment my body hit the bed, I was back in the mine.


The oil lamp was in my hands again, and I stood in a vast chamber. A few steps in, while fumbling with the oil lamp, I suddenly found myself on the floor. My foot had slipped into one of the many perfectly round openings scattered across the ground.


At first, I thought they were just holes. Looking down into one, I realized it continued far deeper than it should have. Then I noticed there were more of them. Dozens. Maybe more.


Some rusted tools lay half-buried in the dirt between them. What confused me was how these tunnels had been dug. They were too narrow to work inside, yet their shapes were almost perfectly regular.


I wandered between the openings for what felt like days, but every direction led to more of them. My phone battery eventually died, and after that, I lost track of time. I was constantly exhausted, but I no longer felt hungry or thirsty.


I should have called my wife before I fell asleep. At least then she would know I made it home.


Did I ever wake up after falling asleep?


There is a giant hole ahead, so wide that the cavern floor seems to end at its edge. I hold the oil lamp over it, trying to find the bottom, but its light only reaches partway down the wall before fading. I can’t tell how far the hole continues.


I think this is it. With nowhere else to go, I’m too tired to turn back. I’ll just sit here. I’m not dead yet, but I doubt anyone will ever find this journal. And even if they do, it might be too late to matter for me or for them.


I fell asleep again.


When I woke up, my lower body was inside one of the circular holes. I spat out some dirt and what looked like one of my teeth, then pulled myself free.


As I got to my feet, my hand brushed against something. I brought the oil lamp closer.


My dad’s favorite pocket watch.


---


Hello, users of r/urges. My name is Andrew, and I was born with an urge to dig.

Every dream is an eternity.

Every night my dreams are the same. Always have been for as long as I could remember my dreams.

Every night I would awake in my bed. Except it wasn’t my actual bed. The world around me would always be covered in this ephemeral fog that permeated every single inch of space.

And the dust. My god the dust.

All I ever did was clean.

The shadows never changed. The day never began. The Dust would never end.

I would continue on from my room into the hall, then into the bathroom, then the closets, then the kitchen, then the floors. Never stopping until the entire apartment was free of the dust.

Then I would step into the outside world. The world that was not my world. The world of The Dust and The Gray.

The Dreary.

Light from above would fight its way through the fog, never making it to the hollow ground below.

Where there should have been roads, dirt, grass, and trees, there was stone.

Cobblestoned roads, stonework trees, and fields of slate.

All of it covered in The Dust.

As I would move through the still air the dust would form on my wake and disperse, leaving a trail of my presence throughout this abandoned, forgotten world.

My world of Dust, my Dreary.

I would look up into that fog filled sky and gaze into the twin hues of yellow and white whose muffled screams struggled to breach the all-but-impenetrable fog above, scattering their voices into the omnipresent haze.

Then I would wake up.

Today was no different.

A woman stood just beyond the doorway, her flowing auburn hair flailing about as she shouted at me. I couldn’t really make out the words. She seemed familiar.

Something hard and somewhat heavy hit me square in the face, then plopped into my lap.

My still-blurry sight returned to me just in time to watch the woman march off down the hallway.

Her exit was announced by the slamming of the front door.

My bed was a mess. Clothes were strewn about, the sheets were everywhere, and some were stained with a substance I could not identify. The morning sun cast my shadow on the opposite wall from behind me.

My head pounded from within, memories of last night sat chained behind an alcohol-soaked lock.

My eyes trailed downward to my lap, falling on the object that was hurled at me only moments earlier.

It was a black, featureless, leather-bound book. A fairly hefty one at that.

Rubbing my eyes to confirm I wasn’t completely blind, I took a closer look at the book’s cover.

It was completely blank.

I turned over the book, expecting somehow that repeatedly flipping the book over would magically cause it to manifest some form of identifying information.

I caught a glimpse of something on the spine as I did so. It glistened in the morning sun and sparkled like diamonds.

It was a sigil. A symbol etched in gold, a gold so vibrant that the world around me appeared gray by comparison.

“Oh shit,” the words shot out of my mouth before my brain could even register I was speaking, “Leena!”

I’m such a fucking moron.

I fell onto the floor as my legs refused to accept my authority over them, getting tangled in the bedsheets in the process.

I crawled towards the nearest pile of, mostly, clean clothes I could identify.

Getting dressed was a challenge. I fought with my own body just to put on a shirt, whilst barely navigating the hectic and wayward expletive laden rants that crashed through the windows of my sullied mind palace.

Of all the thoughtless and horrible things, how could I have forgot today was the day she came back from her-

I paused in the hallway, pants half on and shirt on backwards.

Where did she go anyway? Was it a work thing? Was it some kind of vacation?

Why did I care?

My emotional rollercoaster came to a stand-still as the emergency brakes kicked on.

I let the half assembled outfit slide off my unkempt form as I shuffled into the kitchen.

That's right, I didn’t care. I don’t care.

The dishes in the sink were clean, as they should be.

The counter was full of random brand-new crap brought home that was never properly put away and just left in its assorted state of limbo storage, not that I needed the counter space anyway. The side effect of a weak will.

I threw the kettle on and threw a pan on the stove. I figured I should have myself a good old fashioned breakfast of eggs whatever-was-left-in-the-fridge, coffee, and a ciggy.

I dug through the fridge and managed to salvage some cheese, a sausage, and a whole tomato. I chopped them up roughly and dumped them into the simmering mixture of egg and butter.

I slid the scrambled egg mixture onto my plate, grabbed my cup of liquid life, and sat my ass down on a spot I had cleared on the couch.

The TV had nothing interesting on but I left it on the food channel anyway. It was nice to eat with someone.

As I put out the cigarette in the overflowing tray I glanced over at the pile of marked envelopes on the table. Most of them said “Past Due.”

After dumping my dishes back in the sink I stumbled back into my room looking for… something.

The guy.

The cute one. Chatted me up at the bar and drank me under the table, and my sheets. I think he was a blonde, or brown? Or maybe I had hoped he was.

He must have taken off when Leena started screaming. I didn’t see any of his clothes around the bed.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye. Though it's refreshing to be on the other end of that for once.

Why did she throw that book at me?

I ruffled through the haphazardly strewn bedsheets until my hands came into contact with what I was searching for. The book Leena had thrown at my face just before she left.

With some painkillers and another cup of coffee on-board, I could think clearly enough and took a closer examination of the book.

Flipping through its pages I was met with blank after blank page.

The entire damn thing is just blank. Was this some kind of journal for me?

A gift? But why would she…

I threw it in a pile next to my side of the bed.

The rest of the day was filled with job applications.

The age of the Internet has done wonders for many aspects of humanity. Job applications were one sector made infinitely worse.

Every job fair booth I went to had a QR code to scan for their online applications system. Every Now Hiring sign in a store had that godforsaken block-grid in lieu of a simple piece of paper and a proper interview.

After the fifteenth online application referral I decided to call it for the day.

I sat down on my slightly cleaner couch and looked down at my phone, expecting to see dozens of notifications. Ideally at least one.

Instead I saw none.

No calls, no texts, no nothing.

The sun hung low over the horizon. Its waning radiance coaxed the sky into a storm of fire that lapped at the ever growing ocean of blues and purples.

It shone directly into my fucking eyes.

Shuffling my lazy ass over on the couch, I poured out the remaining contents of a bottle of whiskey into my cold cup of half drank coffee.

The evening consisted of aimlessly scrolling through various social media feeds and TV channels. Everywhere I looked I saw people on dream vacations, getting married, or buying their first homes.

Guess I’m just a fucking loser, huh.

Dinner was more whiskey, from a new bottle this time, and another menthol ciggy. I wasn’t particularly hungry as it was.

Where the hell was Leena? She stormed out and hasn’t even texted me. Maybe shes-

I quickly downed the rest of my glass before I could finish the thought. The burning warmth of the spiced whiskey rips me out of my own head.

As the whiskey level in my bottle lowered the moon rose in response. It was close to midnight by the time the bottle was empty.

The floor was my home now. This was not negotiable. Any attempt to stand at the moment would surely result in me splitting my head open on a table, or worse, ejecting the precious ounces of whiskey that I had been struggling to keep down for the past hour. The world around me decided it was time to begin rotating at ridiculous speeds, rendering me unable to stand upright.

Clinging to the ground beneath me, I dragged myself to my bedroom and eventually, I pulled myself up onto my bed.

The spinning only worsened. I closed my eyes and did my best to ignore it.

Eventually the spinning stopped and I awoke in my bed.

But this wasn’t my bed.

In what felt like no time at all I had returned to serve my sentence. My eternal penance for the crimes I must have committed at some point.

Once more I proceeded through my charge of the cleaning of The Dust.

All my life, all that I could remember anyway, I had never been able to dream. Not properly. Instead of nightmares of being naked at school or all my teeth falling out I dreamt of this place, The Dreary.

The Dreary was an empty world, a dead world, one that remained contained by a dense impenetrable fog that snuffed out all but the most diffused light from the sky above.

The Dreary was, as far as I could tell, an exact copy of the world. Save for the fact that anything not built by human hands was replaced by stone abstracts that, while giving the idea of what they're supposed to be, look nothing like it. Imagine if a tree wasn’t a tree but instead a jagged spine of stone that clawed upwards through the fog. Sure the base idea of a tree is there but that’s not a fucking tree.

There was nothing living within The Dreary. Even the wind did not blow. The world did not breathe. It was still, frozen, a corpse of identity.

Yet tonight was different.

The Dreary demanded my attention.

It had not done that before.

I broke from my charge and answered, walking towards the front door of my copied apartment.

I saw nothing new outside. The same cobble roads divided the same slate fields bearing the same stonework trees.

Except there was something new.

There had never been something new.

A great and grand staircase made of the most radiant marble ascended into the sky and well beyond the fog. Its brilliance made the fog seem black by comparison.

At the foot of these stairs stood a statue. A black statue covered in a golden cloak that fluttered in a non-existent wind.

“What the fuck?” My voice carried across The Dreary, hollow and raspy.

There’s never anything new. Nothing new, never. There was only The Dust, there was only The Dreary. What the hell is this?

I felt my breath become erratic-

I felt my breath.

I have never breathed before in a dream. I had never spoken.

I could not take my eyes off of the cloaked statue.

I could not resist the movement of my legs. Yet again my body refused to obey me as I was marched down the stairs of my apartment building.

The Dust does not react to me.

In what felt like seconds I found myself kneeling before the cloaked statue. It towered over me, but its height seemed to vary as my eyes rattled around in their sockets.

I clutched my head as I hissed an empty scream in agony. I felt a thousand hands trying to push their way out from within my mind, held back by a single flimsy door.

I strained to look upwards at the statue.

As I did I caught a glimpse of long auburn hair.

I shot upright in my bed.

The accumulating saliva in my mouth signaled to me that I should start running to the bathroom.

As the last of my wretches escaped my hanging maw, I caught a glance of my reflection.

I saw myself. Not in some artsy self-abstract sort of sense, but in a very literal sense.

Not the scars, nor the rage, nor the often bloodshot and tired eyes that have stared back at me for longer than I bothered to remember.

My eyes. My self.

I felt the fog that clouded my thoughts lift ever so slightly.

For the first time in ages I could think without strain. The string of consciousness was no longer a spider web of spider webs but was now a constant, deliberate, string that I could trace from end to end hanging freely in the newfound void.

I saw the filth, the disgust, the depravity that surrounded me.

How long had I lived like this?

I hopped in the shower to wash off days, no, weeks of god knows what from my skin. The water that rolled off my body and down into the drain was noticeably darker than the water that came out of the shower head.

I located the cleanest ensemble of clothes I could find; a pair of shorts and a button up short sleeve shirt that hung on my desk chair.

The unrelenting summer heat would stand no chance against this climate appropriate ensemble.

As I waited for the kettle to boil I started clearing the kitchen counter of all of the trash and unopened impulse-purchase appliances that had made it their home.

By the time the whistling of the kettle arrived I had already bagged up two bags of what had to be no less than $1000 of unused appliances. In their state I doubt I could get anyone to take them even for free.

The first sip of the black sludge that had the audacity to call itself coffee left a searing trail as it traveled down my throat. Even if I had any milk that wasn’t out of date or sugar that wasn’t crawling with bugs it wouldn’t have been enough to blunt the blow of that demonic concoction.

I poured the entire mug of caffeinated sewage down the drain so that it may rejoin its kin. Instead I opted for a half drank can of POG left in the fridge.

As I began my war against grime in the kitchen I felt my phone buzz.

I quickly rinsed my hands and answered the incoming call.

“Hi, is this Joseph Aiden?” The voice on the other end spoke.

“Yes,” I started hesitantly, “this is him.”

It had been a while since I had heard anyone say my name. I patiently awaited the other side to get on with whatever it was they wanted. Maybe it was a scammer who wanted to extort me for all I’m worth. I hope he likes the zeros in my bank account, because that's all there is.

“My name is David DeGuzman, I’m calling in response to your application with us…” as the voice trailed on my mind honed in on something he said.

Application? When did I-

Stopping myself short as I glanced over at the pile of yet-to-be-mailed applications on the kitchen table.

“…we’d like to have you come in for an interview. What dates are you available this week?”

I felt my heart flutter.

“Any,” I practically shouted, “right now even I can come down right now.”

I cringed inside realizing what a desperate fool I must have come off as. Even if it was the honest truth, what if this screws with my chances at getting the job?

I paused.

What job am I even volunteering myself for anyway? Sure it didn’t really matter at this point but-

“You know,” David started, “I think we have an opening around noon today, you think you could make it down to The Mall building?”

Thank god it’s close.

“Yeah that's like five minutes away from me,” I chuckled, overwhelmed and nervous beyond comparison.

“Great. We’re room 1304 on the 13th floor. You can check in with the front desk once you arrive. See you there.”

The line dropped.

As my phone returned to the lock screen I saw the time was 11:24.

While it was true that I wasn’t that far from The Mall building, I had realized far too late that any of my far more acceptable business attire was in desperate need of a wash. Sure, the shirt I was wearing was formal enough, shorts and slippers would likely get me marked down.

I combed through my room to see if perhaps I had missed any nicer clothes. Much to my dismay I had not.

Resigning myself to my fate I gritted my teeth and pushed on out the door.

My walk down to the mall was less of a casual walk and more of a heavily restrained sprint. My body happily obeyed my restraint, despite my legs screaming to let them break out in a sprint. The tightness in my chest, like a coiled spring, desired to be released through my legs.

The Mall itself was, to my knowledge, the largest outdoor mall in the world. On any given day it was bustling with tourists from all over the world. Situated right across the street from a massive beach park and sat just on the edge of Waikiki, It was arguably the social center of the whole island. The south side of the island, anyway. The Mall Building was situated on the Mauka side of the mall, opposite the ocean side, which meant it was basically a straight walk from my shabby abode down the main road and right into The Mall.

On the walk more questions formed within me, the solemn line of thought formed into a structured diagram of red threads that stretched from one end of the void to the other.

What company was I even interviewing for? The Mall building was mostly just offices for anything you could imagine, private medical practices and outpatient clinics, law offices, engineering firms, hell even some small cafes.

And that name. David DeGuzman.

Not that I was an expert on names, but of all the names you hear around here I couldn’t help but feel that something was… off.

Before I could indulge my conspiracy further I realized I had entered into the elevator and was now en route to the 13th floor.

I was alone in the elevator. Despite the lobby otherwise being filled only I had entered this elevator.

Or at least I thought the lobby was full.

The doors opened into the 13th floor lobby. It was a modest little area with a few area chairs for people to sit as they wait for their family to do whatever business they have on this floor.

I walked out, passed the row of elevators and headed into the main hallway. There were no windows. The dull droning of the building's HVAC and the gentle buzzing of the fluorescent lights trickled through the air before being absorbed by the slight off-blue carpet that ran the length of the floor.

I nervously made my way to room 1304. Thankfully, or not, the room was close to the elevators. Just one door down after taking a right.

The door was blank aside from the room placard and an “hours of operation” sign.

I steadied myself, took a deep breath, and entered the room.

I entered a small office lobby. Two chairs sat awkwardly in the far corner next to a door that presumably led further into the sectioned off office area. A newly constructed drywall partition isolated the lobby area from the rest of the office floor space, leaving only a door and a cutout for the secretary or greeter to manage guests as they come in the door.

“Joseph Aiden?” A female voice called from out of sight.

“Uhh yes?” I answered cautiously.

A woman, appearing to be in her forties, approached the counter cutout from within the offices. Her bright red hair appeared almost plastic in the fluorescent lighting.

“Mr. DeGuzman is ready for you.” She said, bending down to interact with something below the counter.

I heard a soft click followed by a buzz.

The office door popped open and the woman beckoned me forth.

The hallway was more of the same. A drywall corridor with several doors on either side.

The door locked shut behind me with a buzz, startling me.

At the same time the door at the far end of the hall opened. A man wearing a blue floral shirt waved me down.

“Down here!” He called.

I quickly made my way inside the man’s office. The windows behind him were blocked off by heavy curtains, the only source of light being the ever-present fluorescent overhead lights.

“I’m David,” he said, extending his hand, “pleasure to meet you.”

I reciprocated his gesture and returned a firm handshake.

“Likewise.” I replied.

The man, David, had well kept short black hair and a comically yet impeccably well kept ‘70s mustache that reflected some of the overhead light.

David gestured for me to sit and I obliged.

The office itself was a modest space, the desk at which we were sat was adorned with the typical office fare, albeit a bit lacking in some finer details and a bit too clean for it to be in constant use.

“So, about-“ I started before David cut me off.

“You’re 28 correct?” David asked as he held up some papers.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Can you tell me a little bit about your previous employer?”

I paused.

My previous employer? Who-

“Oh,” the thought found its way to me, “yes sorry I was with a PI firm, Maikai Investigations.”

“Yes them,” David affirmed leaning back in his silent office chair, “what kind of work were you involved in?”

I felt my palms become clammy but I persisted and gave him the sales pitch.

“Usually a client would come to us and ask us to get information about someone. That's the very base level of things,” I elaborated, “could be, you know, someone wanting to know about their birth parents. Someone wanting to know if a spouse is being unfaithful, really just about anything involving information.”

“Were you good at what you did?” David asked, his words laced with a substance I couldn’t fully make out.

“I’d like to think I was,” I said with false bravado, “never had any clients complain and I always completed the job-“

“Even when you were asked to do things that might have been morally objectionable?”

I froze.

I wasn’t a saint. Still aren’t. But I did what I was asked and did a damn fine job of it. If someone had a problem with it they can sort it out with the cops.

“Absolutely,” I said, almost bragging, “especially when others would refuse to take the job.”

“Why?”

David’s words now came with an air of genuine curiosity.

“Can I ask the relevance to the job?” I deflected.

David shifted forward in his chair, his poker face remaining unchanged since the start of the interview.

“Everything,” he replied eerily, “I’m not here to judge you, I want to know.”

David stared at me with an intensity I had reserved only for stains in my sink.

“Because the job needed to be done,” I started, “and I liked the challenge.”

David’s eyes perked up at that.

“The challenge?”

I furrowed my brow.

“Every case was a puzzle,” I leaned in, “and I was the best damn puzzle solver in that organization.”

I winced.

“Then why’d you leave?” David shot back.

Ignoring the blatant cringe that was whatever the hell I just called myself, David’s question shot through and shattered my false bravado like a bullet through a kitchen window.

“I was banging the boss's wife.”

It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the reason.

David’s poker face slipped as he let out a hint of disappointment.

“The analyst position we are looking for has some caveats,” he started as he began flipping through the papers on his desk, “one is honesty. We expect our analysts to be completely honest with us.”

His eyes locked onto mine.

I caught a glimpse of the papers on his desk. One was a memo entitled “Investigative Incident,” left conveniently in my line of sight.

“I overstepped.” I replied begrudgingly.

“Honesty is paramount,” David began as laid down the papers, “I don’t mean some half-assed corporate honesty, I mean if what I ask is for you to delve into how much you hate your boss, your life, or whatever escapades you and a secretary got up to, we expect the full un-adulterated details.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

What the fuck is he on about? Sure I appreciate that this job lets you cuss your boss out in the name of honesty but isn’t this a bit much?

“Just what exactly is an analyst here?” I started, “What are the hours? The responsibilities? The pay?”

The more questions I asked the more flustered I became. I knew utterly nothing about this place or this supposed job I was now interviewing for.

As a matter of fact how the hell did this guy get a hold of that-

“Anything further requires an NDA,” David cut, interrupting my thoughts.

“I have to sign an NDA to even know who or what I'm working for?” I asked, emboldened and incredulous.

David raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, you do,” he replied, “and you’re going to be asked far more uncomfortable questions than the ones I’m giving you now.”

Then it clicked.

Analyst position? I think I would have remembered applying for something so fancy sounding, at least compared to the myriad of fast food and retail positions I had been applying for.

“I don’t think I’ve ever applied for this position,” I said as I slowly stood up from my chair, “just who the hell are you?”

David smirked.

“Like I said, you sign this contract and I’ll answer all your questions.” David smiled.

His poker face slipped away revealing satisfaction and pride.

He slid a paper across his desk towards me, placing a pen at the top of the document.

The paper was a single page. Barely half. At the bottom was a place for my signature and nothing else.

I glanced at the page, not wanting to let my guard down. I caught one sentence that set off alarm bells within me.

“We are humanity’s first and last line of defense.”

My chest became a twist of panic, of confusion, of curiosity, of fear, and god knows what other emotions that humanity has yet to properly define.

“I’m not interested.” I said and made my way to the door.

David stood at his desk and watched as I hastily made my exit.

The door out of the office buzzed and opened as I approached.

“We’ll see you again, Aiden.” David said gently, his voice echoing down the hallway as the door to 1304 closed behind me.

The red threads in my mind formed a tangled mess that only grew as my questions remained unanswered.

As soon as I got home I made sure to lock the door.

I pulled out my phone to check the number that this organization had contacted me from.

It wasn’t there.

In the call history the last call shown was from a week ago.

From Leena.

I slumped down onto the couch.

