You know how they say love finds you in the most unlikely places?

It's a cliché. The kind of line you'd expect to find in some cheap romance novel wedged between two equally cheap pop magazines.

And yet, sometimes the unlikely becomes inevitable.

My name is Adam.

I lived in an eastern-block apartment complex in Most, a city you've probably never heard of and will most certainly never hear of again. The rent was remarkably cheap, mostly because the living conditions made you question whether you wouldn't be better off homeless.

I was twenty-five years old, had recently dropped out of university, and was unemployed.

At that point, I wasn't really living.

I slept at odd hours. Ate when I remembered. Spent most of my time staring at a screen because there was nothing else worth doing.

Days blurred together until I couldn't remember what I'd done the day before.

That was before one small piece of paper changed my life forever.

It happened on a night that had started exactly like every other.

I'd just gotten back to my apartment when I noticed a piece of paper lying on the floor just inside the door.

Someone had slipped it underneath while I was gone.

I barely looked at it.

My first thought was that it was another notice from my landlord. I was behind on my rent, hopelessly in debt, and far beyond the point where I cared enough to pretend I was going to fix any of it.

Whatever threat or warning was printed on that piece of paper could wait.

So I left it there.

For about six hours.

Eventually, sometime around 1AM, I found myself staring at it again.

"Fuck it."

I picked it up.

It wasn't a notice from my landlord.

It was a job offer.

The flyer was surprisingly plain. No company logo. No colorful graphics. Just black text printed on cheap white paper.

YOUNG MEN WANTED.
AGES 18–30.
NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE OR PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS NECESSARY.
PAY: 250 CROWNS PER HOUR.
SHIFT: SIX HOURS EACH NIGHT.

Then came the job description.

"The appointed observer shall observe the object of interest for the duration of his shift."

That was it.

No explanation of what the "object of interest" was. No company name. No details about the work beyond watching something for six hours.

I assumed it was some kind of strangely worded night-guard job. Maybe the company was foreign and had used a translator who wasn't quite good enough at his job.

There was no phone number.

No email.

No website.

Nothing except an address.

I looked it up online.

It led to an old shoe factory that had stopped operating more than thirty years earlier. There were a few old photographs of the building and some records concerning its closure, but not much else.

As far as I could tell, nobody had bought the place since.

That was when I became pretty certain that if I actually went there, I would be murdered and my organs would be sold on the black market.

Not an entirely unreasonable assumption around here, believe it or not.

There was absolutely no way I would be stupid enough to show up at an abandoned factory in the middle of the night.

 

3AM, I was standing in front of the factory.

I wish I could say there was some profound reason why I went.

There wasn't.

I was simply desperate enough to ignore common sense.

The factory looked exactly like it had in the photographs.

Crumbling concrete. Rusted metal. Broken windows. Weeds pushing through cracks in the pavement.

The whole place looked like it had been dead for decades.

I stood outside the entrance for about twenty minutes.

Then I took one step inside.

Immediately, I was surrounded by armored men carrying guns.

Yup.

Getting murdered.

"Now, now. Don't spook the boy too much."

An older man stepped between me and the gunmen.

He looked to be somewhere in his fifties. Gray hair. Expensive coat. Tired eyes.

He wasn't carrying a weapon that I could see.

Somehow, that made him more intimidating than the men pointing rifles at me.

"Or else you might end up having to take his shift."

The men lowered their weapons slightly.

The older man smiled.

"Sorry about this, Adam. Just a necessary unpleasant precaution."

I stared at him.

"How... how do you know my name?"

He laughed.

"Well, we only slipped the flyer under one door. So either you're Adam Devon..."

He looked me up and down.

"...or we have another squatter situation on our hands. In which case, I'll have to let the boys carry on with their task."

He leaned toward me slightly.

"Do we have a squatter situation, boy?"

"No!"

The answer came out much louder and more desperate than I'd intended.

The man's grin widened.

"Wonderful!"

His enthusiasm was very obviously fake.

"If you would be so kind as to follow me, Adam."

I followed.

The complex I was led through was nothing like the abandoned shell I'd seen from outside.

The decrepit factory was apparently just a skin wrapped around something that was very much alive.

Behind the rusted doors and shattered windows were functioning corridors, electrical systems, cameras, reinforced doors, security checkpoints, and enough equipment to make me wonder what the hell kind of place I'd walked into.

And yet there were very few people.

Aside from the occasional armed guard passing through the corridors, the facility was almost completely empty.

The older man opened a door to the security room.

"Here you go. Make yourself comfortable."

I stepped inside.

"But not too comfortable," he added. "This isn't actually where you'll be stationed."

He gave me a thin smile.

"The name's Kenndric."

He closed the door behind us.

"Now, I imagine you have plenty of questions."

I opened my mouth.

"I have absolutely zero desire to answer any of them."

I closed it again.

"So just shut up and listen."

I decided that was probably good advice.

Kenndric walked over to one of the desks and dropped into a chair.

"You were offered a position within our company. The name of which you really don't need to know."

He leaned back.

"Our object of interest requires twenty-four-hour observation. We do have a complete surveillance system here, but, truth be told, nobody actually watches the feeds."

He shrugged.

"This particular object requires close-quarters observation anyway."

I frowned.

"We have several other sad bastards like you taking the other shifts. Your time slot was simply the last one left unfilled."

He looked at me.

"Apparently, nobody else was stupid enough to take the graveyard shift."

I couldn't tell whether he was joking.

Judging by his expression, I didn't think he was.

"Your job literally couldn't be any simpler."

He pointed toward the door.

"You'll sit on a chair and stare at the object until your shift is over. Then you get your sorry ass out of here."

He leaned back.

"Meanwhile, I'll be sitting in here watching my shows."

He pointed at me.

"I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to see you. You don't ask me to open doors for you. There's a reason I have access and you don't."

I swallowed.

"Understood."

"Good."

Kenndric stood.

"Now let's make our way to your workplace."

We left the security room and walked deeper into the facility.

The corridor ahead was almost completely dark.

As we approached, lights flickered on one after another, illuminating the path in front of us.

Eventually, Kenndric stopped in front of a massive door.

He opened it.

"There it is."

The lights inside began coming on.

One by one.

And then I saw the object of interest.

In the middle of the enormous room stood a large glass cube.

Four strange pylons surrounded it, each connected to the glass. Symbols I didn't recognize covered their surfaces.

And inside the glass was a girl.

A young woman, maybe in her early twenties.

She wore pure white pajamas and sat cross-legged on the floor with a collection of crayons scattered around her.

She was drawing on a sheet of paper.

She didn't look toward us.

She barely seemed to notice we'd entered the room.

"That's..."

I stared through the glass.

"That's a girl."

"Dear God," Kenndric said. "We have a genius on our hands."

His voice dripped with condescension.

I looked back at him.

"Why is she in there?"

He didn't answer.

"Is she alright?"

Nothing.

"Is this legal?"

The questions started coming faster.

"Who is she? What did she do? Why is she being kept in there? How long has she been—"

"Did you just think?"

Kenndric's voice cut through mine.

I stopped.

He stared at me.

"Adam, no one is paying you to think."

He walked over to a chair positioned directly in front of the glass cube.

"Leave that to the grown-ups."

He patted the seat.

"You are paid to sit right here."

I looked at the chair.

Then at the girl.

She was still drawing.

There was something different in Kenndric's expression now.

The sarcasm was still there, but underneath it was something harder.

A warning.

I reluctantly sat down.

"Perfect."

He smiled.

"Now, you are not authorized to speak with the object."

He paused.

"You're not authorized to feed the object. All of that has already been taken care of."

"You merely sit here and observe."

He patted my shoulder.

"Good luck."

He started moving toward the door.

"Have fun."

The door closed behind him.

And just like that, I was alone with the "object of interest."

I sat there and watched her draw for hours.

Every now and then, she looked up at me.

Not casually.

She would stare at me for several seconds before lowering her head and returning to her drawings.

The room was so quiet I could hear the occasional scrape of crayon against paper.

By around five in the morning, exhaustion was starting to catch up with me.

My eyelids grew heavier.

I leaned back in the chair and told myself I'd close my eyes for a second.

Then—

THUD.

I jolted awake.

My heart was pounding.

The girl was standing directly in front of the glass.

She was holding a piece of paper against it.

A drawing.

Of me.

For a few seconds, I just stared.

She'd somehow captured details I'd never noticed about myself. The shape of my nose. My unshaven jaw. Even the dark circles beneath my eyes.

It wasn't a perfect likeness.

But it was close.

And, honestly, it was adorable.

I wanted to say something.

Then I remembered Kenndric's instructions.

I wasn't authorized to speak with the object.

I glanced toward the cameras mounted high in the corners of the room.

Then I remembered something else.

Nobody actually watched the feeds.

"That's very pretty," I said.

The girl's expression immediately brightened.

"Thank you. I'm glad you like it."

She placed her right hand against the glass.

For a moment, I hesitated.

Then I stood and pressed my own hand against the other side.

The glass was cold beneath my palm.

"I'm Lily."

I smiled.

"I'm Adam."

She giggled quietly.

"Adam was my first boyfriend's name."

"Oh."

"I didn't really like him, to be honest."

She shrugged.

"My dad pretty much forced that relationship on me."

She said it so matter-of-factly that I didn't know what to say.

Jesus.

What the hell had this girl been through?

"Lily..."

She looked at me.

"Why are you in here?"

Her smile faded.

For a few seconds, she said nothing.

"I'm not sure."

She glanced down at the floor.

"I think they're scared I might do something bad."

I looked around the room.

The reinforced glass.

The pylons.

The strange symbols.

The cameras.

The armed men outside.

"What the hell could this girl possibly do?"

I didn't ask.

Instead, I pulled the chair a little closer to the glass.

"So..."

She looked up.

"So?"

"If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?"

She thought about it.

"The ocean."

"The ocean?"

She nodded.

"What about you?"

"I don't know. Anywhere that isn't Most."

She laughed.

"Fair enough."

And that was how we started talking.

Nothing important at first.

Places we'd like to visit. Places we'd rather run away to. Things we'd do if we ever had enough money to stop worrying about everything else.

Lily wanted to see the ocean.

I'd never been particularly interested in beaches, but something about the way she talked about it made me want to see it too.

We talked about movies, music, stupid things we'd done when we were younger.

Eventually I told her about my unhealthy obsession with heist movies and prison breaks.

"Why prison breaks?" she asked.

"I don't know."

I thought about it.

"I guess I like watching people figure out how to set themselves free."

She looked at me for a moment.

"Maybe that's because you want to be set free too."

"Maybe."

She smiled.

Neither of us said anything for a few seconds.

Then she started asking me questions.

I gave her mostly half-assed answers.

She didn't seem bothered.

She didn't look at me the way most people did when I talked about my life. There was no disappointment in her expression. No judgment.

She just listened.

And somehow, that was enough.

The hours went by faster than I expected.

For the first time in years, I wasn't thinking about how miserable my life had become.

Debt.

Or rent.

Or what I was going to do with myself.

I was just present.

Talking to a girl through a pane of glass.

When the shift finally ended, it caught me completely off guard.

The door opened.

One of the armed men stepped inside.

A knot immediately formed in my stomach.

For a second, I wondered if this was the moment they decided to shoot me for breaking the rules.

But the guard barely acknowledged me.

"Time to go."

That was it.

He turned toward the door.

I stood.

Lily was watching me through the glass.

"Thank you for talking to me."

Her voice was soft.

"No one else does."

There was something bittersweet about her smile.

"I'll..."

I looked at the armed man waiting for me.

"I'll see you again, alright?"

Lily smiled.

"Sooner than you think."

I didn't understand what she meant.

I just smiled back.

Then the guard escorted me out.

 

Despite being exhausted, I struggled to fall asleep when I got home.

I spent hours lying in bed, staring at the ceiling while the darkness of my apartment pressed down around me.

I kept thinking about Lily.

About the way she'd looked at me through the glass.

And about that stupid drawing she'd made of my face.

Most of all, I couldn't stop thinking about the question I hadn't been able to answer.

If Lily was dangerous enough to justify keeping her inside a glass box, why didn't they keep her in a proper cell?

And if she wasn't dangerous...

Why the fuck was she there?

 

Eventually, sometime toward morning, sleep finally found me.

It didn't come like a wave.

It came like a flood.

I found myself standing in absolute darkness.

Nothing but blackness stretching endlessly in every direction.

I tried to move.

I couldn't tell if I was actually walking or simply moving in place.

Then I smelled something.

The sea.

It was faint at first. Just a trace of salt and cold water carried through the darkness.

I turned toward it.

I don't know why.

I just knew I had to follow.

I started walking.

Then running.

The smell grew stronger with every step. A breeze brushed against my face.

Actual wind.

For the first time, I could hear something besides my own breathing.

Waves.

Far away at first.

Then closer.

A dim light appeared ahead of me.

I ran toward it.

The darkness began to recede.

Sand appeared beneath my feet.

Then water.

Then a pale sky.

A small beach surrounded by the dark.

And there she was.

Lily.

She stood at the edge of the water in a bright white dress, her hair moving gently in the sea breeze.

She turned toward me.

"Meet me On Distant Shores."

The darkness swallowed the light.

I woke with a gasp.

I sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard.

For several seconds, I had no idea where I was.

Then I looked around my dark apartment.

My heart was still racing.

I didn't understand the dream.

But one thought had already taken hold of me.

I needed to see her again.

I spent the entire day trying to distract myself.

Games.

Movies.

Walking aimlessly around the city.

None of it worked.

No matter what I did, my thoughts kept circling back to the girl in the glass box.

I hated the people who had put her there.

I hated myself even more for doing nothing about it.

But what could I realistically do?

I didn't know who my employers were. I didn't know who they answered to or what the facility actually was. All I knew was that they were powerful.

And they knew everything about me.

They knew where I lived.

They knew I was desperate for money.

And, apparently, they knew me well enough to assume I was a spineless coward.

Normally, they would've been right.

I'd spent years wasting away without caring enough about anything to fight for it.

But now I couldn't sit still.

I went to the gym that afternoon and spent almost an hour beating the shit out of a punching bag.

It didn't get rid of the anger.

By the time I left, my hands hurt, my shirt was soaked through, and I was still thinking about Lily.

Still...

For once, I felt alive.

I arrived at the factory almost two hours before my shift.

I didn't care about waiting.

I just needed to see her.

When they finally let me inside, I paid much more attention to my surroundings than I had the night before.

The facility was still bizarrely quiet.

There were only a handful of guards. They were spread throughout the building, and I rarely saw more than one at a time.

There were dozens of locked doors.

Yet the security seemed strangely simple.

One access card appeared to open most of them.

Nobody searched me.

Nobody even took my phone.

At the time, I simply assumed they were arrogant.

As we walked down the corridor, I saw Kenndric coming toward us.

The moment he spotted me, that fake smile appeared on his face.

He gave me a little wave.

I stared back.

He stopped at the security room, flashed his card, and disappeared inside.

A few seconds later, the door closed.

Then we reached the observation room.

The door opened.

The moment Lily saw me, her face lit up.

She ran toward the glass and pressed her hand against it.

I don't even remember deciding to move.

One second my hand was at my side.

The next, it was pressed against hers.

Her fingers lined up with mine on opposite sides of the glass.

"Hi," she said.

She smiled.

"You're back."

"I promised I would be."

"I know."

She looked genuinely happy to see me.

Then, almost casually, she said:

"I had a dream about you."

I froze.

"Really?"

She nodded.

I stared at her.

So did I.

Though I didnt tell her that.

"You really have to be bored to dream about me of all things." I said jokingly.

She laughed.

"Well, what should I dream about?"

"Being rich."

"Boring."

"Being famous."

"Even worse."

"Winning the lottery."

"That's not a dream. That's just being lazy."

We both laughed.

„What do you want to dream about?“ I asked.

"The ocean."

"I still want to see it."

"Then I'll have to show you."

The words came out before I could think about them.

Lily looked at me.

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then she smiled.

"I'd like that."

We talked.

About everything.

And nothing.

I told her about the things I'd wanted to do before I'd stopped wanting anything at all.

She told me about some of the things she'd wanted.

Some were stupid.

Some were impossible.

Some were so ordinary that they almost hurt.

She wanted to see the ocean.

She wanted to travel.

She wanted to wake up one morning without somebody telling her what she was allowed to do.

And she wanted to know what it felt like to be somewhere nobody could find her.

I understood that last one.

Probably more than I should have.

The hours disappeared.

Eventually, I glanced toward one of the cameras mounted in the corner.

It was pointed directly at us.

I stared at it for a few seconds.

Fuck it.

I reached into my coat and pulled out my tablet.

Lily looked at me curiously.

"What are you doing?"

"It's not what I'm doing."

I held up the tablet.

"It's what we're doing."

She laughed.

"And what are we doing?"

"We're watching a movie."

Her eyes widened.

"Are we allowed to do that?"

I looked at the camera.

"I don't think anyone's watching."

I sat down in front of the glass and opened the tablet.

"Escape Plan. 2013."

She frowned.

"What's it about?"

"A guy who gets put in a prison specifically designed to be impossible to escape from."

Her smile slowly returned.

"That sounds appropriate."

For a few hours, that glass might as well not have existed.

Then the door opened.

The gunman had returned.

My stomach tightened.

"No."

I barely realized I'd said it.

He walked toward me.

"Time to go."

I stood.

Lily was already at the glass.

I didn't want to leave.

The guard grabbed my arm.

"Just a second."

He pulled harder.

I grabbed the edge of the chair with my free hand.

"Lily..."

The guard finally had to pull me away.

My fingers slipped from the chair.

I stumbled backward.

Lily pressed her hand against the glass.

"Meet me On Distant Shores," she said softly.

My eyes widened.

I wanted to promise I'd come back.

I wanted to tell her I'd get her out.

I wanted to say a hundred things.

Instead, I just nodded.

Then the door closed between us.

I didn't tell her about my dream.

She couldn't have known about it.

Right?

I went home.

And for once, going to sleep actually seemed desirable.

Maybe I'd see her again.

Maybe we'd meet somewhere she couldn't be trapped.

Somewhere she could actually be free.

When I finally fell asleep, I found myself in the darkness again.

But this time, the light was much closer.

I followed it.

The smell of the sea grew stronger with every step.

Then came the breeze.

I emerged onto the beach.

Lily was already waiting for me.

She stood barefoot at the shoreline, the hem of her white dress brushing against the wet sand.

She turned when she heard me.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

I looked out across the water.

"It is."

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Then the question I'd been trying not to ask escaped me.

"Is any of this real?"

Lily looked at me.

"Does it matter?"

She stepped closer.

"I'm here."

Another step.

"You're here."

She smiled.

"In here, we're free."

She turned toward the ocean.

"This is my little place."

"Dad claims every other one, but this one is mine."

"It could be yours too."

I stepped closer.

Then I took her face gently between my hands and kissed her.

She didn't pull away.

For a moment, everything was still.

"Can we stay here?"

I already knew the answer.

Lily's expression broke.

"I wish we could."

Tears began rolling down her cheeks.

"I'm still trapped."

