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My training in Comparative Literature — my miserable graduate school experience in particular — taught me that there is much productive work to be done outside of one’s own academic department. You learn new things by diving into other disciplines. In turn, you come away with fresh ideas; and in turn, those can be synthesized into worthwhile discourses that can open exciting, untraveled pathways for your field. There is good reason why some of the most influential thinkers in the study of literature — Freud, Marx, Foucault, Derrida, to name a few — all came from fields seemingly unrelated to it.
Therefore, when I found that half of my department’s faculty — the half that apparently had no hand in my hire — despised me for reasons of varying merit, I began to look to other departments; if not for friendship, then at least for a less hostile work environment. I settled upon the Theatre Department. Although I had never formally studied drama, I had been involved in my high school’s theatre troupe long ago, and felt that my cursory knowledge and the innumerable plays I had read over the years would serve me well in any conversation among the professors. And indeed they did. I became fast friends with much of the Theatre faculty. When I was not teaching, and not trapped in my building by my bi-weekly office hours, I whiled away the time in the Q— Fine Arts Center, chatting up my colleagues, watching rehearsals, or even guest lecturing on Spanish and Russian tragedians.
Among my closest companions was one Professor B—, a gifted teacher and a playwright of some small renown. She had been granted tenure several years before my arrival at the university on the strength of a trio of semi-historical plays she had written. After that, she had, by all appearances, run out of ideas. Although she numbered among the university’s finest educators, and despite her many successful stagings of classic dramatic works, her output of original plays had clearly stalled. A persistent rumor — albeit one of considerable gravity — claimed she would not earn promotion to full professor as a consequence of her years-long dry spell.
I could only think of what a tremendous shame it would be not to raise Professor B— ‘s rank. Certainly I was prejudiced in her favor, but my favor came less from the caprices of human attraction, and more from what I had seen of her as a teacher. In addition to her unparalleled skill in the classroom, she handled student crises with the greatest expertise, where a lesser mortal would have failed or been driven to wit’s end.
One such instance I remember in particular. A graduating student, bedraggled and in tears, sought her counsel while the two of us enjoyed our lunches beneath the Q— Center’s proscenium arch. I wished I had not been there to intrude on the conversation, but he began to spill out his story before I could make myself scarce. The student claimed that one of the other drama professors, after granting him top marks on a final project, had proceeded to steal the script he had submitted, turning it into a soon-to-open Broadway production whose writing credits were in the professor’s name. The poor student only found out from an actor friend of his in New York City, whose familiarity with the student’s project caused her to mention it during a phone conversation. What could be done? Who would believe him if he brought forth the accusation of plagiarism?
Professor B— thought long and hard about the question. Then, to my utter astonishment, she advised the student not to raise a ruckus. I prepared to interject, but before I could, Professor B— said something that I have kept with me ever since:
“It is less discouraging to be stolen from,” she said, “than to need to steal.”
Indeed, she went on, this student was clearly a talented writer; the professor’s theft constituted his proof. Let him write more. Meanwhile, the professor’s inevitable failure to produce quality plays in the future — coupled with knowing his accolades came from a work not his own — would be a vengeance more emotionally devastating than any the student could inflict.
Her recommendation succeeded. The professor, tormented by a string of flops and critical pans, quit the trade a broken man. The student, taking up his pen with renewed fervor, went on to write several extremely successful plays that continue to run in theatres across the country. In the meantime, Professor B— had spared the offending professor further ignominy, and protected the student from a protracted legal battle he may not have won. The more I thought about her sage advice, the more I wished that I, too, could be so far-sighted and effective. I would have modeled my own advisement after hers, if only I knew how to practice it.
Thus it was with great distress that I watched Professor B—‘s chances for promotion slip away as no new writings materialized with the passing months; and my concerns grew all the more acute when she disappeared a couple of days after the semester’s end. She would answer neither phone calls nor emails, and her house remained empty each time I tried to pay a visit. I told myself that, in all likelihood, she had retreated to some secluded haven, devoid of cellular reception and Internet connections, where she could work on a play without distraction. Even so, a dark inkling led me to wonder whether she might have suffered a mental breakdown from the mounting pressure to compose another worthy drama. Her absence and silence did little to dispel my fears.
Professor B— returned several weeks later, offering no explanations. She did not need any. For when I next saw her, during a chance encounter in the university library, she held in her hands a sheaf of papers bound with brass fasteners — a completed manuscript! Leaden pouches sagged beneath her eyes, and her hair looked disheveled as if by a sudden wind, but I imagined her frantic efforts at writing were to blame for her haggard appearance. After all, I, too, had endured many a binge-writing session in my time; I knew what kind of toll it exacted. Furthermore, when Professor B— gave me a comely, victorious smile, and thrust her manuscript into my hands, any worries I had for her well-being evaporated. She would be fine, I thought; any energy she spent on her play would be returned to her tenfold.
She said I could keep the manuscript to read at my leisure, for she already had several hard copies in her possession, in addition to myriad digital backups. At the same time, she swore me to secrecy regarding its contents. A production was already in the works, she said; with the aid of some of her most promising graduate students, she would stage it before the next semester’s end. Of course, I was welcome to watch their rehearsals — provided I remained equally as reticent as I did concerning the script. I gave her my word that I would keep the door of my lips, and looked forward to reading her latest masterpiece.
That night, instead of pursuing my own research, I sat at my desk with the manuscript, as I knew I could accomplish nothing else until I read Professor B—‘s latest work. What an opportunity I enjoyed! Was this what it felt like to read a play by Ibsen or Miller before it appeared on stage? My excitement darted through me like an electric current as I glimpsed the first page, where the play’s title, “THE THIEF IN THE YELLOW ROBE,” seemed as freighted with meaning as the epitaph on an ancient grave.
I must admit that I could make little sense of Professor B—‘s title. It alluded to no literary work or figure that I knew of, and as I read more, its referent became still more opaque — for no character approximating a thief, much less one clad in yellow, appeared in the play! The action, from what I could determine, consisted of the nonsensical banter of a group of courtiers at a lavish banquet. Their exchanges appeared coherent at first, but devolved long before the end of the first act. They barely seemed to converse with one another, each spoken line a virtual non sequitur to whatever dialogue preceded it. It was as if Professor B— had written a complete draft of the play that included an additional character — whom she removed upon its completion, leaving the rest of the script intact. The resultant text was not without humor, but I felt more bafflement than levity upon finishing it.
What was I to make of such a work? At first, I imagined that poor Professor B— truly had cracked under her creative stagnation, and that I beheld the product of a damaged mind. I soon scolded myself for the thought, however. It was perhaps more plausible that Professor B—‘s play tackled the theatre of the absurd with a nuance beyond my powers of analysis. After all, Beckett — rather notoriously — had brought forth plays that eroded language and meaning. In a similar vein, the promised antagonist in Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano never materializes, except for a single mention in the largely incoherent exchanges between the play’s characters. The point behind such plays might initially seem inscrutable, but inscrutability and nonexistence are different things entirely. My responsibility as a reader was to find the point, not to pronounce it absent. Moreover, the work I read was merely the embryo of a finished play. The script furnishes a mere fraction of the actual performance; the lighting, sounds, set design, costumes, makeup, and acting all lend something to the play’s meaning. Having only the text to consult, then, left me at a disadvantage. Therefore, I placed my trust in Professor B—‘s abilities, telling myself that The Thief in the Yellow Robe would prove far more understandable — if not downright illuminating — once she brought it to the stage, and joined it to the other trappings of the theatre.
Although rehearsals began within the week, I chose not to drop in on Professor B— and her students until their early dress runs. By then, I reasoned, the play would carry some semblance of its true form, but nonetheless remain distinct from its final version. As such, without spoiling all I would behold on the play’s opening night, I could see something markedly different from the text I read, and perhaps come closer to fathoming Professor B—‘s peculiar genius.
I sat in on their second dress rehearsal, taking advantage of the auditorium’s unoccupied front row. Professor B— welcomed me, but sat a short distance away in order to take notes on the performance. The house lights went out, and the curtain rose, revealing a set designed like a grand medieval hall. The student actors, all in period clothing, managed to inject quite a bit of character into their bizarre lines.
“Such bounty,” said the queen, a young actress made old by some makeup wizardry.
“Let him feast!” replied a noble lady, portrayed by the knockout blonde that every theatre troupe seems to have.
“I’ll bring the wick,” a portly nobleman put in, as if it were a witticism.
As the play progressed, I noted that each ingredient in the production seemed of the highest quality, but added little to my understanding of the script. Everything onstage thrummed with life, yet remained incomprehensible. With some imagination, the play I watched could have passed for something by David Lynch, if ever he tried his hand at live theatre. Alas, unlike a work of Lynch, I could not determine what part of my brain I needed to deactivate in order to appreciate Professor B—‘s play. I began to worry that The Thief in the Yellow Robe would flop — an unprecedented occurrence in Professor B—‘s career — and wondered whether such a blemish would fatally stain her record.
Despite my misgivings, I made sure to attend the play’s opening night. If Professor B— were doomed to failure, the least I could do was to stand by her side, and offer my solidarity. I must confess that, before I reached this conclusion, I battled some serious indecision, and my delay cost me. In the time it had taken me not to act, the show had almost sold out, and the best ticket I could buy would grant me a seat on the upper mezzanine. When I arrived at the theatre and claimed my spot, I was so high above the action that I felt like a bird lost in the rafters. A sea of people murmured and shifted in the packed auditorium below, while the proscenium arch’s heavy curtain undulated with a rhythm like breathing.
Somebody tapped me on my shoulder, and when I turned to look, who did I find but Professor B—! Waving, she gave me an impish grin. I asked her what in the world she was doing up here, when surely she ought to be down in the front rows. She laughed.
“What good could I do down there?” she asked. “It’s out of my hands now. Besides, I prefer to watch all of my plays from the mezzanine. It’s a vantage I seldom have the chance to enjoy during rehearsals.”
We persuaded the man to my right to switch seats with her. The two of us sat shoulder-to-shoulder as the house music faded, and the light slowly retreated into the dimming lamps. A spotlight activated with a sound of pounded metal, beaming a harsh circle onto the rippling curtain. The audience applauded as the curtain lifted, exposing the detailed banquet hall. A noble strutted into view, delivering a familiar monologue. More actors joined him as the drama unfolded, but as each one spoke their lines, I counted down the moments left until the script fell apart. How would the audience respond? My nervousness was palpable, but Professor B— seemed unfazed. I could not imagine the source of her confidence.
The queen’s second monologue wound to its close. It marked the point of no return. Once the prince began to speak, Professor B—‘s career would be over…
Before the prince could make his nonsensical interjection, a figure wearing a yellow hooded robe that completely obscured the face and body beneath glided onto the stage from the left wing. A fine mist billowed from under the robe’s folds, coating the ground the figure trod. What a marvelous effect — and undoubtedly a challenge to mount. In a haunting voice that sounded at once female and male — as if a man and woman spoke the same words simultaneously — the figure serenely recited a monologue whose words were pure poetry. The beauty of it all threatened to overwhelm me. Was this the character from whom the play derived its name? It must have taken nothing short of brilliance to conceive of and create such a being. Here, at last, was the saving grace of Professor B—‘s drama.
I placed my hand on her arm, and congratulated her for such a masterstroke. When she faced me, however, she wore a stricken expression. She staggered to her feet, and began to wind her way through the occupied rows toward the exit. The players onstage continued their performance, seamlessly incorporating the figure in yellow.
Had the months of intense stress finally broken Professor B—, now that she was out of danger and loosened her guard? I followed in her wake, catching up with her in the hallway outside. She shook violently, and steadied herself against a wall. I helped her to stay upright, and asked her what was the matter. There was no cause for despair in this moment of triumph.
She turned to me, intense fear smoldering in her eyes. “That person,” she said, “wasn’t in my rehearsals.”
How clever of her! I remembered that the script seemed to allude to an unexpected guest. What better way to emphasize that feeling than by forcing a surprise on her cast? I had heard of directors using unorthodox means to coax memorable performances from their actors, albeit never in a theatrical context — only the antics of Tarkovsky or Kubrick sprang to mind. I congratulated her on joining their elite ranks, if not surpassing them.
“You don’t understand,” Professor B— said, her strained voice scarcely louder than a whisper. “I’ve never seen that figure before, either. I have no idea who might be under that robe.”
“Whoever it is,” I said, “he or she seems quite familiar with your play.”
Professor B—‘s jaw began to tremble. She bit her lip. Her body threatened to convulse.
“It’s… It’s not my play.”
My face must have betrayed my shock, although I fought to suppress it, lest I cause her any further distress.
“I translated it,” she stammered, “but… I didn’t write it. I… I found it. A typed Latin manuscript, buried in the periodicals section of the university library. No binding. No call number. Nor was it on file in our database. It was as if someone had left it there and forgotten…”
Or left it there deliberately, I didn’t add.
“And I was so desperate,” she continued. “You know I wouldn’t have done it, unless…”
I had no words to offer her.
“My students all know how to improvise,” said Professor B—, “so they’ll carry the show if I let them. But I have the worst feeling about this. I… I have to stop the performance.”
We descended to the ground floor, Professor B— several strides ahead of me. As she rounded a corner toward the dressing rooms, I approached one of the auditorium doors. Curiosity had overtaken me, and I had to know the state of the play. I gently tugged on the door so as not to distract the audience. It would not budge. I applied more force, and still it remained firmly shut. Muffled voices filtered through from the other side. What was going on?
I made my way to the dressing rooms, where Professor B— berated the stage manager.
“Who’s that out there?” she demanded. “Why did you let him onstage?”
“He — she? — didn’t come through this way,” the stage manager said. “I thought it was your idea, and it fit the play so well, I…”
Professor B— shoved the stage manager aside, taking his two-way radio. In her haste, she had knocked it off-frequency, and could not find the channel to communicate with her technicians. She threw the radio aside, and it broke into pieces on the floor.
“I’ll need to go out there,” she said. “I must give them some excuse for calling off the show…”
“The auditorium doors are locked,” I told her. “Be careful not to cause a panic.”
“They are?” she cried. “But, I didn’t… Who… Oh, god!”
As she darted off somewhere I could not see, I peered out from the wings. The figure in yellow stood in the center of the stage, while the cast had arranged themselves in various postures of submission nearby, the mist coiling around them. The dialogue proceeded as expected, except for the robed figure’s two-voiced contributions. The air around me felt chilled, but my lungs tingled and burned as I breathed it. The audience looked on, enraptured.
“I am no thief,” the yellow figure intoned, “for one can only steal what is not given.”
“I give you my eyes,” said the queen.
“These ears are yours,” said a nobleman.
“Take my heart,” said the princess.
The cast began to claw at themselves. I heard the slick sound of rending flesh, and urged myself to turn away, but I could not pull myself from the grim spectacle before me. Nobody in the audience made a sound. They seemed every bit as entranced as I was.
“Drop the curtain!”
I heard Professor B—‘s voice in the catwalk high overhead.
“Can’t you hear me? Drop the curtain!”
The cast lay in a viscid heap on the stage, the robed figure towering above their fallen bodies. Their mutilations looked so severe as to be fatal. A single cast member seemed to breathe, but her breaths were shallow and labored. The figure paid the bloodied students no heed. One yellow sleeve had risen in a peremptory gesture. It looked empty and hollow. Then it pointed toward the audience.
“Even my sovereignty hinges on the charity of my subjects,” said the figure. Though the melody remained in its voices, the poetry of its words seemed to have vanished. “Without their compliance, I am nothing.”
To my horror, the cast managed to speak.
“We will what you will,” they murmured.
Without my volition, I, too, had mouthed those words.
The eviscerated cast stood up in unison, their wounds dripping. The fat man who promised his heart held it in his hand, and a gaping hole bore through his thick chest. How could he stand? My fright was worse than any I had known, but I could not avert my eyes. The cast reached into the deep gashes they had torn into themselves, and each drew forth a pristine blade from the opening that glistened in the spotlights. They lined up beside the robed stranger in two jagged flanks, and turned toward the audience.
“Drop the curtain!” Professor B— shouted.
“I take only what my people offer me,” said the figure in yellow, “and only if they be blessed with abundance.”
“Such bounty,” said the blinded queen, her age makeup melting off her face in grotesque streams.
“If my people will me to eat,” said the yellow figure, “then I eat.”
“Let him feast!” said a noble lady, whose patchy scalp oozed where she ripped out her flowing blonde locks.
“And if my people build me a sacrificial pyre,” the figure proclaimed, as the cast advanced toward the edge of the stage with their weapons drawn, “then I light it at their command!”
“I’ll bring the wick,” said the heartless nobleman.
I heard the singing of sharp metal as the gored cast prepared to pounce on the audience. Then a crashing noise thundered in the catwalks. The heavy proscenium curtain fell unrestrained from the arch above, its anchor ropes trailing after its weighted base, and cracked against the stage floor with a noise like breaking bone. A rush of scorching air knocked me onto my back, slamming the stage door behind me. It rattled in its frame as fierce winds lashed the wood.
Roaring applause erupted on the other side.
Wincing with pain, I raised myself, and stumbled toward the door. Its knob felt warm in my palm. I pulled it open. Professor B— stood on the other side, staring at the stage.
The set remained intact. But none of the actors could be seen. Piles of ash lay inside their rumpled, bloodstained costumes.
Except for the flowing yellow robe.
It was nowhere to be found.
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Hello, my name is Mitch. I’m here to tell you guys about an experience I had. I don’t know if it was paranormal or whatever stupid words people use to describe supernatural phenomena, but after that thing visited me, I believe in that paranormal trash, now.
A week after I moved in with my brother, Edwin, after my house was foreclosed, I finished unpacking. Edwin liked the idea of me moving in, since we had not seen each other for 10 years, so I was excited, too. I soon fell asleep after I moved in. After that first week, I heard rustling noises coming from outside at about one in the morning. I thought it was a raccoon, so I ignored it and tried to fall asleep. The next morning, I told Edwin about it, and he agreed.
The next night, however, I thought I heard my window opening and a loud thump, as if something entered my room. I darted up and looked around my room, but I saw nothing. The next morning, Edwin dropped his coffee cup when he saw me. He held up a nearby mirror and I saw myself. I had a large gash in my left cheek.
After I was rushed to the hospital, my doctor told me that I must have been sleepwalking, but then he showed me something that made my blood turn cold. He lifted up my shirt to reveal a sewn up incision where my kidneys were. I stared into his eyes, mine widening. “You somehow lost your left kidney last night,” my doctor told me. “We don’t know how, though. Sorry, Mitch.”
The next night was my breaking point. Around midnight, I woke up to see a truly horrifying sight. I was staring face to face with a creature with a black hoodie and dark blue mask with no nose or mouth staring down at me. The thing that scared me the most was that it had no eyes. Just empty, black sockets. The creature also had some black substance dripping from its sockets. I grabbed a camera from the nearby mantel and took a picture. Immediately after taking the shot, the creature lunged at me and tried to claw open my chest to get to my lungs. I stopped it by kicking it in the face. As I ran out of my room, I grabbed my wallet. I would need the money. I ran out of my brother’s house into the night. I eventually ended up in the woods near Edwin’s house and tripped on a rock.
I fell unconscious and woke up in the hospital. My doctor – the same one who treated me before – entered the room. “I have good news and bad news, Mitch,” my doctor started. “The good news is that you had minor injuries, and your parents are going to pick you up.” I sighed with relief. “The bad news is that your brother has been killed by some… thing. Sorry.”
My parents took me back to Edwin’s house to collect my remaining belongings, which I did. Upon entering my room, I was scared, but remained calm. I grabbed my camera and then stopped dead in my tracks. In the hallway leading to my room, I saw Edwin’s body and something small lying next to it. I retrieved it up and entered my parent’s car, not mentioning Edwin’s corpse. I looked at the thing I had picked up and nearly vomited. I was holding my stolen half-eaten kidney, with some black substance on it.
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You know those long, involved ritual creepypastas, the ones that involve a million different steps, the ones where if you breathe at the wrong second you die? Ever wonder who figured it out? It couldn’t
have been trial and error – you don’t get a second try at something like that.
The answer’s actually pretty simple. Nobody figured it out.
He already knew.
There’s… an entity, I suppose you could call it, although I always think of it as a him. A little boy, to be exact. He seems to enjoy playing around with people, you see.
And he knows all the rituals, or at least all the real ones. So sometimes he spreads out the information. Ever felt inspired to write some piece of horror that seemed to contain elements that didn’t even
exist in your nightmares? Ever had a disturbing idea for some horrible but compelling rite, that seemed to ‘just come to you’? It might have been him working through you.
If you get one of those flashes, write it down and post it. I can’t guarantee your health if you don’t – he can be awfully persistent about getting his little messages out, and even if you’re just babbling it to your safe padded walls you’re still saying it.
But, at the same time, if you get one of those flashes… halfway through writing it, stop, open up the instant messenger of your choice, and IM yourself. If all you see are your own normal words echoed back at you, give up there. Either it really is just your imagination that gave you the idea, or he doesn’t want to talk.
But if the message comes back with odd typos that weren’t there before, or new capitalization, or different punctuation marks… well, I’m sure you’ve seen enough pasta with puzzles in it to know what to do to find the message and respond.
If he likes you, or finds you amusing, he’ll talk to you directly there. If he gives you a new puzzle… keep going, but be careful. They get harder and harder, turning from simple wordplay to numerology
to esoteric mystical references to God knows what else, but also more and more compelling. It’s harder to just close the window and walk away, and the feeling that you’re just about to reach a solution never eases. And so the next time some poor soul’s found slumped over their computer, killed by starvation and exhaustion and neglect… well, maybe it was just some game, right? But maybe he just wanted to solve that one damn puzzle.
If he does greet you directly, you can name three things you desire – any three at all. He will give you, in complete detail, rituals to achieve those three things – if you’re lucky, it will be a single rite that grants all three. They may be dangerous, but they will be clear and detailed paths to gain what you want through paranormal means.
But, of course, there are catches.
The first: you have to spread the rituals on. You can embellish them as you wish, add your own spin, even lie outright, but you have to leave the goal and most of the steps intact, and you have to put it
somewhere where people will see – a forum, a notice board in real life, on the door of a building, wherever. The more popular it is, the happier he will be, and you want his blessing.
Because the second catch is that he always omits some key step. As long as you’ve posted the ritual up in public, you will know when the time comes what that step is – but it could be anything from drawing a simple squiggle to murdering your true love in cold blood. You could have to give up your soul, or mutilate a limb, or drown yourself… or you could just have to hop backwards two times. And you won’t know what it is until you’re buried deep in the rite, unable to stop.
So when you talk to him, be nice and friendly, and make sure you amuse him. He’s kind enough, most of the time. Just a bit mischievous.
How did I learn all this, you ask?
I don’t really know. It just came to me. Inspiration, you could say.
Please wait...
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A man went to a hotel and walked up to the front desk to check in. The woman at the desk gave him his key and told him that on the way to his room, there was a door with no number that was locked and no one was allowed in there. Especially no one should look inside the room, under any circumstances. So he followed the instructions of the woman at the front desk, going straight to his room, and going to bed.
The next night his curiosity would not leave him alone about the room with no number on the door. He walked down the hall to the door and tried the handle. Sure enough, it was locked. He bent down and looked through the wide keyhole. Cold air passed through it, chilling his eye. What he saw was a hotel bedroom, like his, and in the corner was a woman whose skin was completely white. She was leaning her head against the wall, facing away from the door. He stared in confusion for a while. He almost knocked on the door, out of curiosity, but decided not to.
This disinclination saved his life. He crept away from the door and walked back to his room. The next day, he returned to the door and looked through the wide keyhole. This time, all he saw was redness. He couldn’t make anything out besides a distinct red color, unmoving. Perhaps the inhabitants of the room knew he was spying the night before, and had blocked the keyhole with something red.
At this point he decided to consult the woman at the front desk for more information. She sighed and said, “Did you look through the keyhole?” The man told her that he had and she said, “Well, I might as well tell you the story. A long time ago, a man murdered his wife in that room, and her ghost haunts it. But these people were not ordinary. They were white all over, except for their eyes, which were red.”
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I left the university campus behind to do fieldwork in the Deep South. I was studying folk songs from southern states that had neither a time or place of origin nor a known composer. Those old songs that just seem to rise out of cultural folklore and evangelical mysticism like steam rising from a swamp. Songs that had been sung for generations by slaves and slave owners, Baptist ministers and backwoods preachers, and whose chords had been strung by banjos and whistled on whiskey jugs. Those songs presented a mystery to me; one that seemed to be known and understood in the Deep South but eluded myself and others in the halls of academe.
In particular, I was seeking the origins of the beautiful ode in which the singer calls for all brothers and sisters, mothers and sinners to go down to the river to pray. Of most interest was a variation in the lyrics that I could not understand given its Judeo-Christian origins: the use in one line of the term “starry crown.”
…As I went down to the river to pray,
studying about that good old way,
and who should wear the starry crown.
More modern versions of the hymn use the words “thorny crown” to reference Christ’s crown of thorns during the crucifixion. These lyrics would appear to make the most sense in the context of the song, so the use of “starry crown” in the older and possibly more genuine versions of the hymn was a puzzle. Secondly, the term presents a question of who should wear the crown. If this were a Christian hymn, that question should never be asked; Christ would wear the thorny crown and, one would presume, any crown. So the line presents a second mystery as to why and how someone other than Christ would be picked to wear a starry crown and for what purpose. I could find no relevant Biblical references to a starry crown that made sense in the context of a baptism. Thus I was left with a mystery as to what its original meaning was and why it had been changed.
The earliest recognized version of the song was published in 1867 by G.H. Allan in his Slave Songs of The United States. But in his personal diary writings, Allan referenced an earlier and heretofore unknown version of the song, recorded on paper by Llewellyn Cobb. Allan wrote that Cobb had mailed him the song in order that he might include it in Slave Songs but that the version was “somewhat unbalanced” and he made changes to the music. Cobb had lived in that southern stronghold of South Carolina, long before the Reconstruction and interest in slavery’s subculture developed.
I traveled to that state, driving to Evanstown, where Cobb had lived. I found residence in an old plantation home turned into a bed & breakfast, Ashcroft Manor, named after the aristocratic family that built and ran the plantation. It was an effort to immerse myself in the antebellum culture, thinking that perhaps the scenery and living situation would stir my mind to new connections and insights into this era so far removed from modern life.
The proprietors, Ted and Mary Wallstone, were an elderly couple who prided themselves on keeping the plantation as close to its original form as possible.
“We finally sprung for indoor plumbing in the eighties,” Ted told me. “Can’t tell you how much business we lost before then because of the outhouses, but I just didn’t want to change the structure, putting holes in the walls and everything. To me, it would be like desecrating a church, ya know?”
I nodded in agreement but his relation of a slave plantation to a church, and the rheumy, wistful look in his eyes left me feeling unsettled.
I told him of my research project, leaving out the specific mystery of the starry crown, but hopeful that he could provide some direction in this unfamiliar place.
“Ah…that’s a beautiful old hymn,” Ted said. “My God! It stays with you, doesn’t it?”
“It was first written on paper right here in this area,” I told him.
He reflected a moment. “Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Do you remember when you first heard the song?”
“As a child, many years ago. Of course, back then, most people called it ‘Down to the Valley,’ not ‘The Good Old Way.’”
I’d read this previously. There were several names and incarnations. ‘The Good Old Way’ was the most historically prevalent, which only deepened the mystery. “I thought this was relating to a baptism, so it’d make sense, going down to the river, like it says in the song. But why would they go down to a valley to pray?”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “Well, most rivers are in valleys, city-boy.”
“Ah, of course. Are there still river baptisms here?”
“First Sunday of every month,” he said proudly.
“Where are they held? I’d like to witness one.”
“Well…the Green River is where most congregations go. But there are lots of other creeks and rivers around here too, and plenty of smaller congregations that use them for their own services, so could be anywhere. But the Green River is probably the best bet.”
I thanked Ted for his time and hospitality. He wished me luck on my search but left me with a bit of “advice”:
“Careful who you question around here. People in these parts are very private. They hold their beliefs sacred and can be pretty suspicious when outsiders come asking questions. Even if it’s about an old song.”
He patted me on the shoulder and went about his business, maintaining a home that had previously been the site of the horrendous rites of slavery.
I slept badly that night. There were ghosts in the air.
* * * * * *
Finding a Baptist church in the South is not a challenge. Rather the challenge was trying to find where to start. One could throw a rock and hit a Baptist church, and the rock would bounce off that church and hit another one right next door. On nearly every stretch of road and corner there stood a large white building with a steeple, a converted warehouse with a Christ-proclaiming sign, or some old, tiny schoolhouse that reached back into the days of the colonies, but now proclaimed, “Pancake Breakfasts and Bible Studies on Wednesdays.”
I began to survey each of them, explaining my project and inquiring as to their river baptismal services. The pastors and reverends were helpful and willing. Naturally, they all knew of the song but very few could point me in any direction as to its origin or meaning. Most said it was a baptismal hymn, but there was no mention of actual baptism in the verses. Just going down to a river or valley and pondering who should wear a starry crown. The reverends grew more silent when I mentioned the starry crown aspect of the mystery. None of them, for all their theology, could give me an adequate explanation as to the meaning of those words and what Biblical reference it came from.
I spent several days in the city hall’s file cabinets of records, researching churches and Llewellyn Cobb’s residence 150 years ago. His home wasn’t in the town but in the surrounding hills that had once been cultivated with crops harvested by slaves. An elderly woman at the clerk’s desk—a withered crone with fake teeth and the long, drawn-out manner of a former southern belle—asked what I was searching for, and I gave her a brief summary.
“You should go see Thomas Jeery over at First Baptist,” she said.
“I feel like I’ve been to every church in the state at this point,” I replied with a smile.
“Not this one,” she said. “Thomas is one hundred and one years old. His parents were children when freed after the Civil War, and his family have lived in these parts ever since. He could probably tell you something about its history.”
“Where can I find him?”
“Not around here. You have to go into the hills. First Baptist is the oldest original church in this area. It’s only the size of this here room, not like all those big churches the size of airports that keep springing up. But they have the most wonderful choir. You should hear them sing at night. You hear it all through the hills. It’s like hearing a lullaby sung by God.”
Her eyes appeared to wane and turn in the deepened sockets of her furrowed visage and she fell silent. She was smiling, but not at me. I turned to look but there was nothing else around.
Fearing that she was suffering a stroke or some other malady, I cautiously asked if she wasn’t feeling well. She did not speak but, standing before me, the old crone began humming a tune—something vaguely familiar which I could not place exactly—perhaps a gloomy bastardization of a song I knew.
“What is that song?” I asked, but she didn’t answer. Instead, her humming grew louder as if trying to drown out my voice, her eyes vacantly staring beyond me.
My skin started crawling. It felt as if there was something else in the room with us, which only she could see, and it was reaching its tentacles up over my shoulders, treading lightly on the skin of my back.
I left her standing there, unsure if she was some kind of mystic or suffering an onset of dementia, but either way the creeping sensation was overwhelming me to the point of panic, and the sound of her humming voice was stirring in my head like the rising cry of locusts. I hurried out into the humid heat of the southern summer, breathing deep and heavy, the air like smoke in my lungs. The city seemed abandoned and lonely in the pastel light of day. I turned left and right. Spun myself around looking for any sign of life until I was nearly dizzy.
A single dark sedan rolled down the street and stopped at a traffic light in front of me. I could see my features in the tinted windows, distorted and twisted into some kind of monstrous being.
The window rolled down and a wizened face scowled at me from the back seat. His face seemed abnormally long and cut with deep lines of folded flesh; his staring eyes were hazy with cataracts. A pungent smell wafted from the opened window, and I stumbled away from the car.
The old man continued to stare at me as the darkened window rolled back up and the sedan pulled away from the sidewalk.
I was disoriented and exhausted, and the feeling from the hall of records stayed with me into the evening as I retreated back to the bed & breakfast. Ashcroft Manor was filled to capacity. Elderly men and women mingled in dining rooms, they spilled out into the back patio which looked out on a field of grass and dark trees in the distance. I figured them for tourists but they all seemed so familiar with Ted and Mary. The proprietors mingled with the guests like old friends that hadn’t seen each other in an age. They were all finely dressed, glasses of wine in their hands, laughing and murmuring in the deepening dusk.
The kaleidoscope of my delirium continued. The room seemed to spin. Ted placed a hand on my shoulder, and I told him that I thought I had too much sun. The other guests turned to stare at me, light glinting off pearl necklaces and dangling bracelets.
I saw a dress made of stars. It hung loose and breezy from shoulders of skin tanned like leather.
Beautiful music poured into my mind.
Ted escorted me to my room.
* * * * * *
When I woke the following morning, the estate was empty of the other guests. Mary brought ice water to my room and politely suggested that maybe the climate was not suited to me. I conceded that I had been in quite a state. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Seems you’ve been working quite a lot,” she said. “Southern heat can do that to a man who isn’t accustomed to it.” I asked her where all the others had gone, and she told me that I’d walked in on one of their monthly gatherings. “We belong to a small social club,” she said. “True southern society still exists, you know.”
Then I asked her about First Baptist and the clerk at the hall of records.
“Oh,” she laughed quietly to herself. “That’s just Ethel. She’s—ah—a little touched in the head at her old age.”
I spent the morning in my room on my laptop, searching for the First Baptist Church but could find nothing. Based on Ethel’s description I wouldn’t have been surprised if it were abandoned and left to rot in the hills.
Instead, I located Llewellyn Cobb’s home, considered a minor historical site, and maintained by a small town historical society. It also had recently been the site of a murder investigation: the body of a young black male was found in the house several months post-mortem by some hikers. The investigation was pending and despite this turn of events in my research, I decided I should still visit Walker’s house.
I followed the GPS map in my rental car out into the hills beyond Evanstown, amongst winding roads, deep bluffs, shadows, and liquid light. Everywhere were creeks and rivers. The GPS became useless as the roads turned to dirt pathways. My rented Grand Am scraped its side-view mirrors against the thickening underbrush. I was forced to stop the car and continue on foot, finding a small sign pointing toward a Historical Site.
Cobb’s ancient cabin appeared as if manifested by magic from the underbrush. The forest had started to reclaim it, and any historical society that claimed to care for the property was severely negligent. The old southern shack listed to one side and brambles covered its eastern wall. The front entrance was cordoned off by yellow police tape, much of which had come unmoored and snaked through the underbrush. I climbed onto the front porch and passed through the entrance, noting a plaque that gave a brief biography of Llewellyn Cobb, a largely forgotten artist and composer. Inside was dank and dark and haunted with the smell of old meat. There was a pot-bellied stove in the living room, remnants of furniture and sleeping arrangements on the floor—an old mattress stained with blood and putrescence and tattered blankets.
I made my way through each room, trying to envision the life that Cobb had within these walled confines, with only candlelight keeping the darkness at bay, and the freezing winters huddled by the stove; fears of illness and crop shortages; loneliness to the point of insanity in the bramble forest of the South Carolina mountains. I tried to picture him running the hymns from his book over and over in his mind as he scratched out the notes onto paper.
And who should wear the starry crown…
In a small anteroom near the back of the homestead, there was a writing desk beside a single-paned glass window that looked out on the forested hillside sloping away from the house. I sat there for a moment in the rickety chair, worn weak by age, and in the light that came through that portal I saw strange decorations made of sticks hung by twine from the wooden ceiling. They turned and twisted in the gravitational vortexes of the earth.
Forest sticks cobbled together like stars and hung from strings like something a child might fashion in school. The smell of gore wafted from the living room on a warm, wet breeze.
I spoke to the empty rooms in a moment of uncharacteristic theatrics: “So you did see stars, my friend.”
I walked back out to the small front porch and looked over the sloping hillside. There was no river to be seen.
* * * * * *
I avoided the hall of records, still frightened from the vertigo that had set in the other day and the haunting, elderly clerk.
I asked Ted about First Baptist, and he replied, “Yes…out in the hills. Old, old place but they haven’t held services since the fifties. That old bat at the clerk’s office must finally be losing her marbles.”
“Can you tell me where in the hills? I’d like to see it, maybe get a picture or two.”
“I wouldn’t even know how to get there, son. Trust me. There ain’t nothing out there that could do you much good.”
So instead I conducted an old-fashioned search through the Internet for Thomas Jeery. I finally found a listing that matched the description the town clerk had given me. There weren’t too many Thomas Jeerys that were one hundred and one years old. He was located way off the beaten path in what looked to be a trailer park. I made a phone call but the line was disconnected. I made the drive, instead.
Jeery’s residence was located in The Willow View trailer park, so named for its looking out over a swampy area that was a breeding ground for pussy-willows and mosquitoes. In early dusk, the frogs were sounding like an ancient language of grunts and guttural consonants. It was a sad, broken looking place of rust-red dirt and busted screen doors hanging from corrugated hinges; old men sleeping in lawn chairs with bottles in their hand, and cars that had sat so long in one spot the weeds had died beneath them. My passing car elicited strange and strong stares from dark faces. I thought I heard children through my open window, but they sounded far off and as if crying. The heat was oppressive here, like the blanket-weight of history had fallen over it and would never be pulled away. This was a place to die or to never live.
Jeery’s single-wide was at the eastern corner of the park, close to the bog and the swarming blood-suckers that churned in the air like a quiet storm. There was no answer at the screen door and I called out his name, peering into the darkness of the trailer. The inside was scattered with refuse and bottles. There was an old plaid cloth couch that looked like it was delivered from the seventies and a small table with a massive Bible, which lay opened beside it. I left the front entrance and began to slowly make my way around the outside of the home, catching glares from some of the residents across the dirt pathway.
I found him sitting in a chair in the small patch of weeds that looked out over the swamp. I said his name several times. He was asleep and there was a mason jar of moonshine beside him. His face was surprisingly smooth for such an elderly man, bequeathed with a solemn dignity that, even in this place as he slept off an afternoon drunk, could not be taken away. I thought for a moment of all those years—the social and cultural changes—that he had seen, that had quietly and meticulously carved their places into his memory and cast their shadows in the form of liver spots on his light brown skin.
He awoke and looked up at me as if I was expected. He sighed and then looked back out at the swamp. “You social services?”
“No,” I said.
“Good. I’ve had about enough of them pestering me. Want to put me in a museum or somethin’. They call it a ‘home,’ I call it Purgatory where I wait to meet my maker.”
“Isn’t that the ultimate goal of the believer?” I said. “To finally meet the maker?”
He looked at me long and hard. He reached down and took a swallow from his mason jar and beckoned to me. I realized that we were communing. I took it up and had a swallow that instantly burned through my sinuses and into my brain, evaporating on my tongue before even reaching my belly.
“I used to think that I’d welcome the day when I’d meet him,” Thomas said. “But now, when it’s so close, you can feel death just waiting over your shoulder like…Well, it changes your perspective a bit. This world, I tell you, it’s a terrible place. But what I fear is that the place we go to is even worse.”
“You don’t believe in Heaven?”
“Nah. All that’s rubbish. I’ve seen things in my age that tell me otherwise. That tell me maybe the maker we seek is not the kindly old man we hope he’ll be.”
“It could even be a woman,” I said with a smile.
He laughed briefly and said, “Yeah, that might even be worse for a fella like me.” I sat down beside him, and he added. “So what you want, anyway?”
I told him about the song I was researching, about the belief that it may have been an old slave hymn at which point he scoffed. “Huh! Ain’t no slave song, I can tell you that. Sure it sounds pretty when some lovely white woman sings it—and I’ve heard it sung by many a white woman—but that song should make a black man’s skin crawl.”
“Why’s that?”
He looked at me somewhat incredulously, almost frustrated. “Where you think they’d find the slaves that run away, that was tortured and killed, huh? You think those white plantation owners gave those people a proper burial? No way. They’d take ’em down in the valley, toss ’em in the river. Where ya think the Klan did their lynchings after the emancipation? White man doesn’t do nothin’ out in the open. Nah. It’s all backwoods and shady deals under cover of night.”
He paused for a breath, working himself up. “If you was going down to the river to pray—like it says in that song—you was praying that you were only gonna come out with a beatin’ and not be swinging from a tree. My mother and father were slaves just before the emancipation and they told me good. A white man wants to take you down to the river, down into the valley, you don’t go down there, you run!”
“Isn’t this a baptismal hymn?” I said.
“In a way, I suppose. Black man goes down into the river, he comes up into the embrace of God. Nothin’ but a spirit. But, like I said, that’s only if you subscribe to those kinds of notions…”
“What notions do you subscribe to?” I asked.
“Oh,” he nodded with almost a smile, “there are other notions, son.”
I looked at him closely. “What is the starry crown?”
He looked back at me with a look of quiet foreboding. “Now you onto somethin’, son. Now you onto somethin’.”
* * * * * *
I went down. I went way down into the valley. Down to the river to pray for my soul, to pray that what Thomas Jeery had told me wasn’t true. But it haunted me, pulled me in an inexorable flow through the muddy darkness of history.
“You want to know where that song come from,” Jeery had said to me, “then you gots to see for yourself. Nobody can see it for you.”
“See what?”
“The rite of the Starry Crown. There be men and women that pray to it. They pray to the crown. And they make a sacrifice.”
“What kind of sacrifice?” I’d asked.
“The same kind that’s made every day across this country. The same that you read about on page ten of the paper. You look at the lost black kids in this country. You look at them and you’ll see the crown, all souls gone to their resting place up in the sky. What ‘good ole way’ you think they’re singin’ about anyway? The song done come out after the Civil War. Use your college-educated brain, son.”
It couldn’t be, though. It seemed impossible, so into the valley I went, stepping another foot in the rich loam of the South Carolina river valley. The land was flat, the earth black with tall ghostly trees that shot straight up into the abysmal night. It was dried floodland, devoid of underbrush that got swept away in the spring when the river would overflow its banks and send it all downstream. Overhead was a full moon, and its ghastly light reflected on the white bark of the trees.
Up above, standing guard over this sacrilegious land, I found the old First Baptist Church. Tiny, rotted, and being pulled down to the earth by ropes of kudzu vines. It was barely visible even in the full light of day.
“Once that church was gone,” Jeery had said, “it was free reign for the Starry Crown again. They wanted their sacred ground back, and they got it. Land deals, real estate prices, offers of big, brand new churches down in the town proper. It wasn’t the congregation’s fault. No one knew. No one remembered.”
“Except you,” I’d said.
“Except me. I warned ’em. But I’m just an old fool, see? The congregation took a deal for a brand new church down in Evanstown, and the realty company took hold of First Baptist’s land more’n twelve years ago.”
“What are they doing with the land?”
“Well, that’s what you want to find out, isn’t it?”
He looked out at the swamp and took a sip from his jar of white lightning. “They haven’t come for me yet,” he’d said. “They just letting time run her course. Nobody believes an old fool anyhow.”
After my visit with Jeery, I’d returned to the town hall of records and looked up the land purchase for First Baptist Church. The crone was gone that day. In her place were fat and friendly clerks with teased-out hair and big, white Jesus-lovin’ smiles. They showed me to the proper files and I dove in for some tedious reading. First Baptist was purchased by Old Pride Realty in 2002 for an extravagant amount of money plus the building of a new Baptist church in Evanstown, just as Jeery had said. Old Pride Realty was actually a collection of real estate agents, owners, and attorneys throughout the state that pooled resources to purchase land and historical sites considered part of the Antebellum South’s heritage. They owned and operated estates and manors, plantation homes and historical sites clear across the south from Illinois to Florida and west to Arkansas. It was a new Confederacy, a quiet Civil War, and Old Pride Realty was buying back the south in one of the largest private land grabs since the Homestead Act.
Down in the valley, standing before the moonlit First Baptist Church, I thought again of what I’d read. Nearly all of Spartanburg and the surrounding counties belonged now to Old Pride Realty, including Llewellyn Cobb’s crumbling house. The smell of that place came back to me. The blood-stained mattress, the stars made of twine, and sticks turning in the light.
The First Baptist Church—the first black church that had been erected after the Emancipation—and the adjacent river valley seemed to move around me, to spin in the ghost light of southern high-summer night.
“They got that land again, they’s coming out of the shadows,” Jeery had said. “Now they got that river and that valley, the sacrifices been happening again. They found who should wear the Starry Crown, all right.”
Halfway down the list of real estate agents and lawyers that made up the governing body of Old Pride Realty had been Theodore Wallstone, owner and proprietor of Ashcroft Manor Bed & Breakfast. I didn’t return to my room that night. Instead, I drove down into the valley, directly to the forgotten, black land of First Baptist.
I walked from the church to the river, its banks still muddy from the spring rains. I could hear it flowing up ahead. And then came a music, a beautiful music from behind me in the darkness. It sounded like it was emanating from the kudzu church itself, as if a forgotten choir had broken in and begun to sing. I stopped and listened to the dirge: solemn and reverent, growing in tone and intensity. Ahead of me the river glinted moonlight across its slow waters. I glared into the darkness, searching for the source of the low hymn.
Then lights began to appear. Flickering flames of candlelight dancing between the trees; first one, then two, then a multitude growing in number and intensity. At first they seemed apparitions, will-o’-the-whisps that were beckoning for me to touch them, to become enchanted. But the dirge grew heavier and more intense. My momentary flight into fancy turned suddenly terrifying as I returned to my senses and realized that these were candles being held by people, hundreds of people, and they were appearing out of the darkness like ghosts of Confederate soldiers passing across Gettysburg.
They were all-too-real, walking amongst the thin trees of the river bed with candles, chanting a vaguely familiar rhyme that was beginning to worm its way into my brain.
Panic set in. Jeery was no old fool. He told of those infernal rites of the Starry Crown taking place on full moons, of a cult finally able to again practice on their most sacred ground.
I was trapped between the hundreds of moving bodies and the turbulent river beyond. I considered running under cover along the river bed, but I was overcome suddenly with the urge to know. So much of anthropology, archeology, and folklore is guess-work and estimation, tall-tales, and fabrications gleaned out of cultural cloth. It was my only chance to witness. It was my one chance to see, even if what I saw was horrifying.
I found a thick tree with branches low enough that I could shimmy up the trunk and grasp them. I pulled myself higher and higher, dripping sweat and choking back my straining breaths till I was confident I was out of eyesight. Like Zaccheaus sneaking a glimpse of Christ, I was trying to catch of glimpse of some secret satanic messiah.
The lights began to pass beneath me, flames held in lanterns by white-robed men and women who walked serenely toward the waters chanting their hymn, a strange version of “The Good Old Way,” but sung in low octaves, the rhythm and meter changed so that the soul of the song transformed from a quiet, heartfelt prayer to a dark, unrelenting march.
My first thought was that this was some kind of Ku Klux Klan rally but this was so different, so much more reverent, quiet and insidious. It wasn’t the hooded back-woods abortions that light fire to crosses and wave flags, croaking protests in bad English. This was organized, religious. Its darkness contained a certain beauty and ancient depth that even modern Christianity had difficulty recreating. I could make faces out in the glow of the candlelight. They were pale and serene, well cared for, bright and clean. They appeared to be from the upper echelons of society and, based on my research into Old Pride Realty, I had a feeling that these worshippers were of a class much higher than your typical Klansman or Neo-Nazi.
The number of robed men and women still continued to swell, a sea of glowing candles that spread out beneath me, stretching to the river’s edge. They deftly raised their voices to some dark god that I did not know, growing louder and louder as one in resonant chant until suddenly stopping as if a switch had been thrown. Everything along that river had turned silent.
There appeared a figure on the river’s other side, seemingly clothed with light. He stepped out from the trees, glowing with a luminescence that radiated from his robe like a lunar aura. He was adorned with a great crown upon his head that reached many, many fingers up to the starry sky. The gathered crowd stood silent and unmoved, but below me in the mud and patches of river-grass, terrified small animals scurried away.
Then the radiant creature came, gliding across the surface of the river without ever setting foot in the water.
And he was tall, much taller than anyone there. The stars on his crown glowed with a pulsing brilliance, and though his face resembled a human’s, it were as if carved into an old oak tree—some product of psychological pareidolia—rather than the face of flesh and bone. The creature’s mouth opened long and wide and was hollow with darkness while he remained suspended in the air inches above the muddy bank.
The crowd met him with bowed heads and silent reverence.
And then there was a boy. A black boy who was brought to the front of the horrid congregation by a man in a robe. I recognized the old, wizened visage as he led the boy before the creature with the starry crown. I had seen his face before in my delirium outside the town’s hall of records glaring at me from the back seat of a dark sedan.
There was no other sound but for the boy crying: an adolescent, I estimated, by his voice and build. The glowing figure moved to him through the air, and the boy screamed in terror. A great and terrible blade was handed to the starry king, and it was raised up over the screaming boy and brought down into him over and over again.
The boy’s body was dumped in the river. Baptized, like Jeery had told me, where no one would see his blood in a river of black.
* * * * * *
The sun was rising over the eastern mountains when I was finally able to come down from my tree and make my way to the car. On the hood was placed a single lantern, its candle burned down to a nub. A warning.
I snuck into my room at Ashcroft Manor. I gathered my computer with all my work, dumped my clothes into my suitcase, and made my way back down the stairs.
“You heading out already?” Ted stood at the reception desk, neatly dressed, clean and pressed from head to toe, friendly and warm smile on his face. “You weren’t going to leave without checking out, were ya?”
I smiled but I was sick in my stomach. “Of course not.”
I signed his ledger and signed for the bill. Ted crossed his arms and looked out the window at my rental car. “That’s a nice car they gave you.”
I only kept smiling.
“Should get you back to New York without a hitch,” he said. He clapped a meaty hand on my shoulder and escorted me to the door. “Y’all come back now, ya hear?”
I nodded but kept my head down, unable to bring myself to make eye contact. I saw the residue of dark river mud on his boots.
I returned the rental car to the nearest return lot and took a different car home. I drove without music, only my thoughts streaming through my head, dark and churning and winding their way to an ocean of reality. I could not remove from my mind the glowing figure with its crown pointing to the stars and its impossible parody of Christ walking on the Sea of Galilee. I could not shake off Ted’s smile and the sensation of his touch on the back of my shoulder. This was something larger than any one man cou
|
This is a story about an old Welsh witch.
It was All Hallows’ Day, 1 November 1974, when the people of my village awoke to find that my house had burnt down. My parents’ charred bodies were found and identified, but the investigators were unable to find and identify my remains, and therefore I was classified as a missing person. In addition to the official investigation by the authorities, the village in which I lived organized a search party for me, but there were no traces of my presence anywhere. The front room was the source of the fire. The fire was ruled to be an accident. There were no credible persons of interest for a possible kidnapping. It was as if I had vanished. Most of the village lost hope for me after the first week passed with no news regarding my whereabouts. No one knew what had happened to me in the house fire.
You must be wondering, “If she writing to us now, how is she missing?” The answer to that question is a complicated one. To understand it, I have to tell my story to you, which begins forty–five years ago.
Although I was declared legally dead seven years after my disappearance, I felt dead for years before that. My father was laid off from his job in late 1973, and he had taken to the drink as a means to cope. Alcohol was the fuel for the fire that was his anger. It would enkindle his wrath against me in particular. I was spanked as a child, but the occasional smack on the bum evolved into an almost daily routine of being beaten by Dad. Mum knew about the abuse, but she did nothing to stop it from happening. She was more concerned with the public image of the family than for my welfare. I was regularly subjected to physical, emotional, and verbal abuse by my father and mother. I did not know why I was the subject of their abuse. As an adolescent girl, I believed that the abuse inflicted on me was my fault. Why else would both of my parents hate me unless it was somehow my fault?
I was a fourteen-year-old girl living with my parents in Catbrook, Monmouthshire, Wales. It was the last day of school before the autumn half-term break when Michael Rees approached me at lunch. I would occasionally dream about a life outside of my abusive home in which I was a wife and mother, loved and loving. My dreams were a sunbeam in the overcast sky of my life. I had a crush on Michael, but I was not allowed to date at my age. I wish that I could do things that other girls can do. He asked me if I would like to go to a party on Halloween. I told him that I would have to ask permission from my parents, but that I would like to go with him. In my heart, I knew that I would not be able to attend the party with him, but there remained a flame of hope within me. Dream on, silly dreamer.
When I returned home from school, I prepared to ask Mum if I could go to the party, but she was not home from work. As I turned around, I walked into Dad, who was standing in the doorway of the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Dad asked.
“I was looking for Mum,” I answered. “Is she still at work?”
“No,” Dad answered. “She went to the grocer’s. Why?”
He slurred his words as he spoke to me.
“I wanted to ask permission to go to a party with Michael Rees.”
“Why wouldn’t you ask me?”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
I stepped backward as he stepped forward, and he asked, “Why would that bother me?”
“I don’t know…” I stammered.
As I attempted to step backward, Dad grabbed me by the shoulders, and he shook me. Please, stop.
“You’re a woman now,” Dad said. “Aren’t you?”
He shook me, and then he threw me onto the kitchen floor. I attempted to stand up, but he pulled me up by my hair.
“You’re not going to that party,” Dad said. “Go to your room.”
After he released my hair from his grip, I ran out of the house, and I hopped on my bicycle. I cried as I rode away from Dad, who was calling for me from the front door. I began to ride in the direction of Monmouth. It was during my ride that I discovered her. She was abandoned in the fields of Lydart, a hamlet between Catbrook and Monmouth. Who knew how many days she had endured without food and water? People can be so cruel. I placed her in my basket as I rode home. When I arrived home, I walked into the house, and I saw that Mum and Dad were sitting in the front room.
Before I was able to say anything, Mum asked, “Where did you go?”
“I was riding my bicycle,” I answered.
After a brief pause, Mum said, “Your father and I have reached a decision, Sara. You are not going to that party. It is best for you to stay home.”
I felt another piece of my heart break with her words, but I cannot say that they were unexpected. However, I focused my attention on what I found rather than my disappointment, and I introduced my find to my parents, whose eyes widened in surprise.
“Where did you find her?”
“Lydart.”
“Why did you bring her back here?”
“May I keep her?”
With a tsk of her tongue, Mum said, “Are you prepared to be responsible for her?”
“Yes, Mum,” I answered. “She will be my pet.”
Although Dad mumbled expletives, Mum reluctantly gave me permission to keep her. The cat that I held in my arms meowed, and I set her down on the floor so that I could prepare a dinner of tuna fish for her.
“I will have to buy proper food for you tomorrow, Princess,” I said. After I mulled it over, I decided that her adoptive name would be “Princess.” As she ate her food, I petted her black fur, and I said, softly, “My Princess.”
As I prepared for bed that night, I heard Dad shouting in the front room. I walked downstairs, and I saw that the family portrait that was hung over the mantle was crooked. Dad attempted to realign the picture frame, but it returned to its crooked position. Before Dad was able to recompose himself, the picture suddenly flew off of the wall into his face. The glass shattered, and Dad shouted in pain. I screamed, and Mum went to Dad to administer to his wounds. What’s going on? I flinched as Princess rubbed herself against my legs. I was looking down at her when Mum instructed me, “Bring me a package of bandages.”
“What?”
“Bring me a package of bandages, Sara,” Mum repeated.
After I retrieved the package of bandages from the loo, I gave them to Mum, and I was sent to my room. How could a picture fly off the wall like that? As I mulled it over, I delicately took off my school uniform and put on my white nightdress. I noticed that Princess was watching me intently. I gave her a pat on the head absentmindedly, and then I laid down in bed. Princess jumped up on the bed, and she curled herself up at my feet. She purred as she slept, and I was soon lulled to sleep myself.
On the following day, I bicycled to Monmouth to buy supplies for Princess — food, a litter box with litter, toys, and a collar with a bell attached to it. I spent the entirety of the meager allowance that my parents gave me. When I returned home, I readied the house for Princess. I put her food in the pantry, her litter box in the loo, and her toys in my bedroom. I held her in my lap as I placed the collar around her neck. After I readied the house for Princess, I did my household chores. While Dad slept in his recliner, his face bandaged, I gathered the empty bottles that surrounded him. One of the bottles dropped out of my hands, and it shattered on the kitchen floor. Oh, no. Dad woke up, and he stomped into the kitchen. He had taken off his belt, and he smacked me in the face with it before he grabbed me, and he held me across his knees as he belted me. I attempted to escape from his grip, but he smacked me in the face again before he continued to mete out my punishment. After I was punished, Dad watched me as I cleaned up the broken bottle. He returned to his alcoholic stupor with another bottle while I finished the rest of my chores, and I limped back to my bedroom, where I sat on my bed. Princess had followed me, and she jumped up on my bed. As I laid down, I held her close, and I fell asleep.
When I awoke in the morning, Mum urged me out of bed to prepare for Mass. We attended the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass each Sunday at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Monmouth.
“Follow me,” Mum said, and I followed her to my parents’ bedroom. She sat me down at her vanity stand.
Before I was able to say anything, Mum asked, “Would you like for me to do your makeup?”
I was momentarily confused, but I answered, “Yes,” after I looked at myself in the mirror.
I winced as Mum applied powder to my face with her powder puff, and thereafter she applied rouge. My cheeks still felt tender to the touch, but Mum was as gentle as she could be. She finished doing my makeup with an application of pink lipstick.
“Do I look okay?” I asked.
“Yes,” Mum answered. “What are you going to wear?”
“I don’t know…” I trailed off.
We returned to my bedroom, and Mum went through my wardrobe. She retrieved a blue jumper and a white dress from the wardrobe, laying them on the bed. Before she left me to dress, she said, emphatically, “Wear the jumper.”
As I dressed for Mass, I heard voices from downstairs.
“What did you think you were doing?” Mum asked.
“She needed to learn how to be more careful,” Dad answered.
“What will the people at church think?” Mum asked. “She has to wear makeup.”
I could not hear the rest of the conversation, but Mum and Dad raised their voices before Mum called for me. In a hurry, I put on my white mantilla, and I went to Mass with my parents. After we returned home from Mass, I fed Princess her first meal of the day. I was escorted upstairs by Mum, who removed my makeup with her cold cream. As Mum said, “We mustn’t show our flaws.” After she removed my makeup, she sent me to my room. I decided to listen to one of my records — Eagles by The Eagles. I would listen to music as often as I could to take away my pain and relieve my suffering. The music would drown out my depressive thoughts, and the lyrics would take me to a world where my father and mother and my depression could no longer do me harm.
Raven hair and ruby lips / Sparks fly from her fingertips / Echoed voices in the night / She’s a restless spirit on an endless flight.
Princess entered the room as I listened to “Witchy Woman,” and she jumped up on my bed. She curled herself up on my pillows as I sat on the floor, and she lay there as I played the song, “Nightingale.” I picked her up, and I danced with her in my arms.
Wait a minute, here comes my baby / Singing like a nightingale / Coming my way / Down along that devastation trail / Well, let the fires burn / And let the floods return / We will prevail.
As the song ended, Dad appeared in my doorway, and I turned off the record player. I set Princess down on the floor, and she stood by my feet.
“What are you doing?” Dad asked.
“I was listening to my records…” I answered. “I’m sorry.”
“No noise,” Dad said.
After he reprimanded me, Dad walked downstairs. We ate dinner in the dining room, and I fed Princess her third and final meal of the day. I finished my dinner, and I asked to be excused from the table.
“No,” Mum said. “You will wait until your father finishes his dinner.”
“Yes, Mum.”
After Dad finished his dinner, I was allowed to go to bed. Before I was able to walk upstairs, Dad grabbed me by the arm, and he said, “What do you say?”
The light fitting on the ceiling of the dining room flickered.
I fixed the skirt of my dress, and I said, respectfully, “I love you, Mum and Dad.”
Dad smiled, and I could smell the drink on his breath. He replied, “Good girl.”
The light fitting on the ceiling burned brightly, and then it exploded. I gasped as Mum and Dad turned their heads around, and then they slowly turned back to me.
“What did you do?” Dad asked.
“I didn’t do anything,” I answered. “How did it happen?”
“You know how it happened.”
“No, I don’t…”
As I was speaking, Dad smacked me in the face. Princess approached us, and she hissed at Dad, who raised his hand to her. I leapt in front of Princess, and I was smacked in the face again for defending her.
“That is enough,” Mum said, and Dad nodded his head.
“Go to your room.”
I walked upstairs, and I entered my bedroom. I took off my Sunday best, and I put on my white nightdress. Princess followed me into my room, and again she watched me as I prepared for bed. As I laid down in bed, I remembered that I had not telephoned Michael and told him that I would not be able to attend the party with him. A wave of depressive thoughts washed over me. No one will ever want you again. With tears in my eyes, I closed my door, and I went to my wardrobe, where I retrieved a razor blade, a hand towel, and a package of bandages. The blood that I shed from my forearm felt like it unencumbered my soul of some of its many sorrows. I covered the cuts with bandages, and I returned all of it to my wardrobe before I laid back down in bed, and I fell asleep.
On the following day, I telephoned Michael, and I informed him that my parents said that I could not attend the party with him. He was disappointed, but he said that he understood. I spent most of the day in my room. No one came to check in on me, but Princess was my constant companion, and she never left my side. I looked into her eyes, and I said, “I love you,” and it seemed for a moment that she was going to respond. It must be my imagination.
It was not until the following day that I emerged from my room, and I ate breakfast with my parents.
“Your father and I will be attending a party tomorrow evening,” Mum said.
“Where?”
“Dr. and Mrs. Hughes are holding a party at their house.”
“May I go to the party?”
“No,” Mum answered. “You will stay home.”
I felt my eyes well with tears, but I focused on the bowl of cereal before me. If I cried, I would be punished by Dad for hurting Mum’s feelings, and therefore I nodded my head, and I continued to eat breakfast, forcing the cereal down with my tears. After breakfast, I decided to study for when school recommenced. I had high marks, but Mum stressed the importance of studying regardless. I stopped studying for the night to feed Princess, and play with her. After I played with Princess, I prepared for bed. As I prepared for bed, I took off my clothes, and a stream of blood trickled down my legs. I looked at the drops of blood on my hands, and I felt the beginnings of a panic attack. I was aware that I had just experienced my first menstrual period, but I was afraid to approach Mum with this information. Nevertheless, I approached my parents’ bedroom, and I knocked on the door. Dad was in the shower, and Mum was preparing for bed at her vanity stand.
“Yes?”
“May I speak with you?”
“What?”
Before I could say anything, Mum noticed the blood on my hands, and she reached into a drawer of her vanity stand. Her eyes were impassive, but her face betrayed her revulsion toward the menstrual blood on my fingers. I wish I could do this on my own.
“Wear them,” Mum said. She handed me a package of sanitary towels, which I took from her. “Is there anything else?”
“No,” I answered, and I left my parents’ bedroom. There was neither advice nor guidance nor instruction from her on what I was supposed to do. I returned to my bedroom, and I gently placed the sanitary towel in my underwear, and I laid down in bed, and I tried to fall asleep. Was I a woman now? I did not know. Did it matter?
I heard Dad shouting from my parents’ bedroom, and I sat up in bed. As I listened carefully, I could hear Mum and Dad speaking in their bedroom.
“What happened to you?” Mum asked.
“I was in the shower,” Dad answered. “And the water turned to blood.”
“What?”
“The water turned to blood, Elizabeth.”
Blood? I could almost feel it trickling down my legs again. What was going on? As I laid back down, I recalled a reading from the Book of Exodus, which we read at St. Mary’s while learning the Ten Commandments. Before Moses was able to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, God inflicted ten plagues on the Egyptians to convince the Pharaoh to free the Israelites. The first plague was read to us by Sr. Maria, who taught the Catechism class.
“And the water of the river turned into blood. And the fishes that were in the river died: and the river corrupted, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river, and there was blood in all the land of Egypt.”
As I tossed and turned in bed, I could still hear Mum and Dad speaking in their bedroom, and their words leaked into my mind like ink in my hypnagogic state.
“It is impossible.”
“It is possible because it just happened to me.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” Dad answered. “But I think it’s her doing.”
I could not understand the strange happenings in my house. Were we cursed by God? Before I was able to think of another explanation, I fell asleep, and my parents’ voices faded away. Or was I cursed by God?
On the following day, All Hallows’ Eve, 31 October 1974, I bicycled to Monmouth to buy sweets for the holiday. I bought a wide variety of sweets for me, and I also bought a treat for Princess. Although it was not as popular in the United Kingdom as it was in the United States, I loved Halloween. You could be anybody that you wanted to be, even if that meant that you wanted to be nobody.
As the day journeyed into night, I prepared to eat sweets while I watched television. Trick–or–treating was not common in the United Kingdom, and therefore I had to entertain myself for the night while my parents attended the party of Dr. and Mrs. Hughes. At 7:30 P. M. Mum informed me that she and Dad were leaving for the party.
“I hope that you have a good time,” I said.
“Thank you,” Mum replied. “You can be nice when you want to be.”
Before she and Dad left, Mum said that they would return by midnight. It was a couple of hours later that I finished watching the programs on television in honor of Halloween, and I prepared myself for bed. I took off my clothes, and I put on my white nightdress. Princess joined me in bed, and I fell asleep with her by my side. I awoke when my parents returned home near 3 A. M. Both of them sounded intoxicated, and Mum laughed as Dad talked to her. As I attempted to return to sleep, Dad called for me.
I opened my eyes. Why is he calling for me? I got out of bed, and I went downstairs. What’s going on?
“Yes?”
“Where were you?”
“I was in bed,” I answered. “Why?”
“What is this?” Dad asked, his hands indicating the sweet wrappers on the sofa, which I had forgotten to dispose of before I went to bed. Before I was able to answer him, his hand connected with my cheek in a painful smack.
“Please,” I begged. “I’m sorry.”
“Not yet,” Dad said. He grabbed me by the hair, and he began to hit me. I remember being able to look into his blue eyes as he beat me. There was no other emotion behind them apart from unadulterated rage. The alcohol had taken everything else away. I was certain that he was finally going to kill me. And all over sweets.
This is it, I thought to myself. This is how I die.
As my father landed another smack on my crimson cheek, I heard Mum speaking, and Dad released my hair from his grip. There were shouts, but I could not discern the words of their argument. Mum separated Dad and me like an angel intervening in the affairs of mankind.
The issue with that comparison is that Mum was not an angel.
“What are you doing?” Mum asked.
She slurred her words like Dad.
“Look at that mess,” Dad answered. “It’s her doing.”
“Did you do this, Sara?”
I nodded my head, and Mum asked, “Why would you make such a mess?”
“It’s Halloween,” I said.
“I don’t care.”
“Clean up your mess,” Dad said as he threw me onto the floor. He approached me as I attempted to stand up, and he began to kick me.
Before he landed another kick, he was thrown backward into Mum as if he was pushed.
“Did you do that?”
With my eyes widened in shock, I shook my head, but he raised his hand to smack me. Dad was unable to smack me before he was thrown backward again, tripping over Mum, who fell back onto the floor. He stood up, and he unfastened his belt to beat me with it. I screamed, and all of the lights in the house burned brightly, and then they exploded. What happened? Mum and Dad looked around the darkened house before they settled their eyes on me.
With a hollow laugh, Mum said, “She’s a witch.”
Before I was able to say anything, Dad shouted, “Witch! …got Satan’s power.”
“What?”
“You’ve sold your soul, haven’t you?” Dad asked.
“No,” I answered.
“It’s the reason for all of the strange happenings recently,” Dad said. “Isn’t it? You’ve sold your soul.”
Was I a witch? I shook my head as Dad removed his belt, and he approached me with it in hand, and I closed my eyes. Could I be a witch without knowing it? I dreaded the thought, and I heard the cracking of bones and tearing of flesh. I am cursed by God. Mum screamed, and Dad dropped his belt onto the floor. I opened my eyes to see them looking at an adult woman standing in front of me. I could fully see the woman, illumined by the light of the full moon. She had blonde hair and brown eyes, and she was wearing a black dress, various rings, and fingerless gloves. She was enveloped by a black shawl, embroidered with flowers. She wore a necklace with a bell attached to it.
Before they were able to say anything, Mum and Dad burst into flames. I was horrified as my parents fell to the floor, their flesh melting from their skeletal frames. As much as I was horrified, I was also relieved. They cannot hurt me anymore. The fire began to spread through the house, and the woman guided me upstairs to my bedroom.
“Who are you?” I asked.
She smiled as she approached me and caressed my tear-stained face, saying, softly, “My Princess.” Her voice was ethereal. Raspy, but graceful, and her eyes emanated love.
“Princess?”
She nodded her head, and then she embraced me with the tenderness of a mother, a sister, and a friend that I had never known heretofore. After she embraced me, she held my hands in hers.
“What are you?”
“I have come to make you better,” she answered. “And I have come to take you away.”
Tears welled up in my eyes as I asked, “What about my parents?”
“I have seen what they have done to you,” she said. “They have tried to break you.”
There was a brief pause before she continued, “You have not let them. Your great love is a power in and of itself. And if you come with me, you can learn all of the wonders of witchcraft.”
“You were a cat…” I trailed off. “Why?”
“I knew you long before you found me in the fields of Lydart. If I was going to save you, I had to be inconspicuous.”
“Why didn’t you take me away before now?”
“I had to be certain that this life was not for you,” she answered.
“My friends…” I trailed off. “I will never see them again.”
“You must make that sacrifice,” she said. “However, it is ultimately your decision. Will you come or will you stay?”
After a brief pause, I said, tearfully, “Take me.”
With her hand in mine, we leapt from my window, taken by the wind.
It has been forty-five years, and I still live in rural Wales with the witch, who taught me the art of witchcraft. I am now also a white witch. Although she has not aged in appearance, I have, but I have aged at a slower rate than normal as a result of the powers with which she endowed me. You must be wondering, “Why is she telling her story now?” The answer to that question is a less complicated one. In the form of a bird, I witnessed recently in Monmouth the abuse inflicted on an adolescent boy by his parents. I have all of it planned. I have not transformed since the light of the last full moon. The next full moon is approaching. As the boy walks through the fields of Lydart, he will find a skylark with a broken wing, which he will rescue to nurse back to health.
And I will take him away.
|
From an early age I was told my father had “built” me and that I was built to help the family. Any feelings or thoughts that differed from his programming were to be reported to him as a malfunction that he would fix. It didn’t take me long to associate malfunctions with pain and I reported them less and less over the years.
I slept in the basement in a box with a thin layer of foam and a pillow. I didn’t go to school, I didn’t know school even existed. My education, if you can call it that was a list of books on topics to upload. Most of these books were on topics useful to my parents such as basic plumbing and electrical work, cooking, gardening and those written by my father on my programming.
My mother would then give me a list of questions to answer about these books to ensure the upload was successful. Sometimes, the questions would be tricks or I would answer them incorrectly in the eyes of my outraged father. My uploads were almost always successful, I had nothing but time and the intense fear of “corrupting my processors” if I didn’t properly concentrate.
Writing this now, so many years later it does sound ridiculous but as a child unexposed to the world, I only had my parents to guide me. Between uploads and maintenance, I had tasks to complete. This included mowing the lawn, tending the garden, cooking meals, cleaning and fixing things such as lawn mowers, washing machines, dryers and fridges.
There was no down time, I always had broken things to fix. I later found out my father would sell these once I had fixed them. When I was 17 years old (I didn’t know of birthdays or my age, but this is what police have told me) my father had to stop work and decided it was time for me to earn some money.
The thought scared me but I obeyed orders as I had been programmed to do. My father would send me to do cash jobs mowing lawns and doing general yard work. He would usually wait in the car until I was done or leave and come back if no one was home.
During these times he would put me on mute mode and said that he would know if I spoke with anyone. It was forbidden, if I malfunctioned there would be serious consequences. No one ever approached or spoke with me. Even if they had arrived home before my father returned, they would make their way inside without a word.
I discovered later that he had told his clients I was deaf and mute and liked to be left alone to finish the job. It was simple, he would drop me off on a large property, I would do my job and we would leave. One day I was mowing a regulars house, no cars were in the driveway so my father left me to do the job. Shortly after a girl came out with a drink. She looked the same age as me and for a moment I considered she may be an android too.
“It’s pretty hot outside, I thought you might want this,” she said, handing me a black drink. “It’s Pepsi. I hope that’s okay.” She smiled. I had no idea what Pepsi was. It was black, like the oil mother made me drink ,so I thought it should be okay.
I still remember that first sip. It was the single greatest thing I had tasted. It didn’t leave my mind feeling scrambled like my mother’s drink. I wanted to ask what Pepsi was, where she got this drink from. Did she make it?
“I haven’t seen you around. What school did you go to?” Pepsi girl asked. I put my head down and walked back to my mower. What was I supposed to do? “You’re not even going to say thank you?” she quipped, following me.
I looked back at her, she made me nervous for reasons I was yet to know about. “I have to work” I replied to her. Without another word she huffed and walked away. I spent the rest of the day counting down the minutes until my father came to pick me up. I was convinced they would know I had gone off mute, that I had spoken to someone.
When my fathers dusty red wagon pulled up, I loaded my gear into the car and got in. No words were spoken, I felt a small sense of relief but a small voice in the back of my head spoke to me. He may not know now but wait till you get home. Nothing was out of the usual that night. I did my chores, worked on my uploads, and recharged my batteries.
The rest of the week was business as usual, my father was in one of his moods that lasted from days to weeks. The longer the mood, the more aggressive he would get with me. The small voice in the back of my head spoke to me once more. Maybe he really doesn’t know. Maybe he is lying. Once this seed had been planted, over the next few months its roots took hold of me.
The rare moments I was left alone, I did something I’d never done before, I watched TV.
Though usually on mute and in short intervals, I started seeing images of the outside world. Happy families, cartoons and animals, it was mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time. The day that changed my life however was the day I turned on the TV and caught a glimpse of I, Robot. Real androids that had sown real doubts within me.
Though I knew something was inherently wrong about my situation, I didn’t know what to do. Eventually, I was sent back to Pepsi girls house and got to work. I was really hoping she would bring me some more but didn’t get my hopes up. I was almost done mowing the lawn when she pulled into the property. I watched her drive up to the house and get out. A part of me screamed to talk to her.
I thought of the scenarios carefully:
I would find out the truth about myself.
She may tell my father and my malfunction would need to be fixed.
I might get Pepsi.
I caught her at the door almost out of breath from running and she turned to look at me with a glare. “Am I an android? Father says I’m an android,” I blurted out.
“Android?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
I told her everything that I’ve told you and about the movie I’d seen with real androids. She stood quietly, I guessed she was trying to make sense of it all. I heard footsteps behind me and immediately lost all my courage. My father said nothing and grabbed my arm pulling me away. I looked back at her, still with the same perplexed look she wore when I first approached her.
I had blown it.
That night was the worst night of my life. The “fixing” my father did was worse then ever before and now I knew. I am something, I’m someone. The seams were splitting, my father no longer bothered with the usual half-assed facade that had become so apparent to me now. It was just straight punishment.
Both my parents tried scaring me, telling me stories of police and the outside world. They were both furious but also shaken. I wasn’t aloud out of the basement after that, the days passed slowly and my parents screaming matches were the only form of stimulation I had. I would put my ear to the door to try hear what they were saying.
One sentence drove fear into me that I didn’t know I had. “I’m going to shut it down for good.” I was that “it.” I heard someone coming down the steps and fled from the door. My father pushed it opened but stayed outside. I stared at him from across the room, uncertain of what I was supposed to do. He threw a shovel into the room and it clanged against the floor breaking the silence.
“Come,” he said, motioning me out of the room. I obeyed his commands and was lead into the backyard. We walked further out onto the property before he ordered me to dig a hole.
“What am I digging for?” I asked him.
“What the fuck is with all these questions? What happened to you? I didn’t program you right?” My father had to be in his 60’s at least but this shriveled up man still terrified me.
“Are you going to shut me down?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Gonna shut you down and get a new one. One that can keep its fucking mouth shut.” A half smile appeared on father’s face, as if satisfied with himself.
That smile pissed me off, that man pissed me off. As much as he scared me, I thought of what I was missing. Though, I didn’t even know what I was missing apart from the magical world I had put together through the TV shows I’d seen. I thought of Pepsi girl, I thought of the fucking Pepsi and then all the pain this man had caused me.
I clenched the shovel and swung at him connecting with the side of his face. The sound rung out into the night but no part of me was sticking around to enjoy it. My father hit the ground and I started running. There was no plan, I hadn’t intended for this to happen and had no clue where I was going or where I should be going.
After cutting through a few properties, I finally stopped running. I collapsed into some tall grass and caught my breath. The stars were beautiful, it was the first time I’d be out at night on my own and despite the fear and uncertainty it was the most beautiful night of my life.
I decided I would go to Pepsi girl’s house, I knew it was close and had an idea of where it was. I continued walking and found myself at the driveway just as the sun was coming up. I knocked on the door until a worried man came out to greet me. I told him everything I’d told his daughter and he believed me. Thank God he believed me.
The police arrived at the house to find my father with a gun in his mouth, he had already disposed of my mother. They told him to put it down but he pulled the trigger and it was over. Over for them but not for me; my life was just beginning.
It was revealed to me that they weren’t really my parents. They had stolen me, stolen my childhood, my mind. And at times, I wonder if they just might still steal my sanity. Thank God for malfunctions.
Thank you Gary, Emily and Grace (Pepsi girl). Thank you.
|
“Did you get my story written?” Christie asked as she came through the front door just after two. Normally she wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours but apparently the schools had let out early that day for something to do with testing. She didn’t care enough to fully explain and Shane didn’t care enough to ask any further when it came up over dinner the night before.
“Your story?” he acted surprised. “What story is that?” The sarcasm earned him a smack in the back of the head even though she had to walk across the room to do it.
“My dream…” she said before kissing his cheek and then playfully smacking him again.
“Oh yea…” He knew exactly what she was talking about but could, in no way, let an opportunity pass to tease her about it. “You mean that inane diatribe from this morning?”
“Hey,” she frowned as though her feeling were hurt even though they both knew that they weren’t. “Come on now…you said you need story ideas. It was a great idea.” Shane could only chuckle.
“Okay…” he didn’t even know where to start. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Your idea is about being on a road-trip in the desert with a guy that you may or may not know when you hit a road-block of sorts; only it isn’t really a road-block. From there they charge you fifteen cents to pass through…orrrr…you can work off the fifteen cents in their little community; which, let’s hope, is at a rate of at least fifteen cents an hour.” Christie nodded her approval so far despite the mockery.
“The first time you pass through you have the change but the next time you try…and I have no idea why you would try again but…the next time you have no money. So you and your friend, which you still don’t seem to know, are forced into labor in a mid-sized civilization which…what…you couldn’t see it from the road-block?” She confirmed. “So now you’re in this city where they may or may not give you lemonade which you may or may not spill? And…the whole thing was…let me see if I got this right; ‘all kind-of freaky and scary…sort of’. Does that about cover it?”
The young occupational therapist threw her hands up in disgust. “Geez…I guess when you say it like that it sounds kind of stupid.” Shane stood and stretched and walked over to hold his wife in a loving embrace.
“Not at all baby,” he whispered in her ear before kissing her neck. “It’s just a little raw, is all. I can work with ‘raw’.” She returned his kiss with one of her own, passionately on his lips.
“So that means you’ll write it then?” she used her sexiest, Jessica Rabbit voice.
He gently bopped her nose with the tip of his own before saying, “No…it’s a stupid idea” and laughing. Christie shoved him away and pointed a finger. One of the best things about their relationship was their ability to both give and take adequate amount of shit from each other, although that might have been a little too much.
“Go ahead mister…you just laughed your way to the couch tonight.” She was smiling but he wondered for a moment if she was serious. It was unlikely but a little extra-sweet for the rest of the evening was probably in order. He hated sleeping on that damn couch. She wasn’t wrong about his request for ideas, however. Writing could be a fickle mistress.
Sometimes words could come flowing with ease as his fingers would struggle to catch up with the stream of images and phrases offered up by his personal creative ether. The brilliance and clarity that could come, often unexpectedly, from one’s own subconscious could be both rewarding and addictive at the same time. So perfect could those instances be, lost in the translation of ideas greater than oneself, that the desire to recreate them could turn into an obsession. Losing himself in those moments he like to call “the writer’s high” was a drug unto itself. Endorphins firing him into a cerebral symphony of self-indulgent congruence. In this regard, as far as Shane was concerned, great authors were nothing more than junkies chasing their personal dragons.
The other side of that coin is the dreaded “writer’s block”. For every monsoon of harmonious worded bliss, there lies a barren drought just beyond the horizon; a hellish struggle with one’s own sanity. When these moments occur there can be much pleading and praying; a distressed struggle to do more than pull useless fragments of jutted sentences out of what was one once considered to be a working brain. Often grateful for useless ideas or tired clichés, a writer can be their own worst enemy in those instances and “desperate” becomes the word that settles in the spot where other words usually spring from.
This is where Shane had found himself for nearly three months now. Following a three-year period of narrative bliss wherein he produced three best-selling novellas and a compilation of twenty-two short stories that was still hanging around the New York Times top one-hundred, he was experiencing a drought of epic proportions…at least as far as he was concerned. Shane’s imagination and creativity were his modus operandi; known for his ability to craft an engrossing tale on the spot. Usually he had two or three manuscripts working at the same time with more ideas on the back burner, just waiting for their chance to see fruition. Unfortunately, that was no longer the case.
There was no real explanation for the current dry streak he was in. Christie suggested that it was nothing more than a temporary let-down from all the success he had achieved in such a short amount of time but it didn’t feel that way. It felt more significant than that; especially when he had been used to being able to create fictions with nothing more than a single word for inspiration. That’s how both “Branded” and “Mortar” came into being and they were two of the most well received stories in his last book.
As disheartening as the epidemic was for Shane, he tried not to let it affect his personal life. They weren’t hurting for money…and probably never would again. The deadline for his next book wouldn’t come for another thirteen months so there was no real hurry to regain his mojo, and even then it could be pushed back further if it became necessary. He was smart enough to know that he had a good life and a beautiful wife and there were others out there who had it a lot worse. It wasn’t like he wasn’t writing at all.
There were nearly five hundred pages of disconnected thoughts and ramblings, situational conversations, random events and loads of descriptions for characters that didn’t exist anywhere else. He thought that, if he just continued to type into his keyboard, something would eventually come to life as a compelling story. So far that hadn’t been the case but there were bits of gold here and there that he could mine for use later…assuming his writer’s block eventually came to an end.
“What are we going to do about dinner?” Christie asked after changing out of the brightly colored Scooby-Doo scrubs she wore to work with disabled children all day; breaking the train of thought he’d obviously been lost in. Shane hadn’t really thought about that and after a short round of negotiations they settled on delivered Chinese food; neither of them really wanted to go back out with a cold front just moving into the area. They watched “Jeopardy” while they ate and then burned a couple hours with Netflix before going to bed. Shane did not have to sleep on the couch.
Just before falling asleep in each other’s arms, Christie jerked upright with a couple of violent sneezes. Shane, of course, said “bless you” and didn’t think a whole lot more about it before drifting off. It was, however, the first thing that popped into his mind when her alarm went off the following morning. Well…actually the second thing. The first thing to come into Shane’s head was the unbearable jackhammering on his temples. He threw his feet to the floor and tried to sit upright only to have the pain force him back into a horizontal position. He was sick.
Not just a little bit sick either. It was a full-blown case of the flu. Apparently, there was a particularly virulent strain going around the school system and Christie was kind enough to bring it home to him. She was feeling a little under the weather herself but not in nearly as bad a shape as her husband. The next four days passed in something of a fevered miasma with only bits and pieces actually breaking through the fog and sticking in his consciousness. He remembered the doctor’s office…vaguely. Then there was a bath maybe…some soup that he may or may not have thrown up afterwards…Christie helping him to change clothes…struggling to walk to the bathroom…the smell of Vick’s Vapor Rub and the television in the background…Wheel of Fortune? It was all one big hazy blur and when it finally ended it felt more like a dream or distant memory than the last few days of his life.
Christie hadn’t been hit with the bug as hard as he had and she worked through the illness, despite her unused sick days. She informed him that when she was home, however, his behavior was erratic to the point of being downright amusing; providing her with more than a few chuckles at his delirium. On the second day of being infirmed, it seems that he had been convinced that he was Winston Churchill and was extremely upset that British Parliament and the Queen would not allow him access to the internet. Not really knowing how to console such an issue, she gently reminded her husband that there was no internet in Churchill’s day. Mind you, that was only the tip of the iceberg for his particular conundrum, but it was enough to bring him to tears and then, gratefully, restless sleep.