I felt my chest constrict as a burning pain filled my chest, a twisting anxiety and yearning that sapped my breath away.

Why do I care? She knew what she was signing up for. She knew what I was.

I kept rationalizing.

I never said yes to her, I just didn’t say no. Not my fault she got all confused.

My sight became blurry.

Why’d she keep taking pity on me? Keep coming back to my dump of a house? Keep buying me shit I didn’t ask for? Keep-

The tears began to roll down my face.

Why couldn’t I care until now?

I bawled my eyes out. I cried and cried until the couch was soaked with my tears. I unleashed all the tension in my chest with a scream that surely pissed off the neighbors.

I cried, I screamed, I threw everything within arm’s reach at the wall hoping that if I threw it hard enough I could fix this mess. I threw a tantrum that would put a stubborn toddler to shame.

As a few hours pass as I lay spent on the couch at the epicenter of the disaster that trashed my living room.

“Leena…” I moaned mournfully into a tearstained pillow.

My eyes lazily scanned my surroundings, taking in the totality of my ruin and pathetic squalor.

All I could feel was a muted mix of disgust and hatred, aimed at myself.

I wished for nothing more than to never leave this couch again; better to join the rot and the refuse than continue my futile struggle against a life I had already destroyed.

A flame of insight flickered to life within my mind.

Just how the hell did those people, whoever they are, erase their call history from my phone?

After a brief but intense search online I came to a disturbing conclusion.Unless they had physical possession of my device, they could not hide my call history.

My eyes quickly darted to my door.

It was still locked up tight, right as it should be, some debris still blocking it from opening due to my earlier outburst.

I got up and inspected the jalousies.

The netting on the windows themselves remained undisturbed, even sporting a fine layer of dust. The jalousies too were equally undisturbed.

They didn’t break in. Or if they did they hid their tracks better than most, well enough to never be caught. But why go through all that effort just to delete a phone number? I could just look up the company by its address right?

I entered the address, suite 1304.

Nothing, at least for this decade. There are some old surface web files relating to a small life insurance company that once operated out of that address.

Feeling restless and seeing the sun still high in the sky, I decided to make my way back to the unit and get some answers.

Not fair they should know me so well without it being mutual.

Upon arriving in the lobby I spotted a building directory. I quickly scanned the registered suite numbers for 1304.

Not the first column, not the second, nor the third.

“Need help locating a business?”

I spun around to see a woman with long crimson hair, done up in a long pony tail.

“Oh, uh,” I fumbled my words.

Maybe I'm a little colorblind but that crimson looked auburn for a brief but uncomfortably long second.

“Im looking for the name of a business that operated out of suite 1304.” I explained to the young woman.

She squinted at the registry and scanned it intently.

“Strange,” she started, “I don’t see any, maybe we should go take a look?”

She beckoned me to the elevator lobby, to the cargo lift.

She swiped her ID card and the doors opened.

The cargo lift was very spacious and surprisingly well kept for being used to haul god-knows-what.

She walked over to the button panel and selected the 13th floor. Unlike the other elevators this one had a “Basement” floor button. The elevator had ascended at a far greater rate than the other one I had used earlier in the day.

We arrived on the 13th floor and she led me towards the suite. As we arrived we noticed a “For Lease” sign with an address for a corporate realty website.

“It doesn’t look like anyone has used this one in a while,” she frowned, “sorry that I couldn’t be of more help!”

Before I could respond she had already made her way back to the elevator and disappeared.

It was impossible, yet it was reality.

I had just been here maybe a few hours ago and the office where I’d had my interview was just gone.

As my thoughts began to settle they also began to drift. As they drifted and fluttered about in the subconscious wind of my psyche they fell upon a particular subject.

The hair, the auburn hair. Leena.

But the lady’s hair wasn’t auburn, it was practically crimson. Dyed. Healthy too.

She wasn’t Leena, so why did my thoughts find themselves wandering over to her? Just a similarity?

No, familiarity.

I’ve seen her before. Recently. But where?

The elevator came for me as I mulled over my thoughts. Scanning the panel I looked for the lowest floor option.

“Lobby.”

No basement floor option in this one. Probably just for the freight elevator.

As I walked out of the lobby and passed the ground floor loading dock I stopped.

In the office. She was there.

The receptionist had red hair. It was done up differently and partially obscured due to the contrasted office lighting but it was definitely, or probably, the same color.

But she was old, the lady who helped me couldn’t have been older than 30.

Unless they were using prosthetic makeup. But why the hell-

“Eh, out da way!” A voice announced from behind me.

A very impatient and upset package courier stood behind me with his cart full of parcels.

I quickly moved on wanting to avoid any awkward interactions.

The walk home was unpleasant.

A growing uneasiness in my gut had worked its way throughout my entire body. The traffic, people, buildings, even the sun all seemed so distant yet painfully close. Too close.

Was I being watched?

I glanced around. Nothing unusual, which only served to drive up my anxiety more.

I knew I was being watched, I could feel it, years of experience and training screamed the obvious to me but my eyes, my mind, I was blind to it.

I locked the door upon arriving home. Closed the windows and blinds too.

Still I felt the eyes, the presence, I was seen. Exposed. Vulnerable.

But that was impossible.

A thorough sweep of my house confirmed what I had already known; I was alone. Just me and my belongings.

I took a drag from the quickly emptying pack which helped ease the tension I felt. The feeling persisted.

Paranoia wasn’t unusual for me, though it was mostly back when I still worked as a PI. Most PIs had rules though. Standards. Maybe even a moral compass.

I didn’t.

The pay was good, real good, but it wasn’t about the pay. It was all about the thrill. It had been so long since I felt that fear, that ever watchful eye, that I forgot how good it felt. I had spent years binging on every substance I could get my hands in, trapped in my own mind.

Now, for the first time in years, I could feel that sensation coursing through my body like electricity.

When I awoke I once again found myself in The Dreary. I do not remember falling asleep.

But it had changed.

The Dust. The layer of dust that had coated the entire world was gone.

I rushed outside to see the fog, still ever present but much lighter. I could see further than ever before. Far enough to see that The Dreary had been rearranged.

The roads that had once mirrored their real-world counterpart were now gone. The houses all replaced with different, familiar structures. There was now just one long cobblestone boulevard that stretched from the foot of my apartment building to a massive tower. The Mall Building, behind which now was a massive ocean that expanded beyond the fog which replaced the massive beachpark, and mall, that would have normally sat behind it.

Gone was the marble staircase. Gone was the statue in the golden cloak.

Without thinking I began walking down the procession towards The Mall Building. Its upper floors pierced the fog and stretched into the unseen sky.

The structures that flanked the boulevard on either side were houses, most of them that is. Some were industrial buildings, one was a hotel.

Their commonality soon became apparent.

I had investigated cases involving each of these structures. An unfaithful husband having secret meetups with some girl half his age at the hotel, a string of disappearances tied to a warehouse with a cold trail, a teacher that had been using school equipment to manufacture narcotics, and many, many other escapades.

The closer to the sky scraper I got the more recent the structures were in my memory. Until eventually, just short of The Mall Building, my eyes fell upon the house I had blocked from my mind for years.

The house that sealed my fate, both giving and taking so much.

The place I first met Leena. The place I lost my job. The place I nearly lost my freedom. The place I thought I’d lose my life. The place with a shattered kitchen window.

My head was turned away from that house and toward The Mall Building.

I became unable to look away from it, my eyes transfixed on the lobby entrance.

Why would I want to look away? There is a mystery here, something to solve, to understand.

The words echoed in my mind, but they were not mine.

My legs marched themselves towards the opening and into the lobby. An elevator door was already open.

The cargo elevator.

Entering the elevator I scanned the button panel. The card reader was gone. Only one button remained.

“Basement.”

The doors closed as I hit the button.

I felt myself nearly float as the elevator descended at a rapid rate. Despite its apparent speed the ride seemed to go on for far too long.

Then it stopped.

The doors opened and before me was the office I had just been in earlier today.

Following that familiar path I proceeded into the hallway.

There was only one door. A door at the end of the hall. And it was open.

From the entrance I could see the windows were gone. Replaced by the marble staircase. The statue with the Golden Cloak stood in front of it.

I approached the statue and fell to my knees once again.

Voices.

Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions of voices began to echo in my mind. What small fragments I could grasp would only say one thing.

The Cataclysm.

Echoes of screams and fragments of agony filled my mind from a past long before what I had known. I knew not how, only that these voices were ancient beyond reason, ancient beyond knowledge, beyond what any human, any mortal had any right to hear let alone understand.

I felt the weight beneath the ground. I felt a pull below that threatened to swallow me whole.

My eyes struggled to focus on the statue, only seeing the fluttering of the golden cloak.

The staircase descended into an infinite darkness. It beckoned me forth.

My hand reached into my back pocket. I grabbed onto something firm and pulled it forth.

Immediately the voices silenced and I regained my strength.

In my hand was a featureless leather bound book with a golden sigil etched into its spine.

-Thank you for taking the time to read my first work, this community has motivated me to put pen to paper after years of indecision. I’d rather the stories I write be painfully mid than non-existant. Part Two soon.

Signed, CGCallisto-

Austin never met his brother; to him, he is only someone who was. Not will. Not is. Was. For his whole life, he was only the boy in the pictures, leaving him only the stories in his imagination to remember him by. Before Austin could even remember, his brother left, gone, nowhere to be seen. All the questions and speculations that he would ask his mother would only be met with teary eyes and faint whispers asking him not to talk about him. When his father was sober enough to ask Austin, he would be met with hostile screaming matches telling him that it wasn’t his place. But Austin wanted a brother; he wanted to play with his brother, he wanted to talk to him, get to know him, and be friends with the boy from the pictures. On cold nights when things would go bump in the dark, he wished he could have had someone to run to. Over the years, on his bike rides from school, he saw the boys out and about with their brothers, and he felt a gaping hole in his childhood.

Eventually, Austin grew into a fine young man, moved past the screaming and yelling at home, and went to a nice out-of-state college, where he could pursue his passion for film. But it was while he was packing up his old stuff and moving it up to the attic that he found a present that had been left there for decades. Several large boxes labeled “Erik” lay behind the numerous amounts of antiques and old photo albums stuffed up there. But the name didn’t call his attention; unlike every other object there, one box had no dust. Was it recently placed there? Opening the box, he saw the boy from the pictures, more photos of him, much older than the ones his parents hung on the wall. But besides all of that, he found several tapes labeled 1-20. Seeing them, he immediately began looking for something to play them, and eventually he found the old family TV. Putting the first tape into the old VCR showed nothing but grainy black footage, interrupted by the occasional burst of static running through the screen.

This greatly disappointed Austin. For a second, he believed that maybe he would learn a little bit more about who his brother was. But years of isolation must have distorted the footage; with no more hope in his heart, he began to clean up. But it was while he began to put the box away that he heard a young feminine voice ask through the TV, “Are you recording?” Austin turned to face the black screen, unsure if he indeed heard it from the TV.

“Yeah,” a young man’s voice could be heard through the darkness.

“Ok, make sure you have the Lens cap off,” said the woman

“Oh shit,” the teen said. For a moment, the screen became blinding white as the camera adjusted to the new light. And in the center of the frame were 2 teenagers, both wearing cheap bargain-bin costumes.

“Action,” the girl said, and so the teenagers both looked at one another and began reciting lines from an unknown script. And as the camera got closer and closer, the two teens shared a small kiss before awkwardly recoiling in embarrassment. “Cut!” the girl yelled before having a quiet conversation with the actors. But while they were out of earshot, the young man turned the camera towards himself, and for an instant a jolt of recognition surged through Austin’s mind. His brother was the man behind the camera.

Austin’s eyes became glossy; for the first time, the boy in the pictures was moving and breathing. “You probably don’t know this, viewer, but she really wants me,” Erik said with a smirk. A faint chuckle escaped Austin’s lungs. For the rest of the tape, Austin was impressed by the care and love Erik put into minute details, from angles to how the light would hit the actors and catch the camera.

Excited to learn more about his brother, he continues to go through the many tapes, seeing the various home movies with him and his friends, until he got to the 5^(th) tape, seeing instead a scene where they are in a hospital. The camera centered on someone who struck a familiar chord in Austin’s mind.  A much cleaner, younger, healthier-looking version of his father sat down waiting for some announcement. “Are you nervous or excited, Dad?” But before he had had a chance to answer, a small nurse came through the door telling him that his wife was ready to push. And just as he appeared, his father rushed into the room of the screaming woman.

With nothing to do but wait, Erik went into the restroom and filmed a short message just for him and his brother. “Alright, bud, before you come and wreck our lives forever, I need to let you know about some ground rules; first: I’m Mom and Dad’s favorite, and nothin’s gonna change that; second: your stuff is my stuff, but my stuff is not your stuff; third and most important of all, if anyone ever gives you any shit, just let me know, and I'll kick their ass.” The thought of a 14-year-old child going out of his way to defend the 18-year-old Austin made him chuckle.  After this, the video cut to a shot of Erik holding his new baby brother in his arms, transfixed on something so small and so fragile. It was here that something caused the floorboards to give a whining cry, startling Austin and causing him to stare out into the empty darkness. And so unnerved by whatever made that noise, Austin continued to play as the collage of early childhood memories of Erik playing with Austin went through birthday parties and family reunions, watching both him and his brother play together like he'd always wanted.

“Austin, come down for dinner!” he heard his mother demand, and so Austin rushed downstairs with the old camera. Now he had a new piece of evidence to ask his parents about.

So he did, asking them about who his brother was, and after several years, his family finally gave him the tearful answer that he had been asking for all these years. How, a week after his sixteenth birthday, he had disappeared; his family spent weeks trying to find him; how, when they eventually did, his parents couldn’t recognize him- not his shredded face, not his mangled hands; nothing was left of Erik. At this moment, his parents took a breath to think about what to say next. “We thought it was some bear or wolf or some sort of animal… but the cops told us… it was a man who did this.”

“Who?”

“They didn’t catch him,” his father said, tears running down his eyes.

Afterwards, Austin returned to the attic, wanting to hear his brother’s voice now more than ever. Starting again with tape eleven, this time Erik had Austin in a low-quality lizard costume. Running rampant around his makeshift city of toys and LEGO people. He would record as baby Austin would put the small toys in his mouth, take them apart, and smash them together, before cutting to the title card with the words ‘Babyzilla by Erik Johnson’ written in red ink.

The dusty and damp attic was starting to take a stronger hold on Austin's mind. It began to fill his memories with ideas of what could have been. By this point in the tapes, Austin had grown up a bit, not enough to remember, but enough to crawl around the house and even begin to stand on his own two feet. One thing stayed the same, however: each time that Austin saw Erik’s face, he began to laugh and smile, cheering as his big brother hugged and picked him up. Austin wanted to see more

Then tape fifteen, a video journal Erik made for himself, talking about his future goals and aspirations, and how he wants to go to school and study film. That hit a chord with Austin, wishing that he could have also started his dream; he imagined how they could have worked together, but unfortunately these dreams were cut short. This realization broke Austin’s heart. And then Erik turned the camera over to baby Austin, who, no matter how much Erik called Austin, stayed transfixed with the small cracks in the walls. Soon Erik flipped the camera, calling his brother a weirdo, before continuing with the journal.

Austin began to weep, listening to what could have been, before some monster took that away from his whole family. Now all he wanted was that moment, to be back with that person ripped away from his life. And so he continued to watch the tapes. Getting all the way up to tape seventeen, another family reunion: aunts and uncles, grandparents who had passed away years ago, all surrounding one person, Erik, with a big brown chocolate cake in the middle and big colorful candles with the number 16 lit for all to see. Dread filled Austin's heart; now he could only count down the days before Erik was gone. Before something awful happened to him. His tears rolled down his cheeks; his heart dropped to his stomach. For the longest time, Austin prided himself on not being an emotional kid, but today all those years of frustration boiled up and released all at once. He hugged that TV, hoping that its warmth would replace Erik’s, but it didn’t work. So, he continued watching the birthday, watched him open gifts full of clothes, cash, and the occasional last-minute toy from Uncle Miguel, the tape ending, freezing on a frame of Erik with Austin in his arms, both laughing and smiling together one last time, before he became the boy in the pictures.

Instinctively, Austin put in the next tape. Number eighteen. This one was black, from start to finish; for several minutes, nothing could be seen. Did Erik leave the cap on again? Austin could only hear the muffled clanging of pots and pans from one of his parents washing the dishes. Before a door could be heard opening and closing, Erik’s voice asked his parents if they had seen his camera anywhere. This struck Austin as odd, since who else would be using the camera?

 The floorboards cried once again. Austin quickly jerked his head around, trying to get a good look into the darkness; nothing. He shook his head, trying to wake himself from this paranoia. Now he played the nineteenth tape. This one also started off in the darkness, but it wasn’t pitch black; instead, it was just some dark and empty room. Slowly, the camera moved, walking down some stairs and into a hallway. His hallway, just outside his and the guest rooms, slowly, the camera moved, swaying from side to side, as each step made the floor creak. And then the camera stopped right outside the guest room. Moving inside, it saw a big lump on the bed, one that Austin had never seen anyone sleep in. And as it moved to the top of the bed, it saw the dark silhouette of a hand slowly pull back the covers and reveal Erik, sleeping soundly. The hand traced Erik’s jaw and played with his hair before the tape ended.

Austin gagged; for a moment, the only thing that he could do was look at his surroundings as he felt imaginary bugs crawl up his arm and down his back. Fear had gripped Austin, but he wanted to continue. He thought maybe this could help him figure out who did it; maybe just maybe, he could help his brother. When he played the last tape, Austin began to shake with fear.

It started with snippets of his brother’s journal, rearranged and mangled to say a new message. “FoR… AusTiN… I… Love… YoU… weirdo," then it faded to black, before revealing a boy walking home from school. And while the tape hadn’t shown the boy’s face, Austin knew it was his brother. Slowly, the recording would fade to black, then appear closer and closer to Erik. Until eventually it was only a few feet away from Erik. But Austin couldn’t keep watching; he felt sick. Quickly running down the stairs. And under his covers. And for hours he couldn’t sleep. When he woke up, he chose to believe that it wasn't real, and he didn’t return to the attic until he returned for college.

One day, Austin was house-sitting for his parents. He became determined to finish that last tape. So slowly he moved up the stairs, this time undeterred by the contents of the video; no matter how disgusting or dreadful it may be, he needed to know that he could turn this in to the police, that this would solve the case once and for all. But when Austin opened that now dusty box. He saw a brand-new label on tape twenty, instead of being covered by one that read twenty-one. Did he count wrong the first time? No, twenty is now missing, and peeling the label off of twenty-one reveals the old tape. Who tampered with it? As Austin inserted the recording into the VCR, dread filled his heart as fear gripped the back of his neck, sending chills down his spine.

The tape began once again with that same message for Austin. But instead of following Erik on his way home from school, the footage was from within the attic. Peeping in on Austin while he watched Erik’s tapes, peeping as he rushed downstairs for dinner, peeping as he cried and wept for Erik, and lastly peeping as he ran out of the attic. Slowly, Austin stood up and turned around, staring once again into the darkness. This time, a small red light stared back at him.

Beginner hobbyist looking for feedback. This is just the beginning of the story. I will post another chunk tomorrow if there is any interest. Of course happy to read 4 read. Thanks!

CRYPT CREEPERS

I couldn’t shake the feeling. A hard little lump in the back of my throat. It had been nagging me all day. I tried coughing, gargling, and massaging my neck. Nothing worked. I had spent the evening stoned and playing video games, same as nearly every night these days. My focus kept drifting from the game however, and returning to the nagging pressure in the back of my throat. Frustrated, I turned the game off and switched over to YouTube, clicking the first thing that popped up. I just needed something to fill the silence.

I had been living alone for months now and still had not adjusted to the oppressive silence of the empty apartment. I sucked in a huge hit from my bong and started coughing. Something dislodged from the back of my throat and got caught under my tongue. I wiggled it out and spit it onto my palm. It was a lumpy green thing, maybe half the size of a skittle. And holy shit, it smelled fucking disgusting. Although the pressure had lightened, I could still feel something in the back of my throat. I dropped the nasty little thing on the coffee table and walked into the bathroom.

Leaning in front of the mirror, I shined a light into my mouth. There was still something crammed up in the back of my throat it seemed. Something small and green. I reached in to poke it and my skin flushed as I realized I was only glimpsing the surface. The rest of whatever this thing was was buried, packed into the flesh of my throat. 

I had an old friend(we hadn’t talked in many years) that would send me pictures after removing a particularly large and nasty tonsil stone. While I would laugh and give him shit, the unsolicited photos repulsed me and I silently begged(never been much for praying) to never have one myself. Unfortunately it seemed my silent pleas went unanswered, as I was looking at a rather large tonsil stone, and it looked like it was about to pop right out. 

I was correct in my assumption. The rotten little thing needed very little persuasion to come out. Just a nudge from my pointer finger and the putrid green stone tumbled out onto my tongue. I could taste it, or smell it. Maybe both, I’m not sure. It was fucking rancid though. The stench and taste of decay danced across my taste buds and flooded my sinuses, causing me to retch before spitting the rotten stone out.
It glistened there in the sink, a sickly pale green tainting the white ceramic. I watched with sick fascination its nearly imperceptible movement toward the open drain along a puddle of saliva. 

A hidden cave entrance, dark, damp, and carved deep into the wall of my throat was now exposed. Nudging the edge of the hole, I spied the green glisten of another stone. With a bit of prodding, the stone, slightly smaller than the last, tumbled out of its hidden little home and sat, pale green and slick, on the tip of my finger. I rubbed it between finger and thumb, crushing it and exposing a stringy fibrous interior. It reeked of rotten food and decaying teeth. I rinsed the foul thing off the tip of my finger and returned to poking around.