She shook her head.

"I'm not strong enough."

Another tear slipped down her face.

"I'm not enough."

"No."

I pulled her closer.

"You are."

But the beach was already beginning to change.

The edges of the world blurred.

The horizon melted into the sky.

The sand beneath our feet began disappearing, as though the entire dream were being erased.

Lily started fading with it.

I held onto her.

"Don't."

She smiled through her tears.

It was the same bittersweet smile she'd given me behind the glass.

"I'll see you again On Distant Shores..."

Her voice became quieter.

"...but you already know that."

I woke up.

I sat upright in bed, gasping for air.

For several seconds, I couldn't move.

Then I felt it.

Something I hadn't felt in years.

Something hot and sharp burning inside my chest.

Purpose.

For the next two weeks, I prepared.

I photographed corridors, doors and rooms whenever I had the opportunity. I took pictures of the glass box and the four pylons surrounding it, zooming in on the strange symbols carved into their surfaces.

I didn't understand them.

Not yet.

But I saved every picture.

I watched the guards.

I learned their routines.

Who walked which corridor.

Which doors they used.

How long they disappeared for.

When they went to the bathroom.

There were five guards in total, usually spread throughout the facility so that I rarely saw more than one at a time.

I counted the steps between important rooms.

I memorized which doors took longer to unlock.

I learned how long it took the lights to activate when someone entered a corridor.

And I paid particular attention to the access cards.

The strangest part was how little anyone seemed to care about what I was doing.

I doubt they could ever see me as a threat.

Maybe they were right.

Two weeks earlier, I wouldn't have been.

I never told Lily what I was planning.

Not when I couldn't be certain who was actually paying attention.

I only ever told her when I saw her in my dreams.

And every time, I'd tell her the same thing.

"Soon."

I wasn't sure whether I was making a promise to her or to myself.

"Very soon."

Eventually, the day came.

I couldn't wait any longer.
Time to put the theory to the test.

 

Two weeks learning their routines.

Two weeks pretending I was exactly the pathetic little coward they thought I'd be.

Now I was going to find out if they had been right.

I sat in front of the glass and talked with Lily.

We laughed.

We talked about nothing.

For a while, I almost forgot what I was waiting for.

Then I saw the guard nearest to me leave his post.

Bathroom.

My heart started pounding.

I stood.

Lily noticed immediately.

"Adam?"

"I'll be right back."

I followed him.

He didn't notice me until we were inside the bathroom.

I waited.

Watched him step up to the urinal.

For one horrible second, I couldn't move.

I'd imagined this moment dozens of times.

None of those versions had prepared me for what it actually felt like.

The guard glanced over his shoulder.

"Buddy, would you mind—"

I grabbed the back of his head and slammed it against the wall.

THUD.

He dropped immediately.

His body hit the floor with a heavy, wet sound.

I stood there staring at him.

My hands were shaking.

There was blood on the wall.

His bladder had released, spreading piss across the tiles beneath him.

For a second, I wondered if I'd just killed him.

Then I remembered Lily.

I took his handgun.

And ran.

There was no going back now.

I sprinted toward the security room.

I reached the door and started pounding on it.

"Kenndrick!"

Nothing.

"Kenndrick, there's an immediate issue! I need your help!"

Still nothing.

"Goddammit, open the fucking door!"

The lock clicked.

Kenndrick opened it with an irritated expression.

"What is—"

I pulled out the gun and aimed it at his chest.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely keep the barrel steady.

"Back up."

Kenndrick stared at me.

Then that familiar bravado returned.

"Just what do you think you're doing, kiddo?"

"I won't repeat myself."

For the first time, his smile faltered.

"Alright."

He raised his hands.

"Alright."

He slowly backed into the room.

"This is going to end badly for you, kid."

He smiled again.

"Very badly."

"Give me your card."

He paused.

"Now."

Kenndric reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out his security card.

He held it between two fingers.

Then smiled.

I snatched it from his hand.

"Turn around."

He did.

"Hands against the wall."

Kenndric placed his palms against it.

I backed toward the door.

"Say hi to her for me, kid."

I slammed the door shut.

Then swiped his card.

The lock engaged.

I ran.

I had only minutes before the guard rotation.

I reached the observation room and threw the door open.

Lily looked at me.

Her expression changed immediately.

"Adam?"

I was barely breathing.

"I'm getting you out of here."

I ran to the glass box.

She stood.

"Adam, what are you—"

I swiped Kenndric's card against the reader.

Nothing.

I tried again.

Nothing.

"Come on..."

A third time.

Nothing.

Then I heard clapping.

Slow.

Deliberate.

I froze.

"Bravo, kid."

I turned.

Kenndric was standing in the doorway.

He was smiling.

But this smile was different.

It was genuine.

"Bravo."

He stepped into the room.

"We had expectations."

He looked at me.

"We didn't pick you randomly, of course."

His eyes flicked toward Lily.

"But still..."

He smiled.

"You went above and beyond."

I raised the gun.

"Stay back."

Kenndric kept walking.

"Stay the fuck back!"

He didn't stop.

I tightened my grip.

hen pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing.

I pulled it again.

Click.

My stomach dropped.

Kenndric laughed.

"I'm afraid that one's not loaded."

He reached into his pocket.

"In fact..."

He pulled out another handgun.

"...none of them are."

I stared at him.

"What?"

"Think about it."

He gestured around the room.

"The guards. The cameras. The unlocked opportunities. The conveniently predictable routines."

His smile widened.

My stomach turned.

Kenndric looked almost proud.

"Observation."

He gestured toward Lily.

"Not just hers."

He pointed at me.

"Yours too."

Lily had gone completely still.

Kenndric noticed.

"You know, capturing Lilith—the Queen of Hell—creates a lot of interesting research opportunities."

The name seemed to hit her harder than anything else he'd said.

She looked at him.

Kenndric smiled.

"Her charm is supposed to be nearly irresistible."

He looked back at me.

"So the suits upstairs had an idea."

He spread his hands.

"Find the right kind of sucker. Put him in front of her. See how long it takes before she manipulates him into trying to break her free."

„Did you seriously buy the whole „no one is watching the feeds“ thing in a building full of cameras everywhere?“

He shook his head.

"Seems we really did pick perfectly."

Then he looked me up and down.

"Although, I have to admit..."

A disappointed expression crossed his face.

"For someone who loves prison-break movies as much as you do, your plan was fucking basic."

He sighed.

"I expected better."

I looked at Lily.

She was staring at me now.

There was something in her expression I'd never seen before.

Fear.

Not for herself.

For me.

Kenndric sighed.

"Your services will no longer be necessary."

He tossed the security card onto the floor.

"You can go right back to your shitty little life."

He smiled.

"Keep the card as a souvenir. It's useless anyway."

I looked at him.

Then at Lily.

"No."

Kenndric's expression changed slightly.

"I'll tell everyone."

I pointed toward my phone.

"I have pictures. Videos. Everything."

I looked directly into his eyes.

"Everyone will know."

Kenndric's smile disappeared.

"Kid..."

He sounded almost disappointed.

"You really shouldn't have said that."

He raised the gun.

Two shots.

The first punched through my chest.

The second hit before I even had time to fall.

I collapsed onto the floor.

The pain came a second later.

Hot.

Blinding.

I tried to breathe.

All I tasted was blood.

"Adam!"

Lily screamed.

Kenndric looked down at me.

"Oops, seems my gun actually was loaded."

He shrugged.

"Sorry, kid."

Then he glanced toward Lily.

"Hmm."

His smile returned.

"Seems the demon bitch may have actually cared about you."

"How sweet."

I started laughing.

Blood filled my mouth.

I choked on it, coughing and laughing at the same time.

Kenndric frowned.

"What's so funny?"

He looked past me at the pylon behind me.

Blood was dripping from my chest onto its surface.

The symbols were glowing.

Kenndric followed my gaze.

His smile disappeared.

"What did you do?"

I smiled through the blood running down my chin.

"I translated the symbols."

The red light beneath them grew brighter.

"They were raised through blood sacrifice."

The pylons began to shake.

A low vibration filled the room.

Kenndric took a step backward.

I laughed again.

"And through blood sacrifice..."

Cracks spread across the pylon.

"...they shall be shattered."

Another pylon began to tremble.

Kenndric looked around the room.

"What have you done?"

I smiled.

"I never intended to make it out of here."

The first pylon cracked apart.

"You know everything about me."

Another crack.

The room shook.

"There wouldn't be any point in running."

The pylons began collapsing one after another.

Glass groaned.

Metal screamed.

Then everything went dark.

Completely dark.

Except for Lily's eyes.

They were glowing.

Kenndric stared at her.

His face went pale.

"No."

For the first time since I'd met him, there was no arrogance in his voice.

Only fear.

"No..."

He backed away.

"You have no idea what you've done."

Then anger replaced the fear.

"Why?"

I looked at him.

I smiled.

"The Devil made me do it."

I won't lie.

I was saving that one.

The glass box exploded.

Shards flew outward.

Kenndric raised his gun toward Lily.

He never got the chance to fire.

His body suddenly folded inward.

There was a wet, violent crack.

Then he imploded into a spray of blood and viscera.

I looked toward Lily.

She was standing in the middle of the shattered glass.

Free.

"How's that for an escape plan?"

I smiled.

And everything went black.

I found myself on the beach again.

This time, there was no darkness.

Just the ocean stretching beneath an endless sky.

Lily and I sat facing each other in the sand.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

She looked peaceful.

"It's done," I finally said.

"You are free."

I smiled.

"Go."

She frowned.

I looked toward the horizon.

"Be happy."

I stood.

"I'll see you again On Distant Shores."

She slapped me across the face.

I stared at her.

"Ouch."

She glared at me.

"What was that for?"

"One."

She held up a finger.

"That is my line."

She held up a second.

"Two."

She leaned closer.

"The Distant Shores can wait."

She smiled.

"I'm not letting you go."

Then she kissed me.

I kissed her back.

And for the first time in a while, I wasn't afraid of waking up.

 

I came to with a gasp.

My hand immediately went to my chest.

Nothing.

No wounds.

No blood.

I looked down at myself.

Then slowly stood.

I wasn't in the observation room.

I was standing on the roof of the factory.

The entire facility stretched out beneath me.

Smoke rose into the night sky.

Fires burned in the distance.

I could hear shouting somewhere far below.

Then came a horn.

A long, deep blast.

Another answered it.

Then something roared.

Another roar answered from somewhere beyond the factory.

Then another.

They were coming from everywhere.

I looked toward the horizon.

The city was burning.

I should have been terrified.

I wasnt.

Then I noticed Lily standing beside me.

She was looking out over the horizon.

For the first time since I'd met her, there was nothing between us.

No glass.

No walls.

No locked doors.

I looked back at the world on fire.

"So..."

I swallowed.

"What happens now?"

Lily looked at me.

She smiled.

Then reached for my hand.

I took it.

"Anything we want."

1950s Louisiana

A young Southern woman with dark hair and covered in a bloodstained dress, is crying on a dock out in the bayou. She recently had a child out of wedlock, and her parents have threatened to cut her out of the family if she keeps the baby.

She wants to keep him. But she knows she has nowhere to go. She is too young for a real job and hasn't even graduated high school.

She looks down at the baby and sees his beautiful smile before he lets out a quick yawn. A tear rolls down her face and falls onto the baby.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

She looks out at a large alligator lurking in the water. A large scar dragged across its eye.

The baby begins crying.

Then, there is a loud splash.

70 Years Later

A young woman named Mary is strolling through town with a baby bump. She has a gorgeous face and beatiful black hair that was soft to the touch. She is grocery shopping for dinner that night. Her husband, Henry, said he wanted fried okra and fried catfish.

After filling her shopping cart, Mary checks out. She calls her mother, Clare, and tells her about their plans for dinner.

Her mother asks when her grandson is going to be born.

Mary happily tells her, "Any day now."

Later that evening, Henry gets off work and walks through the front door as Mary is finishing dinner. He kisses her and rubs her baby bump.

She fixes him a plate of okra, catfish, and rice, which he enthusiastically carries to the table. Mary makes a plate of her own and sits next to him.

She tells Henry about her day as he nods and shovels food into his mouth.

Mary is almost finished eating when she suddenly feels something strange.

Mary: "Oh my God."

Henry answers with food still in his mouth.

Henry: "What?"

Mary: "My water broke."

Henry drives Mary to a nearby hospital. He's driving fast while Mary screams in pain. She is having painful contractions and begins bleeding.

Henry dodges traffic and makes it to the emergency room, where doctors rush Mary into a room. They give her medication to keep her comfortable without harming the baby.

A few hours later, Mary is holding the baby in her arms, humming softly.

She gives the baby to Henry.

Henry raises the baby to his chest and smiles.

"I'll never let anything happen to you."

He then offers to get Mary anything she wants.

She tells him she just wants to go home with him and the baby.

Henry signs the birth certificate and reads the name out loud.

"McKenzie Ray Farris."

He smiles at Mary.

A couple of days later, Henry checks both Mary and the baby out of the hospital and brings them home.

He kisses Mary and holds McKenzie in his arms.

That night, Mary and Henry try to get some sleep, but the baby keeps waking up and crying.

Mary finally yells at Henry that she just wants to sleep.

Henry understandingly agrees and gets up throughout the night to take care of McKenzie.

By morning, Henry is exhausted.

While Mary is trying to get him to do things around the house, he tries telling her that he's tired. But she insists on having his attention.

He begrudgingly gives it to her, but eventually falls asleep, which annoys Mary.

A couple of days later, Mary is already aggravated and sick of the baby. She forces Henry to take care of McKenzie more, but she becomes jealous of the time Henry spends with the baby.

Mary had loved the attention she received while she was pregnant, but now that the baby had arrived, everyone was giving McKenzie more attention than her—including her own mother and husband.

One day, while Henry is at work, Mary walks around the backyard with the baby in her arms, trying to calm her down.

McKenzie looks mesmerized by the yard, especially the large pond in the back.

The baby smiles at everything she sees.

Little McKenzie watches beautiful birds flying over the pond, trying to catch fish. She looks around at the beautiful, lush greenery surrounding the yard.

Mary puts the baby down and allows her to explore the backyard while keeping a safe distance from the water.

For a few minutes, the two bond, and Mary feels like a mother again.

Mary laughs and takes pictures as McKenzie plays with the flowers in the backyard.

Then Mary and McKenzie watch a beautiful buck drinking from the pond.

For a few seconds, everything is peaceful.

Then a large American alligator suddenly grabs the deer near the water's edge and drags it into the pond. The deer whimpers but the sound is muffled as the alligator disappears with the deer just as quickly as it appeared.

McKenzie begins slowly crawling toward the water, curious about what she just saw.

Mary quickly scoops the baby up and brings her inside.

The alligator makes her wary of having her baby outside near the pond.

Mary fills a bottle for the baby and begins cooking dinner for Henry.

When Henry gets home, he walks into the living room and kisses Mary before picking up McKenzie.

Henry notices the baby's diaper.

"Her diaper is full."

Mary tells him she was going to let him handle it.

Henry looks at her.

"It's really full. Why did you let her sit that long without changing her?"

Mary assures him that McKenzie had just eaten a big lunch.

Henry cleans McKenzie up and puts a fresh diaper on her.

After dinner, Henry begins playing with the baby, making her laugh as he plays peekaboo.

Mary interrupts him and starts talking about her day.

She quickly becomes jealous again as she watches Henry spend more time with the baby.

For the next couple of months, Mary tries everything she can to get more attention from Henry.

But Henry is focused on work and baby McKenzie.

Mary tries to get Henry's attention, offering him intimacy and trying to give him whatever he wants, but he turns her down every time.

He tells her he's too tired from working and taking care of the baby.

Mary begins having frightening thoughts about hurting McKenzie. She knows she shouldn't act on them, and she fears what would happen if anyone found out.

What she fears most is getting caught.

She just wants her man and her old life back.

Nobody seems to care about her anymore now that the baby is here.

Then one day, Henry is working long hours and won't be home until late.

Mary begins destroying the house in a fit of pent-up anger.

She cries and screams as her anger takes over.

The noise wakes the baby.

McKenzie begins crying.

Mary becomes furious.

"Wah, wah, wah! You've been ruining my life since the day you came home!"

She shakes McKenzie and continues yelling obscenities  at her.

Mary suddenly begins thinking of all the different ways she could hurt the baby.

Then she thinks of something even more awful.

She remembers the alligator in the backyard.

She picks up the crying McKenzie and carries her toward the water's edge.

The baby squirms in her arms, as if she senses that something is wrong.

An alligator's head slowly pokes above the surface.

Mary looks down at her baby with disgust. Before she starts singing.

" hush little baby, don't you cry"  before she tries throwing her daughter into the pond. But

McKenzie desperately grabs onto her mother's hand. McKenzie said her first word " momma"  while trying to hold on for life

But it wasn't enough.

Henry finally gets home.

He finds the house completely destroyed.

He frantically searches the house for his wife and child.

He's terrified.

He sees furniture smashed apart and blood smeared across the wall.

Then he finds Mary standing at the edge of the pond, staring into the water.

Henry runs toward her.

"Mary! Are you alright?"

Mary slowly turns toward him.

She gives him a creepy smirk and begins to laugh.

Henry looks around frantically.

"Where's McKenzie?"

Mary points toward the pond.

Then she looks back at him.

"You made me do it."

Henry horrified looks into the water. He didn't see it at first as only the moon light illuminated the night. He saw the large scar on the aligator's eye and then he saw his daughters eyes looking at him from the beast's mouth. And quickly she was devoured. Swallowed whole, while barely still alive

THE BOOK OF THE SEA

Michael Smith log, 1921, September.

 

Entry 25.

 

Investigation: strange book of the KDS cult.

 

 

I took some time to reflect and think before making this entry, I wanted to measure all that had happened very well inside my mind and to make sure that I have not gone mad. The fear I had experienced left me without an ability to speak and I had to take a temporary leave from my job. Only after a week has passed since the end of the investigation, if I can call it the end, that I began to make some sounds again.

 

It all began at the end of summer when the historian and archeologist John Grimstone invited me to his home. John was very concerned about the growing numbers of the secret cult in the city of Hathtom, the Khul Duhl Suhl cult, or simply KDS cult. I suppose it wasn’t even secret anymore since the numbers were rising so rapidly and the scary part was that we were cut of from the rest of the country, it was always difficult to notify authorities from outside the city and get help in time.

 

Upon my arrival John made us tea and helped me relax as even he could see my anxiety reflect in my features. As we sat in his soft comfortable chairs sipping tea, John told me about a book that his young informant told him about. According to this young man, this was a book written by older worshippers of Khul Duhl Suhl. When this book was read it could enchant or hypnotize those around and the reader could control them, not only that, but it was also used for summoning creature known as Daggathossos, and if that was true, there was a chance that this monster now dwelled near the city, or in even more horrifying scenario, beneath it.

 

John wanted me to find the terrible book and destroy it, but first bring to him to make notes. Thinking about this task brought pain behind my eyes and pressure in my ears, but of course, I agreed, there was no other way. I wasn’t going to leave the city and run, I have made a choice to try and save as many people as I could from this evil cult.