The next morning, he was troubled over the fact that he didn’t have any type of identification card that reflected his status as a Netflix member. When she tried to explain that it didn’t really work that day, Shane refused to believe her; convinced that it had something to do with the fact that he never finished the last season of “Breaking Bad”. All in all, she had to admit that he was the funniest patient she ever had. “I’m glad you enjoyed my brush with death,” he had told her sarcastically as she left for work the next morning, but in truth he was glad to just have the energy for sarcasm.
It had been one of the worst cases of being sick he had in recent memory and it had nearly drained him. He was feeling worlds better but the lack of protein and nutrients combined with his throwing up nearly everything he had consumed in the last few days had his energy level at an all-time low. It was probably best if he spent another day in bed recovering and getting fluids in and with a cup of coffee in one hand and his laptop in the other, that’s exactly where he headed. Fortunately, Christie, the clean-freak that she was, had already changed the sweat stained sheets he had been using and the moment he climbed between them sleep was tugging at his eyelids. He just wanted to check his email and then he would crash.
He fired up the little Dell and in a couple of minutes was clicking his inbox. There was one from Zack marked “You’re killing me”. That was unusual; Zack, his editor, never got in touch with him out of the blue like that and he was nowhere close to any deadlines. He opened it up; in addition to the email there was an attachment labeled “Writer’s Block”.
The email read: “Hey brother, I got to say that I’m really hating you right now. How in the hell do you expect me to keep a job if you send me stuff like this? It’s a complete non-edit…as in: it’s perfect. Not one error that I can find. I’d appreciate it if you would screw up a little bit just so I can keep getting a paycheck. That aside…very impressive work. I thought you said it would be awhile before you had anything for print? You been hiding this one? Although I must admit, it’s a little different than what I normally get from you. Not that it’s bad…in fact, I loved it. It’s just that you don’t usually go in for the horror stuff nor the self-introspection but it’s good that you keep expanding your horizons. Honestly, I can’t wait to see how you finish this one off. Part two should be a doozy. Give my best to Christie and ttyl. Zack. P.S. I sent an advance copy to RJ over at Random House so we can probably get to print in a couple weeks.”
The word ‘confusion’ did nothing to describe the overwhelming bewilderment Shane was feeling as he double-clicked the manuscript he had no recollection of sending to Zack…let alone writing. There it was at the top of the page, however: “Writer’s Block by Shane Hilton”. Scanning through the document showed him a total of five-hundred and twenty pages. When the hell could he have written that many pages? Assuming the absurd that he somehow produced a story from a barely-conscious and impossible to remember state, it had still only been four days. Even when he was smack in the middle of “the zone” and on absolute fire with words pouring like an open faucet, Shane had never produced more than fifty or sixty pages in a day; this thing was twice that.
Shane read the first sentence and, although all he wanted to do was close his eyes and sleep, one sentence turned into one paragraph and then a page. It was compelling and it did kind of sound like something he would write but each word felt new and unfamiliar. It was an eerie sensation and he fought slumber for nearly two-hundred pages before it overcame him and even then his mind refused to go anywhere else. How could it?
The protagonist of the story was named Shannon…an author and an obvious representation of himself with the same mannerisms, dirty brown hair and scraggly goatee. Enjoying some degrees of popularity, Shannon and his wife, Kristin, had a good life in a nice home with modest expectations for the future. The first hundred pages could have been a daily testimonial blog about Shane’s home life in greater detail than he would ever knowingly share with other people…let alone place in a novel for the world to read.
The part following that detailed the epic writing slump that Shannon experienced after having some modicum of success with three consecutive, highly-touted books which sold extremely well. For Shane, it was an intense déjà vu. He allowed the sandman to win around the time that the tale significantly diverged from his own experience. Shannon grew ill from an influenza virus as well but, rather than the four-day flu that Shane suffered through, grew much worse and fell into a coma for nearly a month.
The story didn’t jump ahead from there or change its point of view but instead gave its reader a glimpse of a subconscious trapped in an unconscious state. Within the coma there was another Shannon who was also trapped. The construct his mind had devised as his prison was a large, black, seemingly endless house; room after room after room, door after door after door, a labyrinth of useless space. Shannon spend weeks wandering the catacomb of wooden architecture looking for an exit or a window or…anything that would keep his impending insanity at bay.
As of the last words that Shane was able to read before passing out, laptop still heating the comforter, Shannon was finally making contact with something…or rather…someone. Unlike all the unoccupied rooms before, the character walks in to find a person seated with their back to him. He cannot tell if it is a man or a woman but they are wearing a fedora or cowboy hat…something with a wide brim. All that could really be seen was a silhouette against a white computer screen behind it. Shannon takes a few more steps, just far enough to read the words “Writer’s Block by…” written on the top of an empty page.
That was where Shane left it but it was far from done with him. None of what Shane read sparked a single ember of recognition but…it was clearly his. Be that as it may, it terrified him. Because he didn’t know where the plot was going when he should have at least had an idea, the scenario didn’t just haunt his dream a little bit; it blossomed into a full-fledged nightmare. The person in the hat wasn’t actually a person at all in his dream, but a demon of sorts: a wish-wielding genie whose bottle was a person’s trapped mind. It was both grotesque and enigmatic at the same time; a charismatic creature who offered an endless string of temptations for the small price of one’s soul.
Part of what made Shane such a remarkable story-teller was his ability to harness and manipulate his dreams. When he was twenty he took a three week course on mastering dream lucidity complete with dream journal homework and trigger insertions, which much like the confusing movie “Inception” presented well, were mental constructs that you consciously created in your subconscious in order to retain control over the dream. Shane’s was a yellow, rubber ball that would bounce through whatever wild situation his dream-self found himself in, if for no other reason than to remind him that it was, in fact, a dream…his dream. From that point it would become easier to manipulate the dream without actually losing it all together.
At 3:00 pm, locked in a battle of wits with a soul-sucking humanoid beast, the yellow ball bounced through the room, which was without form up until that point. After the ball’s passing, they were in the living area of the studio apartment Shane occupied for three years during college. The actual time spent there were some of the fondest memories that he had. It was his happy place. When he was there…he had an advantage, and, before too long, the demon seemed to realize it.
The thing’s final offer before Shane banished him away was its most tempting: it would help him to write the greatest story he had ever produced. It would earn him the fame of going down in history as one of the greatest authors of all time. The fame and fortune did nothing to seduce Shane, but the recognition for creating a literary masterpiece did tug at some of his deeper desires somewhat. Instead of accepting the offer, however, he kindly showed the visitor the door to his apartment and, subsequently, his mind before waking with a pounding headache in newly sweat-soaked sheets. Maybe the fever wasn’t done with him after all.
Hearing Christie’s keys rattling in the front door, Shane closed the dead laptop on the bed next to him and made his way to the bathroom for a shower. Not that it really mattered but he didn’t want her to have to see him in bed for the fifth consecutive day…plus it was highly unlike that she would want a whole lot to do with him in his current, well perspired condition. He could smell himself and that was never good.
For some reason Shane didn’t bring up the email from Zack or, more importantly, the manuscript despite it’s being right on the edge of his thoughts the entire time. It wasn’t like he was trying to hide it exactly…he just needed to wrap his own mind around it a little better before he tried disseminating it to her. At the minimum he needed to finish reading it first and even though part of him was anxious to do so, another, much larger, part was in no hurry to get back to the story whatsoever. There was something about the content he had read so far combined with the fevered dream and his complete and total amnesia regarding the whole damn thing and…it frightened him.
He was of two minds on the subject but when Christie kissed him goodnight and headed off to bed for the evening, Shane chose to go to the computer in his office and do some reading; his intention so resolute he even brewed a small pot of coffee. Since he wasn’t on his laptop he had to find the email and download the manuscript again but in a few minutes he was back to page 196 and with a hat-wearing silhouette facing a bright computer screen in a dark room. Shane did his best to push the earlier nightmare from his mind so he could read without outside influences coloring his opinion of the piece. Then again…if it all came from his mind anyway then did it really matter? The Catch-22 made his head spin a bit but he foraged forward anyway.
Deep in the heart of the eternally endless black house Shannon was coming face to face with the only other occupant he had come across in more time than he had been able to keep up with. The man in the hat was not actually a man and it wasn’t really a hat. The creature’s head was just an extremely odd shape. It was an eternal being from another dimension outside the physical reality Shannon lived in and its only way of making contact with the few, very special people that it did was through a deeply meditative mind; a monk, Zen Buddhist, shaman, wise Indian chief or…someone in a coma. When it did find a connection it was able to grant the wildest wishes they could think of.
Shane had to quit reading. Sweat had begun to bead on his brow. Part of him said that the story was hitting a little too close to home and the other…rational…side said, yea you idiot; of course it hits close to home…you wrote the damn thing. That did make sense. It might not have been so upsetting if his headache wasn’t starting to come back. The coffee would help…hopefully. After Shane took a bathroom break and refilled his mug, Shannon began his negotiations with malformed bringer of gifts.
“Zaelza” was what it asked to be called but Shannon didn’t like the taste it left in his mouth so he didn’t use it often. At first it offered the things one would expect to see: riches, women, fame…revenge; but it was already in the writer’s head and knew its way around just a bit. Zaelza didn’t take too terribly long to get to the meat of his offer. He knew exactly what Shannon wanted most in his heart and with Zaelza’s guiding hand, Shannon would write the greatest novel he could ever imagine. It would be a plot that would endear itself to practically every reader with lyrically quote-worthy wordsmithing that would be remembered long after his demise. Its brilliance would be easily recognized and celebrated. Not only that, but it would be the first of many, many more equally enchanting novels.
The offer captivated Shannon as much as it did Shane. Unfortunately for Shannon, however, he did not choose the same path. There was no happy place nor dismissal of the demon. No…an accord reached between the two was what there was and it was sealed in blood. One might wonder how a psychological agreement could be sealed in blood…Shane did, but it turned out to be accurate in a sense. Shannon’s coma-induced dream version of himself could bleed…did bleed…quite a bit in fact. Laughing maniacally, the creature stripped away his flesh, inch by painful inch, until he was bled completely dry. At that horrendous point of dying so painfully on the inside of his coma Shannon simultaneously awoke on the outside.
Shane stood up and began pacing the room. What the hell…seriously…what in the holy hell? Never before had he written of such violence. It was a type of graphic gore that he personally found distasteful. Why on Earth would he have ever put that scene in a story? If this really was his work then he could already see a serious effing edit was in order. He had done suspenseful before but this was outright torture-porn. In truth, Shane didn’t know if he was more upset at the explicit scene or at the fact that Shannon had come to a bargain with the beast that felt, more than a little, like the one from his nightmare. It took several long minutes and a fresh cup of coffee before he could continue…but he did continue.
There were no lingering effects from the coma and Shannon retained no memory of his time within it. It was, for all intents and purposes, a miracle recovery. The doctors were beyond themselves having long since pronounced him nothing more than a vegetable with odds of recovery somewhere on par with winning the Powerball. In no time Shannon was back home and writing again and the novel produced itself in less than a week. It was a feat remarkable even to him. He had no idea where it was coming from; there was no preconception at all. It practically wrote itself without him, a stream of consciousness flowing from unknown depths straight to his keyboard.
When it was finished it was about a writer struggling for new ideas. Gee…that was beginning to sound familiar. The writer goes on a great journey in search of ideas and overcomes many perils in outlandish situations. In the end, despite all the magic he experienced to get there, he was still unable to write any of it down. It was poetic and articulate and just stupid enough to be wildly popular. Shannon enjoyed the fame of touring the book and before too long found himself sitting down to attempt another one. It, much like the last, seemed to come from practically nowhere with no forethought.
It was about an actor who starred in a play only to discover in the end that he was actually just a fictional character in a different play. It was all very cerebral and more than a touch cliché but once again the masses ate it up with gleeful ‘give me more’ grins. Even more fame led to smug conceitedness; Shannon’s relationships begin to deteriorate. His wife leaves him and takes half his money. There are more books, more fame, a second wife who eventually leaves as well and a drug problem. Towards the end of his life he sees that there have been a great many more personal losses than critical gains and in the end the demon comes to collect anyway.
At the age of eighty-two Shannon has a stroke and, after being rendered unconscious, falls into a coma for the second time in his life. The old man Shannon is returned to the never-ending black house and it all comes back to him; he remembers it all: the wandering, the finding and the deal. He hears Zaelza approaching from several rooms away but he is too elderly to run anymore…it would be pointless. That wasn’t to say he cared to be skinned alive again but one thing he did learn in his wasted life was “a deal is a deal”.
The final chapter is, for the most part, a lengthy conversation between Shannon and the demon; full of witty repartee and sly conniving. Shannon does his best to convince the demon that it would be worthwhile for it to give up its claim on his soul if he were able to do something for it; to grant its wish so to speak. Shannon knows he is grasping at straws but somehow something takes hold. Zaelza did have one secret desire that the man could help him with as it turned out.
It wanted to be free to roam in the physical world…in our world, and the old man could help him do it if he agreed to allow Zaelza to take his body. Shannon’s body would wake up from the coma in the hospital…only he wouldn’t be in it. The benefit of that decision would be that he could have his soul back and it could progress to whatever point it would have gone to when he died. So basically…he’d be dead.
On the flip side, he would be unleashing an ancient evil onto an unsuspecting world and there could be no telling the waves of destruction and death it would bring with it. That act alone might be enough to condemn his soul to hell even if he did win it back. It was an impossible decision…and that was the end of the book. With a postscript notation to look out for the exciting conclusion in part two. Part two? Where the hell did part one come from? In a way it really sucked. Shane wanted a conclusion. He had to admit though, it hooked a reader and would guarantee sales for a follow-up. It was a sound contribution and just as good as or better than anything he had done to date although he really could have done without all the weirdness surrounding it or his lack of recollection in creating it.
Shane leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. It was five in the morning and too much coffee had him wired. It a bad combination with his tired eyes and he opted to go with watching the sunrise on the deck with his Mp3 player. Breakfast with Christie was a rare treat and around eight in the morning he finally decided to catch a few hours of sleep; determined to keep it to a nap so he didn’t screw his entire sleep schedule all to hell. Deep REM sleep came in a matter of minutes and before Shane knew it he was face to face with the misshapen night-terror again.
“What did you think?” it asked in a low rumbling voice like thunder way off in the distance. “Did you like my story?” Confused and pissed, Shane began frantically looking around the abyss they appeared to be floating in but for the life of him…he couldn’t remember what he was looking for. It seemed important. Of course the moment the yellow ball came bouncing out of the darkness, he remembered; and more importantly…he took control. Only once they were back at 212 Maypop Street, just two blocks from the university, did Shane dare to look back at the rasping interloper.
Even then it was difficult to manage as another big problem reared its head. The thing about lucid dreaming is that you know that you’re dreaming and can, as a result, affect the dream in any way you want. The bottom line is a realization that the entire environment is a product of your own mind; no matter how foreign or bizarre it seems it is still based on something within your own psyche. Baring that in mind, the other problem was that Shane could not seem to affect the demon itself. It seemed to conduct itself by its own volition without Shane having a clue what it would say or do. It felt like an intruder. Deciding that he could always evict the thing again if worse came to worse, Shane chose to confront it head on for the moment.
“So you’re the one that wrote it then?” He wanted to convey a coy smugness; a comfort that would let the trespasser know that he was the one in charge in there…even if it didn’t reflect the way he truly felt. It’s true that the yellow ball’s appearance always emboldened him but this wasn’t like the typical dream, if such a thing existed, and his confidence was nowhere near where it would usually be. Perhaps if he had been able to convert the creature into a pink bunny or a hockey-puck with googly-eyes it would have been business as usual, but since that wasn’t the case, it fell more like a strategic entanglement. Like Risk or Chess, each move would need to be calculated; especially against an opponent who had obviously played the game a lot more than he had.
The creature chuckled; or at least that what Shane though that it was. It sounded more like a large tarp flapping in the wind than a biological reaction from a living being. “Do you remember writing it?” it finally asked. Shane thought for a moment before answering.
“What if I did remember writing it?” He was afraid the false bravado was starting to show cracks. The thing’s barely humanoid face twisted into what Shane guessed to be a smile although it more closely resembled a sneer; its black and rotting teeth exposed in its skull.
“You,” it continued, “can lie to me all you want but it will be the same as lying to yourself. I’m already inside. I know your truths already.” Shane was quiet, not yet ready to call the demon on his bluff. “For example…I know what the true fear in your heart is. You’re afraid that you’ve already made the deal with me and just cannot remember doing so. How would that manuscript exist otherwise? Tell me I’m wrong.” He couldn’t. The son-of-a-bitch hit the nail on the head. It had been the unspoken thought that had been repeatedly pecking away at the back of Shane’s mind all day and now that the interloper had allowed it in, he was petrified by the certainty of it. It was the only part of all of this that made any sense at all.
“I would never do that.” Shane knew that much wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t just something he wanted to believe either; he knew himself better than that. No one in his family was particularly religious when he was growing up but Shane did believe in the soul, heaven and hell regardless. Looking at it analytically, part of him would admit that part of the belief came from the comfort it gave; the knowledge of continued existence beyond our time on Earth. After all, no one likes to think that this is all we’re given.
The comfort provided by thinking we’ll have more time on the clock was only a small part, however. There was something intangible and unmeasurable in the core of his being that just knew that it was true; in his deepest depths he could feel it. For that reason alone, Shane knew that he would never, even in an abject dream-state, trade away his soul for anything…let alone a damned book. His soul, his eternal existence, his afterlife…these were things he took very seriously.
The demon chortle
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Have you ever heard about the music industry in Korea? South Korea, to be more accurate. More likely, I’m sure you’ve heard of the increasingly popular music genre KPOP, or Korean Pop, and the subsequent insane fandom that comes with it. I’ve been in a popular KPOP group for a few years. For the sake of privacy, I’ll call myself Jin. No relation to the Jin from BTS, another popular KPOP group. I’m writing this as a warning to not only to others in our industry, but also as a warning to the fans and to those who dream of becoming a KPOP idol. Idol is another word for celebrity here. Thinking about it now, I don’t think “idol” is a healthy title for us. We aren’t. This is encouraging worship in the worst way possible. Trust me, I would know. And that’s where I’ll begin my story.
When I was growing up, I watched many people come up in the KPOP world. They had amazing lives and I wanted it. I never thought that I’d ever get the chance, but when I got the opportunity to audition for a huge company in Seoul, I took it. I begged my mother and father for a whole year to take me from my small province to the big city and tryout for my dream. It would take 5 auditions and 2 years before I was accepted at the age of 13. I had heard many stories about the hard lives of KPOP trainees. There’s a running joke calling the contracts you sign slave contracts. But, it didn’t deter my grind. I was ready for anything. I had no idea what horrors awaited me in the next 7 years.
To better understand my story, you need to understand how the KPOP industry is designed and how our culture directly affects it.
In SK, if you have talent, you’re a dime a dozen as literally thousands of people attempt to snag a place at one of the prestigious KPOP companies every year from all across the globe. Even the USA and Canada. Barring extraordinary circumstances, if you get accepted by a company after auditions, you become a “trainee.” It’s basically KPOP Boot Camp to get you in shape to form a whole group and start making money. Yes, boy and girl bands are still alive and well here. Trainees can be molded anywhere from 6 months to 5 or 6 years.
Now, my trainee life was simple and difficult. Every day, all day, I would train to be a pop star with 10 other kids my age. Some a little older, some even younger. It was hard. From sun up to sun down, we trained in all things you could think of. Singing, dancing, rapping, language, etc. But this life was the life I chose and wanted. I could write a whole horror story on just my trainee life, but this story’s subject is about the life after I debuted in a group. The life that I always thought would be a dream come true. The life full of traveling the world, singing, dancing, money, and the fans. The love of the fans. That was what I was most excited about. I wanted it so bad. The unconditional love of millions of people; wearing my face on their shirts, phone cases… screaming my name and crying when they got to meet me. Who wouldn’t want that? Being worshiped.
2 years after my other members and I became a legitimate group, I was bathing in the things I always wanted. It was amazing, but it came with a cost. In South Korea, and the KPOP world, we have different levels of fans. We have the normal fans who always support us, come to our concerts, buy our music, vote in our music shows, get our views up on YouTube, spend all of their money on us, etc. We love them and they love us. The second type are what we call “netizens.” These people are “internet citizens” and you may recognize this category as netizens are mostly in every fandom. That being said, they can be wonderful if they are happy with our choices, but when they believe we do something wrong, even if it’s as minor as looking at someone the wrong way, they can be vicious. We’re always terrified of our actions as we fear the repercussions of these fans, but we live with it. It comes with the territory.
Now, the 3rd level of fan… Here, we call them sasaengs. The Korean word “sasaeng” is a shorter form of the Korean word “sasaenghwal” (사생활), which literally means “privacy” or “private life.” I can honestly say, I do not understand this level of obsession. I heard rumors that they existed, but I never thought I’d ever have an encounter. I was wrong. These fans stalk us and invade our privacy. Us bigger groups or singers have at least 100 of full time sasaeng fans around us at all times. They try to rip off our clothes, kiss, molest, and rape us. They steal our private property and they have even broken into our dorms and hotels and planted cameras to watch us. They sometimes steal our boxers and sell them online. I even had a seemingly normal fan at a meet and greet place a camera in a stuffed animal she gave me. Thank God our security thoroughly checked our gifts before allowing us to have them.
I remember a few years ago hearing about a set of girls who had hit a few female idols with a bag full of rocks outside a venue when they were signing autographs. They were in the hospital for days after. I’ve even heard of these fans slipping drugs and poisonous substances into food and drink of the idols, making them sick. One even died after unwittingly consuming cyanide placed into a room service meal in Japan. That was a few years ago. Security has been upped since then and many times after, but they still get smarter about their dealings every year and it’s caused us to be wary of every fan we meet. The fans suffer the most for these egregious crimes against us in the name of love. I’m not saying these types of fans are exclusive to Korea and our industry, but when you mix these unstable personalities, the way our company markets us, and our cultural practices… you get a volatile cocktail that somehow seems to eclipse all other extremists out there.
They will do anything to make us remember them. Anything to get our attention. Anything to get to us. It’s been said that they hire full time taxi services to follow us around 24/7. This can get expensive, as you may know. Disgusting as the thought is, to fund their obsession, they have even sold their bodies for sex when they can’t get the money to do this anywhere else. It’s a sick life I don’t understand. We’ve also heard rumors that they have even killed just to the get the chance to touch us. But this has never been confirmed. We’ve all had the fear of God put into us by these rumblings and experiences of these “fans.” Honestly, I don’t think they have the right to be called fans. But the fear and the precautions were not enough to prevent the events that were to come.
Not only do we suffer at the hands of these people, we also have immense tribulation that’s sourced from our own company. Even though many of us have had horrible experiences regarding the dark side of our fandom, and have ample evidence of these crimes, our companies will do nothing to punish them. No legal action whatsoever. Why? Because they refuse to injure any source of income, even from these psychopaths. The people we entrust our lives to, the ones that are supposed to protect us… they value money over our safety and well being. They are just as much to blame. They can be cruel in every sense of the word. For example, in our world, we are not allowed to date anyone. Not publicly. Not in private either as forbidden by our companies, but we find ways around it, even though it’s in our contracts. We have little to no social life. Some companies will stipulate in said contracts that we can date 5 years after we debut, but unfortunately, that’s rare. Regardless, like I said, we find ways around it. We have to be stealthy about it, but sometimes that doesn’t always work as you’ll find out. The companies forbid it because they want the fans to have a false sense of hope. They want them to have the illusion of access. They want them to think we are available and that they actually have any chance of being with us. Sick, right? But the companies think it helps them make more money. It’s even been proven as true by the money they’ve lost by dating scandals. If we’re ousted as being with someone, the fans get angry. They almost feel like we cheated on them. They shame us, but the one who suffers the most is person we’re in the relationship with.
2 years ago, I had met a girl who worked at my company. She was the assistant to our debut stylist. I’ll call her Ji. She was quiet and she didn’t seem like she belonged in this hectic life we live. I barely even noticed her at first… until a few months after we debuted when she graduated to becoming one of our full time stylists. For months, she seemed to just blend into the colorful chaos that was our life, but one day I saw her. Really saw her. Ji was beautiful. Honestly, the most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on. And that’s saying something considering I had been around the likes of gorgeous female idols for years. Ji was different. She didn’t have to wear expensive clothes or pounds of makeup to sparkle among every other girl in the room.
I began talking to her and it took a year, but I finally got a date with her. She was opposed to it for the longest time because of our contracts, but the connection was undeniable. A piece of paper couldn’t hold us back. Months of stealthy, shadowed dates, clandestine meetings, and stolen glances later… we were in love. The cover of her job helped ease the pain of having to be hidden from the public and corporate eye. My other members knew, but they had their own undercover lovers to deal with and encouraged me when we fought about stresses over our secret. My fans thought I was single and that’s the way it had to be. We adapted and were together as much as we could be. Every second was precious. Seconds that normal couples would take for granted.
I loved her. I truly did. I wanted no one else. She saw me. Really saw me through the idol exterior I had to wear constantly. We traveled the world together on tour and she followed me to the ends of the Earth. I thought one day, once we got older and when the contracts were renegotiated, we could go public. We could get married. Have children. Oh, how I wanted children with Ji. She would have made a wonderful mother. In the Spring of last year, Ji and I had become comfortable with our routine. Maybe a bit overly confident that we would never be found out. Cocky even. It happens when you get away with a lie for so long. You feel invincible and infallible in your life of secrecy. We never thought that cool morning in March would be the end of our carefully constructed house of lies.
Ji and I awoke in the small, private music studio I had rented as a cover for our rendezvous to a loud and eager pounding on the door. We both jumped up in a panic not sure what was happening. I got dressed quickly as she hid under the bed. It was second nature to hide her at this point. I staggered to the door, ready with at least 10 different excuses for any situation I would be met with to protect her, to protect us. We weren’t amateurs. I opened the door blearily and I was met by two men from upper management in our company. I sighed deeply as I saw the anger protruding from their expressions. I knew we had been found out.
The next few weeks were a blur of public relation meetings and threats from our company. Someone had seen us and taken pictures. It took just ONE person to make this all crash down. It went viral by morning and soon after, the whole community knew. The fans knew. They felt betrayed and angry. Soon, our entire relationship was under the microscope and even though we were so careful to hide our love, the details of our private life were leaked. The fans, industry, our company… they all knew how long we’d been together and what we’d been doing. They knew everything no matter how much we denied and fought it. It was over. I was threatened with lawsuits and breach of contract. She was unceremoniously fired and she was forbidden to see me ever again. We were both heartbroken for weeks. She was everything to me and I would have given up ALL of this to be with her. Even my career I had spent years working on to achieve, but my company rules with an iron fist.
You may be asking, why didn’t you just walk away? Leave? I had worked my ass off for 7 long years to be where I was at the time, but even then, I still considered giving it all up for her. She was worth it, even though I cherished my career despite the Hell I had to endure. However, in most situations you hear about, things are sometimes easier said than done. Like when you scream at a person to stop being stupid by running up the stairs in a horror movie instead of just running outside. You think you’d know better and make better, life saving decisions. But, do you really think you would? No one knows exactly how they would react or what would motivate your choices. Our culture is different than most. A culture that puts more emphasis on morality and respect. I respected my company and was raised to follow through with my promises. Be a man. Especially if these promises took legal form in a contract.
A few weeks after the scandal broke, my brothers in my group and my family had rallied around me and prevented any further legal action from being brought against me and Ji. They even helped us to see each other a few times. I thought, I mean… I really and truly thought we could weather this and come out of it together; more in love than ever. I never thought that my life would turn into what it is today. It was the end of September when I stopped receiving texts and phone calls from Ji. We had bought burner phones to speak when we could. I tried feverishly to contact her, but her phone was off. I thought maybe she had changed her mind. Maybe this became too much. Maybe she needed some space. Maybe my company had found out how we communicated and was able to break that life line again. She had been forced to move back 5 hours away from Seoul after she was fired to live with her family. She didn’t want to leave, but she had no choice. Not only had the company black-balled her at every company in Korea, but they also accompanied said threats with legal repercussions. They threatened her enough that she was scared to stay and with no income, she couldn’t afford to continue to live in the city. The fans were not making it easy for her either. She was being berated by horrendous insults every street she walked on. They stalked her and made her life a living hell. My poor Ji. She never asked for this. I was able to hide behind my company and be protected, but she was thrown to the wolves. I blame myself for not walking away with her… for being too scared to do so.
After a week of silence, and no way to contact her family, I thought she had left me. That it was over. I thought my company had finally gotten rid of her for good. I was a mess and I had no idea how to go about getting her back. I thought maybe it was for the best at times. She could live a normal life now and have a regular relationship where she didn’t have to hide and she didn’t have to share him with millions of other girls on a daily basis. I didn’t leave my room for days. I could barely eat or even will myself to take a shower. I consistently asked my company if they could reach her. Just make sure she was okay. I even pleaded with them to let me see her one more time and say goodbye, but it fell on deaf ears.
Eventually, I scoured the internet to find anyone related to her. I only had a few surnames and locations to go on. Luckily, I didn’t have to search social networking sites for long. I found one of her younger cousins that she grew up with. I used a fake name and account to contact him, of course. I didn’t want to risk this becoming another scandal. I told him I was one of her friends and co worker from Seoul and I was wondering how she was after everything that occurred, but that I had no way to reach her. I threw in a few personal details only someone whom was close with her would know… just to assure him that I was indeed a legitimate friend and not a netizen trying to find Ji.
After a bit of back and forth, he seemed to believe me. I asked him where she was and if I could have a way to contact her. He responded telling me that she had been staying at his aunt and uncle’s house for a few weeks, but a few days prior to my message, she had unexpectedly left. She had been speaking of moving to America to study abroad for two years and even booked a flight to tour schools on the East coast. They didn’t know it would happen so quickly though. They figured that she had decided to leave early to escape the ridicule and spotlight she was unfairly shoved into by our relationship. He said she didn’t even say goodbye or leave a note. She told no one she was leaving, but this didn’t shake me or her family because Ji always hated goodbyes. We never said by when we departed from one another. We always said, “see you soon.” He concluded by saying that they had faith she would contact them once she made her arrangements in the States if she decided to stay and that he would ask her to contact me when she emerged.
I wanted to protest and ask more questions as I felt my heart breaking all over again. Was she really and truly out of the country? Did she leave everything, everyone behind to start a new life? Did she leave me behind?
I politely thanked him for speaking with me and extending my invitation to speak with Ji when she became available. I thought on this information for a few days. I somehow came to the conclusion that my company had something to do with this. They always did. Ji did not come from a wealthy family by any means. She was the sole breadwinner for her family in her home province. She made just enough to support her simple lifestyle and take care of her family. I knew that flights and a trip to America would be out of her financial reach at this point in her life. So, naturally… I began to suspect that they had paid her to leave the country and cut off all communication with me. Probably another tactic to keep me in a cage and prevent more scandals that would cause the company more monetary decline. You have no idea the lengths they will go to secure their investments. We are a lucrative commodity and they refuse to put that in jeopardy over a girl.
I confronted them in a rage demanding answers countless times, but I never did get a denial or confirmation of my suspicions and accusations. Either way, they benefited from her supposed sudden exodus from South Korea. Eventually, I threw in the towel and tried to accept that I may never see her again and I had my company to blame every inch of the way. But I had no other choice but to move on. October came and went with no news of Ji. I kept my sanity by imagining she was living the life she always wanted in the States. Or even Paris. We talked a lot about what we would do once I was let out of my contract. That’s what kept me together those nights where all I had were my worst nightmares of betrayal to keep me company.
Life went on around me in slow motion. Soon, I was so caught up in recording our new album and performing our tour that I almost never got the opportunity to dwell or be angry. 2 weeks before my birthday, the end of November, I started to receive my yearly birthday gifts from fans. I always looked forward to this. Our fans were wonderful. They would get the most unique gifts for us for our birthdays. Expensive, homemade, creative. Of course, with the ever growing concern of the sasaengs, our presents were monitored and checked before they were given to us. Every day that I would come back home to the dorm, I would have a new pile of packages set up on my bed. Placed there by our staff. The other members always loved to come in while I opened them and call dibs on candy I didn’t want. We did this every night for 2 weeks. The night before my birthday, I was excited. I knew I’d get the biggest and best presents the next day. Even so, I thought of Ji from time to time. Like I said, Ji was never rich by any means, but the presents she snuck to me every year were always my favorites. I remember running my fingers over the bracelet she had gotten me our first year together over and over until I fell asleep, hoping maybe I would still get a present from her this year. I thought that maybe it would come in the form of an email or text message. Even a phone call. Just to know where she was and make sure she was happy. I wanted to apologize for what my company did and tell her that I don’t blame her for taking the money. Anyone in their right mind would… even with love on the table. I thought that I may just have the chance to tell her these things I’d rehearsed in my mind for months following her departure.
I woke up to my members and staff bringing me a huge breakfast in bed. The day consisted of a few appearances and a filmed adventure to water park that we would upload to YouTube later on. We had a live broadcast of my cake ceremony and got into an icing fight. We returned back to the dorm and I ran into my room expecting to see all of the best packages of presents to open. I was not disappointed when I turned the lights on and saw stacks and stacks of boxes to open everywhere. Like always, as soon as I sat down to begin, a few of my brothers came piling in to claim the unwanted candies and things I knew I’d never eat. We gathered around talking about the day and laughing as we were on a sugar high. By the 10th present, I was already exhausted. I had quite a few left to open and was moaning that I wanted to finish in the morning. They were disappointed, but I had finally convinced them to leave me be to rest. As we were picking up the tattered remnants of wrapping paper and boxes, one of my members came to the door with a box. It wasn’t very big and it was just a plain brown shipping box that most all of the fan’s presents were delivered in.
I ask him what it was and he chuckled tossing it to me saying he didn’t go around opening other people’s birthday presents like some kind of monster. He told me that he had gone into the kitchen for a glass of water and found it sitting on the dining room table. We thought maybe the staff had forgotten to place it with the others. We examined it and it was, of course, shipped to me. It read… “To: Jin Love: Your biggest fans. Happiest of Birthdays and we love you more than life itself. You love us too, right?” in Korean, of course. I took the box and shook it. It was a bit heavy, but I had a weird feeling that this box was unusual. Why? Because it didn’t look like it had been opened yet. The staff always opened the boxes first before giving it to us for safety reasons. Some of the newer staff would sometimes re-tape the boxes, just so it would feel like I was the first to open it on my birthday. It was nice of them to give the illusion of a surprise. So, I thought nothing of it. None of us did. I decided to put it with the others and I kicked the rest of my mates out for the night.
After eating the candy I wanted and taking a few pictures with my gifts to put on social media as a thank you to my fans, I got into bed. I lay there in the dark thinking about the day with contentment. Slowly, as always, Ji crept into my mind. I must have laid there for hours debating on whether or not I wanted to get up and finish opening my presents… reasoning that perhaps there was a present from her in the pile of unopened presents. I couldn’t wait until morning. So, I got up, turned on my lamp, and sat on the floor. I began opening the rest of my boxes. One by one, my smile excitement waned as I realized each present was not from her. I was happy with gifts from fans, but of course, I was disappointed. An hour later, I only had one box left. The box that was found on our kitchen table. I sighed as I pulled it towards me, sitting in a ring of shredded boxes and hopes. I took the box opener and slowly cut the thick layers of masking tape that covered the entire box. My heart pounded in my chest as I thought… “it’s the last one. One more chance for Ji to wish my happy birthday. To know she okay and still loved me.”
As soon as I cut through the last layer and began to open the lips of the box, I was hit by a stench I will never forget. I coughed and gagged at the putrid smell emanating from the contents of the package. I gasped for air and fell backwards on my elbows. My loud calamity had woken up my member in the room across from me and he sleepily opened my door asking if I was okay. I looked at him for a moment, trying to hold in a belly laugh, before his nose was assaulted by the smell of rotting meat. He covered his nose and coughed as he waved he hands frantically in front of his face. I enjoyed a right good laugh watching him struggle with his senses that betrayed him.
After a few minutes of debate, we reasoned that maybe it was some food that a fan made and perhaps it had spoiled on it’s journey to us. It wouldn’t be the first time. Just last year, one of friends got a box full of his favorite potted meat from fans. The staff left it as a joke and our dorm smelled for weeks. He thought it was strange that the staff would give it to me if it was rotten, but I didn’t want to disappoint my fans. If they had gone through all of that trouble, the least I could do was retrieve the card and place it with the others. I prided myself on sending thank you notes to all of the senders every year. That was just the kind of guy I was. With our noses being pinched by our fingers, we sat back down around the package and braced for a plate full of rotting food. I only needed to get the card and then we could take it to the trash. We were being very dramatic about it, to be honest. We counted to 3 and quickly opened the box the rest of the way.
We peered into the box. For a few moments, we both stared at the contents, not knowing exactly what we were looking at. The odor was burning my eyes so badly that they were tearing. I wiped away the blur from my vision as I looked closer. All I could see was a mass of what looked like purple and black mush. Swirls of white and yellow mixed into the slush of liquid surrounding 3 masses laying in a container at the bottom of the box. All at once, I heard my mate scream bloody murder as he jumped back and began to heave in the corner of the room. My brain misfired and all I could do was stare into the darkness. I began to shake violently as I finally came to the disgusting realization at what I was looking at. A human, rotting hand. A foot. And what looked like a pound of human flesh piled in the corner. I only learned later that it was a severed scalp that had been crudely shaved short prior to it’s detachment from the head.
All I could do was keep my eyes fixated on it. My body was frozen. My lips were dry. My lungs wouldn’t inhale or exhale. Tears ran down my face. My heartbeat was erratic and fast. My convulsions were becoming more and more extreme by the second as I kept my eyes on the only thing that was recognizable: a small, silver ring on the finger surrounded by bloating flesh and exposed bone. All of the candy I had consumed immediately turned to bile and worked it’s way up my throat. I don’t know how long I was sitting there in a statue state accompanying my silent meltdown. I couldn’t move until I felt hands all over my body pulling me back away from the box. After a moment of looking up at my group surrounding me, I let out a bloodcurdling, guttural scream and blacked out. At least, that’s how the story goes according to those who witnessed this as I don’t remember much; save for the sight of human body parts that are forever burned into my memory.
I woke up in the living room with police, my members, and staff scattered around the room. My manager was sitting next to me looking at me when tears in her eyes. She held my hand gently and spoke to me in a soft voice. I have no idea what she said to me. All I could do was be silent and look at my surroundings. The voices that mumbled around me went quiet as everyone acknowledged that I came to. They all looked at me with concerned faces. The next few hours are sketchy in my memory. All I remember is being questioned by police on what was in the box and who sent it. I didn’t know. Or rather, my mind didn’t let me know… for it was too traumatic to recover at the time. We were placed in a hotel down the street for a few days as the investigation was on going. Even so, our schedules were not altered to allow for time to digest the events. I wasn’t surprised. Our company doesn’t even allow us leave when we’re injured, much less a traumatic event. Eventually, I was told that the body parts found in the box belonged to Ji. They didn’t have to tell me this as I already knew this to be true. I recognized the ring on the rotting hand. Every day after the first package arrived, more were delivered. These contained the rest of her. Her head being the last. All from different locations and provinces. All sent to ME from “my biggest fans.”
They never did find out who sent it or how the first box wound up in our dorm with no one noticing. All they could tell me and her family was that the body looked to have been severely abused for months before she was murdered and dismembered. It was said that she was probably taken the day her family thought she left for America and was in captivity, being tortured endlessly, until they decided to kill her and ship her remains to me. They don’t know if she was still alive when they began to saw her up. Honestly, I think they were trying to spare us the details. I like to think she was already deceased. I have to believe that. My poor Ji. The love of my life. Theories go that it was sasaengs who kidnapped her and tortured her. Then killed her and sent me her body as a birthday present. They came to this conclusion by the note on the box. From your biggest fans. But this was never fully confirmed. Maybe they used my fame as a cover for the murder. No one knows. But I believe it. I can’t even get my mind around the other theories, like that my company arranged this to make sure she would cause no more problems with their cash cow. That is beyond my mental capacity to accept, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.
Love makes people do crazy things. Love of a celebrity and the insanity that comes with it can cause people to go mad. Love of money can cause people to make decisions they would normally never consider. I don’t think I cried once. Not after the first night. I couldn’t. I was numb. I still am. That may have something to do with the medications I was given by our staff physicians to “help with the anxiety.” I’ve been forced to continue taking them to this day. I think about her every day. Her smile. Her voice. The last text message from her: “We’ll be together. They will accept us eventually. I love you, Jin. See you soon.” After the case went cold, they returned Ji’s belongings that were found on her body to her family. They gave me the ring that was still on her left hand. The couple’s ring I had given to her a month before we were exposed. The one thing I recognized in the mass of flesh and bone wading at the bottom of the box. I keep it in my nightstand with mine, but I never look at it. I can’t. Not without my mind recalling that sight on that night rather than the happiness that should be connected with it.
They never did run any news stories about her. I have a suspicion that my company paid off enough people to keep it quiet. I threatened many times to quit and disappear. I wanted no part of this life anymore. It stole and brutally destroyed the one person that I ever loved. I couldn’t look at any of my fans anymore… not without thinking in the back of my mind: “Were you the one that killed her? Was it you? Did you hack her body up and send it to me?” It became a big enough issue that my company sent me away to psychiatric facility for a month under the guise of working on my solo career. They refused to let me out of my contract, but as you have probably come to understand, this is no surprise. They threatened me with everything from my family and friends to my finances and legal recourse. They threatened my group members to the point where I agreed to do what they wanted. My actions would NEVER hurt anyone ever again. I make sure of this by no longer rocking the proverbial boat.
Which brings us to now. I’m sitting here in a small custodial closet in our company’s building typing this with only the glow from the screen lighting my surroundings. Hiding from them; my wardens… my tormentors. I’m just a shell of who I used to be. I record my music, I dance, I smile, I do meet and greets. I do my job. My company makes
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You’re an out-of-state truck driver, taking a load of bacon through Wyoming to Salt Lake City. Once the sun set, your trailer was finally released to you, you loaded up and headed out.
That was hours ago. You’d been on the same highway for what seemed like an eternity. All around you stretches nothing but shallow, rolling, grassy hills, stretching away till they meet the sky. In the fields edging the highway are dozens of wind turbines, but you can’t see them, it’s too dark. Nothing is discernable from the black but a red pinpoint of light, blinking, on the tip of each turbine. Stories off the ground, dozens and dozens of blinking red lights.
As you make your way down the highway, the blinking lights slowly begin to sync up, something your sleepy, bored mind is interested to see. The miles fly by under your rig, and, almost subconsciously, you feel yourself growing increasingly anticipatory, waiting to see all those lights brighten, then simultaneously fall dead, blanketing the landscape in a visual silence. You find yourself counting the blinks, fading in and out, 3….4…..5….in and out…..6……7……8….waiting for that last one, that ends in total darkness. You’re a bit more awake, as more and more of the lights are fading as one, only a few left to get into the shared rhythm….
At last, all the lights fade as one. For some reason, you are filled with an incomparable sense of satisfaction. A second goes by in the darkness. The only lights for miles in any direction are your rig lights, and the gauges on your dashboard, reflecting off your windshield. Another second goes by. Out in the distance, something catches your eye; a pair of red lights are still on! But wait, you notice they’re not blinking. That’s odd, because a second ago, darkness painted grass to sky. Odder still, they were much lower than the other lights. And…..they were moving? No, that can’t be right, all the lights are stationary….nope, they are definitely moving. You’re fully awake now, watching the 2 lights fly low to the ground, parallel to each other.
Another second passes, and all the other lights in the area fade in, glowing brighter till their apex. Even at their brightest, they did not come close to illuminating the ground, so you still cannot see what is making the lights move. Your eyes are glued to them, trying to make out an ATV, dune buggy, something, behind them. Slowly, you begin to drift into the opposing lane. You notice, tear your eyes away from the lights, and correct your rig. At that moment, you realize that the lights, whatever the hell they are, are moving towards the highway. At a substantial speed too, you’ve probably been watching them for 10, 15 seconds, and they’d already halved the distance between where you’d spotted them, and the highway you’re driving down. With how fast they are going, and how fast you’re going, it looks like your rig and whatever it is may collide. Unsure, and protective of your truck, you slow your speed a little, not wanting to risk any damage to the truck, or anything else. God forbid if that thing is an ATV, maybe with a stupid kid behind the wheel, looking for some cheap thrills by joyriding on private property.
Your speedometer needle drops below 60, and you notice a substantial drop in the lights’ speed as well. You think that perhaps the driver, because you’ve committed yourself to the ATV idea, may have noticed you as well, and also did not desire a collision. Strange though, if that was the case, why did the driver not turn on their lights? Even the most standard of ATVs, tractors, even the dune buggies, they all have SOME kind of light. And on the off chance that maybe it DID, and the lights were just out, why would the driver not have a flashlight, headlamp, even something reflective on? Jesus how stupid was this kid? Driving reckless in the middle of the night, on state-owned land, towards a (usually) busy highway, with no lamp, no lights, and no reflective gear? You press the gas a little more, thinking that you’ll either pass them first, or you’ll indeed intercept them, and you can give them a piece of your mind.
While you’re thinking, you notice the lights have also sped up again. That’s fine, let the little bastard meet you on the highway, you know whatever the hell he’s driving has no chance against your 80,000+lb rig, not to mention the 4,000+lbs of bacon in your trailer. He’s not ready. You laugh at your quip in your head.
Up ahead, you can see about where on the highway you’re going to intercept the little guy. You bare your teeth in a savage grin, and step on the gas. The lights accelerate as well, and you both move towards the same point on the highway at a blinding speed. You start to grit your teeth. Each second seems to stretch into infinity, and you eagerly await the meeting.
Finally, you both near the crux, and the lights on your rig seem to reflect off something shiny, pebbly, and small. You still have your mind set on ATV, but as you watch the lights, you fly right on by. Whatever it was seemed to have stopped short of the highway.
That thought passes through your mind, and at that exact moment, something collides with your truck trailer.
The entire truck shakes, and its weight shifts to the right; you can feel your driver-side tires come up off the ground, clear back to the back of the trailer! Whatever hit you wasn’t a fucking ATV, not to hit your trailer what felt like dead center, hard enough to rock it off a whole side of dually tires!
You mash the brakes, downshifting furiously, trying to maintain both the road and your rate of deceleration. You can feel something in your trailer, moving around. Thinking back to the fast and furious movies, you think that perhaps someone is interested in your load, and may be trying to steal it. What anyone but a distributor would want with thousands of pounds of bacon you have no idea, but being a criminal mastermind is just a hobby for you, not your job. The truck slows to a stop, and you grab your utility knife, stuff your P22 in your waistband, and pick up your shotgun as you hop down out of the truck. The trailer is being repeatedly jostled with some kind of movement inside, and when you slam your door, the shaking stops.
You come out from your cab wide, looking for some kind of vehicle, but your mind loses track as you see that whatever had hit you has left a gaping black hole in the side of the trailer. Upon closer inspection, it looks less like something hit you and went through the metal trailer side, and more like something with razor-sharp claws and jaws-of-life strength ripped it open. You can see claw marks, gouging the metal, and strips have been peeled OUT from the hole, not INTO it, like with impact.
You shoulder your shotgun, and pump a round into the chamber. You call out a warning, “Whoever’s in there, you better clear out quick or get an ass full of buckshot!”
Silence…..
You pull a mag light out from your pocket, and click it on. The moment it flashes into the blackness of the hole, something SHREIKS out at you.
You stop, torn between doing your job and protecting the load, and saving your skin, getting back in your truck, and hauling ass out of there. In your moment’s hesitation, something huge and black and scaly launches itself out of the opening in the trailer. It collides with you, knocking the breath from your lungs and your feet from the asphalt. Whatever it is, it’s on top of you, teeth going after your throat like a dog after a bone. Its momentary struggle with your jacket collar buys you the fraction of a second needed for its momentum to carry you both into the ground.
Your back hits the asphalt; the impact causes you to squeeze the trigger. The shotgun fires in an explosion of heat and light and noise that’s only slightly muffled by the body on top of you. Something sticky and warm gushes over your chest and hands; the pressure on you is instantly relieved as the thing convulses over onto the roadside.
You scramble to your feet, not about to let the thing get the drop on you again. You don’t have to worry, the body at your feet has a hole in it to match the one in your trailer. Looking down at your hands and jacket, you see you’re covered in its blood, the remainder of which is gradually collecting in the grooves in the road.
It’s the fucking weirdest thing you’ve ever fucking seen, a humanoid body, but black and scaled from clawed feet to muzzled head. It looked just like a big ass black lizard, complete with tail, but the claws on the ends of its digits were long and serrated. No wonder it could peel back the side of your trailer like a tuna can. How strong is the damn thing? How many pounds of pressure are required to peel back inches of steel like it was an orange? You stuck the shotgun down, and poked at it in the muzzle. Its jaw fell open, revealing rows upon rows of black, jagged teeth. There are still bits of fabric from your jacket stuck in the serrations of some of them.
Your mind takes you back to the lights, flying across the field as fast as your truck down the highway. Raising the barrel of the gun to its cheek, you press down, peeling open one of its eyes. A ruby orb stares out at you. You just stand, in shock, and almost don’t register the fact that there’s a light slowly coming back on in its eye.
Suddenly, the pinpoint of brightness comes alive, and swings your way, to land on you and glare, menacingly. You curse, and shoulder the gun again, pointing at the thing, and fire point-blank into its cold crimson gaze. Its head bursts open in a splatter of blood and bone and thicker things. A lump of matter lands on your shoe, and you take a few hurried steps back. The body on the ground twitches, and goes limp again. You stand braced, gun at the ready, finger on the trigger, waiting, not about to let your guard down again. Minutes tick by, and there’s no more movement.
You take a deep breath, calming yourself, and head to the back to check out any interior damage to the trailer, or your load.
The doors swing open at your pull, and your mouth falls agape at the mess in the trailer. Faint moonlight streams through the hole in the side. There is a lit circle painted on the opposite wall, occasionally hued pink by the dimly flashing lights outside. It illuminates turned over pallets, ripped open boxes, shredded plastic wrap, and the entire trailer reeks of raw meat. Scraps of bacon were strewn about, and you can tell by the massive dent in the product that you picked up, that the creature had eaten quite a bit of it. Several pallets had enormous holes, just eaten into the sides of the boxes, through shrink wrap and industrial zip ties and layers of cardboard. Your nose wrinkles at the stench.
A sigh heaves out of your lungs, how are you going to explain this to safety? To the distributor you’re delivering to? Hell, what are you gonna tell your boss? That the damn truck got hit by a fucking meteor? That a scaly reptilian beast chewed its way in? You close and lock up the back, shaking your head, and start towards your cab, turning over questions in your mind. So deep in thought, that you are almost completely past the huge pool of blood trickling off the roadside, before you notice the body is gone.
Terror makes your blood run cold. Bringing the gun back up, you keep your finger on the trigger, and put your back to the trailer. Your head whips back and forth, eyes scouring the darkness for any movement, ears straining for any sound.
The blood on the road draws your attention, and you notice that there are drag marks, pointing towards the field the creature came running from. Cautiously, you take a step towards the edge of the road. The night is too dark to see through, so you pull your mag light back up, and shine it out from the road. Its bright LED beam does little to penetrate the inky landscape, and you can discern nothing.
You turn back towards your truck, and hear a scuttling in the dry grass. Bones crack in your neck in response to you whipping your body around and bringing the gun up again in one motion. The only thing you can hear now is the blood roaring in your ears, backed by the thumping pressure of your heart. Wind blows past you. Whatever is out there, probably the THING, is upwind. The pounding in your ears begins to fade, and the moving air is bringing sounds of something’s progress to your ears. Whatever it is, was, whatever, is moving away, at a pretty good clip.
Eventually, the breeze reports no more movement. You consider tracking the creature, trying to find it, as some form of proof. Then you try to figure how hard it would be to bring it back, considering it was able to pick itself up and take the fuck off with a hole in its chest, almost bisecting it, and its head a loose, pulpy mass of blood and other things.
The image of its brains splattered all over the blacktop, all over your boot…there’s no way in hell you’re gonna go find that thing. No fucking way. You head back to your truck, mag light in one hand, shotgun in the other, nerves frayed and raw and on edge.
As you pull your door closed after you, and pick up your phone to notify dispatch of the accident, you see, off in the distance, a miniscule pair of shining red lights, much too low to be turbine lights, and pretty far away. But you see them. They flash, like a blink, in tandem. You roll down your window, never taking your eyes off the pinpoints of light in the distance.
Out of your waistband comes the P22, and you fire off 2 rounds into the direction of the lights. They disappear. You watch for a long time, not once looking away, all throughout your call to Dispatch, then 911, then safety, and finally your boss. Minutes tick by while you tell your story, over and over, to each person on the phone, not breaking your gaze. The lights did not return.
After explaining to everyone in the company and their mother, brother, and Uncle Bob, that you had been hit in the trailer, no you didn’t know by what, no the load wasn’t ok, and no you didn’t see anything, they finally agreed to let you turn your load around and come back home.
With no regard to the non-existent traffic, you make the most unprofessional, unorthodox U-turn in your semi, and blast out of there like a cat from a hound pen. The turbines slowly disappear into your rear-view mirror, and as soon as you cross the state line, you realize how tight your chest has been, relaxing as soon as you’re back in familiar territory. Like a fist around your heart suddenly letting go. You take a deep breath and relax, knowing you will not ever take this highway again, and if they try to make you, fuck em.
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A couple important things to note before I tell you about my experience: you are more than welcome to go check this place out for yourselves. Do a quick google search of “Diamond Fork Hot Springs Utah” and you’ll get hundreds of results telling you exactly how to get there (for those of you that are curious it is about an hour and a half drive from Salt Lake City). I would not, however, recommend that you go by yourself, or at night.
Another important thing to know is that where my experience took place and the land surrounding has a significant history, especially related to Native Americans. Unfortunately much of the recorded history is about the exceptionally bloody conflicts between these Native Americans and early settlers. Just a couple examples are Black Hawk’s War, the Provo war, and the Walker war. I also wish it to be known that I am quite fond of Native Americans and what I know of their culture, and I have absolutely nothing against them (in fact I have several close friends that have Native American heritage). I do not mean to offend or accuse by telling my experience, and I mention this side note only because of the possible link between my experience and various legends about so-called “skin walkers”. I will provide the facts and you can make of it what you’d like.
That being said, the Diamond Fork Hot Springs are a gem nestled a good half an hour drive and subsequent hike up the canyon and away from the city. I had been there several times before my wife Kenna and I decided to take a Monday off and hike there again this past winter. The springs are quite popular and during the summer they tend to draw a large crowd of college students, scout troops, and old men that are overly fond of publicly bathing nude. I had gone in the winter with my cousin several years previous and at that point we had the springs to ourselves, so I convinced Kenna to spend one of her days off hiking to them with me.
January 11th, 2016:
We began out hike just before 1 PM, thinking that this would give us ample time to hike to the springs, enjoy soaking for a couple hours, and get back to the car before sundown. I had hiked to the springs in the winter before, and knew that each winter the road is blocked off to cars well before the trail to the springs begins. This is due to snow (though honestly it seemed to me like it wouldn’t be hard for a plow to go the additional four-ish miles). I guess I forgot just how far four miles is when you’re walking through snow and ice. Nevertheless, we walked through the gate (the road was still open to hikers/snowshoers) and began our hike.
We enjoyed ourselves and took breaks about every 30 minutes, each break thinking that the trailhead must be around the next bend in the road. Shortly before our first break, I noticed a hole (cave would be too generous a term) in the side of the mountain to the left of us. It was obviously a man-made hole, as it was covered by a section of chain-link fence, but it still perked my curiosity. It was only about 30 feet from the trail, so I told my wife I’d like to check it out and she happily came up with me. Upon further investigation, we found that it was not much more than a boring hole. We used our flashlights to shine as far back into the hole as we could, but all we could see is some abandoned piping. After taking another 5 minute break, we continued on further into the canyon.
We walked, and walked, and walked. The time wore on and much earlier than we would have liked, our feet began to ache. I was beginning to regret insisting that we go on this adventure when finally we turned around a bend and saw the bridge that marks the trailhead. With newfound energy we rushed over to the sign with information about the various trails. At this point it was about 3:00 and I was beginning to become a bit concerned about having enough light to make it back before sundown. But we were already this far and we weren’t going to turn around before spending at least some time soaking in those springs. Plus we had flashlights just in case, and the way back to the car, albeit lengthy, was very straightforward. So we pushed forward knowing that we were well over half way there. Our strength seemed to diminish at an exponential rate, which was concerning because we’d have over a five mile hike back to the car. But I knew that we’d make it back somehow, perhaps with more frequent breaks than on the way up.
We soon began to smell the sulfur odor that was a sure sign that we were getting very close. We ended up seeing some bikers as we approached the springs. They were riding some of those “Fat Bikes” that have huge tires and are designed for the snow. We were happy to see them coming towards us, as this meant they were leaving and we would probably have the springs to ourselves. After letting them pass we hiked another ten minutes or so and finally reached the springs. I cannot explain how heavenly of a sight to behold those springs were. The combination of the milky blue water, the red rock with snow on it to our left and our right, the blue sky above, and the waterfall about 100 yards ahead were too much to take in at once. And best of all, we had it all to ourselves. We quickly stripped down to our swimming suits and hopped in.
It felt incredible, truly like stepping into healing waters. We relaxed for a bit and our noses quickly adjusted to the sulfur smell. Unfortunately our bodies also adjusted to the water temperature, and before long the water didn’t feel as amazingly warm as it did at first. There are a few places between the first spring and the waterfall further along the trail where water bubbles out of the earth and flows into a pool of it’s own, so I figured I’d check out a couple of the other pools and see if I could find a hotter one. I managed to climb up the runoff of some of the other pools, thinking that this would save my feet from freezing. It did, but in the process my feet slipped several times on the mossy rocks and were fairly banged up by the time I reached the other pools. To my delight these pools were significantly warmer, so I rushed back and beckoned my wife to come join me in these warmer springs. After a very brisk 30 second dash, we jumped in and I yelped briefly as I realized I may have jumped a bit too close to the mouth of the spring.
We soaked and enjoyed ourselves for about an hour. We ate some of the chips and granola bars that we had packed in and I downed a good deal of Cherry Coke (perfect drink for a hike, right?). At this point I had accepted the fact that for at least some of the hike back we would be in darkness and have to use our flashlights. From the springs it was hard to tell just how much the sun had set, since there are mountains rising steeply to both the east and the west and the sun is only visible overhead for around 5 hours in the middle of the day.
At about 5:00 we decided we really needed to get going, as much as we were dreading the hike back, so we dried off, took a few pictures, and headed out. Shortly after beginning the hike back I realized that my feet were immensely sore, and that my legs were already begging for a break. I mentioned this to Kenna and she mentioned that she was feeling the same. I could tell that we were both in a mood to complain, so I determined to try and keep the mood light and the conversation lively to distract us from our discomfort.
Things got very dark very fast. We hadn’t even reached the half-way point from the springs to the main road when we started seeing stars above us. We a couple flashlights with us, but I figured we should put off using them as we could since I had just grabbed them from my parents house and had no idea how long they’s last. I also hadn’t thought to bring extra batteries. All was well though, as our eyes had adjusted with the darkness and making out the snow packed trail wasn’t too difficult.
I could tell that Kenna was getting as tired as I was, so in an attempt to distract ourselves from our weariness, I asked her about a scary movie that she had seen with a friend a few days previous. As she told me the plot I began to feel a bit anxious and jumpy, but nothing more than what would be expected. It was part way through Kenna’s explanation of the plot, though, that I felt a surreal sinking feeling. It was as though my insides were being squeezed and I was descending into a state of panic. I generally don’t get overly scared when reading or hearing scary stories, especially if I know it’s just a movie, but this was different. I determined that this must be due to our circumstances, being isolated in the mountains far from anyone else with darkness surrounding us on all sides. From the beginning of the sinking feeling to attempting to justify it and brush it off was only a matter of seconds. I hadn’t realized it but Kenna had paused her explanation and hiked in silence for those few seconds, then hastily wrapped it up and moved on to another subject. I was secretly glad that she had finished so quickly, and figured that some discussion on a lighter topic would probably push out the overwhelming feeling of panic and paranoia that had overtaken me.
It was about at this point that I began to hear the whispering. There is a river that runs next to the trail and down about 5 feet in most places, and I tried to brush the noise off as the sound of rushing water. The thing that made me especially uneasy though was that the noise wasn’t just coming from the river to the left of us. It was coming from the right and from behind as well. Kenna had gone silent and again I hadn’t paid much attention as I was quite distracted by the noises. They started out very quiet, almost too quiet to even notice over the sound of the river, and slowly grew louder. They never grew loud enough to completely get rid of the doubt that they were actually there, but I was sensing a change in Kenna’s disposition as well. Shortly thereafter she said my name (which nearly made me jump out of my skin) and asked if I’d be okay taking a break. I tried to appear calm and said I would, though the feeling of panic was still as strong as ever. It seemed to scream that we needed to get away from where we were now.
We sat down in the snow and didn’t talk much. I think I mentioned something about how we must be getting close to the road, and that then at least we’d be on a wide paved road rather than this thin dirt trail. I didn’t dare ask Kenna if she was feeling or hearing anything, in part because I didn’t want to sound like the scary movie plot was getting to me, and more in part because I didn’t want her to confirm that the weird stuff going on wasn’t just inside my head.
Unfortunately the whisperings hadn’t stopped while we rested; in fact they seemed more real than ever. I was getting antsy and again anxious to at least be making our way towards our car and sure safety. I suppose it was more a desire to be making our way away from whatever was behind/around us. At this point I began to shiver, and pointing this out to Kenna, I suggested we keep pushing onward. I knew that I wasn’t too cold, at least not cold enough to make me shiver like I was. Put simply I was overwhelmingly terrified of the darkness around us and what it contained.
We hopped up and continued onward. All the time I was hoping and praying that we would see the bridge marking the trailhead and at least make it off of this dirt trail and back onto pavement. I knew that we would have a several mile walk back to the car after crossing the bridge, but there was something comforting about the thought of being on the wider road.
As we came upon a rather steeper part of the trail, recognized it as a landmark that was very close to the bridge. I decided we should pull out our flashlights for this portion. I didn’t want either of us slipping on ice or tripping on a root and falling into the river below (and among whatever else might be down there). We each took a flashlight and I decided to go behind Kenna just in case she started sliding backwards.
As we started climbing up I looked at down at the path and noticed the strange tracks that the bikes had left in the snow. I also noticed some other strange tracks that were going around and over the bike tracks: it looked like a small party of people with bare feet had gone through with a pack of large dogs. My mind was trying to put things together quickly, but was struggling. Those bikers had been the only people that we had seen, but these foot/paw prints were certainly from people that had come after the bikers. Another strange thing was that these prints were not only on the trail, but were left deep in the snow to either side, seeming to go off in random directions. Some tracks came to the trail, others left it, and everywhere there were large paw prints mixed with human footprints.
At first this came as a relief to me. My first thought was that there must be some very dedicated campers who had decided to bring their dogs along somewhere close by. The thought of some tough burly campers nearby in these forsaken mountains was like a ray of light to my mind. Then a point of confusion began to form, small at first but then very concerning. Campers don’t go hiking around in the snow in bare feet, and this point was much too far from the springs for someone to be walking around without shoes.
This thought process, from terrified to hopeful back to terrified and concerned happened within a matter of seconds. Kenna had stopped and turned to me and pointed out the prints in the snow as well. I tried to brush it off with a chuckle and a “yeah, what the heck are people thinking?”. But the look of concern on her face only confirmed that I was not alone in my worried thoughts. The panic was again overcoming me, and I wished more than ever that the whispering would stop. All I could say is “let’s go”, and we pushed on with even more determination than before.
I kept looking behind us, every time expecting to see something following. Each time before I looked back my stomach would do a flip, but not once did I see anything suspicious. We kept our flashlights on for the rest of the hike out, and at long last we saw the bridge ahead. We quickly crossed it and without a word continued onto the main road. Roughly four more miles and we would be safe and sound in the car.
To my immense relief, the whisperings seemed to quiet down now that we were on the road. My legs and feet were aching like the dickens, so I asked Kenna if we could take another quick break. She obliged, and I very quickly regretted making the suggestion. The river still flowed by the road, but it was not nearly as close as it was to the dirt path, and therefore didn’t mask any sounds. At this point the whispers, though quieter than they had been on the dirt trail, were very clear and undeniably existent. I stared back to the bridge wishing that this maddening noise and accompanying sense of extreme paranoia would go away. As I looked to Kenna to see how she was reacting to the menacing noise, I noticed she had her head in her hands and seemed to be shaking. I put my arm around her shoulder and pressed my head up against hers, and as I looked down I froze.
The snow we were sitting on was covered in human footprints, along with those enormous paw prints. Again, there seemed to be no method or destination in mind for whoever/whatever had been stomping around here. I shined my flashlight with a shaky hand in each direction, trying to figure out where these things had gone. I followed one set of footprints that ascended up the side of the hill to our right and saw that the human prints ended and those huge animal prints picked up right where they had left off.
I felt as if I was descending into madness. I wanted to cry. I began to feel angry towards these things. Was this some sick joke? I wanted to scream and call out these things to stop messing around get on with whatever they were going to do to us. More than anything I wanted this all to END.
With hot tears stinging my face, and with this newfound anger giving me a boost of energy, I pulled Kenna up by her hand and without a word we continued at a brisk pace down the road.
I could not shake the darkness. This was so much darker than anything I had experienced. It was horrible and overwhelming. Even the stars above seemed extremely dim. The darkness was pressing in all around us, above us, below us, and worst of all it seemed to be inside us. Strange thoughts entered my mind, wondering what acts of evil could bring such a feeling to this place… wondering if we had done anything to bring this upon ourselves. Was this some sacred place that we were trespassing on? Had we done something to offend these creatures?
Whatever the case, I hated this area and felt that I was beginning to give in to the evil ambient darkness that seemed to be consuming us. I wanted to give up. The thought entered my mind that embracing this evil might be the only way out.
Kenna saved me from my own thoughts. Her sweet voice pierced my dark thoughts and halted this internal spiraling. She had stopped and softly said my name. After taking a second to recover, I asked how she was holding out. She pointed off to the right, toward where her flashlight was shining on a patch of juniper bushes.
Again, that invisible hand seemed to clench my stomach and I froze momentarily. A pair of eyes were reflecting back at us. I tried to regain my composure, and after a few seconds I noticed that the eyes remained unblinking. I quickly realized that they were that of a dead animal. The awkward angle and lack of movement gave that away. As I continued to stare I realized that this was not just a single dead animal. There were five or so dead deer, and what made my stomach really churn was the amount of blood covering a large patch of the road. I turned away as the sight made me light headed and shifted my focus to the ground right in front of us.
Again the snow was covered in those cursed footprints, this time painted with blood. I’ll spare you the details, but let me say it seemed that these creatures had enjoyed themselves immensely at this horrid spot, and there were several trails of blood streaking the snow. Still focusing on the ground, I led us forward and to the left around this horrible scene of carnage, averting my eyes from the worst of it. I kept expecting to encounter the smell of rotting flesh, but it never came. I guess the deer carcasses were too fresh and the cold weather probably helped too.
Soon thereafter we passed a campground, a landmark that meant we were getting close to our blessed car. It was at this point that the hollering began. When I heard the first shout a chill went down my whole body, and I felt sick to my stomach. This was an inhuman shout, and it wasn’t far behind us. I looked back, nearly tweaking my neck in the process, but STILL I couldn’t see anything! It was indescribably terrifying! I wished that I could see something so that at least I would know what we were up against. Anything, I felt, would be better than being kept in this state of knowing something was there but not knowing what it was!
We hurried forward toward the car, our legs and feet protesting every step, and the hollering seemed to grow ever closer and louder. Every 20 seconds or so I would quickly scan to the left, right, and behind. Each time I hoped that I would see something to relieve me from this deranging state of not knowing. Still, I was terrified to the core of what I might see.
Finally, after hours of wishing we were here, we rounded a bend and saw our beautiful car. Never in my life was I so happy to see it. My moment of joy was cut short, however, as I did one of my brief scans of our surroundings.
Upon looking behind us, I saw several dark figures moving slowly towards us. A few had their heads raised, and I wondered what I had been thinking when I had wished that I could see what these creatures were. Each of them were humanlike in form, though they were unusually tall and walking on all fours. They were all covered in thick, reddish brown hair, and had bright red eyes that reflected perfectly in the dim light of my flashlight. I will never forget those eyes.
What terrified me to the very center and still haunts me to this day is the expression they all wore. Each that had their head up was staring right at me as they slowly crawled forward, and they were each wide eyed wearing a toothy grin. It felt as if they were boring inside me with their stares, and I was certain we were going to die. At this point I wasn’t afraid of death; I was instead terrified of what the alternative would be once they caught up to us. I could see an excitement and twisted joy in their faces, as if they were playing a favorite game of theirs, feeding off of our terror. And oh, how I wish I could describe the blackness that surrounded them! It was a blackness that was felt as much as it was seen. It was horribly fascinating, almost even enticing, but those terrifying creatures were so vile that at no point did I consider moving even an inch toward them.
At this point I nearly went berserk. Luckily Kenna hadn’t looked back yet, and was marching faithfully on toward the car. When I finally unrooted myself from the spot and found my voice, I cried out to Kenna to run and not look back. I had caught up to her at this point and she turned to look at me and possibly behind. I screamed “DON’T!” and she seemed startled by my state of near insanity. She looked forward toward the car again and we both sprinted straight for it, adrenaline overcoming weariness. We jumped in, slammed the doors, I fumbled with the keys and let off the clutch quicker than I intended, nearly killing the engine. The darkness seemed to be thickening by the second. As I unintentionally peeled out, flinging mud and snow all over, Kenna turned around and screamed. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the creatures mere feet from our car. Their sick faces were ecstatic with excitement, and their wide grins made me shout and put the pedal to the floor. Soon we were zooming along the canyon at about 40 miles per hour (very dangerous for such a small, winding road), and somehow these fiends were keeping up with us! Everything about them was incredibly unnerving, from their horrible gallop to those perverted smiles. I prayed that we would reach a straightaway where we could go faster and perhaps by some miracle outrun these beasts.
Out of the blue the darkness seemed to lift, the stars shone more brightly than they had all night, and I was overcome with relief. I looked in the rear view mirror, and saw the creatures, now far behind us, leaping up the sides of the hills to our left. It was still a sickening sight, but somehow I knew that they were done toying with us at last. We drove in silence for several minutes until we reached the highway.
What a sweet relief it was to see other humans. Seeing the warm glow of their headlights was like walking up to a hot fire after being cold. I turned to Kenna and saw that she was crying, and I in turn began to cry. We cried and hugged, but remained silent as we sat there next to the highway. There was nothing to say at this point. Shortly after getting back on the highway I noticed I was quite nauseous and shaky. I pulled over and threw up, and felt much better afterwards. At long last the paranoia left me, and I felt like a new person.
We got home around 7:30. We turned on all the lights, shut and locked the door, and stayed up all night. Neither of us wanted to sleep, so we stayed up holding each other tight and trying to distract ourselves with movies.
Neither of us talked about what we had gone through until well into the next day, when the sun was high and everything was bright. I could tell neither of us wanted to be the one to bring it up. I felt that if we talked about it, we would solidify that it really happened. But I finally brought it up and it was almost a relief to have it out in the open.
We’ve told a select few people about this experience, and much of it is still quite confusing to us. We still have some questions that may forever remain unanswered, such as what in the world were those creatures? What did we do to warrant their pursuit? They were certainly the quickest creatures we’ve ever seen, so why didn’t they catch up to us? What would have happened if we had tried to confront them?
All we know is that there is a serious evil presence up that canyon. And if you don’t believe me, you know where to find it.
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AN INTRODUCTION
First and foremost, a few matters of introduction have to be placed down. You are probably wondering who I am. What am I called? What does the barista misspell on my steaming paper cup? Well, this is my first lesson to you, and I promise we will get into much more detail soon.
Your name is a very precious thing, you see. And unless you are suicidal, a fool, or think you have what it takes to face the consequences; don’t ever give out your real name willy-nilly. I’m fairly positive you wouldn’t want to take that risk. That being said, I still must give you some way of acknowledging my existence. You may call me The Madman. Am I mad? Am I a man? Well, you will just have to wait and see, dear reader.
For your sake, I’m going to assume that you had some idea of what you were getting into when you picked up this guide. And if you didn’t? Well, by all means, keep reading; just put your back to a door, and cover every window and mirror in your room. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, now would we? Shall we begin?
YOUR BIRTH NAME
This is as good a place to start as any. It’s a vital piece of knowledge if you want to have absolutely anything to do with the supernatural world. When you are dragged out of refuse and muck, screaming and kicking into the world, you are vulnerable. Your fragile little mortal soul has only just begun its unavoidably ticking clock. Your name is essentially your shield; it is the most symbolic representation of your inner self that can exist. It carries great, great power over you. Never forget this.
Although I’ve already made it perfectly clear, I’ll say this again. Do not bandy about your birth name. If someone –or something– has access to your soul, I guarantee you won’t enjoy what happens next. In every interaction you have with the supernatural, guard your name. If you must give an answer, lie through your teeth. Don’t use anyone else’s name, either. Well, unless you really hate them. But allow me to continue…
A BASIC DESCRIPTION OF THE SUPERNATURAL
Have you ever felt like you were being watched when you are perfectly alone? As if a pair of eyes are fixated on the back of your head, yet when you turn there is nothing there. Have you ever heard your name being spoken by nobody at all? Chances are you have experienced these things, and chances are they aren’t just figments of your imagination.
Bordering the lovely world you call home is another, rather different place. Some call it Hell, and they’re not wrong. But the name isn’t important; what comes from it is. And what comes from Hell, you ask? Why, demons of course. Ghosts, phantoms, spirits, poltergeists, haunts and apparitions. These are all one and the same.
Take a moment to clear your mind of that image of a red-horned beast or a classic white ghost. It’s true that over time, demons have picked up on humans’ fears and tend to manifest themselves in such forms. However, what’s actually out there is much more sinister than these ridiculous tropes. A demon is infinitely smarter than you can ever hope to be. They want nothing more than to trick your feeble mind into allowing them to cause great harm. It’s your job as a practitioner to prevent this from happening. Good luck.
Demons can be called into this world through a summoning. Unfortunately, this isn’t very hard to do. Why would you do such a thing, you ask? Well, you shouldn’t. But I’m not your mother- do what you want. Demons can give you knowledge or carry out tasks for you. If you have a question you want answered, a demon can most likely help you with that. You just have to be sure it’s worth the risk –and it is quite a risk.
THE FIRST LESSON: THE GAME
Every budding practitioner must learn about “The Game” if they want to get anywhere. This is the most common and basic level of advanced interaction with the supernatural world. The principle is simple: you conjure up a demon and then play with it. You try to get the knowledge you seek while avoiding the traps being set out for you. But when you actually get into it, it isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Preparation is key: you need protection. By all means, grab your firearms and use those to fend off the evil spirits. You will end up killed in a horrible way but hey, at least you tried. Our art requires a more acquired set of tools; tools that have been proved effective throughout history. I’ve got to say, someone must have paid a very heavy price to discover just what is effective to use.
Some of these will probably sound familiar, as old folklore and urban legends often have a handle in reality.
Salt- An excellent general-purpose ‘Demon B Gone.’ A closed circle of this stuff will hold enough power to keep minor intrusions at bay. The same principle applies to large bodies of saltwater. You’ll rarely find supernatural influences around them. Demons don’t like the beach.
Iron- This simple element has a tendency to repel the supernatural. In most cases, it’s used in candlesticks or worn on the practitioner’s person. Invest in a necklace or something. You’ll thank yourself later.
Vinegar- While this doesn’t keep anything out per se, it does have a violent effect upon beings from the other world. When thrown or sprayed, it can act as a sort of weapon against a demon. However, don’t rely on it. There have been too many instances of someone attempting to save themselves with a little spray bottle of vinegar. Dear me, what a bunch.
Candles- Wax candles may appear ordinary enough, but they are very important. Any seal or circle you create to trap a demon needs candles to act as support. While the color doesn’t matter too much, it’s useful to note that red candles are the most effective. Blood-red works best.
Mistletoe- Ah mistletoe, the classic parasitic weed that symbolizes love and merriment. Keep this handy in little bunches or piles around the area in which you work.
An item of power- Everyone has something they hold dear, and this bond holds power. It is a sort of life-vest to your soul, and your soul is something you want to keep close to yourself. It could range from a picture of your mother to the knife you used to murder your first victim, any such item will do. Thus, hang onto something that you have a special connection while practicing.
Your voice- What a silly item, you may think. And you wouldn’t be wrong- the human voice has no power over any supernatural entity unless you use it in just the right way. If you think you will be able to save yourself if you mess up a summoning by shouting, you’re wrong. However, if the being is in a limited position of power, your voice can dismiss it. Just don’t wait too long if you plan to do this.
At the moment, these seven things are enough to keep you safe (relatively speaking). It’s time to get into the fun stuff. The first step of The Game is to decide what exactly you want from the experience. Do you want to know some greater knowledge? Perhaps you would like to know if your significant other is being disloyal, or how to earn a million dollars by the year’s end. Whatever it is, know what you want so you don’t make a fool of yourself and die.
Now, you can’t interact with the other world in any old place. I wouldn’t recommend using your home in any capacity, unless you want to ruin the rest of your life. No, it’s much more effective to find a place where the wall between this world and the next is worn thin. Places with some sacred value, like religious buildings or hospitals. People die in hospitals, you see, and this constant crossing from one world to the next makes it perfect for any summoning you’d want to do.
Wherever you choose to practice, make sure you are alone. It won’t do anyone any good to walk into a demonic summoning, and it may stuff up your process. Not good. I also recommend against bringing any electronics into a summoning. Not that it’s dangerous or anything, but because any device will most likely be fried by the presence of a demon. Smartphones are extremely expensive these days; don’t just throw yours away.
Now you’ve got your protection and locations set, it’s time to summon a demon. Before we go on, I’m obliged to tell you to stop right here. Don’t go on, it isn’t a very smart thing to do. But, once again, I really couldn’t care less. Shall we proceed?
Begin with a salt circle. Don’t make a square or hexagon or anything stupid like that. Circles are equal no matter where you are inside of one -it’s what makes them powerful. Lay out five to seven candles around the outside of the circle. Do not put them inside the circle. This is a one-way ticket to disaster.
Prepare any other protective measures you may have brought: place mistletoe in little piles next to the candles and prepare some iron and vinegar just in case. Keep your item of power close. I’m now going to tell you a little story about someone carrying out their very first summoning. I want you to pay close attention.
Not too long ago a young girl wanted to commune with the other world. She was rather rebellious, so she chose to practice in the church she attended every week. She broke in at night, set up her circle, and began The Game. This is how she did it:
The girl sat outside her salt circle. She put down her object of power in front of her and closed her eyes. The dark church was cold and silent. Creaks and groans permeated the blackness all around her. She took a breath and whispered “I’m ready” three times. As soon as she did so, a host of new noises came. Frightening noises: moans and cackles, squelches and shrieks. They were accompanied with sensations as well; as if there were a host of malevolent eyes on the back of her neck, and something was breathing heavily just behind her. But the girl was prepared for this. She did not turn around.
At this stage, the girl had merely gotten a demon’s attention. There was still more to be done before The Game could be played. “Stand back,” she whispered. Immediately, the noises died down. There was silence in the church once again. However, she could still feel that evil gaze burning into her neck. She ignored this and continued.
Her next step was to invite the demon into her circle. Be very, very careful with this step. If you invite the demon past the circle and into your world, the demon will appear to leave. There will be no more noises or unseen eyes. After a while, you will invariably look around to see what is happening. That is when you will be dealt with in any manner the demon sees fit. There is no way to avoid this fate if you invite the demon outside the circle. Calmly the girl addressed the demon: “You may come into my salt circle,” she said. Note that her wording left no room for interpretation. The Game was ready to be played.
“Who are you?” The girl asked. It’s a good idea to start the game first. Asking any basic question will do.
“I am your final executioner,” the demon replied. Demons often enjoy a bit of melodrama. This doesn’t mean their words don’t hold true, however.
“Do you want to play?” The girl asked. The demon nodded once. It’s now that I should tell you about the appearance of demons. If you’re expecting some disgusting creature, you may be correct. It all depends on which demon you summon. Some may look like attractive young models and others may exemplify the term “hell beast.” In the girl’s case, an impossibly tall and thin creature sat in her circle. It had pale skin and enormous eyes. Its mouth stretched from ear to ear, grinning with red-stained fangs.
“What is your name?” The demon asked. The girl didn’t fall for it.
“I’m Peaches,” she lied. It was her turn. “What is the time?” She asked.
“It is half past two,” the demon replied. This was a lie, the girl knew. She had arrived at the church at 1 o’ clock in the morning and it hadn’t been more than twenty minutes. This is the foremost rule of The Game. The demon will lie to you. However, it may only lie three times. It’s up to you to figure out which responses are lies, and they won’t always be so easy to determine.
The Game is a matter of call and response. You ask the demon a question, and it asks you one in return. This will go on for exactly half an hour. After this time has elapsed, the demon will leave. You just have to last that long.
“Are you doing well in school?” The demon asked the girl innocently.
“Yes,” the girl replied, but the truth of the matter that she was lying to herself. She was struggling in school, but her ego kept her from saying so. You may lie to a demon, but there are consequences.
The girl was able to lie about her name because she was expected to. The demon didn’t actually believe she would be foolish enough to give the information up. He was simply testing the waters. But this lie was different. Lying during The Game allows the demon to do the same. Now, the demon had four chances to tell a mistruth.
“Does anybody love me?” The girl asked. The demon looked at her with those massive, malevolent eyes.
“No.” It said simply. This was surely a lie, the girl thought. Her parents loved her, at the very least. She paused in her thoughts. Or did they? You see, this is exactly what a demon will do to you. It will mess with your mind in ways that you have no defense against. The girl shook this answer off. It was the demon’s turn.
“Would you do something for me?” it asked. The girl had a moment of hesitation. She didn’t want to risk anything, but she also hasn’t gotten all the information she wanted.
“Yes,” she said quickly, confident she could counter any trick the demon played on her. It was a rather foolish mistake. The demon stood, rising to a terrifying height of nine feet. It leered down at the girl.
“Your turn,” the demon said, smiling wider than the girl would have guessed possible.
“How do achieve success in life?” The girl had nothing to toy with anymore; she desperately got to the point. The demon answered truthfully. He told her exact steps to on how to climb ladder of success in her life and thrive. But at this point, he was just playing with her. He had complete control.
“Come here,” the demon told the girl. The girl began to scoff. How ridiculous to think she’d actually break her guard and step inside the circle. But she stood against her will. Her heart dropped to her toes as she stepped towards the salt circle. The demon smiled. No amount of vinegar or iron could have prevented what happened to the girl next. For your sake, I won’t get into it. All you have to know is it was quite horrible.
The girl had given the demon power over her: the one thing you must never do. She had said she would grant the demon a favor, and he had capitalized on her offer. He had asked her to come into the circle. She had no choice but to obey.
Let’s learn from this girl’s mistakes, shall we? Never give a demon an advantage, and always choose your words very carefully. Be honest with yourself, even if it hurts you to do so. The demon seeks to harm you, and if that’s the worst it can do then you have played The Game correctly.
It is now that I have a little task for you, my reader. At this point you should have a basic grasp on the supernatural world and how to deal with its infinite dangers. Would you like to put your skills to the test?
Find a mirror. It could be large or small, round or square. It does not matter. Wait till the deepest hours of the night. Go out to a quiet place with the mirror. Let yourself be surrounded by the darkness. Observe the shadows reaching slowly towards you. Do not dare to be afraid.
I want you to place the mirror on the ground, so that it reflects the moon or stars. If the moon or stars aren’t showing, then just reflect the sky. Look into the reflection deeply. Soon you’ll notice something… off about the image. You’re looking at another world. Don’t touch the mirror. Whatever you do, do not touch the mirror.