The light did not immediately reveal another stone, just the small glistening hole in the back of my throat, slick with saliva. Bracing myself for another stinking surprise, I pulled the hole wider. A glimmer of green, of course. And also something else. A hair maybe? It was thin and black and wrapped halfway around the stone. I started prodding and applying more pressure, trying to wiggle the damn thing out. As it became more exposed, I saw more of the hair like substance wrapped around the back side of the stone. Two or three more strands it looked like. I did not know how hair could have been packed into my tonsil crypts but the thought nauseated me.

The stone began to emerge as I applied more pressure. The thin black strands began moving with it, scrabbling and scratching at the stone. This one was large, perhaps even bigger than the first, and on the precipice of popping out. I backed off a little pressure and watched with sick fascination as the black strands frantically and desperately grabbed at the stone, as if they were trying to keep it where it was. Too bad, I thought, and pushed in, fully dislodging the stone. 
Just like the first, this tonsil stone dropped onto my tongue. This time however, the stone did not emerge alone. There was something else. And it was moving. My vision darkened. I cried and spat, then stared in horror at the large stinking tonsil stone in the sink. And at the brown and black spider, just about the same size, writhing beside it. 

The faucet was on and both intruders were plummeting down the sink drain before I even realized what I was doing. Trembling and bracing against the counter, I stared at myself in the mirror. The faucet was still open, dumping water into the open hole of the sink drain. I left it on, couldn’t stand the idea of the spider(itsy bitsy little trespasser that it was) crawling up the drain pipe and finding me. 

I had to check if there were others. Mouth open. Light on. I leaned in towards the mirror, shined the light into my mouth and saw four little legs stretched out from the back of my throat. A terrible gasping croak sang out from deep within me. The spider’s legs stiffened then slowly retreated back into the hole it had claimed as its home. The world was closing in. Gravity fell heavy upon me and pulled me down. I thought of spiders. Crawling into my mouth, my nose, my eyes. Making a home inside of me. Crawling, feeding, breeding. Dancing up and down my spinal cord.

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

“You boys better make quick to living.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

It looked nearly abandoned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Doesn’t feel right.” Davie mumbled.

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

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

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

The group knew better than to doubt him now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was making his way to Mardell.

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

He liked feeling useful.

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

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

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

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

“Anyone here? Hello?” He yelled rudely.

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

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

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

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

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

The smell hit him before his eyes could adjust. 

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All was quiet. 

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

-

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

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

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

Davie could swear he saw it looking at him. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He did not.

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

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

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

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

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

Pip shook his head and scoffed.

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

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

When Elizabeth Hurley saw Lester Owens coming down the crooked road by the pasture, she was sure he had been in the silage hooch, drunk as the last lord of creation. She stood half-hidden behind a beam on her porch and watched him in the early blood dawn. The sound of screech owls crying the last of their descending, ghostly whinnies of the night echoed from the deep woods as he stuttered along.

She was afraid of Lester.

Lester wasn’t walking so much as he was lurching down that dirt road.

He would stagger forward on one good leg, dragging the other behind, swinging his hip in a half-twist to carry that dead weight after him. He was slathered in mud from head to trailing foot. The filth ran brown to black hitting that gimp leg and left a foul trail behind him she could just make out in that apocalyptic new day. But the way Lester tried to grab at something in front of him, wanting purchase to carry himself forward, Mrs. Hurley didn’t like that one bit. That made him seem dangerous. She watched him shamble along the road - step, draaag, step … draaag, step… draaag, step -  slow, but not quite ambling drunk-slow.

She watched him until he hit the curve that would have taken him into the town of Cedarville a couple miles going southwest from here, except he didn’t take the turn. A growing sense of dread rose up in her. Lester pitched into the underbrush beside the dirt road, going away from the curve. Then he was gone, leaving just the rip-haggard brush that seemed to shake in agony as it failed to close up. Something primal in Elizabeth told her not to look too closely at the road Lester walked; spatterings of blood trailed his muddied footsteps and the long, swishing smear that his anchoring deadweight foot left behind. She hadn’t seen it but she knew if she went to look she would find all that and more.

Somewhere, not as far off as Elizabeth would have liked, a barn owl screamed and it sounded like a banshee, or maybe a woman in distress. She stared off into that broken and dark wrangle of bushwork and trees. Her chest rose and fell at motor speeds and she clung to the porchbeam to keep from fainting. She knew what was over that way, straight as the crow flew, through the dogwood brush and the oak woods and the dark, spiraling animal trails that criss-crossed one another in secret places.

Lester Owens was walking to the Cedarville Cemetery, direct.

And, wildly, as if she were still in bed next to her husband, she had the waking-dreamlike belief that Lester Owens was dead. Had been dead, trudging along that country road and trying to imitate breathing, dead and weeping.

-

On the Friday before Elizabeth would see Lester boring through the pines and into the red twig dogwood, he was sitting at home, reading a letter. A warm buzz flushed up his face as he sipped out of a ceramic jug. The evenings were getting cool and the lightning bugs slalomed through the deepening autumn sky, will-o-wisps ferrying the dead. Firebobs, they called ‘em as kids. Lester was enjoying that build-up of tipsy every drinker craves, knowing it was building to something good. But this letter. Jesus mercy this letter just wasn’t gonna do.

He read by the dim electric light coming out of the window from his and Marcy’s squat, single-story home. The place had been rough when they bought it and was positively run to riot now. Creeping ivy had gone barmy on the north side of the house and the wood was so warped on the front that you could stick your knuckle in the bow between the boards. A number of disemboweled cars had been swallowed up in the weeds around their place. It wasn’t nothin’ to Lester, but Marcy was on him about finally taking care of the scrap in their garden now that baby Evelyn was turning one.

Lester took a belt off the jug, smacked his lips, and blew steam into the chilling night.

This letter.

He squinted at the fancy print for the third time since he yanked it out of Marcy’s hand this afternoon, getting in late from harvesting the O’Donnelly’s fields. He sat and thought. Late, but their tractor was a real hayburner jalopy that guzzled gas harder than Mr. O’Donnelly did his booze. They should have been grateful he got it done at all.

Lester swigged the bottle. The vinegary shit O’Donnelly’s boys brewed in about a hundred clay pots buried under silage made some of the foulest drink Lester ever had the pleasure of supping. Coughing, he thought about the contents of the letter.

The Letter, in no uncertain terms, was a notice to the residents of Cedarville and the surrounding communities within the district that the Cedarville Cemetery would be replotted to the far edge of town, to make way for a NEW road they were putting in to connect them to the NEW highway. That wasn’t the part that interested Lester, but it did do for a chuckle. The idea that this jerkwater town was going to be connected. Hoot and a holler, that.

No, the part that caught his eye was the bit about replotting the cemetery. Bad timing, with fall on the way, so they’d make a rush job of it, and probably not fuss up about any oddities. Afterall, gotta get Cedarville connected.

Lester laughed. The rank drunk odor clouded around him.

The front door opened behind him. Marcy was there, frigid - which he didn’t like - and scared of him - which he liked a helluva lot. She had on the whisper of a nightgown that draped off her shoulders, sheer enough to almost see through. Lester could feel himself getting a little hard just at the sight of her.

“Lester,” she breathed, clearly desperate but keeping her voice low, “Evvie is asleep, ya hear? You don’t be wakin’ her up. I just spent half the evening tryin’ to git her to sleep.”

He grunted, father enough to care about baby Evvie but not about to let Marcy tell him off. “Gonna laugh if I want to.” he said.

“Lester, please.”

Marcy held her ground, staring. The defiance caught him. She was still curvy and supple in ways that made Lester’s mind work like a dog’s, but she had gotten tough on him lately. Frownin’ on the drinking, frownin’ on the late nights, just always frownin’ he thought. Lester took another swill and then put the jug down into a little groove he had butted into the lawn that made for a good hold.

Lester stood.

He was a thin man made lean after years of hard living and hard working. Scrawny-strong. He faced Marcy head-on and his crooked-blade nose twitched, broken years ago by his old man over a dispute about money. There was a quiet, agile way he could move even with the drink so heavy set in him - she was scared of that. A smudge of grease like an Ash Wednesday cross was between his eyes where he had wiped sweat away. Foul hooch in his breath like poison on the wind. Hard, jade eyes. Lester didn’t like being told what to do in his own home.

“You wanna say that again, Marce?” he said, stepping close.

She swallowed, arms crossed defensively over her chest. “Lester, Evvie is sleeping. Please. Not tonight.”

His hand snapped up like a gator, strong fingers biting hard into her near-bare shoulder. “What the fuck do you think you’re saying to me, Marce, in my own Goddamn home?”

Marcy didn’t cry out because she knew he’d like that. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Lester could be like a wild animal, unpredictable and dangerous. She was attracted to that like a moth to the flame when she was younger, but not anymore. The danger and hurt were simply danger and hurt, now. She fought the pain but he could see her wince. He knew that he was hurting her, those sharp eyes of his. Sick satisfaction grazed his dark features. “Don’t you be cursing here, Lester Owens,” she said, fighting harder than she ever had before. “I said Evvie is sleeping and I won’t have you upsetting her. Not again.”

His eyes never left hers but she had caught him in a way he didn’t expect. Marcy knew that sometimes seeming brave was all you had to do to get a wild animal to hesitate. He loosened his grip and let go.

Marcy stepped back from him, not numb enough to keep from rubbing the hurt away where he gripped her. They stood for a moment, her hurting and him out on the darkening yard. He was becoming a silhouette of himself. She mustered and put sand in her craw, tightening up, muscles taut like she might jump. She didn’t think he’d hit her now, what with the evening being so early on, but he had been drinking the hard stuff. Was still drinking that vile witch’s brew.

“Evvie is sleeping, Lester, and I won’t have you causin’ a ruckus here. I don’t got it in me to be fightin’ you. Please.”

His eyes were sharp. Brilliant jade eyes. “You watch yourself, Marce. You goddamn watch your uppity mouth or I’m gonna shut it real good.”

But there was no turning back now. Either she would get her say in or forever be under his heel. Her own mother had been broken the same way. She promised herself something better. There was a galling certainty in her voice the next time she spoke that Lester wouldn’t forget. “Lester, I’m telling you, you stop now. Now. Cut the drinking tonight and sleep it off. Or go elsewhere.”

His hands moved in a blurred flash, unbuckling his belt as he took three large, quick steps toward his wife. She wanted to run but held her ground. If not for herself then for Evvie. God was he fast though. Faster than she realized. Lester held the folded leather in his right hand. His face was so close to her she would taste the liquor in his sweat if she just pushed out her tongue. He’d belt me and I’d bite it off, she thought, terrified. He breathed on her for a moment, then the rhythm changed - slowed. Deeper inhalations.

Lester ran the belt up her nightgown, along her shivering arm and to her breast. He kept his gaze on her as he let the belt fall to his other hand and began to idly play with her nipple through the sheer fabric. He could see her vision go distant and he smiled. He gave her a pinch and let his hand fall away, stepping back.

“Well, mayhaps I do that. Go elsewhere. Take a little run out to Cedarville and see if anything’s doin’ out there.” He gave a half-cocked smile, booze so thick in his spit it welled in his mouth. Vinegary hooch. “Might even be that I bump into Jeremiah Dudds. Could be we pal around, see if we can find anything with value, or somethin’.”

There was a twitch in her eye at Dudds’ name. He liked that.

That mean-drunk spirit was in him as he stepped back from her. “Ayup, I’mma gonna do that, Marce. But when I’m back, you’re gonna be awake. You got that? And if you ain’t, I’m gonna wake you up, Evvie be damned.”

He slipped his belt back on slowly, loop for loop, watching her. Even on the verge of being drunk he was nimble. He turned, twisting his booted heel into the floor before the door to leave a muddy print. She expected he would want her to clean that up too, before he got home. She’d be right.

Lester Owens climbed into his beat up Ford and turned it on, engine sputtering as if its guts were wracked with cancer, until finally the old bitch whirred alive. Marcy watched him drive off into the dark and pressing night until his lights were as distant, agonizing stars.

–

Jeremiah Dudds was enjoying the O’Donnelly hooch himself, and damn near drank half his jug by sundown. Dudds didn’t have a wife or kids. He was free to be as spiffed as he wanted to be any night he pleased. He stood up from his broken rocking chair, legs beat and wedged into the topsoil and through the thick mat of grassroot going half a foot down. He took three good, wobbling steps before he decided he had gone far enough to do his business. His gnarled fingers burned with rheumatism and ached as he worked the buttons to his overalls.

“Horse shittin’ spade!” he spat.

Like an incantation the button on his overalls let open and he schlucked them down past his knees and began to piss. He groaned and took in the cool evening breeze, ignoring the hot pain pinging from his prostate. The rank, acrid odor of his own urine blended with the pungent stink that came from the muck his clothes were covered in. If the hooch hadn’t been so vile he might have cared, but O’Donnelly’s boys made a batch that would make Satan himself hack.

Dudds swayed on his chicken stalk legs, piss dribbling into his pants and a humming tune coming to mind. He farted and it hurt. The hum turned into a Woodie Guthrie tune as he closed his eyes. Now came the real turn for the night; from here on the drinking would be hard.

It was in this trance-like state, pants covered in cow shit and his bloomers stained, that Lester’s dim trucklights fell onto him. They rolled over the hill and near-blinded the older, pot-bellied man. Dudds made a bad job of blocking the light with his arm and staggered, trying to find his chair. The Ford rolled to a stop in front of his house and for a stupored moment Dudds thought he had died in his front yard with his dick in his hands, reeking and reeling.

The motor died and the lights spasmed and died too, leaving a murky orange glow where the lamps were. Dudds blinked and rubbed his eyes with blunt, grime-covered fingers. Lester laughed at him.

“Lord ah mighty Jeremiah but do you look just all kinds of bent outta shape!” Lester cantered toward him, stumbling over a rock as he did so.

Dudds wasn’t amused. “Yeah, well go suck an egg why don’tcha? Your Ma knows a thing or two ‘bout that.”

Lester ignored him, still laughing loud. Dudds stumbled and finally pulled up his trousers. “The hell you doin’ here anyhow, Lester? Ain’t Marce still up?” Lester half-looked. Across the field, distant but just down the road, sat his squat little home, the dim-yellow lights giving its front a face full of mourning. Lester swiped at it, annoyed.

“Fergit et!” he snarled, losing the buzz he had been getting up while on the drive over. Dudds picked up his own jug and they knocked them together, taking a pull each. Hooch dribbled down the sides of Dudds’ mouth like a baby’s drool. Lester chaffed the rest of his and tossed it into the yard. Dudds’ place was worse than his own. The trash made for a junkyard maze of machine corpses and baubles. At night the place could kill a man if they stepped wrong.

Dudds belched and he could feel the bile rise up in him. “What’re ya doin’ here Lester?”

Lester side-eyed him, still checking on his house from over here. “You got yerself a letter today, from the county-man?”

Dudds nodded. “Ayup. Even read sum o’ et. Bad.”

Lester started to nod, slowly at first but more rapidly, excited about something. “Could be, Duddsy, but ah gots a plan. A good’n. But we gotta act quick. Tonight. Hotter’n a jackrabbit on a date quick tonight, yah git me?”

Dudds finished his drink. The hellwater slosh burned even his wretched guts. “I couldn’t read all of et, Lest. What’s the damage?”

Lester fished for the letter he brought with him, digging it out of his pocket along with a kleptomaniac’s haul of nails and bolts. He slapped it like a bill of goods onto Dudds’ chest. “This ‘ere says they’re moving the cemetery all the way ‘cross town. Bodies and kaboodle. All of et.”

“You don’t think they be findin what we did, do ya?”

Lester waved that off. “One horse town like Cedarville ain’t got nuthin’ but pikers and lollygaggers doin’ that kinda work. They won’t notice a few busted up coffins or nuthin’, ah tell ya.” he jabbed a finger into Dudds’ soft chest, making a point about this. “Hell, I spect they’ll be bustin them up themselves. Lazy bastards probably just bustin’ it all up and tossin’ it in a pile. Gonna move the whole lot over in a parade.”

Dudds laughed, soused and half-following Lester’s meaning. “Prop ‘em up and have ‘em toss worms to the kiddos, right Lest?” Dudds gave a wet wheeze of a laugh and Lester faked his own. Dudds was unsavory, but unsavory was the kind of man he needed. For the work they did so late in the deep and baleful black of night, when only barn owls watched and cried out at them, Dudds was the right man.

“So ya don’t think they’ll find nuthin? Nuthin’ about us stealin’ or taking whatever?”

Lester clapped his shoulder, already turning good ol’ Jeremiah Dudds to the truck. Dudds could be a lickspittle turd but he did what needed doing and that made him worth having around. Plus, he was always good for a drink. “Not a chance bucko. But look,” and he stopped him here, trying his drunk-damndest to make a point to the drunker Dudds, “they’re moving them soon. Don’t know when, could be those pencil-pushers got on ‘em to do it already. We gotta go tonight. Now.”

Dudds shook him off. “Tonight? Lord Lester, I’s been drinkin’ real good tonight. Tomorrow. Ayup, tomorrow.”

Lester squeezed his shoulder tight now. He wasn’t above beating Dudds black and blue in his own yard. Done it before, when Dudds had filched from Lester some of the jewelry they got off one of the bodies in Cedarville. Impossible to hide at the fence who ran a bunco game behind the apothecary in town, and Dudds wasn’t a sly man. Not like Lester. Not half as vicious either. Lester had larruped him good that night, so good ol’ Dudds was out of work for a week.

“Tonight Duddsy. Tonight or never. They’re going to start proper work on it one way or another, and once that happens it’s going to be hard to pull off. We need to pilfer what we can tonight so we can make a clean sneak of it. Maybe all of it.”

Lester scared Dudds sometimes. Scared him the way men shouldn’t be able to scare one another, as if Lester had tapped into a meanness beyond simple alley-working thuggery. Like he enjoyed it.

“Ya, a-all right, Lester boy, we’ll do that tonight. J-Just lemme get some more drinks, ya?”

Lester smiled, canines big and bright in the moonlight, rotgut on his breath like a poison wind, and jade eyes lean.

-

By the time Lester and Dudds rolled into the Cedarville Cemetery, they were blotto to the four winds - boiled as owls, Dudds called it. The Ford growled to a stop between hacked earthen loam and mounds of dirt that had been piled up fresh. Stacks of coffins went as high as Lester. The bodies were poorly tacked under tarp to protect from the wind or the rain or whatever, not that Lester could make sense of why anyone bothered. They were dead. All of them. They didn’t care if they got wet.

Even by their drunk standards Dudds was feeling swirly in the head, like he was shifting around on a boat in stormy waters. They staggered out of the car, running lights on. They would need a bit of light out here, at this witching hour.

The city folk had made a mess of their own work. Lester and Dudds, foul though the task was, were more careful. After all, they had to be - grave robbing was a crime, and neither of them wanted to be sent to the joint for something as low as robbing from the dead.

There had been a rumor, croaked out of rasping, elder throats - an old rumor that came from those who weren’t long for this world themselves. They said that Cedarville’s Cemetery was ancient. Older than the redskinned savages. Older than men warring with sticks and stones. Older. True to their whispers the place was arranged strangely, in a spiraling circle that felt druidic. You could trace the rim of that spiral from the entrance, walking - or driving, as they did - in and around, inward, along a singular row of graves folding in on themselves like a mathematical promise to infinity. Pagans in fervor marching to entomb their fellows into eternity; Pharaohs and Kings alike carried by the slaves who would be buried with them; Paleolithic man hunched and babbling as they descended like animals along paths established in the forging of time. The spiral, leading Lester and Dudds through eternal movement and interconnection; the triune nature of God and Death and Eternity.

No stars shone that night. Only the moon, fat and red, burned through the sky like an abyssal sun, as if it had pried open the heavens to peer on man, rictus grin on its deathmask face, watching them sin.

Owls cried out in the dark and Lester told Dudds that he shouldn’t be afraid. They were only owls. They’re all over these woods. They sound like a banshee, but they’re just owls.

Lester had been right in his assessment of Cedarville’s desecration. The crew had run ramshod through the place and torn it up to hell and high-water. Grave stones were stacked with paint associating them to the coffins stacked beside them, so they could be reinterned later on, elsewhere.

“Dudds, c’mon here.” Lester said, motioning to a stack of coffins set aside.

Dudds gave them a look over; they were each classier, finer wooden boxes. Fancy meant money, and dead rich folk liked to hold on to their money. Together the two slid the first coffin off the stack and began to work on it with prybars. Soon they had popped the lid, and the mouldering must of a woman dead for decades hit them. Even teetering drunk, the dead air made them reel. Her withered, open mouth scream did nothing for them as they pried her arms away from the crossed over, self-hugging rigor-mortis. Even the dead wish for an embrace.

The two men knew what they were after. They felt her up face to foot, looking for jewelry or piercings. They tore out the earrings she wore and pried open her mouth with dirtied fingers looking for gold. Dental rape. They violated and stole, tearing at the clothes her children so carefully picked for her. They stripped her to find what goods they could rob. A pearl necklace. A gold bracelet. Sapphire earrings. Three gold teeth. They threw this into a bag and put the lid back over her. Ravaged. She was done.

Onto the next.

For two hours they repeated this process, sometimes striking hot and others not. When they finished with what was dragged out of the earth for them Lester berated Dudds into more. By now the booze was wearing thin, replaced by exhaustion. But, like Lester had said, it was now or never. And it would never be easier.

“Look for what they left in the ground. We can skip digging tonight, I think. Walk the spiral and look into any of the graves for coffins they left.” Lester told Dudds.

Dudds walked that twisted passage which marked man’s closest bridge to the Great Unknown, trailing the empty graves on unsteady feet. The booze had enough of a hold on him where he felt like falling into a grave wouldn’t be all that bad. Little bit of sleep. Little bit of soft dirt if he was lucky. Empty. Empty. Empty. He turned and arched along the spiral’s orbit to the center, revolving closer and closer to its core.

Lester watched him, smoking a cigarette. The owls were screaming something fierce but the hooch almost did enough to keep them off his mind. Almost. “Like the Goddamn caterwallin’ dead, them sons of whores,” he whispered in a slur. The moon stared at him with greater intensity, manic and obsessed. He was starting to feel like they had hit as much pay dirt as they would ever and made to call for Dudds. Before he could get the words out he saw the older man twisting, dipping down and arms up in a drunken dervish, wide-eyes full of surprise. And then, silently, Dudds disappeared from the dying beams of the truck lights.