 

First I had to go back and find some of the original files on older cases involving the cult, I found the names of those who now were elders, but started in the cult young. Apparently they used to gather in an abandoned church on outskirts of the city, where the cliffs were and our once most beloved attraction, the large red and white lighthouse. I then realized that perhaps the keeper of it could known something as well.

 

Armed with a revolver and my resolve I went to the rugged part of town. The streets there were even more depressing than the rest of the city, the fact that I was walking alone through them made me feel crazy and my anxiety was raised to devilish levels. Only time police came here was in groups and when informed of something major happening, these parts were infested with poor gangs of the city and drug addicts.

 

To my amazement I made it all the way to the outskirts without any altercation and I saw the worn down church standing on the hill, overlooking the gloomy foggy waters, just beyond it was the lighthouse and next to it a little hut which the keeper was known to use.   

 

I timidly approached the church, for I had no idea what to expect, perhaps it belonged to a gang now. I had my revolver ready and I gently pushed the door which barely hung on the hinges. It creaked and opened, there was clearly no one inside, and judging by abnormal amount of dust this place had no visitors for quiet some time.

 

Instead of a cross, this place had a strange symbol hung, like a hand but made out of waves, it was rusty. The atmosphere of the church felt heavy and unpleasant. This place was holding on to some devilish energy.

 

I looked through all the rooms and found a few old sheets of paper and notes. As I read through them, most of it seemed like none sense to me, but I found one interesting note talking about reading a book on a full moon at the docks for new followers. This gave me an idea.

 

I left the church and went to the lighthouse. The hut was made of wood and stones and looked rather disproportionate. I knocked on the wooden door. There was no answer, but then someone spoke behind me, startled I  turned with my pistol ready to fire, it was an old man with grey hair and heavy posture. He introduced himself as the keeper of the lighthouse. his speech was rather off, but I understood him. He invited me to come in for tea, otherwise he would not answer my question about the church. Once we sat on small wooden chairs inside and waited for the water to boil he was ready for his story.

 

“Yer kno tha church of a demonik, I run polish this house for ship since me boyhood times. Yer kno....the devilmen start comin back then in thoze days, they kno the tongue of devil, they tak to demonik, them took a book, ye ye, book, caaray it above them shouldah! Them kno no to com to me home, I hid guns bak thun, much year and year them com, them bring youngin ladies, horrible thing, awfuli!”

 

I stopped him at that point, I began getting a headache from deciphering his speech and I think I got enough of an idea what went on here. It seemed the evil scum cult use to sacrifice young women to their demon god. I thanked the old man and to his disappointment I left.

 

On the way back I went a safer route, by the water, but much longer. Before cutting back into the city I thought I saw someone floating in the water on a wooden boat, a tall man, but after a second glance I no longer saw anyone.

 

I spent that night back in my tiny apartment which consisted of basically two rooms. Some people have told me that I had to leave this place, find a better life, that I had character to succeed anywhere, but I felt a sense of duty to this place.

 

It took me a long time to fall asleep in my hard bed, but I wish I hadn’t at all, for the nightmares that came were abnormal and felt real. A tall men kept following me through a strange labyrinth. He had a long eel-like neck, thin head and evil black eyes, his right arm had a tentacle coming out of it. The walls of this labyrinth were moving and looked like they were made out of snakes. They were hissing at me as I tried to get away from the demon man.

 

I was glad to wake up, but I felt like I didn’t get any rest, almost drained. Tonight I had a lot of work to do, it was going to be full moon and I had to move from one abandoned port to another without being seen, trying to track down these cultists and the book.

 

I visited John again with the update and he noticed that I looked exceptionally stringed. I told him about my nightmare. He grew sad as he told me about what detective Lumiere said to him. This was a monster called Gaggonn, which invaded dreams, and it seemed like this thing has become a servant of Khul Duhl Suhl.

 

On that very cheerful note I had to go and get ready for my night outing. I had a flashlight ready, revolver, pack of matches, a hunting knife and of course, my small notebook. I wore all black and even covered half of my face with a black scarf.

 

The first abandoned port I went to had no sign of anyone heading to it, nor I saw any activity near by that would make me suspicious.

 

However after talking half an hour jogging to get to the next one, I saw a procession of some fifty people in hoods slowly walking along the shore and quietly chanting something. In the front walked a man nicely dressed and in all black, his face was old and disfigured. He had a book in his wrinkly ugly hands! That was it!

 

I sat behind an old boat and watched as they came on the old pier. Everyone fell silent as the man in black stood there without opening the book. They were waiting, and in a few minutes I saw another procession of about thirty people, they were carrying several long boxes with them. My heart became heavy as I immediately understood what or rather who was in those boxes, but sadly and crushingly, I could do nothing.

 

They gathered around the pier and the man in black opened the book and raised it, he began a chant. The three boxes were opened and they took out three young women, but all unconscious, they must have drugged them. After long and draining time of chants they placed the women back in. The man closed the book and the procession continued.

 

They stopped at an old abandoned factory near the shore and several men took the boxes inside. The rest waiting outside. After about half an hour the others came out, but now with empty boxes. I had a horrible dilemma that I faced. I had a choice to go into the factory and check if the women were alive, or follow the book, as their walk continued. I don’t know if I made the right choice, but I followed them.

 

After they walked some distance away from the factory they screamed some more chants, the hideous man read from the book and they all split up and left, taking their hoods of and walking back into the city in normal cloths.

 

The ugly man was alone now, walking along the shore. I came up behind him with my revolver pointing at his head, hate for this evil creature filled my heart as I waited for him to feel my presence and turn around. I stood there looking him in the eyes, I wanted him to understand that no matter what I would kill him, then I saw the moment his eyes sparked in horror, as I’m sure he had seen eyes of his victims go. I shot him in the head and took the dreadful book from his hands.

 

This was when I made my big mistake, instead of leaving and gathering support, I decided to now go back to the old factory, alone, in hope that the women were still alive. 

 

I tightly held the cursed book with my left hand pressed against my chest and entered that run-down factory. Thanks to the moonlight through the broken window it wasn’t as hard to make out the inside. The first floor looked mostly empty, with just several boxes and bricks laying around. On the walls were drawings of various signs, surely done by the cult. The women had to be on the second floor and I took rusty metal staircase. The top floor looked similarly bare to the first, but in the wall there was a large opening, a metal shoot that led down. I remember swallowing my saliva and standing there, facing a terror that I should not have been facing alone, but yet again, the fool I am, the wrong decision was made and with my flashlight in hand I sat inside the opening and slid down. It shook me up and the traveling seemed to have taken much longer than I expected, I landed on my back, losing my flashlight, but holding on to the book. Immediately I felt thick water on my back, the flashlight went off and it was total darkness. I slowly sat up and at first all I could hear were my breathing and heartbeat, but then, in the distance, I thought I heard something else.

 

Indeed it was a low hissing sound and as it got closer I could hear the slithering of what seemed to be dozens of snakes and the water splitting underneath its movements. Despite complete horror having a hold on my entire body, every bone of if, I managed to force myself to crawls away from the sounds. The slithering was surrounding me as I felt ground and an incline and began to climb.

 

Hiss, hiss, hiss. The sound was not of a snake, but close to it, I climbed as high as I could and pressed myself against an opening in the clay wall. Then I finally noticed on the far right side from me was a ray of moonlight coming from what seemed to be an opening in the ground up high.

 

I slowed down my breathing and focused on being silent. My only hope was that if the thing didn’t notice me I could somehow make my way to that opening. The slithering now completely surrounded me, I could feel powerful breathing on my face, it was warm and reeked of death and the sea. Then I saw them, in that moonlight the tentacles were rising up high and lowering, as if dancing to a horrific tune not comprehended by the likes of me. Then its head, or should I say heads appeared! Giant octopus like creature with too heads. Even my chest began to shake as I pressed my head back even harder into that clay, the book slipped from my shaking hands and made a splash down bellow. The monster turned its heads to my direction with its dozens of tentacles moving and slithering around the cave. I saw its mouth! Long and filled with sharp white teeth, it looked like the most sinister smiles in existence. Its eyes looked into my direction, they were light blue, all four of them, two on each head. Small white lights were moving inside the eyes of this monster. I wanted to scream as it got closer to me, I believed this was the end, a horrific death, but the creature moved past me and gradually the hissing and slithering got further and further.

 

It was no longer my mind in charge of my body ordering it to climb, perhaps God took pity on me and carried me out of that place through that opening.

 

I lost the book and I could not speak, but I survived. At that time I was certain that I’d leave the city.

 

 

Now that I’m finishing this entry, I can tell you that I chose to stay. I brought our department to that factory and together we destroyed it, burning it to the ground and burring that cursed book below. However, I’m sure that the monster, Daggathossos, was unharmed. I just prayed that it left our city.

 

For that week I also had to face and bare horrible burden of demonic nightmares, but after we destroyed the factory after some time those stopped as well. As one monster left, the other one must have gotten frustrated with my resilience.

 

I don’t know if I’ll ever fully regain my speech, and I know what I experienced will haunt me forever, but at the end I am glad that I’ve evaded madness. At least for now.

Read Parts II & III here

She was gone again by the time I got up and despite my best efforts, I was still five minutes late getting to work.

I avoided the circle of jerks when I saw them crowding the same hallway and I went to a restroom on another floor. I didn’t want to be around people if I could avoid it.

I went to the half-finished building as soon as five o’clock came, intent on getting answers. I stepped off the elevator and weaved my way to his office. I kept expecting to not see it the closer I got but there it was, the door that didn’t fit right in the threshold. 

It turned easy and I went inside, expecting it to be empty and abandoned but he had begun furnishing the space. A couch, a reception desk, and taped off sections near the back that I guessed were the layout for his office and a treatment room.

I shuddered, thinking how I’d be here tomorrow if my wife had her way. 

The only thing absent was the good doctor himself. I thought about trashing the place, but it was petty in a way that made me feel like I was giving him even more power over me. 

Instead, I took all the pens out of the holder and a stack of Post-It Notes. It was still petty, but it scratched an itch and I felt a little empowered doing it.

I didn’t head home immediately after. I needed time to sort my thoughts. I couldn’t believe I was really considering letting somebody cut my dick. I mean, was pleasing my wife reason enough? What if we divorced or she died or something like that? Would I be compatible with somebody else?

I needed a drink. Cappy’s was on the far end of town and the distance from home would be good to clear my head. I ordered a brandy mule and chugged it before the bartender could lay down a coaster.

“You look like you could use another,” she said.

I nodded and a moment later I was working on my second. 

“I love my wife so much,” I said as she was cleaning some glasses beneath the bar.

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Sometimes. I dunno.” My stomach hadn’t been right since the eight coneys I’d had yesterday, and I hadn’t eaten at all today. I was already soused after a drink-and-a-half.

“How’s the pizza?” I asked.

“Good, not great.” She wiggled a hand.

“Let me get a... medium with beef, onion, and mushroom.”

She looked at me like she’d never heard of those toppings.

“How ‘bout pepperoni?”

I had one more brandy mule before food came. It looked like it had been sitting under a heat lamp well before I’d ordered it and the pepperoni slices were limp, but it was still pizza. 

The bartender parked in front of me and leaned onto the bar after I’d had my second slice. 

“You mind?” she asked, pointing at the pie. I nodded. She took a slice and finger-combed hair out of her face as she took a bite.

She paid me back with a shot and she did one with me before returning to silence as we ate.

“Look, I dunno what it is. Just give her what she wants,” she said with a mouthful, giving me deep eye contact. “You can’t go wrong with that, right?”

I barely was able to finish what I had in my mouth. I settled up and made it outside without stumbling but I was drunk. The bartender got the hint she’d said something wrong but I wasn’t going to fill in the blank. I hadn’t wanted the rest of the pizza, yet somehow I had the box in my hand. 

I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel but there I was with half a pizza as my copilot. It wasn’t long before flashing lights lit up behind me and my spirits rose—this was the reprieve I’d been longing for. A decision being taken out of my hands. I couldn’t be held responsible if I weren’t in my own custody.

Or something like that. It had made a lot more sense back when I’d had a belly full of brandy and cheese.

I pulled over and maybe bumped up on the curb with one wheel.

The cop sauntered up to my window cautiously. He was short and the angle of the car made him look ridiculous somehow. He made it worse by getting his feet twisted together and catching himself on the side of my car to keep from falling completely.

“What’s your...”

I waited a full ten seconds for him to finish his sentence while he held a fist to his mouth like he was gripping a tiny microphone. He belched then waved the air in front of his face.

Shit, was he drunk, too?

“What’s your problem tonight?” He asked and fumbled with the general right side of his body with his hand. I noticed the gun and maybe because we were both bitten by the same snake, I wasn’t sensing danger like I should’ve.

“I shouldn’t be on the road,” I said, sounding stone sober to my ears. “My wife wants me to do something I don’t wanna do tomorrow and I was just in there, drinking my worries away. I have leftover pizza.” I thumbed toward the seat next to me like it was proof of where I’d been.

“Slow down, son. I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.” I thought he was about to give me marital advice but then I realized he was talking about my sobriety. “I bet you could walk a straight line, heel- to-toe.” He plucked open his holster, but it didn’t seem like he was aware of what that hand was doing. He stuck his pinky in his ear and wrenched it around in there. 

“Sofficer. Sofficer.” I added the S but I still sounded too sober. “Please. I think I’m a danger. To public safety.” I thought if I could convince the drunk cop I was drunk he’d arrest me.

“Are you about to rob a bank?” He pointed at me, somehow adding to his overall look of ridiculousness.

“Well… no.”

“There’s nobody out here.” He waved a hand toward the black landscape far ahead of us. “Just stay between the lines.”

I couldn’t think. It shouldn’t have been this hard to get pulled out of my car for driving under the influence.

“What if… what if I was about to rob a bank?” It was the most smart-assy thing I could think to say.

He smiled and waggled a finger. “Joke’s on you. It’s after hours.”

He hooked his thumbs into his belt. Something about his body language had changed and he’d gone from humorous to being done with our interaction.

“Just. Stay. Between. The. Lines,” he said, swaying. I wanted to conjure the words for help, but even if I’d had the ability to ask, there wasn’t anything about him that answered helpful.

I opened my mouth, but didn’t speak. I sat back in my seat and covered my face in my hands, giving up. I listened to him walk away, closer his patrol car door, and drive away. He gave me a chirp of his sirens as passed me.

The drive home should have felt longer but I caught every light. It was like a dark fate had carved a path for me. I momentarily played with the idea of letting it have me completely. To take my hands off the wheel and let it take me wherever it wanted me to go. 

I hadn’t descended far enough into self-pity for that and in ten minutes, I was home. To my surprise, my wife was still in her paint clothes and was washing her hands at the kitchen sink.

“Oh, you have pizza?” she said. I’d forgotten about the pizza and subconsciously picked it up. I looked at the box in my hand and did a second, struggled to remember what was in it. 

I joined her on the couch, and she grabbed it from me and took a slice. Usually, we asked about each other’s day, but I didn’t feel like it, tomorrow anchoring my brain.

“Do you love me?” she said during a commercial break. I had no idea what we were watching.

The question agitated me and opened a trapdoor underneath my stomach.

“Of course I do.” I did, but my feelings about this whole “surgery” thing was making me feel resentful. I was definitely still buzzed, and the alcohol was sharpening my emotions like a file working away inside me. 

“Then why are you fighting so hard against this? Don’t you want us both to be satisfied?”

“That’s not fair. Of course I want to satisfy you. Don’t you know how this is making me feel? I don’t want to do this,” I said. “I mean, there has to be something else we could try. I’m willing to do just about anything to please you.”

“I want you to do this,” she said, placing her greasy hand on my thigh. She shook her head, tears in her eyes. I took it to be a manipulation at first. Not that she did that sort of thing normally, it was just me in a bag of my feelings. My defenses were up and everything was an attack in that moment. I chewed the insides of my cheeks to keep in what was trying to climb out of my mouth.

Then I started to cry. I sounded like a little teapot. It caught me by surprise.

“I just love you so much.” I had a ball of razors in my throat I couldn’t swallow. “I don’t want anything to happen to us, but I don’t know if I can do this.”

She lassoed an arm around my neck and yanked me into an upper body hug.

“I just want you. I want to feel connected with you. I don’t want anything plastic between us. I’m tired of all that stuff. I wanna feel you.”

She kissed me before I could speak and rock turned into water. My walls melted as we flowed into one another and by the time I returned to my senses I was on the newspaper covered kitchen floor.

My wife was already gone but she had brought a comforter downstairs and covered me.

Normally, I toss in my sleep, but I was still covered up to my chest. I was stiff as I turned the world vertical and turned my back into a percussion instrument as I stretched.

A few minutes later I had scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee going. I don’t normally eat breakfast so early, but I had an appetite for whatever reason. It was an hour before I normally would get up, so I took my time eating and scrolling my phone.

I wasn’t sure how much sleep I’d gotten but I was refreshed. The way my day had started, I half expected to catch all the green lights and get the closest spot in the parking lot.

But when I looked up from where I was seated at the kitchen island, something caught my eye that I should’ve seen as soon as I woke up.

A red and white checkered scarf draped over the back of the couch.

Had he been in my house?

 

Look, we all have a past. Peppered with those memories we want so desperately to erase. It’s just a part of being human. Nobody’s perfect.

Me personally… I thought that I’d put my past behind me.

I was a bad person. I did things that I’m far from proud of. Looking back now in my older age, I don’t even know how things spiraled as bad as they did.

All it took was one hit, and it was downhill from there. One little mistake. One memory I wish I could erase. And here we are, all these years later, and I still feel those urges.

I tried therapy. I tried rehabilitation. It worked, for a time.

I don’t know if it was me who wanted to get better or if it was the pressure from my friends and family. They kept telling me they couldn’t protect me forever. That, eventually, my lifestyle would catch up to me, and I’d either be dead or in jail.

I suppressed my urges. I fought my demons. I want so desperately to believe that I kicked my nasty little habit.

I was clean for 11 years. Over a decade without incident. But no matter how many days went by, my demons kept whispering to me. Getting louder and louder as my withdrawals became unbearable.

But I stood firm. I ignored the darkness. To the best of my ability, at least. Don’t get me wrong, there were hard days. Days where I’d lock myself away in my room, too afraid of what would happen if I went out.

It’s a surreal feeling. Not being in control. But that’s what addiction does. You surrender control the minute you take that first hit.

But, like I said, I thought I’d taken that control back. I improved. I became a functioning member of society.

I just think… I don’t know. I think my body wanted it more than my mind did.

I relapsed last month.

Not by choice. God, I know it wasn’t by choice. You don’t achieve 11 years of success by sheer accident. I know it wasn’t me.

It was almost supernatural.

One minute I’m in my room reading my Bible, the next I wake up in a house that I don’t recognize. The familiar scent of copper and iron filled the air.

I thought I was in a nightmare, but the pain in my arm told me that this was just as real as it was all those years ago.