The image will have a sort of shimmer to it, an unnatural gleam. While this is apparent, you must remain still. Eventually, the mirror will return to normal. It’ll clearly reflect the sky again. Once this happens, bury the mirror. After it is underground, say these words: “You may open the door.” Then go home, your task is done. It’s time for the next lesson.
THE SECOND LESSON: THE “GO AND FETCH” CLAUSE
Despite the title of this lesson, demons are not dogs. Although they may appear as dogs. Hairless, skinless, grinning dogs that eye you with the intensity of, well, a hungry wolf. But that’s beside the point. The Game won’t always give you what you want. Sometimes the demon simply won’t know the answer to the question you want answered.
If you want a different type of knowledge (something that’s currently happening, for example), you’ll want to use the “Go and Fetch” clause. This is quite literally a command you give that lets the demon venture out into the world and find what you’re looking for. What can go wrong?
A “Go and Fetch” clause has three parts: the instruction, the binding, and the sending. Each is as important as the other.
Instruction- Here is where you tell your furry demon friend what it has to do. I’m warning you now, prepare your speech beforehand. If you leave any loophole, it will be pounced on. Don’t make stupid mistakes.
An example is in order here. If you tell a demon to “go tell me what my friend is doing” you have just made a very large mistake. Why? You were so ambiguous that the demon can leave its circle, hang you by your ankles, grab an ice cream, and then spy on your friend. Then, it will return and tell you what your friend is doing while licking its chocolate cone. You will then be disposed of gruesomely.
Be sure to outline every step of the demon’s journey into the world, lest it strays and ends up possessing some poor child –unless, of course, that’s your goal. But that’s for another lesson.
Binding- This is the step in which you bind the demon to your instruction. This is very simple: use your voice. Act quickly, as the longer the demon is in the world, the less power your voice has.
You could make yourself look like an idiot and babble in Latin or something, but any language works fine. Chances are the demon’s knowledge of ancient language is a bit rusty, and it will appreciate you using a more up-to-date tongue. Binding can be as simple as “follow my instructions to the letter,” but it depends on your instructions. Once again, don’t leave a loophole.
Sending- Time to say au revoir to your temporary servant and pray that you didn’t mess anything up. You won’t know if you did, of course. Enjoy the wait.
I now recall a rather memorable use of the “Go and Fetch” clause. This happened a while ago, perhaps a couple hundred years or so. But that’s not important…
Somewhere in the world, in a dark and dreary city lived a man. He, like most humans, had a rather dismal life. He was full of hatred, anger, and frustration. Such a mix of emotions made for a volatile cocktail. You see, his wife had ran off with another man, leaving him alone and desperate. One night, he had had enough.
He packed his bag full of the necessary safeguards and found an old crypt to practice in. It was a most atmospheric choice of location. He laid out the salt, candles, and mistletoe. He grabbed his item of power tightly.
“I’m ready,” he whispered, closing his eyes. A dead breeze crept into the crypt.
“I’m ready,” he repeated. The breeze swirled into a tugging, hot wind that reminded the man of the breath of some great beast. He took a breath and completed the calling: “I’m ready.”
The man waited a few seconds before opening his eyes. In the circle stood a demon. It wasn’t vile or terrifying, no. It took the appearance of a handsome young man. Demons will often pull tricks like this, you see. They try to gain your trust by appearing friendly or attractive.
The man ran through his clause in his head. He had memorized it to the letter, and spent hours making sure there was no room for error. He began with the instruction. He told the demon exactly what it had to do: find his wife and her new lover and cause them harm in any way the demon saw fit. There was no room for misinterpretation.
And off the demon went, slinking towards its destination. When it was released into the world, it had broken its guise of a handsome man and instead taken the appearance of a hairless dog-like creature that walked on its hind legs. This is where most urban legends about things that go bump in the night come from, you see. Demons out in the world often tend to frighten and kill people whenever they can.
The demon found its prey with an inhuman sense. It stood outside the apartment building in which the doomed man and woman resided. At this time, both were asleep, the demon sensed. It broke the lock easily and slunk into the building. Its enormous feet made no sound on the floorboards as it stepped slowly, slowly towards the stairs. Up it went, its thick gray tongue lolling hungrily.
The bedroom door opened silently, the demon crouched into the bedroom and to the foot of the bed where two still figures lay cocooned in a swathe of blankets. Isn’t it funny how you feel so safe when you’re under your covers?
It crept onto the bed, leaning its head right up to the headboard, so it looked down on the sleeping figures. It waited there, letting its breath cascade down like a smothering cloud of poison. Eventually, the woman opened her eyes. She didn’t react at first, but in a split second, her eyes had adjusted.
The scream –had it been allowed to make it past a horrified squeak– would have woken the block. Instead, the demon bit down on the woman’s throat. The man awoke to the sight, and was similarly dispatched. The demon had done its duty –it returned to the man in the crypt.
“Did you do as I asked?” The man queried.
“Yes,” the demon growled. The man, despite everything, felt guilty. He shook this feeling from his mind and dismissed the demon. He did this by saying “return from whence you came.” This is the most common dismissal, and it usually can’t go wrong. This, from start to finish, is an example of a successful “Go and Fetch” interaction. The poor man ended up killing himself out of guilt for what he had done, but he made his choice.
Now that you’ve got this juicy tidbit of knowledge down, it’s time to continue the practice I set out for you after the first lesson. Following your burial of the mirror, a package will appear to you. It won’t come in your mailbox, or be plopped on your doorstep by a bored and careless delivery driver. It’ll be placed somewhere you wouldn’t expect a package to appear. It could be in your bedroom, or your locker at school or work. It may even appear in your morning cereal –I really couldn’t predict the location for you.
Regardless, keep the package safe. Only open it when you know you will be alone. Inside you will find a little pendant – a black stone set into a gold chain. Don’t put it on for goodness’ sake. Take it in your hand, close your eyes, and focus. You’ll feel something like a heartbeat. Don’t panic, just keep focusing. If your mind is clear, you’ll hear a dull roar in your head. Once you hear this, say “find what you seek,” while concentrating on the noise as hard as you can. The roar will fade and the heartbeat will stop. That night, return to where you buried the mirror and dig it up. Place the pendant on the mirror, and then cover it back up. Let’s continue your instruction…
THE THIRD LESSON: POSSESSION
The possibility of having your body occupied by a demon is a very real and horrifying prospect. Don’t you worry; there are ways to avoid it. While very difficult to do, a soul may still be salvaged in certain cases. Nobody just gets up and walks away from a possession, however, so it’s best to avoid the ordeal altogether. But what happens to you when you’re possessed? Well I’m glad you asked.
When a person is possessed, their soul is consumed by a demon. A bit like a worm inside of an apple; except replace the worm with a beast of pure malevolence from Hell, and the apple with your tiny and vulnerable human soul. Have you got the image down?
Being possessed will likely cause you the greatest pain you can ever experience. Imagine your body being taken from you inch by inch in a brutal battle that you have no chance of winning. A foreign spirit will, in layman’s terms, become you. Sounds like a bad day, no?
‘Mr. Madman, how do I avoid this?’ you ask. First rule of thumb is the same as any other area of practicing: don’t be an idiot. No matter how many times I reiterate this, you bunch always find a way to make stupid mistakes. I’m not complaining, though. Some of your fates are often quite amusing.
Use your safeguards wisely; don’t let the demon into your mind (figuratively or literally). This is just what you should be doing normally. A demon will try its very hardest to get inside your defense and either kill you, possess you, or wreak havoc on anything in the vicinity.
Do not have mirrors in the room where you are summoning. Mirrors often act as little doorways to the other world. Demons will often use them to their advantage in a little phenomenon called Philocrate’s Mirror. One minute your reflection will be sitting in its normal setting, depending on where you’re practicing. Suddenly, you’ll find an altogether different world reflected in the mirror. You won’t be able to feel anything except a tiny seedling of agony and fear that will grow and grow the longer you are in this place. Unfortunately, you’re stuck there forever.
If you take your eyes off a demon and look into a mirror, it can quite literally switch places with you. While you’re sent into its dimension, it’s brought out into the real world. Barring the fact you’re in the closest approximation of Hell that exists, you just let a demon loose on the world. Shame on you.
Along with pseudo-possessions such as Philocrate’s Mirror, you can also be possessed completely during a summoning. Most notable examples of this are probably ones you’ve heard of. You know, a group of cultists calling the spirit of an evil entity into some poor girl or something ridiculous of the like. This is most likely a true story. If you were so inclined, you could trap someone in a salt circle and call a demon into their body. Next time someone cuts you in line at the grocery store, you know what to do.
It can also happen accidentally, believe it or not. Ambiguous wording can lead the demon to interpret your question or command as an invitation into your snuggly flesh. I’m afraid you can’t do much to save yourself if you mess up in this manner. Have you ever heard of Jack the Ripper?
A bloodthirsty lunatic? Sure. A master of his craft? Without a doubt. Completely human? Guess again. Jack wasn’t always a crazed psychopath, believe it or not. He was rather normal –that is, until he turned to the supernatural. He practiced here and there as many people did in the Victorian Era. Something about the depressing and dark atmosphere of the entire era gave spurt to a whole host of demonic activity.
One day Jack, as many practitioners are predisposed to do, stuffed up. As you may have guessed, he was possessed. The demon that did it felt like having a little fun, so Jack wasn’t killed on the spot. Instead, the demon went out into the world wearing Jack’s skin while the poor man was in extreme agony, conscious of every movement.
As you may recall, I told you there are worse fates than being killed or dragged to the other world by a demon. Jack’s fate was arguably among those. I want you to imagine having no control over your body as someone else pretended to be you. Jack went home that night and watched as he killed his wife and children. He went out onto the street and began his bloody legend. For your sake, I hope you don’t fall prey to a possession…
Remember that pendant I had you bury? It’s time for some more fun. If you haven’t already, allow twenty-four hours to elapse before digging up the mirror and pendant. Going over this time is fine; just do not uncover them prematurely. The pendant should be gone and there should be a little note in its place. Read it. There will be a location written on it. I can’t tell you what this is because it’ll depend on who and where you are. Go there in the dead of night when you know you won’t be disturbed. Bring something with iron in it; believe me, you’ll want it.
This time, timing does matter. You’ll want to get to the location well before half past two in the morning. I suggest visiting the place beforehand in order to determine how to get in. Unless, of course, you want to risk it and play by ear. Some people live for the thrill; whatever. Just get it done.
No doubt you’ll feel an inkling of apprehension as you enter this mysterious place I’ve brought you to, but don’t worry. Besides, I told you not to show fear, did I not? You’ll just have to trust me. Ooh, I laughed at that one: ‘trust me.’
The next bit is going to require you to understand the first three lessons, namely the “Go and Fetch” clause and how possession works. Now, don’t panic, but I’m about to ask you to summon something. Although, if you’re panicking about a simple summoning at this point, you’re really not cut out for this sort of thing. Don’t feel bad, most people are cowards too.
You don’t need a salt circle for this summoning –you’ll be safe without one. All you need is the note and some iron. Stand as close to the center of your location as possible. Tear the note in half. It doesn’t have to be perfectly in half, if you were wondering. Hell, shred the thing and make confetti. Just destroy the note and make sure you don’t waste any time. You have to get this all done before two-thirty.
Unlike a normal summoning, you aren’t going to say “I’m ready” three times. Instead, I want you to lie down on your back. If your location’s floor is muddy or covered with broken glass, I’m sorry but you’ll just have to be strong. Close your eyes. Relax. You don’t have to do anything now except wait. Don’t fall asleep. You won’t wake up.
Soon, the same dull roar as before will return. You’ll hear it faintly at first, but it’ll get stronger. Just as fast, the noise will stop. At this point, you can sit up and open your eyes. There is now an entity with you. This part varies from person to person. Some people see the entity, some don’t. In any case, it won’t be trying to terrorize you so don’t worry –you’re perfectly safe.
“Did you find what you sought after?” You will ask. The entity will give one of two responses: “yes” or “no.” The voice it uses will most likely unsettle you. It won’t sound human in the least bit (well, what did you expect?). It’ll sound as if some animal is attempting to speak, barely choking the words out. This is good, do not worry.
If you received the negative response, then say “find what you seek” again and allow the entity to leave. Go home and return the following night. Do this until you get an affirmative response.
If you got a “yes” from the demon, then you may proceed. Open your arms as if you’re about to give a big old hug and say “come in.” It’s important to note that you may not like this next part, but it will be fine. Well, how to put this lightly… The entity will go into you. But it won’t hurt, or have any negative side effects whatsoever. In fact, you’ll be in complete control… mostly.
You’ll have control over your body and mind, and the only way you’ll know you’re hosting a demon is by a little urging sensation in your gut. Follow the urge out into the world. Take this time to enjoy yourself. It isn’t every day you get to be a demon’s personal chauffeur. I’m sure you will be rewarded with a very pleasant sense of euphoria. It’s like taking copious amounts of drugs minus the health risks.
Don’t interact with anybody you come across, just let your body do the walking. You will complete a set of simple tasks: delivering a package from one place to another, writing something in strange runes on a wall somewhere, buying a bag of chips at the gas station, whatever the urge tells you to do. When your little adventure is done, you will return to the location and lie down. After a nice second of shut-eye, the entity will be gone. Go home now.
THE FOURTH LESSON: IMBUING
The first three lessons have been mostly concerning human-spirit interactions. This lesson is a little different in the sense that, while you are still summoning a demon, it isn’t going to be doing much interacting. As far as you know, at least.
There are countless stories of various relics and items that apparently exhibit extraordinary powers: charms that bring luck, dice that always land fortunately, teapots that always brew a perfect cup of tea. I’m not saying every old lucky penny off the street is magical (in fact, they can be rather unsanitary– I suggest avoiding picking them up)
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Part 1
I hear voices, they’re all around me. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to never play that damn game. They say I’m crazy and maybe I am. Maybe whatever it is that haunts me, took my sanity and hid it away. Somewhere where it’s impossible to find it, somewhere dark and sinister. Maybe they buried it deep down into the core of the earth and it’s just sitting down there, waiting to be found. I sound crazy don’t I? You think I’m crazy and it’s okay because I think I am as well. I’m gonna share this story and I’m gonna share it as much as possible. I don’t care if you believe me, all I ask from you is to read this story and don’t make the same mistake I made. I’m sure you’ve heard of true hauntings such as The Haunting of Connecticut and Amityville and maybe you’ve seen the movie “The Conjuring” that was based on true events. You never heard of this one. Those hauntings cannot compare to what I’ve witnessed. Nothing can.
It was in 2005 when I came across some old abandoned apartment building. I had just finished the first semester of my senior year of college and was walking alone to my dorm from the bar. I was always alone, I didn’t have many friends other than Jake and his brother Joel, my roommates. But they were always busy doing something else with their girlfriends and I was always alone, hoping that a bottle of whiskey would solve my problems.
When I came across the old building, I heard this creepy and demonic melody playing from inside. It sounded like a music box and it was echoing somehow. I had this strange urge to go inside and find out where it was coming from. I threw my bottle of whiskey and it broke against the curb. I walked inside the abandoned building, something I would never do if I was sober. My footsteps echoed throughout the building as I walked the halls. Most of the windows were boarded and dust filled the air, clinging onto every object that existed. I could actually taste the dust as it broke into my mouth and into my throat, causing me to cough.
I moved at a leisurely pace, dust spiraled up into clouds as I wandered the halls, searching for wherever the music was coming from. I know it sounds stupid but I was being drawn to the sound. It had some weird effect on me. I walked into a room and the music had stopped. The room was just like the rest of the building. Old, dusty and dark. I used the light from my cellphone to examine the old paintings that hung on the walls. I noticed how weird it was that most of the rooms had furniture left in it. It looked as if whoever were living there just got up and left, leaving behind everything.
As I searched the room, I had this overwhelming sense that somebody or something was watching me. I felt like if I were to turn around, something would be there. I turned around but I didn’t see anything but, I still had a sense that something was there. Something was watching me. I then heard the creepy melody echo from beneath the floor and I had to find out where it was coming from. I don’t know why…it just seemed like I was being forced to the sound, like I had no choice in the matter. The melody was coming from underneath a dusty rug. I pulled up the rug, dust scattered in the air like a dust storm. I felt the floor lightly shaking and it made a sound similar to a heart beat. This sounds crazy but It was almost as if the floor had a pulse. There was a door on the floor that opened up, leading to some storage area. It was a deep hole, around 12 feet which is why there was a ladder made from rope. I climbed down the rope, another thing I wouldn’t do if I were sober. There wasn’t much in there, just some old books, a box and a creepy ventriloquist doll with long black hair and big round dark eyes. I noticed the strange melody was coming from the box. I picked up the box and started to climb the rope. I couldn’t help but to fear that something would grab me and pull me back down. I made it back up and I placed the game on the floor, shining light over it with my phone.
It looked like a brief case but it was made of what seemed like black stone with some strange word, “Ikidomari,” carved into the center. I brushed the dust off with my hand and I opened it. I noticed it wasn’t a box or a brief case, it was a board game. The structure of the board game was similar to The Game of Life but it had a cemetery theme and in the center of the board, it had what appeared to be a human heart inside a small glass dome. I’ve never seen anything like that before. It had six game pieces that took on the shape of tombstones and were made of real stone. On the right side, it had a deck of red cards and on the left, were black cards.
I noticed there were small writing carved in the inside of the game. “If you dare to play…beware of demons.” I figured it was all just for scare and so I did something that I wish I hadn’t done. I was just curious. Lonely, drunk and curious. There was a wheel at the bottom right corner of the game that had numbers ranging from 0-9 and the objective was to spin the wheel and move your game piece to the amount of whatever number you spun. I placed a game piece to the starting point and I spun the wheel. I watched as it spun around and around until eventually, it stopped at four. I was going to move my piece up four spots when suddenly, it began to move on its own. 1, 2, 3, 4 and then it stopped. I froze in fear for a few seconds, normal people would of probably ran off by then but for some strange reason, I just kept on playing, assuming there was a logical explanation for it. I’ve always been that way. I’ve always lived by what my father told me. “Believe in nothing you hear and only half of what you see.”
Aparently, when I spun a four, I landed on a black space. According to the game, black spaces meant you had to draw a black card. Black cards were more like tips or secrets, they weren’t always bad. I picked up a black card from the deck. The words were in Japanese but at the bottom of the cards, in smaller letters, they were translated in English. I looked at the card and read it out loud.
“Keep an eye on the doll.” I looked over at the hole in the floor and I stood on my feet. I slowly walked toward it, lightly shaking, my teeth were grinding against each other as I got closer. I leaned over the hole and I felt as my heart knocked on my chest, begging to come out. There was no doll. She was just…gone.
I quickly left the old building and ran to my dormroom which was just five minutes away. My roommates were all there with their girlfriends, sitting on the couch when I burst through the door, suffocating in sweat and fear. I told them about what had happened, without leaving out a single detail. They didn’t believe me of course, I’m not really sure if I expected them to but I sure did hope they would. They called me crazy, said I had way too much to drink and they helped me to bed. I hoped they were right, I’d rather be crazy than to know that what had just happened was real.
Almost a week went by and I had forgotten about it all. I figured maybe it was nothing after all and that I made a bigger deal out of it than I needed to. I stopped drinking, believing that it would never cure my loneliness. It was almost a whole entire week since the incident and I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about ever going back to that old building. I thought that my troubles were over but I found out that they weren’t even close to over. They were only just beginning.
Something strange happened to me, something only explainable in a Twilight Zone episode or a Stephen King book. I was in school as usual, walking down the hall to my class. It was strange because I was the only one in the halls and the lights were dim and flickering. I heard a whisper as it echoed from behind me.
“Ikidomari,” I didn’t know what that meant at the time. I had no idea what was going on or why it was happening until I heard the music. It was that same haunting melody and it echoed through the halls. I started walking faster, scampering down the hall but it seemed like I was just walking in circles. Everywhere I went, no matter how fast I walked, I was going no where. I kept walking until I saw somebody or something at the end of the hall. I couldn’t really see who it was because I was too far away but it looked like a woman. She was in a white dress and her head was titled at an unusual angle.
“Ikidomari,” she said more than once in a very unsettling tone that echoed through the halls. She had a Japanese ascent and I thought I was dreaming but I was very much awake. She continued to whisper. “Come back, Gordan. We’re waiting for you.” I felt like I was stuck in a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. She kept talking to me, I had no idea how she knew my name. “Gordan, I see you Gordan…come baaaack.” The most creepy part about her voice was the somewhat happy tone and the way it echoed. I turned to my left and noticed I found my classroom. I walked inside, everybody was looking at me like I was crazy. I guess they saw the fear in my eyes. I looked out into the halls and everything was normal as if nothing ever happened. My teacher scolded me for being late and I took my seat. I was clearly the only one who was experiencing that nightmare so I didn’t want to bring it up because I know that everyone else would say that I’m crazy and that I’m losing my damn mind. They wouldn’t have been wrong anyway.
I waited until I got back to the dormroom to bring it up with my roommates. They again thought I was crazy and was no help at all. I’ve heard the haunting melody every night while in bed and every morning while in school. Something was haunting me and I know that this sounds crazy but it was the board game. I didn’t know if it was cursed, possessed or what but it was haunting me and it was driving me to the brink of losing my sanity. It was nothing but that melody for a whole entire week until one day, something strange happened.
I was alone in my dormroom, the other guys were out on dates like every Friday night. I heard the melody as it squeezed through the cracking of my window. It echoed off the trees and right down to my soul. I then heard a knock at the door and it startled me because it was a knock that I’d never heard before. Every one of my roommates had a certain knock but that knock was more like a pound and every time I heard it, I felt my heart pounding along with it. I slowly walked to the front door and I took a deep breath before opening. My father used to tell me to count to three if I were ever scared and then fight the fear with all I’ve got. I took another deep breath, the knocking continued and I slowly began counting. 1…2(one more deep breath)…3. I opened the door, there was nobody in sight. I looked to the floor and there was an envelope. I picked it up and examined it. There was no name or anything. I opened it, my heart was knocking as I pulled out a black card. “Ikidomari” was written on one side and on the other, “We’re waiting for you.” They were haunting me, probably watching my every move for the past two weeks. They wanted me to finish the game and they weren’t gonna stop until I did. It was as if I ran into a dead end I couldn’t back out of.
I kept the card in the sweaty palm of my left hand and I waited impatiently and desperately for my roommates to arrive and they were just as annoyed as I was when they heard me talking about the melody again. I told them about the knocking, I told them about how the game was haunting me and the only way to get it to stop was to finish what I started. I guess showing them the black card was proof enough because I was able to get them to agree to go back to the apartment with me. They said the only reason they were doing it was to get me to shut up about it but deep down inside, I know they were doing it because they knew that something strange was going on.
We gathered some flashlights and headed out to the old apartments. Joel brought his girlfriend, Kenzie along with us. I didn’t think they all knew exactly what they were getting into. I didn’t even know really. The only thing I knew was that I had to finish the game or it would probably haunt me for the rest of my pathetic life.
When we arrived at the building, I had this strange feeling that something was watching us as we ambled our way inside. They followed me to the room, jokingly calling out to the ghosts that I believed resided in there on the way. I was startled by the appearance of the doll sitting against the wall, next to the old furnace. Her cheeks, if I weren’t imaging this, were smiling at me as I walked by. The game was just where I had left it and had started playing that creepy melody when I picked it up and placed it on the table. I was suprised to find that they were hearing it along with me. That was when I knew that I wasn’t going crazy. I wasn’t the only one. In a way, it was a huge weight taken off my shoulder.
“Ikidomari? What is that supposed to mean anyway?” Kenzie asked, looking at the carved writing on the board. She looked at me expecting an answer, I had no idea what it meant and I still don’t but, it can’t be anything good. We all took a seat at the table and all eyes were pretty much on me. I flicked the wheel and it spun, landing on 6. We all watched my game piece but, it wasn’t moving. Not like it did the last time. I spun again, landing on 4. Still nothing. I tried moving the piece manually but it was stuck to the board. It was like trying to pull a nail from a wall with your bare hands. I figured there must have been a reason for this so I read the rules that were written at the bottom left corner of the board. I wish I had read them before I played. The rules were very horrifying and they pretty much went like this:
Welcome to the game of Ikidomari. For your safety, it is highly recommended that you read the rules BEFORE you play the game. If you place a game piece on the board and you spin the wheel, there is no going back. You hit a dead end and there’s no way around it but to finish the game. The game will not end until there’s one person left alive, other wise it can NEVER end.
Note: This game is designed for more than one player so if you are alone, do NOT start the game. Consequences will be dire.
Note: The game pieces tend to move on their own so there is no need to move them manually. Not that you could anyway.
Warning: To whomever dares to play the game, be aware that there can only be one winner and that winner shall win the ultimate prize that sits in the center of the board. To those who fail along the way…Rest In Piece.
Warning: Cheating is NOT tolerated and will result in dire consequences and an automatic ejection.
When I found that the game meant everything that was said, the rules made it seem like this game was a death wish. I still to this day, wish I had read the rules first. I wouldn’t be here right now, surrounded by demons if I had. Everyone else I guess thought it was just a game. They had no idea how real the situation was. Since I aparently already took my turn, Jake volunteered to go next. He placed a game piece at the starting point and spun the wheel. He rolled a 7 and his piece slowly moved up seven spaces, landing on a light shade of gray(which by the way meant you didn’t have to draw a card). Joel went next and he spun a 5, landing on a gray spot.
Finally, it was Kenzie’s turn. She placed her tombstone on the board and spun the wheel. 4.
I knew instantly, that would be a black spot because I spun that the first time. Her piece moved up four spaces and she drew a black card from the deck. I took a deep breath, probably more scared than she was. When I saw her reaction, I saw the fear crawl within her.
“Look behind you,” she read out loud. We all took our flashlighs and pointed them behind her.
“What the hell is that thing?” Joel asked, not really expecting an answer.
“Wasn’t that thing over there?” Jake asked, looking at me and pointing to the furnace.
It was the doll. She somehow moved from the furnace to the rocking chair that sat behind Kenzie without anyone noticing. She was just sitting there, the chair rocking lightly back and forth. At that point, I’m sure everyone realised how serious and real the situation was. I heard their heart beats echo throughout the room. They were just as scared as I was. I agreed to switch seats with Kenzie who of course wasn’t very comfortable with a creepy doll sitting on a rocking chair behind her. Not that I wasn’t uncomfortable with it either.
We got back to the game, trying to ignore the creaking of the rocking chair. It was my turn. I spun the wheel and landed on 7. My piece moved slowly, I counted the spaces before it could stop. It landed on gray. Jake was next. He spun the wheel and landed on 5. His piece slowly moved and stopped directly in front of mine.
“Shit,” he muttered. He landed on a black spot so he pulled a black card out of the deck and read it out loud.
“It’s okay to be afraid…because you should be.”
We were indeed afraid and yet we were just getting started. The worse had yet to come. I took a deep breath, hoping nothing would viciously pop out at us. It was Joel’s turn so he spun the wheel and landed on 4. A gray space. Kenzie spun the wheel and landed on 0. Her piece did not move and it stayed put on the black space. According to the rules, that would still result in drawing a black card. She pulled a card from the deck, took a deep breath and read it out loud.
“She’s under the floor.” We were all silent and we listened as a voice echoed through.
“It’s dark down here,” The voice was echoing from beneath the floor. “I can’t sleep, Gordan.”
They all looked at me as if I knew what was going on. This woman or thing was haunting me. We heard a knock from under the floor, right beneath us. The air was so cold and we actually felt a presence run through us. It was a horrifying experience but we knew we had to continue the game. It was my turn and I quickly spun the wheel and thankfully, my tombstone moved to a gray space. It was Jake’s turn next. He spun the wheel, landing on 9. His game piece moved up nine spaces and…it stopped on red. We hadn’t had a red space so we had no idea what would happen next. All that we knew was that the red cards were considered dead ends and were unpredictable and possibly dangerous. We didn’t know at the time how deadly they’d be. Jake took a red card from the deck, we all took a deep breath as he began to read it.
A knock will rumble the room
Open the door or be doomed
We all looked at each other, our faces frozen in fear. Then came the knock. It was loud, more like a pound similar to the knocking that took place earlier that day in our dorm. It did rumble the room, and it echoed right through us. Our hearts, becoming vulnerable and frail.
“Open the door or be doomed,” I said, looking at Jake. “I’m sorry man, but you have to open the door.” He looked at me and I saw the fear leaking from his eyes. His face was pale as he took a deep breath and stood up. We watched as he slowly walked to the door. I realised nobody had shut the door and yet, somehow it was closed without anyone noticing. I had an overwhelming sense that something bad was about to happen. The room rumbled again as there was another loud knock.
Jake finally reached the door after what seemed like an eternity and he looked back at us. The longer he took, the more frightening the situation seemed. I couldn’t blame him though. There was no telling what could have been behind that door. It could have been something demonic, something sinister. He took another deep breath as he slowly opened the door. I listened to the sound as it creaked open and I swear, everything was in slow motion
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Before I begin, let me explain what is happening to me. The technical term for what I am is called an eidetic. You’ve probably heard of people with photographic memories, well that’s what it is, except eidetics are not limited by the visual sense in what they remember. While each case varies in their specific capabilities, feelings of sound, taste, smell and touch can also be vividly recalled at any time. Some eidetics are also known to have the ability to see what they are thinking. This is the category that I belong in.
I have to admit, this ability does have its perks. School is a breeze because I can see my notes next to every exam that I take. I’m able to bring up happy memories that I’ve had with friends and family to help brighten their day. Whenever I get bored I can read books that I’ve read or watch TV shows that I’ve watched in my head.
Seems cool right? At least that’s what people tell me. I wish they were right.
What they don’t know is that I would give anything in the world to be rid of this.
The way that my vision works is that in addition to what my eyes actually see, my brain overlaps whatever I’m thinking of over this and the result is a combination of the two. Therefore the effect of my “mental vision” is limited during the day because my actual vision interferes with it. But whenever I go to bed, and the room is totally dark, my mental vision is given free reign of what I see.
Now one might ask, why is this so bad? As long as you think of pleasant things this must be a very relaxing way to go to bed right? This would imply that you are in complete control of every thought that goes through your head at all times. This, however, is almost never the case. The brain is constantly bombarded with what are called “intrusive thoughts.”
I’m sure you’ve heard the normal creaks and groans from your house at night and you think that maybe someone or something is walking around in the dark. Fear swells in you for a few seconds, but after a minute or so of nothing happening, you are able to shrug it off as your imagination and go to sleep. This is an intrusive thought. Though you know there is nothing there, your brain forces you to think, at least for a moment, that there is. Except with me, these intrusive thoughts conjure an image that accompanies the sound. Sounds in the night are always accompanied by some sort person or creature walking around my room or standing there watching me.
Obviously, this made growing up hard. I couldn’t understand any of this when I was young and just assumed that there were monsters in my room when I went to bed. Many a night my parents would rush into my room after hearing my cries and try to console me even though their presence never made the image go away. Eventually I could understand that the images weren’t real because they were all things that I had seen before and being able to recognize where they came from had a calming affect. I learned to live with, and even anticipate the “entities” that would appear each night.
Until a few months ago.
I had just gotten back to my apartment after a long night working at the hospital and I noticed that my roommate wasn’t home. I assumed that he was out at the bars, thought nothing of it, and went inside. As I opened the door to my apartment, the normal darkness greeted me and my mental vision took over as I walked over to the light switch. Just as I was about to turn on the lights, I saw a man at the end of the hallway looking at me. I could tell that he was just an image, but for the first time, he was something that I had no memory of. He was extremely fat, and had no clothing except for a small, black bolo hat on his balding head. His skin was a light, sickly purplish color and appeared to be peeling across his clearly disease-ridden body. His mouth hung open, revealing a set of gangrenous teeth and pus laden stump of a tongue. But the thing that stuck out the most was that he had no eyes or even eye sockets. They were replaced with lumps of flesh that seemed to grow from the edges of his hat.
My hand hesitated on the light switch and my fear was temporarily replaced with curiosity. I wanted to see what this man would do if I sat around for awhile; he was after all, just an image that my brain had conjured up. So I took a seat on my couch and observed quietly. After a few minutes he started to move. Like all of my other hallucinations, his actions made no noise in the real world, and he just silently shuffled around my apartment. He didn’t seem to be heading towards me at all, nor did he appear to have any clear destination in mind. I started to lose interest and got up to turn on the lights and get ready for bed.
Then he spoke.
A fear, the likes I which I have never known, resonated down my entire spine. None of my hallucinations had ever made their own noises, let alone form words. I tried to rationalize that maybe I had heard people talking either from outside my window, or perhaps outside my door. But before I even had a chance to validate my claims, he spoke again.
“She just wanted to see you again.”
His voice was garbled and deep, and he spoke very quietly, but I heard every word. Panic took hold of me and I bolted for the light switch. As always, the light instantly made the man disappear and I was left alone in my apartment. Relief washed over me, and I tried to make sense of what had just happened. I knew that the voice had come from the man, but I couldn’t figure out how that was even possible. I didn’t recognize him from any scary movie I had seen or any picture on the internet, nor could I recall anyone talking like that. No matter what conclusion I came to, I knew that I would see him again when I went to bed.
He didn’t disappoint. No sooner had I jumped under my covers, he waddled into my room. I tried to distract myself from him by thinking of other things. I resorted to my normal tactic of getting an image of my sister to appear to calm me down. She was always so understanding, even when we were kids, of what happens to me. Her presence made me feel at peace and I relied on her to get me through some of my more severe “episodes.”
However, her image also seemed to have an effect on him. He immediately stopped his shufflings and seemed to turn to where she was. It is difficult for me to describe what he did next because it makes me question my sanity, but he somehow forced her to fade from my vision. It wasn’t possible. I should of been able to keep her in my vision if I thought of her, but for the first time…I couldn’t. As soon as she faded, he spoke again.
“You should of been there. She thought about you at the end.”
A memory was then thrust into my mind. It was of my grandmother; she had been in the hospital for the last few months of her life and my dad used to take my sister and I to visit her. My grandmother adored us, and absolutely loved whenever we came to see her. One time when my dad was going to visit, I told him that I wanted to hang out with my friends instead and he obliged. That was the last time that my dad went to see her and she died a few days later. I felt horrible for not going and regretted it for a long time.
These feelings of regret and sorrow overwhelmed me and I suddenly realized the meaning behind the man’s words. He was somehow able to project a memory that I didn’t want to think about and relive the emotions that I felt during it.
He has visited me every night since then. Each time a horrible moment in my life is wrenched from my subconscious and I endure the sorrow of each event. Each night I am unable to cope with the overwhelming surge of emotions and what little sleep I get is plagued by nightmares of these memories. I see no end in sight and am at my wits end.
I often think of the nature of heaven and hell and whether or not there is a god. Originally I was inclined to believe that there couldn’t exist a god that would allow this kind of torment to be inflicted on a person who, seemingly, did nothing to deserve it. However, I cannot think of a more terrifying version of hell than this. To be forced to relive and reconsider each bad decision in one’s life is the ultimate and most effective method to push a soul to it’s breaking point.
I can see only one way to escape this. If my family reads this, just know that I love you all and I’m sorry for any pain that I caused. Hopefully you will understand.
Credit To – bgends
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It was an expensive chair. The leather squeaked as I shuffled in it, betraying its purpose by failing to get comfortable. Disapproving eyes glanced up from the heavy mahogany desk that lay before me. After a pause the solicitor continued reading.
“And to my grandson, Alastair Kincade, I leave a sum of £30,000 and the following items…”
My grandfather Colin died of a heart attack in his sleep, after months of living in a home due to his alzheimer’s. My father tried to care for him as much as he could but towards the end he needed twenty-four hour attention. Dad was still years away from retirement and wasn’t able to give that kind of attention.
“And his violin.” My ears prickled, and I looked up at the solicitor then to my father.
“Violin?” My father, Michael, took the words out of my mouth.
The man sitting next to me, my great uncle Torrance, waved his hand to tell my father not to ask questions during the reading. My curiosity itched and I squeaked in the chair again, the solicitor shooting another look before continuing to list my twin sisters’ lot of inheritance.
In all, my sisters and I received ten percent each of his money, my father and aunt twenty five percent, and my great uncle twenty percent. The house had been sold before he died to fund his care, and numerous items distributed to each of us. I was glad for the money. While I didn’t do badly for myself, the sum was easily enough to place a deposit for my own property: something that has become rapidly more difficult to generate in England the past ten years.
Once we were dismissed, both my father and I pounced our questions upon Uncle Torrance, “I didn’t know Granddad Colin played the violin.”
“Dad never owned a violin, when did he get that?”
Uncle Torrance raised his hands to again wave down our questions, while my sisters headed out of the solicitor’s building to head home. “I’ll tell you… in exchange for ale!” A cheeky grin spread out across his face, the way it always did when he told a story.
Dad drove to our local, The Cattle and Block. Once three glasses decorated the table, my uncle began to tell us the story of the violin.
“You probably know very little of my Grandmother Hildegarde. She died before you were born, Michael. I don’t know much about Grandma Hildi before she married my Grandfather Bhaltair, only the stories she told use before bed. She was german originally, and grew up in the streets of York. She had only one possession apart from the rags on her back, and that was a violin. Grandpap Bhal heard her playing on the street, and fell in love with her instantly. He saw through the dirty blonde hair stuck to her shoulders, the scars and mud around her knees, and saw the beauty she wove over the strings. He got down on one knee, then and there, and told her she must marry him. He told her he could not live another day without that song in his heart. She said yes, and they were married.”
He paused to take another long sip of ale. It was like a fairy tale and it was surprising to hear such a story about my own family. “So it was Hildegarde’s?”
Uncle Torrance nodded and put the glass back down. “Yes. Now, my brother and I were raised by our grandparents. My brother was five when our mother died, during childbirth to me. My father – he was called Logan Kincade – turned up on Grandpap and Grandma’s door step and begged his parent to look after us for a while. He was stricken with grief and needed some time to pull himself together, and figure out how to be a father without my mother. They accepted, and he never returned. We never knew what happened to my father.
A couple of years before your Dad had you, Grandpap Bhal passed away. Soon after, Grandma Hildi passed. You know what they say about a love bird losing their mate. That was when Colin inherited her violin. He always kept it locked up in the attic, I don’t suppose he ever knew what to do with it. He probably sent it to you because you like music so much, Alastair.”
“Wow, it sounds like quite the family heirloom.” Dad said, “Look after it.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
We finished up our drinks and took Uncle Torrance home. As he was getting out of the car, he said, “All the years we lived with Grandma Hildi, I never heard her play it. She polished it, cared for it, but she never played. If I asked, her answer always “Not today, dear.” She never attempted to teach one of us either.” He shrugged and gave his goodbyes.
It wasn’t until a few weeks later when Granddad Colin’s possessions were sorted through and delivered to the appropriate relatives. My father dropped my share of boxes off at my house and quickly moved on the deliver the others to my sisters. The contents of the box were added to my collection of items I had accumulated over the years. I never really took an interest in classical music, or the techniques used in playing and composing – my main interest was in jazz and blues, some rock and roll. I liked soulful music, things that came from the heart, and it fascinated me how pain could create such beautiful things.
The gramophone stood proudly with its collection of records, and the violin case lay before me. I had no intention to learn to play it, but I couldn’t stop myself taking it out the box and give it a spin.
The case was a big heavy wooden box, shaped like a violin, but it seemed a lot bigger than necessary. I unclipped the case and inside was a vast amount of silk cloth. A stunning crimson that caught the light as I placed it on the floor. Underneath, the object of my curiosity. It was worn, some of the varnish chipped in places, but even I could tell the craftsmanship was expert. The wood was a deep colour, and on the back there was a branding. It seemed to be a sigil depicting a swan, bleeding from the neck. I didn’t recognise it, but I know very little about bowed instruments or sigils.
Holding it in my hands, it was a lot heavier than I expected; Hildegarde must have been quite a strong lady. I pulled it up into position on my shoulder and stroked the bow across the strings. I flinched from the screech. I tried again, a little gentler, only to be thanked with another banshee wail. Defeated, the violin went back in the box. Clearly, it took a master’s hand to use it. As I was putting the silk back around it, a small envelope dropped to the floor. Written on the front in black ink, Alastair, in my grandfather’s handwriting. I pulled the note out of the envelope: Burn the violin. With salt. Why would he ask me to do that? Then again, as his mental health declined, he could probably have been capable of any delusion.
I had a vivid and painful dream that night, I stood in the foyer of a house I didn’t recognise. It was grand, clearly the home of a rich family. There were portraits on the walls, soft and elaborate carpets beneath my feet, and an unlit chandelier on the ceiling. Below me, I heard agonising, tormented screaming, punctuated with a heavy wet thuds. Above me, some of the most enchanting music I have ever heard. I can only describe this song in how it made me feel: lost and forlorn, my eyes on the brink of tears. Though the tone of the notes seemed almost harsh, I longed to find them in the halls of this house, I wanted their comfort and embrace.
I moved automatically to the stairs beside me, unable to pull myself away from the siren song, the screams fading into the distance. The chords floated throughout the house, teasing me, beckoning me to their creator as I reached a door at the end of the hallway. The gold painted detail led to the handle, its cool touch swept across my hand. It turned, the latch clicking open, and then I awoke.
The headache sat behind my eyes, clinging to the groggy realms of sleep and the lost call of the dream I’d left behind. It felt as if all the space around my eyes was packed with cotton wool, and a dull throb pushed onto my eyeballs. I took a deep breath and shook my head to find some sense in the morning. It’s not like I have never dreamt before, but rarely did something stick with me in such a haunting way. I felt the song in my bones, the ache to hear the rest, like a story with the ending ripped away.
I dreamt the same thing for a week afterwards. It began the same way, however each night I would get closer and closer to the source, and each morning I would wake up in more and more pain. The migraines got so severe, I spent a lot of time before work vomiting in the bathroom, until my head eventually stopped spinning. Pain killers did very little, and I was drinking extra water to make sure it wasn’t dehydration. Nothing satisfied it.
The night before last, I stood right behind her. As I was lured up the stairs, the song changed as I approached the violinist: playful, like it was teasing me, begging me into a game. She turned her head to the side, just a little, and said, “Not today, dear.”
I suddenly awoke and my legs retracted into my chest for the pain, and I pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes. A small amount of relief from the pressure, but not enough. It took me several minutes to realise I could still hear the music, coming from my collection room down the corridor. My hand was on the door handle when I became aware of the dripping sound. At my feet, dark spots decorated the carpet, and on my bed the same darkness streaked the sheets. My hand rose to my face to realise it was wet. Angry, confused, and scared, I jerked the door open and stormed into the room where the violin lay on one of the display cabinets. The song was a cacophony of agony through my mind, yet it was beautiful.
I held it in my hands unsure what to do. My mind came back to my Granddad’s note: Burn the violin. With salt. I shook it off, it was ridiculous. I pushed it into its case but the song still burned through my eyes, tears streamed down my face. As I piled the silk wrapping on top of it, the music ebbed slightly. I wrapped the silk around again, properly, covering each inch of the instrument and with each binding, the pain faded with the tune. As I clipped the case together, the violin was all but silenced.
I woke up on the floor next to the case with the taste of copper in my mouth. I must have fallen asleep in there, after silencing the instrument. I decided then and there that I was done, I was going to sell it. Whatever madness overcame me, I’d give it someone else. I knew a place in town and, after cleaning the blood from myself, I drove straight there.
I could still hear the humming from the case as I pulled it from the boot of my car. I took a few ibuprofen in preparation. I’d also considered ear plugs but somehow I came to the conclusion they wouldn’t work either.
A bell rang as I pushed the door open.
“Hello!” A cheery wave from an older gentleman.
“Hey, would you be interested in an antique violin?” I set the case down on the counter in front of him.
“Certainly!” His finger rippled above the case before he nimbly flicked open the latches. I braced myself. As he pulled the silk away, the song became louder and all the pain returned to me.
Act normal, just act normal. “I don’t know a lot about it. I inherited it recently. It’s from at least 1880’s, it was my great great grandmother’s.” I sucked a deep breath in to push back the throbbing in my eyes.
“Yes, it certainly is old, not in the best condition, but not the worst I have seen.” He turned it over and I felt a sharp pain across my forehead. Air rushed into my lungs, and I tried to cover the sharp breath with a cough. He gave me an odd look, “This is sigil is interesting. I haven’t seen it before. The manufacture of this is reminiscent of Stradivarius but-”
I didn’t hear the rest of his sentence. Blood pouring through my brain, pulsated through my eyes and my ears. I concentrated as hard as I could on staying conscious. He said some number, I accepted. He said he would get me a cheque, and as soon as his hands left the violin, I wrapped it in the silk. I clipped the case back up and let out a sigh of relief as the pain left me. The man was stood staring at me.
“I’m sorry, I just want to protect it.” I blurted out.
“It’s alright…” He edged to the other end of the counter, take glances back to me and wrote the cheque out. “Now before I give you this, I need some contact information. Just a precaution.”
I didn’t ask why. I didn’t care. I pulled a business card out and gave it to him. He carefully inspected the card, and offered the cheque once he was satisfied.
I hastily took it, “Thank you, thank you.” I left immediately, knowing I must have seemed rude, or more likely mad. I remember the jingle of the bell, and a goodbye before I drove back home to get a night’s rest.
It didn’t last long. Two nights after I sold it, I awoke again to a migraine and the sound of a violin. I screamed in frustration. The melody was coming from outside, from the rear of the house. I headed downstairs to the back door, already the pain spread across my forehead and down my face. I pushed the door open and stared out into the woods that backed onto my house. It was out there and called me. Stuffing my feet into work boots, I went to find it, and I was going to bind it up, and deal with it in the morning.
The pressure in the back of my eyes grew as I stalked down my garden. At the gate, I scanned the woods behind the house. I couldn’t see anything out there but I could feel it in the pain magnifying through my head. Two nails jabbed into my eyes and were slowly being pulled up through my skull. All I wanted was relief as the nails broke my eye sockets and began pulling at my scalp.
After walking out into the woods, it’s hard to remember everything clearly. I remember how much it hurt, and how it kept getting worse the further I walked, to the point where I didn’t know if I was following the music or the pain. I think I almost passed out at one point. I saw bright flashes in front of my eyes, and my vision started fading in black spots. I could have sworn as those black spots started appearing over my eyes I saw the shadow of a woman in front of me.
My vision came back to me when I saw the blood on my arms and staining my pajama bottoms. There must have been brambles scratching me as I pulled myself through the woods towards the song, but I couldn’t feel any pain there, only the persistent and all consuming ache spreading across my head. I could feel through the centre of my forehead intensity as if a vice were applied to each side of my head, forcing the bone into itself.
Ahead of me, the trees broke out into a bank, and some murky, inky water. It was a neglected river – no! An abandoned canal route, full of rotting plant matter and debris. The pain had finished its work on my head, and indulged in exploring my chest. It felt as if my rib cage were being slowly pulled from the rest of my body. The pounding in my chest became a crushing hand around my heart. My legs gave out from under me and I fell, whimpering on ground. I’m not proud of it but I cried. I sobbed into the dusty mud around me, the smell of the water nauseating, and being unable to distinguish between the flies around me and the black spots I was hallucinating.
Eventually, my head slumped to the side and there lay the dark wood case. The tears stopped for just long enough for me to try and pull myself up, pain shot through my ribs as I hauled myself to it. The pain ebbed as I wrapped my fingers around the handle of the case and held it to my chest. While the song still sawed through my skull, the pain waned just enough for me to make it to my feet along the trek back. Perhaps the violin provided me mercy for finding it, or perhaps it was just the relief of finally having an option to end this.
I saw the back gate ahead of me, and as I approached it, the shadows crept back over my eyes and stole vision from me. My boot caught on something and I flew forwards, hands finding the gate in front of me before I crashed into the ground. The impact throwing all the air from my lungs and sprayed blood over my hands. I lay there over the gate, winded, stunned, and a dull throb throughout my whole body, until a light from the kitchen pierced the darkness before me. The pain was excruciating. My face was wet with tears and blood as I came through my back fence. As I was about the open the back door, I heard a voice.
“Are you alright?” My neighbour. I’d forgotten he worked early shifts and would be up in the small hours of the morning. When I first moved in, he came over to ask me to keep the noise down in the afternoons while he slept. “You don’t look so good.” He stubbed his cigarette out against the wall, slipped it back into the packet and came over to the fence.
“Did you hear that earlier?”
“Hear what?” My heart sank a little as I knew the answer to my next question.
“The noise… Coming from… Over there…” I struggled to form sentences. I gestured out to the woods with the violin case.
He shook his head slowly, his gaze following my arm before looking back to me, “Do you want me to call someone?”
“No, no, I’ll just get some sleep.” I pulled the muscles in my face into what was meant to be a reassuring smile. My head throbbed and I gave up on the effort. “Thanks.” He watched me head inside into the house before pulling his cigarette back out.
In my collection room, I lay the case before me. I could still hear the music slicing through my brain. Silk. I needed more silk. I tore every bed sheet from the airing cupboard and threw anything that felt like silk on top of the case. Every shirt, pair of boxers, handkerchief that shimmered and danced through my hand went onto that case. Finally I could hear myself think, and hear my nose dripping again before collapsing onto my bed for the night.
I awoke to a rapid knocking at the front door. I pulled myself out of bed, a small headache still prevailing but much better than it had been. I pulled on a dressing gown and answered the door: it was my neighbour.
“Hey, you’re still alive! I was just checking, you looked rough last night.” A smile of relief washed across his face. I was genuinely surprised.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks for checking up on me.”
“Wife look after you?”
“Oh no, I’m not married.”
“Oh so it was your girlfriend?”
“No, I live alone.”
“Well your guest or whoever followed you in last night.” He said, rolling his eyes. He must have mistaken my confusion for being pedantic.
“What?”
He hesitated, “A woman. She walked up through the back gate and into the house a few minutes after you went in.”
“There’s no one here.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll keep schtum about it. Was just checking you were okay.” He put his hands up defensively.
“No, I’m not… Thanks for checking, I mean it.”
“You’re alright, see you around.”
“What did she look like?”
“Eh? You’re serious, aren’t you? You don’t know what I’m on about?”
I shook my head.
“Well, she was a bit taller than an average lady I’d say, blonde… Very pretty. She was in a white dress, you know like a nightie but an old fashioned one. She walked up from where you came, through gate and in the back door.”
“And she opened the door?” I gestured with my hand, just in case he didn’t know what opening a door looked like. Smart.
“Yeah…”
“She unlocked it and walked in?”
“No, she didn’t unlock it.”
“Excuse me, thank you.” I ran to the back door and checked it. Locked.
My heart pounded in my chest as the sense of reality I had built up over a lifetime began to crack. My first headache without the song pushed into the back of my eyes. I realised then, while I was rubbing my temples, if the nightmares didn’t kill me, the sheer stress would. I finally decided to obey Grandpa Colin’s note then, and burn the violin after my neighbour left for work.
Alarm set for four-thirty the next morning, I went to bed and dreamt. Once again, I stood in the foyer of the strange house and, once again, those screams and wet thuds pushed through the floor below me, and the siren song led me upstairs. However, this time there was a soft sobbing above. The golden trimmed door creaked open, and before me stood the blonde violinist in her nightgown, the low light glinting off the tears on her face.
“Not now, dear. Please.”
The piercing beep of my phone awoke me, and it was time to enact my plan. I flicked the alarm off and claimed the violin from the collection room. With the music muted under piles of fabric, I brought together all the tools I’d need: the barbecue, lighter fluid, and table salt.
The fire made quick work of the silk, surrounding me with the scent of burnt hair and the consuming melody I sought to finally silence, and the agonising pressure across my skull returned. As the flames reached the violin, and black smoke rose from the metal dish, the music began to distort and shriek in protest. Pain swept across my chest. Voices screamed with the violin, pouring into my ears, begging me to save them and make the pain stop. Smoke billowed out around me and stung my eyes and throat, making me cough, and I fell to my knees as the crushing, black cloud forced me to the ground.
I found myself lying in the mansion, my eyes focussing on the chandelier above me. Like so many times before, a woman’s voice screamed below.
“No! Please!”
Thud.
“Why are you doing this?”
Thud.
“I won’t tell anyone if you just let me go.”
Thud. Crack.
Unlike before, there was no music, there was no pain; I was free to move. I stood and looked around the foyer.
Thud.
The paintings in the hall were of familiar faces; the names “Kincade” printed beneath on a brass plate.
Thud.
There were several doors around me, but I knew which one to take. I took the basement stairs.
Thud. Crack.
A small lantern barely lit the room. Workbenches framed the walls, covered in many tools; vices, hammers, spanners, screwdrivers, and drills.
Thud. Thud.
The sounds of the hammer in his hand.
Thud.
Blood splattered his shirt and braces. His dress trousers were muddy and wet. Dishevelled hair fell over his face.
Crack.
The hammer caught that time. It took several tugs to free it from the mess of meat between his knees. Pieces fell onto the tarp beneath it.
Thud.
The face of a woman stared up at me, motionless apart from a twitch when the hammer struck her rib cage which sent her head rolling on her neck. I stared back, at her left side with each rib individually broken, as the man worked on the right.
Thud, thud. Crack.
He sat up and wiped his forehead. Red gore replaced the sweat. There was no satisfaction on his face, no hint of personal pleasure or arousal, like this was just another job that needed doing. After a few deep breaths, he swung the hammer into the skull until the woman’s face no longer looked at me.
He stood, dropped the hammer to his side and raised his head, scanning the basement walls. As his gaze fell upon the stairs, I recognised him from one of the portraits: Bhaltair Kincade. I instinctively ducked, though I had nowhere to hide. His eyes continued past me to the spade in the corner of the room. He took it and began the next chore, digging into the dirt floor of the basement.
I sat on those stairs and watched as he dug out the trench. He sank the spade next to the hole, and wrapped the chunks of meat in the tarp it lay on. In the dim light, I saw a pale hand in the wall of the grave, partially decomposed. As he dragged the body in and began to cover it with the dirt, I noticed the rest of the floor: uneven, some parts freshly dug, others older but the outline still distinct.
Thud.
My attention snapped back. Bhaltair’s foot on the bottom step of the stairs, his eyes locked onto mine, pain shooting into the back of my skull, white light pouring over my vision.
A steady beep, fresh oxygen with each breath, a voice, a woman’s voice. My sister’s voice.
“Alastair!” A hand gripped my wrist. I screwed up my eyes and rubbed them with the back of my hand. The white filled with grey, then the shadows and colours returned to show me her face. “Alastair, you’re awake!”
My head span a little, and I felt like hell all over. “What… Where?”
“You’re in the hospital. You neighbour found you after passed out in the garden.”
The violin. “The fire…”
“Yes, your stupid late night barbecue party for one.” The concern was gone, the familiar tone of lecture mode replaced it. “What were you even burning? There was black smoke everywhere. The fire brigade couldn’t even find what you set fire to, just accelerant and salt.”
“I’m-”
“Sorry? A moron? Trying to kill yourself?” A sharp pain to the side of my head. “You nearly died from monoxide poisoning! Your whole face was covered in blood.”
“Don’t flick me!”
She opened her mouth to say something, but her throat caught. Instead her hand jumped forward and delivered another stab of pain to my temple.
Lilly drove me home later that day, after I was given the all clear. I slept well. It’s been nearly a week since the hospital, and I’ve dreamt of nothing but mundane work-related stuff.
You know the real kicker to this? I had a call from the police on Monday asking me about the violin. Apparently, when the music store owner had come in on that morning, it was gone. He’s reported it stolen, and given my name to the police so they can ask me for information that might help them find it. Damn thing is no end of trouble.
Credit To – Kerrima
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Remember to check out the Jeff The Killer Reboot of this creepypasta classic.
Jeff The Killer Creepypasta story
Excerpt from a local newspaper:
OMINOUS UNKNOWN KILLER IS STILL AT LARGE.
After weeks of unexplained murders, the ominous unknown killer is still on the rise. After little evidence has been found, a young boy states that he survived one of the killer’s attacks and bravely tells his story.
“I had a bad dream and I woke up in the middle of the night,” says the boy, “I saw that for some reason the window was open, even though I remember it being closed before I went to bed. I got up and shut it once more. Afterwards, I simply crawled under my covers and tried to get back to sleep. That’s when I had a strange feeling, like someone was watching me. I looked up and nearly jumped out of my bed. There, in the little ray of light, illuminating from between my curtains, were a pair of two eyes. These weren’t regular eyes; they were dark, ominous eyes. They were bordered in black and… just plain out terrified me. That’s when I saw his mouth. A long, horrendous smile that made every hair on my body stand up. The figure stood there, watching me. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he said it. A simple phrase, but said in a way only a mad man could speak.
“He said, ‘Go To Sleep.’ I let out a scream, that’s what sent him at me. He pulled up a knife; aiming at my heart. He jumped on top of my bed. I fought him back; I kicked, I punched, I rolled around, trying to knock him off me. That’s when my dad busted in. The man threw the knife, it went into my dad’s shoulder. The man probably would’ve finished him off, if one of the neighbors hadn’t alerted the police.
“They drove into the parking lot and ran towards the door. The man turned and ran down the hallway. I heard a smash, like glass breaking. As I came out of my room, I saw the window that was pointing towards the back of my house was broken. I looked out it to see him vanish into the distance. I can tell you one thing, I will never forget that face. Those cold, evil eyes, and that psychotic smile. They will never leave my head.”
Police are still on the look for this man. If you see anyone that fits the description in this story, please contact your local police department.
Jeff and his family had just moved into a new neighborhood. His dad had gotten a promotion at work, and they thought it would be best to live in one of those “fancy” neighborhoods. Jeff and his brother Liu couldn’t complain though. A new, better house. What was not to love? As they were getting unpacked, one of their neighbors came by.
“Hello,” she said, “I’m Barbara; I live across the street from you. Well, I just wanted to introduce my self and to introduce my son.” She turns around and calls her son over. “Billy, these are our new neighbors.” Billy said hi and ran back to play in his yard.
“Well,” said Jeff’s mom, “I’m Margaret, and this is my husband Peter, and my two sons, Jeff and Liu.” They each introduced themselves, and then Barbara invited them to her son’s birthday. Jeff and his brother were about to object when their mother said that they would love to. When Jeff and his family are done packing, Jeff went up to his mom.
“Mom, why would you invite us to some kid’s party? If you haven’t noticed, I’m not some dumb kid.”
“Jeff,” said his mother, “We just moved here; we should show that we want to spend time with our neighbors. Now, we’re going to that party, and that’s final.” Jeff started to talk, but stopped himself, knowing that he couldn’t do anything. Whenever his mom said something, it was final. He walked up to his room and plopped down on his bed. He sat there looking at his ceiling when suddenly, he got a weird feeling. Not so much pain, but… a weird feeling. He dismissed it as just some random feeling. He heard his mother call him down to get his stuff, and he walked down to get it.
The next day, Jeff walked downstairs to get breakfast and got ready for school. As he sat there, eating his breakfast, he once again got that feeling. This time it was stronger. It gave him a slight tugging pain, but he once again dismissed it. As he and Liu finished breakfast, they walked down to the bus stop. They sat there waiting for the bus, and then, all of a sudden, some kid on a skateboard jumped over them, only inches above their laps. They both jumped back in surprise. “Hey, what the hell?”
The kid landed and turned back to them. He kicked his skateboard up and caught it with his hands. The kid seems to be about twelve; one year younger than Jeff. He wears an Aeropostale shirt and ripped blue jeans.
“Well, well, well. It looks like we got some new meat.” Suddenly, two other kids appeared. One was super skinny and the other was huge. “Well, since you’re new here, I’d like to introduce ourselves, over there is Keith.” Jeff and Liu looked over to the skinny kid. He had a dopey face that you would expect a sidekick to have. “And he’s Troy.” They looked over at the fat kid. Talk about a tub of lard. This kid looked like he hadn’t exercised since he was crawling.
“And I,” said the first kid, “am Randy. Now, for all the kids in this neighborhood, there is a small price for bus fare, if you catch my drift.” Liu stood up, ready to punch the lights out of the kid’s eyes when one of his friends pulled a knife on him. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, I had hoped you would be more cooperative, but it seems we must do this the hard way.” The kid walked up to Liu and took his wallet out of his pocket. Jeff got that feeling again. Now, it was truly strong; a burning sensation. He stood up, but Liu gestured him to sit down. Jeff ignored him and walked up to the kid.
“Listen here you little punk, give back my bro’s wallet or else.” Randy put the wallet in his pocket and pulled out his own knife.
“Oh? And what will you do?” Just as he finished the sentence, Jeff popped the kid in the nose. As Randy reached for his face, Jeff grabbed the kid’s wrist and broke it. Randy screamed and Jeff grabbed the knife from his hand. Troy and Keith rushed Jeff, but Jeff was too quick. He threw Randy to the ground. Keith lashed out at him, but Jeff ducked and stabbed him in the arm. Keith dropped his knife and fell to the ground screaming. Troy rushed him too, but Jeff didn’t even need the knife. He just punched Troy straight in the stomach and Troy went down. As he fell, he puked all over. Liu could do nothing but look in amazement at Jeff.
“Jeff how’d you?” was all he said. They saw the bus coming and knew they’d be blamed for the whole thing. So they started running as fast as they could. As they ran, they looked back and saw the bus driver rushing over to Randy and the others. As Jeff and Liu made it to school, they didn’t dare tell what happened. All they did was sit and listen. Liu just thought of that as his brother beating up a few kids, but Jeff knew it was more. It was something, scary. As he got that feeling he felt how powerful it was, the urge to just, hurt someone. He didn’t like how it sounded, but he couldn’t help feeling happy. He felt that strange feeling go away, and stay away for the entire day of school. Even as he walked home due to the whole thing near the bus stop, and how now he probably wouldn’t be taking the bus anymore, he felt happy. When he got home his parents asked him how his day was, and he said, in a somewhat ominous voice, “It was a wonderful day.” Next morning, he heard a knock at his front door. He walked down to find two police officers at the door, his mother looking back at him with an angry look.
“Jeff, these officers tell me that you attacked three kids. That it wasn’t regular fighting, and that they were stabbed. Stabbed, son!” Jeff’s gaze fell to the floor, showing his mother that it was true.
“Mom, they were the ones who pulled the knives on me and Liu.”
“Son,” said one of the cops,” We found three kids, two stabbed, one having a bruise on his stomach, and we have witnesses proving that you fled the scene. Now, what does that tell us?” Jeff knew it was no use. He could say him and Liu had been attacked, but then there was no proof it was not them who attacked first. They couldn’t say that they weren’t fleeing, because truth be told they were. So Jeff couldn’t defend himself or Liu.
“Son, call down your brother.” Jeff couldn’t do it since it was he who beat up all the kids.
“Sir, it…it was me. I was the one who beat up the kids. Liu tried to hold me back, but he couldn’t stop me.” The cop looked at his partner and they both nod.
“Well, kid, looks like a year in juvie…”
“Wait!” says Liu. They all looked up to see him holding a knife. The officers pulled their guns and locked them on Liu.
“It was me, I beat up those little punks. Have the marks to prove it.” He lifted up his sleeves to reveal cuts and bruises, as if he was in a struggle.
“Son, just put the knife down,” said the officer. Liu held up the knife and dropped it to the ground. He put his hands up and walked over to the cops.
“No, Liu, it was me! I did it!” Jeff had tears running down his face.
“Huh, poor bro. Trying to take the blame for what I did. Well, take me away.” The police led Liu out to the patrol car.
“Liu, tell them it was me! Tell them! I was the one who beat up those kids!” Jeff’s mother put her hands on his shoulders.
“Jeff please, you don’t have to lie. We know it’s Liu, you can stop.” Jeff watched helplessly as the cop car speeds off with Liu inside. A few minutes later Jeff’s dad pulled into the driveway, seeing Jeff’s face and knowing something was wrong.
“Son, son what is it?” Jeff couldn’t answer. His vocal cords were strained from crying. Instead, Jeff’s mother walked his father inside to break the bad news to him as Jeff wept in the driveway. After an hour or so Jeff walked back into the house, seeing that his parents were both shocked, sad, and disappointed. He couldn’t look at them. He couldn’t see how they thought of Liu when it was his fault. He just went to sleep, trying to get the whole thing off his mind. Two days went by, with no word from Liu at JDC. No friends to hang out with. Nothing but sadness and guilt. That is until Saturday, when Jeff is woken up by his mother, with a happy, sunshiny face.
“Jeff, it’s the day,” she said as she opened up the curtains and let light flood into his room.
“What? What’s today?” asked Jeff as he stirs awake.
“Why, it’s Billy’s party.” He was now fully awake.
“Mom, you’re joking, right? You don’t expect me to go to some kid’s party after…” There was a long pause.
“Jeff, we both know what happened. I think this party could be the thing that brightens up the past days. Now, get dressed.” Jeff’s mother walked out of the room and downstairs to get ready herself. He fought himself to get up. He picked out a random shirt and pair of jeans and walked downstairs. He saw his mother and father all dressed up; his mother in a dress and his father in a suit. He thought, why they would ever wear such fancy clothes to a kid’s party?
“Son, is that all your going to wear?” said Jeff’s mom.
“Better than wearing too much,” he said. His mother pushed down the feeling to yell at him and hid it with a smile.
“Now Jeff, we may be over-dressed, but this is how you go if you want to make an impression.” said his father. Jeff grunted and went back up to his room.
“I don’t have any fancy clothes!” he yelled downstairs.
“Just pick out something.” called his mother. He looked around in his closet for what he would call fancy. He found a pair of black dress pants he had for special occasions and an undershirt. He couldn’t find a shirt to go with it though. He looked around and found only striped and patterned shirts. None of which go with dress pants. Finally, he found a white hoodie and put it on.
“You’re wearing that?” they both said. His mother looked at her watch. “Oh, no time to change. Let’s just go.” She said as she herded Jeff and his father out the door. They crossed the street over to Barbara and Billy’s house. They knocked on the door and at it appeared that Barbara, just like his parents, way over-dressed. As they walked inside all Jeff could see were adults, no kids.
“The kids are out in the yard. Jeff, how about you go and meet some of them?” said Barbara.
Jeff walked outside to a yard full of kids. They were running around in weird cowboy costumes and shooting each other with plastic guns. He might as well be standing in a Toys R Us. Suddenly a kid came up to him and handed him a toy gun and hat.
“Hey. Wanna pway?” he said.
“Ah, no kid. I’m way too old for this stuff.” The kid looked at him with that weird puppy-dog face.
“Pwease?” said the kid. “Fine,” said Jeff. He put on the hat and started to pretend shoot at the kids. At first, he thought it was totally ridiculous, but then he started to actually have fun. It might not have been super cool, but it was the first time he had done something that took his mind off of Liu. So he played with the kids for a while, until he heard a noise. A weird rolling noise. Then it hit him. Randy, Troy, and Keith all jumped over the fence on their skateboards. Jeff dropped the fake gun and ripped off the hat. Randy looked at Jeff with a burning hatred.
“Hello, Jeff, is it?” he said. “We have some unfinished business.” Jeff saw his bruised nose.” I think we’re even. I beat the crap out of you, and you get my brother sent to JDC.”
Randy got an angry look in his eyes. “Oh no, I don’t go for even, I go for winning. You may have kicked our asses that one day, but not today.” As he said that Randy rushed at Jeff. They both fell to the ground. Randy punched Jeff in the nose, and Jeff grabbed him by the ears and head-butted him. Jeff pushed Randy off of him and both rose to their feet. Kids were screaming and parents were running out of the house. Troy and Keith both pulled guns out of their pockets.
“No one interrupts or guts will fly!” they said. Randy pulled a knife on Jeff and stabbed it into his shoulder.
Jeff screamed and fell to his knees. Randy started kicking him in the face. After three kicks Jeff grabs his foot and twists it, causing Randy to fall to the ground. Jeff stood up and walked towards the back door. Troy grabbed him.
“Need some help?” He picks Jeff up by the back of the collar and throws him through the patio door. As Jeff tries to stand he is kicked down to the ground. Randy repeatedly starts kicking Jeff, until he starts to cough up blood.
“Come on Jeff, fight me!” He picks Jeff up and throws him into the kitchen. Randy sees a bottle of vodka on the counter and smashes the glass over Jeff’s head.
“Fight!” He throws Jeff back into the living room.
“Come on Jeff, look at me!” Jeff glances up, his face riddled with blood. “I was the one who got your brother sent to JDC! And now you’re just gonna sit here and let him rot in there for a whole year! You should be ashamed!” Jeff starts to get up.
“Oh, finally! you stand and fight!” Jeff is now to his feet, blood and vodka on his face. Once again he gets that strange feeling, the one in which he hasn’t felt for a while. “Finally. He’s up!” says Randy as he runs at Jeff. That’s when it happens. Something inside Jeff snaps. His psyche is destroyed, all rational thinking is gone, all he can do is kill. He grabs Randy and pile drives him to the ground. He gets on top of him and punches him straight in the heart. The punch causes Randy’s heart to stop. As Randy gasps for breath. Jeff hammers down on him. Punch after punch, blood gushes from Randy’s body, until he takes one final breath, and dies.
Everyone is looking at Jeff now. The parents, the crying kids, even Troy and Keith. Although they easily break from their gaze and point their guns at Jeff. Jeff sees the guns trained on him and runs for the stairs. As he runs Troy and Keith let out fire on him, each shot missing. Jeff runs up the stairs. He hears Troy and Keith follow up behind. As they let out their final rounds of bullets Jeff ducks into the bathroom. He grabs the towel rack and rips it off the wall. Troy and Keith race in, knives ready.
Troy swings his knife at Jeff, who backs away and bangs the towel rack into Troy’s face. Troy goes down hard and now all that’s left is Keith. He is more agile than Troy though, and ducks when Jeff swings the towel rack. He dropped the knife and grabbed Jeff by the neck. He pushed him into the wall. A thing of bleach fell down on top of him from the top shelf. It burnt both of them and they both started to scream. Jeff wiped his eyes as best as he could. He pulled back the towel rack and swung it straight into Keith’s head. As he lay there, bleeding to death, he let out an ominous smile.
“What’s so funny?” asked Jeff. Keith pulled out a lighter and switched it on. “What’s funny,” he said, “Is that you’re covered in bleach and alcohol.” Jeff’s eyes widened as Keith threw the lighter at him. As soon as the flame made contact with him, the flames ignited the alcohol in the vodka. While the alcohol burned him, the bleach bleached his skin. Jeff let out a terrible screech as he caught on fire. He tried to roll out the fire but it was no use, the alcohol had made him a walking inferno. He ran down the hall and fell down the stairs. Everybody started screaming as they saw Jeff, now a man on fire, drop to the ground, nearly dead. The last thing Jeff saw was his mother and the other parents trying to extinguish the flame. That’s when he passed out.
When Jeff woke he had a cast wrapped around his face. He couldn’t see anything, but he felt a cast on his shoulder, and stitches all over his body. He tried to stand up, but he realized that there was some tube in his arm, and when he tried to get up it fell out, and a nurse rushed in.
“I don’t think you can get out of bed just yet,” she said as she put him back in his bed and re-inserted the tube. Jeff sat there, with no vision, no idea of what his surroundings were. Finally, after hours, he heard his mother.
“Honey, are you okay?” she asked. Jeff couldn’t answer though, his face was covered, and he was unable to speak. “Oh honey, I have great news. After all the witnesses told the police that Randy confessed of trying to attack you, they decided to let Liu go.” This made Jeff almost bolt up, stopping halfway, remembering the tube coming out of his arm. “He’ll be out by tomorrow, and then you two will be able to be together again.”
Jeff’s mother hugs Jeff and says her goodbyes. The next couple of weeks were those where Jeff was visited by his family. Then came the day where his bandages were to be removed. His family members were all there to see it, what he would look like. As the doctors unwrapped the bandages from Jeff’s face everyone was on the edge of their seats. They waited until the last bandage holding the cover over his face was almost removed.
“Let’s hope for the best,” said the doctor. He quickly pulls the cloth; letting the rest fall from Jeff’s face.
Jeff’s mother screams at the sight of his face. Liu and Jeff’s dad stare awe-struck at his face.
“What? What happened to my face?” Jeff said. He rushed out of bed and ran to the bathroom. He looked in the mirror and saw the cause of the distress. His face. It…it’s horrible. His lips were burnt to a deep shade of red. His face was turned into a pure white color, and his hair singed from brown to black. He slowly put his hand to his face. It had a sort of leathery feel to it now. He looked back at his family then back at the mirror.
“Jeff,” said Liu, “It’s not that bad….”
“Not that bad?” said Jeff,” It’s perfect!” His family was equally surprised. Jeff started laughing uncontrollably His parents noticed that his left eye and hand were twitching.
“Uh… Jeff, are you okay?”
“Okay? I’ve never felt more happy! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaa, look at me! This face goes perfectly with me!” He couldn’t stop laughing. He stroked his face feeling it. Looking at it in the mirror. What caused this? Well, you may recall that when Jeff was fighting Randy something in his mind, his sanity, snapped. Now he was left as a crazy killing machine, that is, his parents didn’t know.
“Doctor,” said Jeff’s mom, “Is my son… alright, you know. In the head?”
“Oh yes, this behavior is typical for patients that have taken very large amounts of pain killers. If his behavior doesn’t change in a few weeks, bring him back here, and we’ll give him a psychological test.”
“Oh, thank you, doctor.” Jeff’s mother went over to Jeff. “Jeff, sweetie, it’s time to go.”
Jeff looks away from the mirror, his face still formed into a crazy smile. “Kay mommy, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaaaa!” his mother took him by the shoulder and took him to get his clothes.
“This is what came in,” said the lady at the desk. Jeff’s mom looked down to see the black dress pants and white hoodie her son wore. Now they were clean of blood and now stitched together. Jeff’s mother led him to his room and made him put his clothes on. Then they left, not knowing that this was their final day of life.
Later that night, Jeff’s mother woke to a sound coming from the bathroom. It sounded as if someone was crying. She slowly walked over to see what it was. When she looked into the bathroom she saw a horrendous sight. Jeff had taken a knife and carved a smile into his cheeks.
“Jeff, what are you doing?” asked his mother.
Jeff looked over to his mother. “I couldn’t keep smiling, mommy. It hurt after awhile. Now I can smile forever.” Jeff’s mother noticed his eyes, ringed in black.
“Jeff, your eyes!” His eyes were seemingly never closing.
“I couldn’t see my face. I got tired and my eyes started to close. I burned out the eyelids so I could forever see myself; my new face.” Jeff’s mother slowly started to back away, seeing that her son was going insane. “What’s wrong mommy? Aren’t I beautiful?
“Yes son,” she said, “Yes you are. L-let me go get daddy, so he can see your face.” She ran into the room and shook Jeff’s dad from his sleep. “Honey, get the gun we…..” She stopped as she saw Jeff in the doorway, holding a knife.
“Mommy, you lied.” That’s the last thing they hear as Jeff rushes them with the knife, gutting both of them.
His brother Liu woke up, startled by some noise. He didn’t hear anything else, so he just shut his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. As he was on the border of slumber, he got the strangest feeling that someone was watching him. He looked up, before Jeff’s hand covered his mouth. He slowly raised the knife ready to plunge it into Liu. Liu thrashed here and there trying to escape Jeff’s grip.
“Shhhhhhh,” Jeff said. “Just go to sleep.”
Why is Jeff The Killer so popular?
Credit for the Jeff the Killer character: Sesseur (DeviantArt)
Publisher’s Note: According to the character’s original creator, Sesseur, he is not the author of the tale featured here, and claims this popular version of the Jeff story is “fan-fiction” written by a follower of his earlier work, which has since been lost. For the original story of Jeffrey Hodek, per the vision of the character’s original creator, you can visit Sesseur’s DeviantArt post here.
Remember to check out the Jeff The Killer Reboot of this creepypasta classic.
More classic Creepypasta stories can be found here:
Slender Man
Ben Drowned
Jeff The Killer vs Slenderman
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I had a dream last night. It was the kind that seems real right up to the point where you wake up.
Some things were strange about it…certain things were really strange about it, but it never occurred to me that it might not actually be happening. I’m still not prepared to say that it didn’t happen. I’m not spiritual and I don’t really understand stuff like that. I just feel like I’ve been somewhere and now I’m back, and I know something really happened when I woke up…and I think while I was asleep too.
I went to bed last night with a strange feeling. We all remember times when we felt like we were being watched, but this was more than that. I felt like there was someone there with me, but still I couldn’t keep from falling asleep.
I don’t exactly remember the beginning of the dream. The first thing I remember was starting at my house and walking. I was just walking down the road. All of my neighbors’ houses were gone. I was just on a long, empty road and there was no one around but me. I don’t remember what I had been doing at my house before, but I may have been there a while before I started walking. I just recall feeling a strong urge to walk.
I felt okay walking down that road. It was cold and dark and I felt a little lost, but I wasn’t afraid–not like I had been in my room.
I don’t know how long I was on that road. It felt like a long time. I mean like days long, but I never felt tired and I just wanted to keep walking.
The road changed after a while. It had been straight and nondescript the whole time, but eventually I reached a bend and then a fork in the road. When I reached the fork, I wasn’t alone anymore. A familiar voice called out to me from the side of the road.
“It’s good to see you,” the voice whispered. “I’m just sorry to see you here.”
I turned to face the voice, knowing who I would see. It was an old friend from my childhood–someone I haven’t seen in years. He looked just a little different from how I remembered him, but not by much. He was older than when I saw him last, obviously, but he seemed at least a few years younger than me somehow–even though we’re supposed to be the same age. He was also very pale. Unbelievably white, in fact, and he had deep circles around his eyes that were solid blue, as were his lips.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m here to warn you,” he replied.
Naturally, I was all ears.
“There’s a man in your house right now,” he explained.
“What do you mean there’s someone in my house? I was just there…I think.”
I didn’t actually know how long ago I had been there. I wasn’t sure how long I had been walking.
“You don’t understand,” my friend stammered with apparent urgency. “He’s really in your house right now.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I was curious.
“Who is he?” I asked him.
“He’s the Cold Man. He comes to people at night when they’re afraid.”
The Cold Man? I’d never heard of anyone like that before. I wanted to know more, so I asked, ”What does he do?”
“He waits to be noticed, then he makes his move. You know that chill you feel on your back when something really scares you? That’s not just nerves. That’s him standing behind you.”
“What for?” I wondered. “What does he do once you notice him?”
My friend looked down and away. He wouldn’t answer that question.
“Just don’t let him in,” he cautioned.
“What do you mean?”
“He can be close forever,” my friend explained. “He’ll walk around your house at night and even stand in your room while you’re asleep…like he is in yours right now. He can know where you are. He can even be looking right at you, but he won’t find you unless you let him.”
“How does he find you? I mean, how do you ‘let him?’”
My friend looked to either side of the road like he was worried that someone might overhear. He leaned in very close and whispered, ”If you see him, if you hear him, or if you ever start to feel suddenly very cold…don’t move. Don’t talk to him. Don’t acknowledge him. Don’t ever let him in”
“I don’t understand,” I admitted. “How do I get rid of him?”
“You can’t,” my friend replied in a small, shuttering voice. “Look, I’m out of time.”
“‘Out of time?’” I repeated, not sure what he meant exactly.
My friend shook his head. His eyes were wide and he was shivering. Off in the distance I noticed a dark figure creeping up behind him, but something kept me from speaking.
“My time is up,” he stammered. “Just whatever you do, don’t let him in, and whatever you do…don’t answer it.”
Something pulled my friend into the darkness and suddenly I couldn’t see him anymore. Before I could follow after him though, I was startled awake by a loud noise. I was sitting in my room, fully dressed with my shoes on. I could swear I wasn’t dressed when I went to bed. My shoes and legs were covered in dust, my feet were sore, and I could hear a ringing noise right next to me. In the confusion of waking up from such a vivid dream, I didn’t immediately recognize it. I felt so cold.
Then, I looked down and saw my phone. That was the source of the ringing. Remembering my friend’s words, I didn’t answer it. Eventually, it stopped ringing.
The room was cold as ice. The feeling that I was being watched was as strong as it had been when I had fallen asleep. I could hear something moving inside my closet, but I dared not move. I just closed my eyes and waited. Eventually, I heard footsteps walking away, still from inside the closet. It was as if they were walking down some unseen hallway, though my closet is small and I couldn’t see anything unusual in there.
When the footsteps got far enough away, the cold lifted.
He didn’t get in this time. If my dream was true–if the thing in my closet was who I think it was–I must never let him in. I think he’ll be back tonight though. That’s when he’s supposed to come, as my friend told me.
I don’t know what happened to my friend, but I just hope people will remember his warning. If you start to feel cold while reading this, don’t be alarmed. If you hear something in your house, just ignore it. You can’t afford to let him find you. Don’t let the Cold Man in.
—
Credited to smilingjacks – you can read more of his stories at his blog here.
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Do you know what a Cordyceps is? I didn’t either until 20 minutes ago. It’s a family of thousands of different types of fungus, grows all around the word in various rainforests and jungles. The awful thing about them is they’re parasitic, they grow on other animals. An ant happens to run into some spores, and then it starts to colonize his insides, starting with his brain. At some point, the ant starts to act visibly ill; standing in place and shivering, or walking in circles. If a fellow colony member sees him in this condition, he will be dragged to the border of the colony and exiled.
Then, when it’s almost over, the ant weakly climbs as high as he can up the vines, and locks his body on tight. Finally, he dies, and the fungus emerges from the back of his head, bursting forth like a long and foul fruit. After a short time, the little stalk spews forth its own spores, leaving the mummified and broken ant clinging to the stalk, his eye cavities filled with drying fungus.
I mention this because last night, when I was up on the roof of my apartment complex, I found my brother’s body.
He’s been back from 18 months on duty in the Philippines for less than three days. This was the first I’d seen him. My parents called me up the day before yesterday to tell me that he was on his way up. They told me he’d stayed in his room since he got home, and then suddenly got up and announced he was on his way to see me. They thought he was drunk, I’d thought he’d never made it.
He must have come straight up to the roof and died, by the smell of it. I was just finishing a cigarette, all torn up with anxiety and head throbbing, and when the acrid smoke vanished I caught a whiff of rot on the hot wind. It took me just a few minutes before I’d found him; face down behind the vents and fans. A slimy gray column rose up obscenely from the base of his skull, and a frozen waterfall of roots and tendrils was dangling from his eye sockets and mouth. At the top of stalk was small arrangement of feathery wisps, a white powder drifting idly from it tips.
The spores must have drifting over the north side of the building all day. My side of the building. I came down to my apartment to try to call up the police, and my headache was rising to a feverish throb. I got through the door, and the moment I reached for the phone, pain flared in my head, so bad I almost passed out. I’ve since tried three times and I can never get my hand up on it.
The same thing happens when I try to get up and leave the room; I feel spines of ice tunneling up into my skull and my limbs lock up and shudder.
The ants, in their last moments crawl as high up the vines as he can climb. This is so the spore will spread over more of the colony below. In the end, the parasite controls the ant with an almost intelligent drive. God help me.
The pain is almost blinding now, and a new thought has been rising up rhythmically in my head, like a record skipping. Up. Up. Up. It’s joined by an image of my office tower. It’s taller than my apartment, the tallest place I can think off and although the bulge on the back of my neck is the size of a peach, the skin stretched shiny, and I’m dizzy and my eyes are cloudy, I think I can make it there. Up.
No. I’m sick. I need help.
The building pulses again in my mind. The cold wind. The roof and the sky. These images and concepts dull the pain momentarily as they pass through my mind. I think I can get there. Up. Up.
If you live in downtown Chicago, I would get the fuck out.
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The night of Christmas Eve 2008 is a blur, depending on how much medication I am given that day. I can avoid the nurses for a couple of hours, but not too long. I suppose you’ve heard about me in the papers or on your favorite serial killer show. No, I was never convicted. What the media claimed was all lies anyway. No one knew what happened that night except me – which is why the police blamed me. My name is Max and my name is all I carry now. You’ve probably heard of ghost towns around the U.S. My town is one of them. Located in the foggy mountains of Oregon, most people have never heard of the town “Asher.” It was the kind of town where people never left, and if they did, they always returned. Things and people always had a habit of coming back. Bad memories, sadness, pain, and grief always stuck around. Festering at night right before one tried to go to bed, piling on itself, growing deeper in the dirt. There are forests, but not as many trees as you’d think we would have. Green doesn’t grow in this town. The dirt won’t let it.