“Shit, DUDDS!” he cried out, fumbling ahead and vaulting awkwardly over a divot where a tombstone had been.

Dudds had fallen into an open grave near the center of the spiral and was moaning so piteously that Lester was sure it would be bad. Then Dudds began to wail. And then, Dudds began to scream. By the time Lester made it to the lip of the grave, Dudds was frantic, raving in the depths. The truck’s lights badly shone in. “DUDDS! DUDDS YOU OKAY?!” Lester shouted, slurring even now. But Dudds kept screaming and writhing, a struggling mass. Lester cursed and made a run back to the truck. He climbed into the cab and began to throw garbage out. Finally, under a seat, he found a lantern.

Dudds had not stopped screaming by the time Lester returned. When he put the light on him his addled brain didn’t comprehend what was going on below. Dudds was embraced by dessicated, black bejeweled arms. A skeletal face loomed out of the void behind him and there was a worm-writhing mass where the eyes should have been. Dudds was flailing but the dead man’s hands harrowed his face in gashes that bled into the beyond.

If Lester had been sober he would not have gone in.

Drunk as he was, he slid into the grave and landed heavy next to Dudds, half-falling on him and the crypt lord’s arms. He could feel it snap beneath the weight of his right leg, a dry break and pop that left something wet staining his leg. Lester tore at the hands on Dudds’ face, and with a savage cry stood himself up in a squat and booted the leering face of death back into its abyss. Dudds whimpered, shivering. Lester was breathing heavy, sweat raining onto the grime and blood that covered his friend.

He helped Dudds stand, and with an awkward, shaking crouch made Dudds climb out of the hole, using his knee and shoulder to ladder-climb out. Lester, adrenaline still pumping through him, giving him more clarity than he had the rest of the night, reached up and could just barely grab the lip of the grave pit.

From out of the blackness beneath him, from within the tomb that lay at the center of that spiral, a hand manacled onto his right ankle.

Pressure enough to crush life. The clawed fingerbones of the dead made a tatter of Lester’s pant leg, digging directly into flesh. He could feel bone chisel into his ankle and he screamed. There was a horrible moment of agony where Lester gripped the sides of the lawn above and could feel the hand glacially try to drag him into the beyond. A mad panic overtook him, and he felt the muscles in his arm almost snap as he pulled himself up, scrambling and kicking free to find his way to the top.

Dudds couldn’t help him. He was moaning and grabbing at his face, dark liquid pouring through his fingers.

Their own screams filled the graveyard air and the moon, mad and insatiable, bore down on them with its eyeless skull gaze. Hate and joy and only the inevitable death shone on them in that nauseating mix of moonlight and the dimming truck lights. The screeching of owls became a cacophony of poltergeists raving, banshees in the night. Dudds wept. Lester, through his pain, pushed himself up, wild.

Madness. Madness, all around, close, hunting them.

He threw the lantern into the grave, hoping to see whatever was down there. Just the mummified corpse lying in a pit with no headstone. It fell away into sanguine depths.

Lester took a step and cried out, the pain wracking his leg where the corpse had grabbed him was like a tiger’s bite. He fell. Dudds wept. Lester pushed himself up again, and this time began to carry Dudds to the truck. He pushed him into the cab and made his way to the driver’s seat. Sweat poured off of him as he bit his mouth to hold back the pain. Copper and iron on his tongue. He spat blood. Lester pushed away from the truck door and staggered, limping with his bad leg trailing behind, to the sack of loot they had taken from the residents here. He spat on them. “You all cain go to Hell! Ya hear!” he shouted, voice warbling.

The owls screeched on, if they had ever been owls.

Lester limped back to the truck, climbed in, and fought to get it going again. It did. He backed up and refused to look at their work; refused to see the spiral again; refused to acknowledge the dead man in his rearview mirror, a pillar of angles and bone and black hate.

-

By the time Lester swerved into Dudds’ front lawn, he was sure his leg had been bitten by a snake. In the last fifteen minutes it ballooned, a mess of tendon and muscles bulging out and dragging against the frayed fabric of his overalls. The pain was so excruciating it became transcendental. Dudds’ misery was a mystery to Lester, but the old man had fallen into the foot of the cab and was curled up there, shivering and moaning. Lester swore at him.

If Lester hadn’t been holding the driver-side door hard enough to scrape off the paint, he would have fallen a third time tonight. There was no doubt in his mind that if he fell again that would be it. One hand over the other, Lester pulled himself along the truck until he got to Dudds’ door. His leg was a nest of writhing pain radiating upward, through the meat and the bone. “Get out of the car, Dudds, come on.”

Dudds fell out. He would not take his hands away from his face. Lester could see in the bad light that Dudds was bleeding. He picked Dudds up by the crook of his arm and half-walked, half-carried him into the fly-horror, trashbag dump of a home Dudds lived in. Cans and bottles fell and rattled and exploded into shards as they pushed their way through the hall and into Dudds’ bedroom. Dudds staggered, pushing himself away from Lester to fall into his bed. He rolled onto his back, leaving a putrescene smear of dark green and blood on the pillow. His hands were stained with necrotic fluid.

Dudds, shaking, took his hands from his face. The skin had gone black and was riddled with angry, bleeding yellow boils, as if everything around where he had been gashed was burned and now rotting at electric speeds. Dudds’ eyelids were gone. He whimpered. “Lester, is it bad? Is it bad?”

Dudds smelled like dirt and death when he spoke. A rampaging rot bubbled across Dudds’ face. It ate him even as Lester looked on. Lester forgot his bad leg and screamed out as he stepped back, pain and terror in his voice. Shaking his head, Lester fled, and the clatter and bedlam of his own flight was masked only by the ghoulish, despairing wail that came from Dudds’ dark bedroom.

-

Dawn was an hour away, Lester could tell, when he stopped his truck into his front yard, engine dying on him. Marcy had shut the lights off but he didn’t have it in him to think of her. Didn’t have it in him for anything. His stomach did a slow and giddy rollover that rebounded into his brain as the pain welled up from his ankle to his hip and into his guts. Sweat spilled from his brow and somewhere in him he knew he was dying. This time Lester couldn’t keep himself upright getting out of the truck, slipping on the door as he slid out and fell to the ground.

Everything felt like snakes inside of him, tearing around and cannibalizing one another.

Lester army-crawled toward home, oblivious to the same necrotic waste he trailed behind his injured leg that Dudds was bleeding from his face. It was rank, killing the grass wherever it spread. Lester crawled to the porch, face straining and eyes bulging from the pain, until he pulled himself beside the doorframe.

Despite the hateful, enormous throbbing in his leg, Lester slept.

Marcy found him the next morning on their porch. He stank and she figured he had fallen into some sort of offal or cowshit to smell so foul. His leg especially. She could hardly look at it - truthfully didn’t want to even see him - and knew she had better let him sleep. Waking him would mean bruises. Evvie was crying in her crib and would fill enough of Marcy’s day. It might be better if Lester spent the day sleeping it off, like he sometimes did.

Lester stayed in that pitiable state well into the day, drifting in and out of sleep to vocalize the empty ache that panged from his swollen black foot. Marcy ignored it as she had his other hangovers, grateful he wasn’t caterwauling inside where he’d upset Evvie. At some point Lester dragged himself away from the front door and into the shade beneath the frame of a car that sat beside their home.

He lay in the dreck and gutterwash and dreamed of a spiraling descent into Hell.

Lester dreamt of the dead face in the grave, the one belonging to the hand that grabbed his foot. In that vast-dreamt void the skull and its writhing worm-eyes loomed from behind him, perched on his shoulder, and told him he was dying. Doomed. Its breath was full of grave dirt and stale must. It whispered in his ear as he fitfully slept. It told Lester that it was the god of filth in ditches and the wriggling masses that swam in sludge; that it was the god of insects; that it was the god of the Spiral. It was death and would take Lester.

Unless he could offer another.

A trade.

The jawbone of the skeleton clacked open and a mass of insects began to spill out, a waterfall of wriggling, biting beetles and centipedes and slithering worms, all making their way to his bloated and black leg. They spoke as one.

Can you do that, Lester buddy? Bring her to me? Why, then I’ll make that nasty old leg of yours right as rain. Do it tonight, Lester. You don’t got time to wait. Hell ain’t half-full, and the rot is spreading.

And it was.

-

Lester woke and the sun descended into the rim of the earth, a wavering mirage whose dissolution revealed an endless night of expansive and silent despair. He couldn’t move his right leg anymore. The pain was catastrophic. His fevered delirium had taken him to the darkest spot in the yard to try and escape the pain. Trembling, reaching down below that turtle-shell cast of rusting steel he lay under, Lester felt the pruned and rot-wet leg beneath his pants.

“Gawd Jesus,” he moaned. “Gawd Jesus what is happening?”

He had to see.

Gripping a tear in his pants made by the corpse in the grave, he tore a running gash up the length of his overalls from ankle to hip. Even in the crimson glow of the dying sun he could see how bad he was.

His skin had turned a pruny, mottled brown and black, like a leech shriveling up. The leg was withered, the whole thing gone necrotic and dead while he slept. The advance of death had gone to his hip, a widening of flesh where blotches of pink and red ached. He could feel witch-finger tendrils cold and probing inside, searching, devouring, killing. Yellow-green blisters the size of toads pulsed and spasmed along the dead flesh, as if a network of fungi were in his bones, trying to grow toadstools out of him. Those that burst left bleeding craters which stank like the waste bins of a slaughterhouse on a hot day. And everywhere within his clothes was a sopping sewage bile, soaking through. It looked like he had fouled himself.

Death ravaged him like cancer from the open and taut wounds the ghoul had left on his ankles; a curse from the Emperor of all Maladies. The once wiry leg of his, with muscles like tree roots, was an abstraction of diseased decay.

A trade.

In the haze of his fevered death throes he looked to the light inside. Home. Marcy’s silhouette against the window. Evvie at the table.

Marcy finished eating and was working up the nerve to wake up Lester - ought to put Evvie to bed first, in case Lester got rough - when she saw him standing in their yard. She was leaning over, talking to baby Evvie in her chair, when he seemed to bleed upward, out of the ground, a shape against the setting sun. Her stomach dropped, a dizzying vacuum of sense all the way to her feet. Something tiny and frantic in her told her to grab the baby and run; told her that the thing in the yard was worse than Lester.

She dropped her plate and it broke. Evvie started to cry and Marcy snapped out of her doe-like panic.

“Shhh, baby, shhh. D-Daddy’s home, yeah? Shhh,” and then in a whisper, “please.”

The looming, stalk figure of her husband began to move.

Step, draaag, step … draaag, step… draaag, step.

Marcy unfastened Evvie from her baby stool, her little girl still crying as she clung to the only comfort she really knew. Marcy clung back.

… draaag, step… draaag, step.

Lester lurched beyond sight, hidden by the wall past the window. Her eyes followed where she knew he was. There was a lull before a single, heavy KNOCK slammed into the door, followed by a low, guttural “Maaarcce… Lemme in. Ya gotta lemme in.”

She didn’t move.

Evvie’s sobbing was gentle in the crook of her arm, her soft tear-stained cheeks nestling into her mother’s neck. Don’t go.

SLAM

“MARCE! OPEN the FUCKING door or I’m gonna BREAK it!”

She had to. She pried Evvie off of her, not oblivious to the urgent refusal she had to let go of her mother, as if they would be separated forever.

Marcy rushed to the door and had it open before Lester could hit it again. She swung it wide, babbling an apology. “I’m sorry Lester, baby, Evvie was fussy and I-”

She froze at the sight of him, a watercolor silhouette of brown, black, and red, a mishmash of mud and gunk both dried and dripping smeared all over him as if he had been rolling with pigs. His breath was full of dirt and putrid bile. Lester’s jade eyes had dimmed to milky whites run rampant by scarlet veins. It was impossible not to see the mummified, leaking leg he kept his weight off of.

Lester grabbed her by the mouth, hand like a viper.

He lurched forward, moving her ahead of him like a ragdoll.

“Yyyou! Fffuuucking. Bitch!” he growled, his words a slur from somewhere distant - a voice within his throat. “Whhhy didn’t yyyou let me IN sshooner?”

A trade.

She couldn’t answer. Wild-eyed panic and desperate attempts to breathe through his foul smelling hand left her in terror. Even if she could speak it would have been incoherent.

But his strength was unreal. He threw her into the table and she went sprawling over, supper and ceramic splattering, shattering, and careening in an orchestra of loud, chaotic abuse. Marcy rolled and fell onto the floor, looking from Lester to Evvie - crying, screaming - as she felt hot blood flood from her lips. Marcy’s lip had been split from the front of her teeth to her nose, a ragged bleeding wound that would mend crooked.

“Evvie,” she sobbed.

Lester’s heavy footfalls, and that sliding scrape of his dead foot dragging behind him.

A trade.

Marcy could only watch him as her world spun in a drunk, wobbling revolution around her. All she could manage was a pleading hand toward Lester.

Lester stopped.

He stared with dead eyes out the window, down the road, beyond where the sun set.

There was a fire.

Jeremiah Dudds’ home was burning. It was a towering inferno defined by the mad junkyard and ramshackle squalor he lived in. Lester saw the strange shapes they cast in the light of the flames from here, distant though they were, and the way they danced and warped to the heat, topping into wreckage and horror. Lester saw an oblong figure emerge from the fires and waver, arms upraised, before it crumpled and was consumed. Dudds was gone.

It was enough. Lester turned his gaze onto his own hands, shaking, dirtied. What was he doing? This was too much. Who was he? He reached down for baby Evvie.

Marcy wailed, broken. Not her little girl.

But Lester did not. Lester held his crying infant and brought her to his shoulder, his own arms trembling. He swayed. Marcy wept. Soon baby Evvie’s crying stopped and she was quiet, pushing her soft, perfect face into the filth of her father’s neck, unbothered by the death that wafted from him. Because Lester was her papa.

Lester wept.

He cradled her and then gently kissed his daughter on the cheek.

“I love you, baby girl. I love you so much. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Gently, he set her back down next to Marcy. Her head was swimming but she pushed herself upright, clinging to Evvie. She was beginning to see straight again.

Lester stared at them, weeping. Then, abruptly, as if on instinct, he turned, dragging his wither-rotten leg along with him, the decay spreading upward into his guts and chest.

Step, draaag… step.

Marcy watched him lurch and fade into the dead of night, disappearing beyond the doorframe.

-

There would be no trade tonight. Lester refused. He would give himself instead. He shambled along the road dying, dead, somewhere in-between. He wept and he remembered that Jesus did too and he wondered what awaited him in the vast beyond. Can the dead change? Be forgiven? Owls screeched into the night and he followed a road that seemed to spiral into infinity, walking all night until by dawn he had passed Elizabeth Hurley’s home.

She knew, long after he had disappeared into the dogwood brush, never to be seen again, that Lester Owen’s had one foot in the grave.

Chapter 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No car? No family?”

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

“So she’s a drifter?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How is the old man?”

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

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

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

“1.5. Then everything will be squared away.”

“What will you do to him?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Story 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My girlfriend Lia usually sleeps on her side, giving me perfect access to her ears.

Carefully I squeezed in two drops of the poison- no more, because I want the process of hearing loss to be very gradual, over months.

The poison is working. I know by how loud she is turning up the music she adores so much. She mentioned needing to see a doctor today- she has been having to ask her colleagues to repeat themselves louder and louder.

There is nothing the doctors can do at this stage, her hearing loss is unsalvageable, and my clever poison undetectable. Within a few of weeks at most, she will be completely deaf.

I go back to learning sign language. Amazing what you can learn online, for free. I need to be ready to support my darling Lia like the good boyfriend I am.

Is it so wrong to want to be main source of joy in your partner’s life? When I look at her face, grimacing in time with the shite she calls music, it feels like a dagger twisting in my heart.

And honestly, if Lia’s taste in music is so low, better she lose her goddamn hearing.

God knows I tried to elevate her- I didn’t arrive lightly at this decision. I put on Moonlight Sonata, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, easy gateways into classical.

She waited patiently for me to explain why they were so great. Then she said “Claude, you’re such a snob! the great thing about music- people enjoy what they do, I don’t get why it bothers you so much- I mean it’s not like I’m listening to Ed Sheeran or Katy Perry- classic rock is great- everyone knows that! - the music of the nineties – it was everywhere, didn’t you listen to Gun ‘N’ Roses back in the day?”

I felt furious but I controlled it. I laughed light-heartedly “Axl Rose? Oh Lia, don’t tell me you carry a torch for that fat freak! He’s a violent asshole- all those rock gods were just a bunch of violent pedos - I thought you were a feminist?”

She frowned. “I don’t have a crush on Axl Rose, and it’s actually quite un-feminist to fat-shame. And I never said I approve of their lifestyle, I just like their songs.”

“Um- I think that puts you in a a hypocritical position!” I tried to keep my bantering tone.

“Let’s not fight over music, Claude, it’s so silly, and thankfully the good lord gave us headphones so we don’t need to make each other miserable.”

And yet despite headphones, it bothered me, watching her work out, prance around the kitchen, paint her nails knowing she was listening to that music, watching her move her lips and throw her head back and sway from side to side to music that I was not part of.

If she won’t listen to music with me, insisting on being so uncultured, obviously she doesn’t deserve to have hearing at all. 

(Cw: gore)

“-and thank you again, Gale, for that cute example of an affordable costume!”

I walked downstairs to the sound of the news channel my father always had on discussing cheap costume ideas, the kid on screen wearing what looked like a robot costume hastily made from cardboard boxes and shoddily painted even faster.

It was Halloween, my favorite holiday of the year, and it was the last year I could trick-or-treat, my 18th birthday falling a few days later. Even though I could technically go trick-or-treating after I turned 18, it’s not something that’s really approved of by most people.

I reached the bottom of the stairs wearing my Dracula costume I had bought with money earned from my part-time job bussing tables, the void-black cape flowing dramatically behind me. I walked into the kitchen and saw my mother at the sink, and she turned around in mock horror as she saw me, throwing her hands to her mouth in exaggerated fashion.

“Oh no! A vampire, in my home? How ever did you get inside without an invitation?!” I rolled my eyes as she smiled and she stepped forward to adjust my collar.

“Now, we don’t have blood here, Mr. Dracula, but we do have some pizza on the stove there.” She turned back to finish washing the pizza cutter she had been scrubbing, her hands covered in bubbles tinted orange by the pizza sauce staining the blade.

“Am I taking Janey out this year, or is she going with her friends?” I asked, my stomach growling as I grabbed a paper plate and napkin from the counter, piling it clumsily with more than a few slices. Janey was my little sister by 4 years, and as much as I loved her, she was an iron ball and chain on Halloween.

“No, she’s going with her friends, Becca and Sean, I think their names are?” Mom grabbed a piece herself and followed me out to the living room, the news channel starting to read off candies to avoid this year.

“Ok, I kinda figured, I heard her mention it the other day but I wasn’t sure.” My mouth was full of pizza when I spoke, and I covered my mouth with the napkin I had grabbed as well.

On the television, the pretty blonde news reporter was reading out candy companies to avoid due to recalls. I only half paid attention as I ate, figuring it would all be off-brand candies like the previous year, and I was right. She listed a few I recognized, a couple off-brand Kit-Kats for incorrect labeling, one that sounded similar to a Ring Pop for allergens, and not to hand out anything from some company named Crazy something-or-other due to contamination from some accident. Mom gasped quietly at that last one as the pretty blonde reporter passed off to her colleague who started going over the weather for the night.

“Jesus. That poor guy. I hope that company treats his family well, otherwise they need to get their asses a good lawyer.” She muttered as she stood and started walking back towards the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with a bowl full of candy for trick-or-treaters coming to our house.

“Just pay attention to it before you eat anything, and if tastes bad, just spit it out.” She rattled off her warning just as she did every year, and turned on our porch light. I had completely forgot to check the time and I looked at the clock above the stove from the couch. 7:44.

“Oh shit, I’m late!!” I yelled as I ran to the kitchen and threw out my plate, my mother hypocritically calling after me to stop swearing. I shouted an apology as I grabbed the purple cloth bag near the back door and ran back up to the front door, giving my mom a quick hug as I ran out of the front door to see my friends standing on the lawn, talking to my father, a large and burly man, but kind as a teddy bear.

“Hey Dad!” I said as I slowed to a jog, waving to my two friends, Donny and Gerald. They waved and politely walked a short distance away so I could talk to my father before I left.

“Hey, kiddo, if you get any Milk Duds, save ‘em for me? You owe at least a little dad tax.” He smirked as he gave me a hug, much to my protesting. He finally let me go after what felt like far too long, and I ran over to my friends, excited but saddened, a bittersweet feeling as I went out for the last time.

Two hours and countless houses later, we sat on the floor of my living room, examining our haul. We had already taken off our costumes, just lounging around while some old unknown horror movie played on the television behind us. Donny had somehow managed to get a full-sized box of Sour Patch Kids, much to our annoyance, and even he didn’t know when or where he got it.

“I’m telling you, I went to all the same houses as you guys!” He said, trying not to laugh, our frustration at how we managed to miss such a prize obvious.

“Bullshit, you’re just gatekeeping it.” I said, digging around to see what I had earned. All of your standard fun-sized candy bars, a few knock-offs mixed in, and one of my unpopular favorites sitting right at the bottom of the bag; a set of gummy vampire teeth. I smiled as I pulled them out, both of my friends wrinkling their noses in disgust.

“I will never understand how you like those fucking things.” Gerald said as he handed me the ones he had gotten, and Donny followed suit.

“I dunno dude, they taste great to me. Like old-ass grandma teeth.” I joked as I clacked my teeth at him, laughing at his unamused expression.

I took one out as Janey walked downstairs, more than likely disturbed from her rest by me and my friends. My little sister was prepared however, and must have already asked her friends before they left if they had any of my favorite candy, and as she walked past me she dropped four more sets of the gummy teeth into my lap.