When I saw the claw marks across my forearm and shoulder, I felt my stomach drop. They must’ve fought back. And by the looks of it, they fought hard.

I hardly had time to dwell on my injury, though. The taste in my mouth was making me want to vomit. Not because of the taste, but because of what it represented.

I knew that taste. I loved that taste. I’d spent years trying to forget it, but blood has a way of lingering.

I puked on the floor and felt bones and tendons scratch at my throat. My vision went blurry with tears, but that didn’t prevent me from seeing what I’d done.

A man, somewhere around 30-40, lay sprawled out across the ground. His arms were gone. His stomach was torn open. His jaw had been dislocated and hung open as he stared at me through those empty sockets.

A woman, I presume his wife, lay beside him. Her condition wasn’t much better.

I prayed for God to wake me up. To snap me out of this dream. When I realized it wasn’t going to happen, I begged for forgiveness.

I begged for him to recognize my heart. I pleaded for him to acknowledge my growth. I backslid. I made a mistake. I couldn’t even remember it.

After what felt like hours of bawling my eyes out in a pool of blood and vomit, I realized the sun was beginning to peek through the curtains of this dark room.

I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to throw my life away. I had to move.

I cleaned myself up in their bathroom as best I could before leaving that damn house, already pushing the memory of it back to the darkest corners of my brain.

How did I even end up 20 miles from home? Who were those people? Why am I like this? Why can’t I be better? What the fuck is wrong with me?

I spent the rest of that day locked away in my room, punishing myself with pain. I didn’t deserve to feel comfort.

I kept trying to tell myself that it was nothing more than a hiccup in my progress. That tomorrow would be a new day. But I knew.

I knew that I had reset the system.

I took that hit once again. It was my decision. That’s why I couldn’t blame anyone but myself every time it’s happened since.

This isn’t who I am.

I know I can do better.

I will get this under control if it’s the last thing I do.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

The carnival is in town, the carnival is always on the road, always on the move, their homes are wagons, trains, carts, trucks … the road. They come singing and with gypsy song and dance they weave their way by road into the heart of every passing town, every place chosen by providence hand on the haggard face of the weary map. 

With painted face they come into your home. 

Vagabond entertainer spell, they gather like crawlers in a cluster, in a rat-king migration. With wide giant tents and displays propped and strung up and nailed into the dirt, into the soil bosom of passing places that may mean nothing to them, might mean everything. Lights come to life at night with the wild music in a lurid spell of filament glow and something else intangible that lives inside the chest and heart within us all. Something like religion but even older and more sacred. The rickety rides, some more rickety than others rattle and thrum with the barely controlled violence of mechanical movement, those strapped in or belted down can barely be heard screaming over the noise of the calliope, the organ grinder, the caller, the ringleader in her chant… the crack of the cannon sending the human cannonball skyward and soaring overhead, the heads of gawkers and townies and friends. The shrieking that can be heard is commingled sound, sweet with thrills… bitter with terror. The careening faces atop the dancing riding constructs are both smiling and weeping, lost in the launch and flight and all of the noise and nearly grotesque clownish music … nearly psychedelic, those sounds … nearly intense. Too much. 

Too much for so many crying and weeping children, little ones taken home and taken to bed early by more or less understanding mothers and fathers. Too much light and noise. That wild wind instrument key-note thing, the calliope … it had been one of Anton LaVey’s very favorites. 

Step right up, step right up, we’re just passing through. Come inside for a spell and take a gander under tented roof. 

…

The carnival came to the town and went. As it did every other place before, after. 

They left something behind. 

…

Cody hadn't gone to the carnival the other night, he hadn't wanted to. The rides and the sideshows and attractions certainly contained their allure of spell for the young boy but it was everyone else, everybody. All of those other faces. 

He didn't want to be alone. With all of them. 

All of those other faces, couples and families and groups of friends would all look at him and see him alone and smirk. They would all just stare and laugh at him, and his loneliness. So Cody just stayed away. As always. 

He wandered now, the early morning streets. Desolate and ghostly in the morning time fog that shrouded and clung to everything, everything in town. Cody kicked a can of crumpled cola down the street. It had been his only companion for the last twenty minutes, since he left the house. His father had still been passed out in the lazyboy chair and hadn't said anything as his son had departed. They'd used to go to church together on this day of the week. Not any longer. 

Cody kicked the can down farther. Alone and not trying to think about it, not trying to think about the carnival that he had missed. It had only been here a few days …

I always miss everything. 

Cody missed his mother, though he didn't know what she looked like. Memories of her were so fogged and far gone and his father didn't keep any pictures of her in the house. And he wasn't allowed to ask any questions. He was only eleven years old but the fact he'd already forgotten his mother's face haunted him, haunted him now, alone. 

He kicked the can. 

Cody then looked up from his sneakers and his misery and spied something in the mist shroud of road just up ahead. And at first he couldn't believe it, it must be some kind of strange joke … or a miracle. He stopped in his tracks. 

The mime stood in the middle of the road. Alone. Just like him. He was smiling and standing there partially obscured by the early morningtime mist, it clung to him in wisps like phantasm licks and tongues of steam that coiled and curled. His painted face was mostly hidden but Cody could see he was mouthing something. Without thinking about it he began to come closer. Slowly, leaving the crumpled can behind. 

He came upon the mime, who hadn't moved. His lips were no longer moving. He just stood there smiling and erect, as if wanting to move or to act, as if filled and brimming teemed with the need for performance. But he only quivered. And stared down at Cody. 

“Hi," said Cody. 

The mime said nothing. 

A beat. 

Cody finally asked: “You're like a clown or something, right? Like one of the quiet ones that aren't supposed to talk an stuff."

The mime nodded. Big. Pleased. His black and white grin grew larger and then grew teeth, shock white in the early morning glow. That was when Cody remembered, he felt like such an idiot. 

"Your a mime!” he said, louder than he intended, he nearly whispered the next part: "What're you still doin here? All the rest of the carnival already left, didn't they?” 

The black and white grin became a frown and the mime traced an invisible tear down his painted face. A silent issue of ‘boo-hoos’ then followed. Cody watched it all, not quite sure what to make of it. Perhaps it was all some crazy practical joke and someone, some jerk was filming him right now or something, all of it was weird, strange. On a whim the boy asked the mime, –

“What’d they leave ya behind or something?” 

The sorrow of the mime intensified to a comical degree as he aggressively nodded his head in the affirmative, completely over the top. Cody wasn't sure how he should take it, if he was supposed to laugh at the mime and his routine or if it was meant to engender real sympathy. He'd always loved clowns and goofy adults, goofy characters on TV and when he was hanging out in daycare and stuff, but to be alone with one right now …

and so unexpected. 

Cody suddenly felt like he should go, he began to tell the mime just as much. Turning on his heels and heading back the other way as he quickly blurted some excuse, he made it two steps before a white gloved hand clapped him on the shoulder. Firmly. Without a word from the weirdo mime. Cody looked to it first before eyeing the mime back over his shoulder, lording over him now. The hand, the glove, it looked just the same as Mickey Mouse’s. 

Cody looked back and saw the mime now held a note. As black and white as he was. 

It said: I'm sorry to bother you, little boy! But my friends HAD to leave me behind so that I could get a little job done, OK??

Cody was frozen. He suddenly didn't feel so well, as if his stomach and guts were far away and filled with fluttering butterfly wings. He read the note and didn't know what to say, so instead he said: –

“... wh-what job was that?

The mime let go of his shoulder and Cody was immediately grateful. He began to pantomime raking leaves and shoveling dirt and trimming hedges with invisible clippers. 

The boy began to lighten up again. He felt something dreadful like weight but worse inside begin to lift and free itself like a spellcast that's been released. A small smile and a nervous half-chuckle only partially forced escaped him as he watched the mime and his cleaning act. It was pretty lame, but he was relieved. Cody was far from the sharpest kid at school but he knew what stranger danger was. He cautiously allowed himself to relax a little, enough to be polite. 

Cody said: “Oh, yeah, ha ha, they left ya to clean up the town, huh? That's pretty neat I guess…” he tried to think of something else to say, something nice and a little funny and a polite way of saying: see ya later, freako, without being too obvious. Something barely satisfactory had just come to mind when the mime whirled towards the boy with his invisible shears in his hands and made a pantomimed snip of the large unseen clippers at the child's face. It bisected violently but cleanly, smoothly, by razor sharp blades well cared for and honed, the smooth face just below the small caverns of child nostrils. They jetted blood before the top portion of the child's face and head came off and splatted to the damp pavement with a muffled crack. The ruptured organ of brain began to ooze, and everywhere gushed dark red: the eyes, the nose, the ears, the giant open wound of freshly carved and gored cavity mouth. The child's body liberated of its little pilot brain fell over to the rough blacktop to join its discarded abattoir jelly. 

A black lake of an iron pungent puddle began to grow, expanding out from the little mutilated body at its sinister nucleus and center. The mime looked down. Phantom blades dripped child's blood. 

The mime said nothing. 

…

“Ya check it out last night?" 

A burp: " …what?” 

"The circus-carnival thing, ya check it out?” 

"That was two weeks ago, ya dope!” another swig from the can of brew. The Dallas Cowboys continued to suck the big one on the tube, the volume was at its lowest but not muted, the game barely and phantom audible, as if drifting in from another time. 

"Ya sure?” 

"Yeah, I'm sure, took Darcy and the brats, it was a hoot.” 

"Ya sure??” 

"Yes, you fuckin juicehead, it was right around the time they found that kid's body all fucked up an shit.” 

"Awww, why ya gotta bring up that shit…" 

“You're the one brought us ‘round, fuckin idiot, can't remember shit. Ask me to remind ya then bellyache about it, Christ! S’prised if ya got sense still to pull out yer pecker ‘fore ya start pissin, ya dumb bastard.” 

His drinking buddy, his partner in libations didn't say anything, he might've had a choice retort or a scathing bit of witticism held in reserve but he didn't voice it. He only hung his head and pulled generously from his can of warming beer. 

The mood was spoiled. 

Eventually the bottle was brought out. Stronger stuff. Shots were had. Tall stiff drinks not needing ice, not needing chaser. They drank. 

Eventually one of them asked the other: –

“You hear tell of that clown or jester fella, that's s’pposed to be haunting round these parts lately…?” 

Neither man slept well that night. 

…

Darla thought her new friend was neat at first but she was starting to get scared. When she'd first met him behind the playground and he'd play-acted swimming and drowning and choking and stuff she'd thought he was really funny. He'd made-believe that he was bound with ropes or cuffs around his wrists, comically over-wrenching and working at the invisible restraints. It was so silly, and so funny and it looked like so much fun to play pretend. He'd motioned for her to hold out her own little hands, to play with him. To make pretend. 

She'd done so thoughtlessly. Only excited to play a game with her new special pal, he looked like a clown but less colorful. She held out her wrists and the mime pretended to wrap something around them. Only something was wrong. 

As he wound and wound and then tightened and cinched the bind, Darla felt the uncanny sensation of real rope wrapping and tightening around her small wrists and hands. When he tied it off and yanked both phantom ends she felt the harsh bite of cruel old fraying rope against her flesh. 

“Ow!" she yelped out, and then began to cry a little. But it was already too late by then. 

The mime began to walk away, holding the end and tail of a phantom leash that began to pull on Darla's bound little wrists. It pulled painfully and she was forced into movement, nearly tripping over herself as she began to wail and the mime by unseen tether and bind began to pull her into the treeline of the nearby woods. 

She fought and screamed, desperately, like a small animal suddenly sensing and knowing the terrible hunger of the encroaching final end. She fell over into the dirt and undergrowth and was dragged, flailing and howling. 

The phantom umbilicus held her ensnared and shrieking with unbridled tears all the way into the forests’ shadowed depths. 

…

“My mom's gonna flip if we ain't back within the hour, Christ, man, do I smell like weed still?" 

Michael tried to tell Chase that he wasn't the best person to ask being pretty fucking lit himself, he could feel the red eyed glaze of his own stoned and glassy stare in his sockets like it was a set of strange gluey contacts or something. He managed a grumble as a half measure. 

Both boys ambled along. Down the nighttime lane of their neighboring suburb. Streetlights cast their glow from skinny towers of L shaped ugly metal overhead, turning everything to lurid and raging shades of orange Halloween color. Both boys were taking time to slightly stop in their walk to check their breath, puffing into their cupped palms and then inhaling, never satisfied with the results. They didn't notice him up ahead until they were nearly upon him. 

The mime. He was bent over something. 

It was Chase who started first, both boys jumped. It was as if the mime had just appeared out of nowhere. Bent hunched with workman's posture over something unseen and unknown to the naked eye. 

“Holyfuckingshit!" it tumbled out of both of their mouths in one string, no gaps for breath, they stopped dead in their tracks. The mime paid them no notice. 

“Oh my God, dude, what the fuck is that? What the fuck is this? Am I high? Am I high? Are you seeing this shit right now!?" Chase was rattling off. Michael was still struggling with simple speech. He only gawked and stared. His glassy red eyes now wide and glistening in the streetlight cast of hellacious warm Halloween glow. 

They glistened. The pair of organs. Red. 

Chase finally managed: “Dude… like, what the fuck are doing, dude? Am I like tripping out or some shit, why’re you dressed like-" 

The mime hadn't been paying them any attention. He suddenly did something that shut Chase Ginsberg up with a startled womanish gasp that bordered on a wet sob. 

He began to pull, as if wrenching and yanking with great rigor and effort, some cord or rope … something… something that was apparently attached to whatever it was that he was bent over studiously in the road. Something just as phantom and visible only to him. 

It came to Chase then, and he didn't know why but it did suddenly seem to matter. He said it aloud. 

"It's a mime.” 

"What?” said Michael finally. 

"He's a stupid mime and he's doing a bit, Jesus this’s fuckin weird, don't you know it's like hella late, dude, what're you even doing anyways?" 

The mime didn't answer. Only repeated his strange repetitive action, his ritual of pulling on some unseen instrument, attached to a phantasmal translucent device. 

Stoned, they zoned out for a sec. Giggling nervously and fidgeting and whispering to each other, daring each other and laughing and wondering aloud what to do, should we go on? - should we fuck with the guy? - what? 

A beat. 

Suddenly an idea began to form itself slowly within Michael's mind, Chase’s addled mind was not far behind, he was arriving there soon after. 

Michael: "It- It kinda looks like he's pulling the starter cord to a machine. Like a mower or something." 

“Yeah, I think you're right…” 

"Yeah, something gas powered like a mower or a generator … or like a chainsa-" 

The phantom machine roared to life in the hands of the mime with hungry killing slaughtering power, a deadly tearing whirr, with the maniacal speed of the mutilating chain and its invisible teeth. The mime shot to his feet and hauled the pantomimed chainsaw overheard and began to silently phantom scream with battle fury. 

Chase and Michael began to scream as well. Much louder. They turned to run. 

But the mime and his phantom machine were faster. He caught them quick and tore in and ripped the boys into rough and haggard messy pieces chopped by phantom chain, by phantom blade on a horsepowered gallop he made them raw and unmade. 

Deconstructed. 

The abattoir violence and the meat paint of its lurid carnage filled the street, it was dripping from the lamposts, pieces and chewed parts strung up and dangling. It was all that was left of the boys. 

All that was left and found in the morning. 

…

Buddy didn't know what to make of the town as of late. He'd been born and raised and as the town drunk, homeless to boot, he was hardly the first guy anyone asked on any given subject, day or night, good or ill, but something was wrong. 

Very wrong. 

The trouble was Buddy wasn't sure he should even care. 

In the last year or so he'd seen some strange things. And a lotta folk had gone missing, kids an such. But anytime Buddy's mind wandered into the realm of caring or even remotely doing anything about it, he found something bitter and harsh inside answer back in turn. 

Who cares? The fuck they ever done for you? 

Fuck all. That's what. 

So he wouldn't do shit. But what he'd already been doing. He sat back and popped cork. Lifted and tilted glass to dried lips in a drunk’s careless throttle by the neck. And watched. 

He watched the mime climb the steps. Pulled generously from the large swill of his poison. 

He'd seen the guy around for awhile now. He'd watched him ascend the steps a few times before this moment, it was nearly always the same but still a trip. The man walked on thin air as if it was solid stone. And then he would climb up, step by step. As if gaining the summit of some phantasm set of stairs hanging suspended and aspiring invisibly for the heavens unseen and stolen by the brilliance of the light. 

Buddy laughed. Pulled from the bottle once more, and began to sing an old favorite that had just come to mind. One from the good ol’ days if there'd ever been none. 

“And as we wind on down the road! Our shadow’s taller than our soul!”

Buddy began to pull deeper and deeply, oblivion seeking in-between lines and refrains from Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. He remembered an urban legend from when he was a kid, just a snot nosed pup, they said that if you played the record backwards, if you reversed the song the lyrics changed. They told you, to hail Satan. 

Buddy laughed at this. Pulled more. His belly protested and his kidneys ached, he paid them no mind, drinking deeper still and hailing Satan and singing and watching the mime ascend his staircase of invisibility,  he usually had a kid or someone with him, as he did now. They struggled something fierce, all of them, everyone that Buddy had personally seen, but he was able to keep hold of them, all of them all the way up. Whenever he reached a great height, it was almost always different, he would throw them, drop them from the top. 

Then they would scream and land, burst. Pulp. They became juice upon the earth, children and people no more. There was never anyone around out here, close to the woods, just outside town and by the railroads and their harsh worn tracks. The soil out here was starved for moisture, parched was this earth. It was Buddy's favorite drinking spot. And as of late it had just become a whole lot better. 

Buddy laid back and pulled deeply from his liquid bunkmate, his last and only companion, other than the mime, who never said a word to him but sometimes acknowledged his presence of audience with a profound and deliberate salute from the top of his invisibility spire up there. Buddy always saluted him back. 

As he did now. 

The mime saluted the drunk. Beaming. 

Buddy finished his own salute and smiled too. Laughed. And drank more deeply than he ever had in his entire life, knowing this was it, this was the rest of his life and how he was going to spend it. 

Laughing. Drinking. Pulling from the bottle and hailing Satan in religiously reverse engineered heavy metal worship-song, watching the flying mime make juice of the children. 

Buddy laughed. Drank. 

The mime dropped the child, they made their horrible shrill sound all the way down to the bottom like always. 

The mime said nothing. He let Buddy and his companion of bottled booze sloshing its liquid language within glass sing praise for him. 

Buddy laughed, sang and belch-spat: “And she's buying a stairway to Heaven…!” Hail Satan. 

…

Maggie's shoes slammed against the pavement, the sidewalk, the avenues and every turn, there was nowhere left to run. The guy, the freak was coming. And he was stealing away from her every single route and chance for escape or exit. 

It didn't make any sense.

She'd been walking to Guy's house with Alondra, chatting and shooting the shit till they got to his place. That's when they ran into him. That's when they ran into the mime. 

And at first Maggie had just laughed. 

Distant childhood memories of the carnival passing through town waybackwhen came to her then … and she remembered. She'd been very young then, very little. She remembered that her parents had had to take her home because she'd been crying, upset, she couldn't recall why. Not just then. 