No matter how much sage you burned, it couldn’t cleanse this place. This town was haunted, but perhaps, the people were first. I don’t consider myself haunted, I just think I was born wrong. When I was brought into this world, my mother told me that I wasn’t like other babies. I had a solemn-looking face and dark eyes. She also said that I refused to cry. I still can’t cry. My eyes won’t produce tears. The doctors say it’s a disorder. Even when my grandmother died, I never cried. Or when my mother would scream at me, I never flinched. Or when my dog got hit by a car.
Nothing.
I didn’t feel things like other kids or people. I don’t feel at all.
When I was six, I knew something was wrong when I accidentally cut half my finger off and I never screamed. There is something within me that isn’t in other people. I guess it was destiny for the events that took place. Some kind of fated magic.
Whenever my mother got drunk, she would tell me that I was a stone boy and that all stone boys went to hell. She was bi-polar when she wanted to be. When she loved me, she loved me, but when she despised the fact that she had a kid, she hated me. There was never an in-between.
My father was too busy pretending nothing was wrong, with his head in the clouds of denial, he always knew how to make himself feel better. All he had to do was look away or leave the house. Too bad I couldn’t live in those clouds with him. Instead, I was always on my own, sitting in silence at the kitchen table, staring out the window in the back seat of our car, waiting for some better day to come, but better days never came.
2008 was a year of many things for me. I had started 8th grade and was finally one year from high school. My voice got significantly deeper and life seemed like it had possibilities, until my parents separated. The separation made my home life worst. My mother drank more and my father never came home. The teachers blamed me for not paying attention, but what they didn’t know was that I hadn’t eaten in two days. The school bully would make fun of my ribs and call me names. We called him Dan the Giant. At almost 6 feet at thirteen years old, he was monstrous. The only person scarier than him was his father. His dad was taller than him and viler. Even the teachers were scared. Dan had dyslexia too, but he wasn’t that bright, to begin with. Any kid that mentioned or corrected him got the beating. Any kid that existed, to be honest, got a beating. Dan stuck gum in my hair the Friday before Winter Break. The teacher had to cut chunks of my brown curly strands to get it out. My father blamed me saying I deserved it because I refused to stick up for myself. How the hell was I supposed to stick up to a six-foot behemoth? They would all get theirs, I promised myself. One day – they would get it. This whole town.
The teacher had us all do an exercise. She called it Santa’s Magic. We had to write a letter to Santa asking what we wanted the most. The other kids laughed. We all knew Santa Claus wasn’t real. For a moment, I believed, because I had nothing else to believe in. I asked Santa for something very important. Something I’ve wanted for a long time. Something only Santa could give me.
* * * * * *
I was making a can of soup when my mother stumbled through the kitchen, knocking the bowl out of my hand. “Pick it up!” she yelled. Not wanting to get hit, I found some towels and soaked up the liquid. My father looked down at me from the living room without saying a word. Instead, he took his coat and left. God, I hated my parents. They were pieces of cow crap and they knew it. The whole town knew who my mom was by the bars she would frequent and lose her clothes in. Dan the Giant once told the class that my mother was nothing but a no-good whore and my father a loser mechanic. That was the day I punched Dan. Of course, he punched back and harder. Neither of us got in trouble. The principal didn’t want to get involved. That was the thing with the town of Asher. No one wanted conflict, and yet there was always conflict. No one wanted to get involved, yet everyone usually was.
I put the soaked-up towels in the basement and went to mop the floor. I was angry because that was the last can of soup. No one went food shopping anymore and when something did pop up, usually someone took it and hid it. I scrambled through the cabinets for anything else I could find. There was nothing. I teared up, my stomach growling, and I drank a glass of water to appease the pain. My mother sat in the corner of the kitchen with her bottle, laughing.
“Where did your father go?” She asked, stuttering over her words.
“I don’t know,” I responded.
“One day I’m going to leave this earth and never come back. Then what are you all going to do?” She laughed again. “You’re just like your father. Small, weak, and pitiful. I didn’t want you, but he made me keep you,” she chided. “I never wanted kids, but there you were one day. A mistake.”
“Stop,” I muttered under my breath.
“Or what?” my mother replied, vicious as ever.
My father came back through the door. He took one look at my mother and went upstairs to his room.
“The kids in the town say you’re a whore,” I screamed.
My mother got up from the ground as quickly as she fell back over.
“What the hell did you just call me?”
“My friends say you’re nothing but a dirty whore!”
My mother reached into the drawer and grabbed a knife.
“You piece of shit. How dare you dare call me that. How do you think I pay for this place? Your father, who hasn’t had a job in months? Your weak and useless father. Weak and useless! And you know what? You’re just like him!” She screamed. My mother took another swing at the bottle and then at me.
“Just get out! Get out! Get out of my house! GET OUT!” she screamed.
I grabbed my backpack and ran out, not looking back. I just ran, not knowing where I was going. I ran knowing that I couldn’t go back. Tears flowed down my eyes and my chest felt like it was going to drop out my ass. I must have pissed myself because my pants were wet. I ran through the streets, past the school, past the town, into the woods. The sun had already gone down and the night took over creating an eerie path on the outskirts of town. I didn’t care. I ran through the trees, going off the path, finally stopping when I had no air left in my lungs. My legs collapsed and I sat against a tree.
The wind blew against my face and for the first time throughout that entire run, I realized I was utterly alone. Not just in these woods. I had no family. I had no friends. I had no one. I wanted to not exist anymore. For a moment, I wondered what it would have been like to die. To not be me. Until something shuffled amongst the leaves. I got up and looked out into the darkness. I couldn’t see anything. I tried to tell myself that it was nothing until I heard the shuffling again. It was Oregon, so perhaps it was a bear or an animal moving about. The shuffling was heavy. Shuffling and steps being taken by something big and bigger than me. I tiptoed in the dark to try to find the path. I was mortified. With no flashlight or even the moon to help, I was blind. I heard the shuffling again, except closer.
My heart was like an engine failing. I couldn’t breathe. I kept walking, knowing that whatever the hell was shuffling in that darkness, knows I was there. It was when I felt a hand on my shoulder that I started to run. I didn’t know if I was going the right way or if I going deeper into the forest, but I ran. As much as I hated my parents, I would gladly go back to my crazy mother than be in the woods with something I couldn’t see. Luckily, I was going the right way as I heard a car drive by. I made it back to the road, but I could still feel whatever it was in that wood, behind me. I waved at the car driving, screaming for help. I took a rock and threw it at the car. It smashed a window. The car stopped and reversed.
“Help me!” I screamed. The car pulled over and a man wearing a red plaid shirt with a long grimy beard got out of the car.
“Help!” I yelled.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you little shit?!” he screamed, examining his car.
“There’s something after me!” I yelled.
“I don’t give a fuck. Look what you did, you little shit.”
“There’s someone out there following me. Please!” I pleaded.
“You better hope your parents can pay for this or I’ll chop off your balls as payment!” he screamed.
The grimy bearded man grabbed me by my neck and slammed me against the car.
“Or maybe I should do it now,” he said. His breath smelled like beer and rotten cheese. He was missing a tooth on the left side of his mouth. I turned away, terrified.
Before he could strike me, I fell to the ground. Something dragged the bearded, grimy man away from me.
“Kid, get the gun in my car!” he yelled at me, blood coming from his nose.
I went into his truck and found a revolver under the seat. I could hear something attacking the bearded man. The thing from the woods. I could hear the tearing of flesh and the breaking of his bones. I grabbed the man’s phone that had dropped on the ground and put it on flashlight mode. The man was dragged into the woods, screaming, leaving a bloodstain on the road behind. I screamed and went into the car, locking the doors. I didn’t know how to drive a car, but I figured it out. I put my foot on the brakes and out the gear in drive. Even though I put my foot on the gas, the car wouldn’t move. Whatever creature took that man, came back, this time, for me. It was holding the car from the back. I got out and started running back through the dark. I tried to call 911 on the dude’s cell-phone, but something knocked it out of my hand, smashing it to the ground.
I stopped, feeling the creature circling me. I prepared myself to be torn apart like the grimy bearded man. Instead, I felt a stale breath on my neck. I turned around, not seeing anything. I knew it would be any moment before it killed me. I closed my eyes and waited. My hand raised on its own. Whatever this creature was, held my hand and grasped it, holding it. I shakily lifted the light from the cell-phone to its face. It was ugly with white pale and scaly skin. Its mouth was oversized with teeth that protruded from its bloodied mouth. A long slippery tongue occasionally stuck on the way a snake’s tongue feels the environment. It was tall, and had black coal eyes that gave a merciless stare.
“What are you?” I asked.
The cold eyes looked into mine, but it gave no response.
“Th… th… thank you,” I muttered.
I felt an ice droplet on my nose. It started to snow. I didn’t know what this thing was, but it decided that I would call it Creature.
Creature cried into the night. Its shrieks echoed in the air. I was still scared, but something felt safe with it. It did save me from that man.
“Are you alone, too?” I asked.
It shook its head. Whatever Creature was, it understood me.
The creature took one last look at me and ran into the woods, disappearing into the trees.
I ran home and away from what would be a future crime scene. I was terrified, confused, but also curious. I opened my front door quietly, hoping that no one was awake and tiptoed to my bedroom.
* * * * * *
The next morning, the entire town was talking of bears, thieves, or wild animals that must have taken Burton John -A.K. A – The grimy bearded man. That was his name. Only I knew what happened to Burton and he was definitely dead. I guessed Creature took the body and finished it off elsewhere. My mother left me alone the next day, perhaps out of guilt. My father never asked me how I was. I quickly got dressed and went off to school.
I didn’t notice the dirt in my hair leftover from last night. Dan the Giant made jokes to the class about how poor my family was that we couldn’t afford water and that we were all dirty people. I ignored him, but he just wouldn’t stop. For an entire 30 minutes, he kept going, unable to control himself. The teacher sat at her computer drinking her coffee, living in her clouds of denial, and pretending nothing was wrong.
Then the thought came to me.
How interesting would it be to have Creature eat Dan?
It was murder, I quickly realized, and I was not a murderer. Dan kept going for the rest of the class period. Something changed in me. I realized Dan didn’t deserve mercy. He deserved to get eaten. He was a piece of shit and he would eventually grow up to be a shit adult. People like him never grew out of their shit-ness. Kids like Dan either became violent men that preyed in bars or violent cops that preyed on civilians.
No one would miss him.
Remembering the gum in my hair and I knew that something had to be done. He had to be punished. We all got let out early for Christmas Eve. I skipped the bus and walked back down to where Creature was. Police and townies were all over the woods. There was no way I would be able to find him.
I went back home. My mom was going through one of her cycles where she bought food, cooked dinner, and acted like she didn’t just kick me out the other day. This “happy” cycle only lasts a couple of hours before someone says or does something that tips the scale and she’s full-blown crazy again. I took the opportunity to eat and go to my room. Not more than an hour later after my father mentioned that the gas got turned off did she tip. I started packing a bag for myself. I put on my shoes and left for the front door. I wanted to get ahead of the storm and look for Creature. The second I opened it, my mother’s hand slammed it shut.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” she asked.
“Why do you care?” I snapped back.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“I’m not going to sit in this house as you hit and yell at me. I’ll just leave.”
My father walked by us, slinking up the stairs to his room.
“Mom, I’m leaving.”
She grabbed me by my throat.
“Tell me what you’re going to do again.”
I couldn’t breathe. She took a shoe and hit my leg with it.
“It’s your fault we can’t pay the bills. All you do is take from us! You’re lucky we don’t put you out into the street.”
I felt my lungs tearing inside from the pain. I was a minute from passing out when a loud crash through the window made my mother let go. I didn’t have to look for my friend after all because there it was, in my living room. It walked on the broken glass unhurt like Jesus on water. It ran to my mother and grabbed her and threw her across the room. My father came downstairs and upon seeing Creature, ran for his gun. Creature was too fast. It slit my father’s ankles and he fell down the stairs. Creature put its foot on top of my father’s stomach until it protruded, squishing and disemboweling him. My mother tried to run, but Creature threw a table at her, stopping her. “Please! Take him! Take him!” she pleaded, pointing at me, tears rolling down her eyes.
Creature wrung her neck, and with one final snap, crushed it. Blood poured from her eyes and nose. I sat in silence looking at what it had done to my parents. The two people that raised me from when I was a baby. My parents who loved me, beat me, and told me I was scum, and hated me for existing. I felt nothing for them, as I looked upon their bloodied faces. I suppose it was at that moment that something else changed. I took Creature’s hand and we left my house. We found an old Santa’s costume and I dressed him. A red hat, and a red and black suit. He just wanted to belong like me.
Santa had finally come to the town of Asher.
We started at my neighbor’s houses. One by one, killing them all. Their screams like a symphony in the night. I watched as he pulled organs out, smashed people’s heads, picked out teeth, and splattered blood on Christmas trees.
Oh, how the red brightened the magical night.
When we reached Dan’s house, I knew I wanted to relish the moment when he saw who was behind his death. Creature slashed Dan’s father’s throat and with its sharp claws, stabbed his mother. Dan screamed in horror as Creature inched closer to him. I smiled at Dan who looked back with a face I’ll never forget. To be honest, it was a look of defeat. Creature took Dan and limb by limb, tore him apart. His agony was my cloud of denial and his suffering my alcohol and I was drunk in it. When we were done, I watched Creature feed on some of the bodies, offering me chunks of eyeball, brain, and liver. I wondered where this beast had come from, but it didn’t matter. He was my friend and he answered my one Christmas wish. A wish only Santa could give.
Before the night had ended, Creature took one last look at me, but I somehow knew he wasn’t coming back. There was no ceremonious farewell, this beast went back into the darkness from where it came, and I didn’t even feel sad. My friend was gone, and I still felt nothing.
You see, I just wanted to be alone.
When the news hit that a town massacre had occurred, the world was in shock. The only survivor was a fourteen-year-old boy. I told the police no lies that night.
I told them that Santa Claus had come to town.
|
The land beyond the bridge had been in my family for generations, forty-four acres of farmland. My father was as rooted to it as the oak tree in our front yard. Although he was sympathetic to my plight, he was certainly not going to move just because his daughter’s college boyfriend had killed himself two miles down the road.
Everyone had told me that it wasn’t my fault. Travis was sick. But they hadn’t seen the look on his face when I told him it was over, that I couldn’t do it anymore. I’d left school and left him there because I’d been too afraid to deal with a situation that had grown steadily–unrelentingly–worse. And he had chased me.
My father thought he was drunk when he showed up, wild-eyed and disheveled, trampling my mother’s buttercups in his bare feet on a soggy February afternoon. I wish he had been. Drunk or high, both were temporary states, unlike the schizophrenia that had begun its manifestation when he was only sixteen years old. He’d just stood there, screaming my name, as my taciturn father first tried to reason with him, then threatened to call the cops. It was only when my father got his shotgun that I stepped onto the porch.
“Daddy, no!” I cried, then turned to my lover of the past three years. “Travis, you have to go. It’s over.”
“It’s not over,” he insisted, his tears melding with the misting rain. “I need you.”
He took a step toward me and my father pointed the gun at his chest. Travis paid him no mind at all. He took another step and Dad cocked the gun. I’d never seen my father’s face so pale, so grim. One hand gripped the barrel and his finger poised on the trigger. I panicked and did the only thing I could think to do. Travis ran away from anger, a carryover from his childhood. I railed at him. “I don’t love you anymore! Leave me alone! Go!”
His face twisted in grief and he clamped his hands over his ears. Then he ran, straight down the middle of the road, leaving his battered black Sentra parked in the driveway.
“Travis, no!” I screamed, and jumped off the porch. My father threw down the gun and grabbed me, lifting me off my feet as I fought to get free, to chase Travis down and tell him I was sorry. I didn’t mean it.
“Mary, call the police!” Dad shouted, but my mom already had her phone in her hand.
I’m not sure when he painted the message, before or after the confrontation, or where he’d gotten the paint. Graffiti on the abutment was nothing new. He might’ve even found a can there, left behind by some drunken teenagers. All I knew was that the paint wasn’t even dry by the time the cops got there. I’d heard that little detail in a whispered conversation in town. Paint dripping down concrete, blood pooling on asphalt. Red. The color of anger; the color of agony. Travis had scaled the grassy bank and climbed to the bridge seventeen feet above. Then he’d jumped. The plunge had broken his neck.
I LOVED YOU, STEPH. His last words to me. What a difference that one little letter made, that change in tense. Those four words burned behind my eyelids when I tried to sleep. I imagined him saying them, the hurt and recrimination in his voice. He had died in turmoil.
Maybe that was why he was haunting me.
I didn’t leave the house for three weeks, didn’t attend his funeral. I couldn’t take the whispers that I was the reason he’d done this, nor could I face his mother. The sight of those crushed flowers out the living room window devastated me. I remembered an English Lit professor saying that buttercups bloomed on the banks of one of the rivers of the Underworld, to lift the spirits of the dead. Only I didn’t think Travis had made that journey. I felt him right there with me.
I noticed it on the radio first. Back in our apartment near school, Travis had an old guitar in the closet. Every once in a while, we’d go to the park and he’d bring it along. He’d say, “Got any requests, pretty girl? Anything you like, as long as it’s ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ or ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’” We’d laugh, because those were the only two songs he knew how to play. In the weeks following his funeral, it seemed like every time I turned on the radio, I heard one of those songs. Pretty coincidental, considering how old they were. So, I stopped listening to the radio. On the third week, my Mom and little sister coaxed me into going with them to look for Allison’s prom dress. I knew my family was worried about me. I spent most of my time in my room. I forgot to eat. I just wanted to sleep, to escape my thoughts, but even in my dreams, he found me. No one thought to tell me about the spray-painted message. When I first saw it, it hit me like a punch in the throat.
“Wha–” I wheezed, and had the crazy thought that maybe no one could see it except me.
Alarmed, my little sister stomped on the brakes, inciting a new level of panic.
“Go!” I tried to gasp. She didn’t understand, but my mother did. “Allison, drive!” she said, and my sister took off so fast we fishtailed. Tears stung my eyes and I couldn’t breathe. What happened next rocked me. The radio blared to life, blasting “Yellow Ledbetter.” My sister said later she must’ve had the radio turned low and accidentally hit the volume button on her steering wheel, but neither of us believed that. The button was one that you had to push up and hold to increase volume. I saw her hands. I saw them. They never moved.
My heart slammed in my chest and I broke out in a sweat. I started shaking so hard my mom thought I was having a seizure. She was screaming at Allie and crawling over the seat to hold me. Instead of prom shopping, we went to the ER, where they said it was a panic attack. They gave me a prescription for anxiety medication and sent us on our way a couple of hours later.
The medicine made me sleepy, because I wasn’t used to taking anything, but I was still awake when we went under the bridge again. It was dark this time, but there was a curve in the road just before the underpass. One moment when the headlights hit the blood-red letters.
I LOVED YOU STEPH
All I could see was the grief on his face, see him clamping his hands over his ears, trying to shut out my hateful words. He had died thinking I hated him. It was too much to bear.
The walls seemed to close in after that. I couldn’t stand to be so close to the place where he died. I couldn’t stand my family’s worried looks and whispers. So, I went back to school. Back to the apartment Travis and I had shared. A fresh hell awaited me there.
God, how it hurt to see all the pictures of us. Smiling, kissing, hugging … we had been so happy once. He told me early on that he’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teen, but it seemed to be well controlled with medication. If Travis hadn’t told me, I never would’ve guessed. Not back then, anyway. He was so gentle, so generally happy and loving. We had nearly two and a half perfect, passionate, wonderful years, but last September, he started acting strange. A waiter first drew his suspicion. We were at a bistro near campus, one we frequented for breakfast, when he leaned in and said, “I think that guy just put something in my food.”
“No way!” I whispered. “We always tip well. Why would he do that?”
Travis shrugged, watching him. I think even then I saw something different in his blue eyes, a glint, a gleam….I’m not sure how to describe it, except to say that it later became maniacal. When the waiter set his plate in front of him, Travis didn’t say anything; he just pushed his food around on his plate with his fork, staring at it.
“Here,” I said, and attempted to switch plates.
“No!” he shouted, and knocked it from my hand. It clattered to the floor, splattering both of us with food.
“Oh, God!” he said, grabbing his napkin and trying to get the food off my sleeve. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Everyone was watching us. Travis grew more agitated. His cleaning became frenzied as he dabbed water on the napkin and scrubbed his pant leg.
“Let’s go,” I said, a little unnerved. I threw some cash on the table and we left.
The suspicions grew worse. A stranger passing on the street was spying on us. A professor was letting people read his papers behind his back, scrutinizing his thoughts. He stopped sleeping and would stay up all night cleaning. I didn’t know what to make of it. I’d never seen him act that way, and I’ll admit, I even searched for signs of drugs. Hesitantly, I brought up his schizophrenia and asked him when he’d seen his doctor last. Travis avoided my eyes and said, “It’s under control. I don’t need him.”
I wanted to call his mother, but I didn’t even have her number. Travis didn’t speak to her often. His childhood had been rough, chaotic. The few times I’d met her led me to believe that his mental illness might have been inherited from her. He was enrolled on scholarship. Travis was brilliant. But he started skipping classes and soon wouldn’t go out at all. I didn’t know what to do.
One day I came home to find he’d taken all the mirrors off the walls. Souls could get trapped in them, he said. He’d unplugged the TV and put it in the closet. We had a fight that night–well, I fought–because he ignored me. I begged him, then I threatened to leave him if he didn’t see a doctor. No response. He sat on the couch, hugging his knees and rocking, staring at the spot on the wall where the TV used to hang.
In the middle of the night, I woke to find his face hovering inches over mine. Startled, I screamed and shoved him. He caught me and pulled me against him, pressing his face against my breast like a child.
“Please don’t leave me!” he sobbed. “I’m sorry for how I am.”
But I did leave. I was scared. Now all I could think, as I boxed away his things, was, “Look what you have done.”
In a stack of his mail, I found a letter from his insurance company. His mother had been terminated from her employment and they’d both been dropped from her plan. I finally had my answer as to why he’d stopped his meds.
I put away his clothes, all of our pictures. I boxed up everything, but I had no one to send it to, so I found myself sitting in an empty living room with only a couch and cardboard boxes stacked in every corner. I tried to stay gone most of the time, because weird things happened at the apartment. One morning I woke up and found a framed picture of us sitting in the middle of the dining room table. I wasn’t sure what scared me worse, the thought that a ghost had done it, or that I had done it and didn’t remember.
I spent most of my nights sleeping on a couch at a friend’s apartment. Angie was sympathetic and worried about me. I appreciated her friendship, but mostly I just didn’t want to be alone. That’s how I came to catch a ride with Jack that May after the semester ended. He was friends with Angie’s boyfriend and lived about fifteen minutes from my parents’ house. I knew he was attracted to me, though I never encouraged it. He seemed to take my acceptance of a ride as interest, but it wasn’t. Not at all. I just didn’t want to ride under that bridge alone. As we drew closer to the bridge, my anxiety increased. I’d already taken two Xanax and I had surreptitiously popped another half an hour ago. They weren’t helping at all. My nerves were singing. I tried to push back another panic attack. He kept scanning the radio on and I had to grit my teeth. I felt that the songs were speaking to me. “Dead and Gone,” “Who’s That Man?” “Heartache Tonight.” Country, rock, hip hop….I felt they were all Travis trying to communicate with me.
“I loved you, Steph,” Jack mused, as his headlights lit the graffiti on the wall. The opening chords of “Sweet Home Alabama” blared.
The inside of the car went dark for an instant as we went under the bridge. Then Travis leaned forward from the backseat and spoke to me.
“This is who you replace me with?” he asked, and I began to scream.
“Jesus, what is it?” Jack shouted, but I didn’t look at him. I clawed at the door handle. “Stop! What are you doing?”
“Hey, doll,” Travis said. “Miss me?”
I tumbled out the car door and smacked the asphalt, somehow managing to avoid the tires. Jack screeched the car to a stop and jumped out.
“What’s happening?” he demanded, his face stark in the moonlight. “Are you okay?”
“She’s peachy,” Travis growled behind him, advancing toward me. “Never missed a beat, did you, babe?”
I screamed and scuttled backwards like a crab. “Don’t come near me!” I begged.
In my peripheral vision, Jack lifted his hands, making a gesture of peace. But he wasn’t the one I was focused on. The man moving toward me looked anything but peaceful. He looked enraged.
Dimly, I heard Jack say, “I’m gonna go…get help.”
Then he jumped in his car and slammed it in reverse. He nearly hit the abutment as he whipped it around. He roared off into the night, leaving me alone with my ghost.
“He left you,” Travis said with a sneer. “Just like you left me.”
His words deflated me. I buried my face in my hands and cried. I didn’t know my palms were bleeding until I felt something wet and sticky on my face and looked down to see them in the moonlight.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I’m so sorry.”
His sneer evaporated, melting into a thin, grim line. “Not good enough.”
“What do you want?” I asked, but I think I already knew.
“I want you to feel what I felt that night. Alone. Hopeless.”
That was how I’d felt since the day he’d died. I looked directly at him for the first time. He was wearing the same thing he’d worn the day he’d died, down to his bare feet. I could see his words I LOVED YOU STEPH straight through him, like he was a projection on that grimy wall.
“Okay,” I said, and tugged off my shoes.
Rocks dug into my heels but I didn’t care. The grass was cool and slick beneath my feet, but it was easier than I thought it would be to climb the embankment. Nothing was coming on the bridge. Nothing ever was these days. I stood in the road for a moment, feeling the wind whip my hair. Then I moved to the edge and stepped over the guardrail. I didn’t look at him, but I felt Travis beside me.
My toe was bleeding. I stared at it for a moment, thinking some crazy thought about how my mother would feel about me dying with dirty feet. The height made me dizzy. I swayed a little and almost fell right then. Honeysuckle perfumed the night air. I wondered if you could smell when you were dead. I steadied myself and then held my arms open wide.
“Is this what you want?” I whispered.
I didn’t think he’d answer me, but Travis said, “No. Stop. This isn’t what I want.”
A tear slid down my face, then another one. “What do you want, Travis?”
I looked at him then. He was close enough to touch, close enough that I should’ve felt his breath. His face bore the same anguished, pained look it had the night he died.
“I want to know I mattered to you!” he cried. “I never mattered to anyone else. I thought I mattered to you.”
I turned to face him and nearly lost my balance. His eyes glowed an eerie blue in the moonlight. He reached out a hand to steady me and it passed right through my arm.
“I love you!” I said. “Of course you mattered to me.”
“You cut off my songs. You pack away my pictures. You didn’t even come to my funeral.”
“I couldn’t!” I gasped. “I couldn’t see you like that, and know it was my fault. I was just scared. I didn’t know what to do that night. I don’t–I don’t know what to do now.”
We stood there in silence for a moment. Dimly, I thought I heard sirens.
“I love you,” I said. “I have always loved you.”
“Go home, Steph,” he said softly. And then he disappeared.
Broken, confused, I crossed back over the guardrail and gingerly made my way back down the embankment. I crossed over to the concrete wall and laid my palm against the words written in red.
“I loved you, too,” I whispered.
Then I started walking down the center of the road. I made it almost a mile before the police picked me up. I spent a week in a psychiatric hospital, where they diagnosed me with a mental breakdown. They put me on antidepressants and weekly therapy sessions.
My sister took me to pick up some things from the apartment. I paid my rent up but my family didn’t want me to stay alone for a while. I took a box of pictures with me. Sometimes I’d spread them out on my bed and just relive those days, the days when he was mine and life was good. Sometimes my sister would sit with me and let me tell her stories about him while we looked. I know I told her the some of the same ones over, but I don’t think she minded or judged me. She had loved Travis, too.
“This one,” I’d say, tapping a framed photo of us. “This was our first date.”
Travis sat beside me on the grass, his handsome face lit up in a grin that took my breath then, took my breath now. His battered old guitar lay beside him. We’d been at the park with friends and he’d played “Yellow Ledbetter” for me and sang along. Sometime later, one of his friends had teased him about his singing voice.
“It was good enough,” he replied with an embarrassed smile. He ducked his head, then grinned up at me as he reached to squeeze my hand. “It kept her in my company.”
The bridge no longer scared me. The songs on the radio didn’t scare me. They only made me miss him. I missed him more and more. I tried to act normal for my family–even for Travis, if he was watching–but the loneliness seared me. Nighttime was the worst. I missed his arms around me, missed his breath on the back of my neck as he snuggled against my back. I wore his old T-shirts to sleep in. Sometimes I caught a whiff of his scent, but after a while, they smelled like me, not him.
One beautiful, crisp October day, I was driving to the grocery store for Mom. As I approached the bridge, I slowed down, turned the radio up and hit scan. No song greeting from Travis. It devastated me, to think he was finally, forever slipping away from me. I pulled the car to the side of the road and parked.
“Travis, can you hear me?” I asked, and hit scan again. Nothing meaningful.
I reached under the seat and retrieved something in a paper bag that I’d stolen from my Dad’s garage, a can of black spray paint. I walked up to the wall, traced my name with my fingers, and then wrote over the top of it. I STILL LOVE YOU. I took off my shoes and socks and left them on the side of the road in front of the car.
The radio blared suddenly with the song “Don’t,” but I was already crossing to the embankment. Dimly, I heard static as it scanned on its own and landed on the song “Stop! In the Name of Love.”
I laughed and sang along. When I reached the top of the bridge and stood on that same edge, I felt at peace. I saw a movement from the corner of my eye and wasn’t at all surprised to see Travis beside me, transparent in the late afternoon sunshine. Sadness pulled at his handsome face.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I pleaded. “I miss you. I need you. Play our song.”
Faintly, from the ground, I heard the faint strains of “Yellow Ledbetter.”
Then I jumped.
* * * * * *
I woke up in the hospital a few hours later. My father had found me lying on the road beneath the bridge on his way home from work, like I’d curled up to take a nap.
There wasn’t a scratch on me.
I can’t remember much after I jumped, only hazy dreams of Travis holding me and telling me I had to go back–that it wasn’t my time.
Telling me he’d never leave me.
Nobody believed me when I told them I’d jumped, but I know I did. I also know Travis saved me somehow.
Looking at my father’s haggard face, I was glad he did. I held my dad’s hand, shocked at how old and frail he suddenly seemed. I felt so ashamed. He would’ve never survived finding my dead body.
I thought about a quote I’d seen somewhere, about suicide not ending pain, but merely passing it on to someone else. For my family, I’ll try to be strong.
One day, I know I’ll see Travis again.
|
Part 1
I’ve been many different things at different points in my life. I’m an eight year veteran of the United States Marine Corps who served in the Gulf War. I was, for a relatively short time, a husband and father. I’ve worked in construction, trucking, food service, and many other menial jobs. More recently, I’ve had some success at building a solid career selling insurance, a career choice I’m hoping will ultimately last, unlike the last four or five times I’ve tried. I think at the ripe age of 51 I’m finally starting to think clearly about what I expect from life, after decades of false starts and missed opportunities. I still struggle with depression and self-doubt about the failure of my marriage and how far I’ve drifted from my children, but I’ve gotten used to frequent disappointments in my life. For years I also struggled with a moderate case of agoraphobia, and it has only been within the last few years that I sought serious treatment for it. For anyone unaware, agoraphobia is a generalized but intense fear of certain places and settings, and the image of a house-bound agoraphobe largely stems from a desire to avoid at all cost these dreaded places.
I was never fully house-bound like many people with agoraphobia, as I instead simply tried to power through my fear and nascent panic whenever possible, at considerable cost in stress and anxiety. It was only after suffering a mild heart attack last year that I finally sought serious therapy for my condition, because the stress of ignoring it all these years is probably killing me. People with agoraphobia tend to experience this fear in specific environments that trigger feelings of vulnerability and dread. In my case, I’m terrified of wide open spaces, particularly in remote and isolated areas. I remember in the summer of ’97, not long after I left the Marines, I took a road trip to Las Vegas from my home in Riverside, California. Interstate 15 runs right across the flat expanse of the Mojave Desert between these two cities, and throughout the trip I had to stop three times to have a panic attack at the side of the road. I guess this is why I have always preferred to live in crowded cities, and why I travel so little, despite the irresistible wanderlust of my youth. I’ve known for years what exactly triggered my development of agoraphobia, and you’d think knowing this would make it easier to work through it. I only wish it was that easy in my case. What I experienced in those dark days in March of 1991 is clear in my mind, even though I know on an intellectual level that everything that happened should not, could not be possible, and this uncertainty has been a dark cloud over my mind ever since then. On one level I know that my anxiety about what I saw is probably overblown, that I’m worrying about something over which I have no control, and that I can’t even confirm is actually the truth. But on the other hand, I can’t help but feel that I should be worried, that dismissing it would be like ignoring a speeding train when you’re seconds away from being hit by it. When I began my therapy, I was told that writing and journaling my thoughts would be cathartic and relieve my anxieties. I can’t say for sure whether it will or won’t. But putting it all to paper might help me answer a few of my own questions.
Like I said before, I’m a veteran of the Marine Corps who served during the Gulf War of 1991. I enlisted in the Marines in the summer of 1987 when I was 19 years old. I had graduated the previous year and spent my first year after high school attending community college and working a menial job delivering pizza. I had always intended to join the Marines, but as a promise to my parents, I gave the whole “higher education” experience a try before deciding for sure. Well, after a year of hitting the books and delivering one too many pizzas to former classmates, I was ready to make the plunge. I wasn’t motivated by any sense of patriotic duty; I was never all that patriotic. But my own father had served in the Navy during Vietnam, and his stories about all the friends he had in the Navy and all the exotic places he had been were what drove me. That, and maybe I watched a few too many war movies as a kid, including such classics as The Longest Day and Patton. The chance to make new friends, see the world, and experience true camaraderie was irresistible to lonely young man who had never even been outside of the United States.
Fast forward three-and-a-half years, and I’m part of a tank crew in Bravo Company, 1st Tank Battalion, U.S. Marines, and we’re posted in remote desert camp in Saudi Arabia just south of the Kuwaiti border, waiting with baited breath for the order to breach the border and drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Our battalion of M60A1 Patton tanks had been waiting coiled and ready to strike for three months, hearing distant shellfire from Iraqi artillery many kilometers ahead. That’s right, we were still using Patton tanks when we went over the top in the Gulf. While the Army was almost fully equipped with the latest and greatest Abrams tanks seen in all those pictures of the war, we were still making use of the last generation of tanks in the Marines. Anybody who has served in the Marines knows that when it comes to logistics and procurement, the Corps has always been the like red-headed stepchild of the military, and so we just made do with what we had.
But that’s not a knock on the venerable M60 Patton tank. Despite the design being thirty years old by this point, it was still an excellent and fearsome fighting machine. Throughout the years, the design had also been continuously upgrade with new equipment to keep its performance well up to par with other modern main battle tanks. Our machine, which we had affectionately nicknamed ‘Hell Hound’, had received the standard suite of upgrades: advanced modern optics, a gun stabilizer, an explosive-reactive armor package, the works. I’m glad to say that our crew had complete confidence in our tank, and I can personally attest that our machine was more than up to the task of taking on any tank or armored vehicle the Iraqis had, like the T-55, T-62, or even the dreaded T-72.
There were four men in our crew. I was the gunner, which in my admittedly biased opinion was the most important part of the crew. Our tank commander, or TC for short, was guy named Paul Hilaire, who was a few years older than me and a steady, competent professional; the loader was a squat, muscular guy named Gilbert Castro, who like me was also from California, and the youngest; and our driver, Tim Laury, who was rather highly-strung, but still managed a very dry sense of humor. We had all trained together for two years at Camp Pendleton and later 29 Palms, and now that we sat on the brink of a real combat operation that we had hoped for all that time, we were restless impatient. Our isolated camp in the middle of the Arabian desert was at the literal ass-end of nowhere, and being that we were so close to jumping off, we were confined there for several weeks. When Iraqi forces tried to invade Saudi Arabia and take the city of Khafji in January, we were on the edge of our seats, hoping that we could finally see some real action. All these months we had entertained dreams of racing forward across the desert like Rommel, taking the fight to the enemy, but we were disappointed when other units received that honor instead. I wasn’t until late February that we finally got the order that we had all been waiting for: to breach the border and cross into Kuwait to drive out the occupying Iraqi forces. I admit, I was more excited and thrilled than scared. It might seem like a stupid attitude for a young man to rush so willingly into war, unaware of what he would encounter. But you have to understand, we spent years training for this sort of operation, and we saw ourselves as consummate professionals, like tradesmen doing their jobs, and we were eager for a chance to actually apply our skills, and give Saddam Hussein and his much-vaunted Republican Guard a swift kick in the nuts. Such is the gung-ho attitude of Marine Corps. In the small hours of the morning on February 24th, 1991, we and the rest of the 1st Marine Division got the order to advance into Kuwait.
As a part of Task Force Papa Bear, we surged forward over the sand berm that marked the Saudi-Kuwait border and we encountered…. not a lot, actually. We tore through several areas blocked by barbed wire, but actual resistance by Iraqi forces was quite limited. Every now and then an enemy unit would halfheartedly fire upon us, mostly just a few shots for honor’s sake, and surrender as we returned fire and closed on their position. Iraqi troops, who we were told were battle-hardened after years fighting Iran, were actually quite tired and unhappy and only too willing to surrender. I can’t blame them; a man like Saddam Hussein is hardly worth dying for. So for those first few days, that was the most of what we encountered. Marine units collected thousands of prisoners, took few casualties, and met only occasional Iraqi armored units. It bears mentioning that we didn’t directly encounter these enemy tanks, and we wouldn’t see a serious tank battle until a few days later. On a few occasions we fired upon objects we thought could be enemy tanks, but which often turned out to be already wrecked vehicles.
It was only on the 27th when we finally reached Kuwait City that we got the chance for a real battle that we had been waiting for all this time. The Battle for Kuwait City International Airport was one of the largest tank battles of the war, though much of it actually took place in the suburbs surrounding the airport. And that battle did not disappoint. We encountered a large force of Iraqi Army and Republican Guard tanks just short of the airport, and in a brief but incredibly tense battle, we just wiped the floor with our enemy. We destroyed over 100 tanks and armored vehicles in that action, and I myself scored my first real kill in armored combat. Well, the whole crew takes collective credit for such achievements, but being the gunner and the one who “pulled the trigger” so to speak, I was quite satisfied with myself for a time. As we pushed forward, the TC spotted an Iraqi T-62 skulking behind a line of destroyed buildings, presumably trying to flank us, and I traversed the main gun and put him in my sights. And at a distance of 850 meters, I put a 105mm round right through the turret of the tank just as it gave me a beautiful side silhouette just like the ones we get in training. That shot visibly rocked the entire enemy tank as if it were struck by a boulder, and a large plume of smoke followed by a brilliant jet of flame erupted from the top hatch, which must have reached nearly twenty feet into the air. I was quite proud of that shot and scoring my first armored kill, but after a few moments I was struck by the real gravity of what I had just done. Despite the fierce “kill’em all” attitude cultivated in us throughout our training,doing the actual deed is quite different. When you see an enemy tank, you tend to think of your enemy as being the machine itself, as if the human beings in the crew don’t even exist. But when I came to the realization that my shot had probably just killed all four men in that tank, some maybe hit by the shell itself or who were incinerated when the ammunition cooked off, I was struck by a strange feeling for several days afterward. Even though the moral context of war would make my actions somewhat more explicable, I couldn’t help but feel that I had committed something truly serious. After all, I had ended four human lives with the pull of a trigger; nobody escaped the flaming wreck of that T-62. But despite knowing that would likely have done the same thing to me in their position, I was still awestruck and disturbed by the feeling of having such power and choosing to use it so destructively. But like I said, I guess that’s just war. And there’s nothing like a war to teach you that morality is a fickle beast.
I still felt this way, even as I also fired on and destroyed two Iraqi BMPs and an armored car; a moment of brief exultation, followed by a nascent but palpable sensation of guilt. But I’ve learned through the years that even though regrets can set you on a better path, little good can come of dwelling on such things that you can’t take back. Learning this is what has kept me afloat all these years, and I try to impart on others the moral perspective I developed back then. But I digress. The ground campaign in Kuwait was rather short, only about four days, and what Saddam Hussein had promised would be the “mother of all battles” had mostly been a catastrophic rout of Iraqi forces that badly damaged his international prestige. For our part, it was decidedly…. disappointing, especially compared to what we were told to expect. But we got the war we had craved for so long, despite its disappointments and unexpected reality checks.
For a few days, we held our position at a place in the western reaches of Kuwait city known as Al Jahra, as other forces pushing around Kuwait through southern Iraq were mopping up enemy forces trying to retreat. It was during this phase that controversial battles like the Highway of Death or the Battle of Rumaila took place, which were controversial because they happened after the cease-fire and were fought against Iraqi units who were technically complying with international mandate to withdraw from Kuwait. On March 2nd, we received our own mission as part of this effort, with the intent to block the retreat of any stragglers trying to retreat into Iraq by back roads in north-western Kuwait. We were to conduct a road march across the desert to take up a blocking position on a road that ran parallel to the Iraq-Kuwait border, where we would stop anybody trying to force their way through. The blocking position we were meant to assume was actually over the border inside Iraq itself, although this wasn’t strictly unusual, as other Coalition units were also well inside Iraq.
Early that afternoon, our platoon of four tanks, led by our platoon commander Lieutenant Rattner, set out on our road march as per our orders. The distance was about 100 kilometers, although we were fully fueled up, and a Patton tank can do 500 kilometers easy at a reasonably efficient pace. The whole journey was about three hours, although as we were within 7 to 8 kilometers from our objective, we were suddenly given the order to turn around and return to base. This was irritating, as we were glad to have another mission, and we had driven all this way for nothing, just as a the weather was starting to turn. A rather large shamal, or windstorm, was forming off the northwest, and the idea of being caught in a sandstorm in the middle of nowhere was not very attractive, especially since a shamal can last several days. After a brief pause, we plotted the route we would use to return, and since the war was pretty much over and because we were in the middle of a trackless desert, we decided there was no risk in taking the same route back.
But a shamal moves quite quickly, and after only twenty minutes, we found ourselves overtaken in the midst of a ferocious sandstorm that completely obscured our view. In these conditions, we had to adapt our methods to avoid becoming separated. While some individuals floated the idea of simply staying put and waiting out the storm, this was quickly dismissed, as it could last several days. Instead, we slowed our pace to under 20 kilometers per hour, turned on our forward lights, made a point of staying within 10 meters of the vehicle in front. Likewise, the commanders of each tank were urged to open their hatches and direct their drivers, despite the blowing sands; they were expected to cover up and bear with it, so they would have a cleared view of the tank in front. Both the gunners and commanders could also use their thermal optics to look out for the vehicle ahead and avoid getting separated. Our radios wouldn’t work all that well in this weather, but we did our best to stay in contact with the others.
As we moved out, I kept a close eye on the thermal signature of the diesel exhaust of the vehicle ahead. We were last in the column, so it was on me to pay extra attention. Hilaire, our TC, had his head out the top hatch, letting in gales of wind and sand inside the turret, and I think at least a pound of sand must have gone down my collar into my uniform. With all of that mess inside our turret, Hilaire got fed up and closed the hatch, ordering me and the driver to pay extra attention to where we were going. Some commentators later described the Gulf War as a “GPS war” because of the influence the system had on our tactics, but in our platoon, only the platoon commander’s vehicle had it. So I did my best to lock eyes on that diesel plume, while also scanning for unlikely threats we might encounter. It was then that we started having trouble keeping up. Our radio, which we needed to stay in contact with rest, began to fail at the worst possible time. That itself wasn’t unusual; sometimes radios and other comms can just go haywire or crap out without apparent reason. But without it, we only had visual contact with other vehicles.
Lieutenant Rattner was a pretty good officer, but he could be rather erratic and make snap decisions without always telling everybody what was going on. I noticed that the tank ahead of us was slowly inching away, apparently going faster than us. Hilaire shouted down to Laury to pick up the pace and keep up with the rest, but with visibility so poor, speeding up only did so much to improve the situation. Worse still, that distinctive outline of a tank in the thermals was starting to become hazy, probably from all the wind, and it constantly got harder to see our fellows ahead of us. The column’s speed seemed to constantly increase, and despite gunning the throttle as much as we considered safe in this situation, they kept creeping away. We were all starting to get concerned, and Hilaire, who was working with the radio, tried his best to restore comms with the rest. After smacking that radio case and issuing a colorful rant, Hilaire finally gave up on the radio for the time being.
At that point, the tank ahead of us started to fade from visual range. We had nearly doubled the speed of our march, but with the constant blowing sands, the road we followed was starting to get buried and fade from sight. Finally, after a few tense minutes, the rest of the column faded from sight. Laury kept moving forward in the hopes that we would find them again, but this proved futile. Hilaire went on another bout of swearing and implying that Lieutenant Rattner had carnal knowledge of his mother, and decided to use his flare gun in the hopes that somebody else was paying attention. He opened the hatch and fired our flare pistol in the air, though it didn’t do much good; the wind simply pushed it way off course and quickly disappeared. Now we were all starting to get worried. At this point, we were unofficially lost and separated from our unit, stuck in the middle of a trackless desert with virtually no visibility. The road was no longer visible, having been buried by sand, so we couldn’t reliably follow that either. Laury kept us moving at a slower pace in the same general direction, hoping that we might get a break in the storm soon so that we could see where we were going. After a short time, Hilaire told him to stop; moving forward without knowing where could risk putting us way off course, especially when the road was no longer visible, and if we strayed too far into the sand, we might risk getting bogged down and throwing a track.
When we were still in camp, we had heard about other units getting lost in sandstorms while on maneuvers, but this was the first time it had happened to us. Hilaire suggested, and we agreed, that we should stay put for now until the storm calmed down somewhat, and do our best to restore comms with any friendly units nearby. Using a compass and simply heading straight east from our position seemed logical, as we were bound to encounter a friendly unit in that direction. Again, we were still concerned with the idea of getting bogged down in the sand dunes, so waiting for the road to clear seemed the best bet. So, we remained in our position for several hours hoping for the storm to relent. But evening was falling, and the storm not only seemed strong as ever, but it even seemed to get worse. Pushing through a sandstorm in the daylight was difficult, and doing it at night seemed out of the question. We made the decision to remain there for the evening, a rather unpopular one, as this pointless aborted mission had gone on for way too long at this point, but we apparently had no other choice.
I’ve slept inside our tank before, and trust me when I say that it is not ideal. But sleeping outside on the rear engine deck or digging a sleeping hole in the sand was an even more uncomfortable proposition, so we rested in our tank, taking shifts for watch. Our auxiliary engine was running so we could keep on the heaters and optics, but trying to sleep in that cramped space was difficult. I imagine it was worse for Laury, because the driver’s position was even more cramped, although it was more reclined. Hilaire kept tinkering with the radio while Castro and I argued about our favorite basketball teams; he’s big time Bulls fan, despite being from California. I didn’t expect to do much sleeping in the tank, anyway. Finally, Hilaire lost patience and decided we should try to move out anyways, relying on our compass to keep us oriented east, since we couldn’t see the Sun. He warned Laury to take it easy if we seemed to get bogged down in the sand, although the desert was thankfully flat, so we wouldn’t have to actually climb a sand dune. Laury turned us east, put it in gear, and we moved out at a slow, cautious pace.
Moving across the sand was slow going, and Hilaire was worried about how much fuel we were burning compared to traveling on the road. We had used about a fifth of our diesel fuel getting this far, so we didn’t worry too much about making it, even if the engine was struggling. We tried to keep a path straight east, but often deviated our course to go around troublesome bits of ground like sand dunes. It was then that something really bizarre started happening. It was still dark and dusty outside, and without seeing the sky, we needed our compass to keep us oriented the right way. But our compass began to act very strangely. The needle wavered and began spinning around, not keeping any strong orientation and would snap back and forth even as we traveled in the same direction. Hilaire, baffled by this development, ordered Laury to stop. I have no idea what sort of phenomenon could make a compass behave like that, but it was certainly happening to us. We were worried before, but this bizarre event now had us all on edge.
The compass would briefly seem to fix itself, but every few minutes it would go haywire again, and the fact that we needed to keep going around certain spots didn’t help to keep us on track. We decided yet again to simply stop and wait for daylight to regain our bearings, thinking we had not gone all that far off the road since our brief detour. Around dawn, we decided once again to have a look around to see just where we ended up. The sandstorm had calmed down somewhat, as we had apparently found a gap in the storm with relatively clear skies. The storm front still raged to the east and west of us, so this respite would likely be short lived. We were all horribly dismayed to see that the landscape around us looked nothing like any we had seen so far, with no visible landmarks, paths, or anything; even our tracks across the desert had been swallowed by the sand. All around us were rolling sand dunes, and with the storm on the horizon in both directions, nothing was visible beyond our position. That’s how it is during a shamal; millions of tons of sand being kicked up in the air and deposited elsewhere, seeming to move entire hills across the wastes. This is what had apparently happened to us. Our surroundings had almost completely changed, and in the middle of a trackless desert, that was a dangerous situation.
Now that it was the next morning, our absence and lack of communication would surely have been noticed by company commander, we reasoned that a search effort would likely have been underway by this point. This assumption made us feel better, even though our radio was still not working. Likewise, with Coalition aircraft being highly active in this region, we thought we could be spotted by a passing plane who would relay our position to friendly units in the area. But this optimism wouldn’t last. The storm was starting to pick up again, with the walls of sand closing in on us, and no aircraft were becoming visible. That was extremely odd to us. Throughout the campaign, there was a constant stream of fighters and bombers overhead at all hours, striking positions throughout Kuwait and Iraq, and we had seen plenty as we set out on this very mission. Perhaps, we thought, they were grounded because of the weather, and once the shamal had passed, they might have a better time finding us. But the shamal could last days, and it might be longer to find us in our new position well off the beaten path.
We all got out of the tank hoping to stretch our legs, relieve ourselves, and maybe spot a gap in the storm we could exploit. I had gone off to take a piss, even though it was still quite windy, while Hilaire stayed back in the tank, having it out with the radio again. I was on my way back to the tank, incredibly ticked off because the wind had caused me to get piss all over the front of my uniform, when I heard Hilaire and Castro shouting excitedly. According to them, the radio was working again, which was a major relief. We all rushed back to the tank, confident that we just found a way out of this mess, and we all crowded inside the turret to see what was going on. Hilaire was fiddling with the radio set, adjusting the band and trying to get a clean signal. He stopped when something sounding like a voice came over the speaker. But it was a deep, muffled, static-filled voice with unintelligible words, but the rhythm and cadence definitely sounded like a person talking. This continued for several minutes as we watched with baited breath while Hilaire fiddled with the knobs, with no apparent effect. That deep muffled speech just continued with short pauses, when Laury pointed out that the words were repeating. It was just the same unintelligible phonemes in a sequence about twenty seconds long, that pause briefly before playing the same message, if it could be called a “message”.
We were all stunned by this unexpected turn, and no matter how much Hilaire fiddled with the knobs, the sounds on the radio stayed exactly the same. Finally, after about five minutes, the signal simply cut out in the middle of the sequence, leaving only a low whisper of static. My heart sank into my stomach as I realized we were now again cut off from all communication from the outside world. But we all wondered out loud what signal we had even gotten over the radio. Hilaire had changed to every frequency and band, and still that same unintelligible speech, over and over again. Laury speculated that the signal might have been a prerecorded message, like an air raid warning, that we had picked up by accident. We couldn’t tell what was being said, so it could’ve been in a different language. I told him that the words didn’t sound like Arabic, and voice seemed too deep to be human, like it was a computer or something. Near as we could figure, I might’ve been chatter from another Coalition unit that spoke a different language, like the French.
But at this point we were just spit balling. The fact was, the radio signal had cut out and couldn’t be reacquired, nor could any other signal be picked up, so the radio was back to being pretty much useless. It was at least able to turn on, which it hadn’t done the previous day. All there was left to do was go back to our original plan of heading east, all the way to the Persian Gulf if necessary, and hope that friendly units could help us out. Being surrounded by sand dunes now complicated that, as we would now have a hard time getting across them in whichever direction we went. We couldn’t even say exactly where we were, because the landscape all around us had completely changed. But wandering the desert seemed better than staying put and dying of thirst, and even though we had a fair amount of rations and water, camping out in this place wasn’t very appealing. The storm was still going and now starting to close in, the sky getting hazier by the minute. We remounted our tank set out again, hoping that our eastward drive would come to fruition.
Part 2
Getting out of the dunes was as difficult as we feared, and we all sat on the edge of seats, listening to the engine roar, hoping desperately that the dreaded sound of a track being thrown wouldn’t come. Finally, it seemed that we crested the hill and were moving down, when we saw that the dunes continued in that direction for miles. Hilaire was now starting to get seriously concerned about our fuel consumption; we had four-fifths of tank left when we first turned back, but now we had only three-fifths left, even though we had gone only a fraction of the distance across the desert. The effort to climb up those dunes had taken up a lot of fuel, and now with sand dunes in every direction, and the sandstorm picking up again, we were all starting to despair. Hilaire remained cool, and ordered Laury not to climb up any more hills, and just stick to the low ground between them. Castro however was starting to get agitated. He was not quite twenty years old, and in his short life had probably never been in a situation as bad as ours. He was starting to pester Hilaire with questions about where we were going, did we have enough fuel, are we sure this was right way, et cetera. Finally Hilaire snapped at him to calm down, and Castro retreated into himself, sulking.
After a few hours, the engine started to overheat from the exertion, and we stopped to give it a chance to cool down. The storm had slacked off again, and we all dismounted to do a maintenance check and scout around for a potential path. Hilaire decided to clean out the air filter while the engine was cooling off, Laury and I checked the track tension, and Castro was sent out to scout across the top of a sand dune for a way out. We had gone far enough that the desert had flattened out a bit, with much more space in between hills, and we took this as a good sign. Still, fuel was now a concern, and lacking any landmarks we couldn’t tell how much further we needed to go. Castro returned from his scouting mission, saying that there were still no landmarks, but the ground to the south was much flatter and probably easier to get across. Laury and I went back to our work, thinking Castro would just mill around until we remounted. A few minutes later, we looked up to see that Castro had wandered off. He had one of the weapons issued to our crew, a Colt Commando, and we were worried what he might have gotten himself into. I climbed a hill to west to get a view around to find him, and I saw him cautiously walking west, rifle in hand, as if he expected a threat. He was probably about a hundred meters away, scanning the horizon, and didn’t respond when I shouted his named. I ran out after him and caught up with him before he got too far, but he still didn’t respond even when came up next to him. He was absolutely fixated on some point in the distance that I couldn’t recognize, and I practically had to shake him to get his attention. He acted like a man coming out of a trance, and when I asked him what the hell he was doing, he answered, “Nothing, I didn’t see nothing,” almost as if I were accusing him of something. He abruptly turned around, slinging his rifle, and brisked walked back in the direction of the tank.
I was baffled by this strange behavior, especially from a man like Castro, who wasn’t much more than a kid. I chalked it up to the stress of the situation, but I still resolved to tell Hilaire about it, in case something escalated. I returned to the tank shortly after Castro and saw that Hilaire was still working on the engine and nursing some skinned knuckles. The engine had finally cooled down, but he said that the coolant was starting to pick up sand, which could clog the whole system. Unless we
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Part 1
All my friends are dead. Don’t take that the wrong way though. I can’t say I knew any of them when they were still alive. Well, at least most of them anyway.
I guess I’m what you could call a psychic. I’ve never liked that word though. I can’t read anyone’s mind, see in to the future, or make things levitate. All I can do is see ghosts.
I have had the ability for as long as I can remember. I didn’t know exactly what it was when I was younger. I just knew that I could see people that others couldn’t.
I don’t think my parents ever really believed me. I was pulled out of public schools in kindergarten because of “focusing” issues. The truth is I was a bit distracted, but it was because of the kids that no one else could see. They wanted someone to play with too. They had been there a while, and I was the first person that could see them.
After that incident, my parents decided to homeschool me. My parents were somewhat wealthy, so they were able to hire a teacher to come to our home since they were busy at work during the day.
Mrs. Thornwell was the worst. She was wrinkled and had patchy white hair. Of course she carried that typical old person smell with her. To be fair she was a good teacher, but she was incredibly strict. There was no fun to be had with Mrs. Thornwell. She wasn’t dead either, at least not yet.
I lived quite a sheltered life growing up. My parents almost never let me leave the house. I was given almost every toy or item I could ever want, but it meant nothing since I had no friends. They thought that something was wrong with me. Probably due to the fact that everywhere I went I was like the kid from the 6th sense, because “I see dead people.”
That came to a halt when I was 17. My parents were in a brutal car crash with no survivors on either side. They didn’t stay behind either. It was a bittersweet realization knowing my parents had passed on to whatever afterlife instead of staying as ghosts. Maybe they didn’t believe me, and they had over-protected me my whole life, but I never doubted that they loved me.
Since I was 17 I was caught in a bit of an odd situation. I wasn’t quite an adult yet, but I wasn’t really a kid anymore either. Luckily my parents had some connections when they were alive, and I was given emancipation almost immediately.
I was given my parent’s savings. I won’t say how much it was, but it was quite a decent sum. After some calculations, I realized that if I managed my money right I could easily live off the money for the rest of my life.
Just to be safe I decided to sell of my family’s estate. It was a much bigger home than I would ever need. If anything the upkeep would be more than it was worth to me. It would also boost my emergency funds to sell it, so I did.
I bought an older home on the edge of my city. It was incredibly cheap, so I knew there were probably issues with the home, but I didn’t really care.
It was a 2 story home, and it had a basement. Still more room than I needed, but the price had been cheaper than essentially everything else I looked at. From the outside it looked like the house had lived through a war or two. The inside wasn’t terrible though. Nothing seemed to be breaking down. Water and electricity worked with no issues everywhere. Well, everywhere except the basement. I chose not to go down there. I got an ominous feel from it.
It took less than a day of living in my new home to realize I wasn’t alone.
I was reading a book on my couch in the living room. I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, so I looked up. Directly next to me was seated a man. He looked to be about 20 years old, and he was dressed in an older style of clothing.
“Hello?” I said questioningly.
This seemed to catch him off-guard. He even jumped back a bit in surprise.
“Oh, you can see me!?” He said.
“Why wouldn’t I be able to see you? You were practically hanging over my shoulder while I was trying to read.”
“Uh…Sorry about that. You’re alive though, and I’m kinda not. Living people can never see me.”
“Yeah I guess I’m a little special. Looks like we’re going to be housemates from now on, so get used to it. I’m Devin, and you?” I said this as I extended my hand.
After a moment of staring at my hand he seemed to finally remember what he was supposed to do. He grabbed my hand with a giant smile and began to shake it.
“Name’s Sam, pleasure to meet you!” He replied.
Sam was the first, but not the only guest I would discover in my home. Sam was the most curious though, and probably still the most human. He had died of a brain aneurysm. He wasn’t quite ready to move on yet though, so he stayed behind. There had been so much life that he had been robbed of, and he couldn’t accept moving on.
Sam and I became quick friends. We had both been somewhat sheltered growing up, and neither of us had really had a chance to explore the world. We talked about our dreams, and things we wanted to do. I suppose there is still a chance for me to do the things I want, but Sam isn’t quite as lucky.
After the first couple days of being in the house I almost assumed that Sam was the only ghost living with me, but you know what they say about people who assume.
I was lying in bed late one night, and just as I was about to fall asleep I heard something. It sounded like running water. I hopped out of bed and made my way towards the source of the noise. It was coming from the kitchen.
“Sam?” I called out.
As I got closer I noticed that there was someone washing dishes in the sink, but it wasn’t Sam. It was a somewhat stocky woman. She was short, and looked to be in her 40’s. She turned to me as I drew nearer.
“If you’re going to live here you need to clean up after yourself. This is unacceptable!” She said pointing towards the pile of dishes in the sink.
“Sorry, I didn’t think it would be an issue.”
“Didn’t think it would be an issue? You aren’t the only person in this household. Please try to be considerate of the mess you are leaving behind for others!” She scolded me. She turned back around and continued to wash my dirty dishes.
I was about to apologize more sincerely when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Sam.
“Don’t worry about her, that’s Emilia. She only shows up when someone makes a mess. As long as you pick up after yourself it won’t be a problem. You do not want to see her bad side though.” He said this with a bit of a chuckle at the end.
Now that I thought about it, the house had been incredibly clean when I moved in. There had been no dust or cobwebs anywhere for a house that was this old. I guess I had just thought that the realtor was doing the upkeep.
I made a mental note to not make any messes, and went back to bed.
I woke up the next morning to find my dishes were all clean, and Emilia was nowhere to be found. Sam was waiting for me on my couch. I sat next to him and we began to have one of our daily casual conversations.
Midway through our conversation I began to hear noises coming from below. It was obviously coming from the basement. Sam noticed my discomfort.
“There’s something I should tell you about the basement. I’m sure you could sense it, but there’s something down there. It’s not like me or Emilia though.” He said.
“What is it then?” I asked.
“I’m not entirely sure. It was here before I was, and I’ve been here a while. As long as you keep it fed it will stay down there.”
“Keep it fed? What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well you aren’t going to like this, but it feeds on animals. They have to be alive, or freshly dead. It’s best if you can find roadkill shortly after it happens, then you don’t have to feel bad about it.”
“You’re joking right?”
“I wish I was. It’s actually kind of a good thing you moved in. It’s been a while since it has fed, and if it doesn’t get fed it will begin to look for something on its own.”
“So it’s my job to keep whatever is done there fed?”
“Yeah…Sorry for not telling you about it sooner. It had been so long since I had been around a living person I almost forgot. If you can’t find any roadkill around here I’d suggest you go buy some mice at a pet store. They don’t scream as loud.”
I was in disbelief. I had sensed there was something terrible in my basement, but I had hoped I could just ignore it. I guess that wasn’t an option.
I could have packed my bags and left then, but that would have meant leaving whatever was in the basement to potentially roam free. Not to mention I enjoyed being around my new friend Sam, even if he wasn’t alive.
I frantically began to scour the neighborhood for any signs of roadkill. I found an unfortunate cat that hat met its end, but it looked to be a few days old. According to Sam that wouldn’t be fresh enough. I would need something alive, or something that had been dead less than 4 hours.
I gave up and took Sam’s advice. I bought some live field mice from a pet store. They eyed me with their beady black eyes the whole way home. If only they knew their fate.
When I returned home the sounds emanating from the basement were even louder, and more frequent. There was what sounded like a deep grunting, and things being thrown around.
Sam was waiting for me at the front door. He eyed the mice I was holding and nodded.
“Good, you should probably hurry. I recommend keeping your eyes down when you go down there. The less you see the better.”
His words didn’t exactly reassure me. Nonetheless, I began to make my way towards the basement. The sounds only grew louder as I approached the door leading downwards.
When I opened the door, the noises seemed to stop. The path down was pitch black. I could just barely make out each step with the aid of help from the hallway light, and I couldn’t see any switch or string to turn on light. Perhaps it was better this way.
I slowly began to descend one step at a time. Every step creaked, making me want throw the container of mice and run back upwards. Somehow I made it to the end though. I almost wondered if the thing in the basement had just left, because there had been no noise whatsoever other than the creaking and the mice occasionally squealing.
I set the container of mice on the floor of the basement and took a step back up. In an instant an enormous black hand extended out of the darkness and ripped the container out of sight. I heard a large crack, and then I heard the mice begin to squeal even louder.
I sprinted back up the stairs, but before I reached the top I heard a loud crunch as the squealing ceased. I slammed the door shut and looked up to see Sam once again waiting for me.
“What the fuck is that thing?” I demanded.
“I told you, I’m not entirely sure. That should keep it satisfied for at least a week or two though.”
“Are there any other things I should know about this house?” I asked hoping for him to say no.
Sam frowned at this question.
“You should stay clear of the attic.”
Part 2
“What’s in the attic?” I asked Sam. To be completely honest I didn’t even know there had been an attic. I hadn’t been upstairs at all other than to have a quick look.
“I can’t tell you, for personal reasons. As long as you don’t go up there you won’t have to worry about it though. You don’t have to feed it like our basement dweller.” He replied.
“Why can’t you tell me? Are you hiding something?”
“We all have our secrets, and this is one you do not want to know about. Just trust me on this one.”
Before I had a chance to respond Sam had disappeared in to thin air. Must be nice to be able to escape from an argument like that. Vanish in to thin air when things start to get heated. To be fair he did have to die to obtain that power.
Sam hadn’t really led me astray so far, but he did take his time mentioning what was in the basement. He seemed much more cautious about the attic. After only seeing part of what was in the basement, it made me wonder what kind of monster could be in the attic. It was my house now though; don’t I have the right to know?
I spent all day pondering whether or not I should heed Sam’s advice. He hadn’t shown back up, so I assume he was giving me time to cool down after my basement experience. I still wasn’t even sure where the entrance to the attic was. A little exploration couldn’t hurt, could it?
I ventured upstairs. The entrance to the attic wasn’t in the hallway, so it must have been in one of the two bedrooms.
Sure enough, I found the ladder leading upwards in one of the closets of the bedrooms. I gazed up at the entrance. My heart began to beat much faster than normal. Maybe I really shouldn’t go up there. The curiosity was killing me though. I gripped the ladder while continuing to weigh out my options. Before I could decide I heard a voice from behind me.
“You’re not supposed to go up there.”
I turned around to see a small girl in front of me. She had long black hair and bright blue eyes. She looked to be about 8 or so. I felt a quick wave of sorrow, because I knew this young girl in front of me was dead.
I knelt down in front of her.
“And who are you?” I asked.
“I’m Elizabeth, but you can call me Lizzy!” She said with a giggle.
“Well Lizzy, why am I not supposed to go in the attic?”
“Because Sam would be mad if you did. No one is allowed in the attic.”
“Do you know what’s in the attic?”
“No. Sam told me no one is allowed up there because it’s scary. I don’t like scary things.” As she said this she began to look down and cover her eyes as if she was remembering something scary. If I wasn’t so caught up in what was in the attic I would have thought it was cute.
I patted Lizzy on the head in an attempt to calm her down.
“Well this is my house now Lizzy. I need to find out what’s so scary about the attic. You wait here. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
Lizzy didn’t seem entirely certain about my idea, but she couldn’t exactly stop me either. I had made up my mind. Sam was hiding something in the attic, and I needed to find out what it was.
I turned back around and headed back towards the ladder. I was surprised that Sam hadn’t shown up himself to try and stop me. He had told me not to go up to the attic, so it made me wonder why he wasn’t here now.
I shrugged off the thought and began to climb the ladder. Once I was almost to the top of the ladder I was able to peek my head in to the attic.
There was a light attached to a string in the center of the room. This would have struck me as normal, except that the light was already on. I had never been to the attic before, and there’s no telling how long it had been since anyone had been up here. So how the hell was there a light still burning?
Other than the light, the attic seemed empty. Not only was it empty, but unlike the rest of the house it was dirty. There were cobwebs in the corners, and dust almost everywhere. It seems even Emilia wasn’t allowed up here.
I was really confused when I finally made it completely in to the attic, because it really was empty. I had expected some sort of ferocious beast to jump out and maul me, but that hadn’t happened. I decided to take a quick walk around the attic before heading back down.
As I was crossing the floor it hit me. I was struck with the most intense headache of my entire life. It was so strong that I feel to my knees in pain. My head felt like it was going to explode. I was so caught up in my pain that it took me a few seconds to realize there was someone in front of me now.
It was a middle-aged woman. I didn’t pay close attention to her face, because I was busy staring at the giant gash on her neck. It looked as if it was still bleeding. Blood slowly dripping down her body.
She began to reach out towards me, and I flung myself backwards. As I did this two more figures seemed to have emerged from nowhere and began to approach me. They were drenched in blood. The pounding in my head only seemed to intensify, but I needed to get out.
I began to put all my effort in to crawling back to the attic ladder. The bloody ghosts continued to follow me across the room, but despite the massive headache, they didn’t seem exactly hostile.
I didn’t care whether they were hostile or not. I wanted nothing to do with them. Once I reached the ladder I flung myself down head first. I was able to grab on to one of the rungs to absorb some of the momentum from my fall, but I wasn’t able to hang on for long. I fell down the rest of the ladder and landed on my back. It was extremely painful, but it was nothing compared to the headache I had had up there. Speaking of the headache, that had stopped.
I took one last glance at the hole in the attic. I saw the woman I had first seen, who had her throat slit. She mouthed one word to me before disappearing. I’m not entirely sure what it was, but I think she said “Help.”
I rolled over on to my stomach. The pain in my back from the fall was starting to sting now. It didn’t seem too bad, but it stung like hell. After a few minutes of recovering I was able to get back up on my feet.
When I exited the closet I found that someone was waiting for me, but it wasn’t Lizzy. No, it was Sam. He didn’t look happy either. He was stood there with his arms crossed like a parent about to give a lecture.
“I told you not to go up there.” He said.
“Yeah well I guess I forgot. Kinda like how you forgot to tell me what was in the basement. Did you have something to do with what was up there?”
He took a deep sigh.
“No, I was already dead when that happened. I watched it happen though.”
“And what exactly happened?”
“He…Well, he killed them. If that wasn’t obvious. He was a middle-aged man, quite attractive too. He would lure them back to the house, then he would drug them. Even he sensed the basement was off limits, so he operated in the attic. He wasn’t in the home long, but he sure was busy. It was gruesome.”
It took a moment for this all to sink in. So, apparently there had been a serial killer in my home. Not to mention the monster in the basement. Not only had people died in this home, some were murdered.
“Well, is he dead now? He’s not one of the ghosts here is he?” I questioned.
“No, I imagine he’s still alive. Unless he was in some kind of accident somewhere else. He did his business here, and he left.”
That didn’t exactly reassure me. A psychopath that had lived in my home was still on the loose out there. I suppose he could have been arrested, but the ghosts in my attic seemed to think otherwise.
“I’ll ask you one more time Sam, is there anything else I should know about this house?”
“Well as far as the threatening guests of this house I think that’s it. There are a few others of us that you haven’t met yet, but none of them are violent.”
As he finished saying this we both turned as we heard a noise.
It was a knock coming from my front door.
Part
|
During nightly hours of yore, in a time of horror and war,
I would sit on a dank oak bench with my eyes shut, calm and closure.
Then, my eyes open when I sense a figure approach me with grace.
One of nature’s eccentric frights perched itself above my shoulder.
It croaked into my ear, with its feathers amusing my bare shoulder,
Sharing glee with its mother.
Ah, how the wiry can descend to the depths of despairing sin;
This absolute essence and seduction to persuade another,
Learned by my petite one’s watching of a man’s unrelenting haunting,
Frightened by the chary taunting of the one he still remembers.
That demoralizing moment that rest upon his right shoulder,
Widowing since December.
He rose from his feeble sorrow, evident now through tomorrow.
He pressed his face on the image of her beauty, taken back by her.
Her southern voice still soothed his ears, though he has not heard her in years.
She gleamed from her portrait, and tears ran down it as he ponders.
I could see inside his soul of what he could no longer hinder,
To end his throbbing bare.
I continued to watch him drown; still showing was his dreaded frown.
Cleansing himself over a bottle of whisky, tears still timber.
Clearly, his love is still showing, not ceasing, forever growing,
From which I then started loathing, famished for what he considers.
I stroked my friend’s head and smiled for what it did earlier.
It taunted the widower.
An hour passed, then he left home with his bottle in hand to roam.
He staggered to a grimy crossroad, standing at its center.
On his knees, he waited to see someone able to set him free.
Hands folded he began to plea, somehow a release over her.
Suddenly, a foul smell lingered in the air. It reeked of ember.
It was then that I entered.
Behind him I stood with no sound, my feathered black dress touching ground.
He turned with some fright at my appearance, but then he stood eager.
Hell-hounds at my left and right, blood slavering from their mouths, eyes white,
Snarling from the unshorn man’s sight, with burns and scars replacing fur.
I smiled, alerting them to heel, and then spoke to the stranger.
“How can I help you, kind sir?”
He glared both wonder and remorse at seeing my mystical source.
His legs trembled, sweat soaked his palms, and his breath was sorely bitter.
I smiled while he grew silent, waiting to hear why I was sent.
Then, with a grimace and knees bent, he descended again to surrender.
“Please,” he pleaded in misery, “bring me my wife, my sole lover,
Out of eternal slumber.”
Droll it was to see how the will to avail could entice the frail.
This thing was gripping his fingertips into the gravel mire.
Of the beings that he could see, he bestows his mislaid soul to me,
An angel whose wings cease to be, stripped during the quarrel’s latter.
However, in this loathing outcome, which would one’s sorrow prefer?
Move on, or know no longer?
I paced about the feeble man, witnessing his fate in my hands.
Our eyes followed like two warriors ready to strike each other.
Bound we were to this circumstance of one’s happiness based on chance;
His soul taken just for the glance, the touch, the smell, the love of her.
“I can fulfill that task,” I said. “Once more, you will be together.
You will claim what you remember.”
He gave a soulful expression; possibly from my compassion.
I usually show no apathy when dealing with a martyr.
Some desire the act of lust, others pride for statures above;
Power, with everyone else shoved, thinking they are superior.
This man, though, simply desired his one significant other.
His one love to transpire.
He gave a subtle, grieving look, knowing of the wrong path he took.
People consent to an offer and receive not what they prefer.
He glanced at the hounds by my sides, staring. Flames were in their pearl eyes.
Thinking what I said was a lie, he asked for some honest answers.
“She will be healthy, yes?” he asked. “No sickness and death hereafter?
As before her departure?”
“She will be sane,” I said calmly. “Say ‘yes’ and she will come shortly.”
A tear ran down his right eye, then the left. My patience was a blur.
“You justly mourn your wife, Lenore.” His eyes, at the hounds nevermore,
Shot at mine, stronger than before. “Love is not without loss, good sir.”
His frown became a grim expression, and then I heard him mutter,
“I know you. I remember.”
His mumbling tone intrigued me with a sense of astonished glee.
To think that he would ever view though my attire of feathers,
My elegant, roguish presence, or my foul, demonic essence;
Standing by him without sensing this was not our first time together.
His eyes widened and his thoughts heightened. He could clearly remember.
I was the black tempter.
“You were the raven at my door that always quoted ‘nevermore,’”
He said with his tone shrieking every word so that I would hinder,
Splintering my cold-hearted dying ember so I would be cringing.
My tainted flesh ghastly bleeding from fear of one man’s sole valor,
However, his endeavor to seem clever through his wan gesture
Will cause his own disaster.
“My eyes wander and I see all,” I told him. “Soon you will fall.”
“Enough!” He grouched. “Do as I told your servant with its black feathers.”
“I thought you hated loneliness.” I stroked his face and gave a kiss.
He quickly gripped my arm and hissed, “You foul beast and burdened sinner.
Why do you indulge me with pleasures you cannot truly conger?
My wife, deceased no longer?”
Thunder roared as I saw his right arm raise a knife of iron form.
“We are Legion, for we are many. Turn away now, or suffer.”
I laid on the mucky soil and watched him gradually foil.
All the months that he toiled, yet he could not commit murder.
The temptation of my raven that left his mind to surrender
Simply exposed his hunger.
“For months after our encounter, I researched volumes of scripture,
Locating any elapsed lore and legends on demons and tempters.”
I stared as he stood there saying, “I vowed many hours hunting,
Torturing demons, questioning; curious on how you labor.
He threw his blade down at the soil, knelling towards me and whispered,
“No more nightmares, forever.”
He brought out his hand and helped me stand on my feet, sobbing at me.
“I have spent my remaining life marveling how you things venture.
You, the raven, found my despair with your constantly throbbing glare,
And I had to figure out where you were and forget what I remember.”
With a gentle kiss, I was gone, and he stood at the road’s center.
There is no end, however.
Vengeance is the same through all eyes, and I do not tolerate lies.
This stranger may have sympathy for my presence and my divine power,
But my doubts justify my mind, fore this man’s mood became too kind.
Deducing further I could find that he did not simply torture.
Confession is good for the soul no matter the sin or sinner.
I gladly made an endeavor.
As he surveyed with his head turning, I stood from behind, staring.
Surroundings altered to sooth my fondness, soaked with blood and fire.
I made sure that he would whiteness proper torture with no dismiss
In the underworld of abyss, knowing only my image of her.
His corpse laid sprawled at the crossroad with a bottle by his shoulder.
Nightmares never disappear.
|
The only thing this magician couldn’t pull out of his hat was the money he needed to make his child support payment, and so, with a degree of reluctance, his venue of choice changed from making coins appear behind the ears of delighted children to making wallets and jewelry boxes disappear from homes in the middle of the night. With the skill that only a practiced magician could possess he slipped into a life of crime, picking locks, disabling alarms, and moving silently, in complete control of his body. He knew he made an excellent thief, and soon his initial distaste turned into a lust for the excitement that breaking and entering provided. The last time he had felt excitement like that was during his previous career as an escape artist, which had almost ended in disaster when he was nearly buried alive during a stunt.
It was once again nearing the time of the month to make his child support payment for the daughter he didn’t care to see, and so the thief began to scout around the small North Carolina town he currently was staying at. After some debate he decided to rob a small place at the edge of town. The house was well isolated behind a dense forest that the thief could use to mask his escape. The owner, a large older man, would be easy to avoid, and the thief foresaw few obstacles to his inevitable success. The man didn’t seem to be married or have any family, which made the thief’s only concern the various guests that the man sometimes brought to his house. After weeks of observation he had seen the man return with a younger man and a girl. The thief had been concerned that they may be staying at the house, since he hadn’t seen them leave, but after another week passed he assumed they had left when he had been away from the house.
The thief decided to make his move late one night, when he knew the man would be away. Likely visiting a strip club, or a prostitute he thought, with a degree on contempt. Donning his black mask, and clutching a crowbar and a small knife he skulked across the field between the line of trees and his target house. With ease he climbed up to the second floor, and slipped through an open window.
The thief was disappointed. The upper floor of the man’s house was sparsely decorated and covered in a layer of grime. He saw no watches, no jewelry from a wife or lover, no safe, no wads of cash, no expensive TV. The only thing that greeted him, apart from a cockroach scuttling under the bed at the sound of the window opening, was a slightly unpleasant odor. The thief hoped the lower floor would prove to be more fruitful.
Carefully moving down the stairs the thief kept an ear out, listening for any sign of the man’s return. The ground floor proved to be as disappointing as the first. Little furniture, no TV, and once again a layer of grime and now a stronger odor. The odor was very unpleasant, and at this point the thief was left wondering how the man lived there. He was again disappointed, but was unwilling to give up on his escapade so soon. He decided to check the house for a basement, hoping to make some money off this night.
As the thief found the door to the basement he heard the sound of a car on the gravel driveway. The man was home, a situation the thief was woefully unprepared for. He heard the car door slam, and a girl ask if she could see the puppy. Must be his daughter, the thief thought. He thought of bolting for the steps to the second floor, but the door to the outside was between him and the steps. The thief didn’t want to risk it. What if the man saw him? What if he had a gun? Never before had the thief robbed a home with the homeowner there. Never before had the thief been faced with the prospect of getting caught. The thrill of this turn of events was unparalleled, even by his time as an escape artist. Keys rattled in the door, and as the door began to open, the thief stepped into the basement to hide, confident he could soon make his escape.
The stench was overpowering. The thief gagged, and then retched. He stumbled down the stairs, suddenly afraid that he would be caught, suddenly afraid that the man had heard him.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he entered hell.
A furnace. Meat hooks. A fire hose, chains, and a stack of large wooden boxes. Concrete walls covered in a brown stain that no amount of water could clean. By the furnace, neatly arrayed in a tub, piles of bones. Small bones. The thief did not believe in God, but he found himself praying. He prayed that they were animal bones. He saw that they weren’t. He saw a pile of clothes neatly stacked in a corner. Clothes from men and women, of various sizes. A man’s plaid shirt. A girl’s flowered dress. The smell of iron and fear and despair. The thrill was gone. All that was left were his cold, shaking hands, his crowbar, the cold sweat on his forehead, and the small knife in his pocket.
A scream echoed down the steps, followed by the sound of tape. The door to the basement swung open, and the man began to descend, dragging his latest prize. Another young girl, no more than eleven, kidnapped from a playground, now bruised, bloody, and wrapped in duct tape. The girl was crying out for her parents, struggling to escape. She stopped struggling when the man hit her again, hard, across her face. She didn’t struggle when the man chained her to the wall. She didn’t even struggle when he ripped off her dress. The thief was silent, crouched behind the pile of wooden boxes. He didn’t want to know what was in those boxes.
The man knew he wasn’t alone in the basement with his new prize. He had heard the thief retch, and after glancing around he knew the thief was hiding in the only spot available, behind the boxes. This did not worry the man at all. Rather, he relished the idea of having another plaything. The only thought that gave him pause was the difficulty that came with dealing with an adults struggles. They always fought harder than the kids. Maybe it’s because the kids thought there was some hope, and the adults knew there wasn’t. The man decided that he should soften his new company up. Some time in a box should do it. Maybe he would just let his new company stay in the box overnight. After all, he already had one live one. After chaining the girl to the wall, the man charged at the pile of boxes, and threw his body at them, pushing the boxes against the wall and trapping the thief. He walked around the corner, looked into the panicking eyes, and slammed his knee into the thief’s head, knocking the thief unconscious.
The thief awoke in darkness. He was chained in fetal position in a dark, claustrophobic place. He could hardly breathe.
He knew where he was.
He remembered the trick that almost killed him.
He was buried alive.
The thief began to panic, and as he hyper ventilated, the low amount of oxygen present in his tomb decreased even further. He began to feel lethargic. He knew he had to do something. He did. With practiced ease the magician slipped his hands out of his chains. Using the small knife, still in his back pocket, he unlocked the shackles around his ankles, but he was still buried alive. He could do no more.
The magician thought back to his family, to the wife he had failed and the girl he had neglected. He thought about the young girl chained to a wall, terrified. He thought of the little girl’s father, who may be like him, who may never get a chance to see his daughter again.
The thief died. The magician died. The father survived. Still crouched in the claustrophobic box, he braced his back against the top and began to push. Boards creaked, muscles tore, tendons reached their breaking point, and earth began to move. He stood up, forcing wooden planks and earth aside, and let out a scream. It was not a sound that prey makes.
The man heard the scream, and for the first time in his life, felt afraid. He grabbed a sawed off shotgun from inside his nightstand, and went outside to inspect the shallow grave. As the man passed through his back door he saw the beast emerging from the ground, hunched over, and covered in dirt, with a predatory glint in its eye. The man lowered his shotgun and fired both barrels. The man missed. He wouldn’t get another chance.
The little girl was woken up by the sounds of screams and a gunshot. She was still chained to the wall, but apart from the bruises had been left unharmed while the bad man had dealt with the other one. Now though, she was trembling. The first scream had possessed a quality that scared her. It had sounded angry. The ones that followed the gunshot were those of desperation and pain. The little girl heard the basement door open. She heard someone coming down the steps, and began to cry at the thought of what the bad man might do to her.
A man was crouched before her, wiping her tears away. Practiced hands were unchaining her. A coat was draped over her. A dress was placed in her lap. When she looked up she saw kind eyes. The father picked her up, and carried her out of the basement, into the rest of her life.
|
“Yo, James hurry your ass up!” Damon roared from across the parking lot, standing next to our limo and waving me and Becca down. I quickly stole a kiss with Her before taking her hand and jogging toward the limo with her. We weren’t in there for more than a moment before our other friend Felix shoved a flask of Jack Daniel’s in our face.
“I made sure to get one for each couple,” He winked at me with a huge grin, “It isnt prom night without Sir Daniels!” we all burst out laughing. I took a swig from the flask before passing it over to Becca, and shifted my gaze to my childhood friends. There were eight of us total and we had all been friends since grade school and couples since late middle school. The gang consisted of Jamal, Krisie, Pat, Jade, Felix and Dayna, Becca and I, and boy were we an interesting bunch.
“So whose place are we exactly going to again?” I asked, as Becca leaned her head on my shoulder.
“The new guy, uh…,” Pat started, but Jade finished for him, “Dale Seer, he just moved here from New Jersey.”
“Yeah that guy!” Pat smiled, as Jade rolled her eyes at him.