“There you go, weirdo.” She made a disgusted face at me before turning and marching back upstairs, presumably to bed.

“Love you too, Janey!” I called after her sarcastically, grateful that she took the time to ask her friends. Honestly I was surprised, that was the nicest thing she had done for me since she started middle school earlier this year, besides acknowledging my existence as her older brother, that is. I ripped open one of the packages and took a bite.

A common thing that you will hear or experience is that gummy teeth taste like dirt. Most people hate it, but I loved it. It tasted like nostalgia, old Halloweens, home, etc., so when I bit into the red and white gelatin I froze as I tasted a hint of metal. I pulled away, confused as I looked at the bite marks. Nothing out of the ordinary was there, so I hesitantly took another bite. That same strange metallic tang sat there, alien but not too unpleasant.

“Huh. These… taste a little weird.” I muttered as I swallowed, looking to Donny. He had a stronger stomach between him and Gerald, and figured he’d be more willing to verify my taste buds. He sighed and stuck out his hand, and I placed an unopened set into his hand. He took a single bite and immediately gagged.

“What the hell, what is this?” Donny said as he spat it out. He stared at the packaging and immediately tossed it towards me. “Dude. You need to go throw up.”

“What?” I looked at the packaging, nothing too interesting. It advertised gummy vampire teeth with a cartoon Dracula, made by a vaguely familiar-sounding company called Crazy Delights.

A memory suddenly slammed into my head so hard, I was stunned into silence. Donny had figured it out before me, and was staring at me with concern. I looked up, wide-eyed with shock and complete disbelief. I quickly grabbed the remote, attempting to find the news broadcast from earlier. After a few minutes of what seemed like futile searching I found it and scrolled to the portion of candy recalls, Gerald repeatedly asking what was happening.

“-and finally, the candy company Crazy Delights is issuing a mass recall and warning involving any and all of their gummy-related candies due to foreign contamination from a workplace accident. The details of the accident are unknown at this time, but there is a confirmed death involved. If you already have bought any of their products to hand out to trick-or-treaters, dispose of it immediately. And now, onto the weather for tonight with-”

I didn’t even hear my friends worried reassurances as I stared down at the half-eaten pair of gummy teeth, my stomach doing cartwheels.

My friends left at my request a few minutes later, partly because I didn’t want to worry them, but mostly because I knew I was about to go through the ringer and wanted to spare them from seeing it themselves. I had had bad candy before, and it was not a fun experience, but so far there was nothing. No bubble gut, no nausea, nothing. I gathered my candy off the ground and stopped at my parents room, and seeing them asleep, I quietly placed the Milk Duds I had saved on my father’s dresser with a small smile.

An hour later, and I was still awake, waiting for the hammer of bad choices and stomach problems to slam into me at full force, but there was nothing. If anything I just felt cold and itchy, like someone had been rubbing a frozen sponge over my body. I didn’t have hives, but it was itching bad enough that I was scratching myself raw and red in places, especially my face. My mouth still tasted like the gummy, that nostalgic dirt flavor overridden by the taste of metal.

My stomach began growling, and I remembered there was still a few slices of cold pizza on the stove. I quietly crept downstairs, and froze as I took a step down, hearing a quiet sound echo through the hall, almost sounding like a quiet rip. I took another step and heard the same sound, and looked down to see that my sock had just snagged on a tiny nail head, ripping the heel. I breathed out a sigh of relief as I finished descending, that same rip accompanying every step as my jaw began to feel sore, my teeth aching slightly from the candy I had eaten earlier in the night.

I managed to make it to the kitchen, nearly doubled over with hunger. I was starving, and I grabbed a piece of pizza and took a bite of the cold slice, before whirling to the sink and immediately retching and throwing it back up, panting, tears in my eyes. I coughed and turned on the faucet to rinse out the sink and my mouth and retched again, this time my throat closing like a vice for a split second as I drew my mouth near, the water itself seeming to tremble away from me. I recoiled and stumbled upstairs, my vision blurred from vomiting, but I then smelled something so wonderful, something so sweet and tangy and savory that I needed to see what it was.

I opened my sister’s door quietly, peeking inside to see what she had in her room. Janey was asleep, lying on her side facing the door, and she held her clear candy bag like a pillow in front of her, hugging it close. The scent that came from it was incredible, like nothing I’d ever smelled before, and I crept close, looking through the bag at so many candies and sweets and stuff I had never seen before, all looking like it belonged in a fairy tale. I looked at her sleeping face, and back to the bag. I was so damn hungry, and even though I knew it was my sister’s Halloween prize, I wanted, no, needed it.

I tore open the top of the bag, and it split down the middle as I stuck my hands inside, candy falling out onto the bed and floor. Janey’s eyes shot open, staring at me with half asleep shock for a moment before they fluttered close as her head rested back on the pillow. I grabbed a handful of sweets and popped a few into my mouth, nearly moaning at the intense heavenly taste, like barbecue sauce drizzled over licorice and a touch of that same metallic tang. I was voracious, and I acted as such.

I ate and ate and ate, my hunger bottomless as I shoveled candy into my mouth, my vision blurring to black before coming back in bursts as I feasted, that ambrosia of the gods filling my stomach. I don’t know how long I ate, my jaw hurting from how much I had been chewing, but it wasn’t enough. Her bag had run out of candy, and I was still hungry as I caught scent of more sweets coming from my parents room.

The Milk Duds on the dresser disgusted me, a foul sugary sentry that seemed to judge me as I ate the candy bags that my parents had hidden under their blankets just as delicious as Janey’s, both in their own right. The candy my mother had collected was more sweet, a little sour with citric acid and a hint of what tasted like ketchup or tomato sauce. My father’s had the taste of black licorice and bourbon and chocolate, with a note of something similar to caramel. My mouth was hurting more and more, razor blades dragged across the back of my mouth and jaw as I chewed. I stood as I finished and nearly gagged as I saw the Milk Duds again, and upon realizing that this was going to be more than a mere gag, ran to the bathroom to throw up into the toilet.

I closed my eyes as I threw up, my stomach heaving and my eyes tinged with tears with the effort, before I opened them and stared into the toilet, my eyes widening at the mess.

I stumbled to my feet, recoiling and backing up into the opposite wall, staring at the dark murk in the toilet, I crept back out into the hallway of my unwaking family as I peeked into my sister’s room and saw her laying there, peacefully lying on her deathbed, her stomach and chest unzipped and empty with a crimson mess spreading across the carpet and bed and I stumbled back across the hall and fell into my parents room, turning and feeling my mind begin to slip as I saw my mother with the blood trickling from her mouth as her torso was hollowed in the same fashion, my father similar as well but with his eyes removed, now sloshing around in my stomach as I finally screamed, struggling to my feet as I ran to the bathroom with the crimson chunky mess filling the toilet and finally saw in the mirror why my face had felt itchy and my jaw painful, my skin peeling away in jagged dark red flaps to make room for my jaw, unhinged and held together by bright red tendons as they grew outward to give my jagged teeth room to fit as I screamed and cried and my face felt freezer-burnt as it expanded, splitting and ripping my skin apart in crimson-black gashes across my body that oozed and dripped with my blood as my body grew disproportionately, my scalp shredding to pieces as I felt something stabbing through and growing out while I howled and cried and lost my grip on reality as I smelled more and more candy all around me from all over town, the heavenly scent filling me with nothing but mindless and empty hunger and hunger and hunger aND HUNGER AND

CW: light descriptions of sexual acts, hinted death

-

How many of you can say you get paid to do what you love? Something that gives you pleasure; and when I say pleasure, I’m not talking about joy, pride, or any of those things. I mean real pleasure. The type that makes you not able to hold back. 

I’m gonna be honest. I was never really an attractive guy. The girls never whispered and giggled when I passed by, I never had anyone come to me nervous and shy, no one has ever asked me out. So when I got the proposal to star in porn productions, I accepted it on the spot. Who doesn’t want to get paid to rail hotties day and night? 

The rules were pretty simple. I’d need to wear a mask during the whole act and not tell anyone about it. The higher ups didn’t want my identity to be known. They said it’d ruin the whole show. Fair enough. I could understand that. Many people have this fetish. And I wouldn’t be taking the attention from their lovely hoes. Worked for me just fine. 

The best part of it was that I could do literally anything with them. I like being in control so BDSM was a must. And the audience loved it. I could also fuck them raw, no condoms, just skin to skin and all the sensations flowing between us. They told me I didn’t need to worry about it, so I didn’t. I just wanted to enjoy myself. 

Every day we’d record with a different woman. They really didn’t hold back on the options. I’ve fucked Asians, Americans, Europeans, older women, younger, from cup A to F. I went from outcast to Casanova in the blink of an eye. And it was all thanks to Heavenly Hoes. 

Yes, yes, I know. That’s me. I’m the sexy masked man you all jerk off watching. I know you don’t know who I am, but still I thought I’d address my fans and at least give you all a heads up. I won’t be recording for that website anymore. Not for any, actually, for a good while. 

A few months ago, I had this lump appear on the back of my head. The doctor said it was a lipoma and asked if it hurt or anything. I said it didn’t really bother me, so he saw no reason to make me go through surgery. But then the headaches came. And the insomnia. 

I don’t know how to explain, but even now I am sure I’m being watched. I don’t know if this is just some sort of paranoia from being in front of the cameras so much, maybe fear of people finding out what I do, who I am. I guess before I was mainly afraid of losing my job that I loved so much. But it doesn’t matter anymore. My nose has started bleeding. I’ve been hearing things. 

Once I even had a hoe suggest canceling a session with me. Alicia, I’ll never forget her. Tall, curvy - temptation was her middle name. She was so fiery in the beginning. We did the wildest positions and explored the kinkiest fetishes. Definitely knew how to bring Heaven to me. Then suddenly she vanished. A month, two, three. Some of the others hadn’t come back before, and I had many other women to keep me entertained and fuck as much as I wanted, but I could never get her out of my head. Where would she be? What could she be doing? Why did she leave? 

I replayed our sessions in my head, hoping it wasn’t something I had done. She was always so loose with everything, it was hard thinking anything that could’ve driven her away. So it wasn’t me. Alicia never complained about the rules or about our employers either, so I doubted it could be that. I could only imagine it might’ve been a change of heart. She could’ve found something better to do. Sad, but nothing I could do about it. I still had many others to take advantage of.

Then one day Alicia returned. She was different; so pale her skin almost looked translucent. I asked her if she was sick. She told me no. The drive that I loved so much about her was gone. She also seemed almost fearful during the act. More hesitant and contained about it all. I asked her if there was anything wrong. Again, she told me no. 

That’s when I started to feel sick. At first I thought she might’ve passed me a STI – I had no idea how the higher ups dealt with that, but I assumed they took care of that sort of thing. However, the symptoms didn’t match. Then I started having trouble, you know, getting it up. I really wasn’t feeling good enough for anything sexual. 

Alicia was the first to suggest canceling. Then Rebecca. Jasmine and Loretta seemed relieved when the proposal came from me. It came to a point where the employers required a meeting, demanding to know what was happening and why they were no longer getting any results. When I asked to step down, they said that was impractical - whatever that meant. I insisted and they told me they’d give me some time to think. I have another meeting today and I haven’t changed my mind. So that’s it. Will keep you updated. 

– Last updated 2 months ago.

-

Hayden adjusted the mask. He liked it. It made him feel confident. Two months into the job and he had already mastered all the women. New ones came and went all the time. He didn’t remember their names; he didn’t care. The Asian woman looked up to him from the bed. She was so hot. The last guy must’ve been a total loser to step out like that. This was paradise. 

This one was particularly special. Hayden had taken her virginity not so long ago; she was still Heaven. Lost in the act, he didn’t realize when a black substance started leaking beneath the door. When the scream cut the audio off, loud as it was, both him and the woman ran for cover. A few seconds later there was another scream, coming from behind the door. 

When Hayden opened it, he froze. Sitting on the ground, soaked in black ichor, there was a very pregnant woman. She only had a torn hospital gown on her, and Hayden could recognize the branding mark all the Heavenly Hoes girls had. Next to her there was a baby. It didn’t look human at all.

Life’s cruel circumstances during the pandemic led to me becoming idle and lonely. Especially since the pandemic crashed dating lives. So, I'm ashamed to admit that I turned to pornography for that feeling of carnal intimacy and joined gooning servers for the friendly intimacy. 

One night, after finishing up, I sighed and shuddered at my post-nut clarity. I got that all-too-familiar Discord ping from my phone. I saw a message with links to a couple of websites from an account I shared a few servers with but never interacted with. The websites were so elegantly named: "Heavenly Hoes" and the counterpart "Demonic Dames". I sighed and made sure it was safe to explore via a few security measures. The last thing I needed was to get a virus that crashed my phone or computer while working remotely.

I was surprised everything was safe. So, I opened the Heavenly Hoes website and clicked on the first available video advertised as "Most Popular". I watched as a masked man railed a BBW blonde MILF. My horny curiosity had me burning through their entire videography within a few days. It always seemed to be the same masked guy; I mean, that wasn't that uncommon in amateur productions. They had every flavor of beautiful woman imaginable. They had GILFS, MILFS, college-aged gals. They had every body type and fetish imaginable. Each video seemed to be done in a room with minimal furniture and a cold concrete floor where most of the action took place.

Then I noticed something weird: the upload dates of some returning women had various numbers of months apart from previous ones. Then some women didn't return, which wasn't that weird. I explained it away as some pay dispute or change of heart. Closer to the end of the videography, I noticed that the gals all had a similar marking on their body. At first, I thought it was a tramp stamp, but closer inspection showed it was more like a cattle branding mark than a tattoo.

The design matched the website’s logo and was simultaneously simple and complex in design. An oxymoron to describe the intricate details it had while looking so simplistic. The girls who returned looked broken and fearful as the deed was done, begging to be made like an éclair or cream-filled donut, if you catch my drift. I began getting uncomfortable as they would weep when denied their request by the masked man. I was joyful like them when he fulfilled it.

I finished the last entry in their catalogue, and the masked man was different. He had a similar build but was different. He didn’t have the body hair the previous one did; he didn’t have the cowboy skeleton leaning against a cactus tattoo that the previous one did. His voice was different. The camera on the tripod autofocused on a door; a black, viscous liquid pooled underneath as a blood-curdling scream could be heard before the audio was cut, and the new masked man and slim Asian woman he was banging ran for cover. 

I had to do something, so I worked up the courage to take it to the police department. The officer at the front desk had me fill out a report. I was beet red, avoiding any form of eye contact. I heard the stifled chuckle at my report as the desk cop went to the back, and fragments of conversations could be heard. I guess they decided to pair me with the prettiest female officer to interview me regarding everything as some cruel joke. I shifted nervously in my seat. 

“So, you have come in because you believe that you came upon evidence of a murder in…?” She paused, clearly as uncomfortable as me.

“A porn video, I think the liquid was black, but it looked odd, and there was a scream like someone was being killed,” I said, rushing to get the words out of my mouth.

“So, your basis for murder evidence in a porno is a woman screaming. Honey, you do realize women can yell while orgasming?” She repeated it back, adding a snide remark, and I could only nod and crave the sweet release of death.

“Anybody you personally know, or was this just something you stumbled upon on some weird website?” she asked

“Someone… sent the website to me.” 

“So… You’re claiming you got sent potential evidence of the murder of someone you don’t know by someone you also don’t know?” She asked, started sounded more irritated with each syllable. 

“Yes,” I simply replied. 
She sighed and rubbed her brow. “I guess I have to ask to view it. Any chance you saw the murder? Heard any noise that isn’t…”

“No…Just the scream, a pool of black liquid by the door, and the two people getting up to run.” 

“I swear, I will strangle Gary if this is just some weirdo wanting to show me porn…” the officer said through her gritted teeth and instructed me to pull it up.

I awkwardly fumbled with my phone and started the video, holding it where she could watch. The interrogation room filled with the sexual noises as I grew redder and tried to shrink into my own seat.

“Anyway, you can just get to the part about the murder. I’m not here to get off with you.” The officer hissed. I obliged and moved it towards the end of the video.

 I couldn’t look her in the eyes. “Look, don’t waste my time with your fetishes. Leave,” the officer barked and threw the report she had previously been making into the trash. I  couldn’t understand it. I looked at the video. That whole sequence of the black liquid, the scream, and the unseen force causing the stars to run was edited out. I exited the police department with my head held in shame as I could hear the laughter from all the cops. Please kill me. 

I wasn’t crazy, but I was made a fool of for showing a cop some porn.  I googled “Heavenly Hoes” and found an address. I had to prove myself; something was up, and I needed to gain my own evidence since the cops thought I was some pervert who just got off to showing porn to strangers.  It wouldn’t make sense for a porn studio to advertise their physical address, especially with how crazy fans could get. I decided to take my handheld camera and go explore that address to show the officers that I wasn’t crazy and that I would have some evidence of wrongdoing going on there. What I discovered made me sick and scared to see what would happen if I investigated its twin website, “Demonic Dames”.

Let me start out by saying that I'm a twenty-six year-old man. So I guess I haven't been kidnapped, as much as man-napped. I'm a little below average height. Well, that's what I put on my dating profiles at least. I'm “technically” five foot flat. 

I promise these details are relevant to my situation. Bear with me as I lay down the foundation of circumstances that have led to my current predicament. 

On top of being short, I'm also sickly thin. I consistently get confused for a lost child, until they get close enough to see my stubble. This is rarely a benefit to me, in fact it makes going out for drinks and dating nearly impossible. 

Can you imagine having the face of a thirty year-old but the physique of a twelve year-old? Don't bother with imagining, I'll just tell ya, it's a living hell. I have to use a damn booster seat to drive! Shit, I even strapped blocks onto the pedals after my fourth accident. The reaction speed of my tippy toes is subpar when getting cut off going sixty in a forty-five apparently. 

Okay, so now I can get into my current situation. The one and ONLY time my physical, uh let's call them quirks, come in handy is on Halloween. I buy a preteen costume, make the rounds, and enjoy a free bounty of sweet treats. I've grown accustomed to the odd looks I receive at the end of the night. Each year ends the same way, with me taking off whatever newest superhero costume is popular, flipping bystanders the bird, and driving away. 

Now, this year started out pretty normal. I ran out last week and grabbed a Dr. Dread… Er uh, Mr. Doom… I don't know who it is, but it has a damn mask! The mask is vital, given my mature-looking face. Anyway, I drove out to a new neighborhood this year. There was an incident at my usual spot last year that's keeping me away. 

Apparently, drinking a tall can of beer while dressed as everybody's favorite red shirt-wearing plumber, and jumping into the wrong car is “frowned upon”. Even if it's an honest mistake, the cops won't sympathize. Then, it's just up to how fast information can travel by word of mouth to get you unofficially banned from a neighborhood. 

My damn car didn't want to connect to my phone, so I had to listen to good ol’ FM radio B.S. for the drive. A standout amidst the generic pop was a rather peculiar broadcast. The half-assed electronica beat was interrupted with a loud siren sound. After a second, a deep radio broadcaster's voice breached the silence. 

“Good evening and Happy Halloween to everybody. In light of last year's events, we've been asked to remind all parents to not let their children trick or treat alone. The tragic number of children that went missing last year can easily be prevented. Stay within sight, stay in constant contact, and know where your children are. Please have a great night of ghoulish fun and stay safe Canterville!” 

I didn't recall the exact details but did remember something about kids missing last year. Something like ten kids just vanished I think. I didn't give two shits then but am kind of wishing I had now. I just kept driving out to one of the poorer parts of town though. 

The trick or treating was going as okay as it ever did. As usual, I was able to outpace and muscle past most of those annoying bastards. Most of the trailers had lights on and were welcoming. They only grew dark and closed off looking, as the road crept up a hill to a massive old house. I would have been able to get even more than my usual haul, if it weren't for that little crying punk. 

Some little brat with a bowl cut came fumbling around the corner. His frowning face was profusely leaking streaks of tears and thick green strings of snot. I noticed his stupid turtle costume had dark stains on its knees as he stopped to wail and point at me.

I had ducked into an alley between two trailers to kick back a beer and smoke a cigarette. According to the ball of blubber that heaved from side to side around the corner after the kid, they were looking for me. The baby beluga of a woman spat out accusations of me shoving the snot-nosed brat down. 

Now, I'm clearly no saint, but I also don't go around hurting kids. And I would have told exactly that that to the woman with the voice of a chain smoker, if I wasn't two-thirds in the bag already. Drinking makes the affair feel tolerable but also means I don't have a leg to stand on with accusations. 

Well, I forfeited half of the candy I had amassed, the rest of my pack of cigarettes, and fifty bucks to reclaim my peace and quiet. I should have known the extorting witch would go blabbering anyway though. With the word spreading of a fully grown man out trick or treating, I had to put some distance between me and the gossip. I made for that huge house perched on top of the hill. 

I had hoped to get a score from the only place that looked like it had money before leaving. How stupid of a greedy decision that was. 

The old yard was heavily overgrown, patches of thick weeds stood like spires amongst the tall grass. One of the two lights above the front door was out, and the plate around the doorbell was well rusted over. Desperate to get some of my labored efforts back, I rang it anyway. 

The sound of heavy footsteps approached the door. For several seconds, I could hear deep raspy breathing before the door slowly creaked open. I'm a bit of a judgmental asshole, I know it, but even still this fella was odd. 

He had to be at least seven feet tall, bald as an alopecia patient, and pale as snow. The damn guy's skin might as well have been translucent against his long black robes. He held his head at an odd crooked angle as he raised a gangly hand to wave at me. His big bulging eyes stared down, seemingly lost at what to do. 

I just assumed the weirdo didn't get many trick or treaters with the state of the property. As rehearsed as it always was, I gave my best impression of a prepubescent boy saying “trick or treat!” Now, I know some people file their teeth, or even buy custom molded fangs, but this didn't seem like that. His mouth curled into a sharp shark-like yellowed toothy smile as he responded. 