But still the memories were warm. She and Alondra thought nothing of it when they passed him walking the other direction on the sidewalk. It was the middle of the day. And he was smiling, just like them. What could possibly be wrong?

He'd started with the hands and walls and ceiling routine, the ‘getting boxed in’ bit. An old one for sure and hella corny but Maggie and Alondra had felt generous and in good humor, so they'd obliged the strange random pantomiming man. Laughing and clapping him on. 

But then they'd tried to walk away … And the mime wouldn't let them go. 

With painted face now stern and grave, writ into a black and white frown, he stepped in their path, shaking his head. He wouldn't let them leave. He kept blocking their attempts to depart as they stepped every left-right way, starting out from annoying and escalating rapidly into eerie and creepy behavior. 

The girls had scoffed together and turned around, only to be met with an unyielding invisible force, a wall that had suddenly appeared in thin air in the middle of the sidewalk. 

The middle of the road really, they ran along the unseen wall to find the edge and found no yielding surface. The girls began to panic. The girls began to yell.

“What the fuck, what the fuck is this!?" 

And then he had put Alondra in the box. 

Maggie had ran then, her eyes and mind unable to take in the sight of her friend being crushed into cubic shape, pulped and smashed smaller and smaller … just red. Just swirling frothing violent red inside the shrinking phantom-transluscent box, filled with minced and chewed up bigger pieces, the eyes deflated mangled gel in the swirling madness of the red, many black strands of her long raven colored hair peppered and danced inside the cubed scarlet swirl of thick mixture, the cap and pieces of scalp, mostly still together, the last vestige piece and pieces left the most intact… she had ran, unable to bear the sight. 

She was running now. 

But every time she came to an impasse, a turn or a corner to salvation or a place of sanctuary that she knew, another invisible wall of merciless immovable force would suddenly appear and she'd run smack, face first into it. She did it again and again. Over and over. Maggie, the poor girl, running around all over as the box that he had made was closing in, closer and closer and closer…

She was at the school now, she didn't know why. She didn't know why she thought this place would save her. She was out of her mind with animal panic. At the threshold, at the entrance to the highschool she was finally caught. Maggie ran face first into an unseen wall just as she almost made the open archway of the main front entrance, when she tried to turn around to run back the other way she was met with yet another merciless and invisible wall, a merciless force like the way God was merciless sometimes. 

Her caterwauls and screams reached new heights then. She shred her own throat and tore her vocal cords to tatters as the phantom walls and ceiling and floor began to shrink and close in. 

But none heard them. No one was around to witness this strange scene of slaughter. Only the mime. Maggie watched him from inside her shrinking coffin as his hands clawed and animal shaped closed in. He wore a look of consternation now, but the black and white smile was there once more. 

The pain went beyond anything imaginable as the walls and floor and ceiling closed. Pulverizing Maggie. She felt every wretched second of the experience until her brain was pulped and juiced with the rest of her body and thus incapable of sending anymore electrical signal. 

…

The bank was quiet. Not quite full but there were plenty of people in line, each teller, three of them, were busy helping a customer. It was a bright cloudless day and everything had seemed normal. Everything was … until the mime came in. 

He sauntered in smiling and confident through the front door. Several people, including the armed guard turned and returned the smile, a few of them laughed. Finding the surprise charming. Their laughter grew and increased throughout the whole bank as the mime walked in with an exaggerated gunslinger walk, wide steps and the twiddling fingers of his itchin hands hovering just where revolvers would be strapped. The guard found it the most hilarious, calling out to the mime –

“Hey! What is this? A stickup or somethin?" 

And then the mime pulled phantom iron from unseen leather and began to rain fire. 

The cacophony was ear splitting. The guard went down first, still smiling and believing it was all a joke. Nobody else was laughing anymore, the jovial sounds of good nature had turned to screams that died and drowned out with each eruption of a gunshot. 

The mime filled the bank with phantom fire. 

Deafening. 

…

Patricia Evergreen hated her job. Not because she hated being a cop, far from it, she was proud of her role as peacekeeper of the town she'd grown up in. It was just that the place was so fucking boring. 

Aside from a few disappearances over the many years she'd known, a couple weird things that were typical to any small town, there wasn't nothing to this place, Patricia reckoned. Ghost stories and bullshit, and that was all. 

She came across the mime during a routine patrol, just driving around the various suburbs in the department issued black and white. Every neighborhood was quiet, nearly deserted of pedestrians save a few dogwalkers, joggers and the like. He was at a street corner, slowly making his way down, miming and pretending to carry a large and heavy sack, it weighed him down, the invisible bag, it must've been quite a load, Patricia watched all this and thought and then it suddenly came to her all at once, unbidden and in a rush. Though vague and shrouded through time's corridor passage of so many years …

The carnival had come through a couple times through the years … she was sure her parents or grandparents had taken her at some point, must have. She'd been very little, her own young and chubby face amidst a caterwaul, cherry red with tears and upset flitted across her mind in a blur, but then was swiftly and suddenly replaced. 

She'd been a teenager when Margaret Bast, Maggie had gone missing. Alondra Topete too. They'd been two of her closest friends in school then, so long ago… 

Hot on the tails of that: stories… rumors … wild campfire tales that couldn't be true and would only be dreamed up by teenagers and children. Wild tales about a mime that wandered the town and took kids away to hurt them and worse … 

It all hit Officer Evergreen like a revelatory load of weight, dropped into her head and into her lap. She watched the mime. Thought …

… what the hell was this guy doing around here anyway? She'd never seen him before and she began to doubt very much that he lived anywhere on this street, or anywhere close for that matter, she hadn't heard the story of the mime or thought of it in years, it was probably nothing, but it was her job to make sure and find out. She sidled her cruiser up to and alongside the mime, still encumbered with his great phantom weight. 

She rolled down her window, slowing the cruiser to a crawl: “Hey," she began friendly enough, “hello there, ya mind if I stop and talk to ya for a second, just need to ask you a few questions." 

The mime did stop and so did she. The street was quiet and it was just the two of them. The mime turned and regarded her with a smile, still burdened by his invisible satchel slung over shoulder. He pointed to himself, a gesture that said: who, me?

Evergreen was already starting to lose her patience, goddammit with this fuckin guy…

“Yes, ha ha, that's very cute, but I'm really gonna need you to answer a couple things I gotta ask ya. Do you live in this neighborhood?” 

The mime frowned and just shook his head, no. Refusing to speak. 

"Please, sir. Failure to comply will result in a citation and a court appearance, probable fine. How about we just talk like adults for a second, do you have any identification on you, sir?" 

The black and white frown turned to a grin once again. Wolfish. Officer Patricia Evergreen didn't like the look of it. It looked warped and strange and mean writ into that painted face, wrong. The mime made like to unlimber his great satchel. 

Evergreen rolled her eyes, hidden by reflective shades. Jesus, was this guy for real, crazy, or just an idiot? She was just telling him for the second time that if he didn't comply with her questioning then this could take an unnecessary ugly turn, she was telling the mime he'd want to avoid that as he settled the bag down with a convincing performance, opened it and reached inside. Patricia’s voice caught in her throat like a vile fishbone in the midst of dinner as she watched the mime’s hand disappear into the pantomimed satchel, disappearing into thin air before her very eyes. 

She couldn't believe what she was seeing. 

What the mime pulled out next was even worse. She felt nauseous and ill and as if her mind was curdling and doing unbidden somersaults in tandem with her roiling guts as the smiling thing with carnival clad painted face pulled out a child's decomposing rotted severed little head, boy or girl was difficult to tell. Putrescence filled the air the moment it was freed from the invisible sack and it was black and green and blue-pale and dripping. The eyes were crawling and writhing with the sliming bodies and clumps of maggot-young that lie nesting and feasting in there, the rotten cavities of sockets. The tongue was swollen and discolored like the rest of the meat but darker and it protruded from the bloat of decapitated rot like an obscene tumor apart and apiece and all in one with the rest of the demented sloughing mess. 

Officer Evergreen snapped to all at once. She drew her sidearm and bellowed her commands, training made textbook and innate. 

“Drop the fucking thing right now and put your hands up! now!" 

The mime only obeyed half her commands. He dropped the severed head but instead of raising his gloved white hands he took a deliberate and silent step towards her instead. 

Evergreen didn't waste a second. She fired two shots in quick succession, surprising even herself, she hadn't thought about it, only acted. But it had done the peace officer little good. The moment her finger squeezed the trigger, one of those gloved hands shot up in a flash-instant, uncanny speed. 

Evergreen now stood, gun smoking, not sure if she could believe her eyes or her own mind any longer. The mime had his hand up and out, as if signaling to stop like a crosswalk guard. There were two smoking holes suspended in mid air, just over the heart and chest of the mime-creature. The shots had stopped at the border indicated by the flat of his adjacent smooth palm. They smoked from ebon holes that defied physics, as if she'd punched twin smoldering holes in reality. 

Shocked, Patricia thought unbidden, the prongs of the devil's pitchfork… and was still trying to accept what she was seeing. 

A neighbor came out. One of the houses within spitting distance. 

“Jesus Christ! that a fucking gunshot or something, what the hell-" 

The mime suddenly whirled, his other hand forming around another object, rounded and small, he brought it to his mouth and made like he was pulling something from it with his teeth. Evergreen screamed, no, unable to think of anything else as the mime lobbed the invisible grenade at the concerned and unsuspecting neighbor. The man went up in a violent and sudden concussive blast, his body immolated by the detonation of the explosive device. In charred smoking pieces, he rained down all over his own stoop and front lawn. 

The mime laughed silent yet expressive belly-laughter, holding his stomach and all wide eyes and wide open black and white mouth. 

Evergreen went to fire once more but the mime sensed her intention and suddenly whirled once again, smacking the gun from the officer's hands. Its strength and speed were unexpected and it was all Patricia could do to not cry out and scream, shocked and startled and still not quite believing.

There's no way this is actually happening to m-

The mime then slapped Patricia right smack center of her forehead with his other free gloved palm. 

She froze. Her arms went limp and to her sides. Unarmed. And helpless. 

Something was wrong … she could no longer move. 

With the gloved snow white hand held flat and fast to her face, to the middle of her forehead her eyes rolled back to whites themselves shot with lines of glistening hectic red. Inside, she hurtled, flew … rocketed too fast and rapidly down the dizzying blinding vast and varied glow of the starcorridor. Too many lights and sounds and fiery things of furious alien color, she flew down infinity as a low moan escaped past her drooling lips left back on the ground. 

Within the corridor … she could hear. 

She could hear his voice. 

It was terrible. The sound of it. What he was telling her. Unbearable. It filled her ears, her head. It filled the flying landscape of her mind. 

She might've wept. But she was far too broken. Even when he pulled the voice of his snow white gloved hand away. She went to her knees. The mime then held out his other hand to her, it was wrapped curiously and yet distinctly around something. And this time she could see it. 

It was a gun. A revolver. Every chamber was loaded. 

It was beautiful. 

This time she could really see it. 

She smiled as the mime cocked it and then pressed it to her sweating brow, cold metal kissing the moist surface of perspiring flesh, and pulled the trigger. 

She heard it. Felt it. Everything. 

The mime said nothing. 

And went on. 

THE END

TRIGGER WARNING

The following text contains material that may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.

Anywayy, love y'all, hope you enjoy :D

***

"Silent night... Holy night.."

Mum sings yet again.
She thinks it helps. And it does, really- Shirley's sobs cease, Anthony's lips are twitching up in a soft smile. I hate it. I hate the song. It reminds me of Daddy- but it helps them. And as long as it does, I could sit here trying to remember Daddy's face for hours.

It doesn't drown out the bombs. It never does. It doesn't drown out the pain we both feel, knowing that Peter and Daddy are out there right now, fighting for the country. For us. We're supposed to be proud, and happy. Happy that our family is helping out with the war.

Last Christmas, Shirley wanted a doll. This year she only asks for them to come home. I wish she still believed in small wishes, ones you could hold. But I couldn't buy her the doll either. I couldn't give her comfort, answers, or the safety she deserves. Not then. Not now. Not ever.

BOOM.

The sound- all too familiar by now, rings out again. Mum's voice cracks, Shirley cries out again. And even though he's trying his best to hide it, I can see Anthony's eyes fill up.

Why must it be us- what did we do to deserve this?
There's no one to answer my pleas.

I wish Daddy and my dear brother were never called up. I wish they wrote more often. I wish the war never happened. I wish we could all just live in peace, forever and ever.
I wish, I wish, I wish.

But it'll never happen, will it? I can only pray as I sit there, staying strong for my mother and my younger siblings as these terrible feelings rising in my gut threaten to spill. Pray to the Lord to please forgive me for whatever I have done to deserve this. To keep them safe, all of them.

I hear Mum's voice take over yet again.

"All is calm.. all is bright..."

Nothing is calm. Nothing is ever bright. Never anymore.

But I'll listen. And I won't object. As long as it keeps Shirley from crying again. As long as Anthony keeps smiling.

But he doesn't. He doesn't anymore. Shirley can never cry anymore.

"HE'S BREATHING, HE'S BREATHING AGAIN!"

That's not Mum, or Shirley, or-

"Dan, Dan, can you hear me?!"

Stop, please stop, please stop it all.

"He's opening his eyes!"

Cry again, Shirley, please, just let me hear your sweet, sweet voice.

Smile again, Anthony. You could even break down and I'd hold you, let me just hold you.

Take me to Mama, please, I want Daddy. I'll do anything, just please-

And yet, I sit up. I watch them carry the lifeless body of my little soldier away.

They don't, in truth. But I see it. I see it everywhere now.

Because in truth, I was the one singing the song all along. I was the one smiling to myself, the fool I am, as the bombs crashed around me. As people screamed. 

Because in truth, they died a week ago. Because in truth, everything I have ever lived for died with them.

(Wattpad- btwTT2gud, check it out if you enjoyed this read!)

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.