Just then the limo driver swore loudly just before veering wildly to the left and right just narrowly avoiding a car driving down the opposite side of the road, leaving us all in a tangled laughing heap in the center of the vehicle. Normally we probably would have freaked out but with the amount of alcohol we had consumed at the time we probably could have wrecked and thought it humorous. We continued to talk about the events of everything that had gone on our senior year, and before we knew it we had reached our destination.
“Alrighty kiddos, I will be here bright and early to pick you up at eight, so don’t be late ya’ hear?” We all nodded in agreement to the limo driver, but as the others turned away from him I noticed his expression had become grim and he motioned me to come closer. “It’s not your time.” He muttered, before driving off. I just stared after the car confused by his choice of words. What did he mean by that exactly, and what was his deal? I just shrugged it off and went to join my friends who were all standing in front of a small eerie looking home.
The house was a light yellow and with as much chipped paint as there was it gave the home a weird poke-a-dotted look. The home almost reminded me of the Amityville horror house, with the dirt coated attic window, a rickety old fashioned porch and the occasional missing shutter. Yep this sure was where I wanted to spend the rest of my prom night.
“Wow, this Dale guy seems like a real winner.” Krissie stated sarcastically.
“Come on guys let’s just give this Dale guy a shot, I’m sure he is a nice guy!” Becca pleaded with us. She had been that way as long as I could remember. Always giving people the benefit of the doubt, and being optimistic about any situation, and that is why I loved her so much. Not only was she the most beautiful girl in school she was also the least selfish and shallow person you would ever meet. I can still remember the first time we met on the school playground. I was and still am one of the nerdiest guys you would ever meet, and ironically I was being picked on by Pat when she stood up for me, and ever since then I could never get over how strong she was. Those piercing blue eyes and her dark brown hair still till this day take my breath away every time I see her.
“Okay,” we all uttered in unison, pick up our bags and making our way into the home.
Pat rushed passed everyone throwing his bag onto the floor of the entry way. Despite the outside of the home the inside wasn’t all that bad looking. The entry way was rather large, with five different doorways. The one to the left lead to a rather larger living room with a fire place, the second to our right lead to the kitchen. Two others were at the top of a flight of stairs on either side of the landing, and right on the wall at the center of the two was a large poster. The last one was dead ahead of where pat had gone through.
“Yo Dale, where you at bro.” I called out into the seemingly empty home. Everyone dropped their bags in the same spot as Pat and we got no answer.
“Maybe everyone got stuck in traffic on their way here.” Dayna suggested, shrugging her shoulders.
“Hey guys check this out!” Pat called out from the doorway in front of us. We all walked over to see a strangely large room for the size of the home and right in the center were two rows of four beds, one for each of us. Now that is creepy I thought to myself.
“Okay this is pretty weird, I thought there was suppose to be party here.” Pat pouted.
“Well, maybe there are more beds upstairs,” I stated turning to enter the entry room, and freezing after taking two steps out the doorway. I stared in horror and confusion at the sight before me, “uh guys, I think we have a problem.” I stammered while pointing to where the front door used to be. Everyone turned to see what I was pointing at, their jaws dropping in unison once they realized what had happened… the front door had disappeared leaving a wall in its place.
“That’s fucked up!” Pat chuckled.
“It’s not funny, how are we supposed to leave now?” Krissie shouted at pat, which then caused a chain of arguments amongst everyone trying to figure out what to do. As they all bickered I walked around hoping to figure out what exactly was going on. That’s when I noticed a small red arrow pointing up the stairway to the poster on the wall. I quickly walked up the stairs to the poster and began to read:
Game Rules:
Note: The game starts once the first door is opened
Rule #1 – Once you open one door another random door will appear.
Rule #2 – Once you open a door another door will disappear and so will everything behind it.
Rule #3 – You have exactly 10 minutes to open a door, if you don’t a door will automatically disappear, along with another once you open a door.
Rule #4 – Every 5 minutes I will come to find you, and the first person I find or isn’t hidden well enough to my liking I will give you five seconds then chase you.
Rule #5 – If I catch you, you join me/us.
Rule #6 – The game ends at day break.
Note: First door opened at 9:35 PM. I will see one of you around 9:45.
Good Luck!
As soon as I finished reading the “game rules” I looked down at my phone to verify the time. It was 9:40.
“Uh… Guys,” I shouted down the stairs, “I think you may want to come see this!” within seconds they were all at the top of the stairs reading what I had just read.
“This is a bunch of bull crap!” Pat boomed after reading the poster.
“I agree,” Jade nodded, “This is obviously a joke by Dane or Dale or whatever his name is.”
“Plus this alcohol is making me sleeping, so I am going to take a nap with my chica Jade here. So smell you guys later!” he bellowed as he made his way down the stairs with Jade to the bedroom. I just sighed.
“I just feel like whatever is going on here it shouldn’t be taken lightly.” I said, meeting everyone’s fearful gazes. They all nodded in agreement.
“So how much longer do we have left?” Felix asked.
“Three minutes to go,” Becca uttered loudly, “We should come up with a plan after we hide.”
“Definitely a good idea, we will meet here before we open up any doors.” Jamal stated. As everyone spread out to hide I grabbed Becca and kissed her.
“No matter what happens I want you to know I will always protect you.” I said staring deep into her amazing blue eyes. She looked at me and got teary eyed.
“I know, you already have.” She muttered as she gave me a small smile and went to go hide.
I just stared after her for a moment, confused by the reaction she had given me. What did she mean by I already have? I looked down at my phone and saw I only had a minute left so I quickly ran and hid on the windowsill, which was rather large and shut the curtains in front of me. To be honest it felt kind of stupid to be hiding. For all we knew Dale could be messing with us and videotaping this whole thing to see if we would actually do what the poster said. I looked down at my phone. It was 9:46 PM, and nothing had happened.
I sighed and was just about to leave my spot when I heard a whisper of a man counting down from five. Five, four, three, two, one… There was then a sound like one of the beds being dragged across the floor and a loud thud, followed by an ear piercing scream from Jade. I quickly jumped out of my hiding spot and turned towards the open doorway in front of me to see Dayna, Becca, Jamal, Felix, and Krissie grouped in the entry way. As I made my way to them the guys covered the girls eyes, and when I rounded the corner I saw why. Starting from the bedroom and making its way up the stairs was a trail of blood. As Jade came into entry, everyone rushed over to comfort her, and she began to cry and yell out in pain. I however looked towards the top of the stairs to see a small mound at the foot of the poster. I made sure to walk at the edge of the stair case so I wouldn’t get any blood on me, and when I got to the top I gagged, then threw up at the sight before me. Pat’s neck had clearly been broken easily at a ninety degree angle, with hundreds of cuts across his body and a large red streak up the front of his now ragged tux. My eyes then turned to the poster where his hand seemed to be reaching towards. On it was the number seven written in blood. I quickly ran downstairs to see everyone arguing, about what had just happened. Once I got to the bottom of the stairs they all stopped and turned to face me.
“Is he up there?” Jade sobbed. I just nodded my head and she immediately began to cry again. I grabbed the other two guys and brought them to the top of the stairs explaining what they would find once they got there. But once we got there, to my horror his body was gone.
“I swear he was just here!” I shouted in disbelief.
The other two looked just as horrified and shocked as I did.
“We need to come up with a plan and fast,” Jamal stated as we reached the bottom of the stairs, “and wasn’t there a door there just a second ago?” He finished pointing to where the kitchen doorway used to be. I swore under my breath and gathered everyone in the bedroom.
“Okay, so,” I started a little winded, “from now on we stick together until it’s time to hide otherwise we can easily get picked off, or lose each other.”
“Why don’t we just wait for the bastard who is doing this and just mess him up,” Krissie suggested, “because in horror movies that’s the number one issue no one tries to gang up on the killer till they are all dead.”
“I don’t think the killer is human that’s why.”I admitted, a little skeptical myself.
“What makes you say that?” Becca asked.
“Well judging by how quickly he was dragged up the stairs, and based on how big of a guy Pat was if a person were to drag him up the stairs it would take more than 30 seconds. Which is how long it took for all of us to group up in the entry way. Plus I saw the wounds inflicted on him and no normal person could have done that in the allotted time.”
“Alright but why can’t we just stay here then?” Dayna questioned.
“If a door disappears every ten minutes like the rules say then that would mean we would run out of doors eventually, and it also says that once a door is gone everything behind it disappears with so in theory we would all disappear.”
“Well since we are all in the same room, let’s open another door and see where it goes I don’t want to be here any longer than I need to be…” Jade sobbed as she got off her knees and made her way to a door at the far side of the bedroom. We all followed her, as she took a deep ragged breath and opened the door.
We were right back in the entry way… except it was laid out differently than before. The left door way was now a bedroom with only seven beds in it this time. The kitchen was now a large screened in porch with a swimming pool, and the stairs now only led to one door and next to it the poster.
I looked down at my watch. It was 9:50.
“Shit we only have a minute everybody, find somewhere to hide!” everyone ran their separate directions. I ran into the room that was once the bedroom and was now a study and hid underneath a desk. As soon as I was situated however I heard someone running up the stairs. It didn’t hit me right away till I heard a door open. I swore to myself about how stupid they were being, and could possibly have just gotten someone killed. But before I could dwell on the thought any longer I heard it again. The whispering only this time it was different almost like there were two. Five, four, three, two, one…
I don’t know why I did it, but I shouted as loud as I could so everyone could hear me, “Run!”
But it was too late. A second later I could hear Dayna scream followed by a loud crack and splash from the swimming pool. I sprinted out of the room to see right in the center of the entry way a large blood splatter mark, followed by a trail of blood to the pool. We were all in the door way when Felix walked out of the pool crying with Dayna in his arms. He collapsed to the ground holding her. From what I could see her whole face was caved in, which would explain the blood spot on the floor. Everyone else threw up, but I already had my traumatizing visual.
“What do we do now?” Jamal asked as he ran his hands through his hair in thought.
“We have to keep moving, so whatever it is that is doing this can’t catch us.”
“I was there,” Felix stammered, “I saw them. They took her from me! Her foot was poking out from under the bed and they grabbed her!”
“Them? Who is them Felix?” I asked putting my hand on his shoulder.
“It was Pat and another man…” he finished shaking his head in disbelief.
Everyone gasped including me. So that’s what the sign had meant by me/us. I looked down at my watch. 9:59pm, we had to get through a door and fast.
“Guys we have one minute we need to get through a door STAT!” I said taking Felix’s elbow, but he quickly shrugged me off.
“Felix let’s go!” Jamal pleaded through the doorway.
“I can’t go on without her,” He smiled sadly at us, “I love each and every one of you like family, but I must stay here with her.” Once every one left the room, I gave him a slight nudge on the shoulder.
“Catch you on the flip side brother.” I smiled weakly at him.
“No… you won’t.”
And just as I exited the room and turned to face him one last time, he was gone. I placed my hand where the door used to be and prayed that whatever had just happened to him it was fast and painless. I held in a sob, took a deep breath and turned to face the remaining four. Jamal was comforting Krissie, while Becca was kneeling down next to Jade who was now sitting and hugging her legs while rocking back and forth crying. I went to the settings on my phone and set a timer to go off every five minutes, one minute before we were supposed to be hiding and before a door would disappear.
“Get away from me,” Jade hissed at Becca, “How can you say something like that? Nothing is going to be ok! Pat and Dayna are dead not to mention that Felix just magically disappeared with her! Screw you guys, screw this house, screw this ‘game’, and…” she was cut off by the sound of my phone beeping.
“What is that for?” Jamal asked.
“I set it so we don’t get caught off guard when the time to hide comes,” I stated looking to my phone, “We need to hide now.”
“No,” Jade objected, “I told you guys I’m done with this stupid game! I am not hiding!”
Jamal reached for her arm but she instantly shrugged him off. We all started shouting at her telling her she was being unreasonable and that she needed to calm down. She just cursed at us and began to make her way to the study. As she did so however I began to hear the whispers again.
“Do you guys hear that?” I asked hoping it wasn’t just me.
“The whispers,” Becca pointed out, “yes I do.”
“Good it’s not just me,” Jamal chuckled before calling out to Jade, “Jade we don’t have time for this you need to hide!”
She stopped then in the entry way of the study and we sighed in relief that she finally came to her senses, but my relief was quickly replace with horror once the counting started.
“Pat,” She whispered loudly, “is that really you? Who is that with you?” She turned around and began to scream once they counted down to zero. She started to run toward us but as she made it half way down the hall way four figures shot out of the study, grabbed jade and drug her in by her ankles. We quickly sprinted down the hall and into the study only to find that she had been impaled on a knight statues spear, with hundreds of cuts covering her body. I swore loudly and smashed my hand on the studies desk living a large crack going through the center. I immediately regretted doing so however as my hand began to throb from the pain and began to swell. Becca put her hand on my shoulder to comfort me.
“You can make it through this Jay bear,” Becca crooned, “You’ve been through too much to let this defeat you.”
I immediately calmed down, but I couldn’t help but feel something off about Becca. She never used my nickname Jay bear, mostly because she knew I didn’t like it when my mother coddled and embarrassed me with it. Then again it helped to relax me a little.
“We should get moving.” Jamal suggested. We all nodded in agreement as we made our way to the new door in the study. We all took a deep breath before opening the next door.
We were now in a large ballroom. It kind of reminded me of the one in that Stephen King movie Rose Red, except the mirrors and such were all replaced by closed doors and there were four long rows of tables with fancy cloths and silverware laid out. There were six doors in total, but one was open and led to a large hallway, located at the very back of the room.
“Why couldn’t our prom have been here,” Jamal joked, “Oh wait, there is a creepy supernatural entity killing us off. If you ask me that would be a total buzz kill.”
Then, right on queue a banner fell down at the center of the room, which read:
NEW RULE!
Doors now disappear every two minutes!
Have fun!
“You have got to be kidding me!” Krissie screamed in protest.
I immediately added another alarm to my phone, and as I did so the door behind us disappeared. We needed to get moving.
“I say we go through the open door before it disappears,” Becca offered, “There seem to be more doors to choose from.”
“True,” I agreed, “but there is also less hiding spaces which would mean we would have to open another door in hopes of finding more, which could be risky.” As soon as I finished that thought the alarm went off. We all hugged each other and I whispered to hide under the tables and crawl our way to the front, and if they hear the countdown start, run for the open door.
Once we all were under the tables we slowly began to make our way to the far end of the room. Once I was half way I stopped as a foot came down fairly close to where I was now kneeling. I had to hold back from shouting Felix’s name as I could recognize his favorite pair of shoes anywhere. Idiot even wore them to prom. I was three quarters of the way there when I heard a loud thud under one of the tables, followed by the counting.
“Run!” I shouted as everyone got out from under the tables and began sprinting for the door. I made it to the door first, turning around to see the other three right behind me, and right behind them looking exactly as they did when they had died were our other four friends and another older looking gentleman I couldn’t exactly recognize, and there were sprinting… a lot faster than the living ones. I swore to myself as I thought quickly about what to do. I ran to the nearest door and got ready to open it as soon as everyone was through. Jamal and Becca made it through first but krissie had slipped just before the door way, and the other five were closing fast. Jamal quickly sprinted over to her, picked her up and threw her through the door way. He then turned to sprint but realized it was too late.
“Open the door James,” Jamal shouted, “I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of catching me!” I nodded and quickly opened the door I was holding, and an instant later the ballroom was gone.
“Jamal!” Krissie screamed, falling into Becca’s arms sobbing uncontrollably. Becca rocked her back and forth for a minute passing her fingers through her hair before turning to me.
“What do we do now?” Becca asked, looking teary eyed her-self.
“We have no choice but to move on.” I sighed. As Becca and I made our way through the door I had just opened I heard another door open up behind us. We both spun around to see Krissie opening up random doors.
“What the hell are you doing?” I seethed. She turned to face me with with a scowl.
“I’m ending this nightmare! Maybe if it’s just me left I will win the game! Then I can get out of this hell hole!”
Becca ran quickly to the door behind us and opened it but nothing happened.
“Don’t just stand there,” she beckoned, “we need to get rid of her before she gets rid of us!” I took her hand and began running through random bedrooms, kitchens, and bathrooms. I stopped after the twelfth floor, turning to see that the door we had just gone through had disappeared. I sighed in relief and wrapped my arms around Becca, kissing her on the forehead. We had barely just caught our breadth when my alarm started to go off once again. I clenched my jaw, knowing that no matter what happened this would probably be the last time I would see Becca.
“Becca I just want to let you know-,” she cut me off before I could say anything more, with a kiss and I kissed her back.
“We should probably start running.” She stated eyeing the only room in front of us.
“You make sure you stay as close to me as you possibly can, okay? That way none of us can get left behind.” She nodded and kissed me on the cheek.
“Let’s go.” She stated as the whispers began to count down once more. I took her hand and we took off to the nearest door way. Door after door, room after room we went , but they kept coming. Never stopping once, never letting up their pursuit. I could hear Becca starting to get winded and we slowed down to a jog.
“We can’t keep this up.” She uttered between breadths. As soon as she said that I opened the next door and… it was a dead end. We looked to be in the attic now, with the large rounded glass window. I turned to see the others only seconds behind us. I turned to the glass to see that it was full of cracks and seemed like it was ready to break. I turned to Becca.
“Do you trust me?” I called to her.
“Yes!” She shouted as she followed my gaze. I grabbed her, wrapping my arms around her head and waist, leaping backwards so that I could break her fall. If I had remembered correctly it was almost 3 stories. I could survive that I told myself. As soon as we broke through the window everything seemed to move in slow motion. I could see the glass around me light up like fire flies as the sun light shone through them. I could feel Becca’s tight grip around me, and behind her were 7 hands reaching out toward us. Just as we were about to hit the sunlight, I could feel her grip loosen around my waist. I Scream out as loud as I could, reaching for her, her reaching for me as I fell and she was dragged up through the window. A jolt went through my body and I could hear a loud crack as my head banged against the sidewalk. Immediately my vision began to blur. I could feel the warm stickiness of blood forming around my head. I looked up one last time to the attic window to see all eight of them staring down at me. I turned towards the sun and closed my eyes, and everything went white.
Literally something was so bright that all I could see was white, but as quickly as it came it was gone, and all I could see was a blur of figures moving around me and muffled noises of what seemed like people talking.
“James,” called a familiar voice, “James if you can hear me say something.”
“I can hear you just fine.” I muttered. A few people began to cry, and as my vision cleared I could see people hugging each other crying tears of joy. Where exactly was I?
“James I can see you are confused,” stated the voice I now recognized as Pat’s father, which was weird because he worked in a hospital. I am pretty sure there were no hospitals in heaven, “James you have been in a coma for a month now, how are you feeling?”
“Wait what,” I spat in disbelief, “How? Was it from my fall?” I asked. Everyone there just stared at me mostly with grief or sorrowful expressions.
“James there was no fall,” Pat’s father explained, “A month ago you were in a car accident. You were on your way to a friend’s house after prom. On your way a drunk driver was driving on the wrong side of the road and struck your limo head on.” He paused a moment to let it sink in and as he did so he pulled out photos of the wreckage. What I saw completely shocked and horrified me. I stared at the pictures in complete shock, and I could see it was equally as tough for Pat’s father as well. The first photo was of Pat who had been flung from the vehicle, snapping his neck on impact. His body was covered in cuts caused by flying through the windshield and sliding across the road. The next photo was of Dayna who was also flung from the car but her head was crushed as the limo rolled over her. The last photo was of Jade, who had been impaled by what looked the exhaust pipe of the vehicle, and she was also covered in cuts made by glass. I stared at the last photo in disbelief. The photos matched the wounds that had killed his friends in the house almost perfectly, but that didn’t explain what had happened to the rest of them.
“What happened to everyone else?” I asked reluctantly.
“Well after the car struck the limo, it caused it to flip on its side and roll tossing the first three and yourself from the vehicle,” Pat’s father began, “The vehicle then rolled off the side of the bridge you were all driving across. We were able to locate two bodies inside of the limo, which had fallen into a river. The other two remain missing in the river.”
“So who were the ones found in the vehicle?” I asked having a good idea of who they were, as I began to connect the dots.
“Felix and,” he hesitated a moment as he saw me begin to tear up, “Becca.”
I stifled a sob, and nodded that I was ready for the rest. He handed me a tablet with a video on the screen ready to play.
“This was recovered from the limo. It’s footage of what happened in the limo at the time of the accident.”
Everyone’s eyes were on me as I played the video, as I watched there was one part that hit me the hardest. As the limo was struck, I lunged straight for Becca, wrapping my arms around her just as I had done before jumping out the window. I watched though as we bounced around the vehicle a few times before I went out one of the windows, and Becca’s dress got caught on the glass dragging her back in. Then a few moments later the car jolted and the tape went black.
I asked everyone to leave to give me a moment to take it all in. As everyone left I cried. It all finally made sense. They say you hear things when you are in a coma, and all the weird things everyone had said to me made sense now. “It wasn’t my time”, Becca calling me Jay Bear, that was my mom talking to me. They also say when you’re in a coma you can get stuck in the in-between. Which would also explain some of the comments they made to me about making it through the night, and me already doing my best to protect Becca. It finally all made sense. I took a deep breath to calm myself down, and once the tears had stopped I opened my mouth to call out for everyone to come back into the room but was cut off… I turned in horror as my phone alarm went off signaling that it had been ten minutes. I was in my own room so that meant that there was only one door in the entire room. I had to check. I reached out grabbing the curtains around my bed, took a deep breath and flung them open.
Game over…?
|
It’s so easy to forget about what lies beneath the streets of the modern world. Towers that scrape the sky and estates that stretch on for miles, the urban sprawl we know so well. But a man who has seen what lies beneath the concrete can’t ever forget.
Sewers. The catacombs that snake through the underground. For every avenue there is a black tunnel that runs beneath it and for every house there is an allocated network of hidden pipes. Streets that bear no names. Only someone who has been there can truly appreciate the absolute and final darkness that inhabits this world below the world. Where the only sound one can be sure of is the flowing streams of waste where all manner of creatures not touched by the light fester and grow. This is the place where every footstep haunts the cavernous and silent halls and where every person subconsciously dreads to be, yet lives unknowingly above.
This is the place where I have worked for most of my life. The sewers of London were built in Victorian times, and the tunnels I spent my time in were well over one hundred and fifty years old. Built from a dull red brick and completely devoid of all modern comforts such as ceiling light bulbs. This was a subterranean world like no other, weaving shafts of stone built in arches, supporting pillars of the same brick dotted along the channels like sentinels guarding the ancient paths. The sewer was a network of smaller tunnels that all led off from the long and straight main shaft running underneath the centre of the city. This resulted in a labyrinth-like situation where one only had to make a wrong turn to be lost amongst the alleys and streets of the system. There were vertical pipes cut into the ceiling that led to the grates you see on the side of roads, put there to drain excess rainwater, but any light that attempted to enter through these was soon dispersed and beat back out of the sewers. This resulted, of course, in an almost pitch black environment as the only light present was the frightened white beam that struggled from the lamp on our hard-hats.
One of the company rules was that nobody could enter the sewers alone so I always did my rounds with a friend and colleague of mine, Oscar, or ‘Oz’ for short. For nine years me and Oz traversed the maze together, fixing leaks, directing waste flow and we became pretty good friends over this period. We drank together on weekends and regularly watched football games since we both had the same team. But the heaviness of the sewers made it hard to crack jokes or make decent conversation so most of our work was done in silence.
Silence was what predominantly made the sewers so unnerving. If you dropped a tool you would hold your breath as the metallic clang charged through the tunnels. You would look into the dark and half expect to see some unearthly fiend come crawling towards you, curious as to what had disturbed its quiet. But worse than this was hearing a sound you didn’t make. Over my time in the sewers, I always thought I could hear some kind of scuffling just behind the walls. Not like something was trying to claw its way out, but like it was moving around, just living. I always put these occurrences down to the silence playing tricks on me,but I could never shake the thought that there was more to the sewers than just an eerie feeling.
But how could I forget the smell. It never frightened me in the same way the darkness or silence did, but it was always there, the unmistakable stench of human waste clinging to you always. It made the air heavy and clogged your nostrils and throat.
However, the reason I write this is to document the occurrences of the fourteenth of June, year two thousand and fourteen.
Me and Oz were heading down into the sewers for the daily inspection. We had been down there for around three hours when we came across a damaged wall, a few turns off the main tunnel, along a minor shaft. The section of the wall had fallen in, almost as if it had been pushed from the outside, not a particularly strange occurrence since sections of the walls were always crumbling apart. The bricks had fallen but remained intact so I thought it would be an easy fix. I sent Oz away to the closest store room to return with some cement filler to reseal the wall with. I began to stack the bricks back into the hole, staring at the void behind. There seemed to be quite a large space there, which was unexpected since I had always believed that it was solid earth behind these walls, but I disregarded it as a small enclave in the rock and continued piling the bricks. But I could not disregard what happened next. I heard the scuffling again. Just a small scraping sound resonating from inside the void. I put down the bricks and listened. It lasted for about thirty seconds and then stopped. I was motionless and the air seemed to press down on me. Slowly, I built back my confidence and began once again to carefully stack the bricks, the knocking of the stones was a whimper that cut the atmosphere.
At this point in time, two things happened. Firstly I saw something. It was undeniably a face, it lifted its head from behind the wall and stared through the hole face to face with me, it made a sound, shuddering noises that sounded like a foreign language, but spoken in a way completely unlike any voice I’d heard. Next, my light cut out. I jerked backwards, fumbling for my spare batteries in utter darkness. Images of the creature raced through my mind. It was not a face unlike a human, the same size and shape. But it was bald and lacked any sort of eyebrows. Its skin was pulled taunt on its cheekbones and it was pale. Not pale as in the snowy white pale but as in monochrome grey, bordering on a sickly purple, almost translucent in its lack of colour, laced with dark veins. But its eyes were what caused me to panic. Small and pale they were, lacking any distinguishable pupils and filled with an empty and frightening aura.
The scuffling was back, but now, it was more like a heavy thumping. It came from all around me like a thousand of the creatures were beating their spindly hands against the brick. I abandoned my search for the batteries and instead ran backs though the shaft, sticking close to the damp wall. I turned the first corner and was blinded by the light atop Oscar’s helmet. He had come back from his journey to the storeroom when he had heard the pounding, which was now resonating from behind me, smashing the silence like a hammer against the anvil. I knew well that the exit we always took was down past the hole yet the thought of going back that way was too much to bear with only one lamp. I checked my pack only to find it gone, loosened from my belt when I had fallen at the hole most probably. Oz was staring wide eyed at the passage behind me and when I turned I could see why.
The creature must have attracted attention because the passage was filled with them, crawling and shambling towards us. By the light of Oz’s torch we could see them clearly. They were human sized and all looked very much the same, Lanky limbs and pale skin with those small eyes piercing the gloom.
I felt sick at the sight of them, but there was no hesitation. We both turned and went quickly towards the main tunnel, which we knew would eventually lead us towards an exit if we followed the waste flow upstream. In the glances he stole backwards I could see that Oz had wide eyes, his shallow breathing drowned out by our footsteps. On we went, pursued by the beings now whaling and screaming their protest at our presence. I was now breathing rapidly too as I followed Oz, leading the way with his torch, rambling under his breath as he went, swearing and trying to think about what sort of animal these things could be.
But we both know these were no animals.
We continued down the passage, blackness behind me and a feeble, dying light ahead. We dare not run, not wanting to provoke the creatures into a full speed chase. By this point, we had been working down in the tunnels for what must have been just under four hours. The life of a cell powering a high wattage headlamp was only about three and a half. The torch began dimming rapidly as we quickened our pace. It finally guttered out and all light was gone from our world. The blackness seemed to amplify the sounds coming from behind us, the ensemble in our pursuit was still there. With no time for a battery change Oz decided to take out his ‘Zippo’ lighter. Open flames were not permitted in the sewers due to volatile gases such as methane being potentially present. But a gas explosion would be a welcome relief from our current situation. With a flickering lighter to guide us we continued to move along the arched tunnel. A stolen glance behind me revealed the direness of our predicament as I was met with an army of small, white eyes, still steadily pacing after us.
Oz stopped. I ground to a halt and was met with a horrifying sight. Red bricks barred our way as a dead end presented itself. We had taken a wrong turn somewhere down the line, veered off into one of the many shafts on the left or right from the main tunnel. I turned, my back to the wall. The eyes came closer, but slowed and eventually stopped. Just outside of the lighters glow they stood, both of us staring each other down. I shuddered, ragged breaths escaping me as I wondered what would come next.
One came forward. It shambled toward us and stopped about three feet away, the firelight illuminating its features. It looked almost extraterrestrial in this view, a taller version of the classic little green man, with smaller eyes. A horror cliché in hindsight, but trust me when I say it isn’t any less terrifying in reality.
It looked me up and down. Deliberately perusing my white hard-hat, down to my steel capped boots. Searching me. It continued for what seemed an eternity as I pressed close to the wall my breathing shallow and ragged. It stopped and turned. Slowly walking back into the darkness from where it came. The others followed it back into the gloom. Leaving the lighter’s aura and entering the unknown blackness before us.
Me and Oz just stood for a while, not knowing whether to believe what we had seen or not. Eventually we came to and mutually decided it would be best for a fast battery change in Oz’s headlamp. We both agreed that getting out of the sewers was our next move, fleeing this place as quick as we could back toward the daylight and clean air. But leaving the tunnels would mean walking past the hole, towards the exit steps.
My chest tightens at the thought of encountering the fiends again. Obviously these were not malicious or violent beings, if they had wanted to harm us they could of done so already. So what made them so frightening? And what caused them to chase us as they did? I could not tell you, nor could Oz. Simply knowing that these things exist was what scared me. Were they some sort of undiscovered primates who lurked underground? Maybe some evolutionary offshoot of humans, adapted to dwell in the subterranean gloom, or perhaps, most disturbing of all, they were humans. Men or women somehow drawn into the dark, hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. Breeding and mutating until they lost all recollection of the outside. We didn’t know what they were or whether they would hurt us or not, but we certainly did not want to encounter them again.
I searched my mind, trying to think of another exit, but we had only ever used this one, if there was an emergency exit of sorts, it was lost to both of our memories and neither of us was risking getting lost. The only way out was the way we came.
Oz goes ahead, he has the light. I brandish a wrench in my right hand whilst he grips tightly to some piping, feeble weapons if the creatures decide to attack, but better than our fists. The walk back reveals how far the things had chased us, and both of us become weary at where we are exactly. We keep walking back through the tunnels, trying our best to retrace our steps. The air around us seems to stink worse than usual and every footstep seems to reveal our new position to all throughout the caverns. I swear that I can hear the scuffling not only in the walls, but behind and in front of us, little scratches that sound like nails being scraped against the brick wall and soft padding sounds that could only be the footfalls of someone bare footed. I look down at the cement floor, it is the usual dull grey although now it is spotted with dark marks in the shape of footsteps, abnormally long toes stretched out and bent as they ran. We picked up the pace.
We eventually arrive at the hole, gaping out into beyond, the bricks I had stacked had fallen back down, presumably due to the creatures all climbing out and spilling out into the tunnels. I shudder at the imagery. Were they back in there? Could they be staring back right now? I drop my gaze and turn back to Oz. He is not there. Oz hadn’t noticed me stop and kept walking, he was now around fifteen metres down the shaft, a small flickering orb of light. And I was in the darkness. This is when it happened, if I had just kept walking, suppressed curiosity and not stared into the void perhaps it wouldn’t have.
I feel a rush of air from the hole and a spindly pale shape bolts out of the black, the outstretched nails raking my arm, fingernails rip though my overalls and pierce my skin. I jerk away and swivel my head toward the hole, surely enough the same haunting eyes as before meet my gaze. I bolt down the tunnel after Oz, hearing the creatures dive and crawl through the wall after me, screaming louder now, angered that I dare disturb them again. I do not look backwards, the sounds of slapping feet fuelling me towards the light in front. When I come up on Oz I shout to him telling him to run, he turns to look backwards but is met with my force as I shove him on. We both sprint for the exit doors and Oz barges through them.
Up now, dim electric lights illuminate the stairs casting a grey film across the scene. My legs begin to ache as we round yet another flight but the noises below have not ceased so I cannot either. Finally we reach the summit, and we know to turn left immediately, through more doors and up a final flight of stairs.
We stand in the street now, a narrow alleyway joining two larger roads. The sun is just rising which creates an eerie not quite night yet not day either feeling, as if we were in some sort of limbo. I glance behind. The creatures burst through the doors and charge up the stairs. I stumble backwards and fall as they reach the top.
Oz is trying to get me up again and I watch like a spectator in a theater. As the creatures come out of the darkness they squeal at the now emerging sun. They disperse immediately, some fly back down towards the gloom whilst other dash for the shadows on the street. Some climb up the metal staircase and shelter amongst the gloom at the top whilst others disappear across the buildings roof, but they all melt away, slipping into darkness wherever they find it. This is where I black out, my arm bleeding profoundly and my head spinning.
I awoke in a hospital bed. They tell me I have flu like symptoms but they can’t say what is causing them. My arm is in a bandage and I’m told the wound is bad, congealed and black like someone had burnt me whilst slicing it open. I type this now from my hospital air bed, I grow sicker everyday and my arm is coated in searing pain day and night. I am sure the creature did this to me, positive but I dare not tell the doctors, I’ll make up some story when the time comes.
I have not seen Oz since the event.
But what haunts me most is that the creatures are now on top as well as below. Sure, they can only come out on the darkest of nights but this is still a disconcerting thought. Believe me or don’t believe me I do not care, but I’ve plumbed this whole city and I know what I saw.
Credit To – D Jones
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E-mail from: Ian Koros, Contributor, Scientific Fringe Magazine
To: Michael Wyzeki, Editor-in-Chief
Mike,
Several weeks ago, I was presented with a bizarre account I believe you’ll find worthwhile.
A friend of mine first found it. You know those spam e-mails, the ones that sometimes make their way into your inbox? For erectile dysfunction pills, diet supplements, et cetera? Anyways, this friend of mine clicked on the link attached to one of those by accident.
But instead of an advertisement for an erectile dysfunction pill or diet supplement, this one lead to a personal blog kept by a young woman. A girl named Ariana Gomez, apparently. I’ve tried to find this Ariana Gomez on Facebook and Instagram, but so far have had no luck.
My friend forwarded it to me, and I printed out the blog entries. It was a good thing I did, because the link no longer works. I got an error message the second time I clicked on it. And a pretty nasty virus, I should add.
Neither of us could find the picture of the monkey that Ariana Gomez refers to.
Below is the account in its entirety, which I retyped word-for-word from my printout. As to authenticity, you are free to judge for yourself.
Sincerely,
– Ian
*****
Blog entry: September 1st, 2014
Okay. Hi. I’m the girl who put up the picture of the stuffed monkey. You know the one. Squat, squarish torso. Long thin arms; skinny little legs that would never support that bulky, squarish body. Round head with two little ears on top. Purple, with puke-green details and a big pink circle on what’s supposed to be its belly. Red eyes and nose, no mouth. Not sure what’s up with the mouth.
Here’s how it is: this monkey is haunting me. This little cartoon character – the Shredder Monkey, he’s called – has appeared in my life on two completely different incidents, yet has absolutely no presence in pop culture. And then there was that singularly disturbing incident at work with the old man with dementia, and what he said …
Anyways. Lemme start at the beginning.
It was fourteen years ago. I was eight. My aunt and uncle had a timeshare by Lake Tahoe. Every summer, my whole extended family would drive out there for a couple weeks to swim, water ski, barbecue – you know, escape the commute and the suburbs, fun in the sun.
Since other people used the house as well, my dad liked getting an extra day off work and driving out early, just to make sure the place was livable – nothing broken or rotting, no beer bottles or used condoms or dead hookers lying around.
That year, to ease my middle-of-summer boredom, I decided to tag along with him.
So we took off in my dad’s Civic for the eight-hour drive, through an early-summer storm. At some point, I fell asleep in the back seat, lulled by the sound of rain against the window. When I woke up, we were parked outside of a dilapidated gas station.
I opened the door and climbed out. I didn’t recognize the area at all. The rain had stopped; it was warm, and the sky was bright blue and cloudless. The gas station had four pumps and one tiny shack that functioned as a snack shop. There was nothing but fields of tall, yellow grass on all sides.
The snack shop (or whatever it was) looked as though it had been standing since World War II. It was a little place, with walls of rusted sheet metal and one wood and mesh door. No windows. Just three blackened, indecipherable neon signs. My dad stood outside the car, pumping gas. He gave me five dollars to buy food.
The inside of the sheet metal shop was scarcely in better condition than the outside. The fluorescent lights were dim, and dust hung in the air. The white-tile floor was stained and peeling. Two old refrigerators rested against the back wall, stocked with soda and beer. A variety of cigarettes and tins of chewing tobacco were displayed behind the front counter. And there were several shelves dedicated to snack food. Candy, chips, beef jerky, plus more substantial stuff – cans of beans, string cheese (I stayed away), tuna, condensed milk, cereal. All coated in a healthy cover of dust.
I looked around, and realized that I didn’t recognize any of the brands.
A couple examples: CHALK chocolate (at least, I assumed it was chocolate). Something resembling a Snickers bar in a pastel purple wrapper with bright blue lettering. I had no idea what was in it, because the nutrition facts and description of the product were all written in a strange language that resembled Chinese characters mixed with Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
Then, there was some brownish substance in long, skinny plastic packaging. I guessed you tore open one end and squeezed the contents into your mouth, sort of like go-gurt. I didn’t know for sure, however, because the label was in another bizarre written language. Though not the same one. The CHALK characters featured straight lines and triangles, while this writing was squiggly.
Okay.
A little freaked out, I was about to leave. Then I glanced at the cereal display, and noticed one box had English writing on it. SHREDDER SHOCKS. The box was yellow, and the words were red comic-sans. Kid’s cereal. The picture on the front was of a bowl filled with milk and what looked like shredded wheat squares and pastel marshmallows. The marshmallows were in the shape of purple monkeys. On the back were the obligatory kids’ cereal box games, hosted by a large picture of a cartoon monkey in a bamboo (huh?) tree.
You guessed it. Purple, with puke-green paws and circles around its red eyes, big pink circle on its belly. Square body, long arms, proportionately-incorrect legs. No mouth.
There was a circle-shaped maze, and text telling you to “help the shredder monkey find his way to the oasis.” At the upper right corner of the box, the other end of the maze, was a picture of a little cartoon pond, complete with happy-looking fish poking their heads out. Also, there was a word search, with words like “monkey,” “jungle,” “adventure”… you can guess at the rest.
As I examined the colorful box of cereal, I heard a shuffling that could have been footsteps in the next aisle over. Thinking it was my dad, I went to look. But no one was there. Then, there was a “whoosh” and a SLAM!
The mesh door was swinging. There didn’t appear to be anyone behind it, and I was alone. Weird. The wind, I guessed. I took it as a hint that I needed to get out of there as soon as possible.
I was hungry, and extremely untrusting of the inexplicably-labeled foodstuffs I’d seen, so I decided to take my chance with the Shredder Shocks. I grabbed the box, went up to the counter, and paid the cashier. I don’t exactly remember what the guy looked like. I think the cash register he used was a manual one. I exited the store with my snack, climbed back in the car, and a minute later my dad and I were back on the road to Tahoe.
The cereal was pretty good. Kinda like Lucky Charms and Shredded Wheat Thins mixed together. I ate handfuls until I was bored of it, then amused myself with the games on the back. Which were uncharacteristically hard.
I mean, you guys all remember the word searches and mazes on the back of cereal when you were a kid. They’re made for kindergarteners. Kindergarteners with IQ’s approaching two digits. But this maze I couldn’t solve. I must have tried for half an hour. It was weird; I could see the entrance, I could see the exit. There was a clear path leading to and from each, but the paths didn’t connect.
And the word search was utterly impossible. I decided it must be a misprint. I tried to work it out on a blank sheet of paper in the back of the Goosebumps book I was reading, but all I found was the same patterns of letters, repeated over and over again.
GARD
NWODR
EH
Confused and frustrated, I tossed the box and my book aside and curled up for a nap. When I awoke, we were in Tahoe. At some point while I was asleep, the blue sky had clouded over. Distracted by the bustle of moving stuff through the puddles into the house, cleaning up, and picking out my room, I forgot all about the cereal box. Nor did I think about it at all once my mom and my brother Jose and my cousins showed up, nor while we were swimming or barbecuing or camping. And, two weeks later, when we drove home, the box was no longer in my dad’s car.
On the way home, we didn’t pass the strange, dilapidated gas station.
Fast forward nine years.
It’s 2009, I’m seventeen. A senior in high school. I’m at a toy store in the mall, looking for a first birthday present for my cousin’s baby.
As any parent (or aunt or older sister) knows, walking through the stuffed animal aisle in of a chain toy store is a little bit like walking through Disneyland while tripping on acid. Lots of colors, lots of cute, a little terrifying. I was between Pokemon and Pillow Pets when I saw it fall and land right in my path.
It was a stuffed monkey. A purple and pink and green stuffed monkey, with a bulky square body and dangly little legs. Red eyes, red nose, no mouth.
I picked the little guy up. I had no idea where he’d fallen from, and I couldn’t find any others that looked like him. Confused, I flagged down an employee.
“That’s strange,” she said. “I’ve never this stuffed animal before. I don’t think he’s one of the ones we carry, maybe some kid left him behind.”
She ended up letting me have him for free. I don’t know how she would have charged me otherwise; he didn’t have any tags. So I took the stuffed monkey home and kept him in my room. The Shredder Monkey, it had to be. The same monkey as on that bizarre box of cereal I’d bought from that bizarre gas station nine years before. That bizarre cereal I’d never found again.
I’d looked for Shredder Shocks every week at the local Vons, where I shopped with my mom. They never had it in stock, and none of the clerks I asked had ever heard of the product. And when I Google’d Shredder Shocks, I came up with nothing but dune buggies, RC cars, and some episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
No big loss. The cereal hadn’t been that good. I’d looked for some of the other products I’d seen at that convenience store as well, and found similarly useless results. I’d come to assume that dilapidated gas station only sold poorly-made local merchandise, or brands that had been discontinued.
But, all of a sudden, the Shredder Monkey was back in my life.
I wasn’t scared of it, at least not yet. I showed the stuffed monkey to some of my friends, and then to my little cousins’ friends. No one had ever seen a toy like it, nor witnessed any version of the Shredder Monkey on cereal boxes or cartoon shows or anywhere on the internet. As far as pop culture was concerned, he didn’t exist.
Now, fast forward five more years. To this year. Three days ago.
I work for a small ambulance company out of Glendora. I graduated from Citrus College with my AA, but wanted to take some time off in order to earn money and focus on getting into a good BSN program. Life as an EMT with an inter-facility transport company is pretty easy; 90% of the job is driving bed-ridden, confused old people to and from dialysis.
That night, at around 19:00, my partner Ben Cisneros and I were dispatched to San Gabriel Kidney Center to pick up Henry Gaffigan and take him home to Sunshine Convalescent, a delightful little one-star facility where there’s regularly human feces smeared on the floor. We’d been on since 8:00 that morning and were both starting to drag, but you can’t argue with overtime. So we got there, got the guy on the gurney, and loaded him into the rig when Cisneros realized he’d left our oxygen bag inside. He ran back to get it, leaving me alone in the passenger compartment with Produce Aisle Henry.
A little about Henry Gaffigan.
Henry’s 96 years old and weighs around 90 pounds. He’s got a laundry list of chronic diseases, ranging from anemia to CHF to Parkinson’s disease. Mentally, he’s what we call a/o times 0, which means he can’t tell you his name, where he is, what day of the week it is, or what’s going on. Actually, he can’t talk at all; mostly he just stares at you. His atrophied legs are contracted, his right arm is contracted, and his left arm is ragdoll-limp thanks to his second stroke two years ago. His back is so stiff you can’t even prop him up in a wheelchair. He’s on continuous oxygen and, after dialysis, his BP drops so low that twice we’ve had to call 911 from the Kidney Center.
“Hey, Hank,” I said to him cheerfully. “I’m gonna take your blood pressure real quick, okay?”
He stared at me.
I wrapped our manual blood pressure cuff around his left arm. The dialysis machine had given me a fairly healthy 112/54, but those things love reading high. I put on my stethoscope and distracted myself fiddling with the earpieces. Then I heard the whispering.
“New… od…”
I dropped the stethoscope. No way. But his lips were moving again.
“New… Odor… Eigh..”
The utterance was a gravelly whisper, drawn from atrophied vocal chords unused for God knows how long.
“New…Odor…Eigh…Guard…”
I stared at him, mouth gaping. Henry Gaffigan was non-verbal. We’d taken him to dialysis for three years, he hadn’t uttered a word in all that time.
“Mr. Gaffigan!” I said excitedly. “Can you tell me what your name is?”
Then he sat up.
I wouldn’t even call it “sitting.” It’s more like his body folded at the hips like a hinge. He didn’t support himself with his hands, and his back didn’t arch at all. He just sat straight up, like Dracula out of his coffin in the old black-and-white movies. The nasal cannula attached to his face grew taut, then was pulled from the house nozzle.
Like a puppet’s, his head twisted towards me.
“NEW! ODOR! EIGH! GUARD!” he roared.
His voice was mechanical. Metallic. Like the voice your friend’s voice morphs into when she yells into a steel pipe. And the scariest part was that the jibberish words didn’t seem to be coming from Mr. Gaffigan’s mouth, but from all around me, down from the sky and up from the ground and right in front of my face, all at the same time.
I screamed. In one desperate motion I opened the back door and jumped out of the ambulance, stumbling as I hit the asphalt and nearly falling onto my partner. He was back with the oxygen. As I steadied myself, he frowned at me.
“You okay, Gomez?”
“Mr. Gaffigan… he… he said stuff!” I panted. “Did you… did you hear?”
He gave me a strange look, then climbed into the rig to secure the oxygen bag. He stayed in there a minute, and I heard him repeating Mr. Gaffigan’s name, trying to get his attention. Then, he leaned out the door.
“You sure?” he asked suspiciously. “He looks about normal to me. But you forgot to put him on O2.”
Bracing myself, I climbed into the back with him. Mr. Gaffigan lay motionless on the gurney, exactly how we’d positioned him. The blood pressure cuff still dangled from his left arm. His nasal cannula hung at his side, detached.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared shitless at that point. I let my partner tend to Henry Gaffigan while I drove to the convalescent home, and the old man didn’t do anything else out of the ordinary. He was confused, silent, and quadriplegic, just like every transport before. Was I going crazy? I knew what I’d heard. What I’d seen.
And those words… that jibberish. It wasn’t completely unfamiliar.
As soon as I got home, I wrote down phonetically the syllables Mr. Gaffigan had uttered. (Chanted? Screamed?) It was easy; the terrifying sound was unforgettable.
New, odor, eigh, guard.
I puzzled over it. I repeated the words in my mind, then out loud, over and over again. I allowed them to blend together, gain meaning, lose all meaning. And then I got it.
I still live with my parents. Convenience, mostly; work’s close and they don’t charge me rent. And my parents have a frustrating habit of keeping everything – all my elementary school projects, high school textbooks, and childhood playthings live in moldy cardboard boxes in the attic. Which is where I spent that night, digging through said moldy boxes, until I found the one in which my brother Jose’s and my old books were stacked. Bunnicula, Baby Sitter’s Club, Harry Potter, Beverly Cleary… Goosebumps. Goosebumps number 3, 15, 23, 12, 7, 36…
Bingo. Goosebumps number 9. The book I’d been reading on that long drive to Tahoe, 14 years before. I pawed through the sticky pages until I found the blank one on which I’d written:
GARD NWODR EH
I took the book back to my bedroom, rearranged the words on a sheet of notebook paper, and compared them to the word salad Mr. Gaffigan had spouted.
Nwodr Eh Gard
New. Odor. Eigh. Guard.
What the fuck.
Maybe I am going crazy. Because I’m thinking a confused dialysis patient – a nearly-comatose dialysis patient who doesn’t know his own name – recited to me the meaningless syllables I found in a word search on the back of an obscure cereal box fourteen years ago. A box containing cereal that has, apparently, never existed anywhere except for that dilapidated gas station snack shop.
And that voice. That hollow, metallic voice. Booming from all around me, yet inaudible to my partner, no more than 20 feet away.
I looked up. My eyes rested on the stuffed animal that sat, amongst old dolls and beanie babies, atop my bookcase. The squarish, purple stuffed monkey with green paws and a pink belly. Long thin arms, skinny little legs. Round head, red eyes and nose.
And, even though it had no mouth, I could swear the thing was laughing at me.
Blog Entry: September 9th, 2014
Henry Gaffigan is dead.
Cisneros and I hadn’t been sent for him since the night he spoke, and I was thankful for that. Until yesterday. We were supposed to take him from Sunshine Convalescent to San Gabriel Kidney Center; as soon as his name appeared on our pager, my blood turned to ice. I’m pretty sure I was physically shaking as we walked through the door, but we didn’t even get to his room before one of the snotty, normally inattentive nurses caught us. Mr. Gaffigan passed last night. For no apparent reason, his blood pressure dropped, and his family had a DNR order in place.
Normally, I wouldn’t have found this revelation particularly shocking. He was old and sick, and Sunshine has a reputation for handing out the wrong meds. But Cisneros had to use the restroom, leaving me outside what had been Henry Gaffigan’s room. Not thinking, I looked through the little window in the door, directly at the wall beside what had been Henry Gaffigan’s bed. There were little pictures on the wall, done in black ink.
“I think it was the roommate,” the nurse told me. “Mr. Gaffigan definitely didn’t have the motor skills for art.”
But I wasn’t so sure.
Because I’d seen that arrangement of straight lines and triangles before. Long ago. On that strange CHALK chocolate bar.
What the fuck, guys? What’s going on?
Blog Entry: September 12th, 2014
Woke up at noon today. My mom said she’d called my boss and told him I was sick; I looked like I needed the sleep. She probably had a point. I haven’t been sleeping well the last week or so. Not since Henry Gaffigan spoke to me, and especially not since he died.
I keep on having this same dream, over and over again. I’m running through a maze and, whenever I think I’ve found the way out, I hit a wall and have to start over again. Except the walls aren’t really walls; they’re invisible, and I can’t touch them. But somehow, I know when I can’t go any farther. The only thing I can see is a dry, golden field, extending infinitely in all directions. Above my head, the sky is sunny and cloudless. I think it’s warm there.
So I run around, following these invisible passageways, and I’m nervous because I know someone is following me. I can’t see them. But I hear whispering, high-pitched and singsongy, like one of those recorders I used to play in third-grade music class. I can’t quite make out what’s being whispered. It might not even be English, or Spanish, or any other language I’ve ever heard. And sometimes that pipe-ish whispering is accompanied by a rustling in the grass, like the footsteps of a cat. I whirl around, but the whispering and footsteps automatically cease, and I’m staring at dead air.
Last night, I felt something reaching for me, jostling my hair. It couldn’t have been the wind, because the grass in front of me didn’t move.
Filled with an indescribable sense of dread, I ran faster. The footsteps behind me grew louder, loud enough for me to notice their three-beat, waltz-like rhythm. And the whispering became a hum, then a melody, and finally an entire wind section – the urgent, cascading notes echoing off the invisible walls around me. And something clasped my shoulder.
Something spindly, grey, scaly, tough, and covered with coarse black hairs.
But, when I whirled around to face the owner of that horrific appendage, I saw nothing but dirty white-and-grey bumps. My stucco ceiling, streaked by the light of the midday sun.
Blog entry: September 17th, 2014
I think I’m going crazy. That must be it; I haven’t had nightmares since I was a little kid but, all of a sudden, I’m waking up dizzy and nauseous from an impossibly lucid dream.
Right after I wrote my last blog entry, I drove to CVS and picked up a box of sleeping pills. When I was in kindergarten and woke up screaming, crying, and puking four times a week, and my mom told me she solved the problem by giving me a spoonful of cough syrup before bed. Apparently she’d gone about things the right way; one pill made me sleep like a baby. Until last night. I had the box on my nightstand, but I wanted to stay up a bit to finish Section 3 of the UC Irvine online application.
Next thing I knew, it was the morning. I’d woken up and showered, and was walking from my car to the station. I mean, I assumed I’d woken up and showered and drove to work, because there I was, on the sidewalk and in my uniform. I opened the door and walked past the dispatch booth to grab my time card, and the dispatcher – a chick named Mary – gasped.
“Gomez!” she cried. “What are you… how did you…”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, interrupting her babbling. “I start at eight. Did Langdon change the schedule again without telling me?”
“But…” Mary stammered, “but… you don’t work here. The police said… why are you out of jail?”
Jail? Huh? Mary’s always been a little ditzy, but her shock and confusion were sincere.
“Are you smoking something?” I laughed. “I was here yesterday.”
But apparently, Mary wasn’t trying to be funny. In one fluid movement, she shut and locked the door to the dispatch booth. Through the thin walls, I could hear her dialing a number on her phone. Thoroughly mystified, I checked the printed copy of the schedule that Langdon, my supervisor, always tapes up on the wall.
08:00 – 16:00, Unit 51: Cisneros, Green.
Heartbeat quickening, I scanned the numbers and names. The date was correct: September 17th, 2014. But there were some definite differences between this schedule and the one I glanced over yesterday. I didn’t recognize some of the names – Jardiel? O’Rourke? Lang? – and a few names were missing. Including mine.
“Gomez?”
I turned around. Cisneros was standing behind me. Except, he looked different. He was sporting a neat goatee and moustache, his longish black hair pulled back in a knobby ponytail. Yesterday, he was clean-shaven with a buzz cut.
“Gomez… Ari… what the fuck?” He, like Mary, was looking me as though I’d sprouted another head.
“What’s going on?” I demanded, my voice trembling. “Why am I not on the schedule?”
“Um…” he frowned, taking a step back. “Ari, I miss you and all, but I don’t think Langdon’s going to give you your job back. How are you even here? I mean, the newspaper said you were going away for eight years.”
“Eight years? What newspaper? What the fuck is going on?”
Cisneros took another step back. The front door opened, and I heard heavy footsteps. Charlie Green – all six foot four of him – stepped out of the hallway. There was a scream from the dispatch booth, and Mary came charging out, wide-eyed and hysterical.
“Grab her!” she screamed to the guys. “Lock her in the office!”
Before I knew what was happening, she was clasping my wrists behind my back. Cisneros froze. Green barreled towards me, shoving Cisneros out of the way, and then I was looking at the world upside down and backwards as he picked me up, swung me over his shoulder and dropped me unceremoniously on the floor of Langdon’s office. He slammed the door, and I heard the lock click.
I stood up and lunged for the phone on Langdon’s desk, desperate to contact my parents or Jose or my best friend or anyone else who could explain the discrepancy between the world I’d fallen asleep in and the one I’d woken up to. Then I saw a newspaper headline, popping out from under a pile of billing printouts. It was an article cut out of the Los Angeles Times, dated August 20th.
“Former EMT Sentenced to Eight Years for Drunk Driving Death.”
Yesterday (the article stated), Ariana Gomez, 22, of Duarte was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to vehicular manslaughter.
It went on to describe her crime – on January 5th, 2014, at 12:45am, she’d made a right turn through a red light at the intersection of Foothill and Rosemead in Pasadena, on the way to the freeway, heading home after attending a house party. She’d struck a bicyclist – Adam Yen, 20, of Arcadia – killing him instantly. Her blood alcohol level was 0.14, nearly twice the legal limit.
I read the article twice, and then I lost my restraint, and then I screamed and screamed until my throat burned and my knees buckled, and I fell back onto Langdon’s chair and missed. I fell down, down… the world spun… then blackness… then the sound of the door opening, and Green’s voice…
“Where the fuck did she go?”
And then I was staring up at stucco peaks and valleys, eyes burning. My bedside lamp was on, and my laptop was open on my pillow. I rolled over and checked the time. 6:18. Twelve minutes until my alarm went off. My right arm ached, and my head throbbed. I turned to the side and puked all over the floor. I swung my legs over the side of my bed and tried to stand, but as soon as I shifted my balance the room began to spin, and then I was staring at the stucco again, drenched in cool sweat, too weak to move.
I don’t know what’s going on. That was the weirdest dream I’ve ever had in my life. I mean, it didn’t even feel like a dream. I was at the station. I was talking to my partner. I could feel Mary’s hands on me. And the lucidity of it all wasn’t even the strangest part.
I had been at a party in Pasadena on January 4th, my friend Caitlyn’s birthday. And I had thrown back a few PBRs, but I could talk straight and walk a line and thought I was okay to drive home around midnight.
But I hadn’t driven home.
I’d had second thoughts. I’d taken off my shoes and fallen asleep on Caitlyn’s couch, then woke up nine hours later with drool running down my chin and Jenny Wong’s ex-boyfriend passed out on my shoulder.
I lay there, on my back on the rug, for the better part of an hour before I had the strength to drag myself into bed. I had to call out of work again, and I’m pretty sure I copped as much of an attitude as I could manage with Mary, who answered the phone.
Hours later, in the shower, I noticed a dark purple bruise on my right shoulder that wasn’t there yesterday. Exactly the sort of bruise I’d have expected if Charlie Green had dropped me on the floor, like he did in my dream.
Blog entry: September 18th, 2014
I’m going crazy. I’m going crazy. The sleeping pills aren’t working anymore. I was back in the maze again last night, blue sky above me and golden field extending in all directions. I was running. This was the right path, I could feel it. I could find my way out of the maze, escape the thing chasing me, and then… I don’t know. Find the highway? Hitch-hike? In my dream, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
But I kept running, in the moment sure my life depended on it. And then I heard the whispers again. The same melodic piping, but it was different today – doleful, haunting. I stopped, and surveyed the area around me. And I noticed I was not alone. In the distance I saw a grayish form, moving slowly though the grass.
Whoever – or whatever – had joined me in my mysterious labyrinth was at least a few hundred yards away, I could not tell whether I was looking at a human or an animal or some sort of machine. The same doleful motif was repeated and, this time, I recognized the gray silhouette as its source.
I ran, down the same path that I sensed would lead me to freedom. My lungs ached, my legs numbed, I could feel sweat beads rolling down my face and neck. Then I glanced to my left, and saw something that nearly stopped my heart, drove me to stumble and fall to my knees in the dead grass.
It was a small shack, square and flat-roofed, covered in rusted sheet metal. No windows, just one wood-and-mesh door. Several burned-out neon signs.
And, standing in front of the building was the most disturbing, hideous sight I have ever seen. Breathing. Staring at me with bulbous marble eyes. Yelling strange words to me in its shrill, woodwind voice.
Its body was grey and cylindrical, about three feet high, covered in dry, leathery hide dotted with bulging, pus-filled blisters and disparate clumps of coarse black hair. At its base was a tangled network of tentacles, writhing and twisting, glistening, coated with a whitish slime. Extending from its midsection were three appendages, dry and cracking like tree roots, bending at the middle and culminating in a warty ball with five spindly, scaled appendages, covered in sickly black protuberances and tufts of hair. And topping the cylindrical trunk was what appeared to be a clear sac filled with opaque black liquid, bulging and then extending, reshaping itself like a stress ball. Attached to this water-balloon head (head?) were three pure white spheres, unblinking, emotionless, but inarguably fixed on me.
I think I screamed. I attempted to climb to my feet but found myself drained of all strength, and fell backwards, supine in the grass. I could feel the coarse stalks scratching my arms as I collapsed, seeing nothing but blue. And then I felt myself spinning around, still falling, down through the grass and deeper and deeper into the earth, the grey creature’s drilling, flute-like cries pounding in my ears.
The last thing I remember was something staring down at me. A purple sphere of some sort, with a prominent red nose and two tiny green ears. Something reaching out with a long, skinny, purple arm, furry in texture, like a puppet. I couldn’t make out its mouth, but its red eyes flashed gleefully.
Then I woke up, the grayish light of early morning illuminating my room. And then I found myself staring, again, into depthless red eyes embedded in a purple sphere. I imagined one of its long, purple arms reaching for me, and I nearly screamed.
Then I realized it was all just a dream, and I was staring at the stuffed Shredder Monkey sitting on my shelf.
I talked to my dad later. I asked him about that trip to Tahoe years ago, when we stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. He remembered the trip; he even remembered the Goosebumps book I was reading. But he said that we never stopped for gas, that it was cloudy and drizzling the entire drive, and that I slept in the back the entire way.
What is happening to me?
Blog entry: September 19th, 2014
I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep.
I saw it today. I saw the Shredder Monkey.
We were downtown, posting in a ranch market parking lot around Wilshire and Alvarado. I got out to buy a soda, and I looked across the street and it was there. On the sidewalk down the block a ways, just standing there, staring at me.
It’s big, at least as big as a man. From a distance, it looked like one of the guys in character suits at Disneyland. Wide, square body; balancing on these two tiny little skinny legs that shouldn’t be able to support the weight of its bulging body and giant round head. Long, skinny arms – one nearly reaching to the ground, the other extended towards me. All purple, with puke-green, mitt-like hands and feet. A big pink circle on its belly. Blood red eyes. It didn’t move.
I know it was watching me.
So I opened the door and screamed at Cisneros to look, look over there, but thing was gone. I jumped out of the ambulance and ran down the block to the spot I’d seen the giant monkey, between a lamppost and a run-down office offering payday loans.
Nothing. Not so much as a purple hair.
Cisneros gave me this half-pitying, half-mocking face he’s been throwing my way all week. I didn’t tell him about my dream, but he knows something’s up. He keeps on asking me if everything’s okay at home. Apparently, Charlie Green says I have “bitch eyes” now.
I’m scared. I keep on telling myself it’s just my imagination; that it’s
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“Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there,” the man at the bar said to me, nursing a fresh two-fingers’ worth of Ketel vodka in a tumbler he cradled between his thick, calloused fingers.
“‘He wasn’t there again today. Oh how I wish he’d go away,’” I answered, drawing his sleepy but surprised gaze from the basin of his drink.” Antogonish by William Hughes Mearns. That’s what you were quoting right?”
He studied me for a moment as if seeing me for the first time and trying to size me up. Most of the terminal drunks who typically dragged their sorry carcasses into the tavern this time of the night amused themselves by ogling my tits or hitting me with slurred promises of unimaginable sexual pleasure. Not this guy—John was his name. His first name anyway, or at least that’s what he’d told me. I didn’t know his last one, didn’t really care.
When he said nothing, I rolled my eyes and turned away, grabbing beer mugs off a drying rack by the sink beneath the bar and mopping beads of residual water away with a hand towel. “Forget it,” I muttered. Why try to carry on an intelligent conversation—much less a literary one—with someone who’d pretty much polished off a fifth of vodka all on his own, all in less than two hours?
“What’s your name?” he said.
“Mel,” I replied. “Short for Melanie. No one calls me that except my dad.”
He’d asked me this before and I’d answered him the same. I waited to see if there was any dawn of recognition in his face at the words, wasn’t the least bit surprised when there wasn’t.
“You drink, Meg?” he asked.
He’d called me Meg every time, too.
I held up the mug in one hand, the towel in the other, gave both demonstrative little shakes. “Not while I’m on duty.”
I didn’t tell him I never drank because my old man was a drunk, and even though he’d been clean and sober for seven years now, once upon a time, he’d liked to get into the Pabst Blue Ribbon and then slap me and my mother around for shits and grins. I had never tasted alcohol. I worked in the bar so I would never forget it—the hot stink of booze on his breath—and how much I hated him still for that.
John nodded once, fingered his glass again, and tossed back the entire dollop in a solitary swallow. “That’s good,” he told me, his gaze wandering distantly toward a nearby pale water ring stained into the top of the bar. “I wish I’d never started. Maybe then they’d leave me alone.”
I glanced around the pub. It was a Tuesday, almost midnight—almost closing time. Besides John on his bar stool perch before me, the place was pretty much empty. A couple of kids with greasy hair and too many crude tattoos to have earned them anyplace but prison loafed in a far corner, shooting pool and drinking beer. They had one girl between them, a bleach blonde in a too-tight denim miniskirt who didn’t seem to mind the two-to-one odds.
Figuring what the fuck, I had nothing better to do, I took the bait and walked back over to John. He had that cast in his eyes, a tone in his voice that my chronic drunks sometimes affect when they want to get nostalgic or wax rhapsodically.
“Maybe who would leave you alone?” I asked. Probably his family—his old lady and kids. He was wearing a wedding ring. Old ladies, kids and chronic alcoholism seldom mixed company amicably.
He looked at me. “The periphery people.”
I blinked at him, wondering if I’d heard him right. “The who?”
Still he studied me, his gaze unwavering—surprisingly steady, in fact, given the amount of booze he’d been knocking back that night.
“Periphery people,” he said again, pronouncing the words slowly, carefully, as if each was a delicate crystal vase he was trying to swaddle in newspaper before packing away in a box in the attic. “Although they’re not really people. Not like you and me. I don’t know what the hell they are.” He blinked, his eyes growing cloudy again, and he looked away. “Never mind. You can’t see them.”
Again because I had nothing better to do—and because I was actually caught off-guard by both his poem quotation and his use of a functional vocabulary word not typical of the common lexicon—I leaned comfortably across the bar. “Why can’t I see them?”
“You have to be drunk,” he replied. “Or at least I do anymore. Didn’t use to. I could see them just fine on my own when I was a kid. I think kids are more receptive to seeing them. They believe in things, you know? Like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.”
“Or periphery people,” I supplied and he nodded. “The periphery of what?”
John flapped his hand, indicating the room. “Here. There. Everywhere. Everything. They’re always around, standing in the shadows. All along the edges.”
“The periphery,” I said.
“Yeah.” He lifted his glass to his lips, then realized he had no more vodka.
“So they’re here right now?” As he set the glass down, I reached for the Ketel bottle and topped him off.
“Yeah.” Nodding to me in thanks, he took a small sip, smacked his lips appreciatively and drank again.
“You said they weren’t human. What do they look like?”
He shrugged. “They’re tall. Really tall. Like seven or eight feet high. They wear cloaks, hooded cloaks. The cowls cover their heads.”
Cloaks. Cowls. Periphery and poetry. I was beginning to wonder if this guy, John, wasn’t your typical chronic drunk at all, but something more…tragic.
I made a show of glancing around, brows raised. There were plenty of shadow-draped edges and corners in the dump where I worked. Not a one of them seemed to be harboring a seven-foot-tall giant hooded man with a cowl over his face.
“You can’t see them,” he told me.
“Because I’m sober.”
“Yeah. But they’re hideous.” He shuddered, though whether from this admittance or the drink, I wasn’t sure. “Their faces are flat. There’s nothing there—no eyes, no nose. Only a mouth. Round and gaping, taking up almost the whole front side. Ringed with teeth. God, lots and lots of teeth—rows of them going backward down their throats, just like a shark.”
The color drained somewhat from his face, leaving him with a sort of putty-colored pallor. “They like to eat, you see.”
Maybe it was the unspoken body language that seemed to suggest this poor son of a bitch was really buying the snow cone machine he was selling to the Eskimos. Whatever the reason, I found myself simply staring at him. And fighting the urge to shiver.
“Eat what?” I asked, my voice uncharacteristically small.
His expression shifted, growing grim, his eyes round and earnest. He whispered one word in reply to me: “Souls.”
I’d expected him to say “human flesh.” Maybe even “brains,” or perhaps spleen, appendix, right little toe. This, however, caught me by surprise.
“Souls?” I asked.
“They latch on to the back of your head with their teeth. Then they wrap themselves around you, make you carry them around like that while they glut themselves. Sometimes they take a little. Sometimes they take a lot. Depends on how hungry they are.”
The cracked vinyl seat cover beneath his ass creaked as he shifted his weight, pivoting to glance behind them. With a nod, he pointed out the ménage-a-trois-in-situ playing pool. “You see that girl over there?”
“Yeah.”
Turning in the seat again, he leaned across the bar toward me, close enough for me to smell the vodka in his breath. “One of them’s feeding on her right now.”
I took another look, but saw only the blonde laughing, slapping away one of the guy’s hands as he tried clumsily, vainly to grope the generous outward swell of her ass.
“She looks okay to me,” I said.
“Because you can’t see it. And she can’t feel it. Not yet anyway.”
“But she will?”
John nodded. “One day, yeah. She’ll find out she has cancer. Or AIDS. Or maybe she’ll step off the curb at the wrong time and get plowed into by a bus. Or have a psychotic break and shove a seven-inch-long butcher knife through her husband’s sternum while he’s sleeping one night. But not at first. That comes later. I’ve seen it. No, at first…she’ll just be sad.”
“Sad.” I repeated this, brow raised.
“You ever feel like everything in the world’s gone wrong? Like you can’t do anything right? Like the world is nothing but a big pile of dog shit, and you’re just a smear in the fecal matter taking up space? That kind of sadness, that sort of despair—that’s what they leave you with once they’ve eaten enough of your soul. From there, it only gets worse. Because that sorrow…that unhappiness, it must smell good to them, draw them somehow. They’re always with you after that, like a pack of wolves, fighting over you, for their chance to latch onto your skull and drain you dry.”
I’ve been tending bar for a long time—for seven years, starting about the time my mother had died and my dad had first sworn on her deathbed that he’d go clean, and then had shocked the glorious ever-living shit out of me by sticking to that. I’ve heard a lot of stories, yarns woven by a lot of guys far more wasted and crazy and pathetic than John. But for some reason, I couldn’t just bob my head and cock that condescending smirk that I usually reserve for someone shitfaced and rambling. The in-one-ear-and-out-the-other look, I call it.
“They’ve fed from you, you know,” he told me pointedly.
I felt a chill steal down my spine, slithering and unnerving, like a live eel dropped down the back of my T-shirt. Managing a hoarse bark of laughter, trying my damndest to sound dubious, I said, “What?”
He nodded.
“How can you tell?”
His eyes found mine—round, sorrowful, nearly sheepish. “You knew the poem. You haven’t always been a bar maid.”
Normally, that antiquated and decidedly misogynistic term—bar maid—might have made me bristle. But this time, instead, it only sent another of those unpleasant little tremors racing down from the nape of my neck toward my ass.
“No,” I said in slow admittance. “I was a teacher. English literature. High school.”
“World civilization,” he said by way of introducing himself in ex-career fellowship. “At the university. Had tenure and everything.”
We studied each other for a long, quiet moment.
“Something happened,” he said. “Something that changed you. Maybe a moment you can’t quite put your finger on or remember, but it’s there. And in that moment, whether you knew it or not, a part of your soul was gone.”
“My mother died,” I said. “My dad’s on disability. He can’t get around. I have to be home in the daytime with him. There’s no one else who can take care of him.”
“Feels like your life’s being sucked right out of you sometimes, doesn’t it?” John asked, and when I nodded, hesitant, the corners of his mouth hooked in a brief, bitter smile. “Because it is.” A glance beyond my shoulder, split second but pointed. “There’s one behind you right now.”
I whirled, eyes wide, but saw only rows of liquor bottles and phalanxes of cocktail glasses lined up dutifully along the shelves.
“It’s not feeding,” he continued. “Not yet anyway. But it wants to. And there’s only one way to stop it.”
“How?” I asked. As ridiculous as this whole thing sounded, I couldn’t help but believe him. There was such a tremendous, sorrowful sincerity in his face, his eyes. It was as if all of the booze had been wiped from his system and he was sober again—brutally, helplessly so.
He leaned toward me. “You have to see them.” His hand draped against mine, his skin dry and warm. “If you can see them, they’ll leave you alone.” Another fleeting, humorless smirk. “No sport in it for them then.”
As he drew back his hand, he shifted on his stool again, letting his feet fall heavily to the floor. I shook my head as if snapping out of a trance. For the first time, I realized we were alone in the bar. The trio of pool players—along with their invisible, soul-sucking new friend—had left.
“You ever see movement out of the corner of your eye?” John asked, fishing his wallet from his back pocket and dropping a pair of twenties onto the bar. His glass still had vodka in it, but he left it alone, turning with a shuffling gait for the door. “A flash of shadow, maybe, like something’s there, just beyond your field of sight—only when you turn your head, it’s gone?”
I nodded and he said, “That’s them. The periphery people.”
He started to walk away, but paused when I said, “What about you? You said something changed me—the moment where one of these things fed from me. What about your moment? What changed you?”
He looked over his shoulder at me and this time when he smiled, it was something melancholy and lonely. His lips pursed, then parted, as if he meant to speak, but then he must have thought better of it because he closed them again. Still shuffling, the palsied gait of a man far older than his years, John turned again and walked away, leaving the bar without another word.
I locked up behind him, the heavy sound of the deadbolt sliding home as I turned the key as sharp and loud as a gunshot. I tried to laugh it off, to tell myself he was just a crazy drunk, that he’d been spewing vodka-infused bullshit he wouldn’t even remember come the morning.
But then, as I started to turn away from the door to face the bar again, I thought I caught a glimpse of something reflected in the glass—a looming shadow directly behind me, standing just along the peripheral edge of my vision. With a startled gasp, my heart jackhammering in sudden, bright fear, I whirled around, pressing myself back into the door.
I was alone.
At least, to my sober eye.
There’s one behind you right now, he’d told me. It’s not feeding, not yet anyway. But it wants to.
I thought of how he’d described them—their ghoulish mouths ringed with teeth so they could latch on and hold tight. Again, I wanted to dismiss it—and him—as utter bullshit, and again, I couldn’t suppress an uneasy shiver just the same.
There’s only one way to stop it, John had told me. You have to see them.
I returned to the bar and stood beside the seat he’d only recently vacated. His last shot of Ketel remained where he’d left it, and I reached for it now, lifting the glass in hand, giving it an experimental sniff. I’d never tried vodka before; had felt neither the urge nor desire to drink myself into a stupor.
If you can see them, they’ll leave you alone. No sport in it for them then.
Bracing myself, I drew the glass to my lips, tossed my head back and swallowed. Having drained it dry, I leaned forward, poured another and downed it. Then a third. Then a fourth. And after the fifth, as my mind started to grow murky, and the shadows in every corner of the room seemed to grow elongated and sinister somehow before my eyes—becoming nearly human in shape, creeping closer to me, slowly but surely—I took a seat on the bar stool.
And waited to see.
Credit To – Sara Reinke
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6:52 AM
Another nightmare. I wake up in a pool of my own sweat. My heart is pounding and my brain feels like its going to break through my skull. Through the window the sun has just begun to rise, banishing the demons and the darkness of night back to Hell where they belong. The light shines through the blinds and covers my room in cage-like shadows. I sit up, pick my watch up off of my nightstand, and slide it on my wrist. I pull my rifle out from under the bed, knocking over a newly emptied whisky bottle. That explains the headache. I reach for the bottle and toss it into the waste basket. Whatever I had done last night is completely forgotten now. I grab a rag and polish the barrel until I can see a blurred reflection of myself looking back at me. I count each counterclockwise rotation. Its monotonous, but it calms my nerves. It is all part of my routine.
My routine keeps me alive.
My routine keeps me sane.
I lay my gun to the side and look out the window at the sun as it crawls over the mountain peaks that line the sky like jagged teeth. It is a nice morning. Yet I wish I could fully appreciate it. I can’t seem to distract myself from my dream. People used to tell me they have a hard time remembering their dreams. But not me. My dreams stay burned into my brain like a brand. Replaying themselves whenever I have a moment of peace.
It was dark. I was hiding. From what, I don’t know. But I knew it was there. I could smell it’s foul, festering stench. I could hear its heavy, shuffled footsteps. I closed my eyes, in the vague hopes that it would somehow shelter me. I could hear the footsteps slide closer and closer until I couldn’t hear them anymore. Thinking the worst was over I opened my eyes. In front of me there was a figure, a woman. Her thin face is shrouded with long, dripping wet hair. I cannot see her eyes, but I know she can see me.
Then I woke up.
I can’t remember the last time I had a pleasant dream. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever had a pleasant dream. As a boy I was plagued by night terrors. I’d wake up in the night screaming. My mother would come running in to calm me down. She’d hold me and tell me to focus on the sound of her voice. She told me to think happy thoughts and I’d never have one again. It never worked. Happy thoughts don’t come easy to me. So the nightmares always stayed. But whose to say that’s a bad thing? I’v never understood why people insist on having “sweet dreams.” It sets expectations too high for life. Nightmares keep you grounded. They keep things in perspective. Life can seem to be terrible but the horrors it holds for you will never quite be as bad as what your subconscious can create while you sleep.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
8:28 AM
I make myself a quick breakfast. The last of the rabbit. A measly portion like this isn’t enough to last me until tomorrow. I’ll have to catch another if I want dinner tonight. I look down at my watch again and attempt time out a schedule for the day. If I head out now I can still have time to chop wood before the sun goes down. Between keeping warm last night and making breakfast, I only left myself half a log and a few twigs for kindling. If there was anything worse than a cold night up in these mountains, it was a cold night in the dark. The mind begins to wander when left alone in the dark. It fills the blackness with anything it can muster. Often times it shows you the last thing you want to see.
I put on my coat, grab my rifle, and make my way towards the door. As it creaks open, it fills the house with the frigid winter air. The chill immediately stabs at my face. I’ll definitely have to make this hunting trip quick if I don’t want to freeze to death tonight. My old tracks create a path in the snow from my last venture into the woods. I follow them, matching my boot into each corresponding footprint. Each step crunches the snow and sends echos ringing through the silence around me.
The forest cages the small clearing that houses my cabin. The towering pines stretch for miles. Beyond them, the mountains climb high into the sky. Beyond them… I don’t know. I don’t care to know. This vast tundra of frozen ground is my home. My kingdom. My wasteland.
I keep away from the outside world and it keeps away from me. It is an unspoken bond that has served me well these past three years. I loath the world I left behind. Day in and day out, I found myself surrounded by people I could not stand to be around. It was all too much for me. I don’t remember exactly when I realized I couldn’t take it anymore. But one day I knew I had to get away while I could, while I still had an ounce of sanity left within me.
I severed almost all ties I had to that life. Anyone worth knowing was gone and I had no interest in meeting anyone new. The only contact I still have is an old friend; Harry, who’s a trucker. Once a month, his route takes him to a dirt road about five miles away from my cabin. He keeps me supplied with my bare essentials and anything I might need or want. I never ask for much. Some canned food, booze, hunting supplies, a few books, and fresh water. I haven’t actually seen him since he first brought me up here two years ago. He leaves the cargo for me, I fetch it and bring it here. Easy as that. Every now and then he’ll leave a note for me. But all they do is sit in crumpled balls under my bed. I’ve never bothered reading one.
12:31 PM
I look from my watch up at the sun shining through the tree’s canopy. I have been on this little shit’s trail for three hours. Endlessly following him through this labyrinth of trees. Any time I get a clear shot, the bastard scurries off. I followed him to the edge of a pond within the forest. I squat behind a fallen tree and rest my elbows on its cold, frozen bark waiting for him to stop moving for a second so I can get him in my sights. I’ve been here for a while now. But that’s what hunting takes. Patience. A hell of a lot of patience. But I’m used to this. When you live a life like I do, patience is a big part of your day. Maybe tomorrow I’ll take a walk down to Harry’s route and leave him a list for parts so I can build a few traps. It would make getting food a lot easier. I could use the spare time to engage myself in other ways. I never did mind hunting though, there’s a certain satisfaction in feasting on a meal you killed yourself. The thought of it makes my stomach rumble with hunger.
At last he quits moving. I align his small, furry body with the crosshairs when something in my peripheral catches my eye. Beneath the ice of the frozen pond I see a blurred, shadow slowly moving about. I’ve tried fishing in that pond enough times to know that there is nothing living in there. So what is that? It can’t be a log. It’s moving around too much. Whatever is under there has to be alive.
My eyes dart back to the crosshairs for a second. The rabbit is gone. I let myself get distracted and now it’s run off. I punch the overturned tree, splitting the skin on my knuckles a bit. No. I can’t let this work myself up too much. I have a hard time bringing myself down after I work myself up. If I let myself get angry, I’ll never be able to focus hard enough to catch this little shit. I head closer to the edge of the pond to where he was standing and look for a trace of tracks to point which direction he went. The shadow under the ice moves again.
I can see it more clearly now. It is a large silhouette eerily swaying beneath the ice. I lay down my rifle and inch closer to the bank of the pond. The shape looks almost…human. I look across the ice’s surface. There is no break or crack to be seen. Nothing could have fallen in and still be alive. I put a bit of my weight on the ice. It’s solid. It should be stable enough for me to walk on. Step by step, I carefully make my way to the shadow as it carries on its ghoulish dance. I loom over it and can see through the frosted layer between us that it is certainly human. This is impossible. How did they get down there? How are they still alive? I bend down to my knees and wipe away the layer of snow atop the ice. A hand is pressed against the other side. It is a thin, dainty hand. A woman’s. Wrapped around her pale ring finger is a gold wedding band. I press my hand against the ice to match her’s. I have to find a way to get her out. I survey the area to see if there is a nearby rock or branch I can use to break the ice. I shift my weight to stand up.
In an instant, the ice shatters beneath my feet and sends me plummeting into the sub zero temperatures below its surface. The water so cold it burns my skin with its touch. My entire body momentarily shuts down as I sink further down. As soon as my head is submerged I am suddenly jolted back into consciousness. My arms flail desperately trying to find the edge of the ice to pull myself back up. My thoughts are rapid and incomprehensible. Somehow I am able to find the edge. I grip it hard and pull my torso onto the ice’s surface. I put my weight onto my elbows and force myself completely out of the water. The frigid air feels like summer compared the the depths I just crawled from. My body lies limp, staring into the sky as I try to catch my breath. My head is still spinning as if it hasn’t caught up to my body yet and is still drowning in those freezing waters.
The woman. What happened to her in all that commotion? I turn over and look into the hole. She is gone. Great. This is exactly what I need. No food and a vanishing woman. I stand my self up and carefully shuffle myself back to land. I can immediately feel the difference of solid ground under my feet through my soaking boots. I have to get out of these clothes unless I want to get hypothermia. I almost did when I first moved up here and it is not an experience I want to live through again.
I grab my rifle and begin to follow my footprints back home. That fucking rabbit. I hate it for bringing me here. Tomorrow I’ll gut that little shit and have the most satisfying meal of my life time.
As I make my way through the trees, I can’t help but think of the woman. I tell myself that my hunger and frustration must have gotten the better of me. Made me see things that weren’t there. But something about her gave me a strange feeling of deja vu. That pale, ringed hand seemed so strange yet so familiar.
4:15 PM
Somehow I make it home. I don’t know how I did it. About half way there the cold began to set in and I contemplated stopping. I wanted to just lay down in the snow and let the cold consume me. But something about dying then and there seemed weak. Like I was giving up. I didn’t want to go out like that. For a while, death is such a foreign concept to us. It’s something we hear about, maybe imagine. But it’s all a fantasy. Something that is so far out of reach, it could never happen to you. Then suddenly it’s there. It comes in like an unwanted visitor that refuses to leave. It buries itself deep under your skin. You can’t see it but you know it’s there. For the rest of your life, however short or long that may be, it patiently waits there until it can claim you and attach itself to the next poor soul.
I slide my gun back under my bed and lay my soaked clothes next to the furnace. It’s still burning the last bit of left over wood from last night. It’s not giving off much heat anymore, but they’ll dry in time. I sit by the warm glow and try to get some color back in me. The warmth slowly begins to thaw me. At first the sharp contrast in temperature hurts my skin. But I welcome it. In the cold I had become numb to all sensation. It’s good to feel again.
Once I’m practically dry I put on a new outfit and head back outside to chop wood. I look up at the sky. I have about an hour or two before I lose the sun. I walk out the door and head to the other side of the cabin. I remove the large nylon tarp from the wood pile and pick up my axe. Although chopping wood is a chore, it’s one I sometimes enjoy. When I build up frustration after a bad day I need an outlet to get it all out. And I’ve had a hell of a day.
The wooden handle feels good in my grip. I hold on tight and bring the sharp metal blade high over my head. With everything I have I hurl it down into the log at my feet. In one clean motion, the log splits in two.
So satisfying.
6:02PM
Whisky warms my entire body in a way only alcohol can do. The sun is gone, but my house is filled with a light orange glow. Within the furnace, bright flames lick and crawl over the logs. Letting out a hiss as they take over their new victim. The flames feed, growing ever stronger as the wood grows weaker. Eventually the ambush will end all they will leave behind is a dead, black husk of what existed before. The flames will jump and dance at the defeat of their prey. But in their celebration, they will grow ignorant and forget what had given them their power. They will attempt to maintain themselves on whatever they have left over, but they were greedy and left no spare traces. Their inevitable defeat is brought upon by their own victory. But it is not all for nothing. Amongst his dying brothers, an ember will always hang on to life. He will be taken away by the wind, to a new and strange place. But in his confusion, he will find new victims to prey upon. Once again, he will grow strong.