“Ah, yes. It is the bastardization of Samhain tonight. You must not be one of the inhabitants of the park. They haven't come this year. They've taken to spreading vile hearsay in lieu of consorting with me.” 

I didn't know what the hell he was on about, I only heard him say that nobody had come by this year. I just knew he was sitting on a gold mine of candy. I nodded excitedly at him, hoping I wouldn't have to use that stupid child voice again. To my pleasure, the skinny bald sumbitch reached just out of sight. 

His hand returned with a full-sized candy bar. Only when he dropped it into my container, did I notice how bulbous his knuckles were. Not to mention, his fingernails were thick and grown out several inches. I could only imagine just how nasty the underside of those things must have been. 

He stretched his long, veiny neck outside of the door. Looking left then right, he surveyed the entirety of the yard. He returned his gaze to me with an even larger smile. Stepping to the side, he gestured with his arm as he spoke again. 

“I have several boxes of confectioneries such as that one, at the end of a short themed spectacle. Would you be interested in testing it for me? You can have the entire box after?” 

I did grow up in the era of jokes about vans with candy painted on the side. I'm rational enough to say no to something so odd. Especially coming from such an obvious creep. Or rather, I would have been, if that beast of a mother hadn't taken half of my hard work. Well, maybe part of the blame belongs with the polished off six-pack of beer too... At that point, full-sized bars at the end of some cheesy haunted house was all I understood. 

You can call me stupid if you'd like, I wouldn't blame you. But just as you might expect, I didn't make it more than five steps into the house before blacking out. I don't know how much time passed after that, but I did wake up somewhere new. 

I finally came to in the same place that I currently remain in. I've been crammed into some kind of handmade metal cage. The damn thing is barely tall enough for me to sit up in, and not quite long enough to lie flat. The surrounding room is a rather dingy basement. Dark stone walls run to each corner and up a set of curved stairs. There are a few dim yellow lights that hang from the ceiling. The entire space looks damp. All of the walls glisten slightly and the floors appear slick with moisture. 

The worst part is that there are about twelve other cages lining those stone walls. I can see a bright red sneaker sitting discarded in one of the empty ones. If it wasn't shit enough luck to have gotten man-napped, I'm being held with some crybaby kids. There are six whiny, annoying brats scattered through the other cages. According to them, the “Long Man” as they call him, comes down every few hours or so. Sometimes he comes with food, and other times he takes a child back up with him. 

Kids make shit up, that's a given, but they swear he's eating them. The Long Man isn't always so gangly and stretched out looking apparently. I don't really believe them, but it's at least helpful to know he takes people upstairs. Maybe if I tell him the truth, and he's just a sick bastard, he'll let me go when he knows I'm an adult. I guess he could also kill me, but I like to give the benefit of the doubt where I can. 

The rude-ass kids have got to be the worst thing about all of this. Well, if you don't include the “bathroom” I've been given but refuse to use. An already half-full bucket sits in the corner just to my right. I don't need to wind up on some list if I do get saved. But man, is that six-pack starting to weigh on my bladder. Oh, but let me elaborate on how these gremlins are being mean. Each one's asking questions on top of the other, in such a rapid fire pace I can't even think. 

I manage to answer two, and regret the hell out of it. The first one I caught and answered was a simple “How old are you?” The room filled with a torturous laughter when I said twenty-six. There were several remarks about me being a “lil guy” and “as tall as they are” between the chorus of laughs. I should have cut my losses, but for whatever reason I answered another one. 

I was just barely able to make out the words through the uproar, “how'd he catch you?” I hate kids, I really hate kids, especially when their parents aren't around. When I said the haunted house bit, every single one started screaming with laughter. Their pale emaciated faces turned bright red as tears streaked their cheeks. Apparently, the Long Man had to chase all of them down. Not a single one fell for his enticements, only me. 

They've since come up with a nickname for me, and as I said they're mean as shit. I've now been dubbed the “Dumbass Man Baby”. When ten year-olds cuss it's funny, unless it's when they’re talking about you and you’re locked in a cage next to them. 

The only saving grace to all of this comes in the form of a loud squeak from the stairs. The same loud and slow footsteps I heard outside of the house, ring out into the room. For the first time since they've decided they're comedians, all of the children go quiet. 

As soon as the freakishly tall bastard is in the room I yell out to him. 

“Hey, hey, jackass! I'm not a kid you know? I'm twenty-six and a whole-ass adult!” 

A wave of fear washes over the children at the sound of my voice. Their gaunt faces shift their focus from me to the man, who stops in the middle of the room to face me. 

“Oh, pity, your blood will be sour with fermentation. But as your generation of youths says, ‘beggars can't be choosers’ and such.” 

“Fermented?! The hell do you mean by that, bald bitch?!” 

Now, that freak doesn't have eyebrows; but by his expression I imagine if he did, they would be touching his nonexistent hairline. A dark tongue flicks out from behind his lips to quickly lick them. Glaring at me, he speaks in an even raspier voice than before. 

“This is why I prefer the juveniles, they talk back less. I haven't managed to exist for millennia to be regarded in such a way by some freak!”

“Whoa, are you calling me a freak, you stretched-out lump of glue?!” 

“Your ill-intended banter has missed its mark. I know not what you mean, but do understand the intentions. I assure you, I am normal for my age. Unlike you, you miniature poltroon!” 

What the hell is this guy even trying to say to me? All I can tell by the smug look on his stupid pale face, and giggles from the children, is that he's making fun of me. I'm not dumb but I'm also not the brightest. You mix that with a bruised ego and booze and you get me willing to fight. I don't know why, but I shout back at him in the most threatening way I can. 

“Okay you walking pile of noodles, I'll kick your ghostly ass up and down those stairs if you let me out! Just try me bitch!” 

With me being built like a sixth grader, I rarely do anything like this. There's just something about this asshat that rubs me the wrong way! I'm not afraid to bite a crotch or gouge an eye if I need to. 

Seeming to doubt my vicious capabilities, the Long Man (Bitch if you ask me) actually unlocks my gate. The moment the door swings open, I'm clambering up a leg. I grab a fistful of what I assume is dick and jump back to the ground. I don't know what that monster is made of, but he just laughs and swings me into another cage. 

The harsh impact forces the meaty mass out of my hand. A bony hand shoots for my throat, but not before I can turn my head. I manage to get two fingertips in my mouth and bite with all my might. A warm, thick, gooey substance fills my mouth and runs down my chest. As I spit out the stick-like fingertips, I finally get a reaction out of the freak beast. 

“Aaaagh, you menacing vermin! It will take decades to regain what you have taken!” 

I don't want to hear anything else from this dillweed, so I make a grab at his other swinging hand. I miss it just barely and am instead grabbed. Being held in place, I see that shiny hairless face approach my own. 

I knew it, he’s a sicko! He's trying to fucking kiss me in the middle of a fight? I did tell him I'm not a kid, didn't I? 

Sticking my arms out, I push my right middle finger into his eye. The resistance I feel gives way in a squelching pop. Another thick spurt of gooey black fluid sprays over my face. Some more of the warm viscous fluid makes its way into my mouth, as I feel a pressure on my forearm. Before I can react, the pressure turns into a sharp stabbing of several spikes. 

I look over to see this sick bastard taking a page out of my book. He's got a mouthful of my arm as I kick just hard enough to free myself from his grip. His jaw must be made of titanium or something, cause I'm stuck hanging in the air for at least ten seconds. Finally, the Long Man (Bitch) flings me with just his mouth into the wall by the stairs. 

I hear a loud crack and just know I broke something in the fall. Looking myself over, I see a big hole in my arm where I've been bit but nothing else. The loud crack seems to be a mop I landed on, breaking the handle with my impact. I fumble to grab the broken tip as I watch the freak turn to face me again. 

He's chewing on the chunk of my arm while grinning at me. The bastard thinks this is funny. I don't have insurance, how the hell am I going to pay for this?

“It's not funny, asshole! This is gonna financially ruin me!” 

I scream at him as I charge forward. Again this asshole underestimates me and dives forward too. His cocky attitude is finally gonna get the better of him though. 

I plunge the broken mop handle deep into the bastard's chest. He looks like he's trying to kiss me again before he stops. Looking down, he seems to realize that I finally got the upper hand on him. He stumbles back, screaming like a little baby and falls into the cage I woke up in. I chuckle pretty heavily as I approach the massive writhing pile of black robes and pale appendages. 

“What'd I tell ya, asshat?! I'd kick your ass up and down–” 

I wake up on the floor with the tall freak lying on top of my legs. A streak of thick black goo trails from the cage to the body's resting place. 

My first movement awakens a burst of whispers that fill the room. I can just make out a couple “he's alive?” and “he actually did it” remarks. Looking to my right arm, I see that at least the gaping hole isn't pouring blood anymore. I figure the bleeding having stopped is the only reason why I'm still alive. 

Thankfully, the key is still in my cage door. I retrieve it and make my way around the room, letting everyone out. Each time I do though, I regret it slightly, since each gremlin says “Thanks Dumbass Man Baby” before running up the stairs. Even when you do something nice for them, kids are still gonna be assholes. 

I find my phone in a basket at the top of the stairs. The damn basement door is maybe ten feet from the entrance of the house. You can see all the way through the place. How did I think there was a haunted house in here? Eh, it doesn't matter, I still outsmarted him in the end. 

I dial for the cops as I make my way to the front door. I might not like kids, and they may be mean as shit to me, but it still feels good to save someone's life. I can only assume that's why I have this weird tingling feeling all over as I walk outside. 

The one night I actually get to enjoy my afflictions seems to be over, as the sunrise is just starting to crest the horizon. I really hope that jackass didn't give me something though. The longer I stand on the phone with the cops, the more that tingling is turning into a burning. Fuck, is that a symptom of rabies or something? 

The peace I felt in life was taken away after my husband disappeared a month ago. Since that day, I feel as if all my vitality has been taken away from me, and I am living in an automatic loop, more out of obligation than desire. 

We have a daughter together, Stella, and I have been trying my best to take her attention from the whole ordeal, but all my efforts to help her heal were proven to be vanity since last night, when the unexplainable raised its terrific claw from the depths of disclosed wealds, and mocked the fragile security that I tried to pathetically maintain in this half empty house.

It all started some days before Stella’s birthday: my husband came home sooner than usual, put his jacket over the chair instead of the coat rack, and entered home without taking the shoes, as he often did due to lack of attention. I warned him, and with a “sorry, darling” from behind his embarrassed smile, he left his shoes outside, and put the jacket in the coat rack. We started talking about Stella’s birthday, and we together decided to use the celebration as an opportunity to reconnect with friends we had not seen since we got married, under the pretense of inviting their kids for the party. My husband wished to invite a particular friend who was very close to him in the past, but due to problems he had with addiction, distanced himself, and my husband had not seen him for years. My husband had recently discovered through some other acquaintances that his friend had started a family of his own, and this was his best opportunity to rekindle that friendship.

The day of Stella’s birthday came, and it was a pretty happy day: we ordered pizza from Stella’s favorite place, she got her birthday cake with seven candles attached, and we got time with our past friends as our kids played on the trampoline. Unfortunately, my husband’s old friend could not come to the party, and even though he tried his best to seem fine for Stella’s sake, I could see that he was saddened by that.

The day after Stella’s birthday, my husband woke me up for breakfast, and I saw in his eyes that he was excited for something. At the table, he said that he talked with his old friend on the phone. The friend apologized for not being able to go to Stella's birthday, and to make up for it, he invited my husband to go hiking in the nearby woods with some other acquaintances. 

I knew that my husband and his friend used to hike together when they were younger, so I should not be worried, but in spite of that, I could not shake a sense of unease towards the trip.

In spite of my best efforts, my husband noticed it, and tried reassuring me with hugs and kisses. He called me “darling” as he pleaded, like he always used to do, and behind its stupid puppy eyes, he said everything was going to be alright.

I simply could not say no to him. I wish I had…

 The day of the trip came, and my husband’s friend came to pick him up. Alongside him, there were two other men which were, according to my husband, colleagues that his old friend made when he was at Alcoholics Anonymous. My husband was hungry, and I invited them to come for dinner, but my husband’s friend insisted that they would eat something on the way, and promised my husband that it would be a surprise. And just like that, they were gone.

An entire day passed, and I became worried. I called the people responsible for the national park, and they confirmed that my husband and his colleagues had entered the trail, but had not returned yet. I called the police, and once it became clear he was taking too long to return from the trail along with his friends, a rescue mission started.

Fourteen days of searching were granted, but no one found my husband. The search was cancelled, and nobody was retrieved. I knew, deep down, that my husband must have died there, otherwise he would be home already, and I grieved alone, with no corpse to bury, and no funeral.

During all this process, Stella had plenty of questions about her father, and I never told her what I really thought, I could never… I tried my best to invent something, saying that “father was working overtime”, that “he was sick”, and we “could not see him”. Anything that could prevent her from feeling desperation.

Throughout this process, I felt terrible… I felt like a monster as I lied to my child, but I figured I would tell her what happened when the time came. I knew I was lying to myself as well, as there was no appropriate time to disclose the truth, but the lie kept me going.

One day, in an attempt to make Stella feel better, I took her to a pizzeria that she really liked to go to, which ended up being a mistake, as it was the same place from where we always ordered pizza for her birthdays.

After she ate and played the games in the fliperama, I was certain that she had forgotten about her dad’s disappearance, and in a depraved way, I was happy with it: I preferred that she would forget about my husband, rather than me having to tell her anything. I was a coward all the way.

Once we got to the car, I saw a failing star coming from the sky. I pointed the star to Stella, and she was thrilled, as she could now make a wish of hers come true. She closed her eyes, and asked the star that her father would come home.

I froze, and I felt tears starting forming in my eyes, and falling into my face. I tried my best to maintain composure, but once I got home, I cried alone in the shower, thinking about the fuller disappointment and heartbreak this was causing my daughter.

That last night, as I was sleeping with my daughter in her bedroom (she could not sleep alone anymore due to nightmares), I was woken up by the sound of something stepping onto the bedroom.

I froze, thinking that someone had broken into our home. Then, I felt a foul smell as the thing entered the room, and the sound of mushing dirt as he walked to our bed.

The thing stood closer to the bed, staring at us.

As my eyes were adjusting to the lack of light, I recognized the clothes that the figure was using, they were my husband’s clothes…

My daughter woke up screaming, and the creature ran from the bedroom at the speed of the wind, leaving its putrid smell behind as a witness.

My daughter’s scream suddenly took me out of my paralysis, and I ran into the living room, following the thing as its boots left marks of dirt on the floor. 

The front door was wide open when the creature reached it, and once it got there, it turned back, looking at me with its pair of milky-white eyes, half dead and half asleep. 

I stood in the middle of the living room, heart racing. I started moving slowly, reaching towards the lightswitch, unsure if I really wanted to see what was standing at the door.

As I move, I see my husband’s jacket laying over the chair, and the empty coat rack turned over the floor.

Before I could turn on the lights, though, the thing spoke to me… “darling, I am so hungry. The hunger never stops”. I put my hands over my mouth, trying to suffocate a scream, as I did not want to scare Stella.

My husband moved towards me, blood and dirt mixing together with the carpet’s fabric as he dragged his feet towards me. “Please, wish me gone”, what was left of him said, behind the dead and rotting vocal chords.

As it came closer, I could see small maggots twitching over what was left of his skin, and I saw the torn apart fabric of his clothes glued to his body by the decomposition of his body fat fused to the now dried blood. His aspect was that of a human sized, half burned candle.

Suddenly, he looks behind me, and leaves the house in a frenzy. I look to whatever scared him, and I see Stella, eyes wide open, shivering as she looked at the door. I followed the creature outside, but it had disappeared.

I hugged Stella, and tried my best to comfort her, but I know that, even if she does not understand all the details, part of her still developing mind realized what just happened, maybe even better than I did. It almost feels as if our positions have reversed, and she is the one keeping secrets now, not me.

We called the police again, but the culprit could not be found. The police believe that the stranger must have robbed my husband, which explains his possessions in the room. I do not believe that.

Since that incident, I have looked at the sky every night for hours, searching for a falling star so that I can wish my husband the rest he deserves.

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

"Thank you," I said, bowing.

The other man nodded and patted my back. 

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

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

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

"What’s up, Adam?"

"Dad, I…"

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

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

My hands clenched the couch cushions.

"What?!"

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

"Where is it?"

"In my bag."

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

"Adam, this is bad news."

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

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

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

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

"Dad?" Adam said in a shaking voice.

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

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

"Here. Take it. Please."

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

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

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

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

"Adam!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part I: Upper Extremity | Part II: Thorax

Part III: Abdomen and Pelvis

I got a 94 on the thorax practical.

Ninety-four.

I refreshed the grade page three times because I was convinced I'd read it wrong.

I stared at the number for so long that eventually my laptop dimmed and I had to move the mouse to bring it back.

Before I texted my friends or even called my mom, I went to the anatomy lab.

Mary was the first person I told.

“Ninety-four,” I said into the room as soon as I passed the threshold into the lab.

Nothing.

I dropped my backpack beside Table 12.

“Did you hear me, I said I got a ninety-four!”

I heard you.

“You don't sound impressed.”

You got an eighty-eight last time.

“Exactly.”

I pulled on my gloves.

“That's a six-point improvement.”

Very good.

“‘Very good?’”

I stared at the vague impression of her face beneath the muslin.

“That's all I get?”

Something brushed the edge of my thoughts.

Amusement.

Then:

I'm proud of you, Juniper.

That shut me up.

I looked down, pretending to be very interested in adjusting the cuff of my glove.

“Yeah, well,” I cleared my throat, “I studied really hard.”

I know.

I pulled back the shroud.

We had finished the thorax by then. The anterior chest wall had been reflected, the lungs removed and stored separately, the mediastinum dissected until structures that had once seemed impossibly crowded suddenly made sense.

I could look inside Mary's chest now and understand it.

That still felt miraculous.

Things that had once existed only as lists and labels on PowerPoint slides now had depth. The pink-grey meat that I would be poking around with during the lab had meaning and purpose.

More importantly, I could remember them even after the exam was done.

“You know,” I said, “I think I'm actually getting good at this.”

Mary didn't answer immediately.

You are.

I smiled.

It shouldn't have meant as much as it did.

But I think that was the first time I'd heard someone say it and actually believed them.

------

It took about two lectures for the abdomen to ruin my confidence.

There was too much of it.

The thorax had been orderly once I understood the relationships.

The abdomen felt like somebody had packed an entire grocery bag full of organs, vessels, nerves, ducts, fascia, and embryology and then asked me to explain why any of it was where it was.

The peritoneum alone offended me personally, more than the brachial plexus ever did.

“Greater omentum.”

Yes.

“Lesser omentum.”

Yes.

“Gastrocolic ligament.”

Yes.

I looked up from my notes.

“Do you actually know these or are you just agreeing with me?”

Mary responded immediately.

The second one.

“Mary...” I felt like I was scolding her.

What?

“You're supposed to be helping!”

I never promised to know everything.

“But you knew thorax AND upper extremity.”

Some of it.

“You're telling me you don't know the branches of the celiac trunk?”

I know there are three.

“Name them.”

Silence.

“Mary-”

You already know them.

“That's not the point.”

Then what is the point?

“The point is—” I stopped and closed my eyes. “Left gastric, splenic, common hepatic.”

See?

“Whatever.”

I returned to my notes and bit the inside of my cheek. We didn’t talk much that evening.

For the first time, I had found something Mary couldn’t give me. I mean, I knew she wasn't omniscient but it bothered me more than it should have.

I went home earlier than usual that night.

------

A few nights later, I found that I had barely made any progress through the content.

Mary's dissection wasn't bad exactly, it was just unhelpful.

Too much fascia. Too much fat. Too many pale strands that all started looking like nerves after midnight.

I had been staring at the same structure for nearly ten minutes before shaking my head.

“I hate this.”

Go home.

“I have a practical in nine days.”

You have nine days.

“Exactly.”

I lowered the probe.

During the lab that afternoon, I'd noticed Table 17 had a cleaner dissection. I looked over at the table. The impressions of a body lay beneath another white shroud.

I reasoned that it would be good to check other bodies. Everyone has some level of anatomical variation, I just hadn’t looked before because Mary was special. But with this exam fast approaching and with the amount of content I still had to get through, I had to make some choices.

I looked back down at the table in front of me.

“You'll survive without me for five minutes?”

I don't know, June. Things aren't looking particularly good.

“Wow.” I deadpanned as I walked away before she could say anything else.

Table 17's was cleaner than ours was. Mary’s plastic shroud had become wrinkled with the amount of times it had been moved around. This table looked almost untouched. I leaned down to read the card tied to the table leg.

The donor was male. Seventy-four. CVA.

I stood up again and my hands gripped the edge of the plastic shroud. I mumbled a quick, “Sorry” on instinct as I pulled back, the rustling of plastic filling the lab.

I carefully reflected layers of skin and muscle back, before coming to the abdominal wall. It was a beautiful dissection. There had been more fat and fascia on this body but that had since been removed and the tissue was cleaned.

Compared to Mary, this donor had larger structures to look at, partially due to height and partially due to body habitus. I began tracing along the larger structures.

Psoas major.

Iliacus.

Quadratus lumborum.

Easy. So I moved on to the lumbar plexus.

“Iliohypogastric.”

Another strand.

“Ilioinguinal.”

Lower.

“Genitofemoral.”

No.

My probe stopped as a frown crossed my face.

“What do you mean, no?”

No answer. I glanced over my shoulder and looked back to Table 12. What did she mean no?

“Mary?”

Still I got nothing from her.

Then:

Try again.

I turned back toward the donor in front of me.

Just like with Mary, there was no sound. No direction. But I knew that thought wasn't hers. I leaned closer and saw two pale structures sat nearly parallel against the surface of psoas. I moved my probe slightly before looking up at where the donor’s head would be.

“This one?”

Yes.

“Genitofemoral.”

Congratulations.

I stared down at him.

“So you're…”

I stopped.

Dead seemed redundant.

“…also doing this.”

Apparently.

I looked back at Mary then at him again. My mouth suddenly went dry.