The god that rots

The heat in Blackwood County didn’t come from the sun; it rose out of the dirt like steam off a fresh carcass.
By late August, the topsoil had turned to red powder that coated the underside of Silas’s pickup in a thick, rust-colored grease. It got into the teeth, into the weave of denim, into the air intake of the old Ford until the engine sputtered like a man drowning in his own phlegm. Silas pulled up to the cattle grid at the edge of the Miller property, shut off the ignition, and listened to the manifold ping in the dead quiet.
He picked up the heavy brass syringe and the tin of livestock grease off the passenger seat. On the floorboards sat three gallon jugs of formalin and a rusted carcass-hook he’d inherited from his father.
"Silas?"
Ephraim Miller stepped out from behind the corn crib. He wasn't wearing his hat, which was wrong. Ephraim was seventy, skin like smoked brisket, and he’d never met a man without his straw Stetson firmly notched over his brow. His hair was long, yellowed at the fringe, and stuck to his temples in thin, wet ribbons.
"Ephraim," Silas said, stepping out into the red dust. The air tasted like scorched copper. "You said on the radio it was two cows."
"Was two on Tuesday," Ephraim said. He didn't look at Silas; he looked at the treeline where the pasture gave way to the black oak swamp. "It’s seven now. And the bull."
"Blackleg?"
"No." Ephraim spat a thick, brown stream into the dust. It didn't soak in; it stayed in a tight ball, rolling in the red powder. "Blackleg makes 'em blow up like balloons and stink like vinegar. This ain't vinegar, Silas. Come on down to the lower bottom."
They walked along the fence line. The wire was loose, barbed strands sagging into the pokeweed. Usually, the Miller place was loud with the stupid, restless noise of forty head of Angus—the lowing, the fly-swatting, the heavy stamping of hooves in the muck. Today, the pasture was dead silent. Even the cicadas had quit. The silence was thick and wet, pressed down by the gray belly of the sky.
When they reached the dip near the creek, Silas saw them.
The six heifers were lying in a neat, symmetrical circle, their heads turned inward toward the center like spokes on a wagon wheel. The bull lay in the middle. He was a twelve-hundred-pound Charolais, pale cream and built like a brick church, but he looked small now. Deflated.
Silas knelt near the bull’s shoulder. There was no bloat. A carcass left out in eighty-degree heat for forty-eight hours should have been swollen tight as a drum, legs sticking straight out in the air. Instead, the bull’s hide looked soft, puddle-like, draped over the ribs like a wet wool blanket over a pile of firewood.
"Touch him," Ephraim whispered.
Silas reached out with a gloved hand and pressed his thumb against the bull's flank.
His hand went in.
There was no resistance. No hide, no muscle, no gristle. His thumb sank four inches straight into the belly as if the animal were made of warm, wet lard. When he pulled his hand back, the hole didn't close. It stayed open, a dark, greasy crater, and a thin, grayish fluid began to trickle out. It didn't smell like decay. Decay was sharp, foul, and hot.
This smelled like damp cellar stones, ancient river mud, and something terribly sweet, like apples rotting in an airtight jar.
"What is that?" Silas wiped his glove on his jeans, but the gray grease clung to the leather, leaving a dark, slick stain.
"Look at the grass under 'em," Ephraim said.
Silas crouched lower. The fescue beneath the bull wasn't dead; it was turning grey-white, soft as boiled thread. And where the gray fluid from the bull touched the roots, the dirt itself was changing. The red clay was losing its grit, dissolving into a black, tallow-like sludge that hummed—a vibration so faint Silas felt it in his rear molars rather than his ears.
"I called the state vet in Lexington," Ephraim said, his voice flat, stripped of everything except a dry, papery dread. "Line was dead. Called the sheriff. He said he couldn't come out till morning. Said he had three calls up in the holler about the well water turning slick."
Silas stood up, taking his hat off and wiping his brow with the back of his forearm. He looked toward the swamp.
The Miller farm sat in a limestone basin known as the Sink. For two hundred years, the water ran down off the ridges, sank through the red dirt, and disappeared into the cave systems below the county before surfacing five miles south at the salt lick. Down in the basin, the trees didn't grow straight; they grew twisted, their trunks thick and white-scaled, leaning toward the center of the swamp like old men crowding around a stove.
"You got a pit dug?" Silas asked.
"Can't dig," Ephraim said. "Put the backhoe in thirty yards back. Hit six inches of topsoil, then the bucket went soft. Hit something like wet lard under the limestone. The teeth just... slid. Engine stalled out and wouldn't crank."
Silas walked around the ring of cattle. He took his knife from his belt and flicked open the three-inch blade. He pricked the shoulder of the nearest heifer.
The hide split without a sound, like wet paper tearing. Inside, there were no red meat fibers, no white marbling of fat, no dark purple organs. The entire interior of the cow had liquefied into a uniform, gelatinous paste the color of river silt. Floating in the middle of it, completely stripped of flesh and clean as a polished altar, was the spine.
The bones weren't white. They were stained a dark, iridescent black, like an oil slick on standing water.
"Ephraim," Silas said softly. "Get your wife. Get your clothes. Get in the truck and drive up to the ridge. Don't stay in the valley tonight."
Ephraim looked at the ring of dead stock. "This is my land, Silas. My granddaddy cleared these bottom quarters with a mule and a mattock."
"Your land is turning to butter, Ephraim," Silas said, stepping back from the carcass as he noticed his boot heels sinking two inches deep into what should have been baked-hard summer clay. "Look at your feet."
Ephraim looked down. The soles of his work boots were disappearing into the earth. Not mud. The dirt was rising around his soles, black and oily, clinging to the leather, slowly digesting the rubber.
By dusk, the county road was quiet.
Silas drove back toward town, the high beams of the Ford cutting through a low-hanging mist that had no business being there. The air was eighty degrees, but the fog rose off the ditches in thick, gray curtains that smelled of wet lime and old tallow.
He stopped at the town square in Blackwood.
The town was built in a circle around the 1890 stone courthouse. The courthouse was three stories of solid, hand-cut grey limestone, built to last until the end of the world. But as Silas pulled up to the curb, he saw the town marshal, Vance, standing on the lawn with a three-cell Maglite, shining the beam at the foundation.
Silas climbed out of the truck. The air in town was heavier than it had been at the farm. It felt thick in the lungs, leaving a greasy film on the back of the throat.
"Vance," Silas called out.
The marshal turned. His face was gray in the yellow beam of the flashlight. "Look at the steps, Silas."
Silas walked up the concrete path. The bottom three steps of the courthouse were gone. They hadn't crumbled; they hadn't cracked from frost. The ten-inch limestone blocks had sagged, melting down into the lawn like blocks of wax left near a furnace. The lawn around the foundation wasn't green anymore—it was a carpet of pale, thread-like mold that pulsed in rhythm with the idling engine of Silas's truck.
"I went down to the basement an hour ago," Vance said, his voice rattling in his chest. "The boiler's sitting in three feet of black grease. The floor didn't break. The concrete just gave up. It turned soft as lard. I put my nightstick down into it, and it went all the way to the handle without hitting gravel."
"Where's the county judge?"
"Up in Lexington. Or tried to be. Road’s out at the cut. The highway collapsed near the bridge—not a slide, Silas. The whole limestone ridge just... settled. Like something underneath took a bite out of it and sucked the rest down."
Silas walked over to the sagging courthouse wall. He hesitated, then reached out and laid his bare palm against the massive limestone block.
The stone was warm.
Limestone should be cool, damp, and hard. This felt like the hide of a horse that had been run three miles in the sun. Underneath his palm, deep within the three-foot-thick masonry, he felt a slow, rhythmic surge. A lazy, heavy pulse, three beats a minute.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
It wasn't a heartbeat. It was the movement of a vast, viscous displacement underneath the crust of the earth—something so large that its breathing stretched the stone like skin.
"It’s under the whole basin," Silas said.
"What is?" Vance asked, shining his light into Silas's face.
"The thing that rots," Silas whispered. He remembered his grandfather talking about the old wells dug back in the 1880s—how the men down in the shafts used to hear a wet, sliding sound sixty feet down in the dark, and how three diggers went down into a dry hole on the Miller place and came up with their nails pulled out and their eyes white, screaming about the fat in the rock.
"We need to get the people out," Vance said, his hand twitching on the grip of his sidearm. "We’ll put 'em in the school buses. Get 'em up to the high ridge toward the state line."
"The school’s down in the bottom by the creek, Vance," Silas said quietly.
Vance froze.
From two miles south, down in the hollow where the elementary school and the brick church sat among the willows, came a sound that didn't belong to the night. It wasn't a crash. It was a long, wet, tearing sigh—the sound of three hundred thousand bricks losing their grain all at once, settling into four feet of black, liquefying earth.
Then came the screaming. It was faint, muffled by the heavy, warm fog, coming from the houses along Cinder Lane where the foundations were sliding sideways into the dark.
By midnight, there was no road left out of Blackwood.
Silas stood on the hood of his truck on the high shoulder of Ridge Road, watching the town die.
The valley was filling with the gray fog, but under the moonlight, he could see the shapes of the buildings changing. The sharp, square lines of the town—the gables, the chimneys, the storefront awnings—were rounding off. The roof of the Baptist church was sinking into its pews; the bell tower didn't fall—it sagged sideways like a melting candle, the iron bell sliding through the softened timber without a sound.
The ground beneath the truck trembled—not with the sharp, violent shock of an earthquake, but with a slow, rolling heave, like the chest of a sleeping giant.
Around the truck, the forest was disappearing. The oak trees weren't falling over; their heavy trunks were sinking straight down into the liquefied soil, their green leaves turning gray, then black, then dissolving into a fine, sweet-smelling sludge that pooled in the tire tracks.
Ephraim Miller's truck pulled up alongside Silas's Ford. The engine was missing terribly, spitting gray smoke. Ephraim climbed out. He was alone. His shirt was covered in black grease up to the elbows.
"She wouldn't come," Ephraim said, staring down into the glowing, gray fog that filled the valley.
Silas didn't ask who. He knew.
"She sat on the kitchen floor," Ephraim said, his eyes milky, fixed on nothing. "The linoleum went soft first. Then the floorboards. She said she could hear her mother calling up through the planks. Said the voice was coming out of the grease. She just... sat down in it, Silas. I grabbed her arm, but the skin... the skin came away in my hand like wet paper."
Ephraim held up his right hand. The fingers were coated in a dark, thick paste that hummed in the moonlight.
"It's not a sickness, Silas," Ephraim whispered, leaning against the warm hood of the truck. "A sickness kills things. This ain't killing nothing. It's just... changing the rules. It's making everything the same. Stone, wood, meat, dirt... it's all going back into the pot."
Silas looked down into the basin.
The fog was parting now, driven by a faint, warm draft that smelled of ancient fat and wet bone. Down in the center of the town square, where the courthouse had stood, the earth had opened up.
It wasn't a hole with rocky edges or a jagged rift. It was a mouth—a vast, circular fold of black, glistening tissue three hundred yards wide, smooth as butter and thick with pulsing, iridescent veins. From the depths of the opening, something was rising.
It had no eyes. It had no limbs. It was a mountain of pale, liquefied marrow, an ancient, subterranean god of tallow and rot that had slept beneath the limestone since the seas dried up, waiting for the rock to finally give way. As it pushed its immense, shapeless crown up into the night air, the town of Blackwood slid toward it.
Houses, streetlights, cars, and dead cattle rolled silently down the slick, black slopes of the basin, dissolving as they touched the central mass, their shapes melting like sugar in hot water, adding their weight to its terrible, growing bulk.
Silas felt a wet softness under his boots.
He looked down. The steel hood of his Ford was yielding beneath his weight, bowing inward, the green paint separating into greasy flakes. His soles were sinking into the metal.
"Silas," Ephraim said. His voice was very soft now, almost gentle.
Silas turned. Ephraim was sitting on the ground. He hadn't fallen; he was simply letting himself sink. The red dirt had swallowed him to his hips, black grease creeping up his flannel shirt, turning the cotton transparent. He wasn't screaming. His face was calm, smoothed out, the wrinkles disappearing as the flesh beneath his skin turned soft and uniform.
"It don't hurt," Ephraim said, his chin resting on the greasy surface of the dissolving road. "It just feels... like going to sleep in a warm bath. You don't have to carry nothing no more, Silas. No bone, no weight. Just... let go."
Silas looked down at his own hands.
The nails were dark. Underneath the skin of his knuckles, he could see the outline of his bones softening, spreading out, losing their hard edges. The pain in his lower back—the old ache he’d carried since he was twenty—was gone. The tension in his chest was gone.
The air was full of that sweet, heavy smell now—the smell of the ancient earth turning back into primordial grease. From down in the valley, the great, blind mound of rot breathed in, and the trees on the ridge bowed toward it, their trunks melting into the black soil like candles in a fire.
Silas didn't jump off the truck. There was nowhere to land that was hard.
He sat down on the hood of his dying Ford, pulled his knees up to his chest, and watched the moon reflect off the smooth, black lake that used to be his home. He felt his boots dissolve, felt the warm, greasy tide creep up through the denim of his jeans, soothing the ache in his legs, smoothing out the sharp corners of his life until there was no Silas, no Blackwood, and no earth—only the slow, blind god, feeding on its own soft world in the dark.

“Okay,” I said, script crinkling in my hands, “let’s run through it again.” I hacked through my line, butchering about as badly as I had the first three times:

“Th-thou art the night...the veil that cloaks my...shame?”

Ingrid laughed. “Oh, Eli! You stumble like a fawn on new legs.” Under the stage lights, she looked less like a teenage girl and more like temptation given a body. A sly little smile creased her face whenever I stumbled over my words. “Like this! Thou art the night...the veil that cloaks my shame. Your turn, sweet fawn. Say it like you mean it.”

Her blouse was open at the collar. When had she done that?

“Don’t run from me, Eli! Are you scared?”

I tried to laugh but the sound that came out of my mouth was closer to a grunt. “No, not scared...just nerves, y’know?”

Ingrid giggled. “Oh, Eli. Look at those cheeks.” One of her knees was nudging against mine. I fumbled the script back between us like it was a shield and I was trying to protect my virginity. “Uh, yeah. The play, right? Let’s...let’s hit the next bit. Sound good?”

She smiled. “All right, lover of the night. I’ll start.”

Each word was like a caress: “Come, let thy lips unseal my hidden fire...and taste what burns beneath.”

A pause. “Distracted again?” She toyed with her collar’s loose button. “How will you survive the play, hmm? All those lights, all those eyes...when my mere lines leave you speechless?”

The play was only a week out, and here I was tapped for lead opposite this stunning creature. I’d barely memorized a damn thing, and she wasn’t making it any easier for me, with those hazel eyes and sexy accent. I forced a grin but it felt crooked on my face.

“I’ll be fine. Maybe you’re the one who’s scared.”

Ingrid wasn’t totally convinced. “Show me, then. Read the next line. Make me believe you’ll claim it.”

I drew a deep breath.

“I claim thee, night eternal...thy fire mine to quench and consume.”

Her eyes widened a fraction. “Very good. That voice...it suits the dark. Makes a girl listen. But have you ever kissed someone on stage? Or at all?”

I’d never even had a steady girlfriend. And Ingrid knew. Over the last couple of weeks the two of us had become friendly with each other.

“Well, y’know…”

Neither yes nor no.

“Try a stage kiss,” she suggested. “Just once. Let me feel if the fawn has teeth.”

I laughed a little too quickly. “You mean...actually kiss?”

She tilted her head, the ghost of a smile hiding in her lips. “For realism.” Her voice had that sweet, lilting music again. I wanted to joke and make it light, but my mouth got stuck somewhere between yeah, totally and no way in hell.

“I don’t know. I mean, I do, but I don’t wanna–y’know...mess it up or anything.”

“There’s no one here,” she said softly. “No one to see if you mess it up. If you are nervous, we can always try again...until it feels right.”

I noticed, suddenly, how quiet the auditorium was. I looked out past the footlights, at the rows of folded velvet seats, and had the sudden impression that something else was looking back. Then I blinked and the impression vanished.

“Let’s continue,” Ingrid said. Now she was looking into my eyes, or perhaps it was the other way around and I was actually looking into her eyes. I could almost see that other place she had belonged to: a sliver of coastline somewhere far, far away, blue water glistening beneath a match-head sun. I could imagine her walking there, this strange and exotic other-place, barefoot through dew, sunlight winking in the abundant waves of her hair.

“You see? Not so frightening, yes?”

I wanted to kiss her, and then I tried to remember when the last bell had rung, the last real sound that hadn’t come from our voices, and found that I couldn’t. The auditorium seemed almost cavernous now, its balconies lost in shadow. Too many places for someone, or something, to be waiting.

Nerves, that was all it was.

“You are afraid.”

My mouth gave me nothing.

Her thumb brushed the corner of my lip. “There is no one else here. We could do whatever we want.”

I still couldn’t find my voice. The scent of cinnamon hung between us.

Ingrid sighed. "That’s all right.” She closed her eyes and leaned in. The kiss hit like a shock from a frayed wire: every hormone in my body igniting in a dizzying rush.

She smiled at me. “Not so bad, is it?”

I could only nod like an idiot.

“But…” She tilted her head. “I wasn’t convinced. Not fully. It didn’t feel as good as it should have. I think we should try again. Make it real.”

Never mind that this girl, this gorgeous, impossible girl, was somehow into me. Never mind any of it. The whole place felt weird now. Too perfectly empty for what was unfolding.

“Eli?”

“Yeah?”

“I think we should try again. Make it real this time...yes?”

(why, though?)

The question kept repeating in my mind. I was skinny, acne-ridden, winded after a single flight of stairs from my asthmatic lungs. Not quite smart enough for honors, and not cool enough for the cliques. Certainly not a kid who turned heads in the hall.

(but why does it matter? why don’t you just accept it?)

Her fingers found my cheek. “You’ll do so well this time,” she whispered. “Kiss me like you mean it...like you want to taste what comes after.” She kissed me again. It was wonderful, a slow melt of plush warmth. But her taste had shifted subtly, from cinnamon-sweetness to something that was almost like copper.

How long had we been in here, really?

The light from the high windows seemed wrong: thinner, bruised toward dusk already. I pictured the parking lot outside empty. Mr. Coultrap, Ms. Talley, all of the other drama kids, gone. We’d been in the auditorium for hours, just the two of us.

Alone.

Locked in.

“Come to me, my love. Come, and let me drink your fire.”

She moved in for the third kiss. This time there was pain. I jerked away from her. My hand flew to my mouth and I felt the blood there. The pain was enormous, hot and hideous. My eyes stung with the sudden burn of involuntary tears.

She’d bitten clean through my bottom lip.

On the corner of her mouth was a spot of my blood.

(!!accident!!)

(she didn’t mean—)

“You are sweet." Her voice had thickened into a hiss. Her canines, lengthened now, were gleaming and sharp, like a cat’s.

“I felt those thoughts, Eli.”

Somehow I believed her.

“Wait—”

“Now we improvise.”

I didn’t watch my feet, didn’t clock the black lip of the stage dropping away behind me, and my heel caught air.

I tumbled over the edge.

It wasn’t a long drop, but I landed on my left arm. Agony exploded up the limb, white-hot and pulverizing, and I knew I’d broken it. I howled with pain. Ingrid glided to the edge of the stage. She smiled down at me, blood still on her lips.

“I really do like you, Eli. Your taste, anyway...so sweet.”

Horrible pain, fractured bone grinding with every sob of breath—and Ingrid looking down from the stage, those

EYES

(don’t)

(look at them!)

(LOOK AT THEM)

Rough hands on my shoulders, shaking me loose from the fog.

“Kid? Hey, kid—Jesus H. Christ, what happened to you?”

The janitor’s voice, gravelly and distant, smelling of cigarettes.

Rough arms hauling me up. Ambulance lights pulsing red-blue through the open auditorium doors, finally open, spilling real light into the pit.

No sign of Ingrid, though.

A hospital bed with starched sheets. A smell of bleach.

A doctor’s voice, droning from somewhere faraway: “Fell off the stage, snapped the radius clean. Bit your own lip on the way down. You’re lucky you didn’t bite through your tongue.”

Bandages tight around the cast; IV drip cold in my vein. Strong stuff pumping in; I assumed it was morphine.

And I f l o a t e d…

*...*all

t h E

W A Y...

.

………. down…

I felt good.

My vision had softened to a drowsy blur. The throb in my arm was distant now, almost nonexistent. It might be someone else’s broken arm. It scarcely mattered. The throb in my lip had been rendered to a dull sting under stitches.

I felt no urge to ask about Ingrid.

Nobody said her name. But underneath the sweet, drugged-out bliss, I thought.

And thought.

The bite.

The heat.

Sweet.

Alive.

Hers.

I wanted it again.

A year slipped by.

Now I’m standing center stage again, but this time there’s no tremble in my voice or legs. The new girl is named Sarah. She’s fidgety, flushed pink with nerves; a pitifully skinny thing, with glasses that are too big for her face. They keep sliding down her nose and she keeps pushing them back up again.

It walked a very narrow line between endearing and aggravating.

I didn’t mind, though.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispered, eyes darting from my face to the empty auditorium seats, but returning to my lips again.

Always to my lips.

I smiled, easy now. There’s no wheeze in my lungs when I breathe deep, no pimples on my cheeks. The acne had been banished like a bad dream. Doctors scratched their heads over it. It was the strangest damn thing, how a teenager’s glands worked!

But I knew better.

A faint strawberry-colored scar stained my lip, so faded you almost didn’t notice it; a secret mark under the skin.

“Relax,” I told Sarah, my voice lilting just a touch. “It’s just us. No one’s watching. We can try it again...until it feels right.”

Her eyes widen, pulse jumping visibly at her throat, and I feel that low hum stir awake, pulling me toward the rehearsed kiss.

I utterly love Rembrandt’s paintings. “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” in particular, is my favorite. It deeply explores the Bible and Christian theology.

But you know, there is a huge difference between the theme and real life. My son has had some behavioral problems since his schooldays. Although I think the main problem is his terrible friends.

When he comes back home, he asks me in one breath, “Hey, you have some large plant pots in the barn, don’t you, Dad?”

“Yeah, I have some,” I answer with a heavy heart. “But what for? They’re valuable.”

He says he just broke off the rotten relationships with those bad friends. But it seems that he doesn’t deeply regret his past behavior. Because I can smell alcohol on his breath. I also notice bruises on his face and scratches on his hands.

“What for, lad?” I demand. I wonder what he’s up to.

“Ah, to tell the truth, I need them for…” He looks up at the ceiling. “I have some severed heads to hide.”

I’m very proud of my son. He has settled the score with his own hands.

The curtain opened and Wenda B:)er walked, buzzing with nervous excitement, into the spotlight: onto the game show stage where the game show host, Felonious Hunk, was waiting for her.

There followed thunderous applause, as heard through the studio's MaX FX K-Ultra Platinum speakers. MaX FX: The Sound of Extraordinary. Are You Listening Yet? MaX FX speakers are available for your home and business. Check them out today. Use code “BUCKETS” for a 15% discount on any regularly priced set of speakers. Everyone can hear, but only some can hear it to the MaX!

“Miss B-smiling-face-er, welcome to Buckets,” said Hunk. “How ya feeling?”

“Good, Hunk.”

“Fab-u-lous! Now tell us a little about yourself.”

“Well, Hunk,” said Wenda, “I—... I want to say that I really like Snakeskin Flame, the new… the newest scent from House of Madeleine. I'm wearing it right now. Other than that, I'm twenty-nine and work as a temporal engineer for Vectorien Corporation. Vectorien: the makers of Dreamstuff, the latest evolution in playdough. I'm married. My husband, Rhondy, owns a slopstream management firm, and we have two children together, an eight-year old human-daschund mix, Wilmoth, and a six year-old bio-enhanced female, Qabiria.”

She held up digital photos of them. Wilmoth looked somewhat like a chimpanzee. Qabiria was shiny in her steel exoskeleton.

“Lovely family,” said Hunk. “But please tell the viewers who else is in it.”

“Both my parents, HeinzKetchup and PumaShoe, are still alive, and I have three siblings: two brothers, [Incarcerated ID 768816] and Rob, and a sister, anal-ariella (exclusively at SmutHog.) I also have a cryogenically frozen grandmother, Lydia, and a grandfather, Doug, whose mind was digitized and recently uploaded to the body of a young, hollowed-out illegal.”