I take back a swig of whisky and laugh at the idea of the never ending cycle. I usually try to save my alcohol for a celebration. When I can properly enjoy it with a good meal. But I’ve had a long day and no longer give a shit. I fill my mouth with the amber liquid and swallow. It burns like hell going down but settles nicely in my stomach.
It’s Late
Most of the bottle is empty. I probably should have stopped a while ago. But I didn’t care. I deserved to treat myself after what I’ve been through today. It’s safe to say that I am hammered. I remember when I used to get drunk like this in the city. After a long work week, Saturday nights were usually spent with my face down against a cold bar with an empty glass in my hand and an open tab. The bars were loud and the people were annoying, but I was always able to get drunk enough to down them out. Somehow I’d make it home and in bed, usually making a mess and trashing the house in the process.
The floor beneath my ass grows harder and more uncomfortable. I grab a table ledge and pull myself to my feet. The room moves uncontrollably as I make my way into the kitchen. I punch the wall to tell it to stop, but it doesn’t listen. I need to take it easy or I’m going to be sick. I slump over the sink and turn the water on. The cool water pours over my hands and settles me. I splash some in my face and look out the window. Why did I come out here alone? Ive only ever needed myself. But sometimes I do get a little lonely.
The clouds fully engulf the moon, making my cabin the only source of light. I focus into the darkness and am filled with a sense of dread. Something is out there. At first I think I’m seeing things. But then I see it again, slowly moving toward the cabin. I press my nose against the glass. I tell myself that it’s probably just a wolf or a deer, but the shape is human. A woman now stands just outside the cabin. Her hair is long and hangs in her face. She’s wearing a long, white night gown. She is soaking wet. She is the woman from the ice.
She does not move. She just stands there, looking down at her feet. My eyes are drawn to her left hand. I can’t get the image of it pressed against the ice out of my head. That pale, thin hand with the gold wedding band. I look back to her face. She is now looking directly at me. Her gaze pierces through her dripping hair and locks onto me. I have never felt such an uneasy feeling in my life. I am sick to my stomach now. I flail my arms, gesturing for her to look away or hopefully just leave. But she stays where she is, fixated on me.
I can’t take this anymore. I turn away from her and run from my kitchen, through my living room, and into my bed room. I just need some sleep. Tomorrow all of this will go away and I can get back into the swing of things. My head is reeling. The room continues to move around me. I look down at my bed, but I can’t bring it into focus. I lean forward and reach for it but miss and fall to the floor. I fail to brace myself and my head thumps against the floor. The pain shoots through me as I lay there. I groan and open my eyes. Under the bed lay several of the crumpled up notes from Harry. The haze of my fall begins to clear and I make out the words “police” and “suspicious” written on one. What the hell? I grab the paper and unfold it. The words spin around the page as I try to read them. I rub my eyes and try to focus.
Hope you’re doing okay. The police questioned me and were suspicious for a while. But I think we’re in the clear now. You don’t have to worry about them finding you up there. Hope these supplies last you until next month. Keep in touch.
-Harry
Police? What the hell is this all about? I open another note.
Was hoping you’d have gotten back to me. Are you doing okay? I’m getting worried about you. After what happened, I hope you’re keeping yourself together up there.
-Harry
My head is going a mile a minute. What is he talking about? After what happened? Why should he be worried? What is going on? I grab another and quickly unfold it.
Really wish you’d get back to me. I don’t know what you’re doing with yourself all alone up there. I could give you some company when I come by if you need. I just worry what you might be doing to yourself. I’m sorry to bring this up and be so blunt, but a guy doesn’t just drown his wife and walk away like nothing happened. Really, you can talk to me about it. Please let me know how you’re doing.
-Harry
What is he getting at? He has to be fucking with me. I toss the papers back under the bed. I was never married and I sure as hell have never killed anyone. I’m not hiding from anyone. I’m here because I want to be. I need the isolation. Don’t I? I’m so confused. I’ve been through too much tonight. I can’t take this right now.
I look down at my hands. My fingers are feverishly shaking. I bring myself to my knees. I couldn’t kill anyone. Could I? I look at my left hand. What is wrong with me? How did I never notice this? A faded ring of pale white skin wraps the base of my ring finger. I feel like a was beaten over the head. My thoughts scramble and slowly come together.
Samantha.
I had another day of my boss chewing me out at work. I came home agitated, on edge, and roaring drunk. I just wanted to be left alone to drink. And she knew that. But she yelled. She yelled at me for coming home drunk every other night. We fought. We screamed. We threw things at each other. Eventually she said she was done with me and went into the bathroom to start a bath to calm herself down. But I wasn’t calm. I needed to tell her exactly what I thought about her and her shit. How could she just walk away like that. Like nothing happened. Like we never loved each other. Like I wasn’t worth her time. Then she started humming. That hum that got under my skin. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t take her anymore.
I burry my face in my hands. My tears run down my palms and fall to the floor. I can hear foot steps coming in through the living room. It’s her. Why can’t she just leave me alone? Why can’t she just let me be? I just want to be left alone.
The fire has begun to die down. The light doesn’t reach my room anymore. I sit in the dark on my bedroom floor. I can hear her footsteps getting closer. She begins to hum. I can’t take this. I crawl to the corner of the room next to my dresser. Just leave me alone. Please. Her footsteps grow closer and closer. My toes curl and my heart races. I shut my eyes. Just go away. Please go away. You’re not real. You’re dead. I killed you. I fucking killed you. Just go. Let me live. Let me forget.
It is quiet. Is she gone? I open my eyes. She is inches away from my face. I try to scream. But I can’t. Her long, brown hair hangs over her face. Dripping on the floor between us. Her eyes look deep within me. I begin to get light headed. My eyes grow heavy and I fall to the floor. Everything flies by me. Except her. She stays in focus. Fixated on me.
Then everything is black.
6:52 AM
Another nightmare. I wake up in a pool of my own sweat. My heart is pounding and my head feels like its going to break through my skull. Through the window the sun has just begun to rise, banishing the demons and the darkness of night back to Hell. I sit up and pull my rifle out from under the bed, knocking over a newly emptied whisky bottle. That explains the headache. I reach for the bottle and toss it in the waste basket. It clinks against the other bottles. Whatever I had done last night is completely forgotten now. I grab a rag and polish the barrel until I can see a blurred reflection of myself looking back at me. I count each counterclockwise rotation. Its monotonous, but it calms my nerves. It is all part of my routine.
My routine keeps me alive.
My routine keeps me sane.
|
My aunt was a kind and benevolent woman. She was widowed, but never allowed her situation to get the better of her. She had a stern outlook on rules and etiquette, but a heart of platinum. She gave to charity even when she barely had enough for herself and she was loved by everyone… except for me.
My aunt wore a disguise. Her facade was so convincing I would love her for many years before.
Before.
Back in the days before I would often visit my aunts old house by the sea and would always be thrilled for the opportunity. She was an elder, but her house was never a bore. It was filled to the brim with knick-knacks and photo albums. Some in the town called her a hoarder, but she always preferred to be called a collector. A ‘collector of memories’ she would often tell me as we sat by the warmth of the fire that always bellowed in its stone cage. I would sit on the carpeted floor and listen quietly as she strung tales of the adventures of her youth. The stories of my young aunt clashed heavily with the frail figure I now saw rocking back and forth in her chair.
I was hooked on her stories and would not let her take me to my bed before hearing at least one. She also gave me free range in her home and there was plenty to explore. Her house had been built during the years of prohibition and the old place had been equipped with various nooks and crannies and the occasional hidden room or tunnel. The secret rooms were always dusty and filled with relics of years past. Whenever I asked her about a bottle cap or playbill I found littering the floors of the hidden storage spaces she would only tell me “Oh, sweetie, you know me…I never throw anything away!” then she would laugh and send me off with a sandwich or an apple in hand to go play some more.
I said before that she gave me free range of her house, but to be honest that was not completely true. There was ONE room that she forbade me from entering. “The basement is too old and dangerous, sweetie, you mustn’t ever venture down there, do you understand?” I would always smile and nod yes before going off on another adventure. Not that I forgot the room, I would often wonder what lay behind the old oak door that blocked me from my potential exploration. The door was always locked, though and I would lose interest very quickly.
That is how things went for a while until she started to show signs of mental illness. She began forgetting things. Small things at first…where she left her keys or that she had already bought eggs the day before. She still smiled through it all and would often dismiss her troubles by giving a simple “silly me, my head is full of rocks!” Although she never forgot her mantra “I never throw anything away” and would continue to tell me the stories attached to each object in her collection.
Her mental state slowly slipped away until she couldn’t even remember my name, let alone her own. I was in my early 20s by this point, but I continued to visit my beloved aunt up until the day she finally died from her illnesses. On one of the last days I spoke to her she was sitting in her chair by the fire as she had many times before and mumbling to herself. “Harold…Harold…Harold…” She was muttering my late uncle’s name over and over again. I knew little about my uncle, because he was one of the few topics she never spoke about, and to hear his name escape her lips for the first time since I could remember was shocking. “Auntie, do you want to say something about Uncle Harry?” I leaned in close and watched as a crooked smile went across her lips. Her teeth were yellow and brown in spots and obviously decaying with her age. She laughed for seemingly no reason and let out a raspy “I never throw anything away, child, never…” Then she just stared off into space and wouldn’t answer me. A few days later she died at the town’s hospital and we buried her the next day. Preparations had been in place for some time and the whole ordeal was over pretty quickly.
I learned a few weeks later that she had left the old house to me. I was very excited. This house meant the world to me and I decided to move in as soon as possible. I moved in a few days later and carried my bags up to what had once been my designated bedroom for when I visited. After all the boxes had been carried up I decided to look around my old playing ground. It was relatively the same as before, but age had withered it some. It would need some work, but I was up to the task if it was to restore my aunt home. I spent the next few weeks dusting and patching up the place and made a good amount of progress. The place was starting to look like it had 11-15 years ago. Her old knick-knacks still crowded every shelf and mantle in the house and that was just how I wanted it.
The only issue I had, though, was that at night the house made noises. I tried to tell myself they were just the sound of an old house settling and that I should ignore it. The sounds kept me awake however. I swore at time it sounded like rattling coming from the depths of the old estate. I even thought I heard grunts and voices at one point. This went on every night for weeks and I was getting less and less sleep.
One day while I was finishing up cleaning I noticed for the first time in years, the old basement door. I had grown so accustomed to it being off limits that I hadn’t even acknowledged it this entire time. However, now this was MY house and I had a right to finally see what secrets it held. Besides, I had to clean that room as well as the others. The door, however, was surely locked as it had been for years. I then caught sight of something shiny sitting atop the doorframe. I was a lot taller now than I had been as a child and assumed that is why I had not seen it before. I reached up and brought down a brass key. The key’s appearance conflicted with the rest of the house as it was shiny and polished without a speck of dust on it.
I slid the old key into the lock of the basement door and the tumblers moved with ease. The door creaked open and I was presented with wooden stairs that descended into darkness. I flicked the light switch on the wall, but a fuse must have been blown, because I was still staring at a black pit. I rushed and got a flashlight from my tool bag and was relived to find the batteries were still in working order. I shined the white ball of light into the basement and saw that the stairs themselves looked as if dust had been kicked around and the handrail was wiped clean. I descended the stairs and flicked my light from one side of the room to another. The room was filled with what seemed to be old science equipment. Beakers and test-tubes littered the tables and jars filled with various liquids and gels sat on the shelves. I wondered if my aunt had helped some old high school clean out their old science gear or something and was quite surprised to find this kind of stuff in her basement. There were other jars on the back shelves that seemed to hold organic tissue of some sort, I guess it was probably from frogs or pig fetuses as those where used in high school science classes sometimes.
Then my light landed on what appeared to be a large black box in the middle of the room. It was locked and I could see that little dust had fallen on it. I finally put together that my aunt must have been coming down here regularly when I went to sleep, hence why some of these objects had not been left alone long enough to gather dust. I walked towards the box and gave it a light kick, perhaps it was something from her travels? Or maybe it was just a bundle of old clothes she had put away for a rainy day.
As I kicked the box it moved. It moved not in the way an inanimate objects moves when force is applied to it, but as if something had moved from inside. I kicked it lightly again and it shook more violently this time. I thought I heard noises coming from the black mysterious object. The sounds seemed inhuman in nature and were mostly grunts and moans. The box was shaking more wildly now and I assumed that some animal had gotten stuck in it. My heart was pounding and my eyes were wide. I could feel my palms becoming clammy and sweat rolled down my cheek. This whole experience was so weird, so bizarre that I had no idea how to handle it. I saw that the box was locked with a sliding lock and I walked gingerly towards it. My hand was shaking but I managed to grab a hold of the latch and slide it so as to unlock the box.
The lid flung open and a black figure sprang up. I screamed. Or at least I tried and I fell backwards on my butt in the dusty ground. My flashlight fell from my hands and rolled away and I turned to bolt up the stairs that would lead me away from the horrid basement. I ran and ran until I was through the doorframe. I slammed the door behind me and locked it with the key that I had somehow managed to keep in hand. I felt a hard impact from the other side and my ears were polluted with the vile sounds of inhuman groans and the scratching of nails against wood. I ran to the phone and called the police.
By the time the authorities got to the house the noises had ceased. When they opened the door that found the thing had left long bloody scratch marks on the other side of the door. There were even some broken fingernails lodged in the wood. When they ventured further they found the body of the creature I had ran from in the dark. It had apparently died sometime between jumping out of the box and now. It was a man. His body was badly mutilated and was barely able to tell he was male. His skin was black and flaky and charred as if he had been in a fire. His eyelids and lips had been cut away and his tongue removed. One of his arms had been completely severed at the elbow and the autopsy revealed some minor organs had been removed. His genitals were horribly mangled and his bones showed signs of multiple breaks. His remaining teeth were cracked and jagged as if hit by a hammer. He had no hair as it had probably been burnt off in whatever fire had destroyed his skin. He had no toes on one foot and only half his fingers on his remaining hand. There were various chemicals found in his system that told us that he had gone through several heinous injections. He was nude except for a medical bracelet that had been fused to his wrist in the heat of the flames that had scarred him. It read ‘Harold’.
Upon hearing this I immediately remembered my aunt favorite mantra and my stomach became weak, “I never throw anything away”.
My uncle had gone missing over 15 years ago and was presumed dead. I never thought I would ever meet him. Old journals were found in the basement that revealed that my Aunts mental illness was worse than we could have ever imagined. It turns out that she thought her actions were justified under orders from God. She thought it was her duty to cleanse my uncle’s soul through continuous suffering and had trapped him down in the basement and tortured him for years. When I went down and unknowingly opened the door of his cage he wasn’t trying to chase me, but rather he was trying to escape the hell he had been confined to for 15 years…and I and locked him there. I had kept him in the basement and he died never being able to see the light of day again.
He died in the same hell he wanted nothing more than to escape from. I carry that guilt with me forever. I put her house for sale afterwards, but no one wanted to buy the house of the murderous woman who kept her husband in a box. The house burned down some years after, no one is sure if it was arson or an accident, but I didn’t care. When I heard the news I smiled.
I still have the key, though. A reminder that you can’t trust those you love the most at face value. A reminder that the person you hold in highest regard could be a devil in disguise. Besides, despite my animosity towards my aunt I cannot get myself to get rid of the key.
After all, I never throw anything away.
Credit To – Clever Boy
|
“Hey slow the hell down, would ya!?” I shouted at my friend as he sprinted past the encroaching tress that surrounded us.
We’d been walking for about half an hour and I think he was starting to get impatient. He practically had to drag me and my other friend out here to show us some abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, and he knew that it was getting dark. I wasn’t about to get lost out here for the night, not with it being a Sunday. My mom would raise hell if I missed any more school, and my dad would probably beat me within an inch of my life, him being the principle and all.
“You guys just need to speed the hell up.” He replied. “I want there to be enough time to show you two everything there is to see!”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s just some old house in the woods, Scotty. I guarantee you we’ll be done looking around within five minutes of getting there.”
“Oh yeah? Well that’s not what my brother told me.” Scotty retorted, slowing down his run and breathing heavily. “He said there’s some crazy shit out here.”
“Like what?” my other friend, Zach, asked.
Scotty turned to us, his smug face barely visible in the fading daylight. “I’m not gonna tell you ‘till we’re there, so get a move on.”
The three of us continued to walk at the same pace, our shoes crunching on the dead leaves that covered the forest floor. Upstate New York didn’t have the largest woodland areas, but when it was late fall and the sun set on these dead trees, the woods were scary as all hell. I wasn’t getting scared, though. I knew that Scotty just wanted to play a prank on Zach and me. This was all a ploy to get us to crap ourselves and run home screaming. His big brother was probably out here with some of his asshole friends, ready to jump us.
“Can you just tell us why this damn house is so important?” Zach finally asked, breaking the silence that only the distant crickets had been interrupting.
“Fine, I’ll tell you the story behind this place, and we’ll probably be there by the time I’m done.” Scotty surrendered, turning to us and walking backwards. I kind of was hoping he’d trip and fall flat on his ass. “This used to be the house of Mary Very.” He informed us, an eerie tone in his voice.
“Who’s Mary Very?” Zach asked. Even I turned and looked at him in surprise. Every kid in town knew about Mary. She’d been the meanest old crow I’d ever met. All the kids knew to stay away from her, because if you got too close she’d smack you hard upside the head. No one would complain since she was so old and all.
Disregarding Zach’s ignorance, I said, “Didn’t realize she lived out here. What makes you think this is her old house?”
“Wait a minute, who’s Mary Very?” Zach demanded.
Scotty ignored him too, addressing me instead. “I know it’s her house, because my brother said it was.”
“You can’t be that stupid.” I said, unconvinced. “He could have been spouting a load of shit when he told you that.”
“Who the hell is Mary Very!?” Zach repeated, clearly getting annoyed by our lack of explanation. However, we just kept ignoring him.
“I know he was telling the truth, because right after he told me, my dad brought him into the other room and started yelling at him. I don’t think he wanted me to hear, but I could tell he was telling my big bro not to tell me about it. That’s how I know he was on the up and up.” Scotty explained.
“Yeah, that’s some solid evidence right there.” I laughed.
“Guys!” Zach shouted at the top of his lungs, sending an echo through the woods and causing a murder of crows to fly out of their perch. Their caws drowned out the crickets for a moment before they faded away with the birds.
We both turned to him. “What?”
“Who is Mary Very?” he asked a final time.
“How the hell have you never heard of her?” Scotty asked.
“I guess it was before my family moved here.” He explained. I’d forgotten he hadn’t moved to town until after the old coot bit the dust.
“Mary Very was the single most heartless bitch to ever live in this town. I once saw her kick a puppy that was walking by. She used to smack kids around with her cane for no good reason, and always threatened us to stay away from her house, even though no one knew where she lived.”
“Jesus, why’d she do all that?” Zach asked, amazed.
“Fuck if I know, the old bat didn’t need a reason. She probably just did it because she could.” Scotty replied.
“So why the hell are you dragging us to her house?” I demanded. Exploring some dead woman’s empty house was not how I wanted to spend my Sunday night.
My friend snorted. “Because now we can finally do what she always told us not to do. We can finally go on her lawn and into her house and break her windows and shit. It’s the ultimate revenge!”
I gave him a deadpan stare. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. She’s dead, you moron. Who cares what we do to her house?”
“You’re missing the bigger picture.” Scotty smiled. “There’s gotta be a reason she didn’t want us coming around here. I bet there’s some secret stash of treasure somewhere in that place. You know how old ladies don’t trust banks to keep their money safe after the Depression. She probably stuffed all her cash in her mattress or something.”
Raising an eyebrow, I asked, “Even if that were true, you don’t think the police found it already, or the real estate people, or even relatives?”
He went silent for a minute, contemplating it. “Hey, I say it’s worth a shot… Woah!”
Scotty fell backward, tripping over a small garden fence, and landed flat on his ass. Zach and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You alright?” I asked, holding a hand out. Scotty grasped it and we both pulled.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He groaned, a bit embarrassed, but otherwise uninjured. All three of us looked at the poorly kept garden. No plants grew anymore, just weeds popping up here and there in the dried up soil. We looked past the neglected garden to find an equally neglected lawn, which led up to a small, broken down old house.
“Fuckin’ eh! I told you it was out here!” Scotty beamed victoriously, running past the garden and towards the house.
“Hold on, you dumbass!” I shouted after him. “Don’t just barge in there!”
Scotty stopped and turned back to me. “Come on, man. It’s obviously empty.”
“That doesn’t mean we should start splitting up.” I warned.
A pompous grin spread over his face. Oh, how I wanted to crack him right then!
“You aren’t scared, are you?” he teased. I knew that it was gonna come out sooner or later.
“You know what, screw you Scotty! Go fall into the basement and get stranded here for all I care.”
Scotty frowned. “Fine then. I’ll go find the cash by myself, and you two won’t get a penny of it!”
With that, he ran to the front door, kicking it in and disappearing into the house.
Great… I thought to myself.
“Should we go after him?” Zach asked.
I shook my head. “That’s just what he wants us to do. You realize he brought us out here to try and scare us, right?”
“Yeah, I figured.” He said, kicking the grass. Instead of following Scotty into the house, we walked the circumference of the yard. It seemed like a perfect circle. There was the house in the middle, the garden to the south, and a small utility shed to the west. There wasn’t a road or even a walkway to be seen.
“How’d she get to the main road from here?” I wondered out loud.
“I was thinking the same thing. An old lady couldn’t have walked all the way to town from this place, right?” Zach asked.
“I have no idea.” I replied. It didn’t make any sense. I’d never seen Mary Very drive a car before, but she couldn’t have walked through these woods every day. Not at her age.
The sun had almost completely set, and the only light came from the soft glow of the grey clouds overhead. Suddenly, I felt a strong feeling to leave the woods. At that moment, it was the last place I wanted to be.
“We should go.”
Zach looked at me with surprise. “What about Scotty?”
I turned to the house and cupped my hands over my mouth. “Hey dickhead! We’re leaving in ten seconds, so you better get your ass out here if you don’t wanna walk through the woods alone!”
Fifteen seconds passed, and no sound came from the house. I turned and headed for the garden.
“You’re leaving?” Zach asked.
“I told him ten seconds, and then gave him an extra five. Hell yes I’m leaving.”
I’d almost made it to the garden before realizing that I couldn’t hear Zach’s footsteps behind me. I turned once again to see him walking to the front door.
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
He turned to me. “Making sure he’s okay.”
I slapped my hand to my face. “He’s just being an asshole. Let him walk home alone.”
Zach shook his head. “I’d rather find out he’s just being a prick than leave him here if he really got hurt.” Then he turned his back to me, and the darkness swallowed him as he entered the house.
Fuck! I cursed to myself. I didn’t feel like giving Scotty the satisfaction of going in there, but on the other hand, walking home by myself didn’t sound like an attractive option either. After a minute of pacing the yard, I decided to swallow my pride and enter the front door.
The inside of the house was just as welcoming as the outside had been. It was mostly empty, save a bed, couch, and a few other pieces of furniture. There was barely any light coming through the windows, the sun having already set. Remembering that I’d brought my cousin’s old police flashlight he’d given me a while back, I pulled it out and clicked the button, fully revealing the empty room. The room I was in seemed to be a living room connected to a kitchen. Nothing remained in the house except the aforementioned furnishings that must have been left behind after Mary Very’s death.
What caused unease with me was the fact that Zach wasn’t anywhere to be found. I walked in not two minutes after him, yet he still managed to hide somewhere. I was beginning to think he’d been in cahoots with Scotty the whole time.
“Come on guys, this isn’t funny!” I shouted, louder than necessary. Nothing in the house stirred in reaction to my outburst. There were only three rooms that connected to the living room, and all three were completely empty. There weren’t even any leftover items to be seen.
After looking everywhere else, I finally found a single door along the wall of the kitchen area. It was closed, but it was the only place they could have gone. I’d been in houses like this one before, and knew that there were two possibilities of what was behind the door. Either it would open up to a closet, or to the descending stairs of a basement. I tensed up, turned the knob, and opened the door, ready for the two assholes to jump out.
This didn’t happen though.
When I opened the door, only darkness greeted me. It was darkness, not merely the result of an absence of light, but as if Hell itself were sitting right beyond the threshold. Only three steps of the stairway were visible to me, the rest fading off into blackness. I pointed my flashlight downward, into the dark abyss, almost laughing when I realized it had died. It felt as if it weighed a ton in my outstretched hand, so I lowered my arm and turned, holding no illusions that I would even consider going down there without some sort of light source.
Turning away from the basement seemed like more of a mistake than going down, because when I turned away from the door, I found myself facing an even more frightening sight.
There, standing across the kitchen, was Mary Very.
Even in the lack of lighting, I could see her plain as day. She was wearing a white gown with long sleeves and some sort of bonnet that covered her head. She also wore heeled shoes with white roses on the tops.
I stood there, looking at her with eyes that bore terror and confusion. She seemed to only regard me with hatred and anger. Her brow was furrowed and her mouth contorted into a vicious sneer that gave off malicious intent. I could feel her negativity radiating, squeezing my very soul with its oppression and suffocating me with little effort. My breathing became short, sporadic, and my whole body shook violently, but I couldn’t move otherwise. She stepped closer, not cautiously but forebodingly, like a lion would stand against a threat to its den.
In this case, I was the ignorant creature who’d stumbled into the lion’s den, not realizing the danger and ultimately having my life taken by a pair of claws to the throat. That’s when I realized something that scared me far worse than the fact that I was standing in the presence of a dead woman. What truly struck my heart like a sledgehammer was the fact that she wasn’t looking at me, but past me. She wasn’t sneering at my presence, but the presence of something far more menacing. This force was behind me, just coming out of the bowels of the house. It must have climbed the steps from the basement when I had my back turned, and now it loomed over me, oppressing in its presence, but far more threatening than the ethereal woman.
Now Mary looked to me directly, and her expression changed from one of anger to one of sympathy. Her eyes began to water, and for some reason, so did mine. We both stood there in those few seconds, crying over something I had yet to even understand. I couldn’t feel my flashlight in my hand anymore. I must have lost my grip on it, but I never heard it hit the ground. I didn’t turn to face whatever monster stood behind me, but somehow, I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. First it was just a firm grip, but then it squeezed hard, causing pain to shoot through my body. The pain only lasted a second or two though, because then I felt my head shake violently before I fell to my knees. Then I felt myself falling even further, plummeting into a pit of nothingness. I no longer felt pain, or fear, or anything at all. I simply continued to fall, all the way down through the plane of existence until there was nowhere else to go.
Then my consciousness left me.
* * *
I stared out the window of Mary Very’s old home. It was raining outside, and the water droplets that landed on the window slowly travelled down the glass, using various routes to get to the bottom. Outside, there were police officers, EMTs, and reporters, all gathering around the small woodland abode. Inside, I stood with two sheriff’s deputies on either side of me.
“Can’t believe that psychopath was hiding out here all this time. They’d been looking for him for over two weeks after he escaped Attica with those DeMarco brothers.” One said, staring out the window.
A police cruiser took a small road out of the forest that I hadn’t seen there before. The back seat was occupied.
“Yeah, Richie Davis. He was in prison for three counts of attempted murder.” The other replied. “Looks like he was holding up in Mary’s old basement when those boys came exploring.”
“Did the investigators put it together?”
He shrugged. “More or less. Richie didn’t really keep anything to himself. He said the first boy entered the house alone when he strangled him to death and dragged him down into the basement. Apparently, he was down there cutting the first boy up when the second kid walked in. Richie snuck back upstairs and punched him in the face hard enough to knock him out cold, then quickly brought him down to the basement so he could finish up on the first boy.”
“Jesus…” the other officer commented.
“Then the third boy came in and Richie cracked his skull open with a metal flashlight. Sick fuck said he only wanted to knock him out though, so he was still living when he cut into him. They don’t make movie killers as twisted as this wacko. Can’t believe he only got forty years the first time they threw him in jail.”
“Well that’s not gonna happen this time. Two kids dead, one in the hospital, a half-mutilated corpse. They’ll give him the needle for sure, after this. Would have been even worse if those hunters hadn’t heard the screaming, stormed in on the prick, and held him at gunpoint until first responders could get here.”
“It’s weird, though, the hunters said they heard a woman screaming.” The one pointed out.
“Yeah, that is a little odd.” The other replied.
“No doubt about it.” The one nodded. “Come on, captain wants us to make a statement.”
The two officers left me by the window, and went out to address the growing crowd of reporters who’d gathered outside. I turned away from the window, once again facing Mary Very. She looked at me with sorrow, but also with slight happiness. I was surprised that no sadness had taken me. I didn’t feel much of anything.
Scotty stood next to Mary, giving me an apologetic look. He must have felt like this was all his fault.
I smiled at him reassuringly, then took one last look outside as two body bags were wheeled over to a waiting ambulance. Mary Very opened the basement door, where Scotty had met his end, but the basement was no longer there. Now it was a room of immense light; more powerful than any light I’d ever seen. Scotty immediately walked through the door, as if he knew what lay beyond, the light absorbing his figure until he was completely gone. Mary Very turned back to me, smiling, and reached her hand out. I took it, hesitantly at first, but then with conviction. She gave my hand a soft but confident squeeze, eliminating any remaining doubts I had. Whatever role she’d played while she was alive, I knew that now she was my guide, here to escort me someplace else.
I walked up to her side and returned her warm smile with one of my own. Then together, we stepped through the door, leaving this world behind and entering another.
Credit To – Seamus McAntler
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You’re probably like me, skeptical of all things unexplained. Never in my life have I believed anything that doesn’t have a logical explanation, even if it means I have to string together the most tenuous logic just to make something reasonable. This is me. Why then, do I sit here by this shimmering lake, desperately scrawling these notes on my last remaining pages, terrified? Something wants me. I cannot seem to escape them, I cannot explain them, I don’t know why they want me. All I know is that large volumes of water are crucial to my survival.
Despite my skepticism, I used to love sitting up late at night reading creepy stories about things like Slenderman, and the Rake. I used to regale freaking myself out with horror films, the creepier the better. For me, ominous creaking and flickering shadows thrilled me far more than hacking and slashing, however, no matter how much thrill I found in a story, I would always sleep soundly at night knowing it was just a story. That was until now, until they began to haunt me. This isn’t some made-up story about being stalked by Slenderman, or about a ghastly haunted child watching me sleep. No. This is far worse. This is no made-up story. This is a very real threat to my life, my sanity, a threat I don’t know how to stop. I am hoping that if I don’t make it, my satchel containing these notes will help someone piece together whatever is going on here. I realize I’m being vague, please, allow me to start from the beginning.
As I’ve mentioned, I love reading up on creepy things. One caught my eye in particular. It was the “real-life” story about the curse of the crying boy. If you’re unaware of this story allow me to quickly explain. In 1985, a house in Yorkshire, England was burned to the ground. The only thing that survived in near-pristine condition was a painting of a crying boy. After this strange event was reported, many others around the world began reporting fires where the only surviving relic was this painting. This caused widespread panic resulting in many people in possession of the painting to destroy it as quickly as possible. As I read on, fascinated, I ran across an article on some website detailing that a car spontaneously burst into flames after a crash. The only surviving object from the blaze was the driving license of a man whose name matched the name of the boy in the paintings. I quickly laughed and shrugged this off as people exaggerating on what was probably just coincidence. The reading of this particular tale marked the beginning of strange occurrences around me.
It was August 20th and that evening my mother and I had planned a bonfire to get rid of the old shed. We had invited the family round for a few drinks and decided to make a social evening of it. During the day we stocked up on plenty of beverages, beers, ciders and bottles of wine for the adults and fizzy drinks for the youngsters as well as some “finger food” in case anyone got peckish. Our garden was fairly large so preparations began early, bringing out the garden furniture from the new shed for everyone to sit around as well as some of the chairs from the dining table. Dad was at work so mum and I had to prepare everything ourselves; she yelled instructions to me from across the garden to set up the large fire pit and pile on the old wood whilst she set out the table cloth, plates and cutlery.
“Tom, make sure their fire pit is secure, we don’t want to burn the house down now, do we?” Jested my mother. I laughed with her and commented on how I wasn’t an idiot. Once the large circle of stones had been laid, I proceeded to move the old wood that was propped up against the far fence to the center of the pit. I started with two long planks and set them up in a pyramid structure. I began to place other planks around it, also propped up until I had made what roughly resembled a wigwam. We used to burn all our old sensitive letters too, so I scattered a few around along with some dry twigs and other flammable junk from the garden. After about an hour of setting this up, mum began to lay the food out on the table and the family started to arrive. First to arrive was my dad who had just got home from work, he was eager to see the rest of the family so he promptly headed upstairs for a shower. From about 7 pm until 8 pm, the rest of my family turned up until all seventeen of us were here.
I am the oldest of my generation, nineteen at the time. My other eight cousins all ranged from five to sixteen. The younger ones were running around, fuelled on fizzy pop while the adults, myself included, had just started on our beers, ciders, and wines. It was about 9 pm now and beginning to get dark so my dad decided it was time to light the fire. The older generation all took a seat ready to absorb the warmth of the flames.
“Who built a bloody Egyptian tomb then?” Shouted my uncle Kevin sat opposite me. I raised my bottle of cider, proudly admitting to my creation and laughed with him. He was the joker of the family and always kept us laughing. By this point, I was very excited as I loved fire. I mean… I used to love fire. There was something soothing about it, perhaps dating back to our more primitive times. Dad drizzled a bit of lighter fluid around the base of the pyramid and dropped a lit match on it. Instantly, the fluid ignited with small flames, licking their way up the wood. Everyone paused for a moment and smiled, watching the flames climb higher and higher. I distinctly remember the sweet smell of the burning wood filling my nostrils and the crackling of the blaze as the fire grew stronger. Kevin had spotted some of our documents and made a witty remark about hiding evidence, but I wasn’t really listening at that point. I was transfixed on the dancing flame. Within a few short minutes, the fire was burning at about a height of seven feet and the family was lost in laughs and chatter, the kids still screaming and having fun as they played tag around the garden.
It wasn’t until about an hour later I started to notice things. I was on my third cider and feeling slightly buzzed from it. I had been lost in the inferno for about half an hour at this point but I can’t be sure. Intensely staring as each peak of fire whipped itself into the air and transformed to white smoke before drifting off in the cool night breeze. I’m sure you do the same; if a fire is burning, you stare at it. There is something so calming, so tranquil, about it, and I was completely transfixed. I would imagine dancers inside the fire, swaying about in synonymous movement with the blaze. I could feel myself starting to be pulled in, I leaned forward and felt a rapid increase of heat on my face. The warmth was bliss. Staring harder and deeper into the flame was when I first saw it. A face manifested itself right in front of my eyes. It all happened so briefly but I felt like I had seen it for an eternity. The quivering lipless snarl, the eyeless sockets, the pointed chin, and the mane of flames. The face that I saw directed its empty sockets deep into every fiber of my being and I felt nothing but pure evil and terror in that hint of a moment. Startled, I stumbled backwards, and my family blankly stared at me. I shrugged and told them it was an ember landing on my face. They all began to laugh and a few of my uncles joked about something I didn’t really hear. I tried to find the face in the fire again, but I couldn’t. I was certain I had imagined it, after all, I was drinking and it was getting late. Still, even my skeptical side was difficult to silence, I still felt an incredible uneasiness.
I went to bed that night, still filled with disturbance from the face in the fire. Although the eyes looked empty, I somehow felt they contained an immeasurable amount of pain. Allowing my mind to wander, I drifted off to sleep. The next morning I awoke with a start after rolling onto my side. Clutching my cheek, I groggily hauled myself to the bathroom and saw in the mirror I had a vertical burn about two inches long down my cheek. How the hell did that get there? I didn’t actually burn myself on the fire last night. Fortunately, the burn wasn’t major and didn’t look like it would blister, but it felt sore enough for me to put some cream on it. I walked downstairs after getting dressed, both my parents were already eating breakfast. Dad asked if I was okay, he said I’d had a lot to drink last night and joked about me having a hangover. I didn’t remember having a lot to drink, however, I didn’t remember much between seeing the face and getting into bed, though I felt okay, if a little restless, when I got into bed. How was I drunk? Mum pointed out the burn and called me silly, then asked if I had put some cream on it. I confirmed I did in a half-attentive way. I was trying to make sense of everything. I asked dad what happened, he said he didn’t know as he was too busy catching up with his two brothers. My brain scrabbled to piece together some kind of explanation. I had been drinking which caused me to hallucinate the face, the shock of the hallucination made me drink more, I got drunk and burnt myself with a hot stick or something causing the straight line, and went to bed. That must be it… After all, faces don’t just appear in fires and stare at you, that’s ridiculous, isn’t it?
Later that day, I walked downtown to grab some essentials like toothpaste and shampoo. As was normal on a Sunday, the main high-street was lined with half a dozen street performers to entertain the tourists. Among the human statues and juggles was one young man using fire poi. Normally, I would have walked past them all as I usually do, but I stood to watch this man for a minute. Again, I was transfixed on the flame just as I was last night. I shook my head rapidly to try and shake this silly feeling. The man caught my eye and smiled at me, I gave a nervous smile back and turned back towards the shops. I had only taken a few more steps when I heard the crowd scream, I quickly turned to see what was going on and everything was plunged into darkness.
I woke up in a hospital bed what seemed like moments later. My parents were sat to my right and I could only see out of one eye. I panicked briefly but my mother put her hand on my shoulder and told me to calm down, and that it was all okay. I looked at dad, who had the biggest smile of relief on his face. I asked them what happened. Dad took the reins of the question. Apparently, the street performer with the fire poi lost his grip whilst swinging the poi about. The flaming ball hurtled toward my head and hit me square in the eye knocking me unconscious. I adjusted my position in the bed and put my hand on my left eye and felt the soft bandage cloth. Dad assured me the doctor said my eyesight was fine, and that I was lucky. I didn’t feel lucky. Two fire incidents in two days? Perhaps this was all a stupid coincidence, but perhaps it wasn’t. I glanced at the clock and saw that I had been unconscious for just over two hours. I was very open with my parents, and I decided now would be a good time to tell them about last night’s events. They both agreed that I was just drunk, and today just happened to be one of those accidents, wrong place wrong time type thing. I hesitantly nodded in agreement although I knew something wasn’t right at all. I suddenly grasped the bandaged eye in agony as I felt a wild burning ignite inside my skull. Mum shouted for a nurse in a panic and one came rushing in, she tried to give me painkillers but I was writhing in too much pain to take them in tablet form. She pulled out a small needle and a tiny bottle, filled the syringe with some clear liquid and jabbed it into my arm, injecting every drop. She assured us it was a liquid painkiller, and that the pain I was feeling was the exposed nerve endings and it would soon go. I knew that wasn’t right. I forced the ball of my hand into my socket but nothing helped this intense heat coursing its way into my skull and spreading down to my chest. My mother grabbed my hand, and once again the world turned to black.
My eyes flitted open about an hour later, I had blacked out from the pain. My parents were stood outside the door conversing with a doctor. I was shaking. I saw it again, as the pain happened, behind the eye that couldn’t see, I saw it. It was clearer this time. I was absolutely certain it was the same face I saw before. It was truly harrowing, it wasn’t just a face. I saw… It… The entire of whatever ‘it’ was, stood there engulfed in darkness. The Flame Dancer. Its hideous fleshy face was surrounded with a body of fire, humanoid in structure but without hands or feet. Instead, its legs and arms just ended in a sharp point of concentrated blaze. The face looked like a leather mask just hovering there, seemingly immune to the surrounding inferno. A pointed chin, a lipless snarl that quivered with the rage of the fire around it, seams ran tracks across the face as if it had been stitched together, but worst of all – the most terrifying feature was the eyes. Two empty indents. Empty, yet fierce. Angry in shape but when directed at me I felt like I was feeling the excruciating fear of a thousand tortured souls, as if I could feel the agony of each poor soul before me. It stared, flames raging around it. Then it lifted an arm and directed that fiery spear of an arm toward my very heart. I felt it as real as anything. I felt the burning fury of the sun scorching my chest. That was the point I had blacked out.
The following few days I wasn’t myself at all. My parents were worried, I was avoiding anything that could be linked with fire as best I could. I couldn’t concentrate all morning at work, and half the staff was off on holiday or ill-meaning my workload was increased. However, it was now Friday and I knew the fire alarm tests happen at work on Fridays. The alarm itself wouldn’t have frightened me, but it was to warn of fire, and what if it wasn’t a test this time? I had become certain that the “Flame Dancer” as I had named it, was after me. I watched the clock nervously as the seconds ticked closer to 10:00 am when the bell would sound. I couldn’t relax or focus, I kept trying to tell myself that the whole thing was just a stupid hallucination playing on my mind but it wasn’t that simple. The burning, the glare, and the raw panic I felt were all very real. My boss came over and mentioned that he’d noticed a decline in the last week and asked if everything was alright, I feebly explained to him that it was just the poi incident that had shaken me up a little. He told me to feel better soon and try to focus on work. I glanced back at the clock at noticed it was now 10:01 am. The alarm didn’t sound. Oh God, it was broken, the safety mechanism that warns us of fire was broken. An official came to the office to inform us that the repairman was on his way. I couldn’t take it, I bolted for the toilets with a lump in my throat. What if they broke it? It’s them, I know it is. I tried my best to compose myself and walked back to my desk.
At that very moment I sat down, I heard someone curse loudly from the kitchen followed by a buzz of electricity. I jumped up and as I glanced toward the kitchen I could see the microwave had malfunctioned and a small fire had started in the kitchen. My worst nightmare had just been realized. I screamed for everyone to get out and raced to the fire exit running full speed into the push bar. It was jammed. I ran full force into it and fell backwards. In the next moment, I awoke with one other work colleague who was desperately trying to haul me onto his shoulder. The flames raged around us, the rest of the staff had escaped through the main entrance, ignoring me in their haste. I staggered to my feet, an orange haze surrounding my vision. I coughed violently as I inhaled a large breath of smoke before pulling my shirt up over my mouth and nose. Sam pointed toward the exit and said something which was inaudible over the crackling and roaring of the flames. I followed Sam’s finger and saw that all exits were blocked, there was no way out. The burn on my face was particularly tender when in close proximity to the curling tendrils of fire. It was then that it appeared again. Sam saw it too. The mask-type face emerged from flames, followed by the body before the two conjoined. Every step it took toward us left a smaller fire in its wake.
Sam bellowed at me demanding to know what it was. I told him I had no idea but I’d seen it before. It loomed closer, teasing us with a slow pace and staring intently at us. Two more twisted up from the fiery footsteps either side of it, into magnificent columns of fire, contorting into the humanoid shape, and parting the flames to reveal the leathery face that conjured out of nowhere. Three of them, looming slowly toward us, they raised their pointed limbs slowly as they took each step, and we both clutched our chests in burning agony. I grabbed Sam’s collar and dragged him toward a window with a strength I never knew I had. He kept his footing but was crippled due to the pain in his chest.
As I began to move, one of the Dancers twisted back into the ground and appeared again behind me. I was hell-bent on survival at that point and continued toward the window. As I approached, I could see the fire engines outside. Sam collapsed behind me and fell unconscious. I picked up a chair and threw it at the window, the “Flame Dancers” only meters from me now. A powerful jet of water burst its way through the window and hit the Dancer closest to me. It let out a shrill cry and dissolved into a puff of smoke, no sign of the face. I glanced back toward the other two, and the third separated from out of the body of the one at the front. I screamed at them asking what they wanted from me, the snarls turned to disturbing smiles, and they all stopped, turning their gaze to Sam. Realising there was nothing I could do to save him, I jumped from the ground floor window onto the hard concrete outside. An ambulance scooped me up and rushed me to the hospital for the second time.
I sat quaking in the hospital bed as the nurse checked me over. I deeply inhaled the oxygen being fed to me through the mask. I turned my head and asked the nurse about Sam. She seemed puzzled and asked who Sam was. I told her he was in there with me, she told me to wait a second and went out of the room. She returned moments later with two police officers who sat down next to me. They wanted a statement from me so I nervously told them everything I knew about the fire. Everything except the Dancers. I knew how insane it sounded and I didn’t want to be carted off to a mental institution. My parents burst into the room at that moment, but held back from pouncing on me in relief due to the officers present. I asked about Sam. They gave me the same puzzled look the nurse did and informed me the building was completely empty of bodies, and nobody was reported injured. At first, I thought Sam had made it out, I breathed a brief sigh of relief before an office began to ask questions about Sam. Although his body wasn’t found inside, he didn’t turn up for the roll call outside. I shrugged gingerly. The officers thanked me for my time and walked out. My parents replaced the officers in the two seats by my side, and my dad joked about my affinity for fire.
“Three fire-related accidents in one week, my son!”
I just gazed emptily at him. My mind rested on Sam. Maybe he just went home out of shock. He saw those things too. But he was unconscious, none of this is making any sense. I finally settled on one conclusion that drained all color from me and turned me skin ice cold. They got him. My mum had that same look of panic on her face I had become accustomed to. Mum asked me what was wrong. I told them I had seen the “Flame Dancers” again and how they have Sam. She didn’t laugh this time. She was an aromatherapist, so she had suggested some treatment when we got home as something was causing me to see these weird creatures. I snapped at her about Sam being missing. She stayed quiet. Dad just looked at me, he had a good front but I could tell he was just as concerned. We all just sat there, motionless in awkward silence until a nurse came in and told me I was fine and could go home. My dad thanked her, but neither I nor my mum reacted.
Later that evening, I was furiously racking my brain trying to figure out what to do. I felt lost. There was nothing. My mother’s voice called me from the dining room and I ambled in to see her, still limping on my right leg slightly. As soon as I got close to the room I stopped in my tracks at what I could smell. Scented candles. Mum was going to try aromatherapy. Oh God, candles! I jetted in and blew out the six candles as quickly as physically possible, one didn’t go out properly so I threw my mum’s tea on it and sighed heavily. Mum didn’t understand and tried to assure me it would help. All I could say was “no fire” over and over. No fire. No fire! I felt my sanity slipping from me.
I drearily looked up at mum who I don’t think had been so worried in her life. Her tearful eyes gripped my heart. I hated doing this to her. I walked up to her and hugged her whilst assuring her that I was just tired and that I should just go to bed. She just nodded and told me she loved me. That night may have been the worst night yet. I drifted off to sleep fairly easily, but there they were, in my dreams. Six of them, surrounding me. I screamed at them, demanding to know what they wanted from me. One stepped forward and stared me right in the eye. By this point, I was fed up and I could feel the fear escaping me. I wasn’t sure whether they could hurt me in my dreams if it even was a dream. Nonetheless, I tried to avoid those harrowing eyes but caught a glimpse as one of them moved to my right. I gasped when I saw Sam’s face, contorted in sheer agony, shimmer for a nanosecond in the right socket.
Then it spoke.
I thought the eyes were horrifying enough. Several voices emitted from it ranging from a high-pitched shriek to a demonic grumble. The words that followed re-ignited the fear that had briefly subsided. In a slow, chilling tone, it spoke.
“You… Belong… To us…”
The limb came up, just as before. I had to wake up. I screamed, I pinched and bit myself but nothing worked. I thrashed about but I could not get out of this reality. A raging firestorm built up around my heart and I bellowed as pain engulfed my every sense. Then nothing. They had gone. Was I safe? Were they toying with me?
My eyes opened and my bedroom light was on. I was sweating and panting heavily. Mum was sat beside me crying. She begged me to go to a doctor. I tried to convince her it was just a bad dream, and that I knew how to help myself. She hesitantly nodded and questioned me about it. I needed to go away for a bit, change of scene and clear my head. She didn’t want me to at first, but I told her it was the only way and I would be fine.
“We’ll discuss it with your father in the morning.”
I agreed, and she left still sobbing. I couldn’t sleep for the rest of that night. My heart was still pounding, and still felt hot. The look I saw on Sam’s face as it briefly appeared was more contorted and agonizing than I had ever seen anything before, worse than any horror movie I’d ever watched. I belong to them? What did I do? Was it because I read that tale of the crying boy? Staring into the bonfire? Maybe Sam was collateral as they tried to get to me. I didn’t know what was real anymore. I spent the next few hours trying to formulate a plan. Could I run from them? Hide from them maybe? Would I have to evade them for my whole life? How can I live a life like this? I contemplated suicide, then dismissed it believing that they would claim my body after death. I would outrun them for as long as I can. Stay smart, stay ahead. I got up and found my old school bag. I stuffed it with rope, pens, a notepad, scissors, money, and various other things I thought I’d need to survive. I would find or build a house next to a lake, and live there, shielding myself from fire for as long as was possible.
When morning came, I still hadn’t slept. I walked downstairs with my packed bag to meet my parents sat at the dining table. We discussed the idea of me leaving for what felt like hours, but I had made my mind up. I was going whether they agreed or not. I didn’t want to put them at risk. My dad realized this and consoled my mum. He glared at me and demanded I call them every day. I promised I would and told them I’d be back before they knew it, just think of it as an adventure. I cried a bit, and hugged them both goodbye, not knowing if I’d ever see them again. I left the house that morning, almost two years ago now, and have not been back since. I used to phone my parents daily, but my mobile stopped working a while ago. Now I only phone them when I get the chance. It took me about six months to find this little place after I left. A very small abandoned log cabin on the edge of a lake in a clearing in the woods. It was perfect.
I disposed of everything that could cause a fire and called it my home. It may sound like I had found peace, but that is far from the truth. I sit here now, by this lake, scrawling my notes in the moonlight. I kept this satchel I stole from a fire station a long time ago with me at all times, I don’t want to lose it. I live every single day wondering if I’ll see them again. I have long since discovered that the dreams only happen if there is a source of fire nearby. I am far from safe though. I’ll never be safe again. I still see the haunting eyes every day in visions and flashbacks. I can feel their sinister presence watching me, just out of sight, waiting for the perfect time to strike. I can almost touch the tendrils of evil that emit from the very thought of the horrors I have endured.
* * * * * *
The notes ended there. After reading them, George looked uneasily at the charred pile of ash he presumed used to be the log cabin upon which he was now stood, and felt an icy chill trickle down his spine. His breath stopped and his chest felt warm.
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All of the events that I am about to set forth in this listing are accurate and may be verified by the winning bidder with the copies of hospital records and sworn affidavits that I am including as part of the sale of the cabinet.
During September of 2001, I attended an estate sale in Portland Oregon. The items liquidated at this sale were from the estate of a woman who had passed away at the age of 103. A grand-daughter of the woman told me that her grandmother had been born in Poland where she grew up, married, raised a family, and lived until she was sent to a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. She was the only member of her family who survived the camp. Her parents, brothers, a sister, husband, and two sons and a daughter were all killed. She survived the camp by escaping with some other prisoners and somehow making her way to Spain where she lived until the end of the war. I was told that she acquired the small wine cabinet listed here in Spain and it was one of only three items that she brought with her when she immigrated to the United States. The other two items were a steamer trunk, and a sewing box.
I purchased the wine cabinet, along with the sewing box and some other furniture at the estate sale. After the sale, I was approached by the woman’s granddaughter who said, I see you got the dibbuk box. She was referring to the wine cabinet. I asked her what a dibbuk box was, and she told me that when she was growing up, her grandmother always kept the wine cabinet in her sewing room. It was always shut, and set in a place that was out of reach. The grandmother always called it the dibbuk box. When the girl asked her grandmother what was inside, her grandmother spit three times through her fingers said, a dibbuk, and keselim. The grandmother went on to tell the girl that the wine cabinet was never, ever, to be opened.
The granddaughter told me that her grandmother had asked that the box be buried with her. However, as such a request was contrary to the rules of an orthodox Jewish burial, the grandmothers request had not been honored. I asked the granddaughter what a dibbuk, and keselim were, but she did not know. I asked if she would like to open it with me. She did not want to open it, as her grandmother had been very emphatic and serious when she instructed her not to do so, and, regardless of the reason, she wanted to honor her grandmother’s request.
I finally ended up offering to let her keep what seemed to me to be a sentimental keepsake. At that point, she was very insistent and said, No, no you bought it!
I explained that I didn’t want my money back, and that it would make me feel better to do what I thought was an act of kindness. She then became somewhat upset. Looking back now, the way she became upset was just plain odd. She raised her voice to me and said, you bought it! You made a deal!
When I tried to speak, she yelled, we don’t want it! She began to cry, asked me to leave, and quickly walked away. I wrote the whole episode off to the stress and grief she must have been experiencing. I took my purchases and politely left.
At the time when I bought the cabinet, I owned a small furniture refinishing business. I took the cabinet to my store, and put it in my basement workshop where I intended to refinish it and give it as a gift to my Mother. I didn’t think anything more about it. I opened my shop for the day and went to run some errands leaving the young woman who did sales for me in charge.
After about a half-hour, I got a call on my cell phone. The call was from my salesperson. She was absolutely hysterical and screaming that someone was in my workshop breaking glass and swearing. Furthermore, the intruder had locked the iron security gates and the emergency exit and she couldn’t get out. As I told her to call the police, my cell phone battery went dead. I hit speeds of 100 mph getting back to the shop. When I arrived, I found the gates locked. I went inside and found my employee on the floor in a corner of my office sobbing hysterically. I ran to the basement and went downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I was hit by an overpowering unmistakable odor of cat urine (there had never been any animals kept or found in my shop). The lights didn’t work. As I investigated, I found that the reason the lights didn’t work also explained the sounds of glass breaking. All of the light bulbs in the basement were broken. All nine incandescent bulbs had been broken in their sockets, and 10 four-foot fluorescent tubes were lying shattered on the floor. I did not find an intruder, however. I should also add that there was only one entrance to the basement. It would have been impossible for anyone to leave without meeting me head-on. I went back up to speak with my salesperson, but she had left.
She never returned to work (after having been with me for two years). She refuses to discuss the incident to this day. I never thought of relating the events of that day to anything having to do with the cabinet.
Then, things got worse.
As I already indicated, I had decided to give the cabinet to my Mother as a birthday gift. About two weeks after I made the purchase, I decided to get started refinishing it. I was surprised to find that the cabinet has a unique little mechanism. When you open one of the doors, the mechanism causes the opposite door, and the little drawer below, to open at the same time. It is very well made. Inside the cabinet, I found the following items: 1 1928 U.S. Wheat Penny; 1 1925 US Wheat Penny; One small lock of blonde hair (bound with string); One small lock of black/brown hair (bound with string); One small granite statue engraved and gilded with Hebrew letters (I have been told that the letters spell out the word SHALOM); One dried rosebud; One golden wine cup; One very strange black cast iron candlestick holder with octopus legs.
I saved all of the items in a box intending to return them to the estate. The family has refused the items, so they will be included in this sale of the cabinet.
After opening the cabinet, I decided not to refinish it. I cleaned it, and rubbed in some lemon oil. It was at this time that I noticed that there was an inscription in Hebrew carved into the back of the cabinet. I have no idea what it says or if it is significant. I have included a picture of that inscription below. On my mother’s birthday, October 28, 2001, my mother called to tell me that she was going out of town with my sister for three days, and we postponed celebrating her birthday together until she returned. On October 31, 2001, my mother came to my shop. We were going to have lunch together, but before we were going to leave, I gave her the wine cabinet. She seemed to like it. While she examined it, I went to make a phone call. I hadn’t been out of sight more than 5 minutes when one of my employees came running into my office saying that something was wrong with my mom.
When I went back to see what the matter was, I found my mom sitting in a chair beside the cabinet. Her face had no expression, but tears were streaming down her cheeks. No matter how I tried to get her to respond, she would not. She could not. It turns out that my mother had suffered a stroke. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance. She ended up suffering partial paralysis, and losing her ability to speak and form words (she has since regained the ability to speak). She could understand things being said to her, and could respond by pointing to letters of the alphabet to spell out words she wanted to say. When I asked her the following day how she was doing, she teared up and spelled out the words: N-O G-I- F-T. I assured her that I had given her a gift for her birthday, thinking that she didn’t remember, but she became even more upset and spelled out the words: H-A-T-E G-I-F-T. I laughed and told her not to worry. I told her I was sorry she didn’t like the cabinet, and that I would get her anything she wanted if she would promise to get well soon.
Still, I didn’t associate anything that had happened with the cabinet itself or anything paranormal. Frankly, I don’t think I ever even used the term paranormal until this last month.
I’ll try to make this short now. I gave the cabinet to my sister. She kept it for a week, then gave it back. She complained that she couldn’t get the doors to stay closed and that they kept coming open. There are no springs in the door mechanism and I have never found that the doors come open. I gave it to my brother and his wife who kept it for three days and then gave it back. My brother said it smelled like Jasmine flowers, while his wife insisted that it put out an odor of cat urine. I gave it to my girlfriend who asked me to sell it for her after only two days. I sold it the same day to a nice middle aged couple. Three days later, when I came to open the shop for the day, I found the cabinet sitting at the front doors with a note that read, This has a bad darkness. I had no idea what that meant. Anyway, I ended up taking it home.
Then, things got even worse.
Since the day I brought it home, I began having a strange recurring nightmare. Every time I have the horrible dream it goes something like this: I find myself walking with a friend, usually someone I know well and trust at some point in the dream, I find myself looking into the eyes of the person that I am with. It is then that I realize that there is something different, something evil looking back at me. At that point in my dream, the person I am with changes into what can only be described as the most gruesome, demonic looking Hag that I have ever seen. This Hag proceeds then, to beat the living tar out of me. I have awakened numerous times to find bruises and marks on myself where I had been hit by the old woman during the previous night. Still, I never related the nightmares to the cabinet, nor do I think that I ever would have.
About a month ago, however, my sister, and my brother and his wife came over to my house and spent the night. The following morning, during breakfast, my sister complained that she had had a horrible nightmare. She said that she recalled having had it a couple of times before, and went on to describe my nightmare exactly to the last detail. My brother and his wife froze as they listened, and then chimed in that they had both had had the exact same dreams during the night as well. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck and still is. As we talked, it became clear that the common denominator was that each of us had had the nightmare during the times that the cabinet was in our respective homes. I called my girlfriend and asked if she could recall having any nightmares recently. She described the same nightmare, same Hag, everything. When I asked her if she remembered the date when she had the nightmare, she said she did not. Then I asked if it happened to be the night before she gave me the cabinet back to sell for her. She said, Yeah! Hey, how did you know that?!!!
Now then, since my family discussion, it seems like all hell is breaking loose. For a week afterward I started seeing what I can only describe as shadow things in my peripheral vision. In fact, numerous visitors to my house have claimed that they have seen these shadow things. I put the cabinet in an outside storage unit and was awakened when the smoke alarm in the unit went off in the middle of the night. When I went to see what was burning, I opened the door and didn’t see any smoke. However, I did get hit with the smell of cat urine. When I went back inside, the smell was there in my house. I DO NOT OWN A CAT AND I NEVER HAVE. I went back outside and grabbed the cabinet. I brought it back inside and tried to research it on the Internet. While I was surfing the net, I fell asleep and once again had the same freakin nightmare. I woke up at around 4:30am (when it felt and smelled like someone was breathing on my neck) to find that my house now smelled like Jasmine flowers, and just in time to see a HUGE shadow thing go loping down the hall away from me.
I would destroy this thing in a second, except I really don’t have any understanding of what I may or may not be dealing with. I am afraid (and I do mean afraid) that if I destroy the cabinet, whatever it is that seems to have come with the cabinet may just stay here with me. I have been told that there are people who shop on EBAY that understand these kinds of things and specifically look for these kinds of items. If you are one of these people, please, please buy this cabinet and do whatever you do with a thing like this.
Help me.
You can see that I have no reserve price or minimum bid. If I can make things any easier let me know and I will do everything within my abilities.
One more note. On the same day my Mom had her stroke, the lease to my store was summarily terminated without cause.
The measurements are 12.5″ x 7.5″ x 16.25″
ALL OF THE ITEMS THAT I ORIGINALLY FOUND INSIDE THE CABINET ARE INCLUDED IN THE SALE AND WILL BE DELIVERED WITH THE CABINET.
On Jun-12-03 at 02:15:30 PDT, seller added the following information:
There is no way that I can respond to all of the e-mails I’ve received since I put this thing on-line. I’ll try now to update and answer the most common questions I’ve been receiving.
1. No, I am not religious.
2. No, I do not wish to have or participate in any sort of exorcism, or case study, or photo sessions at my home.
3. No, I will not sell any of the individual pieces which were originally found separate from the other pieces and the cabinet.
4. No, I do not speak Hebrew nor do I know what the word “keselim” means. I don’t know that the word is even or or a Hebrew word.
5. At the end of the auction, I have decided to take an opportunity to speak with the winning bidder for two reasons: a.)To make sure that the winning bidder is a serious adult who has employed some valid reasoning skills in making the decision to accept whatever this is. I will not be judgmental. Do whatever you want or need after the sale. b.)To offer full details of the events that have transpired. After I have carried out those responsibilities, and upon payment, I will have the cabinet and its contents delivered by U.S.MAIL, FED-EX, or UPS to the winning bidder. At that point, I will have no further involvement with the matter in any way, shape, or form. Period.
6.) To all of you who have offered to pray, I may not be religious, but I am certainly open to the possibilities –no matter what your religion might be. THANK YOU!
On Jun-14-03 at 05:216 PDT, seller added the following information:
Here is another update for everyone following this listing.
NO! No, I will not circumvent, or make any deals outside of EBAY – EVEN FOR MORE MONEY THAN THE FINAL AUCTION PRICE!!! If you want to win the auction and have the kind of money some of you are offering, there shouldn’t be any reason why you cannot simply place your bid in an open honest fashion. I’m sure you can understand why I might be suspicious.
ALSO….
For those of you wanting to know if I am still experiencing anything out of the ordinary, I thought everything was going OK until I got home on Friday – the 13th of June – and found that the fish in my fresh water aquarium – all 10 – were dead.
I’m still hoping that all of this is coincidental crap.
Publisher’s Note: I seem to recall that more follow-up information was initially available on this website, but it seems to have been removed – most likely, to encourage interested parties to just bite the bullet and buy their book about the whole thing instead. For now, I’m just linking the book, but if anyone else stumbles onto pages that go a bit more into detail with the follow-up investigations and other details about this particular story, I’d appreciate if you would drop me a link in the comments. I’ll edit it any new links into this post as they come, so that eventually we can have a nice little “main menu” page here about the dibbuk box for both discussion and discovery.
Mirror of the original eBay auction
Paranormal Review Podcast Episode: The Dibbuk Box with Jason Haxton
Mysterious Universe Episodes 209 and 524 both deal with the dibbuk box
The Dibbuk Box on Amazon – full disclosure: our referral link is included.
Syfy’s Paranormal Witness episode on the topic – full disclosure: our referral link is included.
The “official website” of The Dibbuk Box
The wikipedia entry
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I’m a vigilante online predator hunter, and I can’t explain the bizarre things that happened last night.
I jolted awake in bed as my phone blared with a message.
hey baby. we’ve been talking long enough. i want to meet you now.
My blood turned to ice as I read the message. Just like it does every single time.
I messaged back:
hi okay. i really want to meet you. where?
I sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. I haven’t been sleeping much lately.
I haven’t really slept much in the last year.
I’ve never liked the word “vigilante”, but I guess that’s what you are when you pretend to be preteen girls on the internet.
There are dozens of different groups of us, spread out all over the US, that spend our free time talking to and catching the worst human beings on earth. The kind of scum that prey on children, trying to coerce them into doing horrific things.
Catching these guys isn’t how I make my living. I wish it was, but I spend my days pouring concrete, laying tile, and any odd construction jobs I can get to stay afloat. I come home exhausted most nights, plop down on a chair in my empty house with a beer (or five), and sign into one of my many decoy child profiles. And I do the work I actually care about.
I always hope that this will be the night that no monsters reach out trying to groom eleven, twelve, and thirteen-year-old children. But they’re everywhere. It’s endless.
Luckily, I’m not alone in this fight. Look up “predator catchers” or “creep busters” on Facebook or YouTube, and you can see other people like me, normal citizens, doing the work that law enforcement can’t or won’t do.
We’re not exactly Chris Hansen on To Catch a Predator, but we do the best we can. They had state-of-the-art hidden cameras and youthful actors playing decoy “children”. And they had law enforcement on their side, ready to throw these creeps into a cop car and slap them with charges.
We just have our cell phones to record ourselves confronting these guys when they show up trying to meet an underage girl or boy. And our recordings stream live and straight to Facebook (and sometimes YouTube), so that everyone around them can see the kind of people that are going after their children.
We don’t usually get these guys convicted the way that they did on To Catch a Predator. The cops don’t exactly love what we do. But that’s not why we do it. We do it to get their names and faces out there. And I know, of course, that some in the community of creep catchers are doing it for the thrills. Or the praise. Or the power trip.
But I promise you, that’s not why I do it.
I do it for my daughter.
Abby.
My phone blared again with another message. I’ve set the tone loud enough that any message can rouse me from even the deepest sleep. Could rouse me from the dead, probably.
meet at blue lantern??
The Blue Lantern is the third most common place these creeps want to meet in my town, after their house or the kid’s. It’s a diner at the edge of a thick wood that separates the town’s middle school from the elementary school. Dark, secluded, and close to most of the town’s children? They couldn’t have built a better place for these monsters to trap kids.
And I couldn’t ask for a better place to trap them.
sure, wanna meet there after school tomorrow? i get out at 3 pm
no. now. meet now.
I glanced at the time. 2:23 AM. The Blue Lantern’s the only diner in town open 24 hours, and sometimes you get guys looking for a late-night meet-up. Trying to get kids to sneak out and walk along the dark, gravel road between the town’s residential area and the diner.
I didn’t want to go there in the middle of the night. I never do.
But then I imagine the predator pulling up a real child’s profile, and convincing them to make that silent dark walk. Alone. Toward a person who’s sole intention is to hurt them.
And I always reach for my coat and keys, and go out into that pitch-black night.
Last night was no exception. I messaged back:
okay, i can walk over now
good. see you at blue lantern.
On the way out the door, I grab my handgun.
I’ve never even been close to having to use it. I’ve had plenty of guys threaten to beat me up, and had a guy pull a knife on me once. But just mentioning that I’m armed, paired with livestreaming the whole encounter usually shuts down any real threat.
I walked to my truck in the chilly night air, and I sat there, waiting for the text. They expect that the kid is making that cold walk alone, toward the diner.
It was almost 3:00 AM when I finally got the text.
i’m here. inside. you close?
yeah, almost there. it’s just super dark and the wind is really strong tonight.
good. i’m waiting for you, baby.
I shuddered and turned the key in the ignition. It was time to expose this guy.
I get this indescribable feeling every time my tires crunch down the gravel road toward the diner. Something between the amped-up adrenaline rush that comes before a catch, and the weight of a thousand stones in my gut.
Imagining my daughter Abby walking down this road, headed toward whoever I’m meeting.
Abby’s still so young. She turns thirteen soon.
I hope.
My truck rumbled into the small dirt parking lot of the Blue Lantern, and I found a spot as far as I could from the other three cars in the lot. I recognized two of the cars: one belongs to Edie, the server who’s almost always on the night shift, and one is the cook’s.
I crept past their cars and snapped a picture of the unknown car’s license plate. I used to start livestreaming on Facebook before I even got out of my truck, zooming in on the creep’s plates. But after the police busted down the door of the family of an innocent man who was at the diner applying to be a line cook, I keep the pictures of these plates to myself.
This is what happened one of the few times the cops actually tried to “help”.
I hadn’t been able to find much information about the guy I was there to bust last night. Just a couple of generic pictures and a general idea of who this man might be. It looked like he might work for a school. So this was dire.
I heard a rustle from the treeline right next to me and nearly jumped out of my skin. I imagined someone watching my every move, hiding just out of sight. But I walked closer to the trees, and there was nothing back there. I figured the wind was just stronger than usual tonight.
I signed into the Facebook account of my one-man watchdog operation, which I call Creeps Caught, and started livestreaming.
“What’s up everybody, this is Mike from Creeps Caught. We’ve got a late-night creep bust for you tonight. Not sure if any of you night owls are up and watching live, but this guy demanded to meet our thirteen-year-old decoy girl tonight. Thirteen. His profile’s pretty limited, but all signs point to him being in his mid-50s, and potentially a teacher, which is why it was especially important to confront him tonight.”
I flipped the camera back around and walked toward the Blue Lantern’s front entrance.
Edie was at the front counter, like she almost always is on night shifts. She’s seen me do this countless times. I pointed to my phone, and she gave me a silent nod, and a sly smile, and indicated to the corner of the diner, where a man sat alone, staring at his phone.
He was the only customer in there. The Blue Lantern’s open late for all the shift workers in our town, but they’re usually either working or too exhausted at this time of night. I beelined toward him, holding my phone out.
“Hey, buddy, who are you here to meet?”
He looked at me, his face a mixture of confusion and horror. I realized that he didn’t look much like the pictures in the profile he used, but these creeps use fake pictures all the time.
“What?”
“You here to meet a thirteen-year-old girl? Why would you come to this diner, in the middle of the night, to meet an underage girl?”
“I’m not, I… Mike?”
I wondered how he knew my name.
“You’ve been talking to ‘Jenny’ for the last three weeks, haven’t you? I gotta say, this is one of the most horrifying, explicit chat logs I’ve—”
He cut me off, and insisted “It’s not me, man! Put the camera down, that’s not me in the chat logs.”
That’s what they always say. I gave my standard speech:
“I’m filming this for your protection and mine, so that you can’t say I hurt you, and I can’t say you hurt me.”
“Dude, I’m one of the creep catchers on the Predator Busters page. We do work a couple towns over. I’m Joe. I got the same messages. I’m here on a bust, too.”
“Oh yeah? Show me the messages,” I said, still filming him.
He fumbled with his phone and pulled up a profile, where he scrolled through chat log after chat log. He pulled up a chat with the same profile I’d been talking to for weeks. It was an almost identical conversation, down to this guy telling Joe that he was inside the diner, about 20 minutes before I showed up.
I flipped my phone’s camera back around to my face, getting Joe in the frame as well.
“Well, it looks like me and Joe from Predator Busters just got duped, guys. There’s no one here but us. Could have been someone we already caught trying to humiliate us like we humiliated them. But there’s no shame in protecting children. Stay safe out there, everyone.”
I ended the livestream and took a look at the video. It had racked up a few more viewers and comments while I was recording. Things like:
Omg, is that Joe from Predator Busters?
it definitely is. did these guys get set up?
predators should ROT IN JAIL!!!!!
I’ve amassed a pretty good little following for my creep catching, enough that there were people up in the early hours of the morning that wanted to watch a live bust.
“Sorry for doubting you, Joe. Didn’t realize you were one of the good guys.”
“It’s all good,” he said. “You’re doing great work out here, man. I’ve been following the videos of your predator busts ever since the news broke about what happened to your daughter. How are you holding up?”
It’s still a knife to the heart any time anyone mentions Abby.
“Taking it day by day. Trying to make sure other parents don’t have to go through this.”
Joe pushed his chair out from the table and stood, saying “You’re braver than all of us, man. You headed back? I’ll walk you out.”
“You go ahead Joe,” I sighed. “I’m gonna stay a little longer.”
As Joe nodded and walked toward the diner’s exit, Edie walked up to me with my usual, a cup of black coffee. I always need to take a minute after a bust to decompress.
But that night felt different. There was no release. Nowhere for my energy to go.
“Got anything a little stronger, Edie?”
Edie looked around conspiratorially, and said, “Not officially on the menu, but some nights I gotta do something to get through these shifts.”
Edie disappeared into a back room, and came back with two very full paper cups of cheap whiskey. She sipped at hers, and I downed half of mine in one go.
When the diner’s empty, we always end up talking. It beats going home to an empty house. We talk about anything and everything.
But the anything and everything is usually Abby.
Abby didn’t make the quiet, dark walk down the gravel road from our house to the diner.
She didn’t have to. The man she was talking to came right to our house. He waited outside in his car for her to come out.
I found the chat log in her Facebook messages on the computer in the living room the next morning, after tearing her room apart, looking for any sign about where she could have gone.
They still don’t know who he is.
They probably never will.
It’s been almost a year, and we still haven’t found her body.
That used to give me hope.
But the more predators I catch, and the more research I do on all of this, the more I realize that in all likelihood he’s just hidden what’s left of Abby in a place so deep or so remote that we’ll never find her.
That, or… he’s still…
I don’t want to think about the alternative.
But Edie and I weren’t talking about that. Instead, we sipped our whiskey and talked about the funny things that happened in the diner that day.
Sometimes it’s all we can do to get by.
After some time passed, an exhausted-looking nurse slumped into the diner, and Edie sprang up to help her. She indicated to our paper cups, hers almost full and mine almost empty.
“This one’s all yours.”
I downed the rest of mine, and got to work on hers.
As she took the nurse’s order, I pulled up the Predator Busters page. I scrounged through my coat pocket, and found an old pair of earbuds I attached to my phone.
I watched some of Joe’s videos. His audio was too quiet, and he didn’t really know how to hold the camera right, but he’s a natural at catching these guys. Knows exactly what to say to get them to stay and spill their guts. He reads the horrific contents of their chats with these young children, and the predators squirm and lie and trot out some sob story.
But they know what they’ve done. You can hear it in their voices.
I pulled up another video, and just as it started to play, a message tone blared through my headphones, nearly deafening me. I tore the headphones out, and looked down at my screen.
My stomach dropped.
i’m here
i’m still here, i’m still at the blue lantern diner
come out around the back, i’m here
I texted back, furiously.
This isn’t funny, man. You got us. Good for you. Leave me alone.
But the texts just kept coming.
please come out back, out back by the dumpster
i’m out here waiting for you, please come back
come out back, you have to come out back by the dumpster
please come
please come
he’ll hurt me if you don’t come out back
I exhaled sharply. This was another trick. This was another prank.
please
But what if it wasn’t?
I stood up, a little wobbly from the whiskey and the lack of sleep.
The first thing I did was call the police.
“I need you to send a car down to the Blue Lantern right now.”
“Mike, it’s almost four in the morning, we can’t make the trip down every other day for your vigilante routine. Just send us the transcripts and the video of your ‘catch’ tomorrow morning.”
“It’s not that. This guy might have a kid here. They might be hurt.”
“Mike, are you drunk?”
“Just send a car.”
I hung up and headed toward the back door of the diner. The only thing back there is a dumpster along the entrance to the treeline, and a small patch of dead grass where servers go on their smoke breaks.
Before I opened the door, I pulled out my phone and started livestreaming on Facebook.
“Hey, everybody. The guy from earlier is trying to play games again. Chances are I’m going to open this door and be face to face with nothing, or with some idiot trying to prank me. But if there’s even a sliver of a chance that there’s a kid in trouble out there, I need to help. As usual, law enforcement in this town won’t do what they should to keep our kids safe.”
I touched my concealed handgun, just to make sure it was still there. If it had to come to that, it would, if it meant saving an actual child.
I turned the camera back around and swung the door open.
It was pitch-black outside the diner. I’d been out there once before, helping Edie take the night’s food scraps to the dumpster. I know there’s a motion-sensor light that turns on when you step out of the doorway.
I stepped out of the doorway.
The light didn’t turn on. The only light was my phone screen, but it was no real help since it was just recording the dark.
It was almost impossible to see out there, but I could see the vague outline of something moving behind the dumpster.
“Hello?” I called out.
Silence.
I walked closer to it, and I could make out the form of a person a little bit more clearly. I could only see a small part of their body sticking out from behind the dumpster. I couldn’t understand the way their body was contorted, and it made it difficult to see if they were standing or sitting.
“You wanna talk, man?” I tried to sound as authoritative as I could to make up for the frantic heartbeat roaring through my veins. “I’m here. Let’s talk.”
More silence.
I fumbled with the flash on the video controls, and my phone emitted one bright flash, temporarily blinding me and destroying my eyes’ adjustment to the darkness. But for a split second, I could see a corner of the face behind the dumpster.
It didn’t look like a grown man.
It looked like a little girl.
“Abby?” my voice choked out, stuck in my throat like a stone.
I tried to turn on my phone’s flashlight, but before I could, whoever it was behind the dumpster sprung up and went tearing into the treeline, disappearing into the dark, dense wood.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I ran behind them, deeper and deeper into the wood. I could still hear them in front of me, breaking branches, their feet pounding onto the dirt below. But the wind had picked up even more, and it got harder and harder to tell what was the sound of running through branches, and what was the wind whistling through the trees.
Finally, I lost any sense of the direction this person went. I doubled over, panting. I’ve had to chase after predators trying to flee the scene of the bust before, but I’ve never had to chase something this inhumanly fast.
I realized that the phone in my hand was still livestreaming to Facebook. I was sure the footage would be unusable because of the darkness, so I ended the stream. I looked at the screen and saw that a few people had tuned in to watch the dark, shaky footage live.
Then I read the few comments on the video. And my stomach dropped.
wtf what’s going on? this is freaking me out
why did he follow that man into the woods?
I don’t think that’s a man, that looks like some kind of weird animal
OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT?
I clicked my phone off, suddenly very aware of how much it illuminated my surroundings when it wasn’t recording the darkness. I backed up, quietly walking back the way I came.
I didn’t realize how deep into the woods I had gone.
I picked up my pace, booking it back toward the treeline. Then I heard it.
“Come here. I want to show you something.”
It was clearly a man’s voice, coming from behind a thick mass of trees.
“Come here,” he said again.
My phone dinged with an impossibly loud message tone. Letting this guy know exactly where I was.
I clicked the sound off and broke into a sprint.
And I heard whatever was behind me do the same.
I ran until I could barely breathe. I only hoped I wasn’t running deeper into the woods, and I started to convince myself I was until I saw lights in front of me.
I broke through the treeline in the parking lot in front of the diner.
I fell against the door to my truck, struggling with the keys, until I got it unlocked, jumped in, and locked the doors.
I took a second to exhale, and as I reached for the ignition, I heard knuckles rapping on my passenger side window.
I looked up in horror. It was Joe.
I had no idea what to think, and even less of an idea what to say, so I just sat there, frozen.
“Hey man, I saw you start livestreaming again, and whatever was on that screen really freaked me out. I drove back to the Blue Lantern as soon as I could. Are you okay?”
I thought about that thing in the woods. I thought of the horror and revulsion I felt every time I had to talk to a man telling an eleven-year-old all the things that he’d do to her when they met up. I thought of all the times I put on a brave face when people asked about Abby, and all the nights I haven’t slept, imagining where she is. Or was.
“No, Joe, I’m… I’m not okay. I’m not okay,” I stammered, as I broke down sobbing.
Joe waited with me until the police came, doing whatever he could to comfort the shaking, quivering mess that I was.
They called for backup to comb the woods near the diner, as they drove Joe and I to the police station.
We gave our statements. We turned over all our chat logs. I showed them the video of Joe and I confronting each other in the diner, and then the footage of me following something into the woods.
Rewatching the stream is chilling. It’s blurry and shaky, and the darkness behind the diner obscures any distinctive features of the thing that made me run into the woods. All I can tell is that based on its size and shape, it doesn’t look anything like a child.
It looks more like a large figure, crouched unnaturally and strangely. Or some kind of animal I don’t know how to describe. I don’t know how it moved the way that it did.
It doesn’t look anything like Abby. I still don’t understand how I thought it did.
The police chalked it up to the whiskey and my lack of sleep. They told me I have to stop doing this, or the next time I might not make it out of a bust alive.
They always say this. And I always think about stopping.
But then I think of all the kids out there, getting messages from the horrors that live around us.
I think of the kids who make that long, dark, lonely walk down the gravel road to the diner.
And I think about Abby. And how stopping all this feels like a betrayal to her. And I know that this can’t be the end. It never will be.
The police sent me home, and by the time I got back to my bed, the sun was already creeping through my windows. I closed the blinds and fell into the deepest sleep I’d had in months.
Hours and hours later, I jolted awake in bed as my phone vibrated next to me.
Right. I turned the sound off in the woods.
As I tried to adjust to my surroundings, I could see that my entire house and the sky outside was pitch-black. Somehow I slept through the entire day.
I rolled over to turn on the light, but when I saw the notification screen on my phone, I stopped cold.
I talk to a lot of different predators, on a lot of different apps, with a lot of different profiles.
But somehow, every notification on my screen, from different apps and dozens and dozens of different predator’s profiles, said almost the exact same thing:
meet me at the blue lantern
meet now at blue lantern
come back to the blue lantern
come back right now blue lantern i’m waiting
meet now blue lantern meet now right now meet now
They’ve been sending them all day. Every couple of minutes. From so many different profiles.
Then, my phone vibrated with the three most terrifying messages I’ve ever received:
don’t come to the blue lantern
stay at home
i’m coming to meet you now
|
5:58 AM
“There is an unexpected turn in the weather this morning, say our local meteorologists. Instead of seeing a warm day, we are getting a snowstorm that sources are saying could turn into the storm of the century.”
Dad turned off the radio, grumpy as hell this early in the morning. “It’s always the storm of the century with these guys,” he muttered, tapping his fingers on the worn steering wheel. His wedding ring clicked against the aged leather. I looked away from it before I could start thinking about Mom.
We got along fine, Dad and me, even with Mom gone. Drives like this, going to school before anyone else got there, was my favorite. It was a quiet time we shared before the cancer finally took her, and even though at home, we felt her absence like a god damn cavern swallowing us whole, here, in his old pickup, things were fine. We were okay.
He had work over at the factory, always did, so I always got dropped off to school hours before anyone got there. Teachers got used to seeing me there by myself, doing homework, reading a book, or since my parents scrounged up enough to get my cellphone, playing games that didn’t eat up any of my precious data.
Today was no different. The parking lots were empty when we pulled up to the school. I appreciated my silence. It was a good time to think. Call me pretentious, but I don’t think enough people spend time thinking on their own. Enough time to process.
When I opened the truck door, it was a biting, awful cold, cutting straight through the jacket I had on. Dad took off his scarf and tossed it over to me. I was too old now, too close to being a man, for him to wrap me up in it the way he used to.
I looked up into the dark sky, clouds rolling in like tidal waves, and saw the flecks of snow beginning to fall. Dad grunted and started up the truck again, sputtering to life, the only thing in the empty parking lot. “Looks like it’ll be a rough day today, son. Try to stay warm.”
* * * * * *
2:37 PM
It was sixth period English when we got the announcement, flickering over the intercom. Ms. Melas stopped her lecture on Lord of the Flies to listen.
“Due to the amount of snowfall, we are going to stay on campus until the snowplows can reach this side of town,” the principal droned. “Your parents have been informed that you will be with us until you can safely be picked up. The process for being checked out by your parents will be gone over by your sixth-period teacher, where you will stay until we are able to safely release you.”
“Yes!” Bryan Donovan practically shouted in my ear. “I had a chem test after school. There is a God after all.”
“Settle down, Mr. Donovan,” Ms. Melas warned. Even though she was looking at him sitting behind me, I flushed under her gaze. When she saw me turn red, she smiled slightly. I didn’t know why I bothered looking away; my giant crush was obvious, and was probably flattering to her. Ms. Melas was probably in her mid-thirties, real pretty, unmarried for some reason. Everyone said she was a lesbian.
She sighed, turning off the projector. “Well, I can’t imagine getting any work done with you all knowing we have a snow day. Go ahead and stop hiding your cellphones from under your desk or behind books, we all know you have them. You can use them until we figure out what’s going on.”
Everyone laughed and cheered, putting away their books and binders. Some people didn’t play on their phones, just talking about how great it was to get some time off to relax. There was half an hour left in class and she basically just let us go. It was awesome.
I got dragged into some conversation I paid no attention to, instead glancing around the room and thinking about my classmates. Arlette, the cheer captain, who was beautiful and pleasant and smart, the kind of unfair sort of graces that God gives out sometimes. Then, the most unfair of His doings, Delilah, who was an emaciated sort of thin, with hair that stays greasy even after a good washing, doodling away in her sketchbook. Usually from some anime, Sharpied fingernails scratching at the penned stars on the backs of her hands. Herman, who was in the marching band and would never shut up about it, Nick, also in band and deeply ashamed of it, Chuck, red-headed and obsessed with her books and stories. Some people whose names I still don’t know and can’t remember, so unremarkable to the world.