“What's your name?”

A pause.

Call me Arthur.

I’m not sure if that was his actual name but I nodded slowly anyway. “Okay, Arthur.”

Okay, Juniper.

My hand tightened around the probe.

“How do you know my name?”

You aren't quiet.

From across the lab, amusement brushed against my thoughts. I could tell that one was Mary. I whipped around fully.

“You told him?”

You tell everyone.

Arthur added:

Constantly.

I looked around the lab.

Thirty tables. Thirty donors. They were always there but for the first time, they stopped looking like furniture.

“Can they all hear me?”

Nobody answered.

“Mary?” I urged.

Some of them.

“Some?”

I stepped into the center aisle, eyes skimming over the sea of steel and white plastic.

“How many?”

Nothing again. This was getting ridiculous so I turned to survey the rest of the room.

“Hello?” I asked a little louder. But again, I was met with silence. I suddenly felt very stupid standing in an empty anatomy lab asking thirty dead people to identify themselves.

“Okay,” I muttered. “Apparently I'm talking to the entire room now.”

Only the unfortunate ones.

I spun toward the back. That wasn't Mary. Or Arthur.

“Who said that?”

Nothing.

“Im serious.”

Table Six.

I practically ran over and found the number plate.

Male. Seventy-two. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

“You have a name?”

Yes.

I waited but he didn't elaborate.

“Are you going to tell me?”

No.

“Fine. You're Six.”

Creative.

“Thank you.”

Mary seemed to find this incredibly funny.

Then something occurred to me. I looked from Six to Arthur. Then toward the other tables.

“Can all of you talk?”

Nothing. I was learning that dead people enjoyed making me repeat myself.

“How many of you can do this?”

A thought surfaced from somewhere to my right.

Enough.

Another:

Unfortunately.

Then another.

She's going to be here every night now, isn't she?

Someone laughed.

Then someone else.

There was no sound, nothing for my ears to detect but it was still a cacophony.

My mind began to feel more and more crowded as impressions brushed against one another before they started pushing to the front of my mind. Amusement pushed away at curiosity, which pulled back at annoyance. Words that weren't mine appeared and vanished before I could decide whose they were, I couldn’t even pick out my own feelings in all of the mess. All I knew was just pressure and pain inside my skull.

I imagined thirty pairs of hands reaching out to caress every single groove and sulcus of my cortex and feel the bundles of nerves that trailed down my spinal cord. I briefly wondered if a brain could burst from too much input. I knew that it couldn’t but the pain began to make me feel otherwise.

“S-Stop!” I finally yelled.

Then everything disappeared. Immediate relief.

The lab became empty again and the intrusions evacuated from my consciousness.

I stood there beneath the fluorescent lights, staring at rows of covered bodies, panting. My head still throbbed but now I could think clearly.

Until that moment, I'd thought Mary was one impossible thing I had somehow incorporated into my life. Part of me still rationalized that her speaking to me could have just been some sleep deprived delusion, even if what she was saying were things I had no way of knowing.

But this was not something my mind could conjure.

I should have been more terrified.

But a bigger part of me was thinking about the practical.

I thought about what I could do over the next nine days.

I looked back at Arthur's table where the genitofemoral nerve sat perfectly exposed against psoas major. Not only was the dissection beautiful, but Arthur had recognized it immediately.

Mary had known upper extremity. She'd been amazing with thorax.

I had no idea what Six knew.

I had stood there for months among the sea of thirty tables and thirty donors. Now I knew I was also among thirty minds.

My pulse quickened.

Thirty donors. Thirty minds.

Once again, I saw an opportunity.

“Okay,” I said shakily. I swallowed that dry lump in my throat as the room waited. As if they could have done anything else. “Who knows the pelvis?”

Several answers arrived at once.

—---

The next night, I met Evelyn.

She was at Table 23. Female. Sixty-two. Metastatic Breast Cancer.

I had been trying to orient the uterus when the thought appeared.

You're going to tear something holding it like that.

I let go immediately.

“I am not.”

Then stop pulling.

“I wasn't pulling,” I defended but adjusted my grip anyway. “You could be less dramatic. Mary told me this stuff doesn't hurt….”

That question was answered the night after we removed the chest plate in lab.

I remember holding the bone saw with sweaty hands, trying to listen for any hint of discomfort as I pushed the electric blade into the sides of her ribs. I remember the clicking noise it made as we broke through each one. I remember the TA coming by to assist and then wrenching their hand beneath the sternum like a crowbar, peeling her ribcage off, inferior to superior, exposing her heart and lungs for the first time.

I walked into the lab that evening distraught before Mary assured me that she felt no pain when it came to dissection. Even then, it took a couple more weeks to stop thinking about it.

Your patients will feel. You could be more competent.

I stared at the donor before turning back to Table 12.

“Mary, I already don't like her.”

The response came from across the room.

You asked who knew the pelvis.

I hated how that was true.

Evelyn was precise in a way that bordered on hostile.

If I gave her a general term when she wanted the branch, she made me specify.

If I used a clinical shorthand, she corrected me.

If I pronounced something wrong—

“Pudendal.”

Silence.

I looked up.

“What?”

Again.

“Pudendal.”

The repeat was met with another pause.

I sighed.

“Close enough.”

Not if you're going to be a surgeon. Imagine what your colleagues will think.

That worked.

So I said it again.

Better.

That one word was all she said but I hated how satisfying that felt.

There were others as well. I couldn’t remember all their names but I really did try.

Table 4 told me his name once and I forgot it the next day and I felt terrible. He told me not to worry about it.

Table 8 barely spoke unless I was about to make a mistake.

Table 19 gave terrible mnemonics.

Remember, I GET SMASHED for causes of pancreatitis. Idiopathic, Gallstones, Ethanol-

He continued the list as I stared in disgust. Unfortunately it worked really well.

Six refused to tell me anything about himself but had an alarming amount to say about the perineum.

Within two weeks, the anatomy lab no longer felt quiet after hours and I found myself there almost every night.

One night, I was walking into the lab when my phone vibrated. I looked down and saw a brief "Hey girly, you still coming?” flash on my screen. Beneath it were two missed calls from Mom. I told myself I would get back to them later as I stuffed my phone into the bottom of my bag.

Then I walked in.

“Hi, Mary.”

Hello, Juniper.

“Arthur.”

Unfortunately.

“Evelyn.”

You're late.

“Six.”

Go home.

“Love you too.”

Then I'd start studying.

------

Things started to become easier.

Part of that was because I was getting better.

I had spent months studying anatomy by then. I'd learned how to look at relationships instead of isolated structures. I'd finally begun building the spatial reasoning that seemed to come naturally to some of my classmates.

But part of it was them.

If I couldn't understand portal circulation, someone could.

If I couldn't distinguish the ureter from the gonadal vessels, someone could.

If one donor's anatomy was difficult to visualize, I had twenty-nine others.

There was always another body. Another variation. Another answer. Another option.

I also started asking better questions.

Not just:

“What is this?”

But:

“Where does this go?”

“What happens if you cut it?”

“What would a surgeon have to move to get here?”

“What's the easiest way to distinguish these two?”

“Which structure is most likely to vary?”

People began to notice the change as well.

During one lab, one of my groupmates was trying to identify a vessel along the lesser curvature of the stomach.

“Left gastric?” she asked.

“Right gastric.”

She traced it back and sure enough the answer was confirmed.

“Oh.”

Another groupmate looked over.

“How can you tell that fast?”

I shrugged. “Direction.”

Later, a TA stopped at our table and pointed toward a structure near the hepatoduodenal ligament. “June? Embryologic origin?”

"Lesser Omentum. Ventral mesentery."

Then another question

I answered that too.

Then they asked about the relationship of the ureter to the uterine artery.

“Water under the bridge,” I said, thinking about what table 19 said to me just two nights before.

The TA smiled and walked away satisfied.

“Jesus, June,” one of my groupmates said. “When did you get so good at this?”

I looked down at the table to hide my smile.

“I don’t know.”

------

That night when I got to the anatomy lab I went to table 12 like I always did.

“Did you see me in the lab today, Mary? I impressed the TA.” Of course, Mary had something to say to keep me humble.

Would you like a parade?

“Yes,” I quipped back immediately.

I don't have one.

That was expected. I shuffled through my papers thinking about the practical in just 48 hours.

“Okay, I need to go over pelvic autonomics.”

Mary was quiet. I was already walking toward Evelyn's table when she said:

How was your day?

I stopped and looked back. The shroud was still covering her body. I hadn’t pulled it back when I came in.

“What?”

Your day.

“Oh.”

I thought about it. Lecture. Library. Some conversation at lunch I hadn't really paid attention to because I'd been reviewing flashcards…

“Fine. Just lectures and then I spend some time in the library.”

I answered quickly and continued toward Table 23.

“Evelyn, autonomic innervation to pelvic viscera.”

Nothing.

I waited.

“Evelyn?”

You're not even going to say hello?

I blinked.

“Hi.”

Hello, June.

I cleared my throat.

“So, sympathetic innervation-”

You are becoming very unpleasant.

Arthur laughed from across the room but I didn’t understand what was funny. I didn’t have time for this.

“Can we please just study?”

Nobody answered. I looked around in exasperation.

“Anybody?”

Sacral splanchnic, Evelyn finally supplied.

I sighed with relief. “Thank you.”

And that was that.

------

The practical exam came two days later.

I walked from station to station with a confidence I had never felt before.

At one station, I actually had to stop myself from laughing because the structure they had pinned was so obvious.

When grades came back, I scored a 96. For approximately thirty seconds, I was thrilled. Then I saw the highest score.

I stared at it. The numbers taunting me on the screen.

Two points of separation. If I got four more I would’ve topped them.

I looked at my own score again.

A few months earlier, I would have cried from happiness.

Instead, the first thing I thought was:

What did I miss?

That night, I went straight to the anatomy lab.

“Okay,” I announced, dropping my backpack beside Table 12. “Which one of you knows cranial?”

St. Bruvia was always a hungry town. It was an old place, older than most of its residents, with crooked wooden houses leaning toward one another beneath heavy snow and onion-domed churches whose ringing carried across the river. Whenever a family moved into a new house, they left something beneath the doorstep for the town: bread, salt, a silver button, a cup of milk. Nobody remembered when the custom began, but Mikhail’s mother had told him that when he was a boy, never forget an offering.

“Don’t ask hungry things what they eat,” she’d told him.

Mikhail found it funny at the time. He no longer did. The mill closed in November, and with it his job. By January, there was no meat in the house, little flour, and hardly any coal to keep the stove burning through the night. His wife had to sell the last of her jewelry to pay the apothecary, and Mikhail began counting everything: coins, debts, loaves of bread, and days until the landlord arrived. 

Only their daughter, Annastelle, seemed untouched by the arithmetic. At seventeen, she believed there would be a future beyond St. Bruvia. She played their battered piano every evening, naming it “Old Soldier” as it’d survived worse than they had. She dreamed of the city proper, of velvet seats and great concert halls, of composing music that strangers would recite long after she passed.

But most of all, she wanted her father to be proud.

“Did you hear that, Papa?” she’d ask after finishing a difficult piece.

“Every note, my angel,” Mikhail answered as always.

The town appeared to believe in her as well. Whenever she played, men would stop arguing in taverns, dogs would become still, and even the birds seemed reluctant to disturb her music. Before long, people around the town began leaving offerings beside the piano: candles, ribbons, coins, bread, flowers.

The offerings were what Mikhail noticed before anything else. He hated himself for wondering how much those hands were worth. The thought vanished once he convinced himself that it had never existed. As winter deepened, however, Anastelle began giving away the little money she earned from playing in the square. Mikhail discovered her placing several bills into a mother’s palm.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Money for the medicine,” she replied.

“But we… you need that.”

“For what, Papa?” she asked with a wide smile.

But he had no answer. The words vanished from his throat.

Mikhail soon began hearing music when Anastelle wasn’t playing. He lay awake beside his sleeping wife, hearing the faint sound of piano keys coming from the empty parlor. Sometimes he imagined numbers written across the ceiling. Other times, he woke convinced that the debts had gone away. He then received repeated dreams of her hands. 

By February, the family had nothing left. That was when Mikhail went to the monastery. Brother Savin lived beneath it, in a room the other monks refused to enter. He was an elderly man with a face like dried parchment, and when Mikhail explained his situation, Savin didn’t offer prayers.

“You long for wealth? There is a way,” he said, placing a black coin on the table. “Everything St. Bruvia receives is an offering. Bread. Milk. Silver. Blood. Sometimes… it asks for something more precious.”

Mikhail thought of Anastelle before he could stop himself.

“The girl,” he said quietly, his gaze piercing Mikhail’s soul. “The town has heard her music.”

“Enough of this,” Mikhail replied, backing away from Savin. 

“I have not told you what it wants.”

“You don't have to. It was a mistake coming here”

As Mikhail turned to leave, Savin spoke once more. 

“It is the hands that make the music.”

Mikhail left the monastery without taking the coin. For three nights, he continued watching Anastelle play. On the first night, she played while his wife coughed in the next room. On the second, the landlord came by to collect what Mikhail couldn’t afford. On the third, the butcher stood at his doorstep and demanded his money. Through all of that, Annastelle continued to play.

Once she finished, she looked at her father and smiled.

“Papa?”

“Yes, my angel?”

“Someday, I'll take us to Paris..”

Despite the warm words, Mikhail was fixated on her hands. In them, he imagined a full pantry. A house with warmth. Medicine. Coal. Enough money that nobody could ever threaten him or his family ever again. But that fantasy died as he watched those hands lying uselessly in her lap. He hated himself for even thinking that way.

But what he hated more, was that he foolishly returned to the monastery, where Savin appeared to have been waiting all this time.

“The bargain is simple. The town takes her hands and you shall receive wealth beyond your dreams.”

“What about… her?”

Savin looked towards the darkness beyond the room.

“She will live.”

And that was all it took for Mikhail to say yes. He told himself that it was going to be worth it. Mikhail could never remember how he did it exactly, but it was done at the dead of night. He wasn’t sure how he convinced himself to enter Anastelle’s room. She had woken up, asking what he was doing before screaming and pleading for him to stop once she understood. 

He remembered begging her forgiveness while doing the unforgivable. He remembered that he was her father. He remembered that he didn’t stop. When it was over, the offering had been accepted.

Anastelle survived the encounter, but her hands were gone. Mikhail didn’t see her leave her room since, but all he could think of was her face. The realization that what had happened to her was no accident, nor an attack, nor some cruelty inflicted upon her by a stranger. The realization that it had been her father that did it. 

“You said you believed in me, Papa,” she whispered.

“I do,” Mikhail replied, but he could barely look her in the eye.

“No,” she said, her voice breaking. “You only believed in what I could give you.”

Mikhail returned to Savin, to which he was met with an open chest. Gold filled it from edge to edge. It was enough to buy the mill. Enough to buy horses, livestock, land, and servants. Hunger would never enter his home again. The man wanted wealth beyond his imagination and the town had kept its promise.

As the years went by, Mikhail became one of the richest men in St. Bruvia. He bought the mill, rebuilt his house, and filled his cellar with more food than his family could’ve eaten in a lifetime. But all of that couldn’t buy Anastelle’s forgiveness. When she left St. Bruvia with nothing, Mikhail told himself that it was better that way. He told himself that she’d find another life.

He never got to learn whether she did.

Decades later, as Mikhail laid dying in the house that he’d bought with her hands, he heard a piano playing in the empty parlor. It was a familiar melody. Anastelle’s melody. He slowly dragged himself from his bed to see that the piano stood exactly where it’d always stood. A red ribbon laid across its keys.

Then he heard her voice behind him.

“Papa?”

Mikhail turned to see Anastelle standing there exactly as she had at seventeen. She looked to where her hands should’ve been.

“I know you gave them to the town,” she said.

Mikhail was too stunned to speak. He could only watch as she looked towards the window. Beneath the snow, someone left an offering beneath the doorstep. Bread, milk, and two gold coins. Her expression soured.

“It was never enough,” she whispered.

Mikhail died before morning and by sunrise, St. Bruvia remained hungry as ever.

TW: Gore
It took another moment for the crickets to gain the confidence to chirp again. The severity of everything came crashing into my gut like a fatal punch. My hands were shaking as I patted my chest, the lumpy impression of the revolver still laid flat against me. The ice cold air chilled my lungs, I had started running. Somewhere in the shock and swift grief, my body knew the town was in danger. Even writing this now, I feel like Johnny was moving my legs for me. 

“Gerald? Gerald!” I flew faster than I knew my weathered body could take me through the Old Man’s lawn-gallery of wooden effigies.​​ The racket I made hammering my fist on Gerald’s door roused the Reverend as well. I could see a lantern moving from window to window in the old chapel. 

When the Old Man finally opened the door, he had heavy eyes. The gray remnants of a head of hair clung to the edges of his skull and he was dressed in a well-worn white shirt. “Ted? What the hell is going on with you, son?”

“Gerald! That thing, it, it took Gloria! I think it—“ That's when the shock started to die down and the horror pushed through the haziness that still lingered in my mind. Gloria was dead. It felt like her ghost had tailed me all the way from our street and stabbed me in the back. The moment her body folded was stained on to my thoughts. She snapped in the middle again and again, like a book being opened then slammed shut repeatedly.

The grief gagged me and I choked on a ball anguish. When Gerald saw a sob building behind my face, he swiftly grabbed my shoulders. We hunched slightly in his doorway as he scanned over Mt. McClelland, like he thought a bomber squadron would come around the summit. 

The Reverend was close now with a questioning look on his face. The Old Man spoke, “It’s Gloria.” Reverend Elias seemed perplexed more than shocked.

“What happened?” He said flatly, but he already knew.

“She took a necklace, and some rings,” I blubbered out through long sniffs. “From the trunk… She took ‘em for Logan.” I was only trying to tell them what happened, but venom dripped from that bastard's name when I spat it out. 

A disquieting breeze rushed through us and the Reverend joined Gerald in scanning for winged silhouettes in the air above the West Virginia peaks. “Y’all need to get inside, go to the church!” I pleaded. 

“Did she ask for the Lord’s forgiveness? Before it took her?” Elias held no compassion in his voice, only logic. It was alarming from the man who had been her preacher for four decades. 

I was enraged. “What are you sayin’!? She had no chance! That devil snatched her up before she could even scream about it! And she was confused!” I shaped up to him and the Reverend didn’t flinch. He simply grabbed Gerald’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I was just concerned for her soul. I know she meant no malice by stealing what she had.” 

I scowled at him calling her a thief, throwing dirt on her name. “She wouldn’t have done it all alone. She’d only have taken it if someone else did first! Fuckin’ Frances…” I growled and turned in the direction of the O’Faigain farmhouse. The Reverend and the Old Man shot each other knowing looks before retreating behind the tall, oaken doors of Sapikesshi’s Chapel. 

The charred remains of Downtown and the Dreamy Grove Hotel were reduced to towering, alien figures in the dark night. The moonlight wouldn’t touch that wretched place. The windows and balconies were obscured, like a face hidden in shadow. 

I couldn’t keep my eyes off the mountain tops. I constantly searched for shapes in the sky and even when my neck started to ache, I only looked harder. I tried to think about anything but the sickening snap Gloria made when she was taken. My mind instead started to torment me with the vague, nightmare-like memories of my childhood. I remember when the Beast first came to the hotel. My little legs ran as fast as they could, the smoke was filling up the whole holler like a flood. My mother worked at the Dreamy Grove as a waitress. My five year-old self rounded the corner by Gerald’s house and witnessed the column of hellfire rising up from the crumbling gables of the hotel. I was screaming for my mom when the devil raised its small, serpentine head and spread its buzzard wings, a massive black mass in the shape of a demonic bird. And that eye. That bulging, cycloptian eye— sickly yellow like a foul moon and housing a tiny, blood red orb filled with mindless cruelty.

When the O’Faigain Farmhouse came into view, its homely appearance, with its lantern-lit windows and scenic garden, filled me with complete disgust. Even before the tragedies that struck that night, the O’Faigains had been controlling our food. They lived in this big, beautiful house. That beast destroyed everything that the family owned. Yet they had been living it up on our backs. Extorting everyone for whatever work they needed, cause they had the garden. 

In fact, all our woes had been their fault. The mine, the treasure, the hotel, and even when Frances was bitter at Johnny. He wouldn’t have done something as crazy as diggin’ up dead folks' jewelry, if Frances hadn’t driven him out of his damn mind. 

I grabbed the brass knocker and threw it against the door so hard that when I reeled my fist back, I took the fragile ring with it. “FRANCES! WILLARD! Y’ALL BETTER COME HERE RIGHT NOW!” I heard a commotion inside. The O’Faigain family rifle flashed into memory. I reached for my revolver.

“Ted!” Willard’s withered face peered through the sidelight with a scowl. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’?” His voice was muffled behind the glass, but as soon as the door cracked open, I pushed my way inside.

“What the shit!? Theodore!” Frances was in the rear of their parlor. She was in a frumpy night gown and clutching a robe around herself. The parlor was warm. Some kind of tea was brewing and the books the Twins had been reading were sprawled out on the coffee table. These little luxuries sent me into a rage.

“What’d you take, Frances!?” I howled. Willard’s eyes were locked on my chest, where my hand was buried in denim and clutching my revolver. “You too, you little weasel! You took from that chest, both of y’all did!” My free hand waved erratically at the two O’Faigains. They looked at each other in shock.

Frances put on a stern face. “You’re fuckin’ drunk! You don’t even know what the hell you’re talkin’ about!” 

I drew back. My racing thoughts wanted to believe that maybe I was drunk. Gloria could be resting fine. While I was here, causing ruckus over hallucinations. But I could see behind it. I knew Frances for all fifty-five years of my life and I knew when she was guilty. “Don’t you, don’t you give me that! What did you bastards take!?” It kills that they didn’t admit right away. I wonder if they had confessed and set things right, if the devil would have gone away. “That demon came and took Gloria.” I said at last, that bubbling torrent of emotions finally exploded out of me.

They were finally quiet. All that was left of our screaming match was haggard breaths and shock.