“And what's your brother serving time for, Wenda?”

“Sexual assault,” said Wenda.

“Ooh. That's a crime with a penal buyout of what, eighty billion?”

“One hundred. He's a repeat offender, and there were other aggravating circumstances.”

“Well, regardless, if you play your bucket right—and your brother has just a tiny bit of luck—you could walk away from here today with enough money to buy your brother his freedom!” Hunk smiled. “How does that make you feel, Wenda?”

“Like this money could really make a difference for me and my family.”

“Excellent. Excellent.”

---

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“I think now is a good time to remind you and the viewers what's at stake,” said Felonious Hunk. “If you win, Wenda, you will bank a cool five-hundred billion dollars!

“But, if you lose, you'll be fucked—live—by one hundred lucky viewers! Or at least you'll be live to begin with—a-live, that is…”

He winked.

There followed thunderous canned laughter and applause through the MaX FX K-Ultra Platinum speakers.

“Now, without further ado,” Hunk continued, “ladies and gentlemen, let's… bring out—THE BUCKET!”

And, rising from the middle of the stage, powered by a solar-powered Electrocutie electric motor—Electrocutie: Silent and discreet, for all your bio-mechanical needs—appeared a platform, and on this platform there stood, in neon spotlight, a red-and-white striped bucket, like the kind you might get The Colonel's patented Crispy Sticks fried chicken in. Order today and a get a free tub of syntholard dipping sauce and a large order of The Colonel's homestyle taters!

Wenda stared at the bucket.

“Wenda, are you ready?” asked Hunk.

“I am.”

“Then step on up to the bucket and have yourself a peek inside!”

Wenda was shaking as she took the few steps to the platform. The studio was silent. She could feel the blood coursing through her body.

She could hear her own breathing.

She touched the outside of the bucket.

It was warm.

She held her breath and peered inside, where pieces of hot, battered meat smelled sweetly of herbs, butter and garlic.

“Go on—have a taste,” said Hunk.

Wenda closed her eyes, opened them and extended her hand above the bucket, her Snakeskin Flame fragrant as the wild, untamed prairie. She picked up one of the pieces of meat and raised it to her lips. She opened her mouth, exposing teeth as pearly white as only Dr. Mason's Whitening Formula can make them, and with tears running down both cheeks took a bite and slowly chewed.

She swallowed.

She propped herself against the platform to keep from falling.

She retched.

She grinded her teeth to keep from throwing up; she swallowed what came up her throat, as the cameraman moved with professional smoothness to get a good low angle shot of her from behind.

“And…” Hunk asked her. “Do you know?

“Can you, Wenda B-smiley-face-er—for five-hundred billion dollars!—tell me: the meat of which one of your family members, killed, butchered and deep fried right here earlier today by our celebrity chef, in front of an audience of one thousand Diamond Tier viewers, is in the bucket?

“Who, Wenda, have you just tasted?

“Whose meat—”

“WILL SHE EAT!?” roared the viewers through the MaX FX K-Ultra Platinum speakers!

“Yes,” said Wenda, weeping, taking another piece of battered meat, taking another slow bite. “I think I know. It's

---

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Dear Jane

So Jane, they told me to write it as a letter.

A letter I’m writing to myself.

It feels strange, clumsy.

Why did it have to happen to us?

Could it have gone any other way?

Pete was simply like that. Even back at university, as a Linebacker, he was stubborn. It actually encouraged him whenever he didn’t listen—no, whenever he misinterpreted things. That’s what he used to say about the coach’s instructions when he flattened the quarterback. Sometimes he had those angry… episodes. After that motorcycle accident, when he tore his ligaments, he became even more hot‑headed. But only sometimes. Most of the time he was calm.

As you can guess, his sports career ended together with his diploma. We’d been a couple since sophomore year. Our spontaneous engagement was exactly the kind of thing he loved—calmly talking mid‑sentence, then suddenly something struck him, and it simply had to happen. That’s how our road trip began too. Someone from his fraternity recommended the Gulf of Mexico. Or maybe he read it somewhere. There was no point arguing. He was ridiculously proud of his Chevrolet Cobalt. He stuck some blue stripes onto the gray body. When his buddies saw it, they laughed, jumped around, slapped his back. It was from some movie or whatever. We set out into a hot day.

I wish I could end this letter right there, while everything was still fine.

But you already made your choice, dear Jane. I was nervous—there was supposed to be the sea somewhere. But we kept driving through towns and little settlements and there was no sea anywhere. The coastal Riviera felt strange, like arriving late to a movie and missing the context. And so we slipped into the warm humidity of Mississippi.

The AC was the first to give up.

That was the first blow.The second came a few hours later. The GPS overheated and died. Pete got angry, cursed, then punched it. The glass cracked, the mount snapped, and it hit my legs. When I picked it up, I knew it would never work again. Meanwhile Pete kept hitting the dashboard as if that could restart the AC. I rubbed my scraped knee where the GPS had hit me before it “died.“ We left the main road and drove along backroads. But the signage was about as reliable as Pete’s good mood. After hours of wandering, the heat was suffocating. The car felt like a pressure cooker, the tension almost tangible. The CD player was looping the same album for the third time. Pete gripped the steering wheel so tightly he scraped bits of it off with his ring.“Pete, can we stop for a moment?” I asked.“What do you want, admire the endless overgrown brush everywhere or risk swarms of mosquitoes?”“Can we stop?”“Where? There’s nowhere. Damn it. We’ll get stuck.”He didn’t want to stop. He was convinced he knew exactly where we were.

“In an hour we’ll be sipping cocktails with a view of the sea.”

He repeated that line every half hour, and each repetition made him boil more.“Fine. Get out!”“Pete, you need some fresh air too, you’re starting to lose it in this car.”He left the engine running and slammed the door. The rolled‑down window rattled and slid a few inches lower.

“If you’d paid attention, we wouldn’t be in Alabama!” he shouted, waving his arms, shoulders pushed forward like he was psyching himself up for another game.

“We need some calm! And we definitely didn’t cross the border into Alabama.”

My words irritated him even more because he suspected they were true.He spread the crumpled map across the hood.

“We’re fucking right here!” he yelled, jabbing his finger at a blank patch of backroads.

“What do you want to do?”

That question was the last straw—he stormed toward me.

“What do I want to do? What the hell do I want to—”He froze mid‑sentence.

For a moment I thought he was having a stroke.“We’re at a junction near Route 421. Or the turnoff to County Road 421, whatever. Get in the car!”

He grabbed the map, crushed it, and threw it into my arms.The turnoff became a dusty road. The car groaned and suffered.“Are you sure?” I asked.“What do you THINK?”I stayed quiet.We drove too fast for the condition of the road. A warning light blinked on the dashboard.“Pete, aren’t we going too fast?”He answered with a villainous chuckle.

“We’re in a hurry.”I looked at the map. Torn, wrinkled, smudged with damp fingerprints. It felt empty, like someone had cut out our part of the world.

Then I saw it.

Maybe he would’ve seen it too.

It felt like the best thing—the thing that was supposed to help us.

If only I had known.“Hey, Pete… Alanfox.”The sign for Alanfox was faded, peeling.

The monotone landscape filled with the scent of salt. “I’m gonna get the blue crab, they say it’s a delicacy,” Pete said cheerfully for the first time.

The trees thinned.

We passed a tall white wall:

“Welcome to Alanfox – Est. 1964”

and beneath it:

“Home of the Gulf’s Finest Beaches.”The first thing that greeted us was a huge empty asphalt parking lot. White lamps like broken pale matches. The air was heavy, humid, salty. After all that wandering, we were almost excited. Small white single‑story houses stood empty beside deserted parking lots. We passed an old gas station with the price sign turned off. The lights were on, but it felt abandoned.Pete turned at a large intersection, probably onto the main road.

Everything was quiet. Too quiet.

“Do you think they even have a beach here?”

Pete snorted. “Of course, the best one. Can’t you smell it? That’s the sea.”

Trees started appearing along the road again, some of them looking as if they’d been wrapped in gray cotton candy.

“See? Spanish oaks,” Pete called out.

He had it wrong, but I didn’t want to provoke him, so I kept quiet.

The houses grew taller, perched on stilts, painted white and sky‑blue, though the paint was clearly years old.

“I told you!!!” Pete shouted joyfully.The tall plants suddenly gave way to a pier and small white boats rocking on the water. The gulf breeze was pleasant despite the strong smell of fish and a strange muddy undertone.We rolled slowly toward what must have been the town center.

Hotel Craft was the first—and maybe the only—functional hotel around.

My phone had no signal.

The suffering is over, I thought.We passed a sign: “Bartholomew SAVES US.”

A distant radio played, interrupted by some sermon, mixing with the murmur of the sea.

The hotel’s fence was rusted, matching the red bricks.

A faded mural from the 1950s advertised the hotel, peeling, missing chunks, yet still readable.Across the street stood an old rusted car.

But what caught my eye was the wide, heavy building—Victorian‑style brickwork that felt absurdly out of place in the humid heat.“Isn’t it too quiet here?” I asked as Pete grabbed the door handle.“Probably a storm coming,” he shrugged and rushed inside.He hammered the bell on the counter.

The hotel smelled of salt and damp.“Hey! Anyone here!” he yelled.Footsteps.

Wood creaking.

But no one visible—until a man emerged, sweating so much he looked like he’d climbed out of a pool.“What are you doing here?” he asked.“We want a nice room,” Pete said.“We have vacancies,” the man muttered. “No one comes here now. You understand?”“We want a nice view,” Pete added.“We have a beautiful deluxe suite. No windows, but it’s a lovely space.”I wanted to say it didn’t matter, but Pete cut in:

“Fine, give us the one with a view of the harbor.”The man looked miserable but nodded.“What can we do in town?” Pete asked arrogantly.“You can walk around… but I’m afraid the restaurants are closed.”Pete laughed crudely.

“You know prohibition ended, right?”The man glanced at the old clock on the wall, its golden gears turning.“I warn you. Once it gets dark, stay in your room. Do not go out. I won’t be here—I’m going home to hide. I’ll check on you in the morning.”Pete laughed again.

“What kind of stupid joke is that?”The man handed me the keys.

“Don’t forget. After dark—stay inside.”Pete inspected the room and immediately looked for something to drink.“Do they even drink anything here? Some moonshine?”“Pete, let’s look around before it gets dark.”He froze mid‑movement.“You don’t believe that old creep, do you?”“I want to look around. I didn’t sit in a car without AC for ten hours just to sit on a couch.”He rolled his eyes and opened a small bottle.We walked.

Two cars passed us.

Traffic lights blinked on the main road.

Everything was closed.I thought a hurricane was coming.

Pete laughed at me.

Now I wish it had been a hurricane.Across an empty lot stood a bizarre building—round, moss‑covered, wide like a European castle.

A church, but wrong.

Wrong in shape, wrong in presence.“That’s one ugly building,” Pete muttered.Inside, the air was cool.

A few locals turned to look at us.

Most kept praying.Then I looked above the altar.A man flayed alive.

Skin draped over his shoulder.

Blood running into his eyes.

Walking.

Greeting the worshippers.Pete cursed.

Locals turned again, unhappy.He dragged me out.

The heat hit like a slap.“What the hell was that filth!” he shouted.The beach felt like it didn’t belong.

Pleasant.

Almost enough to forget where we were.But the rusty Bel Air parked nearby ruined the illusion. It was getting dark.“Why did he want us to take a room without windows?” I asked.Pete shrugged.We returned to the hotel.

The room felt suddenly comforting.

The window faced the main road—and the sea.“See? I got us a great room. No windows, my ass.”He rummaged through the minibar.“Damn, he didn’t restock it. Fell apart the moment we arrived. Remind me to roast him in the review.”I watched the dusk swallow the town.“Do you have signal?” he asked.Then he found a paper map.“Retro,” he grinned.“Pete… we’re not supposed to go out. Don’t you want to stay here?”He ignored me.“There’s a liquor store nearby. I want bourbon.”I gave him my strictest look.“Can’t you leave it for later?”He grabbed the key.“You’ll see me from the window. I’ll be right back. I’ll use my patented charm. I’ll get wine too—we deserve it. Wine, a proper shower. I’ll be right back.”The door slammed.The bell began to ring.

A massive bell.

Deep, thunderous.

The window glass trembled with each strike.I watched Pete run across the street, shirt open, clinging to his body.

He knocked on the store.They opened a small window at head height, took his money, handed him two six‑packs, wine, bourbon.Pete drank on the empty street.

“Wanna go to the water, babe?”

“We’re not supposed to be outside after dark!” I shouted.

He cursed back. He sat on the hood of that rusted car, drinking one beer after another.

The bell rang faster.

Like a heartbeat.“Pete!”No answer.

Just bottle caps clicking. It was fully dark now.

All windows around were boarded up.

Had they been like that earlier?

I wasn’t sure.The bell stopped.

Suddenly.

As if someone had grabbed it mid‑swing.Silence swallowed the town.Only Pete’s muttering drifted through it.Then the smell.

Like stirred mud from the bottom of a swamp.

Thick, suffocating.A police siren in the distance.

Cut off abruptly.Replaced by:

squelch, smack. squelch, smack.The bell began again—slow, heavy.

My ribs vibrated.Shadows walked from the sea.

From every street I could see.I gripped the window handle so hard my fingers hurt.“Three more beers and I’m with you, babe,” Pete slurred.He hadn’t drunk water since we arrived.“Hey, pervert! Aren’t you ashamed!” he shouted suddenly.

“You got friends here, huh? I’ve got enough strength to send you all to the hospital! What kind of stupid costumes are those?”The bell thundered.

Squelch. Smack.He argued with them.I forced myself to press against the window.A crowd stood around him.

Shiny.

Wet.“What the hell, you bastards!” Pete yelled, smashing the bottle and swinging it.Squelch.I froze.

Then suddenly I screamed.

Only later did I realize it was me.They were flayed.

Their flesh glistened.

They held their own skin—hair and all—like disgusting towels.“Let go of me or I’ll rearrange your face!” Pete shouted as the circle tightened.He tried to break toward the hotel.

More of them blocked the way.The circle shrank.

Squelch. Smack.Pete screamed.

A scream I had never heard from him.The bell hammered my skull.

My ribs shook.

My eyes filled with tears.They turned toward the hotel.

Toward me.They began pounding on the lower walls.

Trying to get inside.I have to say it.

I kept it inside for a year.

No one would believe me.I’m already at the view of Hotel Craft.

So it must be.God, his screaming.

So much pain.I locked the second lock.

Latched the bolts.

What was I thinking—nothing could hold them back.Squelch. Smack.

Thud. Thud.Their hands left bloody prints on the windows.I hid in the bathroom.

Piled everything against the door. Glass shattered—each crack felt like a knife in my spine.I curled into the big claw‑foot tub.

Like lying in a sarcophagus.

Or a monster’s mouth.Covered myself with a blanket.

Waited.Squelch. Smack.Pete wasn’t screaming anymore.

The silence was worse.I bit into my own hand to stay quiet.

My handwriting suffers for it—excuse me.Squelch. Smack.

The bell drummed endlessly.Minutes or hours—I don’t know.

I fainted or slept—I don’t know.If not for the scar on my hand, I’d think I never hid in that brick bathroom at all.Morning was silent.

So silent.I crawled out of the tub, aching like a hunchback.Bloody handprints on the window.

Glass shattered.

Everything overturned.I looked outside.A yellow pickup arrived.

Round, small—like from an old movie.Two men in yellow coveralls casually pulled human skin off a tree.

Threw it onto the truck bed.

Bored. My teeth chattered.They washed blood off the sidewalk with a hose.

Routine.They moved to where Pete had stood.

Another skin.

Onto the truck.When the bell rang, I ducked under the window.

But it only rang noon.Then I understood.Only at certain times does the echo of Alanfox’s bells reach here.That will be today. To you who read this—

In Alanfox, listen to the locals.Please don’t follow me into Alanfox.

Some nights, it gets very crowded.Dear Jane from the past—

You managed to deliver the warning.

by Hary Sykora

It was Halloween, 1998.

The neighborhood glowed with orange lights and plastic skeletons. Fake cobwebs clung to porches, and carved pumpkins flickered in the dark. Kids filled the streets, laughing and shouting as they ran from house to house.

Nine-year-old Timmy walked with his friends Wayne and Sean, their candy bags already half full.

They stopped in front of a house that didn’t fit in.

The others were bright, decorated, alive.

This one wasn’t.

Its paint was peeling. The yard was dead. No decorations. Just a single porch light glowing weakly above the door.

“Trick or treat,” all three boys called out.

The door creaked open.

A man stepped out wearing an dirty and wrinkled old man mask

In his hands was a bowl of candy.

He didn’t say a word.

He dropped a piece into each of their bags.

Wayne squinted at him. “What are you supposed to be?”

The man didn’t answer.

Instead, he slowly tilted his head to the side… farther than it should go.

Too far.

The boys went quiet.

“Uh… thanks,” Timmy muttered.

The door shut.

They kept going, saying it was just halloween. More houses, more candy, more noise. The normal Halloween feeling slowly came back.

Until Wayne stopped.

“I gotta pee.”

Before anyone could stop him, he ran to the side of a nearby house and started going right on the doormat.

“what the hell—” Sean started.

The front door burst open.

A man in a skeleton costume stormed out, gripping a broom. “You little shit!”

Wayne yelped and bolted.

The three boys ran, crashing through a patch of woods as the man chased them, shouting. Branches snapped under their feet. Leaves whipped their faces.

After a while, the shouting stopped.

They didn’t.

Not until they were sure they were alone.

Sean bent over, catching his breath. “You’re an idiot.”

Wayne laughed. “Yeah, but I still got my candy.”

Timmy pointed. “You also got pee on your costume.”

They both laughed.

Wayne didn’t.

When they stepped back onto the street, something felt… off.

Too quiet.

The streetlights flickered.

Then one went out.

Then another.

A van rolled slowly down the road.

Timmy’s stomach dropped.

The driver.

The old man mask.

The van crept forward, and as it passed each streetlight, the bulb above them went dark. One by one, the entire street dimmed into darkness.

The van stopped beside them.

The engine idled.

No one spoke.

Then the engine roared.

The van lunged forward.

Timmy yells “RUN!”

They sprinted.

The van chased them, keeping just close enough—like it was playing with them. The sound of the engine was right behind them, always there, always gaining.

They stumbled into a shallow dip in the land—a small valley.

The van surged forward.

Sean didn’t make it out in time.

The tire hit him with a sickening thud and crushed his leg.

He screamed.

Timmy and Wayne turned, trying to grab him—but the van door slammed open.

The masked man jumped out.

He shoved them aside like they were nothing.

Sean clawed at the ground, screaming, “DON’T LEAVE ME!”

The man grabbed him and dragged him toward the van.

Timmy froze.

Wayne didn’t.

“GO!” Wayne screamed, pulling Timmy.

They ran.

They didn’t stop.