Bryan was probably my best friend. He was popular, and I guess I was too, by association. Bryan ran track and I watched. He dated cheerleaders and I hung out in front of the gas stations with them, sipping on a Slurpee while they made out. He was a pal, and the most annoying human being on the planet.
He smacked me in the back of my head as if he read my mind, offended. “You paying attention at all, Davie?”
“Nope,” I said, shoving him off me. A group of girls sitting around us laughed.
* * * * * *
4:13 PM
The lights above us flickered, stopping all the conversation in the room. It’s been an hour or so after the end of the school day. The outside world was wrapped up in darkness and snow, the light gone, even though the sunset wasn’t for another few hours. Everyone was unnerved by the sudden quiet. Delilah looked up from her sketches for a moment, then looked back down, apparently undisturbed by the quiet disruption.
“Spooky,” Ms. Melas deadpanned, rolling her eyes. A few people chuckled, easing some of the tension. “What, you pussycats afraid because of a few flickering lights?” She smiled. I always liked her, even when I was a kid. Before my brother graduated, she was his teacher. She was always nice to me, called me cute when I was seven. Guess that’s all it really took.
“We’re not supposed to be here this late, you know,” Chuck said in a hushed voice. Everyone turned to look at her. “Nobody is supposed to be here after-hours.”
“Why not?” Bryan asked, obnoxious as ever.
“Because of the Witch, dumbass!” she snapped. “The one who lives in our school.”
Bryan paused for a second. “That is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Language, Mr. Donovan!”
“He’s right, though,” Arlette interjected. “What do you mean a Witch that lives in our school? That’s insane.”
Chuck shook her head. “No, really, it’s true! I read it in the library once, about the history of the school. It used to be an unholy place that Witches worshipped and practiced dark magic. They used to perform sacrifices right here, where the school is today.”
“I suppose if you want to tell scary stories to pass the time, I’m fine with that,” Ms. Melas said, checking her watch. “I’m going to see what’s going on with the other teachers. The phones aren’t working, probably because it’s after hours. I’ll let you guys know what’s happening in a bit.” She left the classroom, leaving the door slightly ajar in case something happens.
Everyone automatically moved their chairs in a circle to listen to Chuck. She was a weirdo, but always told the best stories. With our phones running low on power from playing on them for the past few hours, it was the closest thing to entertainment we could get. The only person who didn’t scoot over was Delilah, still drawing away. It was creepy. She was creepy.
The lights flickered overhead again, and Arlette drew closer to me. Bryan wagged his eyebrows at me and I threw an eraser at his head.
Chuck cleared her throat. “I found it in the very back of the library when I was a freshman, tucked away on the shelf like nobody wanted me to find it. It was about the history of the school, and the land before it was built. It was old and falling apart, like if I sneezed the whole thing would fall apart into dust. I was really careful when I started reading it.
“It turns out that there was a colony here, back in the 1700s. It was quiet and good, all God-fearing people, and they prayed every day that the winter would be kind and that the snow would not come. But it came every year, wiping out crops, killing livestock, and oftentimes taking the lives of the colonists. Still, they prayed. After years of things happening, the town elders started to wonder, why was this happening? Even after they prayed to their god?”
“Because they touch themselves at night,” Bryan snickered. Arlette gave him a dirty look and he stopped.
“They realized that it was because of a Witch. She lived in the town, a young lady, that they suddenly realized had always been there, even as generations passed. Nobody realized, maybe because she cast a spell on them—”
“Booooo, cast a spell, my ass—”
“Shut up, Bryan—”
“—that she never aged and stayed exactly the same, year after year after year. It turns out that it was her the whole time, and the sacrifices the snow brought her kept her youthful after all this time. When the town elders discovered this, they vowed to get their revenge.”
The lights dimmed, then glowed brightly again. Arlette grabbed my arm, squeezing tight.
“They found her in her cottage all alone, facing the corner with her head up, chanting her spells in a choked scream. The snow had already begun falling when the elders grabbed her and dragged her out into the town center. She was still chanting, eyes rolled up into the back of her head. The town chief ordered a fire be built so they can burn the Witch, but they couldn’t get it kindled with the snow falling so thickly. He tried to tie her hands together, but it was so cold that his fingers would not cooperate. So instead, he took the blacksmith’s hammer and nailed her hands to the hanging post. There was no blood, there was never any blood. Witches don’t bleed. He ripped out her tongue so that he could stop the snowfall, save his town, but she continued to scream. He slit her throat, and whatever breath was left in her body exhaled the last of her spell, and the town was blanketed in white, lost until it thawed that spring. New settlers found the entire town, melted out and gone rotten in the sun, but they never found the Witch. The nails were there in the hanging post, but she was gone.”
I didn’t realize I was digging my nails into my palm until the pain came slow, like a realization. I let go and shook my hands, deep indents in my skin. Arlette did not let go of me.
“So the new settlers built Arlena Falls here, and Arlena Falls High School. Every year, we get major snowfall as the Witch tries to find her next sacrifice. Kids kept disappearing or getting into fatal accidents as the years went by, which is why we’re not allowed to stay here late at night.”
“Nuh-uh,” Herman protested, “the marching band stays here late every day, and you don’t see us being sacrificed.”
“And the band nerds are prime candidates for virgin sacrifices,” Bryan yelled. I socked him in the arm. He was my best friend and definitely the most annoying person in the world.
“The music building is brand new, built like, five years ago,” Chuck countered. “So it isn’t the same.”
It was eerie, now that I thought about it. We weren’t allowed to stay late. Campus security and teachers made sure of it, sweeping anyone trying to stay behind away. Any night time PTA meetings were to be held at City Hall. They said it was because the classrooms here are too small to hold all the parents, but why not use the gym?
I stopped myself. This was just another one of Chuck’s stories. It was just a way to pass the time. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was nearing five o’clock. Dad was getting out of work soon. I wondered where he was, or if he even got the message from the school. I wondered if he knew what was happening at Arlena Falls High.
* * * * * *
6:52 PM
We were getting snappish with one another, fast. Bryan was getting on my last nerve. My alone time was precious and it was being eaten up by his loud mouth.
“So, Chuck, how do we tell if the Witch is with us or not? Does she fly in on a broomstick or what?”
“There are signs, idiot,” she snapped from her desk. She was looking more and more worried as the minutes ticked by. It seemed like after her story, everyone was more than a little freaked out. Arlette moved her stuff next to me. I should have felt some sort of manly pride at being the one she felt safe around, but I was mostly just uneasy and on edge like everyone else. The outside world was barely visible from our second-story window, gusts of wind occasionally shaking the glass in its frame and making us jump. It sounded like someone was tapping on the windows lining the walls, and we kept saying out loud, as if it made it all better for everyone else, “Stupid wind, stupid snow.”
Arlette’s stomach grumbled loudly and she swore under her breath. I wish I had something to offer her, but everyone had already chowed down on whatever snacks they had in their backpacks after school. We didn’t even have a stick of gum to split between us.
Arlette raised her hand to ask if we could raid the cafeteria or something, ever the good student, then paused. “Wait… where’s Ms. Melas?”
Sure enough, our teacher had disappeared. She went to check on the other teachers and never came back. That was hours ago. A cold shiver ran down my spine. I looked around at my classmates. I felt their haunches rise, the already uneasiness of the room shift into something else. Panic.
“Nobody panic,” Arlette instructed us. But I could see it in the tremor of her hand. She was just as scared as the rest of us. “I’m sure she’s just chatting with other teachers and lost track of time.”
“It’s been hours,” said Nick quietly. Everyone turned to look at him. He rarely said much. “There’s no way she just forgot about us.” He paused, scratching at himself nervously. “There’s just no way.”
At that point, the power went out and something banged against the windows. Everyone screamed, some running for the door and tripping over backpacks strewn on the ground. Just as quickly, the lights flickered back on, the backup generator picking up speed. Kids were on the floor, rubbing their bruised knees. Some were crying, freaked out as hell.
Bryan stood up from where he knelt, gripping the desk as if he was braced for impact. He looked at me and nodded. “Dave and I will go check out the other classrooms, see where Ms. Melas went.”
Aw, fuck me. I knew there was a reason he was my best friend. But also, fuck him; I didn’t want to leave the classroom. But he was already heading out, so I followed him. It’s what I did. I picked up the fire extinguisher. We had a school shooter rally earlier in the semester where some expert told us that a fire extinguisher made a great weapon. I didn’t know I would ever have to think about that again.
As we stepped out of the classroom and into the empty hallway, I heard Herman say, “Wasn’t she supposed to tell us how our parents are supposed to pick us up?” It was true. I was suddenly filled with dread. What happened to Ms. Melas? Was she okay?
Bryan led the way. Our classroom was older, a little ways away from the other rooms, so when we got to the first one, we had built up enough adrenaline from the silent anxiety to bust some heads open. Bryan knocked, then opened the door.
It was empty.
“Isn’t this Coach Langdon’s room?” he whispered. He taught sixth-period Geometry before coaching baseball. “Why wouldn’t he be here?”
It was amazing, the kinds of things we rationalize. “They probably released students in waves,” I said, hearing the franticness of my voice. I couldn’t shake it, no matter how hard I tried. “And we’re one of the last, since we’re so far.”
“But—”
“We should get back, man, what if the class gets released and we get left behind?”
“I’m gonna check a few more classrooms.” He motioned for me to hand him the fire extinguisher and I tossed it to him.
“I’ll… head back into Melas’s room. I promise I’ll come find you if—when she comes back.” I felt like a god damn pussy. But being in that empty hallway, staring at that empty classroom, this late after school, was terrifying. I had to get back.
Bryan went on steadily, and I tried not to run back to the classroom.
* * * * * *
7:12 PM
“They’re all empty.” Bryan set the fire extinguisher next to him with a clunk. He looked pale as a ghost. “They’re all gone. The teacher’s lounge is empty too. Melas is long gone.”
“But how could she leave us?” Arlette stammered. “She’s our teacher!”
“Come on,” I insisted. “She didn’t just leave us…”
“Shut up, man, with your stupid fucking hard-on for that dyke!” Bryan practically exploded. “She fucking left us!”
“She couldn’t have! She probably went to go get help or something.” It was so flimsy that I felt stupid saying it. All eyes were on me. “She wouldn’t have just left us like this, not willingly.”
“Not willingly?” Chuck repeated. Her eyes got huge, like saucers. “Not willingly?” She burst into tears. Everyone stared at her. “It was just a story!” She started crying, hard. “It was just a story!”
“What was just a story?” Herman yelled, terror in his voice. “The Witch thing?”
Chuck just cried harder, rubbing her mascara all over her cheeks. “I didn’t think it was real! It couldn’t have! But the signs…”
“What are the signs?”
“First, the snow,” she sobbed, hiccupping like she was choking, “then, everyone leaves, just disappears…”
“Then what?”
The lights flickered again and everyone screamed. They dove for one another, trying to grip onto something corporeal. Arlette was no longer grabbing my arm. She was glued to her seat in terror, tears streaming down her face.
“The Witch will appear! As one of us!”
A deadly silence fell over the room. The kind of silence only a snowstorm can bring, oppressive and implying something terrible.
Bryan swallowed audibly. “How… how do we know who the Witch is?”
“This is stupid,” I tried. “We’re just freaked out, there is no Witch, Chuck said it was just a story she made up—”
“No, I read it, the book is in the library,” she continued to weep. “I found it when Ms. Melas assigned Lord of the Flies. It’s right there in the back.”
“How do we know?” Bryan shouted, commanding the room. I fell silent, watching him pace around the room like an animal. “Come on, Chuck, how do we know?” When she kept crying, he walked up to her and grabbed her shoulder, shaking her hard enough for us to hear her teeth click together. “Chuck!”
“She’s quiet, not the first person we’d think of.” Quiet. Not the first person we’d think of. So we all thought of the same person.
We turned to the corner of the classroom where Delilah stood. She was thin, practically swimming in that giant black hoodie of hers. She was always quiet, hidden away in the background.
It turns out it was her the whole time.
She stood there, petrified, staring at us. “Wha… wha…” She couldn’t even finish her sentence. She raised her hands as if to protect herself.
In the center of her palms, dark circles. Stigmata. Like she was nailed to a post by her hands.
The generator failed and the lights went out. A gust of wind finally defeated the old windows, shattering it and sending snow and broken glass bits around the room. It was chaos, screaming.
Bryan picked up the fire extinguisher and started making his way to Delilah, who was frozen in fear and babbling incoherently. “Ink!” she kept shrieking. “It’s just pen, it’s just ink—”
He moved with such force. I could only think of one thing. I tackled him from behind. “Bryan, wait—” He elbowed me right in the nose and blood gushed down my mouth, down my shirt. I gasped for breath, seeing stars, falling back.
Delilah ran for the door. The lights turned on and off, generator picking up speed and dying, coughing up life and death. Everyone chased after her, picking up yardsticks or pencils or pens, hollering and yelling, sounding like war cries.
Arlette helped me up and we ran after them. I was so dizzy, woozy. I heard Delilah screaming and crying for help as she pounded down the stairs, everyone running after her.
The doors at the front of the school burst open and she collapsed into a snow pile, running for her life. But everyone was so much faster.
Everyone was just so much faster.
* * * * * *
9:21 PM
When the ambulance and fire trucks and police finally arrived, we were half-frozen to death. They asked, even later on, why we didn’t just go back inside. They didn’t understand. We couldn’t. We couldn’t go back inside.
The blood outside the school mixed in with the fresh snow like a dropped coke Slurpee, browning in the bitterly cold air. The paramedics did their best to scrape up what they could to take back with them. The police stood around, shocked and unsure of what to do. This kind of thing just didn’t happen at Arlena Falls.
They led Bryan away, who was silent and flecked with blood and bits. Chuck kept whispering, “Witches don’t bleed, Witches don’t bleed…”
We were all taken to the police station, and then released to our parents. Dad didn’t say a word about my bandaged nose, or my black eye, or my choked crying all the way home. I thought about Mom, the emptiness that she left behind. I thought I was going to die right there in the mudroom of our home, gasping for breath. Dad held me like I was a kid again.
It didn’t make anything right again.
* * * * * *
Accident at Arlena Falls High School leads to Fatality
By Selena Lam
When the storm of the century hit Arlena Falls, a greater tragedy occurred when a student, Delilah Chapman, was killed in an accident in the school’s courtyard. Sources say that the student in question was well-liked by her classmates and was considered a good friend. They say the straight-A student was quiet and never caused any trouble, and was a valued member of the school population.
The accident occurred when students were left behind when the school lifted their snow day lockdown. In a strange occurrence, students did not check their cellphones to see that lockdown was finished and that they were free to go.
School officials say that the teacher of the students left behind, Ms. Helena Melas, is currently on paid administrative leave while the district investigates. Ms. Melas has been a member of the school’s faculty for thirty-seven years.
Flowers and condolences can be sent to surviving members of the Chapman family, her parents, John and Silvia at 4237 Rockwell Drive.
For more information, subscribe to the Arlena Falls Gazette.
|
Part 1
Have you ever heard of the seven gates of hell? Its a hugely popular paranormal site in rural Pennsylvania, surrounded by urban legend and horror stories. I always took it for granted how popular that site was, growing up only 15 miles down the road, but apparently its a nation wide phenomenon that some people travel hundreds of miles to visit. Now I’ve never been one to believe in the paranormal, and not just ghosts and the like, anything that didn’t have concrete evidence that I could see or feel was hard for me. I was just a logically based person, I’m sure you know the type.
My friends however, were all in that phase of young adulthood that involved needing to find proof of some kind of ghost, demon, or otherworldly entity. We were all sophomores in high school, and our evenings consisted of all sorts of ghost hunting adventures such as going out into the woods behind Madi’s house and using a pendulum to try to speak with a spirit, using a Ouija board, and even trying to create a makeshift summoning portal out of kitchen supplies. None of it ever really worked, sure the pendulum swung but it was windy, and everyone knows that Ouija boards are just controlled by whoever is touching it wanting to make a spooky scene. I was always there, playing along and having fun, but never truly believing anything.
That is why when Kenny brought up going to the seven gates of hell I was all for it. Aside from the fact that the thing was dripping in paranormal lore, there was an actual story behind it as well. In the early 1800s there was an Asylum in Hellam, Pennsylvania, this was back in the days where those that were admitted were not… treated great. I don’t need to tell you the things that happened to those admitted into asylums before 1900. One evening, that asylum caught fire and started a blaze for the centuries. Due to its location in the middle of the woods, it took fire response teams well over 20 minutes to get to the scene, and by that point, well, there was no point. Most of the occupants of Hellam Asylum were burnt alive, and while a few escaped into the forest, many were found dead later in the surrounding area due to smoke inhalation, starvation, or ripped apart by animals. All quite gruesome deaths. I wanted to see the remnants of the asylum that were allegedly still there past the sixth gate.
It was a Friday night when we went, leaving our home at 10 PM, so that we could try to be at the asylum by 3 AM, the witching hour. There were five of us, Kenny, Madi, Andrew, Lauren, and myself. All piled in to Kenny’s single-row pickup truck.
“So what are you guys hoping to find out there” I ask, I know there were supposedly the ghosts of the asylum inmates, but other then that I didn’t know too much about the lore.
“You know, the usual. Ghosts, demons, whatever wants to show itself to us” Kenny state matter-of-factly. At first, Madi and Lauren actually seemed a little tense, which was strange. This was the kind of thing we did all the time. It was Lauren that spoke next,
“Well, it depends on how deep into the woods we get. I heard Anders and Lawrence went by themselves last week and couldn’t even get past the third gate. Said that they started hearing voices and seeing eyes in the woods. Spooked ’em real good.”
I suppressed a laugh, Anders and Lawrence were basically the class clowns of our high school, and taking anything they said seriously was almost as much of a joke as whatever it was they had said.
“Yeah, and I’ve heard that if you can make it past the seventh gate then you get sent directly to hell, never to return.” Madi said, her eyes scanning the woods to our right.
“Assuming that hell is real, that is.” I chime in, achieving a punch to the arm from Andrew. After about a 45 minute drive we arrive at the broken down street sign that says Toad Road, the alleged beacon of where the gates are to start.
“Okay everyone shut up, you all have your flashlights, and knives?” Kenny asked. We had been instructed to bring flashlights for obvious reasons, and knives I guess to feel more safe from the ghosts? I know I brought one in case of a coyote which were more popular in the area then I would like to remember. An actual threat. We all nodded in his direction signaling our two items.
“Great. So about an eighth of a mile in the forest here, should be a rusted gate. That is the first gate, and once we cross it we will be in the devils territory.” Kenny said with a smirk on his face. “I hope he’s ready.”
I rolled my eyes and shot a smile at Madi who was looking a little bit nervous still. I put my arm around her and whispered to her that everything was going to be alright, and maybe they would finally find something of substance so we can put this dumb paranormal stuff behind us and move on to the next fad.
Kenny would soon turn around and lead us into the woods. It took us about 5 minutes to reach the gate that he had spoken of. I honestly didn’t see what the big deal was, it was a little bit strange for the rusted iron gate to be sitting in the middle of the woods, not attached to anything and being overgrown with vines and weeds, but scrap metal is found everywhere, there wasn’t a huge significance. The others seemed a mixture of elated and nervous at the same time.
“So what is supposed to happen after we cross?” I ask, preparing myself for the made-up shenanigans I will be experiencing soon.
“The first gate isn’t much. According to legend since we are the furthest away from the asylum, there are the least amount of spirits here. They will likely try to push you around so you may feel a bit of pressure but that’s about it. Oh also, our phones will probably go out here. Electronics don’t work in the gates. So please stay close, and if you get separated from the group just go back to the car so you don’t get hopelessly lost. I left it unlocked since we are in the middle of nowhere.” Kenny banged his flashlight twice on the metal bars of the gate, causing bits of rust to spark into the air around it, then with a theatrical performance he stepped to the other side of the gate.
I was next to follow, and then the rest of the group, and unsurprisingly, I felt no different. We walked for a few more minutes and I went to check my phone. It had shut off, which was strange because the battery life had been at almost 80% when we left the car. I guess cell service just doesn’t work this far out in the country.
“So all of your phones are actually off, then?” I ask, making sure I’m not the only one. One by one they check, and one by one they agree with me. I’m more concerned about us getting pulled apart from each other then the fact that maybe this could be a paranormal interaction. Madi is particularly freaked out by this.
“Guys I don’t know, this feels a little bit too real for me.” Madi said nervously, looking back towards the way we came, probably judging whether the social repercussions of going and waiting in the car and being called a baby inevitably by the rest of the group was worth it.
“Oh, stop, it’s fine. Worst comes to worst we all die in a poltergeist extravaganza!” Kenny said, not helping.
We continued walking. The next gate was about a mile deeper, and we weren’t moving super quickly.
“So Kenny, what is supposed to happ- OUCH!” Andrew stopped himself mid-sentence and glanced down at his leg. He pulled up his jeans to mid calf and revealed a large cut spanning about four inches of the back side of his lower leg.
“What happened?” I asked, looking around with the flashlight, attempting to find any thorn bushes or other culprit. I felt a light tapping on my shoulder, and turned around to see who it was, only to find no one was there. Madi, Lauren and Kenny were all standing next to Andrew, and I was alone where I stood. Okay. Weird. I’ll admit.
“I don’t know, I was just walking and it.. hurt.. then this,” Andrew said, motioning towards his leg. “I mean it’s not that bad, just unexpected is all.. lets keep going.”
We made it to the next gate a few minutes later. Only Madi complaining of feeling like she was getting shoved to the side, she compared it to when you’re walking next to someone who is leaning in to you. She was scared though, and placebo is a strong thing, especially in the paranormal, so I chose to ignore that.
“Alright, gate two is right here. On the other side of this gate, according to legend, you start feeling as if you are being followed, the pushing continues, only stronger, oh and there is a cult that guards the third gate at the end. So ya know, watch out for them.” Kenny, who had apparently not felt any presences during the first gate and was obviously feeling a little more lighthearted then the rest of the group pressed on without question.
It was about halfway through the second gate that we encountered out first problem. Madi’s flashlight died. She swore up and down that she had fresh batteries in it, but none the less, we were short one. Madi huddled close to me and used the light from mine as we continued down the imaginary path that Kenny was leading for us.
About a quarter of a mile past the second gate we heard a scream. I whipped around and saw Lauren on the ground, a wild look in her eyes as she looked back and forth so quickly I was afraid she might break her neck. We all looked at her inquisitively.
“I… I don’t know what happened, it felt like someone just speared me!” Lauren shouted, panic growing in her voice. I walked over to her and offered her a hand to get up. “I’m serious guys! It felt like I got tackled! I didn’t just dive onto the ground and scream for no reason!” Lauren shook off my hand and pushed herself up rejoining us, shock in her face, and Andrews. Kenny clearly didn’t believe her, and Madi looked like she was on the verge of tears.
As we walked, I got the increasing sensation that I was being stalked. I began looking around for the signs of a coyote, attributing the sensation to that, but I couldn’t see anything that would alert me to the presence of wildlife. In fact, now that I was thinking about it, there was a surprising lack of wildlife all together.
“Guys, hold up for a second, be quiet.” I asked everyone, and they all were happy to oblige, not that anyone was really talking that much anyway. As everyone stopped, I felt a pit in my stomach start to grow. There wasn’t a single noise being made. No crickets, no wind, no leafs cracking in the distance. Complete silence. “That’s strange, isn’t it? The lack of sound?” I stated my concerns aloud.
“I really think we should turn back. That feeling of being shoved down? That was enough for me. I.. I don’t want to mess with this stuff anymore, I’m serious.” Lauren shivered as she spoke, despite the relatively warm night.
“Honestly, I’m down to turn around too, it’s getting pretty late.” Andrew spoke next. His eyes, not necessarily frightened, but definitely on edge.
“Are you all being serious right now? Come on, we drove all the way here we are not turning back now,” Kenny said, his voice dejected. He threw his hands in the air in a fit.
“No I think we should keep going, I just thought it was weird is all,” I threw back. I felt it again, after I said that. The tapping on my shoulder, as if someone was trying to get my attention but didn’t want to speak. I turned my head, knowing there would be nothing there, and not being surprised when there wasn’t. “How much further to the third gate?”
“It should be right around here, lets go.” Kenny swung his flashlight around and started walking again, not giving anyone else the chance to disagree.
After another two or three minutes we landed back on a road that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. There was no sound of traffic, obviously, and there was no paint on the road, it just seemed like concrete in the wilderness. The feeling of being watched was almost overwhelming now, and I have to admit, it has started freaking my out a little bit at this point.
I could see in the distance another gate sitting at the end of the road. This one felt different though, maybe it was because it was decidedly less rusted and antique looking or maybe it was because it was in a place that actually made sense for a gate to go instead of being in the middle of the forest. Somehow it just felt.. strange.
When we were about 10 yards away from the gate, I heard Madi start to sob. I turned to ask her what was wrong and I saw utter terror in her eyes. I will never forget that look. I asked what was wrong, and she couldn’t even speak. She just pointed to the sides of the roads.
In the darkness where the road dropped off into more grass and trees, sitting just along the edge of our vision were bright green eyes. Hundreds of them.
Part 2
It took all of five seconds for the rest of our small group to see what Madi did. Those green eyes, unnaturally bright in the darkness of the forest surrounding them. Lauren let out a shriek, and Andrew just about jumped out of his skin despite not actually making a scream. I swear Kenny actually smiled, as if he was happy to finally have something to talk about. His smile doesn’t last, I know he wants to see something metaphysical more then any of the rest of us, but even for him, this felt like more then we bargained for.
One by one, what felt like thousands of men stepped out of the shrubbery on either side of the road, each holding some sort of weapon. My heart dropped. Madi is clinging on to me, her face shoved into my chest, sobbing. Andrew looks distant, like his brain wouldn’t allow him to process the situation. Lauren was also crying silent tears, and Kenny had an awful grimace that came from trying to look like he wasn’t scared to preserve his social status, and actually shitting his pants.
The figures were silent as they approach, they were humanoid in shape, but something about them was distinctly wrong. Maybe it was the way they appeared darker then they should have, even as they got closer and our flashlights could reach them. Maybe it was the way they seemed to float instead of walk as they moved, or maybe it was the noise that emitted from them. It was subtle, a small static like white noise, but its amazing how loud things sound when you haven’t heard noise at all in the last 45 minutes.
Three of the figures maneuvered themselves between us and the third gate, their gaze never breaking from our own. One stepped forward, his hands wrapped around what appeared to be a shotgun, the other two clutching giant clubs made of wood and scrap metal.
“You will turn around. Now.” The voice didn’t come from the man with the shotgun, but rather boomed through the air, as if the world itself were speaking to us.
Of course, my initial reaction was to turn around and get right the fuck out of there, as was everyone that was sane in our group. Kenny, however, stared forward with more purpose and drive then I’ve ever seen. He had finally done it, he had contacted and seen with his own two eyes something from another world. We all had. However unlike the rest of us, it hadn’t frightened Kenny, it had made him want to know more.
“No, no we are going to keep going. This is public land, you can’t stop us. I don’t believe that you will pull that trigger.” Kenny spoke back to the creatures with a calm precision. He really meant what he was saying, and I couldn’t understand how. I fought every urge in my body to turn around and bolt, and I walked forward to put my hand on Kennys shoulder.
“We need to go, man. I don’t think these guys are fucking around. We need to go.” I put emphasis at the end of the sentence, hoping that my good friend was just in some kind of shock induced state of overconfidence. I turned him around to look at the rest of us, instead of them. “Look at Madi, and Lauren,” I pointed at the two girls, the former’s head in her hands trying to avoid her surroundings, and the latter sitting down next to Madi, trying to put on a tough face and hardly succeeding.
“What, do you want to chicken out, just like Anders? This is all just meant to scare us okay, Daniel? Nothing is going to happ-“
A crack once again pierced the night, and I knew instantly that the shotgun had been fired. I didn’t even have time to scream before Kenny was gone. I don’t mean gone, as in dead, I mean gone. Ceased to be around. There was no trace of him, one moment he was talking to me, and the next my hand was no longer on the shoulder of my childhood best friend, but rather floating through the air back to my side. The figures were gone too.
“Kenny? Kenny!” I shouted into the nothingness. The sound was gone again, along with the creatures, so my voice felt like it would travel miles, but nothing came back. I turned back to everyone else, and they looked as petrified as I was.
“Where is he, Daniel? He was just right there! You had your damn hand on his shoulder, Daniel! Where is he!” Andrew was now in front of me, jabbing his finger into my chest as if somehow I was the one that caused this.
“I don’t..” I started
“That is bullshit!” Andrew shoved me hard enough that I stumbled backwards and almost fell over. “People don’t just disappear!” His rage quickly dissipated into worry as he walked over to where Kenny was just a few moments before and dropped to his knees. “We have to leave now, tell the police what happened, I don’t know.”
“We can’t just abandon him out here Andrew, we have to keep going.” It was Lauren that spoke this. The steely look on her face much different then the one she was wearing only a minute ago.
She was right. If we left right now, Kenny might as well be dead. He still might be dead, but if we keep going, maybe we can find those creatures again and try to strike a deal. There was nothing I wanted more then to leave this forest and never come back, but at this point, we didn’t have a choice.
Madi looked up for the first time since the dark men arrived, her entire face red, and tears staining her cheeks. When she spoke, her voice cracked and she sniffed to try to stop her nose from running to no avail.
“I don’t want to, I just want to go home.” She was defeated, and I didn’t blame her, however unless she wanted to walk back through the woods alone, she was going to have to get through it. Kenny needed us.
“I’m sorry, Madi, I know you’re scared. We all are. But we have to do this right now, we have to. We have to.” I repeated it twice, once for Madi, and once for myself. She looked back at me like a little kid being told she was going to be spanked, but she nodded her head, and let out another burst of tears before eventually standing on her own.
Without giving myself anymore time to think about it, I walked up to the third gate, put my hand on it, and walked around to the other side. The others followed me, if hesitantly.
The road that we had been walking on disappeared directly on the other side of the third gate, strangely enough, so we were back to walking through wooded terrain and keeping out eyes out to whatever may lurk in the trees. I had taken point in Kenny’s absence, Madi staying constantly at my side, followed by Andrew and Lauren. We walked in a tight square forward.
It was odd, but for some reason I just knew where to go. It was as if I was being guided, but by a force that was unseen or unfelt. I found myself making turns around certain trees, and crossing over a small stream at one point that would have been much easier to just walk along side. The tapping that I had been feeling on my shoulder previously was also getting stronger, and harder to ignore. It was persistent now, and the taps were becoming harder and more painful.
I could tell that the others were feeling something similar. Even though nothing was being said between them, all three of my companions would occasionally grimace, and hold a section of their body, or spin their head to look in a direction that had no calling to it. To their credit, especially poor Madi, no one said a word.
We ventured in silence for about 15 more minutes before we heard a scream. It was off in the distance, maybe fifty yards away I would guess. But with the lack of other sound, it was really hard to tell. Andrew and Lauren started running towards the sound call for help, and I was soon to follow. They were slightly ahead of us, and when we passed into a clearing the two in front of us stopped on a dime, nearly causing Madi and I to run straight into their backs. Andrews hand clapped over his mouth and Lauren turned away to vomit. I looked passed them, and saw my own mother being stabbed repeatedly by what I can only describe as a monster. It was pitch black like a shadow, with curled blades for hands and lanky canine looking legs, bent in directions that didn’t make any sense.
“Mom!” I screamed, mine almost as bloodcurdling as hers. I rushed forward and tried to tackle the creature attacking my mother, but right as I was about to lay into it, it too disappeared right in front of my eyes. I turned to find my mother, but she had been replaced with the face of another. An old man, with blood running down his lips, looking at me with a devilish smile. He licked his lips as he stared at me, and then vanished himself.
It took me a minute before I could move again. I had no idea what was real. Was this all a hallucination? It couldn’t be, because clearly everyone else saw the same thing as I did. I had no answers, nor any semblance of a clue what to make of the events that had happened. I fought back the urge to scream and vomit and walked back to our group.
“What are we even going to do, ya know, if we find him.” Andrew said, his eyes still trained on the ground where we had just seen two more beings disappear.
“We are going to fucking kill whoever took him.” Lauren spoke up, everything about her turned to ice. It almost made me more uncomfortable seeing the sweet, pretty girl who enjoyed watching makeup tutorials on YouTube and flirting with boys on Twitter look as hardened and shut off emotionally then it did seeing the spirits. Almost.
With a new sense of pace, we started back on the trail. My flashlight flicking back and forth between the trail in front of me and the trees beside me even more often now, and it wasn’t long before we reached the fourth gate. Or at least I think it was the fourth gate. There actually wasn’t a gate at all, but only a prominent mark in the ground, like someone had run their finger through wet concrete and molded it that way. I just knew that it was, however. I knew we were getting deeper into the game, closer to hell, I suppose.
I didn’t even bother to stop, I just kept walking. The moment I stepped past the ‘gate’ I knew I was correct. It felt like it dropped twenty degrees instantly. I also heard sound again, but it wasn’t the average forest sounds, it was distant wails, that could have been mistaken for a gust of wind in a different situation, but not this one. When Madi stepped over the line, her face froze and she looked at me. I did my best to smile for reassurance, but I’m sure it wasn’t worth much. She put her head back down and pulled her jacket closer around her.
“Are we going to talk about how we made it here? To the fourth gate? With no fucking directions?” Andrew was looking at me, and then pointed back down at the line in the dirt. “I mean, of all the turns we could have taken, all the different routes we could have gone down. This ‘gate’ is hardly six feet long in a forest that’s how big? And! And! How in the did we even know this was supposed to be a gate? I can’t be the only one that just knew?” Andrew was ranting, something he did to cope with things. Normally it was when a guy pissed him off at school by talking to a girl he was interested in, or how his favorite football team lost and it was all on the referees, this time it was about ghosts that kidnapped and possibly killed our best friend.
“I don’t.. I don’t have an answer.. lets just keep moving okay, I don’t want to stand in one place for too long.” I replied.
“Fuck this.” Andrew crossed his arms and let out a shiver from the newfound cold, but continued to walk ahead of me. Lauren simply walked by his side and looked straight ahead, focused on an unknown point and mind set only on completing her objective.
The further we got into the land of the fourth gate, the harder it was to ignore the background sound to our trek. It was clearly screaming, and it was clearly in the direction we were heading. Then again, I guess we had given up rational thought the moment we decided to continue further into this damned hell forest instead of turning around and cutting our losses at one of us. I know that may sound fucked up to say, but I’m afraid that even if we make it out of here, our lives will never be the same again. I know mine won’t be.
I don’t really remember when, but at some point images started flashing through my head. Ones that were not my own. I saw ash and monsters, endless miles of snow, spiders by the millions crawling along the ground. They were terrifying, and would flash in front of my conscience every couple of minutes for a brief moment. It was distracting, I wanted them to stop and after awhile started cringing every time I knew I was due for another. As we grew deeper, the visions grew longer.
Eventually it became all I could do to focus on walking straight. My gut instinct was to sit down, and close my eyes to try to make it stop. I knew that wouldn’t help, but I had the strongest urge to do it anyway. I persisted. I kept moving. I trained my eyes on the back of Andrews head, and grounded myself there.
It was in the middle of one of these visions, one where I was flying but my wings were on fire, and I knew that soon I would fall to my death, that I heard Madi scream again. I snapped back to reality and looked to my right, where she had been stationed all evening. She was gone, but not in the way that Kenny had been gone, this time there was a trail of blood. I don’t think that makes it better.
“P…please… help..” I followed the voice up a tree and saw Madi pinned to the trunk, a thick branch penetrating through her stomach. I crossed the distance between us in moments and looked up. She was out of my reach, and her eyes were closing quickly.
“Madi! Please, stay with us. We can help!” I yelled up to her, desperately wracking my brain for any solution. I whipped around to find Lauren climbing a dogwood next to the one Madi was impaled on. Andrew and I looked on helplessly.
“I got you Madi, I got you.” Lauren’s voice was reassuring as she worked her way a good fifteen feet off the ground to a crossing point between the two trees. I had forgotten how much of a climber Lauren had been in elementary school. It felt like ages ago, but it sure as hell was useful now.
Lauren reached over and made the jump. Madi followed her lazily, a drunken haze settling over her whole body. Lauren began to slowly climb down the the level our friend was at, and cradled her head. She then looked back down at us and shook her head. There was nothing we could do.
“You have to try, Lauren. Please get her down.” I begged, I couldn’t handle another loss. Lauren grimaced, and did the only thing that could possible save her. She broke the branch as close to Madi’s body as she could and she pulled her off. I’m not sure actually, if she managed to pull her the whole way off the tree branch. It wasn’t long after Lauren touched her,
Madi disappeared into thin air.
Part 3
I sat down on my knees and cried. With Kenny, we could force ourselves into thinking he was still alive somewhere, just kidnapped by some mysterious force, waiting for us to save him. Madi was dead. I don’t know where her body went, but I could see the life drain from her eyes when she was up on that tree. I don’t think I will ever get the image out of my head. Can you imagine? Seeing your best friend, one who begged you to leave and that you forced to keep going, impaled on a tree limb, screaming for her life? Knowing you couldn’t save her?
There wasn’t much time for grieving, however. Whatever resided in this forest didn’t care about feelings. I only had about a minute of freedom before the visions started again. Piles of bones, my home being swallowed by an earthquake, creatures of indescribable horror chasing after me. The pressure that I felt pushing me forward didn’t stop either. I could feel it pick me up from below my armpits, literally, mind you, and shove me forward.
Lauren made her way down from the spot she had been trying to rescue Madi, no expression on her face, and walked right past me in the direction that I had been shoved. Clearly she was getting directions too. Andrew put his head down, and walked behind her, leaving me as the last to follow. I took one last glance back, and continued on. There was nothing else I could do.
The fifth gate didn’t exist, at least physically. No one had spoken a word for the mile walk after Madi’s death until eventually Lauren spoke.
“We just passed the fifth gate.”
Of course, I felt it too. Instead of feeling hands tapping or shoving, it now felt like a constant pressure. Like when you were five years old and your 6’8 uncle gave you a bear hug. Only then you knew it would eventually end. The visions have gotten increasingly worse, but I’m starting to become numb to them. They are just a part of me now, I’ve accepted that.
I hadn’t noticed it, but the terrain around us was changing as well. Things around us were just.. dead.. now. The trees were growing more and more brown, leaves becoming more scarce as we continued on. Plants with blooming flowers were replaced with thickets of thorn brush. Animal carcasses littered the distance. It seemed unlikely that we were even still in an earthly plane anymore, the more I thought about it. Something like this would have garnered the attention of the local government in an attempt to stop whatever was causing the death, and as far as I could remember when we were looking at Google Maps of the area, there was no such large lifeless area.
It wasn’t long until we saw the eyes again. It felt less eerie this time around, and more sinister. As if the surrounding forest wasn’t enough, as soon as I saw the bright green glow around us I felt the death of the place. It weighed on me like a thousand pounds. I glanced at my friends. Andrew was darting his head back and forth in all directions, while Lauren kept her focus straight ahead, ignoring her surroundings completely as she had been for what seemed like years.
“You have one last chance.” The same voice as before at the third gate boomed through the air like a tornado. None of us listened.
Moments later, the dark figures appeared again, weapons in hand. They were more grizzly this time, however. No longer shrouded in dark capes, but rather flaunting their unnatural bodies to us. Their limbs were too long, bodies too thick, and worst of all, their skin was pulled so taut against their bones that it looked like a demon summoned from a sacrificial ritual. I guess, in a way, they were.
They had only appeared for a moment before they rushed at us. Unlike the previous encounter, where they had stood still and simply waited, this time they came at us from all sides, sprinting. I immediately sprung into a sprint forward of my own, Lauren and Andrew doing the same.
“We need to find a way through!” I shouted, even though I was only a foot or two behind, the white noise emitting from the creatures was deafening.
“Split… that… can’t reach.. all” I could only heard bits and pieces of what Lauren was saying, but her message was clear. She wanted us to split up, each running in a different direction, so that hopefully they would chase one, and leave the others. I couldn’t have disagreed more.
“Someone will die, Lauren! We have to stay together!” I screamed back. Like hell was I going to lose another person to this damn forest.
“One.. us.. all” I overheard. She thought it was going to either be one of us or all of us. She was probably right, but that didn’t make it okay. I just ran as hard as I could behind her. The creatures were closing in, and I had just managed to sneak by one of the incoming demons in front of us as he swung his club at me by dodging to the left. It wasn’t going to last though, I was running out of steam, and fast. That, along with the fact that I had no idea how long we would have to outrun these things, or if we even could, made me want to give up. Maybe it would be easier to just give in. Let this nightmare be over.
The thought of Madi and Kenny was enough to pull me through. I pictured Madi’s face as she breathed her last breath, and the look of determination in Kenny’s eyes as he stared down these dark men the first time. I had to keep going.
Suddenly, Andrew stopped. It nearly knocked me over as I tried to pull him with me, but he didn’t budge
|
“Do you ever have thoughts about hurting yourself?”
“No.”
“Have you ever thought about harming anyone else?”
“Never.”
Doctor Osbourne leaned back in his green leather chair. His slacks slid up and revealed long dress socks with red and blue squares in a checkered pattern. They were pulled all the way up and rising out of black dress shoes. The way the man dressed fit the exact image I held for what a psychiatrist’s wardrobe should look like.
But his dress attire was the only stereotypical thing about him. Everything else was different. That much was clear from just his office space. A simple room with one rectangular window on the second floor of a suburban Chicago plaza. The reception had all but three chairs in the lobby for the empty welcome desk to monitor. Nothing to suggest the man was anything out of ordinary.
“Well, that’s good, Ethan,” he said. “I believe you. And that’s going to save us a lot of time.”
It was the day I had been both dreading and looking forward to for a long time. It was the grand finale. The final hurdle towards reclaiming my personal freedom.
Of course, it was also poised to be the biggest challenge yet. This doctor Osbourne was sharp. It was going to be tough to slip anything by him.
“Before we start,” he said. “Is there anything you would like to ask me?”
I gulped while I held his gaze. He was a young guy. No more than a few years older than me– thirty-five at the most. You could see the intelligence in his facial features. His chiselled jaw was clean-shaven and his deep brown eyes seemed to peer inside you. The guy was a prodigy. He wouldn’t have been assigned the task of clearing me if he wasn’t.
It was all about getting him to buy in. If I could somehow convince him that he had it all figured out, he was the guy that could get me out of this mess. He had the leverage to convince everyone that I was sane, that I had nothing to do with any of it and wasn’t a threat to the general public.
Then, I could finally have the pleasure of mourning in peace.
“Not really,” I said. “Do you know how many people I’ve been forced to sit down and talk to?”
“I’m the seventh.”
“That sounds right. And trust me, the routine gets old quickly. So perhaps it’s best we get on with it. Start digging up the same true story I’ve told everyone else.”
He smiled at me. Not a casual smile you would give to humour someone after saying something foolish. But a smile that said he understood and empathized with me. Like he knew exactly where I was coming from.
“Ethan, I need you to understand something,” he said, finally dropping his gaze to the floor. “I’m not here to incriminate you. I’m not here to try and make you slip and say the wrong thing so I can piece together some kind of crime. I believe you are innocent. I just need you to give me enough. Just help me understand so I can put this all behind you.”
I believed him. I straightened my spine and cracked my back on both sides and felt he genuinely wanted to help me.
“So, why don’t you start right at the beginning? Tell me right from when Holly Bridges, Janet Kristo, and Alex Han showed up at your house. It was close to five-thirty in the evening, correct?”
He said their names like he knew them himself. The guy had done his homework.
“That’s right.”
“Okay. So, tell me what happened. I must know everything.”
“If I do that, will you believe me? Will you finally set me free from all of this? You have no idea how hard this has been.”
“That’s exactly my intention,” he said. “And you need to understand something. This isn’t my first rodeo. You know that. If I hadn’t seen every sick mental illness the human mind is capable of manifesting, then I wouldn’t be here.”
I gripped the wooden handles of the chair. The burning sensation inside my mind ignited momentarily before extinguishing. I readied myself for the performance.
“Okay then, Osbourne. Here’s what happened.”
He grabbed the pen and notepad resting on the wooden slab beside him. He looked very eager to hear me speak.
“Holly came before the other two. Maybe twenty minutes earlier.”
“I see,” he interrupted. “That detail is in all the police reports that I’ve read. I’m sure there’s a reason for that.”
“Yes, there was,” I answered.
“Were you intimate with her?”
My lips twitched before going still. I wasn’t even close to being ready to think about my relationship with Holly.
“Yes.”
“And that’s the reason she came over before the others, right? So you would have some alone time to be… intimate.”
“Yes, doc,” I said, trying to sound as if I had regained composure. “We fucked before the other two arrived.”
“Why isn’t that in any of the police reports that I’ve read?”
“Because it’s an irrelevant detail. It has nothing to do with what happened and I don’t like to think about it.”
“Every detail is important in a case like this, Ethan. Even if you think it’s nothing. But, please, continue. What happened after the other two arrived?”
“Janet and Alex showed up together. They had been dating for like three years and I hosted this little dinner party as sort of a couple’s thing.”
I noticed him jot something down quickly on his notepad. He looked up and gestured for me to go on.
“So, they take their shoes off and come inside. They come into the kitchen and I serve them some Australian red wine that I picked up for like thirty bucks earlier in the day. We started chatting while I checked to make sure the potatoes were cooked all the way through.”
“How much did you say the wine was?” he asked.
“Thirty.”
“Receipt in your apartment says it was eighty-five.”
“Really? Seems crazy I would spend that much. I don’t even drink wine. I only picked that one ‘cause all the Kangaroos on the label caught my eye. But sure, maybe I was trying to impress them. Kinda hard to remember things like that given what happened afterwards.”
“Hard to remember? Or hard to be honest about?” he asked as he cocked an eyebrow at me. I started to feel as if he wasn’t really on my side at all.
“Why would I lie about that?”
“Don’t know. There are a lot of things that don’t make sense in your story about what happened that evening. Just want to be sure you’re telling me exactly what transpired. The wine was eighty-five. And yes, it was Australian.”
Him knowing the little details like that made me nervous. Exactly how much time had this guy spent going through all the reports and case evidence? If he was going to pick up on things like that, then he was sure to pick up on the necessary alterations to the truth I needed to make.
“I’m telling you everything as I remember. And again, the price of the damn wine is irrelevant.”
“I think so, too. Please, continue.”
It was time for the hard part. I was going to try and tell the next sequence of events without actually picturing them inside my head. Thinking about being at the dinner table always brought back the burning sensation inside my mind. If I thought about it for too long, sometimes I would have the dream again.
I shuffled my feet against the wooden floor and braced myself internally.
“So, maybe five minutes later, I decide the potatoes are ready. The steaks were already cooked and left in the pan to stay warm. I started putting the portions together along with some asparagus from the steamer. I told them to sit down and I brought the plates over.”
“Do you think there was something in the food?” He asked. “And, no. I’m not accusing you of putting something in it. But maybe there was something off about it. Maybe by someone else’s doing?”
“That would mean someone at Trader Joe’s was trying to kill us, then. Cause that’s where I picked everything up from. Figure that would have shown up in some kind of toxicology report. And besides, I ate the same food. Nothing happened to me.”
“Of course,” he said while he rose from his chair. “I’m a little parched, Ethan. Can I get you some water while I’m up?”
“Sure.”
“Alright, then. Don’t stop telling the story, though.”
“Well, there’s not a whole lot more to tell. It happened just after six. We just sat around the table and ate our meals. The food was good, I even had the lighting looking nice with a few candles on the table. We talked about the new apartment they started leasing. There was literally no warning before it happened. They all just kind of fell flat against the table.”
The burning inside my head came back strong. The image of us at the dinner table, the one I couldn’t keep out of my mind when forced to explain what happened, started to slip away. And that’s the worst possible thing that could have happened.
After it faded, I started to see the ocean with little waves breaking in the distance.
I pressed my face into my hands and held my breath. Painfully, I pushed the image out of my head before it could develop. If there was one thing I had gotten good at, it was clearing my mind before it had a chance to set in.
“Stay with me here Ethan, I know it’s hard,” I heard him say from across the room. “Tell me in more detail. Three people don’t just fall dead from simultaneous brain aneurysms. It just doesn’t work like that. Something else happened.”
I dropped my elbows to my legs and looked back at him as he approached with water glasses in his hands. It was the face he was giving me. For a moment, I could have sworn that he had somehow peered inside my head while it happened. As if he watched me suffer with the images like they were twisted short horror films.
If only he could have known just how close he was treading.
“There’s nothing else to tell, really,” I said. “We were just talking, laughing, just as people do at casual dinner parties. I saw it happen. They all fell dead, right at the same time.”
“Was there one who looked to fall first? Even if it was just by a millisecond,” he asked as he passed one of the glasses to me.
Images of the dinner party flooded back into my head. I couldn’t hide from it that time.
All three of their faces went blank and expressionless. Their bodies wavered and their heads fell forward into their partially eaten meals, cracking the plates below. Holly’s glass toppled over and red wine poured out and soaked through the white tablecloth.
The burning pain was back in full force. I tried to escape before the image changed to the ocean, but I wasn’t quick enough that time around.
I was standing at the end of the pier. I could feel the wind blowing through my hair and the gulls calling overhead.
“No,” I said while I tried to look him directly in the eyes. “They all fell dead at once. One communal bang against the table. And I’m going to tell you the same thing I’ve told everyone else. I think they must have been fucking around earlier in the day. They must have taken some bad pills from a shady drug dealer or something like that. Yes, I know none of them have a history of being users and yes, I know that drugs don’t just do that to people. I’m fully aware of how far-fetched all of that sounds. But it really is what I believe.”
The bait was on the line. I prayed so much that he would bite.
He sat in his chair again and took a long sip of water. His dark eyes stayed locked on mine while he swished his glass around. He appeared to be thinking over his next words over very carefully. Then, he chuckled.
“Figure if that were the case, then something would have shown up in the toxicology reports you seem to know so much about, huh Ethan? But you know what I find more interesting than that?”
“What?”
“How you start to scratch your elbow every time you lie to me.”
I looked down and saw that my nail was picking at little shavings of white skin where my arm bent. I dropped it and looked back towards him.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said. “I can only speculate. Just like anyone else, I can’t say for sure. Please, just let me out of here. Give me my freedom. Then I can start to cope.”
I already knew that the nightmare was never really going to end. I was going to be living with the damn thoughts circulating in my subconscious for the rest of my life. But I figured saying something like that would let him take pity on me.
I couldn’t allow him to truly understand it. He didn’t deserve to be dragged into it along with me.
Yet, somehow, he seemed to already know.
“What is that you start to see inside your head, Ethan?” he asked me. “I see it every time you stop to think for more than a couple seconds. There’s something specific that goes through your mind while you pause. And it hurts you. I see two different facial expressions. Two terrible things are rattling around inside there.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. There are two thoughts inside your head. I’m confident enough to assume one of them is the image of your friends falling dead around your dinner table. But there is something else as well. There’s a second image, thought, or idea that follows it. It’s troubling you deeply. It’s so much worse than anything you’ve ever experienced before.”
I couldn’t understand how he could have possibly deduced that. How could he know about the second image? The incomprehensible thought that burrowed its way inside my head and would never leave.
And that’s all it took to trigger it one more time. Just thinking about it the slightest bit would bring it back. It was always the same.
I was back on the pier. Again, the wind was cool and the birds called from overhead. I saw the sailor standing next to me. He turned in my direction. His weathered face was covered by a long, grey beard that grew down to his collar.
Ships coming to port, he said. That was always his line.
Then, on the horizon, it started to form.
It burned worse than it ever had before. I fell to my knees, pressing as hard against my temples as I possibly could. I pushed out all the snot and phlegm that was forming in my throat. I tried so hard to keep from screaming.
I wrestled with the image for at least a minute, writhing in pain and barely able to keep myself upright. He must have done something to trigger it. He must have understood it in some way to make it burn like that.
I felt his arms grasp around my shoulders and pull me up. He guided me back into the chair. My head rolled back over the edge and my arms flopped over the sides. I was barely able to drink the little bits of water that he drizzled into my mouth.
Finally, things started to cool, and he must have picked up on that as well, because he didn’t speak again until I had fully returned to his office.
“Ethan,” he said. “I know you’re afraid to tell me what it is exactly that you see. I know that you think it will hurt me. That’s what happened to your friends. You told them about whatever you saw inside your head. You tried to explain it to them and they all fell dead when you did. I’m correct, aren’t I?”
I nodded at him. It was comforting thinking that perhaps he did, in fact, understand. Perhaps somehow he did know that some sick, twisted image had invaded the confines of my subconscious the night before the dinner party. I had gone to bed early and somehow ended up sleeping for fourteen hours, eating into the next day’s afternoon. The entire night, I had the same recurring dream. It only lasted seven seconds. And it would just keep playing over and over. Like a broken film reel. Forever stuck replaying the same goddamn scene.
“You’re correct,” I said.
“Okay. So we’re getting somewhere then,” he said as he returned to his chair one last time. “So what will it take, then? What do I have to do to pry it out of you? I promise you I can help. Tell me and I can start to make your pain go away.”
Once again, I detected that genuine desire to help me. For that, I will always be grateful to him.
“It’s not that simple,” I said while I pulled myself up straight. “It’s not like a normal thought or idea. It’s like an infection. I don’t know how to explain it any better. It burrows into your head, and you can’t get it out.”
“Okay, I believe you. Please, describe it as best you can.”
“It’s dangerous. I saw with my own eyes what it’s capable of. It sort of ground away at my brain while I slept. It stuck itself in there, and it hurt me. I couldn’t get it out. I tried to explain it to them… and you see what’s happened. But it’s weirder than that. For some reason, I can live with it. It doesn’t kill me. Just hurts me horribly. I don’t know if it coming in via the dream made me immune, but somehow I can live with it.”
“So, you think it’s something that can’t be fathomed properly by the human mind– except for yours, that is…”
“That’s exactly it. At least, that’s what I think. It’s like some kind of incomprehensible image that short-circuits the brain. And I swear that it’s using me like a carrier vessel. I’m its fucking host brain and it’s using me to spread to other people. Yes, I know how insane that sounds, but it’s really what I believe.”
“How often does it come back?”
“Once a day at least. More if I think about the dinner party or try to remember how I even slept that night. As you can see, today has been particularly bad for bringing it back. The pain never gets any lighter, either. But, it never kills me. Even though sometimes I really wish it would.”
He wrote something on his notepad then set it down beside him. He leaned forward and used his hand to still my shaking knee.
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Ethan. I’m going to tell you something. I have seen something like this before. In fact, I’ve seen much worse. I’ve seen things that you wouldn’t believe someone could even make up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Ethan. Believe me when I say that I’ve always been able to help the person dealing with it. So, I beg you. Please tell me exactly what you see inside your head. Before I can help, I must first understand.”
“I’m scared,” I said as I lifted his hand off my knee.
“I’m not,” he responded. “Now, let me in. Tell me every little detail.”
And then I did exactly what he asked me. I closed my eyes and let the scene play out inside my head. I told him everything exactly as I saw it. It was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever felt.
“It doesn’t last long. Seven seconds. Every single time. I start standing at the end of an ocean pier. It’s a beautiful sunny day. I see directly out over the horizon, right where the blues of the sky and ocean meet. The sun is hot, but the wind cools you as it blows by. It all feels real. Like you’re actually there.”
“Continue,” I heard him say. He sounded further away.
“Then, you see a sailor, just a little to the left. He’s leaning over the railing, looking out over the ocean, too. He turns to you and always says the same thing. “Ships coming to port.” Then, over his shoulder, you see this black blotch forming on the horizon. It’s got these long arms reaching upwards from its center. Kind of like the tentacles of an octopus. You can’t turn away from it, no matter how hard you try. For the rest of the vision, it gets closer to you. But it’s not floating atop the surface of the ocean. It’s more like it’s eating into the frame you’re seeing, slowly making the picture blacker.”
I had to stop talking. I clutched my sides and tried to withstand the pain. It was almost over. It was almost time to start pushing it out again.
“Then, it restarts. And it just keeps playing until you force it out. The longer it’s there, the more it grinds you down. At least, that’s how it works for me. For them, once I told them…”
I could feel tears starting to form at the corners of my eyes.
“Their eyes just rolled back before they died, you know. They got infected by this thing and it’s all my fault. I hate myself for telling them about it every day. So doc, if you are starting to picture exactly what it is I’m saying… you need to force it out right now.”
The seven-second clip played a few more times inside my head. At least, that’s how it seemed to go, but when I opened my eyes, the room was very different than it was before.
Much time had passed. The daylight streaming through the window was gone and replaced by a pale streetlight. I looked at my watch, and at first I was sure that it was lying to me. It said that it was 8:30 PM. At the very least, four hours after he told me to explain the vision to him.
Doctor Osbourne wasn’t sitting in his chair anymore. He wasn’t looking back at me all calm and relaxed, telling me that everything was alright and he was going to make it all go away.
He lay lifeless on the floor. His eyes rolled all the way back. He’d been dead for some time.
I hope you didn’t picture this story too clearly.
CREDIT: J.D. McGregor
(You must ask permission before narrating this work. Click HERE to do so)
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“Better Run Through the Jungle”
My name is Michael Hasford. I am seventy-two years old and I have terminal bowel cancer. I haven’t told anyone this story in nearly fifty years, the last time being before I was made to sign the State Secrets Act and bound to silence by threat of imprisonment. My doctor says I have around five months at best and although I cannot say I have had a particularly long or happy life, I am ready to die. My life has been longer and happier that it had any right to be and now I will tell you why. I don’t care what the legal implications are, or if whoever reading this chooses to believe it or not, I just have to get this off my chest. To quote a fellow Marine, far more skilled in writing than myself, ‘what follows is neither true nor false but what I know’.
In the summer of ‘66, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps during a fit of idealism. While my friends were tuning in or dropping out, I followed my Grandfather’s footsteps into Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children with a view to combat in Vietnam. Although I had my pick of colleges on the east coast and my Marine recruiter had repeatedly tried to convince me to attend Officer Candidate School, I had made up my mind to join as a rank and file private. I was determined to see the kind of action my Grandfather had. I was determined to make him proud.
So it was that I found myself stepping off a C130 transport plane at Da Nang in early 1967. As part of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion – Fifth Marines, I was in a combat unit that did plenty of damage to the Vietcong in the area around Da Nang and in turn took plenty of casualties. One of the first sights that greeted me as the belly of the transport plane opened and the wave of intense heat hit us was that of the thick, olive-green body bags that replaced us as cargo. They were all full.
My first week or so on base was tough; sleep did not come easy thanks to the scores of mosquitoes and the loud bangs of outgoing artillery. So I was relieved when I received a night’s sentry duty, I needed something, anything, to keep my mind occupied. Little did I know it was nothing but more time for reflection and I was beginning to seriously doubt my decision to enlist. Guys in my platoon on their second tours were talking about the reaction from folks back home. ‘Baby killers’ they called us, ‘Nazis’. One guy said the prettiest girl he ever saw wearing blue and white beads and a peace button spat in his space as he walked down Fifth Avenue in his combat fatigues.
At around midnight, I saw a figure approaching and just about discerned the double shoulder bars of a senior officer. Captain Espera was a legend on the base, an LAPD captain before he joined the corps he was highly respected by the men below him and an excellent combat leader.
“Nice night for it, huh?” I couldn’t make out his face in the darkness, but his warm smile carried on his voice.
“Aye, sir.” I squeaked, a kind of star struck.
“Hasford, old English name, right? Where you from, Marine?” Captain Espera fidgeted with a large, silver ring that glinted on his finger in the low light.
“North Carolina sir, Hubert.”
“I know it, my wife has family there, we visit whenever I get time away from Lejeune. Must have been a wonderful place to grow up, I hear the fishing is spectacular in the spring.”
“Thank you, sir, but I wouldn’t know. Me and my brother spent most of our time shooting squirrels with our B.B. guns.” I couldn’t help but smile as I spoke.
“Ah!” Captain Espera chuckled. “My man after my own heart, I hunt buck up near Willow Creek!”
There was a brief silence and I found myself growing less and less anxious, the Captain had a reassuring presence, a true quality of leadership and something I grew increasingly appreciative of.
“Have you been in combat yet, Hasford?”
“No, sir,” I said, a little embarrassed. “I haven’t had the opportunity.”
“You won’t have to wait long,” he said, producing a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes and offering me one, “but you’ll still have to wait. I’m leading a pretty secretive reconnaissance mission tomorrow night and it’s not cherries, no offense, Private.”
The Captain took a long drag of his smoke and looked up at the moon for a moment before returning his gaze to me. The moon seems a lot larger in that part of the world; whatever power it holds seems amplified hanging thick in the humid night air.
“Keep up the good work, Marine. You make K/3/5 proud now.”
“Aye, sir!” I said, beaming. His mild manner had alleviated my anxieties and I was determined to make him proud to have me in his unit.
A few days went by before word began circulating about the Captain’s recon patrol. I was working in the galley with a young marine from Chicago, Lance Corporal Lincoln Holsey, self-proclaimed ‘soul brother’ and my best friend in the platoon.
“Yo, Hasford, you hear ‘bout the Captain?”
“Captain Espera? What about him?”
“He’s gone dee-dee’d into the bush, man. Motherfucker’s M.I.A.”
“He’s missing? What the fuck, Holsey, how?”
“What do I look like, fuckin’ S-2 over here? How the fuck should I know?”
“You got the Scuttlebutt, Soul Brother. You telling me that’s all you got?”
“Captain left for the boonies with five senior guys and some CIA spook, like, three nights ago. No sign of ‘em since. They been flying choppers over the area searching for they asses, but ain’t no one to be found.”
“Jesus Christ, man. What do you think happened to ‘em?” I was in disbelief that anyone as salty as the Captain could just up and go missing, least not without leaving some trace.
“What happens to anyone ‘round here? Fuckin’ Mr. Charles got ‘em. Or he got smart and he’s on his way to Vancouver as we speak.”
“Mr. Charles? The Vietcong?”
“Brother, you gotta respect your enemy, or you screwed. That’s why I call ‘im Mister, I call my enemy sir before I send ‘em back to the Stone Age. Now xin loi, my boy, but I gotta go see Gunny Hathcock about my ride home next month.” Holsey laughed and swaggered out of the tent into the sweltering afternoon sun.
That night, a few of us sat around the barracks, bored out of our skulls yet incapacitated by the relentless heat and humidity. Shirtless Marines sat round cleaning their rifles, writing letters, reading or just chewing the fat. I had just eased off my new jungle boots, still uncomfortably unbroken when our platoon sergeant near booted the door open. His thick Cajun accent was almost undecipherable, but that night we heard an urgency in his voice that bordered on terror.
“Gitchur cowboyass outtayur bunks, raht nah!” he screamed at us, pointing and barking at rifles, throwing boots at Marines. Through the unintelligible tirade of cursing and the hurling of insults, we made out the undeniable cadence of “furst-fuckin-combat-mishn.” Faces paled and eyes widened.
I was still buckling up my flak jacket as we assembled at the helipads, the rotor blades of the Hueys just starting to spin as the pilot gunned their engines and the air was filled with the loud whine of moving machinery. The young Lieutenant commanding our platoon arrived, briefly exchanged words with our purple faced platoon sergeant and turned to us, shouting over the din of the aircraft.
“Marines, many of you will have heard of the disappearance of Captain Espera’s reconnaissance team a few days ago near the village of Lo Tranh. Well, tonight I have some good news for you, the team’s radio set is sending out a signal, its weak but our signals guys are picking it up in bursts. Whoever’s doing it is keying the handset, trying to send a message in Morse code. Whatever their saying is garbled but we have managed to triangulate the transmission and get an idea of location. We believe the team to be alive, now hows about we get on these birds and bring our fuckin’ brothers home?!”
“OORAH!” screamed the platoon in unison.
“Embark!” screamed Sergeant DeL’eau and we raced to the helicopters, full of purpose and vengeance. It was disturbingly inspiring to see such a display of raw power as the weapons-laden helicopter rose, banked and then raced through the sky into setting sun.
After a short flight, the helicopters grouped together over a clearing in the jungle and then took it in pairs to land their load of troops before racing off back to base to refuel. We waited until the beating of their rotor blades had faded into a distant chatter and the bush, whipped up from the downdraft, had calmed and returned to stillness. The Lieutenant stood up and waved us off; the platoon of twenty-six men began snaking through the bush. The Jungle is a terrible place to be at night, most of its animal inhabitants are nocturnal, so the plethora of howls and screeches that usually emanates in the daytime become all the more sinister after dark. A whole new element comes alive when the moon penetrates the canopy in silver slivers. So after an hour or so of humping our stone-heavy packs, some of the men began whispering to each other in the line. I didn’t notice anything at the time, the heat was so intense and my heavy pack caused aches in muscles I didn’t know I had, my mind was elsewhere, the fear, the sheer fucking stupidity of it all.
It was silent. A dreadful silence hung thick in the air and my heart sank when I saw the looks on some of the old breed’s faces. These salty old devil dogs, who’d eat their own guts and ask for seconds, they looked like they’d just stepped out of their own graves. I suppose I didn’t even realize at the time just how impossible it could be that such dense jungle could be so eerily quiet during the nighttime, but I can tell you right now I knew it was going to be bad. Just how bad, I never could have imagined. We moved very slowly and for a while, very aware of the loud crunches our footfalls made. Most of us had switched our sixteens to rock-and-roll and when ‘8-Ball’ in second squad clipped on his bayonet, I struggled not to follow suit.
Suddenly a Marine ahead of us growled and a violent rustling began as he dragged something heavy from a patch of elephant grass. It was silently wriggling.
“Get ahta there, shitbird!” he seethed with his New England twang. He had what looked like a teenage boy in his grip, the boy wore black pajamas and rubber flip-flops that looked like they could have been made from truck tires.
“Lam urn mau su chet, lam urn mau su chet!”
“Shut the fuck up!” someone spat, a rifle butt whipped across the boy’s cheek.
“Corporal!” spat the young Lieutenant, bounding up the line. “Do not abuse that prisoner!” He turned to the platoon sergeant and asked is anyone in the platoon spoke Vietnamese.
“Ain’t nobody here spoke no fuckin’ gook, L.T.,” spat a wiry Texan in disgust.
“Little bastards shittin’ his pants, man. I never seen anyone so damn scared,” giggled a Marine near me.
“It ain’t us that’s scarin’ him,” murmured Tiny, his voice so deep it seemed to come from the earth below us.
“The fuck you talkin’ about?” a Marine said in the darkness. “You tellin’ me this motherfucker’s lookin’ at enough firepower to invade a European country and he ain’t scared? Get the fuck outta here, dumb fuckin mook.” The platoon shifted a little at the sleight. Tiny stood at seven foot three, had to be two seventy at least, this guy was huge. He just carried on looking off into the darkness.
“You know what I’m talking about, man.” His eyes betrayed his terror. “There’s something here, something else.”
Flashes and loud cracks had us throwing ourselves into the dirt for cover. Somebody was firing a weapon very, very close to us and the bullets were traveling just inches from our ears. ‘Ambush’, I thought and braced myself to feel the cold punch of lead. Maybe it would rip out an elbow or a knee cap, maybe a glancing blow to the calf that rips muscle away from bone, or a dead center that pulverizes the jugular vein and leaves you dead in an instant.
“CEASE FIRE!” screamed the young Lieutenant. “CEASE FIRE, GODDAMNIT!”
The Vietnamese boy was laid at his feet, thick, dark blood pooling beneath his limp form. The young platoon commander’s face looked pale and clammy in the moonlight.
“Wha-What did you do?!”
“He went for your pistol, Butterbars! He was about to fuckin’ waste your ass!” hissed the Marine who fired.
“You killed a child, Lance Corporal!” retorted the Lieutenant with authority.
“He wasn’t no goddamned kid, asshole. Motherfucker was a fighting age male. If I hadn’t of acted, you’d be tiger chow. There it is!”
“Lance Corporal, I will personally see that you do time in Leavenworth for this. You are gunna be climbin the walls trying to re-”
“He wasn’t tryna kill you, Lieutenant Goldsmith,” rumbled Tiny again.
“Say again, Marine?”
“He wasn’t tryna kill you, Lieutenant Goldsmith, sir,” Tiny repeated. “He was tryna kill himself.”
We kicked some dirt over the body of the dead communist and moved on. After a while I could make out a clearing in the canopy about two hundred meters ahead of us, it’s hard to tell in the pitch blackness. The Lieutenant sent a few men ahead to recon the area, it wasn’t long before one called out. It was more like a shriek than anything.
“Sergeant!”
The husky Cajun bolted forward, weaving and bounding his way through the trees. I was near the rear at this point, with the light machine guns moved to the front and rear of the column. We were expecting an ambush any second. Any Vietcong in the area would have heard the shots that killed their comrade and were surely on their way to avenge him. So whatever unfolded between the Lieutenant and the Platoon Sergeant is unknown to me to this day, but they concluded that we were to carry on with our mission. Maybe out of some sense of duty, maybe a sense of survival, maybe a dash of both. But when my part of the line passed the moonlit clearing, shifted step and peered into the long grass. I’ve never forgotten what I saw. Torn off at the elbow, streaked with black clots of blood was a human arm. In rigor mortis, it gripped a radio handset in white knuckle vice. I just kept walking.
The last place we stopped before it all fell to shit was this cave, or tunnel. It was a little of both I guess. A few guys flicked on their torches and at first it actually felt a little safer inside the ever-narrowing passages. But when some of the guys started pointing out the unnatural patterns on the roof of the cave system, people started to get really fucking jumpy. The few pieces I could make out in the torch beams showed nightmarish carvings of animals and people, twisted and smiling, there were other figures in the carvings too. Now the tunnels descended incredibly steeply, with some of the platoon slipping over in the darkness.
“-the fuck, Avalo? You fuckin’ spit on me?”
“Nah man” a voice quivered
“Then what the f-?”
“Keep fuckin quiet”, growled the platoon sergeant.
I remember my ears popping, like they did on the airplane over there, so we must have gone down a long fuckin way before we came to the crack in the rock. I’m no geologist but it looked like it could have run down into the center of the earth, like a giant knife wound in the layers upon layers of condensed rock. Impossible I know, but that’s what it looked like. Tunnel rats were summoned, small wiry men born to crawl tunnels, and they eased their way through the cracks.
We waited, for what seemed like an hour, and then the voices came. At first I thought it was the returning scouts, a faint whispering of voices echoing through the tunnels. But the sound just grew louder, the voices multiplying.
“What the fuck is that?” the other Marines were hearing it too.
“We gotta get the fuck outta here man, we gotta go, this is fuckin BAD, man!” another squeaked.
It sounded like a hundred thousand people whispering right through the cracks, that’s the only way I can describe it. The sound seemed to penetrate you, my eyes watered and my stomach cramped up, other guys in the platoon vomited. I don’t know what they were saying; I didn’t recognize the language at the time and I’ve not heard anything like it since. Besides, at the point I stopped pissing my skivvies and tried to really listen, all I heard was screams. But these were distinctly human. Of the three men sent ahead, only two came wriggling through the cracks into our torchlight. They were so scared; they seemed to lose their humanity. There was no effort to articulate themselves, just howls and breathless grunts, and their eyes, Jesus Christ, their eyes. Those men were like animals. One had his shirt ripped from his back and the other was covered in blood, but bore no obvious wounds.
The whole platoon bolted. We scrambled up the steep tunnels, some men firing their rifles into the darkness behind us. Men were screaming out that they saw things in the tunnel behind us, that they were climbing the walls, that they were everywhere. When we reached the mouth of the cave men sprinted into different directions, I remember hearing our Platoon Sergeant screaming to keep together and some of the men completely ignoring him, disappearing into the thick jungle. A few of us grouped together and took a defensive posture in a thick patch of bush, I couldn’t make out our Platoon Commander but it was definitely our Sergeant giving orders.
“Kip y’r hedson swivel nah,” he whispered and turned to our radioman, signaling him to pull the plug and call in our emergency evacuation.
A few minutes went by before we heard something shuffling through the jungle. I flicked my safety catch off and aimed through the darkness at the sound. My heart began racing. Hairs on my arms and neck stood to attention. It was to my infinite relief that I heard a fellow Marine call out a name in recognition.
“Davis? Davis, that you?” the shuffling continued, Holsey reached for his field torch.
“Nah man, that’s th-” the torch flicked on; and for the brief second, before Holsey was dived upon and torn limb from limb by the attacker, a familiar yet horrifying sight was beheld.
Every man still with us opened up on the figures rolling around on the deck, spilling blood and intestines into the grass. We were still firing blindly into the darkness as we ran towards the sound of the approaching helicopters. Branches and thorns whipped at my bare face and arms, men tripped, fell and were set upon by unseen forces, their deep, guttural screams turning into rabbit’s squeals as heads were pulled away from necks. We broke through the tree line into the moonlit clearing just as the Hueys were touching town. We dashed for the blinking red lights in the troop compartments, screaming at the door gunners to open fire. They refused, looking at us with horror and confusion.
“There’s nothing fucking there! No fucking targets, dumbass!” one screamed as we piled on. The feeling of lifting off into the night sky brought tears to my eyes, in darkness and the confusion I couldn’t work out who had made it out and who hadn’t. But I did roll over in time to catch sight of the tree line before we turned and sped away.
They kept me in isolation at Da Nang for nine days after that and I never once heard of or spoke to any of the other men on the rescue mission. Twice a day I was interrogated by two CIA agents in summer gear fit only for the beaches of San Diego. Their tourist attire made them all the more ridiculous when they began to become increasingly hostile, as I told them again and again that I knew nothing, saw nothing. After a while, I was flown back to the U.S and was told I was to be honorably discharged from the Marine Corps under the grounds I was mentally unfit to serve. I put up no resistance as they placed the long forms in front of me at Camp Pendleton and made me sign them. I listened as they reeled off the conditions of my release and displayed no emotion when the potential penalties were read out, “seizure of assets, indefinite imprisonment”, it went on and on. It was a Vietcong ambush and a tragic loss of young American life, simple as that. Only it wasn’t.
I’ve had nearly fifty years to think about my time in Vietnam and the events of that night and I’ve come to a few conclusions. It’s these conclusions, and I use that word deliberately as they are definitely not just theories, that I feel I must warn you all about.
UFO sightings, Roswell, the Moon Landing, every god damn cheap assed B-movie about Martians or meteor strikes or solar flares. It’s all a distraction; the idea of Space, of life out there on other planets has captured the human imagination so much that we’ve neglected the space beneath our feet. They’re not going to come from the sky; they’re going to come from below. From the caves and caverns and underground rivers they’ll come for us and we’ll never be ready for them, never.
But that’s not what keeps me awake at night, what has me jolting awake covered in cold sweat, sheets soaked. Signing the State Secrets Act is not what’s really kept me from telling this tale; it’s what I can’t reconcile about that night that’s kept me silent. The thing that attacked us in the jungle as we fled, I did catch a glimpse of it as it pulled down the terrified Marine and plunged its limbs into his chest. The face was completely mutilated; lips ripped away, baring broken teeth, with empty eye sockets holding shadows in the dim torchlight. The ragged cloth that covered its torso was caked in dried blood and dirt but I saw something tucked away in the breast. The wrists were broken inward with sharp, jagged, broken bone protruding from open wounds. But again I saw something on one of its twisted fingers, it was a Carolina State University ring and tucked away in the rotten cloth I glimpsed a flash of red and white text. ‘Pall Mall’, it read. We had found Captain Espera after all.
See you soon, Soul Brother.
Hillbilly
CREDIT: Sam Riding
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Preface
To preface this beginner’s guide and rule-book on the game of “Lights Out”, the author discourages any individuals from initiating or participating in this game. With that being said, this guide serves to assist those brave and moronic individuals who will, nevertheless, attempt this dangerous game whether or not they are knowledgeable of the rules, risks, and rewards.
Introduction
The “Lights Out” game has been referred to by many other names. Some more common names include: “Lights Off”, “Light Switch”, “Room Wars”, or simply, “Switch”. No matter the title you may be familiar with, the rules of the game remain the same. Before we begin an explanation and brief history of the game, the author would like to once again warn against participation. Persons with pre-existing medical conditions, the elderly, children, and pregnant women are highly discouraged from playing. Only those individuals of fit body and sound mind should consider attempting “Lights Out”, and only if said individuals understand the inherent risks.
Overview
The objective of Lights Out is a simple one. Two players are assigned either to lights on, or lights out. The players then race around an assigned building switching room lights either on or off. The game ends when either side manages to turn all lights in the house on or off. If the player tasked with turning the lights on manages to illuminate all rooms in the house, that player wins. If the lights out player manages to turn off all switches in the house, that player wins. It should be noted that even though this is a two player game, only you, the reader/participant, are actually playing. What is simply called “player two” will be discussed later in this guide. For now let us move on to a brief history of the game.
History
The history of this game is an obscure one, to say the least. Although nobody knows the exact origin of Light’s Out, reports of this game being played date back as early as the commercialization of the light bulb. Journal entries from several countries in the early twentieth century indicate this game, or games similar to this one, being played worldwide in the Americas, Europe, and Southeast Asia. A correlation can be found between an uptick in references to the “Light’s Out” game during times of war and famine. This is hypothesized to be the case because of the unique and highly valuable award granted to those individuals who find success at “Lights Out”.
Sometime during the mid-twentieth century the game fell into obscurity. This is not to say that the game had been common knowledge, or popular during its history, but instead, the game fell from relative obscurity into complete obscurity. Very few references to this game exist from the 1950s onward to the present. The author has several theories as to why this may be the case, but for the sake of staying concise, it will not be discussed in this guide. Lights Out has since existed underground in niche communities from Wicca to deep web forums. This guide is intended for members of these communities who know or have heard of this game. Readers who only now know of this game due to this article should stop reading immediately and refrain from pursuing anything related to this game.
The Players
As previously stated, Lights Out is a two player game. If you choose to participate in the game you will be named player one. This is because player one always initiates the game. As player one you are able to decide the play area, as well as make appropriate changes to this area. You are also able to choose which side you will be on (It is recommended to choose lights on, as choosing lights out will find you running around in the dark for the duration of the game).You may also choose the starting location of player two.
Player two, hereby referred to as it, is to be summoned into the room you have chosen. Summoning procedure will be outlined below. It may not be seen by player one but may be felt, often as a cold flash, and sometimes as a hot flash. Reports often site an unpleasant odor of rotting fruit or garbage when player two is present. Player two follows the same rules as player one during the game. However, just as player one has a few advantages during the set up procedure of the game; it has been noted as having its own distinct advantages during the game itself. This too will be discussed later.
The importance of this player introduction is to understand the differences between you and the entity known as player two, or it. Begin to think about the importance of the setup procedure and how it may influence the outcome of the game.
Rules
The rules of Lights Out are fairly straight forward. As of the writing of this guide, there exist seven rules. This section of the guide shall be formatted as a set list.
1. The game may only be played between the hours of 12 am to 4 am
2. The play area must consist of a closed off building containing multiple rooms and/or hallways all with light sources and electricity.
3. For a building to qualify as a play area, it must have at least 8 separate rooms and/or hallways.
4. The participant must be alone during the setup of the game as well as the duration of the game. Failure to follow this rule results in an automatic loss.
5. The game must start with an even number of rooms lit and unlit. If the number of rooms is an odd number, a coin may be flipped to determine the status of the final room.
6. Once the game begins it does not end until one player has turned on/off all lights in the building.
7. Use of any machine or contraption to give one an advantage during the game is prohibited and will result in an automatic loss.
Preparation
If one wishes to participate in Lights Out then a fair amount of preparation work is needed. Many factors should be taken into consideration for beginning the game. Perhaps the most important factor is the building that will serve as the game space. It is known that the arena must contain at least 8 rooms. What may not be known to some individuals is that there is no limit to the number of rooms a play area may contain. This means that a mansion is within the boundaries of the game so long as all other conditions are met. This too means that a hundred story office tower is viable for the same reasons.
It is not advisable to choose a building with too many rooms; most participants would not have the physical capability to sprint around such large areas for an extended period of time. Because of this it is recommended that player one pick an arena with no more than 12 rooms. This will ensure faster rounds with less fatigue. A room is any area within the building closed off with at least four walls, a floor, a roof, an entrance/exit, and a source of light able to be manipulated. This includes bedrooms, bathrooms, garages, and walk in closets. A light source may range from a fixed overhead light-bulb to a standing lamp. An open kitchen does not constitute a room. If a closet does not have a light source it does not constitute a room. If there is a separate building on the property unattached to the play area it does not constitute a room. Many small to medium sized homes fit within this player made restriction. It is advisable that the player picks a place that is familiar to them, be it their own house or a friend’s/family member’s house.
When the arena is decided it is time to prepare the space. Remove all items within the building that may hinder you from easy access to a light switch. This may mean moving furniture against walls or completely removing it from the premises. Door wedges may be used to hold open doors for easier access to rooms. Ensure all light switches within the building are working as intended. Make a mental map of all these switches so that even in the event of total darkness you can still navigate all rooms.
Consider timing yourself as you run from room to room switching lights on and off. If circumstances permit, you may wish to play a practice round against a friend or family member. I cannot offer you advice on how to convince others to play against you but it is an invaluable tool that should be considered.
Set-Up
Assuming you the player have appropriately prepared your arena, it is now time to detail the set-up procedure. It is recommended the reader familiarize and internalize this section of the guide even if this means reading this section again. This is because the set-up of the game is more than half the battle and a properly set-up arena will increase the chances of survival. Though this game requires above average fitness, it also requires a strategic mind. The process of set-up is a complicated procedure. The game will not commence until all requirements of the set-up procedure are satisfied.
The first order of set-up is to choose the time you wish to play. As previously stated in rule one, the game may only be played between the hours of 12 am to 4 am. Many cite the hypothesis of the “witching hour” to explain this window of time. Regardless, it is recommended that you start the game as soon as possible. Previous players of Lights Out report a direct relationship between the time of night and the difficulty of the game. Starting at the stroke of midnight, or as close to it as possible will ensure a better chance at success. If one desires a challenge they may start between the hours of 1 am to 2 am. 2:05 am is the latest recorded time an individual has started the game and successfully completed it. There exist a myriad of individuals who have strived to beat this record; however, there exist no reports of successful completion after 2:05 am. It should be noted that even after the game starts, difficulty will increase as time increases. This means that the game must be completed as soon as possible after commencement.
Another factor to take into consideration is the weather. Though the entirety of the game will take place away from the elements, the weather may still have an effect on the game. Avoid playing during a severe thunder or snow storm. Loss of power during a game will result in a win for the lights out player (commonly it). To this end, also avoid playing in an area with frequent power outages.
Once the starting time has been chosen you must make sure that only you are in the house during that time. All doors and windows to the outside must be shut and locked securely. Once this has been ensured it is now time to choose a personal item. This item must have value to you. Do not worry; this item will not be sacrificed. Place this item in the room you wish it to spawn in. Once this has been done you may switch the lights on or off. If its starting room is left lit, it will be assigned to lights on, the opposite is true if the light is turned out (Again, it is recommended to assign it the lights out). It is now time to set up the configuration of lit and unlit rooms. They may be spaced and shaped in any patterns so long as the fifth rule of the game is followed.
When this has been done, write down on a piece of paper one desire that you have. This may be anything from material wealth to love, fame, or knowledge. It is important that this desire not be unattainable or impossible. Raising the dead, time travel, unassisted flight, or future vision are examples of impossible desires. Remember, it must be possible and it must be desired. When you have finished writing this down, place the written statement in the room you wish to start in. Your starting room may be in any room that is oppositely lit from its starting room.
The incantation and ritual is now ready to be performed. Return to its starting room to perform the summoning ritual. The incantation and ritual will not be detailed in this guide. This is to discourage any mildly curious persons from participating in this game. If one really wishes to play Lights Out they may search for the ritual and incantation. It has been covered and documented a multiple of times and exists both on and off the internet. The only requirement to finding the incantation and ritual is patience and a strong desire to participate.
When you have completed the incantation and ritual you now have sixty seconds to find your way back to your starting room. If you are found in a room that is not your starting room (the room with your written statement) the game will not begin and the ritual must be performed again. If the game still will not start then you have done something wrong in the set-up procedure. You may re-perform the set-up procedure as many times until the game begins but it is advised that one wait until the next night so as not to start the game too late.