“No,” Francis whined to herself at last. “We didn’t, steal anything. The chest is ours… Our aunt—“

“If you bring up that shit from before yous was born again—“ they gawked at my outburst. “Go to the church.” The commanding voice of an elected official rumbled in my chest. “Bring what you took. We’re gonna figure this out.” 

Like disciplined children, the O’Faigain Twins walked with bowed heads as they retreated into the home. I paced back and forth on their front porch while I waited for them. I wanted to kill them, hate them for taking from that damn trunk. But I understood. All my life I’d heard about it. I’d run people off who were lookin’ for it. I had to stop myself from pondering too hard on the ingots and jewelry. I didn’t know if the beast could smell the precious metals in my thoughts. 

When the Twins emerged, they were still in their nightwear but had now downed boots and larger coats. My muscles threatened to burst into action when I saw Frances exit with her rifle, slung over her shoulder. I relaxed only as I eyed her hands stuffed in her pockets. They bulged with treasures unknown.

I insisted they lead the way to the church and I’m sure it wasn’t lost on them what I was thinking as I marched them across town. We all watched the sky above. Every breeze that tossed our hair or shadow that crossed a star would send me into momentary panic. The O’Faigains became more and more on edge the further they walked from the farmhouse. 

The tall doors of the church were painted a deep red and looked almost medieval in construction; its heavy timbers banded by straps of wrought iron. Behind it, the Reverend and the Old Man had been waiting anxiously. 

“What on earth is goin’ on? What did you do!?” Gerald shouted, rising up from the pews.

“Oh, you know damn well!” Frances spat back viciously. The Old Man immediately retreated back behind the wood panels, he looked to the towering crucifix at the head of the room in shame.

“Show us,” I crossed my arms and widened my stance imposingly behind them, blocking their exit from the chapel. 

Willard whipped around, his eyes full of rage and fright like a rodeo-bull. “You’re such a self-righteous prick, Ted! You always thought you was better than us! Where’s her body, huh? How do we know you didn’t do her in, just like you did my poor brother-in-law!” He declared drastically. Willard had hated Johnny and, for a time, he hated Frances because she was married to Johnny. Willard was all too happy to move into the farmhouse to ‘support his sister’ the day after my brother died. He pays the dead lip service when it benefits him. 

“Keep my brothers name out of your mouth, you fuckin’ rat,” I jabbed my finger in his face. He looked like he wanted to snap it off. “If you thought I was lyin’, why did you come here? And why are your pockets full?” I gestured towards their coats.

“We. Didn’t. Steal anything,” Frances hissed and threw her hands in the air, as if this whole thing was just nonsense. “Everything in that chest is an heirloom to the O’Faigains! You can’t covet something that belongs to you!” She looked to the Reverend for his support, but he didn’t meet her gaze.

“You’re not allowed. It's the law.” Gerald murmured barely loud enough for us to hear, but Frances exploded ten-fold. She reached into her deep jacket pockets and flung fists full of gold ingots onto the church floor. Each one clattered across the ground before clanking off one another. 

“YOU WATCHED US TAKE IT, YOU OLD BASTARD! AND YOU, REVEREND!” She wailed, a long talon pushing towards the two men. “How dare you act shocked and appalled! You’re both spineless!”

The betrayal slapped me so hard, it spun me to face Gerald and the Reverend. I demanded an answer with a glare. Elias just looked at the stained glass, which depicted Roman soldiers arresting Jesus. It was unclear whether there was any guilt on his face. 

The Old Man’s whole face shook back and forth as he stammered an explanation. “Ted, they was inside when we got to the hotel! When we got in there, the box was open and they was rootin’ through it! I know we shoulda’ stopped them, but— people been lookin’ for the treasure since before I was born. I just, I wanted to see it.” But that was enough. I couldn’t wrap my head around why they would lie. 

I looked to Elias in disbelief and he finally looked away from the translucent, crystalline Jesus. “I’m not certain that it’s the gold itself that’s cursed. I mean, Johnny was killed without ever finding it. There is no scripture that states possessing is sinful. It’s holding that wealth above the Lord.” He looked at me from the corner of his eyes. “Perhaps, Gloria held the jewelry, or what it could do, higher than Christ in her heart.”

“How could you say that?” As I said it, he transformed into a stranger before my eyes.

He turned in alarm before adding, “I have also considered if it’s the holler. If the sins of this place are so great, that it’s the town that was cursed. Like Sodom and Gomorrah. I wonder if the beast would even follow us if we left and didn’t look back.” The Reverend didn’t sound certain. Was he fishing for a reason to leave? A reason to take this gold?

“I think he’s right,” Frances declared sharply. The Garand slid down her shoulder, the butt thunking onto the rickety floorboards. The tension flooded the room like molasses, the air becoming thick and resistant. “I say we take the trunk and go. We’ll warn people! They’ll send out the national guard or something to deal with that thing. If they even believe us. But we’d be free and we’d have the ability to move wherever we want!” She waved her hands over the gold scattered across the ground.

“Absolutely not!” I shook my head violently. I couldn’t listen to all of this. “If that was true, you could’ve left at any time! It’s only now that you’ve got that chest that you wanna go.” My flask seemed to grow heavier as the argument went on. I needed a drink. “Please,” I was pleading now. “Folks have tried to leave before. We—we haven’t heard from Mary in years. I’m the mayor and y’all trust me to look out for you. I am right now. Please, let’s go put it back.” 

“How about we vote then? Like always?” Willard had a slight smirk. With Gloria gone and the Reverend acting as strange as he was, I wasn’t sure the voices of reason would succeed. “All those in favor of taking the trunk and using its contents to help everyone with their new lives, say aye!”

“Aye!” He and Frances instantly answered their own call. Reverend Elias remained silent. 

I was so hopeful he’d come to his senses that I sent out my own call. “Those who wish to continue with our humble existence and return this curse to the ground, say aye.” I answered my own call and was quickly joined by Gerald. Still the Reverend did not speak. His hand was clasped over his mouth as he became increasingly lost in his thoughts.

“No! No abstaining! You have to vote!” Frances screeched.

Elias jumped and then held my eyes for a long moment. I wordlessly begged him to let things go back to the way they were. I was petrified of that beast, but more than that, I was scared of everyone leaving town. Without Sapikesshi, I’d be just an old man. 

Those of us that recognized the sound bouncing off the mountains shuttered when we heard it. It sounded like a train horn and an elk's cry. The howl filled the holler, then stopped abruptly. Everyone shifted nervously and started to peek out the tall windows of the chapel.

The Reverend finally slid his hand from his mouth and made a small click with his tongue. “We’ll put the gold back, then we’ll pray for guidance.” He decided at last.

Willard was furious and demanded Frances help him to take the gold anyways. No one would stop them while she had her rifle. But Frances just boiled in her perceived betrayal and started to gather all the trinkets. I didn’t know if she was afraid of the demon in that moment, or if she was just afraid of the change all this would bring.

Her brother stormed away in a huff while the Reverend, Gerald, and I started to peer out the windows for the source of the howl we heard before. The air was still when I pushed the doors ajar and surveyed the mountain. The breeze poured through the break in the doors, biting my nose. Every star that twinkled sent my heart racing. My eyes were playing tricks on me in the night, seeing shapes where there were none. Or at least I hoped.

“On my signal.” One by one, I ushered each of the Sapikesshans through the chapel doors. The monstrous shape of the Dreamy Grove loomed at the end of the street. First we moved cautiously and slowly, not wanting to arouse too much attention. We were reaching the railroad tracks when I could tell everyone was starting to doubt me. They didn’t creep quite as thoughtfully, or crouch quite as low. 

We stepped over the tracks. The O’Faigains now stood at their full height and only occasionally glanced at the mountains. Gerald struggled to keep up with all of us, even at our methodical pace. There was a pressure in the air, the oppressive silence of night on the mountain.

Then we heard that sound again. That eerie call cleaved through the air like an ax. In an instant, it grew from a distant howl to a thundering roar, as if we were seconds from being plowed through by a locomotive. Our hair was kicked up by the wind and I turned back just in time to see a dense blackness dropping on us. The demon. Its razor talons glinted in the thin strands of moonlight. 

“— DOWN!” Half of my scream was totally drowned out by the blaring sound. I pulled the revolver from the pouch on my chest before throwing my hand back toward the ravenous shadow. Frances’ legs were staggered as she leveled the rifle. 

The first shot exploded from my six-shooter. It was followed immediately after by a torrent of Garand fire. The hail of gunfire lit up the clearing in front of the old train station like a lightning storm. The Beast was revealed in quick flashes. Its bulbous, green body swooped down from the sky like a swollen dragon. Its black, feathered wings were too small to logically carry its sedan sized body, but it glided with the skill hawk. Its beak shone like bronze, still slathered in the rotting blood of long-dead Sapikesshans. Within moments, my gun was completely empty.

The bullets didn’t pierce its hide. It drew back its small head, like a snake about to strike. The fat body swung below its head, its tail slashing toward us like a whip. It fluttered backwards slightly, the booming shots of our guns giving the monster a moment of pause. 

“GO!” Willard screamed. He was already ten yards ahead of us, the Old Man hobbling on his cane to keep up. I had to pull Elias up off the ground, who was cowering there and praying. 

Its little wings made a supernaturally powerful gust as it rose higher back into the air. Our hands clasped over our ears as the demon let out another deafening cry. We scattered beneath it like rats from a bird of prey. All the Sapikesshans scrambled around the side of the Dreamy Grove Hotel. The entire building shivered and quaked as the beast slammed against its walls. It crawled after us, its hulking body slithering back and forth like a pond-lizard. In the shadows, I could see a flowing mass falling from the devil's beak, like it was puking a squid.

I was gaining quickly behind Gerald, who was running as fast as his withered legs and cane could carry him. I stuck my hand out and pushed into the small of his back. “COME ON, GERALD!” He nearly collapsed onto his face, but he clambered forward. 

We dashed through the skeletal doorway into the old dance hall. The trunk was still beneath the shattered floor, but its lid stood open like Gloria’s tombstone. The moon beams caught its shimmering contents just right, giving the wooden maw on the ground an ethereal, silver-gold glow.

All of our heads darted back and forth as we stared through the gaping holes in the roof. But the beast didn’t reveal itself immediately.

Our attention then turned to the luminous cavern. “Well, put it all back!” Gerald stammered, receiving a glare in response from the O’Faigains. Frances slung her rifle back over her shoulder.

“Go on, quick!” I hollered, keeping my pistol trained on the crumbled roof. A distant booming betrayed the demon's location. Beyond the dilapidated hallways, we could hear shingles falling and snapping. It was on the roof now.

With one last look to one another, the Twins started to empty their pockets. Gold bars tumbled from Frances’ coat and Willard begrudgingly laid down his own ingots. Then he revealed the watches and the rings. The glinting bands and bright faces were dazzling even in that moment of panic. Willard had taken even more than his sister.

I forcefully patted the front pockets of Willard's coat to ensure he wasn’t hiding anything, much to his outrage. When I turned to Frances, she snapped at me. “I don’t have nothin’! He wouldn’t have brought everything if I didn’t tell him to.”

With that, I kicked the hatch of the cursed trunk shut. It was like a gun shot and it left nothing but silence in its wake. We listened for the thudding of the approaching creature, but heard nothing.

“Heavenly Father,” Elias began, delivering an eloquent prayer of thanks. The Old Man and the  Twins bowed their heads. I took a look at the stars through the ruined rafters, then joined them. “—And see that we are your humble servants who happily fulfill your plan on this world. Keep this demon from those of us without greed and pride. Amen,” the Reverend finished.

When I raised my head, the Twins were already looking around to see if it had worked. There was still silence in the hotel, the monstrous footsteps nowhere to be heard. The stars above shone on unperturbed, not even a bat flew over head. It was the first time that night that I noticed how beautiful the sky was.

“Oh, thank the Lord,” Gerald sobbed, pinching the bridge of his nose. His cane was trembling.

Elias tiptoed to the surviving doorframe and looked along the side of the hotel. He looked satisfied with what he saw.

Frances stood close to Willard, her head on his arm. They stared longingly at the trunk in the floor.

“We should all go home,” I finally was able to croak out. My old throat was shot from the screaming. The Reverend was nodding in agreement when I looked at those pretty stars again. There was a slight shift in the building's frame.

Then I saw it in its entirety. Stealthily clinging to the side of the building like a salamander, the beast stretched its feeble-looking, feathered wings. A lone, huge eyeball was fixed on its small head. A malicious amber globe, like a hungry moon. There was a tiny, cruel pupil in the center, red with bloodlust. Its metallic beak unhinged and a nauseating gagging erupted from the creature's long, serpentine neck.

An ear-splitting scream that curdled my blood left Frances’ mouth and filled the rotting walls of the old dance hall. My own cries were caught in my throat. Pandemonium broke out on the dance floor as the twins ducked under a surviving table. The Reverend dove behind the abandoned bar. The demon reeled back its head, snapping its beak before vomiting a waterfall of inky, black tendrils. 

It was like a living curtain of crude oil as it slammed down onto Gerald, immediately crushing him to the floor with an agonizing cry. The dark tentacles slithered and prodded all over him, coiling around every available limb. Even his cane was tangled in it. It was as if the devil had eaten an octopus and was now regurgitating it all over the Old Man. But the mass was anchored in the back of its maw like a mess of oil-slick tongues.

Frances attempted to drive it away with more bullets. After a short volley, the high-pitch ping of the garand’s clip signaled that it was spent.

A final plea of mercy escaped Gerald Reese before the entire horrifying net was suddenly lifting him up. I won’t recite his exact final words, but he asked for forgiveness, because he only wanted to look. 

The Old Man attempted to use his cane to block the demon's beak. It was slurping and swallowing the tendrils; I can only morbidly compare it to pasta. The size of the tangle of appendages dwarfed even the monster itself. In a split second, the beast’s black tongues retracted down its throat. It destroyed the cane with a single snap of its jaws. Then it did the same to Gerald. A sickening crack rattled through us as the devil bit into the crook of Gerald’s neck; completely crushing his collarbone and ribs. Any organs stored within the Old Man’s chest were shredded and rained around us in a hail of viscera. 

Sapikesshan screams filled the Dreamy Grove Hotel for the first time in fifty years. Gerald’s legs spasmed for a horrible minute. With a single gag, the creature hacked out any bit of Gerald still in its beak. His body and a storm of blood fell onto the dance floor. 

I called Gerald’s name as Elias, then the Twins ran past me, deeper into the ruins of the Hotel. A mountain-breaking howl rattled the building to its core. I had to follow them. 

# The Wet Noodle

*by Arcine*

# Chapter 1: Unraveled

It started the way most disasters do—quietly. Just another sleepless night.

Chris lay in bed, his thoughts a loud carousel of responsibility and regret. The 6 a.m. alarm was less than an hour away. With a recently lost job and a family to support, rest was a luxury he couldn’t afford. As he spiraled mentally, he did what he often did when anxious: picked at the skin around his thumb.

This time, though, something gave way.

A strange, cold sensation met him as he drifted into a shallow sleep.

He awoke moments later, not from rest but from alarm—the digital screech of the clock and the sickening realization that a strange, noodle-like strand was trailing from beneath his thumbnail. Four inches long. Wet. Pink. Alive?

It was as if something internal had become external.

He panicked. Hid the thing from his wife, Jessica. Claimed he felt sick. Locked himself in the bathroom to investigate. When he ran the strand under warm water, pain exploded through him—followed by euphoria.

Unholy, indescribable bliss.

In that moment, his responsibilities—his wife, his son Jack, even his future—dissolved.

Chris pulled more of the strand.

# Chapter 2: The Disconnection

Hours later, Jessica found him unconscious on the bathroom floor. He lied. Said he’d fainted. Promised to get checked out.

But something fundamental had changed.

His thumb was numb. His right hand felt hollow. Still, he cleaned himself up, dressed, and put on gloves—covering the thing he’d become obsessed with.

Instead of heading to the clinic, he spent hours driving, feeding the strand warm air from his car vents. Every time the nerve reacted to heat or water, he received the same hit—pain, then ecstasy.

He didn’t need answers anymore. He needed more.

Eventually, Chris found himself in the library, standing before the anatomy section, hands shaking. He checked out *Photographic Atlas for Anatomy and Physiology* and read it obsessively. He flipped through diagrams of nerve bundles, spinal roots, and the meninges—the thin membranes that protect the central nervous system.

That had to be it. The wet noodle.
*His nervous system.*
And he was pulling it out. Voluntarily.

# Chapter 3: Transformation

Days passed. Chris stopped sleeping. He stopped eating, speaking, checking in with his wife. She assumed he was spiraling from stress.

In truth, he was metamorphosing.

He lingered in showers, let the warm water pour down his arm for hours at a time, blissed out in a trance. When the water turned cold, he moved to warm air vents, hot cups of tea, sunlight—anything that could stimulate the exposed strand.

And still, he pulled.

His thumb shriveled. His hand died. His foot began to fail. But he felt more alive than ever. More in control.

Less human.

# Epilogue: Gone

Two weeks later, Jessica filed a missing persons report.

The truck was still in the garage. The house warm. Jack asked where Daddy went, and she didn’t have the words.

Police entered the home and found no sign of struggle. But one oddity stood out: a medical textbook on the kitchen table, opened to a section on the spinal cord.

In the bathroom, they found a trail—like a wet string—running from the faucet into the drain. It was pink. Organic. Partially dried.

There was no blood. No body. Just the faint, lingering scent of steam and something else—like burnt hair and antiseptic.

Somewhere far away, on a frozen trail near the Yukon River, a man limped through snow. One hand hung useless at his side. In the other, he held a glove. From it dangled a pink strand, fluttering in the wind like the end of an unraveling thread.

And Chris smiled.

He was almost done.

I was a kid then, so it was only ever a ghost story to me. Just a tale my friends would tell me whenever we went ‘camping’ in our backyard near the firepit.  Something the neighborhood experienced and clammed up about; hints only whispered amongst hushed cookouts and Sunday services.  

Late one Winter evening, the first occurrence happened.  Mr. O’Mell jolted from his armchair by a knock at his front door. In disbelief, he sat listening.  Another knock.  He made his way to the door, the second knock still emanating through his living room.  

Upon the third knock, Mr. O’Mell opened the door, now fully disgruntled.  His irked demeanor vanished in the open doorway.  The descriptions vary depending on which kid at school was relaying the story.  Some say the man stood seven feet tall, with cobwebs covering his face like a mask, as a nest of spiders bloomed across his features.  Others say he wore the face of whoever he had previously visited amongst the neighborhood.  

Three elements of the description remained consistent, no matter who expressed the narrative.  It was a man, well dressed like a salesman.  His voice was deep and melancholic, captivatingly charming, enchanting even.  And lastly, he would tell you how you would die.  

Poor Mr. O’Mell, before even getting a word out, was suddenly bereft by the mysterious figure in his doorway, explaining that he would die in an automobile accident four years from that moment.  “How unfortunate.”  The wandering salesman would say.

Mr. O’Mell was rightly taken aback.  Stunned into stuttering.  The salesman stood silently in the doorway, permitting the poor middle-aged man a moment to digest the news.  Mr. O’Mell, understandably in disbelief, harassed the man in return.  Before he could slam the door, an outstretched hand interrupted his verbal assault.  Confused, Mr. O’Mell looked up at the stranger, who simply said, “Shake my hand, and see.”  

The details blur from the endless game of telephone this story went through on the playground.  Some say he was transported to the scene of his demise.  And others say that he experienced what his death would FEEL like.  One element remains certain: Mr. O’Mell was traumatized enough to listen when the salesman replied: 

“Can I interest you in an alternative?”  

The alternative was simple, and every orator of the account included it:  “Sign here, with a simple pricklet of blood, and this horrible tragedy can be avoided.”  

Needless to say, Mr. O’Mell signed away.  He lived a long silent life.  A ghost of his former self.  Only passing recently.  His family says his last moments were filled with choked sobs and ramblings about a debt to be paid.  

I recall this tale now, sitting here with you so late tonight, this childhood folk story.  And I know why.  There is knocking upon my front door.  Knock. Knock. Knock.  The moral of the story, whispered at the end of every retelling, rings through my mind like a siren:  

“Never answer when he comes knocking.”

Cayden C. Christophers: PenPal

C.W: >!It's PenPal, there's dead kids and stalking and all that lovely stuff!<

It was so painful. My neck burned, white hot. I was in absolute agony. Despite this, through the tears and blood coming from my mouth, I was grinning, thrilled and in absolute bliss. Every shovel-full of dirt that I heard thud against this wooden tomb filled me with absolute euphoria.

It had been so, so hard to wait. It had been so, so hard to watch him from afar. It had been so God damn excruciating to not tell him that I was here, to never talk to him, to never hold him until now. For over a decade, I waited for a chance to hold him. It was worth every moment.

I did everything I could to interact and spend time with him without interfering with his life, without being stopped. I don't know what I would've done if I couldn't see him.

There's some things I feel awful for. I never wanted to hurt him. Really, I hated seeing him in pain, I only ended that witch when she tried to take him from me. The misery and sorrow I had brought upon him, every tear he shed and night he spent feeling like he was alone ruined me. Knowing that I had caused it made the fact that I couldn't comfort him so much worse. But the euphoria I had felt when he spoke to me like he loved me for the first time was almost as great as what I felt now. Now that I had taken the final person on this planet who came close to loving him as much as I do, even in death I would be closer to him than anyone else for eternity.

I know that this isn't him, not really. I couldn't do this to him. Again, I would never hurt him, but as this boy wriggles and flails desperately beneath my body, I can pretend he's him. I can pretend that, as I die, I'm cradling him in my arms.

As the ether took effect and I drifted off, I closed my eyes and let out a sigh as I wondered, maybe in another life, after this one, I could actually spend the time I'd dreamed about with him. We could be explorers. We could be adventurers. We could be friends. Even though that's only a dream, and I know that, the corners of my lips turned up, only slightly in a smile of contentment and satisfaction. A smile of bliss. A smile of love.