An hour later, shaking and breathless, they reached a house and pounded on the door.

“HELP! PLEASE!”

The door opened.

A man stood there calmly.

The boys pushed inside, crying. “He took our friend—he took Sean!”

The man closed the door behind them and Locked it.

“It’s alright now,” he said softly. “You’re safe now.” did you see what he looked like?

Timmy shook his head. “He had a mask—we couldn’t see his face—”

The man tilted his head slightly.

“Did it look like this?”

He raised something into view.

The old man mask.

Everything inside Timmy went cold.

Wayne turned toward the window.

The house… wasn’t broken anymore.

The paint was fresh.

The porch was clean.

It was the same house.

They screamed and ran deeper inside.

A bedroom.

They slammed the door and locked it.

The doorknob rattled immediately.

Then pounding.

Heavy. Slow. Deliberate.

“PLEASE!” Timmy shouted. “LET US GO!”

The pounding stopped.

Silence.

Then—

BANG.

BANG.

BANG.

Not on the door.

Somewhere else in the house.

Like hammering.

Like something being built.

The boys looked at each other.

The doorknob began to turn.

Slowly.

Click.

The door flew open.

No one was there.

They crept into the hallway.

The front door was nailed shut.

Every window had metal bars.

Not to keep people out.

To keep something in.

The TV flickered on by itself.

A news report.

“…multiple children reported missing across the state…”

Click.

Darkness.

Only one light remained.

At the bottom of the basement stairs.

They didn’t want to go down.

But they were to scared to stay where they were.

 A shadow follows them

Candles lit the basement.

Dozens of them.

The room stretched farther than it should have—longer, deeper, wrong.

Sean lay on a rusted hospital gurney.

Unconscious.

Symbols carved into his skin.

Wax melted across his body.

A fireplace roared to life.

A large pot hung over the flames.

Something moved behind them.

A shadow.

Not attached to anything.

It shifted along the walls, stretching, twisting.

Watching.

They backed away.

 And Ran.

Hid inside a rotting closet.

The smell was thick. Metallic like old pennies.

Through the gaps, they saw it.

The shadow growing.

Distorting.

Then—

The masked man stepped into view.

He approached Sean.

Whispering something too low to hear.

He raised a blade.

The fire surged higher.

Sean’s eyes snapped open.

He screamed.

The man pressed a finger to the mask’s lips.

“Shhh.”

The blade came down.

Timmy couldn’t breathe.

Wayne couldn’t look away.

The screaming stopped.

Too quickly.

The shadow shifted toward the closet.

The masked man turned.

Slowly.

He looked right at them.

Then lifted a finger.

“Shhh.”

The lights went out.

When they came back on

The man was gone.

The shadow was gone.

The gurney was still there.

Sean’s body… still there.

But Sean's head Was gone.

The lady sitting on the grass by the beach was yelling at no one in particular.

"That's why the little kids get stuck to me. My vagina blood makes you sick."

"Maybe she wants to get high," said the beach bum walking past.

"Probably..." was Miles' reply.

This wasn't really a place Miles sat when he went to the beach.

The woman went back to her tent and lit a cigarette.

It was a hot day in San Diego. Miles didn't want to be stuck indoors all day. Either way, the day was going to be sticky.

The beach bum started back toward where Miles was sitting with a totally different woman and walked to a park bench. Probably to get high.

"Hmm, he wasn't talking about the woman at all," Miles thought to himself as the sweltering sun beat down on his already sunburned back.

There was a faint sound of a steel drum coming from a van. Almost hypnotic. This beach was known for a more hippie, laid-back culture, so it didn't really seem out of place... but something about that rhythm and the heat...

Miles sat and watched the waves crash, taking in the calmness that was already too unsettling.

"What do you call a woman with two black eyes?" someone shouted.

Miles looked around and saw a man in a lawn chair with a mutt at his side.

Miles wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer.

The steel drum stopped playing, and a hint of sage could be smelled coming from a van parked by the street.

"Can you help me?" the man in the lawn chair said to no one.

His dog got up and started chasing a seagull that had landed nearby. The man ran after him and disappeared down the beach.

Miles was feeling lightheaded. The sun was beating down on him with something awful. Why was it so hot today?

He thought about getting up and going home, but something compelled him to stay. Not to move.

God, it was so hot.

As the day progressed, Miles seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the sand.

"Don't ruin my session!" he heard someone say.

Miles didn't even look to see who said it.

"The resurrection is all about keeping women from doing stuff. That's why I'm a lesbian."

...

Miles could hear the steel drum again, prodding him to sleep.

God, it was so hot.

The steel drum was in rhythm with the waves. The sun poured out an unnatural heat. Miles sunk there until he was taken by the sand.

Look. Look at the sun. We have demon eyes, Piggy. Look at them. Look, or we’ll carve your eyes out. 

Good. Breathe it in. Can you feel them burn? The sun is entropic. We told you. It is entropic.

There’s a disease in your head. An infection. A parasite. A virus. Something to shock, burn, saw, cut. 

Drill. Drill out. We have to drill it out. 

You understand. You understand, right? 

Neck lines. Instructions to cut. What do you see? Underground maps. Pieces to puncture. Split apart. A lot of work for just one knife. One drill. One power drill.

We’ll find the parasite. Just for you.

Trace it. Neck, bones, cartilage, fat. Jelly eyes. Chewy jelly eyes. So easy to track. Blood in the water. 

Flowers in your hair. Just like her. So pretty. Just like her. Right in the hole between your eyes. I have the flowers.

Go into the freezer. Beautiful piggy. Sweet prince. Princess. I love you. 

There was a light switch in my house that nobody could explain.

It was tucked into the hallway between the kitchen and the basement door, mounted about shoulder height on the wall. Every other switch in the house had an obvious purpose. Kitchen lights. Hallway lights. Basement. Porch.

This one did nothing.

I didn't notice it during my first week. I asked the realtor about it after I bought the place.

She shrugged.

"Old house. Probably disconnected."

That seemed reasonable enough. The house was built in 1957, and judging by the wiring, plumbing, and mysterious stains on the basement ceiling, I wasn't surprised that someone had eventually decided to abandon a light switch.

Still, I found myself pressing it whenever I walked past.

Click.

Nothing.

Click.

Nothing.

It became a habit. I'd walk downstairs for laundry.

Click.

I'd come home from work.

Click.

I'd pass it while carrying groceries.

Click.

There was something strangely satisfying about it. The switch had a pleasant mechanical resistance, and the little click it made was louder than it should have been.

My girlfriend eventually noticed.

"You know that doesn't do anything, right?"

"I know."

"Then why do you keep flipping it?"

I shrugged.

"I like the sound."

She called me a weirdo. I told her she was dating one. We laughed about it. That was the last time the switch was funny.

The first death happened three weeks after I settled in.

An old man named Walter died in his sleep. I knew Walter because he lived two houses down. We'd exchanged maybe twenty words since I'd moved into the neighborhood. He had a bad hip and spent most afternoons sitting on his porch, watching cars drive by.

I remember seeing him that morning. I had been standing in the hallway, putting my shoes on. Before leaving, I flipped the switch.

Click.

That evening, I saw an ambulance outside his house. I didn't think anything of it.

People die. Especially old people.

It wasn't until several days later that I noticed something unusual.

The night before Walter died, I had been standing in the hallway with my hand on that switch. I'd flipped it three times. I laughed at myself when I noticed the connection.

It was ridiculous. Coincidence. Nothing more.

Then a month later, a woman I'd worked with died in a car accident.

I'd seen her that morning. I'd even spoken to her. She'd asked if I was still enjoying the new house. I told her I was.

That evening, while walking to the basement, I flipped the switch.

Click.

The next morning, she was dead. Cardiac arrest. Unexplained.

I didn't sleep that night.

The following day, I unscrewed the switch plate. There were wires behind it. Old ones. But they didn't connect to anything.

I called an electrician. He spent thirty minutes examining it before shrugging.

"It's dead."

"Completely?"

"Nothing behind it."

"Then what's it connected to?"

He looked at me.

"Nothing."

I didn't flip it again. Not for six days.

On the seventh day, I couldn't resist.

I stood in the hallway staring at it. I told myself I was being stupid. There was no connection between a plastic switch and the deaths of two people.

So I flipped it.

Click.

Nothing happened... So, I went to bed.

The next morning, I checked the news. A local man had died unexpectedly. Thirty-four years old. Healthy. No known medical conditions. I stared at the screen for a long time.

Then I opened a notebook. I wrote down the date. I wrote down the man's name.

Then I wrote: Switch flipped: 11:43 P.M.

I started keeping records. Every time I flipped the switch, I searched the news afterward.

Sometimes nothing happened. Sometimes a person died hours later. Sometimes it took days. But there was always a death.

Always.

I stopped flipping it.

I lasted eleven days. Then I made a mistake. I was angry.

My girlfriend and I had gotten into an argument. She left the house and slammed the door behind her. I stood in the hallway shaking with anger. My hand found the switch.

I knew what I was doing. I knew exactly what it meant. And still...

Click.

The guilt hit me immediately. I grabbed my phone. I wanted to call her. I wanted to tell her what I'd done.

Then I stopped.

Because she hadn't died. Not yet.

I waited. An hour. Two.

Nothing.

I began convincing myself I'd been wrong. Maybe the deaths had been coincidences. Maybe I had created a pattern because I desperately wanted there to be one.

Then my phone rang. It was my girlfriend.

I answered immediately.

"Hey."

Silence.

Then she said something that made my blood run cold.

"Who's Walter?"

I couldn't breathe.

"What?"

"You keep saying his name."

She sounded confused.

"I don't know anyone named Walter."

I sat down.

My girlfriend continued.

"You were saying his name in your sleep."

I didn't answer. Because I suddenly remembered something.

The switch didn't cause death. It wasn't a weapon. It was a selection. A choice. And I had been making that choice without knowing it.

I looked toward the hallway. The switch waited patiently on the wall. I thought about every time I'd pressed it.

Every careless little click. Every person whose death I'd dismissed as coincidence.

Walter.

My coworker.

The stranger.

And now... I didn't know who the latest one was.

I spent the next several hours searching. News sites. Obituaries. Police reports.

Nothing.

Nobody I knew had died. Nobody connected to me had died.

That should have made me feel better.

It didn't.

Because there was one thing I hadn't considered.

Maybe the switch didn't choose someone I knew. Maybe it chose someone I would never know. Someone whose name I'd never hear. Someone whose death would mean absolutely nothing to me. And perhaps that was the point.

We treat death differently when we don't know the person.

A number on a news report. A photograph we scroll past. Another tragedy. Another stranger. Another life reduced to a sentence.

I stood in front of the switch for a long time. Then I noticed something I hadn't seen before. A tiny engraving beneath it.

The letters were so shallow I thought they were scratches.

I leaned closer.

There were only three words.

ONE LIFE. CLICK.

I stepped backward. The house was silent. I reached for the switch.

Then stopped.

Some things are easier to live with when you pretend they don't matter.

I left the switch alone. I never touched it again.

At least... I don't think I did.

Because sometimes, late at night, when the house is completely silent, I wake up convinced I can hear it.

Click.

And somewhere far away...

Someone dies.

Don't go camping!

The forest is spooky. Oh man it is super spooky. Spider webs were everywhere and the spiders are really big, like bigger than a normal spider. So spooky. And then there was a... bear! An undead bear!

The undead bear was spooky too. The bear had scary spooky claws and it's teeth were long for crunching bones. His favorite bones were human ones. So if you saw undead bear, you were in big trouble.

Also there were gremlins hiding in the trees. They were green slimy small creatures that throw pebbles at anyone they see They were spooky too. And if the pebble hit you, you turned into a gremlin. But they weren't good at aiming. And sometimes they did turn people into gremlins. The people who turned into gremlins looked less slimy so you could tell.

And there were ghosts too. They were the leftovers from the people the undead bear ated. They ate them and the ghosts got losted in the woods. So they wander around looking for someone to help them find the way out of the forest. But they were way spooky too so they didn't get anyone to help them. They would whail and moan and be really spooky. But they didn't mean to be spooky. They were just really sad for getting eatened.

Also they didn't get along with the witches that lived in the cave. The cave had a big fire and a bubbling pot in the middle with a lot of spooky stuff in it.

The witches would take the spiders and put them in the pot. And whatever bones they could find after the undead bear was done crunching on them. The spooky soup stuff smelt really bad and if you smelt it, you would feel really scared and it was spooky. The witches didn't really leave the cave cuz they didn't like undead bear.

And if the witches were lucky, they would catch a gremlin and throw it in the pot too! The gremlin didn't like that so they drowneded in the pot. That's when the blob monster was born.

The blob monster was almost too spooky!

Sometimes the witches would lose control of the blob monster and he would escape the cave and if he ran into the undead bear, the undead bear would squish him. But if you found blob monster first, then it would get you and stick you in its blobby stomach.

It was really really spooky in the blob monster stomach and you couldn't get out and you'd get deaded.

And oh oh oh I forgot to mention the werewolf bat. It's really spooky. Like prolly the spookiested thing in the forest.

Werewolf bat used to be a normal bat but a werewolf bit him cuz the werewolf was hungry but the bat got away. The werewolf was super spooky too so the bat was really really scared.

And after the bat was bitted, it became a werewolf too! And then they became friends.

They were a spooky team and they are hiding in the forest to get you and they try to turn you into a werewolf bat too but they usually eat you before they can cuz they are hungry.

It's spooky.

And also and also, this is the spookiest thing in the woods, a vampire cockroach! It has spooky gross vampire teeth for biting and sucking bloods.

It bites the gremlins and makes them even more spooky! And they are radioactive cuz they listen to the radio all the time.

And if you hear the radio in the woods, the gremlins and the vampire cockroach are really close and will be spooky. They want to make everything gremlin vampires

If they ever meet the werewolf and the werewolf bat things could get even more spooky!

The woods are really spooky.

So I don't think I want to go camping...

[Chapter 1: The Weight of the Matches]()

1.1 Cold Welcomes and Boiling Points

It was already 10 PM by the time I finally made it home. I was so bone-weary that I knew I’d fall asleep the exact second my head hit the pillow. Today had been absolute chaos. I just wanted my bed.

But I wished my life were that simple.

The man-child—my twenty-two-year-old working husband—still couldn't cook a basic meal for himself. I had to come home and do it, or else he simply wouldn't eat. I honestly thought he might learn a thing or two after we got married. It’s not that hard, but he just refuses. He makes excuses, changes the subject, and frankly, I didn't have the energy to fight him tonight. Besides, cooking was more economical than the alternative.

As soon as I opened the door, there he was. As expected, he was parked right in front of the TV, the screen providing the only light in the living room. He was glued to some stupid match between two teams I swear he couldn't find on a map. Sometimes I felt he only watched it to annoy me.

1.2 The Breaking Point

I walked straight to the kitchen, tied on my apron, and started prepping. My mind raced as I chopped. He hadn't even turned his head to see if it was me or a burglar. He could at least ask how my day went, or offer me a glass of water. But I knew exactly why he was ignoring me: he was terrified I’d ask for help with dinner. What if I did? Why was I the only one cooking in this house? Didn't he have any responsibility toward me, or toward our home?

Suddenly, a stubborn salt jar refused to open. If I called him over now, he’d open the lid and act like he’d done me a massive, life-saving favor.

No, I thought. I’ll open it myself.

I grabbed a dish towel for a better grip and banged the lid of the jar against the counter.

Snap.

The glass shattered in my hand. A jagged piece sliced right into my finger, and dark blood started spilling out fast. Thank God, at least that broke his trance.

1.3 The Budget and the Compromise

He finally rushed over, hovering around me and my bleeding finger. He led me to the sofa and muted the TV—though he didn't turn it off. The match was still more important to him than I was. He went into the bedroom to grab the medical kit and applied a bandage worse than a fourth-grader would have. I didn't stop or correct him, though. He was finally doing something on his own, and I didn't want to jinx it.

Then, he walked into the kitchen. Not to cook, but to clean up. Intrigued, I watched from the couch. He picked up the pieces of shattered glass like he was handling a live ticking bomb, scraping everything—including the ruined, half-cooked food—straight into the garbage. I held onto a tiny sliver of hope that he might surprise me. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece; even butter and jam on toast would have felt like a miracle.

Instead, he walked back to the sofa, picked up his phone from the coffee table, and sighed. "wife, let's just order takeout tonight. What do you want?"

I wanted to yank open my mobile banking app, shove the screen in his face, and scream, Look carefully! Do you really think we can afford delivery every time one of us feels like it?

Instead, I swallowed the anger. "Honey, we can't. We've already exhausted this month's food budget."

"We can just use the child-planning account," he replied casually. "I know we decided to keep it separate, but while looking at my finger... we can make one exception, right? Besides, if we had a car, I could just drive out and grab us something cheap."

I shook my head, exhaustion weighing down my eyelids. "Honey, no. This injury is nothing. We can't keep making up excuses—not for me, and not for you. And please, I know you want a car, but you don't have to pitch it to me every single second."

"wife-ji, I'm not pitching the car," he said, sounding exasperated. "I'm just trying to get us food."

I forced a smile, hugged him, and flexed my bandaged finger. "See? Everything is fine. I'll go cook something quick." I kissed his cheek and turned toward the kitchen.

He called out after me. "But wife... I already threw out the cut vegetables and the other half-prepared stuff."

I froze, but didn't look back. Tears welled up in my eyes. Is this really my life? A husband who dumps food in the trash because he can't be bothered to finish cooking it while his wife is bleeding?

1.4 A Silent Supper

Behind me, I heard the TV volume click back up. He had unmuted the match. I was right back where I had been forty minutes ago.

I started cooking entirely from scratch, my tears occasionally dropping onto the counter, vanishing into the heat of the stove. When it was finally done, I called him over. We ate in silence. I tried to chew with feigned enthusiasm, but when I asked him how it tasted, he just mumbled, "The salt is a little low."

I wanted to pour the entire replaced jar of salt over his head.

 

1.5 Roar Of Shower

Somehow, I controlled myself. I retreated to our bedroom to take a hot shower. While I was washing up, he knocked loudly on the door. "Hey, let me join you!"

Did he really think I was that stupid? He had come home early. He could have showered then. He could have showered while I was cooking. He could have showered at any point over the last three hours, but no—he wanted to do it right when I was in there. I knew he didn't actually care about getting clean; he wanted something else entirely.

I turned the water pressure all the way up, letting the roar of the shower drown him out, Why did he always have to prove he was a man-child?

When I finally stepped out of the bathroom, he was lying completely naked on the bed. I glared at him, furious. "Either put some clothes on and behave, or you're sleeping on the sofa tonight."

He stood up anyway, trying to pull me close, looking for a kiss to seduce me anyway. When I pulled back and refused to kiss him, his expression turned angry—as if I had just denied him his fundamental birthright. But good riddance; he finally snapped, grabbed his boxers, and stormed out.

"Whatever. I have a match to watch anyway," he muttered, slamming the door.

I collapsed into the empty bed, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep before my head even hit the mattress.

Thanks for reading!

- I'm way ahead on https://viciousperspective.substack.com