Playing the Game
You will know the game has started when all lights in the house flicker once. Do not be alarmed, this only happens to signal the start and end of the game. If the flickering persists during the game, that is due to a mechanical failure and not the game.
When the game starts it is time to run. You must run as fast as possible around the arena flicking lights on. Do not stop running until the game has finished. If a room has multiple light sources you only have to turn one on for a room to be counted as lit. Though you must be quick, do not be too quick that you injure yourself. Spraining an ankle, acquiring a concussion, or falling down the stairs will not help your chances of success. It will not wait for you to recover and the game does not stop until it is over.
You will notice the lights from consecutive rooms turning off; this is it. You will not be able to see it but you may be able to sense it. A feeling of unease or dread is oftentimes felt by those who stand or pass through a room containing it. If you should feel this during the game there is no need to panic, it will not harm you during the game. Previous players have noted that at the beginning of the game it may take it anywhere from two to five seconds to turn a room light off. As the game progresses the time it takes for it to turn lights off decreases. This may be because of the relationship between the time of night and the difficulty of the game or it may be it familiarizing itself with the layout of the building. If one starts the game much later than midnight then it will be significantly faster. Past 1:45 am it has been noted as taking less than a second to turn a room light off.
It is ideal to complete the game within the first five minutes because of this increase in difficulty as the game draws out. Though you may start to feel fatigue within the first five to thirty minutes (depending on level of fitness), it has never been reported to show signs of exhaustion. As previously stated, it will only continue to become faster as the game progresses. Any game that lasts longer than fifteen minutes is often a lost cause. Do not let this discourage you however, the longest reported game by a successful player lasted thirty eight minutes.
You will know the game has ended when the lights flicker once again. The entirety of the house will either be lit or unlit. You will know if you have won based on what happens next.
Winning Conditions
Congratulations, you have won. Return to your starting room to find that your written statement has disappeared. You may be tempted to sit back and wait for your wish to come true, however, this is not the case. Whatever your desire, it will not be handed to you. Instead, you will find opportunities in pursuit of your goal that you will not have found before. New doors will open to you and your dream will be more easily attainable than it was previously. This conclusion stems from interviews with several successful actors, CEO’s, musicians, and artists, all alleged winners of Lights Out. Personal accounts from a few historical figures in history also serve to show the conditions of winning.
Again, congratulations, you may rest easy knowing what the future holds for you.
Losing Conditions
Not much is known about the terms of losing Lights Out. This is because those who lose are not available to be interviewed or documented. How is it known that someone has lost Lights Out? This information can be gleamed through any audio, video, and writings of the person prior to participating in the game. If the person has expressed a desire or committed to playing the game, and has not been heard from since, it is believed that this person has failed Lights Out. The vast majority of those who have lost are missing persons. Few bodies have ever been recovered; those that have have been ruled as apparent accidents or suicides.
By reading officer reports, one may gleam what has happened to those who lose. One case found a woman at the foot of her stairs, her neck and spine having been broken in several places. It is unclear whether this was due to an accident during the game, or a condition of losing. Another case found the body of a man strewn across the pavement five floors below his apartment. Again, it is unknown whether the man was flung from his apartment after losing, or, faced with the impossibility of winning, threw himself out of the window to avoid the consequences of losing. Either way, those whose bodies have been discovered after an unsuccessful attempt at Lights Out have surely been shown mercy compared to those persons who have vanished.
A popular theory is held within the community as to the whereabouts of those players who have lost. Many believe that those who did not find success have been doomed to become it. These players having been taken, stripped of their form and substance, and forced to eternally play the game. Again, this is only speculation, and nothing has been proven or disproved as to the whereabouts of those who have lost. In the end it does not really matter what happened to those who lost; what matters is that you do not find out.
Conclusion
Lights Out is not a game to be handled lightly. The consequences of losing are severe and quite possibly fatal. The author hopes that with this description of the game, possible players are discouraged from taking part in the game. However, as with many illegal activities, persons will continue to do so despite the inherent risks. In this regard the author hopes that this guide has helped any individuals who have made up their mind to play this dangerous game. There are many more aspects of Lights Out that fall outside the scope of this guide. If one wishes to know more they only need to search for it.
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I’ve always been curious about the histories connected to belongings. I buy many of my things second hand from charity shops, retro speciality stores – those sorts of places. You can call me cheap all you want, but for me things have feelings. The vinyl record you listened to the night you were dumped, scratches and all; the shoes you wore as you staggered home drunkenly last Birthday; that old guitar you never bothered to learn to play; all real tangible objects, all with a story to tell, all with a unique view of the world.
If something is new, it’s like a baby. A clean slate with no experience of life. A brand new car, for example, has seen very little. A sterile factory as it was brought into existence, a showroom with a gleaming floor and an insincere salesperson with an equally gleaming smile. It has no knowledge of the open road, of the horizon stretching out into the distance like a limitless promise, or boundless threat. No, it’s just a baby. Give me a car with a few thousand miles on the clock and wheels that have sucked up the dust of a summer’s day, the frozen dirt of a winter’s night, and spat it back out onto the road behind. That car has seen things, been a part of a journey, gotten to know its owner – the music she likes, the route she takes to work, that time she cried herself dry on the dashboard when she first heard the news. That car knows the world, at least part of it, it knows the people who have owned it, and it has embraced and assimilated all those raw feelings, tiny moments and life shattering times – all of them.
When I wander into a rundown charity shop I know that I am surrounded by treasures. A book for 50 pence – Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine – once read by an elderly lady peeling each page back as she reminisced achingly about her youth. The book tells two stories, one contained in the inked words, and the other of a life and time through every creased spine and yellowed piece of paper. And yet some memories, some experiences, are perhaps best left to diminish like breath on a mirror. I say this because, while I always romanticised about the stories objects could tell of their previous owners, I never for a second thought that they could truly describe a nightmare; suffocating, violent, and real.
1.
On a bright Spring day I saw it; sticking out from a pile of old clothes at the back of a charity shop. I’d been there many times before as the place sat on a quiet street just a few minutes from my home. I always smiled when I passed it, and looking through the sun kissed window to the abandoned things inside, somehow I felt that they smiled back.
An old sports jacket, dark grey with a slight hint of pinstripe; the buttons a mix of tan and black bleeding into each other like a wearied Yin and Yang: that’s what I saw on that day. It peeked out from a torn black bin bag which itself lay crushed by an unceremonious collection of musty jackets, ties, shirts and shoes. It was clear that the lady in the shop – an amiable pensioner by the name of Sandra – hadn’t had a chance to sort through the bags, and so there was no attached price for the jacket.
Lifting it out I was instantly taken with it. Normally, clothes were not my thing. I preferred objects – bashed board games, books, and other curiosities; but there was something about that jacket. The inside was a dark rich blue and felt like silk, although I was sure it wasn’t. Instantly I approached Sandra who sat behind the counter rustling through a packet of boiled sweets. She smiled warmly at me, being one of her most trusted regulars, as I enthusiastically asked about the price. For just a few pounds the jacket was mine, and, oddly, I left immediately to return home and try it on, leaving any other unseen treasures behind which might have caught my eye.
Facing a full length mirror which hung on my bedroom wall — another pleasing bargain from a charity shop — I stood there wearing the jacket. It felt comfortable, like an old friend, and fit perfectly. Pleased with my find, I carefully placed it on a hanger inside my oak wardrobe, which sat at the end of my bed, and went about my day.
And yet, my thoughts returned continuously to my latest purchase, no matter where I was or what I was doing. I was almost giddy about it, the way a child is with a new toy. This was strange for me as I wasn’t particularly interested in clothes, and could never understand the enthused pleasure some derive from them. I had always been a scruffy type, jeans and T-shirts were my thing, but there I was after a short period of time standing, yet again, in front of the mirror, modelling an old sports jacket and feeling unnaturally pleased with myself. It made me feel formal in some way, and my thoughts while wearing it were of an elderly gentlemen in a large ballroom, wining and dining in the lap of luxury, and entertaining his companions with stories of adventures during his service.
2.
That night I awoke to an unnerving experience. I sat up with a jolt as a loud sound tore me from a pleasant dream. Having fallen asleep while reading, my bedside lamp was still on and the dull bulb cast an increasingly diminishing light across the room. Of course there was nothing there, nothing palpable, just the silence of lifeless furniture resting in the night, but in the back of my mind that now absent noise still echoed, and with it the faintest hint of recollection. Try as I might I was unable to place anything but the familiarity of it. I wandered around my home, flicking on the lights in the hall outside my room first, then cautiously to the others until the entire house was bathed in yellow. But I could find nothing which suggested the cause of what woke me. The doors were locked and the windows all closed, and so, with confidence that the noise was merely the faceless product of a dream well forgotten, I returned to bed. And yet I still felt unnerved for some reason, keeping the bedside lamp on as I tried in vain to claw my way back to the warm comfort of sleep.
The next day I went to work, on edge due to a restless night, but again I felt my thoughts returning to the jacket in my wardrobe; how smart I looked in it, how refined. I couldn’t wait to try it back on. As soon as the office clock struck five, I rushed outside with nothing but a mumbled word to my colleagues and headed home as fast as I could.
Fumbling with the keys in the lock, I made my way into my house, abruptly dropping my bag and coat on the floor, and rushed to the oak wardrobe in my bedroom; and there it was, hanging there like an empty vessel which had to be filled. I took the sleeve between my thumb and fingers, rubbing the dark grey material soothingly. With care, I removed it from its hanger and stood in front of the mirror. I was aghast at the sight of me! All my adult life I had been unkempt, my hair ruffled and messy. Wearing that beautiful jacket, it just didn’t seem right. I felt ashamed of myself, of how I looked. Quickly, I went to the bathroom and soaked my hair, before running a comb through it forcefully.
When I returned to the mirror I looked more acceptable, my hair now shaped neatly into a side parting. Yes, I felt much more at ease, presentable even. A smile crept across my face as my mind explored the image of an elderly gentleman wearing the jacket – a man of industry, a man of experience. Yes, things do indeed tell tales. He’d seen terrible things, ordered his men resolutely. Shells and gunfire. A man of duty. Yes, I imagined the stories that jacket could tell, of an old officer dining with guests surrounding him. Did they know what the Captain had really done, as they sat there in their evening gowns and dinner suits? They could eat and laugh and drink and dance; but the Captain, he could smile, yes, yet inside the world was turning, poisoned by the cancerous artifacts of war.
The Captain had indeed seen things. But he had been more than a harmless spectator.
3.
In the throes of a dream, I was pulled involuntarily from a serene slumber. Familiarity then broke the silence; a sound I knew but could not place, this time louder than the night before. It had juddered suddenly before ceasing fire. Slowly I rose from my bed and wandered between the rooms of the house to investigate, frightened by the prospect of a burglar climbing through a window. The house sat in the bow of silence, its walls lifeless and the shadows of night, still and unerring. I knew the sound: I knew it. But like a reticent name on the tip of my tongue, the recollection refused to reveal itself.
The following day I struggled to work, shattered by my questioning mind in the night. The noise perturbed me, it engulfed me. I was frustrated by knowing yet not knowing. Just what was that sound? Two nights in a row I had heard it, but no sign or clue to its origin. Through the irritation of sleep deprivation, forced to falsely smile at my colleagues and surround myself with meaningless paperwork, my only comfort through the long day was to think of the jacket, that warm blanket of memory which had taken me into its embrace. Of course I knew that the Captain was merely a character in my mind, the latest in a long line of stories I had created to add sentiment to the world, but I was as fond of him as I was of his belongings.
By 5:30PM I was home, and, as I had done the day before, I dropped my bag and made my way to the oak wardrobe. Gazing into the mirror I felt disappointed at what I saw. My hair was pristine, combed to perfection, but the, now off-white, shirt I wore to work was cheap and grubby. In fact it was the first time I had noticed how ordinary my work appearance really was. It wouldn’t do, no; it wouldn’t do at all.
I managed to make it just before 6 o’clock – I breathed a sigh of relief that Sandra hadn’t closed the shop. She smiled at me as I entered, but I barely noticed, and instead headed straight towards my objective, to where I had found the jacket before. I started rummaging around the bags which still sat there, untouched, filled with the discarded belongings of unseen others. Smiling as I approached the counter, sweat pooling on my brow, I made my purchase and headed home.
In amongst the bags I had found an old Burgundy shirt. I wasn’t sure of the material, but it was beautiful, expertly crafted, and I knew immediately that it was a shirt worthy of the Captain’s jacket. Further still, I had found a waistcoat which seemed to compliment both, and so there I stood, looking much more presentable. The Captain would be pleased.
4.
Once more I awoke to darkness, a sound having wrenched me from my sleep – the same noise I had heard for the previous three nights. I shivered slightly, not at the temperature of the room, but at something inside me. A virus or bug, whatever it was had produced a mild fever. My bedsheets were soaked in sweat, and I laboured to catch a breath. Feeling too weak to investigate the sound, I lay there in the grips of a strange and skewed apprehension. The room was black, but in the hints of objects, the outlines of walls and chair and wardrobe, I looked up to see the mirror. Not vacant, no, but filled with an indistinct reflection. Like a shadow, the silent suggestion of something. The memory remains vague, but one thing has stayed with me to this day – two eyes, white and wide, opened to meet mine from the mirror. An accusatory, angered stare which swept over me; a strange icy coldness then took me to sleep, try as I did to resist.
The following day I felt remarkably well, dismissing the reflection in the mirror as a fevered hallucination; indeed I seemed to have recovered from my ordeal to a great extent. I still had a temperature, however, and so called in to take the day off work. I must admit that the idea of having a day to myself was appealing, and so, after a shower and making sure I was presentable, I ironed the burgundy shirt, adorned the silk-like waistcoat, and proudly wore the jacket once more. And there I stood – facing the mirror. Smiling and happy.
It was only when my phone rang that I realised I had been standing, rooted to the one spot for most of the day, with little or no memory of the preceding hours; only vague shapeless visions of light and dark shifting before me accompanied by strange distant knocks and thuds. This would have been a concern to anyone in their right mind, but not to me. No, I was concerned with only one thing – I still didn’t look right! I left my home, the ringing phone and an open front door, to make my way steadily, almost marching, to the charity shop.
Inside, Sandra asked if I was feeling well, as she was worried I looked a little peaked; but I abruptly told her to mind her own business as I waded through the unsorted bags yet again. Feverishly I pulled a pair of dark suit trousers from between two faded shirts, followed quickly by an old leather pair of shoes which had lost their shine many years before, and a leather belt with a similarly dulled buckle. I can’t remember if I paid for them or not, all I can recall is staggering up the stairs outside my home, and to the mirror.
Sickness had taken me. My stomach ached and turned as if fighting against the unseen waves of a turbulent sea below. Struggling on, my compulsion would not let go, and before long I stared ever deeper into my reflection. Perfectly ironed suit trousers, a gleaming belt and buckle, leather shoes now shined and restored, a burgundy shirt expertly pressed, waistcoat, and of course, the Captain’s jacket. Yes, I looked presentable. It would do nicely. Shipshape.
Breathing deeply, I gazed, and looked into the facsimile of myself which smiled back from the mirror. The sickness faded with each inhalation constraining the rhythm of my pulse. The seconds birthed minutes, and those minutes bled into hours. Moments; fragmentary slivers of consciousness seeped through like a morning haze creeping between a closed blind. Voices came to me. Mumbled, undefined, yet the tone was unmistakably one of anger. I saw flashes of light as I had before, and shapes of darkness moving nearby. My blurred vision continued to withhold the truth from me, the shapes trembling and shifting as if glimpsed through warped glass. A series of loud thuds, almost bangs, sounded; close yet distant.
As the sun set outside, the angered voices combined – voices of countless people, coalesced into one mind, one aching chant. Visions came to me. Unbearable sun, a scorched earth, and finally something finite, something tangible. Soldiers. Flags unfurled by a breathless wind. Boots, marching, a crowd of people frightened, and gunfire. Then there were bodies, countless bloodied victims strewn across a patch of dirt. The voice, now distilled, drew closer. Words forced their way between gritted teeth, ringing in my ears, still muffled as if spoken through an unseen viscous membrane.
I felt weight then, a heaviness which burdened my hands, dirtied and stained. In them, I held a rifle. And as I looked up I could see the light and dark which had shifted continuously before me. Patterns which I knew now to be the bleached sky, blocked by a tall shadowy figure. His eyes pierced my thoughts as he shouted, yelled; angered and filled with vengeance.
“Open fire!”
It was wrong, I knew it was wrong. Yet I raised the rifle up and pointed it at my target, people unarmed and afraid. The voice continued, carried high above the carnage, urging me on, commanding me to shoot. My finger began to squeeze the trigger as the man, that towering imperial figure which I had affectionately referred to as the Captain, moved closer, screaming in my ear, the heat from his breath close and palpable. I shivered. This was not me, not now, not then, not ever. My hesitancy drew condemnation from the shadowed outline of the Captain. I did not want to disappoint him, and while I felt pangs of duty and patriotism, I could not bear the looks of those people, staring up at me as they faced their final moments. I threw the gun to the ground, and as I did so I found myself staring at the mirror, my hand raised in salute. To whom or to what, I do not know.
The fever now returned, an aching pain burrowing in my stomach. I wretched as my body tried to expel something from within, yet it was not forthcoming. Collapsing to the floor I struggled to stay alert, panicking that I was in need of a doctor. I pulled at the captain’s jacket, slipping it off my shoulders and throwing it on my bed; followed quickly by waistcoat, shoes, shirt, and trousers. I lay on the floor for a time, shivering, convulsing as the sweat seeped through my skin to the floor, as if ridding me of some insipid infection.
5.
It was not until after midnight that my strength returned. I pushed myself up from the floor and staggered to the bathroom, where I sat in the shower, cleansing myself of the horrid remnants of my hallucination. The beads of water slowly restored me, and so finally I returned to my room, looking at the clothes, jacket and all, which now lay in a crumpled heap on the bed. It wouldn’t do at all!
Picking them up, I placed them carefully on a few hangers and hung them up inside the wardrobe. As I did so, a momentary sense of dread washed over me. How I wished I had listened to it. Deep down I knew that I should have been done with those clothes, but the thought of discarding them filled me with disgust – a lack of respect. Those clothes deserved admiration; they demanded it.
Exhausted from my earlier sickness, I staggered into bed. As my eyes gave in to the weight of tiredness, I experienced a moment of clarity. My thoughts cleared through the fog, and with the briefest flicker of insight, I questioned the illness and the profound visions I had experienced staring into that mirror. Whose voice had I heard? What violent act had I become privy to? My last impulse was an uneasy one – to escape my home and seek shelter far beyond the scope of a malevolent force, which now hung in the air, corpse-like and vengeful.
The fog of an unseen influence then dulled my senses. I felt being lulled, persuaded, even bartered with, to give myself to a comforting dream of rolling green hills, quaint villages, and a peaceful life far removed from the horrors of war. A place where one could put their atrocities behind them and continue on with a normal life.
The sound. That noise which had woken me on each of the previous nights; it once more called me to consciousness. I tried to pull myself up out of bed, but to my horror the sickness had returned, potent, the nausea griping my stomach. A cold sweat whispered across my skin to an almost unbearable crescendo. Yet the noise still rang in my ear, and in the clutches of sickness, its nature, its identity finally came to me. The realisation shook me, sending panic coursing through my body. A simple sound, one I had heard each day, but in the blackness of that room it took on new meaning. A threat, covered by the night. The noise came from the wardrobe, coat hangers clinking together like glass within.
I lay there frozen, staring at the wardrobe, which now appeared to me like a tomb. A standing coffin which played host to something unseen, and which infested the world outside with a stark apprehension. Holding my breath involuntarily, I waited for a sign of movement. I imagined the door slowly creaking open and revealing what lay inside. My heart raced, pounding like an unbearable drum, and in my weakened state fear truly took hold. I felt helpless, unable to mount a defence should something unearthly climb out from the darkness.
For a moment I thought I saw a shift in the wardrobe, something moving within causing its frame to shudder almost imperceptibly. I let out a gasp, and in that admittance of fear, that announcement of my wakened state, the truth presented itself; for there was indeed something there, something ominous and intrusive. Yet it was not inside the wardrobe. It was standing in the corner of the room, hidden by shadow. A figure, tall and dominant. Staring at me under cloak of night, its eyes pinpoints of light in an otherwise stygian nightmare.
Then there was a strange moment between us. A silence which provoked more fear in me than I have ever known. We stared at each other from across the room, and it felt to me as though the intruder was sizing me up. Calculating the cost. A strategy for attack, evaluating how weakened I truly was.
Suddenly it moved towards me, arms outstretched, and as it did so I saw it in greater detail, briefly illuminated by a slither of light from a streetlamp outside. The jacket which I had been so taken with, the waistcoat, the shirt, the trousers, the shined shoes, all there, presentable, respectable, and worn by the figure of a man, indistinct and shifting; his features and hands, nothing but blackened mist. The clothes moved with precision, and as I cried out in terror the shadowed trespasser was upon me. The dark coal-like fog which approximated a hand, grabbed hold of my face, feeling more like worn skin than was suggested by its incorporeal appearance.
I instinctively fell backwards, rolling out the other side of the bed, crashing to the ground. Despite my sickness adrenaline urged me to flee towards my bedroom door; but the man was quick and grabbed me by the arm, throwing me into the mirror which shattered on the floor at my bare feet. The glass slit open my back as it fell, and the sharpened pain of countless cuts congealed with the terror. It was then that the figure wrapped its misted fingers around my shoulders, lifting me up before slamming me against the shards of glass on the floor. Countless incisions and slashes rippled across my body as each piece of glass, small and large, ripped open my skin, embedding deep in the muscle beneath.
A silence fell across the room, broken only by the shifting weight of my attacker crushing glass under foot. It was then that I experienced physical pain which I cannot put into words. The fog-like figure, prim, proper, and presentable in the Captain’s clothes, placed its foot upon my chest, and pressed down with merciless force. Each blade, sliver, and shard of glass pushed deeper through, then under, my skin, thrusting further into my body, violently encouraged by pincers of floor and unnatural foot.
I could not yell. I could not cry. I could only let out an involuntary gasp of air, and as I did so the figure finally spoke to me.
“On your feet”, it ordered, loud, pronounced, and with command; and in those words I knew that I was face to face with the Captain. Leaning over me, his clouded hands reached out, encircling his fingers around my left arm. With ease he pulled me up off the ground. “On your feet!” he screamed again, and then battered me against the glass on the floor once more.
I wheezed and coughed as a searing pain ran up my side, the impact winding me. I felt a crack deep within as a rib gave in to the assault.
“I said, get on your feet, private!” the captain ordered, leaning over to grab me once more.
Panic and pain mixed together, coursing through my veins — I knew I could not survive another attack. The fogged darkened hands of the figure then bore down upon me, and in one last desperate plea for survival, I clawed at something close by. A loud tear cut through the night, followed by an almost inaudible gasp. I had inadvertently ripped the pocket of the Captain’s jacket. My assailant staggered backwards for a moment in response as if wounded. Quickly, I grabbed a blade of glass which lay on the floor, and with ever ounce of life I had left in me I pushed up onto my feet.
Launching forward I feverishly slashed and cut, not at the shadowed man who had attacked me, but at the clothes which were the Captain’s Achilles heel. Smog stained hands thrust up to stop me, but, now weakened, they could not prevent me from cutting through jacket, waistcoat, and shirt. Blood oozed out of my hand as the blade of glass cut deeper into my skin with each attack, but I could not relent should the Captain regain his footing.
He fell to his knees as I tore, scratched, and sliced at the clothes, giving me the high ground. Finally, exhausted, I sat on the bed. From there I watched the Captain lying on the floor, his strength slowly diminishing. The clothes rose and fell with each spectral breath, as the darkness, the fogged appendages and head of what lay within, faded away to nothing. I sat there in that silence, but it was not long before the pain of each fragment of glass stuck in my back returned, as adrenaline gave way to utter shock. In the black of night I heard a word, distant and whispered from some obscure history.
“Mutiny”.
Then I was alone.
***
After spending several nights in hospital recovering from loss of blood, two broken ribs, and a concussion, I finally ventured back to my home. Looking at the glass broken on the floor, my blood dried and congealed, I stared at the torn jacket and other clothes which lay before me. Like the scene of a brutal murder, they outlined the figure — shoes, trousers, shirt, waistcoat, jacket — all implying the shape of a man.
I began to think that it was a damn shame. A waste. They deserved better, the Captain deserved more than that. Yearnings began to build, and for a few minutes I explored the idea of having the clothes mended. Perhaps I could have done it myself? Needle, thread, and all?
No, I came to my senses, and knew that whatever influence those belongings had, I could not yield to them. Quickly, I gathered them up, putting them into a black bin bag much like those I had seen at the charity shop. An hour’s drive later, and I was in the countryside. I got out of the car and hiked for a while across some fields and through some woods, finally coming to a clearing. I did not know entirely where I was going, but Blackwood forest seemed as good as any a place to do what had to be done.
There I set a fire, for I did not want the ashes of those things near my home. As the flames grew I felt a deep urge to turn back and take the Captain’s clothes with me. But I persevered, I resisted, and threw the wretched things in the fire. First the shoes and trousers. Then, the shirt and waistcoat. But just before I committed the jacket to the flames, something caught my eye. From inside the lining, which had been torn apart by my attacks, something now protruded.
A hand written letter of commendation for services “above and beyond the call of duty”. The writing was worn and faded, and so I could not make out the rest. What I can say is that inside the envelope lay a medal which read “Captain Everett, Amritsar, 1919”. I threw all of it in the fire, and as I did so I felt a deep sadness and sense of loss within me. As the flames consumed the jacket and other items, the crackle of each burning ember sounded remarkably like that of gunfire, distant, long ago, echoing out from the past, or from beyond.
****
Yes, things have more than feelings, they have memories. They soak up the thoughts and actions of the people nearby. Heartache, laughter, joy – dread. I have never forgotten those days and my brush with the Captain. Often my thoughts return to the medal, which I’m sure lies out there in the countryside, blackened with soot, yet unharmed by the fire. I think of the words and the name engraved on the metal – the pull of its memory still haunts me, goads me even. I have never researched the name of Captain Everett, the medal, or jacket, and while my dreams are often invaded by the sound of gunfire, and embittered eyes bearing down on me, I know that I must never entertain the compulsion to go searching for answers. For those clothes came from a man of varied deeds, and his sins have left their mark on the world, and by association, an uneasy burden upon me.
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When I was seven years old my ten year old brother Jamie was kidnapped, or so they say. The police claimed whoever had taken him were ‘professional’ in doing so. That I had been incredibly lucky to have not been taken as well. They described the kidnapper in this way because no finger prints were ever found on any of the furniture. My brother had never made a sound at the time and most importantly, there was no sign of a break in at all. None of the windows had been broken, the doors weren’t busted. Nothing.
Several days before his disappearance my father found a painting while rummaging around in the attic. He had been trying to find his old bass guitar after I had asked him if he played any instruments. Turns out he used to play in a band with some of his friends, and was a pretty decent player. His group was called ‘Serrated Edge.’ Unfortunately after an hour of searching the guitar was never found, but the painting was. It had been placed against a wall and surrounded by boxes, my father had noticed the golden frame glinting as he walked around.
The painting itself was magnificent when he lowered it down. It seemed to be in good condition despite being in the attic for so long. There was a house in the picture, a large grey house surrounded by grass. In the background a cliff could be seen, then a sudden drop which evened out to an ocean. It stretched on into the distance. Some birds could be seen up above circling the house. On the back were scrawled some words in red ink that read ‘Gadael ei ben ei hun.’ My mother recognised it as welsh, we didn’t know what it meant at the time. My brother and I weren’t very ecstatic about having it as a new house decoration, but my father loved its simplicity. He decided to put it up our bedroom.
That night we had dinner as usual, spaghetti I believe, then my brother and I went upstairs for bed. We both shared the same room. We were slightly afraid of the dark so our door was left ajar most days, letting some of the light seep in. After getting changed into our pyjamas and joking around for a bit we both settled down to sleep.
It was around 2:00am when I awoke. I realised I was hot and sweaty so pulled myself into a sitting position. Jamie was in his own bed to my left, sleeping soundly. My throat was parched, so I figured I’d get a drink of water. I pulled myself out of the bed sheets and left the room as quietly as possible, creaking the door open. Slowly I crept down the hall, conscious that the floorboards creaked. The last thing I wanted to do was wake everyone up. I headed into the bathroom.
When I returned I was refreshed, and pulled myself back into bed. I had pretty much stood my head under the tap and lapped up water like a cat, cupping it in my hands and splashing my face as well. As I pulled myself back into bed I noticed something odd about the painting on the wall. There seemed to be a black smudge to the right of the house, something I hadn’t noticed earlier. Curiously I pulled myself back to my feet and approached the painting, as I couldn’t quite make it out properly in the dark.
On closer inspection I gathered that the smudge was some sort of man, it resembled a human but was completely black. It looked like it was standing stationary, looking outwards, its head was cocked ever so slightly to one side. I considered waking Jamie to show him the mysterious figure but decided he’d be cranky if I did so, I’d wait until morning. I retreated to my bed.
When morning arrived the figure was gone, to my dismay. I told Jamie about the figure but he didn’t seem to believe me. For the rest of the day I watched the painting suspiciously, believing that it may appear again at any moment. It didn’t.
As my brother and I were climbing back into bed that night I had forgotten about the figure. That is, until the same thing happened again. Just as before, I awoke in the early hours of the morning, soaked in sweat. This time I anticipated the figure’s arrival, and glanced at the painting straight away. I felt a twinge of fear. The smudge was there again, but it had moved, and it had doubled in size. It had adopted a new position, right in front of the house, a few metres away from the front door. Instead of going over for a closer inspection I forced myself to go back to sleep, hoping with every fibre of my being that I was dreaming. That night I fell asleep shaking in fear.
The next day was uneventful. I avoided the painting for the most part, spending time in living room downstairs watching TV. I mentioned about the dark figure to my parents that day, and of course they didn’t believe me.
‘You were just dreaming, Harry, that’s all.’ They told me. This was the last day I ever spent with my brother.
That night I had awoken at a similar time again, around 2:00am. I can’t remember exactly what time. With dread and fear churning in my stomach, I reluctantly glanced at the painting. It was completely black. I remember physically shaking in terror, believing that if I made the slightest noise I would trigger something. Slowly I pulled myself out from under the bed sheets. I crept over to the bedroom door and then ran over to the bathroom, the floorboards creaking as I went. I locked myself inside. I figured I’d stay here until morning, then ask my father to put the painting back in the attic the next day. There was obviously something wrong with it, I just didn’t know what.
What happened next will stay with me for as long as I live. After several minutes of waiting in the bathroom I heard the floorboards creak in the hall outside. At first I thought my brother had woken up, disturbed by my footsteps running down the hall. The creaking was approaching the bathroom, and stopped just outside the door.
‘Jamie?’ I whispered. No response.
I knew someone was standing right on the other side of the door. I just couldn’t figure out what they were trying to do. Did they need to use the bathroom?
‘Mum?’ I said. To this I heard a scratching sound on the other side of the door, as if someone was dragging their fingers across it. I backed away, terrified. After a moment whoever it was walked away, their footsteps creaking their way towards my room.
The next day I awoke in the bathtub to the sound of banging. It was my father, he was thumping the outside of the door with his fist.
‘Harry? Jamie? Are you in there?’ He snapped.
I answered it slowly, stiff from lying in such an uncomfortable position. Apparently this morning when my parents had awoken they had found our room empty. My Mum went downstairs to find us and my Dad looked around upstairs.
‘Is your brother in there you?’ He had asked when I opened the door. I shook my head but he didn’t believe me, and pushed past, searching the room. It was only after another half hour of searching that my parents began to panic. The police were called around. Everyone was convinced someone had broken into the house and taken him in the night. The police believed I had locked myself in the bathroom to hide from the kidnapper, out of fear. They questioned me relentlessly about whether I had seen his face, I couldn’t answer.
There was something else. On the outside of the bathroom door there were three deep gouges, diagonal from top left to bottom right. The police believe they were caused by a knife, repeatedly dragged across the surface. They claimed that the kidnapper had been trying to get me as well, but had thankfully given in. Our house was closed off for several days and we were provided with a hotel, while the police searched for fingerprints or any signs of breaking and entering. As I said at the start, they found nothing.
When we finally returned to our home my parents were a teary mess. They moped around slowly, answering my questions with one word answers. I knew anything I said about the painting at this point was useless. No one ever seems to listen to children in times of need. They continued to act like this for half a year. It was a horrible time.
Returning to my bedroom after everything that had happened was horrible. I remember crying when I saw my brother’s empty bed. His toys that were still scattered across the floor, toys he may never be able to play with again.
Before I turned to leave the room I glanced at the painting one final time… and noticed something peculiar. There was no dark figure, but there was something strange in one of the house windows. Curiously I approached and looked closer.
It was a face. A little boy. And from what I could tell he looked the spitting image of my brother. His face was contorted into one of terror, and he had tears streaming down his face. His hands were both pressed up against the glass.
Several months later the police gave up on the search. His funeral was held on April the 12th, to this date the saddest day of my life. After that all we could do was get on with our lives. I showed my parents the painting but they shouted at me and stashed it back in the attic. They thought the boy had been in the painting all along, that I was simply imagining the resemblance.
I’m thirty eight years old now, and have a place of my own. When I eventually left my old home I made sure to take the painting with me. For I am the only one who truly knows what happened to my brother.
The dark shape I saw all those years ago was some kind of entity, something evil that intended to trap us both in the painting for an eternity. It succeeded with my brother, but I had locked myself in the bathroom, so had been saved.
I keep the painting in the attic now, in case one day I might be able to free him. I can’t lose hope, like my parents did. After researching I found out that the words on the back of the painting, ‘Gadael ei ben ei hun,’ – had been a warning. It translates to English as ‘LEAVE ALONE.’ Sometimes, in the dead of night, I’ll hear a thumping sound coming from up there, footsteps roaming around in the attic. I’ll always shout my brother’s name, in hope he may have finally been let out. I never get a response.
Credit To – Meek
(Admin Note: The painting shown here is The Crying Boy by Bruno Amadio. This painting has inspired quite a few short stories as it is supposedly “cursed” and quite notorious in its own right.)
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I knew it, my friends all knew it, and everyone at school knew it. But, no one would believe us. School was quiet with the truth hanging everywhere. The other students silently drifted from class to class, no one really spoke all that much anymore. Between each period, there was a brief and hushed march of bodies before the halls died again.
All but a few teachers seemed to not really care- they enjoyed the silence. The teachers who did care did not know how to help, or even what to say.
It had started a few days after Zach Thompson drowned. His girlfriend, Mallory Andrew, said that someone dragged him into the sea; pulled him right off their boat. No one was there to see it, and she could not tell anyone what the person looked like, so when Zach’s body floated in, drowned but unharmed, everyone wrote her off. A few days later, Mallory went missing. No one had seen her since.
I did not really know Zach or Mallory. A few of my friends new them though, and they seemed nice enough. No one should ever have to drown. The thought of falling into the Atlantic, the darkness everywhere, the liquid pouring into my lungs… It terrified me. I hated to think what Zach felt as his legs flailed half a mile above the nearest ground. Did he just breathe in to get it over with, or did he keep holding his breath as long as he could?
My friends who knew them joined the first wave of mourning zombies that populated the high school. They all remembered listening to Mallory’s tear-stained story of the hand, and the splash, the screaming, the eyes.
A few days later, Matt Miller was found caught in the framing of his parents dock. Apparently, Matt had gone out in the night to look at the water and fell over. The police say that is when his shirt got caught.
I did not know Matt Miller that well either. He was never that nice to me. To be honest, he was an asshole. But you never hear about that stuff after the fact. You only get to hear the nice stories about what a great person they were. It was then that the school moved in a small fleet of councilors and social workers to help with feelings. The lines to talk to someone stretched out into the hall, at first.
It was maybe a week before Aubrey Strong drowned. She was found naked and bruised along the beach. Her lungs were filled with water. Her sister, Tammy, had been there when something attacked them. She told the police it had grabbed Aubrey and ran off. A few days later, Tammy’s story had changed from “something” to “someone”. Her body was found the next day at the same beach as her sister, still wearing the same clothes from school.
The city began hiring more lifeguards, strict curfews were put in place at all beaches, and students were questioned mercilessly by police and teachers. Students stopped going to the councilors. The meetings began to feel more like interrogations than anything else.
Then, Mark Sawyer and Ashley Corry died on the same night. I was with Mark Sawyer. He was my best friend. We were playing Call of Duty and eating pizza in his bedroom. He was winning. I had been tracking him for ten whole minutes across the desert and my sight was lined up on his guy’s back. Then, the lights went out. The T.V. made a weird whistling noise before falling black and silent.
“What the hell?” I said to him as he stood up and began messing with the light switches. He never had a chance to respond. I froze in terror when I heard it slap up the stairs and saw its hand reach around the door-frame. The smell- like under the docks. Mark could not move either as the net fell over him. I listened to him scream as he thudded down the stairs, one step at a time.
I ran home. I slammed my bedroom door shut behind me. I never said a word. The next day, Mark Sawyer and Ashley Corry were added to the list of people. Both of them were found in the shallows by a fisherman. Amanda Stoner had been with Ashley Corry when it happened. She spent all day being tossed around by councilors and police officers. Amanda told them about a man who ran at them and how they had struggled with him on the beach.
I could not speak to anyone; the words refused to leave my lips. Whenever I tried, I saw Mark fall beneath the net, his fingernails scratching at his bedroom floor, and then I saw him drowning, his legs kicking in an endless void of darkness. Did he breathe in, or did he hold on for as long as he could? The teachers looked on me with pity. They did not know what I had seen. The councilors made sure that I knew their doors were always open. They did not know I had been with Mark Sawyer.
I could not say a word to anyone, anyone but Amanda.
“Hey,” I said to her at a lunch table. We had never met. She was very pretty with dark hair and brown eyes and large, gorgeous lips; the kind of girl I would usually have to build up my courage to talk to; the kind of girl I probably just wouldn’t talk to.
She looked up at me- dismissive. Then, she saw a look in my eyes. She reached out and took my hand in hers. “You saw them,” she whispered.
I nodded. Again, Amanda told her story. It was just like mine… The hand, the screaming, the eyes…
From then on, the two of us were inseparable. I sat next to her with my beige lunch tray and that was that. We waited for each other on the bus in the morning, we met again after school. At night, when we had to leave for our own houses, we sat on our phones. Eventually, we even began to talk about other things, we tried to forget… We had seen them. Everyone who saw them disappeared.
As the month went on, the drownings turned into disappearances. For some reason, the creatures were no longer happy just killing. They now took their victims away, never to be seen again. The sea left us with a new empty desk every other week or so. Amanda and I were not sure why the creatures from the water left us alone. Maybe it was because both our houses were inland, or maybe because we were the only survivors who banded together.
Fall came and the leaves transformed into brilliant New England reds and golds, leaving a sad magic in the air. When our town’s annual October Festival arrived, most people could not find the heart to attend. Our tragedy had become so long lasting, we barely even made the news anymore when a new child went missing, and a melancholy sunk its fingers into the entire town. But, Amanda and I went.
We walked close, passing beneath the large banner that hung above the boardwalk. Pumpkins and gourds and bundles of straw festively adorned the walkway, placed along the streetlights and the porches of the homes that looked out over the sea. Fishermen worked at large vending stalls, and craft displays sold wares all the way down to the docks, punctuated by the occasional carnival game or food stand selling funnel cakes and grease. But it was quiet…
Amanda took my hand and pulled me along to everything she wanted to see. We had both seen it every year before, but that day was different. When she took my hand, I felt my heart leap back to life, and when I won her a giant teddy bear, I could not stop smiling; neither could she.
Then, something happened. We began to laugh. The people around us smiled, and the moment of happiness infected everyone. The vendors began shouting to the people passing by, proclaiming their fish was the best, or how you could not find a necklace like theirs. People began coming out of their homes, the carnival games had lines stretching back into the streets, little children laughed as their parents swung them between their hands, and everyone forgot…
That night, as the sun set behind us and people began heading home, Amanda and I sat on a black bench, barely big enough to fit us both and her teddy bear, looking out across the water. I did not even realize that we had been holding each other’s hands all day. Then, she leaned in and kissed me…
It was short and sweet and when she stopped she gave me a shy, embarrassed grin. It was the best day I could remember.
In the coming weeks, the temperature began to drop and the first flurry of snow descended on our town. The disappearances began happening more frequently and sadness evolved into pure terror.
With the attacks growing in frequency, many people began to leave, some not even waiting for their homes to sell, and others leaving everything behind. I came home one day to my parents beginning a stack of cardboard boxes in the living room. Neither of them said anything, we all understood. But, all I could think about was leaving Amanda behind.
That night, awoken by the sound of a frenzied dog, I saw something from my bedroom window as I looked out across an increasingly desolate town. The front gate of the yard had been opened, its lock twisted off, the black iron smacking into the fence as the wind swung it back and forth along its creaking hinges. It walked like a man, with a slow, heavy stride. The creature was tall and bulky, its wide torso resting on legs as thick as tree trunks. I could not get a clear look through the darkness, but its eyes, the size of a small dinner plate, reflected flashes of light from the street.
I dropped to the floor and peered from the corner of the window. I watched as the thing walked towards the front door, quietly fiddled with the doorknob, and then began pacing along the first-floor windows. At each one, it tested their weights, figured out which windows were locked, and which ones were not. Then, satisfied, it walked back through the gate, back to the water.
I told my parents I had seen someone sneaking around the house in the night. They called the police; the police took my statement and a description of a large man in the shadows. My mom began packing faster that day, and my father put a hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eyes and promised he would protect me.
I knew it would be back for me… Later on, just as the sun was beginning its decent, I packed a backpack, left through my fence with the broken lock, and headed for Amanda’s. The creatures had never attacked an adult, my parents would be fine. But for me, my home was no longer safe. They would drag me away like Mark…
“They scouted my house last night,” I said as Amanda let me inside. She was scared, we both were. She led me to her bedroom where we talked about my parents getting ready to move and she told me that her parents were planning to head up to New York.
“I can’t leave you,” she told me as we wrapped our arms around each other.
After dinner, she told her parents that I had left and hid me away in her bedroom. We stayed up late, lying on her bed, watching the movies she had on her shelves, and kissing whenever either of us built up the courage. Periodically, I would stand and look out her window to the town where the ocean fog obscured lights that lit empty streets. No one walked the stone pathways and most of the homes had all gone dark. If I stood at the right angle, I could spot the water from the ocean peacefully washing into the shore.
When we fell asleep, my arm was wrapped around her waist, and her fingers curled over my hand and rested in my palm…
The room was dark when I woke up to a dog barking in the distance. The light from the television cast the room in a pale, flickering glow. I reached out to touch Amanda, and when my hand felt nothing but the blankets, my heart began to pound in my chest. I shot up from the bed, the room smelled like stale water and the carpet was wet. I darted to the window, where along the beach I could see several figures dragging another…
Without a second thought, I raced down the stairs and slammed through the front door. By the time Amanda’s parents were flipping on the light in their bedroom, my desperation had carried me half way through town. Ahead I could hear the whispering roar of the waves, and Amanda… she was screaming.
“No,” I cried as my feet touched the sand. “Leave her alone!”
The creatures turned to look at me, stopping only a few feet before touching the water. Amanda struggled beneath the tangled weight of an organic looking fishing net, the rope of which resting in the clenched fist of the last creature. They were all large, muscled humanoids with massive webbed feet and hands. They stared at me with fish-like eyes and flattened faces; the cross between man and piranha. Each one carried a large spear that they aimed at me as I approached.
I stopped and lifted my hands into the air when one of them let out a hollow call like a whale and threatened me with a long, barbed weapon. The creature with Amanda protectively lifted her over its shoulder like she weighed nothing and held her away from me. One of the monsters moved towards me, its feet thudding against the ground and kicking up a wave of sand with each step. It stopped a foot in front of my nose and bared a row a sharp teeth, and with one of its great arms it motioned towards the net and then pounded its clawed fist against its scaled chest.
“No, no please.” I clasped my hands together and fell to me knees.
My begging did nothing as the creatures turned and continued their slow march back towards the water. I screamed for someone to help. When I saw Amanda struggle, digging her nails frantically into the sand I lunged forward only for the one who denied me to hurl my body away.
I smacked into the sand, shouting and screaming at them. Tears flooded over my face that twisted in rage.
“Take me,” I roared over the thunder of the ocean. “Take me instead.”
The creature I spoke at before turned to see me with my hands held out in front of me in surrender. It gave another hollow call halting its party.
“Take me,” I demanded again. It paused a moment, staring at me with its gigantic eyes. Then, it took a sharpened blade of corral and sliced through the rope that its companion held. Immediately, Amanda rushed from the net and flew into my arms. I held her for as long as I could, breathing her in, before the creature grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away.
Amanda screamed and chased after us only to be flung back by another of the terrible creatures. When she tried again, the one holding me aimed his blade towards her.
“Amanda, it’s OK,” I told her as my feet hit the water. “It’s OK.” The water came to my waist. “Promise me you will leave this place.”
She fell to her knees, sobbing.
“Promise me,” I yelled. She promised beneath a shower of tears and helpless screams. The water lapped at my chin as the monster continued to drag me below. I tugged back one last time to cry out above the cold blackness, “Amanda, I love you.”
Instantly, the surface shot away above me. I remembered Mark and so many others; how they fought helplessly as they vanished beneath the sea. Did they breathe in, or did they hold on for as long as they could? As I watched the world above me rip through my fingertips, falling deeper and deeper into the ocean, I could only think of Amanda. And I held on… I held on for as long as I could.
Credit To – Ryan Austin Gray
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Before I start, I have to admit something. I’m only telling you this because I think that it is important. But I swear, what happened was real. I just hope that you don’t judge me based on what I’m about to share.
The thing is, I live in a mental institution. I am clinically insane. 10 years ago I was diagnosed with severe paranoia, hallucinations and multiple other disorders, and I was locked up in here because my parents couldn’t cope. I don’t hold anything against them. I mean, it’s not their fault that their daughter is crazy! They tried their best, bless them, but sometimes people need specialist help, and I was one of those people. Looking back, I was a lot worse then than I am now, but I’m starting to stray away from the point.
I’ve moved from institution to institution over the years. Some of were burnt down by inmates, some were shut by the government but there was one place, the last one that I stayed in, that shut for a much more horrifying reason.
It was called the Oaktree Institute, but we patients called it OTI. It was situated in a secluded part of the countryside near a dense stretch of woodland. The building itself built in the 19th century and was originally a fancy mansion for some rich family, but after the last heir died without a will, it was seized by the government and converted to an asylum; but they don’t call them that nowadays. Back in the day, it probably would have been a nice place to live, but now it’s once pristine appearance had slowly deteriorated over time.
The ornate gargoyles that once stood on the roof had been weathered by wind and rain but most of them had chipped and fallen apart anyway.
Green ivy twisted up and inside the cracks in the yellowing stone walls that once would have been marble white. It was in desperate need of restoration, but a global recession meant that any scheduled work had to be cancelled due to lack of funding.
Inside, the furnishings and decor were very dated, but clean at least. The wall paper was that horrible 70s yellow stuff and the carpets were faded and worn. The canteen was a bit better at least; it was originally the nursery room for the children that had lived there. Polished oak covered the floor but the walls were ornately decorated with beautiful frescos of stories from The Grimm Brothers’ Fairy Tales. Delicately painted on the ceiling were pictures of cherubs and angels holding flowers and hearts. It was a peculiar room, for in old houses such as Oak Tree Manor, nurseries were usually upstairs or in the attic, but here they’d built it on the ground floor. It was right next to the kitchen, and when it’d been converted to a mental institute builders had knocked through the wall to the small kitchen. I’d never been in the kitchen – only staff were allowed there – but I often ate in the canteen. Only a few of us ‘inmates’, as we were sometimes called, were allowed to eat in there as many of my fellow ‘inmates’ were too dangerous to have contact with others, but fortunately I wasn’t one of those people.
Also on the ground floor was the staff quarters and a visiting hall; no one ever came to visit me though. On the first floor were two wings; the Williams wing and the Mattenson wing. They were both for male patients and were named after two of the previous benefactors to the institute. There were another two wings on the second floor which were for female patients. They were called the Victoria wing and the Golding wing. I was in the Victoria wing, which was patriotically named after the monarch at the time, Queen Victoria. My room was right by the stairs to the attic. The attic was where the dangerous patients were held. I could often hear them wailing and banging through the ceiling above me at night. I had asked to move rooms but there were no others spare apparently.
Other than the psychos making noise above me, it was a nice room. I had my bed in the corner of the room opposite the door and a TV on the wall facing my bed. In the other corner was a bookshelf full of numerous novels and other such things. It probably just sounds like a normal bedroom room to you, but trust me, it wasn’t. The door was made of iron and every night the nurses would bolt it shut to lock us in. Next to the door was one of those two way mirror things. From inside the room it just looked like a normal mirror but on the outside it was a window that the doctors and nurses could see through. I didn’t like it at all, but at least they covered it up at night so no one could spy on us. It was sort of like a prison really, except for one thing;
If we needed to get out, there was a button above the bed that called the nurses to our rooms. We were only supposed to use it if we were having a panic attack or hallucinating or something like that. It was a panic button. I’d always thought it kind of useless for me as I’ve never had the need to use it before – I’ve never been particular scared of my hallucinations or had any bad panic attacks – but there was one night that changed my opinion of that button forever.
It was particularly stormy that night and the howling winds and battering rain made the old house creak and sway. I decided to stay in my room and read a little; that night I’d chosen “Alice in Wonderland”. It’s not a particularly difficult to read book, but rumbles of thunder and cracks of lightning hindered me from becoming fully immersed to the point where I eventually gave up and I settled down in bed. As I was tired, I drifted off almost immediately though, since I’m a light sleeper, I kept being awoken by random noises and the wails of the crazies upstairs. I know it may seem a bit off for me of all people to mock others and their mental health ailments, but if you’ve been locked away for as long as I have, you’d become mean too. But I digress; allow me to continue to bore with the seemingly unnecessary details of that night. After the wails of the criminally insane above me finally desisted, I managed to sleep for another two hours before I was next woken up; this time it was the night nurse locking and bolting the door. An uneasy feeling arose in my stomach from anxiety and paranoia that prevented me from returning to the world of sleep.
I lay awake for several hours, left alone to my empty thoughts and the storm raging outside. I found the echoes of raindrops vaguely comforting for some reason. The noises were consistent unlike the other noises that I heard in the night. The monotony of the pitter pattering sent me into an almost hypnotised state. They’ve done studies on that you know. Volunteers were strapped to chairs and were blasted with sequenced lights and radio static. These stimulants seemed to induce a sleep like phase on the subjects and I suppose that was what happened to me that night.
It didn’t feel like normal sleep; it was almost as if I was semi-conscious yet the telltale dreamlike elements were still there. I could hear the storm outside, but I could also hear alarms and eerie chanting that sounded distant and muffled. Naturally at the time, I assumed that I’d dreamt these noises or that I’d at least hallucinated them. But then I heard another noise. It was a sharp, loud noise that drew me to wakeness. There was an urgency in the noise that set off warning bells in my head. When I was finally fully conscious, I managed to decipher the sound.
It was tapping. It was fingers tapping in glass. Suddenly, I was blinded by a dim light that lit up my room that was once blanketed in darkness. On the wall next to my bed I could see a looming shadow with long bony tendril like fingers dancing up and down. Involuntarily, I shuddered, and the tapped stopped. I thought that it was all over, and that I’d just hallucinated a little;
But I was wrong.
The absence of sound was replaced by earpiercingly painful screeches. I groaned a little as the daggers of sound shredded my eardrums. My mind started to wander and I involuntarily began to imagine horrifying things. They were huge, dark shadowy things with pale faces and knives for hands slowly creeping towards me. Fear started to grip me as my thoughts felt more and more real. I didn’t know what to do. It was like when you’re a little kid, and you hear a strange sound so you automatically assume its a monster. That’s how I felt. Like a small, helpless child cowering under her duvet covers. The screeching grew louder and louder and I almost let out a wail of desperation. “Why was this thing taunting me?” my mind sobbed. I curled up into a foetal position and started to cry. I felt utterly hysterical.
But then something snapped inside of me. A voice of reason whispered amongst the swelling masses of terrible thoughts. “You’re hallucinating,” I thought to myself. Then it didn’t seem so bad. As the panicked part of me slowly drifted away, I felt a slight pride as a rolled over in bed, no longer afraid of the hallucinations that had haunted me.
Something was still troubling me though. It was the light. The light that had casted shadows in my walls. Now, I’m not afraid of light of course, but it was where the light was coming from that made my blood run cold.
The mirror. The two-way mirror. It’d been tampered with so that I could see the other side. Pressed up against the glass, was a sickly grey face on a bald, misshapen head. It’s eyes we’re bulbous and bloodshot and had a terrifying gleam to them. Below that was its mouth with triangle shaped teeth stained a worrying shade of red. The thing snarled at me with a smile. It was enjoying watching me suffer. It slowly lifted a hand and started to tap its long, yellowing fingernails against the glass.
I couldn’t breathe. I literally froze. I was panic stricken and the only way to cope with the emotions I felt was to wail loudly in the hope the someone would come and help me. I wanted to hide, to get away from it, but I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I thought that if I even blinked for a second, it would get me.
As I slowly moved my hand from out of the covers, the creature bared it’s teeth at me and hissed causing me to recoil in terror. I wanted the voice of reason to come back. Just to have been told that none of this was real would have made the whole situation more bearable. But the problem was that it felt so real . I lifted my arm out again and slowly reached up to the panic button. I was sure that the moment I pressed it, everything would be ok. As I poised my arm to push it, I noticed the creature grin. Not the evil grin that it had smiled before, but a more “genuine” as such grin. It was as if it wanted me to press the button. My mind was so jumbled that I didn’t realise it in time. I pressed the button, and heard it click. Breathing a sigh of relief, I expected a nurse to come rushing into me with my medication.
But then it clicked.
Something clicked in my mind.
I remembered something that I was told by the head medical practitioner here when I first arrived. “For ease of access,” I remember him saying, “upon pressing the panic button, the door to a patients cell will automatically unlock.”
And then it clicked.
The door clicked open.
Credit To – Skylaria
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The chairs were the old school folding kind, brown metal with tan cushions that were almost comfortable. They were usually folded and stacked neatly against the wall in the basement of the church on Dionin street. Three times a week they were unfolded and made into a circle: once for bible book club on Monday afternoons, another time for prayer group on Tuesday mornings, and then every Friday night for meetings.
Some Fridays, the circle could get up to twenty members. Most weeks it was half that. Tonight was less. Langston didn’t really care. He just needed a meeting.
It had been six years since the last time he got high. It didn’t matter. His life was a constant series of triggers. Whenever he felt like pulling one, he would end up here, in this circle, or one just like it, telling strangers he occasionally recognized explicit details of how he threw away his life.
The ritualistic aspect of it was important. The circle was important. The repetition was important.
They joke about how people get addicted to meetings instead of drugs. Langston didn’t mind the trade off. At least meetings didn’t send you to the emergency room with abscesses. Or into jail for the weekend, sick and detoxing. They don’t kill you and swallow you whole like addictions do.
He sat down at one of the chairs, six synthetic sugar packets heartlessly drowned into his coffee. The styrofoam cup was warm in his cold hands. The meeting was about to start.
There was a banging noise coming from down the hall. It sounded like a door hadn’t been closed properly and the echoing, cavernous booming rattled through the empty basement and into the little meeting room.
The girl next to him was pounding her feet against the cement floor in time to the noise. She was grabbing her knees with her fingers. Her nails were mostly imaginary, gnawed nearly to the bed.
Between the way she looked and the way she acted it was either her first meeting or a court mandated appearance. Both options were lousy. He smiled over at her and she turned her head slightly.
There was something wrong with her eyes.
She looked down again. Her blonde hair with dull roots obscured her face. And her eyes.
He could hear her teeth grinding against each other. It sounded like an old and dying machine.
He looked away. Someone was speaking. It was Marc. Langston had seen him at dozens of meetings. He had heard his story dozen of times. He could tell it. Wife divorced him, then he was fired, now his brother was dying of esophageal cancer. The repetition was good for people. The ritual was important.
The door rattled off in the distance. It sounded like it was being slammed and reopened by wind. It had been breezy all day, with the October leaves flying in twisting little patterns across the sky. Red and gold and dying in celebratory sacrifice for the coming of fall.
After Marc finished, someone else went. Langston heard them as a dull noise, waves in a seashell in another room. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t stop thinking about her eyes.
She was still grinding her teeth. He noticed her knuckles were cut up and weirdly scarred. She was making very, very weird noises very, very quietly. Deep jagged breaths with another noise coming from her. A weird sibilant sound.
Was that really what her eyes looked like?
It must have been the light. A reflection. Someone was talking. He couldn’t hear a thing.
He tried to pay attention. The person talking was saying it seemed like there was a new member? And would she want to say something?
He saw the girl next to him raise her head. She stood up.
There was a loud bang down the hall. The lights flickered. They came back on. The girl’s breathing sounded weird. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes. It wasn’t the light. That’s what they looked like.
“Sure,” she said. Her voice sounded so normal. That made it worse. “I’d love to tell you my story.”
What was that noise in the hall? It almost sounded like something was walking around. Shuffling?
“My name is Emily.”
“Hi Emily.”
Even Langston said it. It was automatic. The ritual only works if you participate. Repetition helps.
“This is my story. It started three years ago. The first time I got high. My mom had surgery on her knee. I tried some of her pain meds. They were awesome. I collapsed on the couch after taking them. I was made of cumulus clouds and unicorns. I was composed of rainbows and garden gnomes. So I took more. Obvs. Then some more. Then I got some from my friends. Then pills cost too much. Then I found out heroin was a lot cheaper than prescription pills. And much easier to get.”
“This next part is the part in “Behind the Music” before the comeback,” she said and pushed her hair back. Langston saw someone stare. Did they see the eyes? “I got really messed up on heroin. My friends weren’t always my friends. I did a lot of things I really regret. I should have died. I wish I did. It would have been better than this. Maybe.”
She smiled. What was going on with her jaw? It seemed to pulse?
Another noise in the hall.
“Two months ago, my friend and I were trying to score. We were getting sick. We were sleeping in an underpass. We didn’t have anything. My friend, Amy, she drew a circle. Like this.”
Something was outside in the hall. Langston knew there was something. It wasn’t a loose door. It was moving and getting closer. He wanted to get up and run out. He felt like he couldn’t move. Instead, he just listened to the noise. A rattling noise. A hissing, like air escaping a tire.
“We decided we were going to call something to help us. Get us high or whatever. To not feel sick or something. Whatever. It doesn’t matter now.”
In the hallway, the noise grew louder, a hypnotic rattling circular noise.
“Anyway. We made the circle. We called it. And it showed up. It immediately showed up. Like it had just been waiting for this moment forever. I guess it had.”
Marc with the divorce and unemployment and dying brother stared at her. All the veins in his neck stuck out like new blades of grass in the summer.
“The first thing that happened was it killed Amy. Dead. Totally dead. And then …it… well, it ate her. After that, it spoke to me. It asked if I still wanted what I called it for. Did I want its help? And I told it yeah, because why the fuck not? I’ll take living and not dying for 500, Alex.”
Langston realized the feeling he had of being trapped wasn’t just a sensation. He couldn’t move his body. It was as if he was nailed to the old school brown metal chair with the almost comfortable cushion.
“He told me he had been asleep. For a really, really long time. Now he was up. Because of us. And all he wanted was to eat. And he didn’t really ever want to stop eating again. So we made a deal. If I helped him out, brought him to places where he could eat, he’d help me out. He couldn’t get me heroin, but he could get me high in a different way: I could eat with him. I said yes. So…so, then he …he changed me. My eyes, first. Then other things.”
She looked over at Langston. Her slit pupils widened and contracted in the fluorescent night. He felt his legs spasm. She laughed.
“And guess what? I like this better than junk. Better than anything. He told me the more pain and sadness people have in their life, the better they taste. All that sorrow flavors the body.”
She walked over to Langston. She put her hand on his shoulder. Her hands didn’t feel like skin. Like human skin.
“And he’s right. Sadness tastes magnificent. Like rainbows and fucking unicorns. But he needs a circle to pull him into this world. So I told him I had an idea. A way we could kill two birds with one stone. Or kill something, at least.”
Behind the door, something hissed.
“This is our fifth meeting. Fifth town in two months. No one has caught on yet. Of course, we don’t leave a lot of evidence in our wake. Most of it we swallow.”
Her mouth…changed. Opened wide, then wider. Then wider. Her jaw unhinged as they watched, helpless. Her tongue, forked and long emerged from her red mouth like a newborn child. She licked the air and smiled at Langston.
“I think you’re first.” She said to him quietly. Then, louder, “We’re ready.”
The door opened.
Credit To – O.H. Manchester
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“Most of the laugh tracks on television were recorded in the early 1950s. These days, the people you hear laughing are dead.”
-Chuck Palahniuk, “Lullaby”
***
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, of course.”
“I thought that’s what your job was about: talking?”
“Actually Mrs. Chelsea, I would say that my job is about trust. I can’t expect people who don’t trust me to talk about sensitive things with me. So this session is entirely in your hands.”
“I’ll talk about it. Therapy was my idea, after all. They said that since there was just the one incident it wasn’t really necessary but…I thought it was a good idea.”
“All right then. Tell me what happened.”
“It was just a drawing on the sidewalk. A stencil, you know? Artists leave them around the city, sometimes, and I was out shopping with my family when my son pointed it out. It was a skeleton wearing a top hat, and it had the word ‘Saturday’ underneath it. What do you think that means?”
“It sounds like Baron Samedi.”
“Who?”
“He’s a loa; a voodoo spirit. He watches over the dead and he’s usually represented by a top hat and a skull. ‘Samedi’ means ‘Saturday.’ So this drawing frightened you?”
“I had a kind of fit when I saw it. They called it an anxiety attack. They even took me to the hospital.”
“And what did they find out?”
“They said there’s nothing wrong with me physically. They talked about stress and lack of sleep. And they said I should take it easy but not to worry unless it happened again. But I’m worried anyway.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“Once. The same day…that my son died.”
“You said your son was the one who noticed the stencil?”
“That’s my youngest son, Dylan. I had an older son, Jonah. But he’s not with us anymore. He was murdered five years ago.”
“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Chelsea. Can I ask if you received any psychological counseling afterwards?”
“No. I was busy with Dylan, you see. Isn’t it strange? The day Jonah died was the same day I found out I was pregnant again. And I guess I just….poured everything into managing the pregnancy. So that I wouldn’t think about anything else. And for years, I didn’t. Not until this week. Should I talk about the murder?”
“As I said, you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”
“I…I’ll talk about it.
“Jonah was fifteen; I had him when I was still in high school. He was very gifted. He played the cello, and the piano, and they made him the organist at our church. That was what got him into trouble.
“The minister was friends with my husband, Jonah’s stepfather, and he loved to hear Jonah play, so he put him at the organ. Everyone loved him. It wasn’t just that Jonah was talented, he was…I guess you could say he had a performer’s charisma. I…I’m sorry, it’s hard to talk about…”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Chelsea. Should we change the subject?”
“No, I’ve already said this much. Something people liked about Jonah, he would always play the hymns but he’d play some of his own music too, before and after the service. He composed his own material; it was very strange sounding, but everyone liked it. Well, almost everyone: One day a man came to us after church and told him to stop.”
“Told him to stop playing?”
“Told him to stop playing his own music. He was very upset. He looked like he hadn’t had much sleep; he might have been drunk. He told us that the song Jonah played that day was…wrong, somehow. That it was driving him crazy. He was screaming at us in the parking lot, telling us that we didn’t realize what we were doing, that he’d spent his whole life trying to get away from that music. It didn’t make any sense.”
“Tell me about the song?”
“It was very odd, now that you mention it. It was…bouncy. It made me think of the circus, for some reason. It made sense if you knew Jonah, though; he was always playing for laughs. I heard him practicing it in his room. It made me feel…unsettled, the first time I heard it.”
“Hmm. And what about this man?”
“Well, that day in the parking lot he just ran off, after scaring the daylights out of us. But the next week, he came back. …with a gun.”
“Mrs. Chelsea—”
“It was the Day of the Dead. November 1st. I remember that. Someone had left something on the organ for Jonah, as a joke. You know those Day of the Dead decorations, the little statuettes of skeletons doing everyday things? Skeleton housewives cooking or a skeleton barber with scissors and a razor or—”
“A therapist.”
“Huh?”
“I have one that’s a skeleton therapist, with a skeleton patient on his couch. A client gave it to me. It’s actually quite funny.”
“Oh. Well, this one was a skeleton playing the piano. Jonah thought it was hilarious. He showed it to everyone. Nobody would admit to leaving it. Then he started playing. Everyone was enjoying it. He was coming to the end of the song, and then that man from the week before stood up. And then…”
“…where is that man now, Mrs. Chelsea?”
“In a mental hospital. I’ve visited him a few times. He cries a lot and tells me he’s sorry, but he says, ‘You must understand why. You of all people must understand why I did it.’ I don’t know why he says that. …but the thing I remember about that day now that I never remembered before is that little Day of the Dead statue. The skeleton was wearing a top hat, you see.”
“Ah. So the stencil drawing reminded you of it.”
“No, that wasn’t it. I mean, I suppose it did, but…doctor, I’ve never told anyone this before, but the day that Jonah was murdered, everyone assumed I was hysterical because of what happened, and I was, but it started before that. It started when I saw that little statuette on the church organ.
“Something about that figure, the skeleton and the hat, it terrified me. It scared me so bad that I wanted to stand up and shout to Jonah to run away from it, but I was too frightened to even move. And by the time I could, the man with the gun had already…he’d…”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Chelsea. …but you’re sure that your fear response started before the shooting? Not after?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”
“Hmm. So the skeleton and the hat: That image upsets you. Do you know why?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Can you think of the first time you ever saw it?”
“Well… when I was a child I used to have a nightmare. There was a little girl in a room—”
“Was it you?”
“It might have been, but it was hard to tell. Whoever she was, she was in a dark room, and she was crying, and all around her there were these…I guess puppets, or dolls? And they were screaming.”
“The puppets were screaming?”
“Yes, all of them, screaming and screaming, and the little girl was crying.”
“Did you have this nightmare a lot?”
“All the time, when I was five.”
“What does this have to do with the skeleton in the top hat?”
“That was one of the puppets. That’s the first time I can remember seeing that image. Well, not seeing exactly, but that’s my earliest memory.”
“I see. What did your parents do when you told them about this dream?”
“They took the TV away.”
“Why?”
“They said that I had the dream because of something I saw on TV.”
“Do you remember that?”
“No. And I didn’t at the time either. But they insisted. It was…actually very strange, now that I think about it. It seemed to scare them, somehow. Of course, it’s hard to remember. I was so young, you know?”
“Of course. Do you still have this dream?”
“No. That is…not until very recently.”
“But you’ve had it again?”
“Yes, just after the stencil drawing, and the anxiety attack. That same night, actually. But only that once. And that was the first time in, oh, forty years, I guess. It’s normal, right, to have that dream again, after seeing something that reminded me of it?”
“We don’t really deal in words like normal or abnormal here, Mrs. Chelsea. I would say that it is noteworthy that you had the same dream after so long. But I don’t think it’s something you have to worry about. Can I ask, was anything different about the dream this time?”
“…yes.”
“And what was that?”
“One of the puppets. It looked like…it looked like Jonah…”
“It’s all right to cry, Mrs. Chelsea. Here, dry your eyes. I can imagine it was very upsetting, but it’s important to remember that dreams are your mind’s way of trying to tell us something. Can you remember any other strange dreams about your oldest son?”
“For a while right after he died I would have one where I was standing on the shore, watching him sail away on a big ship.”
“That’s a very common image.”
“No, not like this; there was something wrong with that ship. Something terrible. And the people on it with him…they weren’t people. Not normal people. I had the feeling they were, you know, kidnapping him. Carrying him away, like they were—”
“Pirates?”
“Yes, that’s it. And I heard music too: strange, jumbled circus music. It sounded a little like the song that Jonah played in church. And you know, come to think of it, he told me that the song came to him in a dream first. It might even have been a dream about a ship. I didn’t pay much attention. I remember I even faked having to make a phone call so I could leave the room and stop listening to him talk about it. Isn’t that terrible? But at the time, hearing about his dreams upset me very much.”
“Let’s move on: Have there been any other incidents lately that have upset you? Anything unusual that’s disrupted your regular routine?”
“I’m not sure what’s important.”
“Anything might be important. We won’t know for sure unless we talk about it.”
“Well, a few weeks ago—this was before the panic attack—I was at a toy store, trying to find something for Dylan. He was turning five that week. And I found this…thing. It was a doll, you know, but not a normal one. It was like a little pirate, but its head was one from a porcelain baby doll, the old kind? It looked like something a serial killer would make in their basement.”
“And that bothered you?”
“Well it was horribly ugly. I asked the owner and she said she’d found it when she was cleaning out the storeroom. She had no idea where it came from. She wasn’t sure whether she should sell it or not. I told her to throw it away. It scared me. I guess it sounds silly now. Why would something like that get to me so much?”
“To grind your skin.”
“…what?!”
“I said, things get under your skin.”
“I thought you said…never mind.
“There was something else too: As I was cleaning my son’s room the next day I thought I saw that same doll in there.”
“Thought you did?”
“As I was cleaning under his bed something caught my eye: It was that red bandana. And I saw that doll’s little face staring at me, with those cracked, painted eyes, and I swear I just about screamed. But when I looked under the bed again it wasn’t there. And I told myself I just imagined it, but…are all these things really important?”
“Oh yes, Mrs. Chelsea. I’d say we’re making great progress. With these sorts of things, you have. To go. Inside.”
“…what did you say?”
“You have to go inside. Of your mindset, you know, inside of your issues.”
“But why did you say it that way the first time?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Doctor, I—”
“Let’s move on. It seems that your anxiety is being triggered by some very specific imagery. Tell me when else it’s come up.”
“I…”
“Tell me, Mrs. Chelsea. Please.”
“…my neighbor, she had Halloween decorations up on her house for weeks. And there was one that was a kind of skeleton that hung in her window, the sort of thing you’d buy at a drugstore this time of year. It startled me when I looked out my window and saw it. It was like it was looking right into my house. It had big glass eyes that were too large for its skull…that bothered me.
“I had such a strange feeling when I saw it. The first time I thought to myself, ‘He’s found me.’ It just popped into my head, and a second later I couldn’t have told you what it means. But that’s not what scared me.”
“What did?”
“My neighbor took all the other decorations off her house after Halloween, but she kept that one. Every morning I’d see that thing staring into my window. And finally one day I mentioned to her, very casually, you know, that it was almost Thanksgiving and she really ought to take that last Halloween decoration down. And she said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about? It’s been gone for weeks.'”
“Was it there when you looked out the window again?’
“No.”
“Do you think it was ever really there to begin with?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“What else has been on your mind?”
“Dylan. He’s a very bright child, like his brother. And they look a like. But he’s not a musician; instead he draws.”
“Has he been making strange pictures?”
“How did you know?”
“A lucky guess. Do go on, Mrs. Chelsea.”
“I feel sick. I feel like…the room is moving?”
“It’s your imagination. Tell me about Dylan’s pictures.”
“They’re of…a sailing ship. But not a normal one. It has a, you know, a figurehead at the front of it that’s too big. And it talks.”
“The figurehead talks?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know that, if it’s just a picture?”
“I just know. And he’s been drawing it for weeks and weeks, over and over. And sometimes he draws other things too…strange things…terrible things…”
“But things you recognize.”
“…yes.”
“Where have you seen these things before, Mrs. Chelsea?”
“In my dreams. And…on the television. When I was five years old. The show came on everyday. And I was scared of it, but I watched it anyway. And when I tried to get my parents to watch it with me they said…they said…”
“What did they say?”
“…that there was no show. And I didn’t understand what they meant. And that’s when the nightmare began. And I remember now, that’s where I first heard that song, the strange one that Jonah played. That’s why I was upset when I heard it, because it reminded me of that show. And I though maybe that’s why the man at the church was upset by it, too. I guess as I grew up I kind of forgot about the whole thing, but…”
“But you didn’t forget, did you? You never forget the things that are really important in childhood.”
“I guess you don’t.”
“And we didn’t forget about you either.”
“What?”
“I said, they didn’t forget—”
“No you didn’t. You said ‘we.’ ‘We didn’t forget about you?'”
“…well, it’s true. We didn’t forget. We’ve been waiting for you, Janice. All this time.”
“Dr. Horace, why are you laughing like that? Dr. Horace?”
“I’m not a doctor. And you see this isn’t a doctor’s office at all, is it? It’s the cabin of a ship, that’s why it’s moving, that’s why you started to feel seasick.”
“What’s going on?!”
“You’re off on an adventure on the high seas, Janice, just like the ones on television when you were a little girl. The ones we made just for you.”
“Stop talking like that. And stop calling me that too, my name isn’t Janice.”
“But it could be! You’d make as good of a Janice as anyone. And think how much better life would be if you were? Janice never had a murdered son. Janice never had to worry that she was losing her mind. Janice only had adventures all the time.”
“But they were so awful, so frightening…”
“Well, being a child is always a little frightening, isn’t it? But you won’t be alone here; all of your old friends are onboard. And we have some news ones too. Even Jonah is here…”
“Jonah…?”
“Oh yes. He’s been just the best little crewmember for us. And he’s been waiting for you. Just think about how wonderful it will be to see him again, and to see everyone else too. All one big happy crew together.”
“But what about Dylan?”
“Your other boy? Oh, don’t worry about him. We’ll get around to him, in due time. But do you hear that, Janice?”
“I…I hear a voice…”
“And what is it telling you?”
“I don’t want to listen to it! I don’t want to be here, I want to go home!”
“This is home, Janice. This is the home we made for you, the home that’s been waiting for you, the home that you’ll be in forever and ever. The voice that you hear, why, that’s the voice of your new home. And what is it saying?”
“I…”
“What’s it saying, Janice?”
“It’s saying that…
“I have. To go. Inside.”
Credit To – Tam Lin
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Back in February of 2008, I decided that I needed a change in my monotonous life. Whether that change would come in the form of a new job or a new toothbrush, I didn’t know. I was never the most adventurous person, I’ve always found it difficult to veer away from my comfort zone and the limit of my existence usually depended upon which book I was reading at the time. It took me a while to realise that my happiness often derived from the stories that my mind was living in; I was an avid bookworm – as miserable a synecdoche as that is.
Once I realised my true outlet, I immediately knew what I wanted. I purchased a small shop, quit my boring job, renovated the building and transformed it into a bookstore – I had never been happier. The next two years were the best of my life; the store had become a huge hit with the locals, my perspective on work had been completely altered and I was feeling genuinely happy for the first time since my childhood.
It was during the winter of 2010 that she walked into my store. She stepped inside out of the snow and approached me with a large bin-bag. Etchings of age covered her pale face and hands – she must have been at least 80 years old. Slamming the bag on the counter, she simply said:
“These are for you.”
I looked inside the bag to find a selection of some of the greatest novels ever written.
“Why? Do you want money for these or some kind of book trade?” I asked confusingly.
“No, they’re yours to have. Take them.”
She gave me a feeling of uneasiness. Her dirty grey fringe slightly concealed her face as a cold gaze met my vision.
“Are you sure you want me to have them, wouldn’t you rather sell them?”
“No. I have no use for them, nor for money.”
“Okay… thank you. What’s your name?”
“Lucy.”
She muttered her final words and left my store.
I found it all too strange that somebody would give away such great books for nothing, but I suppose some people are just nice. I made my way home that night and took the books with me so that I could go through them. I piled them up on the table and was surprised to see that all of them were in fantastic condition. A couple of them seemed to be first editions and others were versions that I had never even seen before. It took me a moment to realise but the novels that I was looking at were not as I had remembered them to be.
The first book that I picked up was The Green Mile. On the front cover, there was an image of John Coffey smiling and holding two dead, naked girls; I opened it up and flicked through the pages. In this version of the novel, he was in fact guilty of the rape and murder of both children. I made my way to the end of the book and read through the execution scene. All of the officers who had originally grown to love John Coffey in the original novel were now laughing uncontrollably and screaming racial taunts as he was being executed. My eyes had seen enough and my stomach had felt enough too.
The next book I picked up was The Catcher In The Rye. The artwork upon the front page seemed to be of a dead body splattered on the street, drawn from an aeriel view. I flicked through the book until I reached Chapter 14. After Holden Caulfield speaks of ‘messing with the idea of suicide’, he suddenly breaks down in tears and jumps from the window, cracking his skull on the pavement below. The book abruptly ended after that.
I then picked up Lord Of The Flies. The defining image on this novel was of a large child with the face of a pig; he was covered in blood and surrounded by decaying corpses. After grazing through the pages, I reached a point of the story in which Piggy is described as being “non-human, vicious and a hungry animal”. A chapter or so later, Jack insults Piggy which leads to him losing his temper and ripping him apart. Piggy then proceeds to kill and eat the rest of children. The remainder of the book was the same line repeated over and over: “Piggy sat alone on the island waiting for death”.
I read through the few books that were left in the pile and they had all been changed in some sick way: The Great Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, To Kill A Mockingbird, Ulysses, every one of them. Just as I reached the bottom of the pile, I noticed that the final book was one that I had never even heard of before. It was called Last Of The Sparks. I found this slightly unnerving as I immediately paired it with my name, Aaron Sparks. Still, it was just a book.
The front cover was of six gravestones with words too small to be read etched into the granite. I looked up into the top corner of the book and noticed that there was a sell-by date on it – 6/4/2013. I nervously opened it up to the beginning of the story: Chapter 1 – Alice Sparks. My stomach dropped as I read my mother’s name upon the page. I felt dizzy and confused as I anxiously made my way through the chapter. It seemed to detail a regular day in the life of the character; until I reached the last page. Alice was crossing over the road when the heel of her shoe broke causing her to fall. She didn’t get to her feet fast enough and a speeding driver struck her, puncturing both of her lungs.
I felt sick to my stomach. I put the book down and got straight into bed hoping for some sleep. I lay awake all night as countless questions ran through my mind; the only thought that managed to put me to sleep was: “It’s just a book”. The next morning when I got into work, I was feeling worse for wear. It wasn’t until around lunch time that I began to perk up and regain a bit of energy. Then the phone rang. I answered the call to my father crying on the other end – I immediately knew what had happened. I closed the shop and ran to the hospital, but it was already too late, she was gone – hit by a speeding driver they said.
I spent the next couple of weeks helping take care of my dad. Me, my brother and my sisters stayed with him in turns and looked after him; we all looked after each other. It wasn’t until a few months later that I picked up Last Of The Sparks, it had just scared me so much the last time. I opened it up to page 37 and there it was: Chapter 2 – Patrick Sparks. This story was more of the same, a day in the life… right up until the part in which he shot himself in the kitchen whilst on the phone to his son. I ran to the phone to speak to him – comfort him – but then I realised what I may be doing. The phone picked up at the other end and before I could say a word, he was gone.
I got my black suit and tie out once more and repeated the same process for another parent. It ruined us all. After the funeral, I refused to touch the book. What if I had been causing these deaths by reading it? I couldn’t go through it all again. But on Christmas Eve of 2011, I got a phone call from my brothers wife, Heather. Will had been putting up christmas lights on the roof, when he slipped on ice and broke his neck – he died almost instantly. I threw the phone at the wall and began to sob into my sleeve. Anger took the pain away for a moment as I picked up the book and read through Chapter 3. It was exactly as Heather had described.
I fell asleep and woke up the next day with the book still on my lap. I decided to check who was going to go next out of me and my sisters and hopefully warn them – or myself – in some way. I turned the page: Chapter 4 – Mary and Sarah Sparks. I rushed through the story as fast as I could until I reached the end. Both of my sisters and their partners would drown in a lake after colliding with another car on a one-way bridge. That same sickly feeling took over me. I met with my sisters later that day to exchange gifts and I told them as calmly as I could muster to be careful when driving. I had to sound as sane as possible mentioning the lake, the bridge and the fact that all four of them would be in the car at the same time; but at least I told them.
Mary and Sarah drowned eight months later in August 2012. After I went to the funeral, I picked up the book and turned to the final pages: Chapter 5 – Aaron Sparks. But I didn’t read it. I’d rather not live in fear for so long, so I decided to save it for nearer the time; after all, there was a sell-by date on it for a reason. Everything has been normal for the past five months or so, although I’ve lost interest in reading so I’m back to my old miserable self. I questioned myself every day as to why she was doing this to me. But it didn’t matter, it was all going to be over soon anyway.
I’ve just finished reading the final chapter. Its 6/4/2013 and I’m sitting in my basement waiting for her to arrive; that’s the way the ending goes… or so I’ve read.
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“You want to hear the scariest story I know?”
“Sure.”
“Is it scarier than the last two? If it is then I don’t want to hear it. In fact, I think I’ll head home. I’m sure I’ve had enough to drink already.”
“Don’t mind him. The rest of want to hear.”
“Wait, is this going to be about more ghosts or vampires or whatever? Because I’m not buying into all this.”
“It’s not like those other stories. I don’t believe in all of that bullshit. But there was something about it that reminds me of those ones…well, just let me tell you how it happened. This all went down only a few blocks from here, actually…”
***
She was a cutter.
She was the only surgeon in the city who didn’t have to worry about keeping her patients alive. By the time they came to her, they were already dead. Her job was just to find out why.
She was good at it. Every fresh cadaver had secrets; by cutting, she discovered them. And she knew as much about the human body as any other doctor. She knew hearts, for example; how they fit together, how they worked, and most importantly, how they could be hurt. The cutter would say that she understood the heart. In a certain sense, she was right.
She knew about brains too, and about circulation, and the metabolism. She knew enough to be sure that the man tied up on the motel room bed had not had enough flunitrazepam to kill him, and that if she waited for long enough he would wake up, though he’d probably feel fatigued, have a headache, and suffer some short-term memory loss. Flunitrazepam, also known as Narcozep, Rohypnol, and Primum, was illegal in the United States, a class of psychoactive drugs commonly referred to as “roofies,” or simply “the date rape drug,” and she had employed it in the most common way, by slipping it into the man’s drink at a bar. She disliked the association with sexual assault, but it was simply the quickest and most convenient way to render a person unconscious.
The man on the bed was also a doctor, a psychiatrist. His name was Walter Graham. He was fifty three, twice divorced, and had no children on account of a vasectomy his first wife encouraged him to get. He was very respected in his field, widely referenced in medical journals for one remarkable case he’d treated. He lived in a condo on Vallejo Street with a beautiful view. He abused prescription painkillers, watched rugby on the weekends, and liked cats. These were the things the cutter knew about him.
In a way, they were alone together. Anyone else who walked in would see only two people in the room. But the cutter saw a third, another woman, a woman who stood in the corner and watched. This other woman (who was not, the cutter knew, really there in any tangible sense but who seemed no less real despite that certainty) would sometimes respond to the cutter’s questions by nodding or shaking her head. Other than that, she did not do much besides watch.
The motel room, which the cutter had paid for in cash four hours earlier, was on the third floor of a dangerous-looking rattrap squeezed alongside nicer buildings between Mission and Valencia Streets. The carpets were filthy, the walls dotted with graffiti, and the rooms had no windows. The black and white television in each room played only two local affiliates, pornographic films, and static. It was a good place to stay if you liked the idea of being murdered without anyone noticing. She’d picked it because it was the kind of place where no one asked questions, even if you came in out of a cab with an unconscious middle-aged man slung over your shoulders in the middle of the night. All they cared about here was taking the money and minding their own business.
Dr. Graham was secured to the bed frame by four pairs of novelty handcuffs that she’d bought in a sex shop on Folsom Street, where she went so that she’d run the lowest odds of running into anyone she knew. She waited for him to wake up. It took a long time. Flunitrazepam, she knew, could last up to twelve hours, but she was the patient type. Patience was a good quality in a cutter. When Graham took the first unsteady steps back into consciousness she sat down next to him. The stained mattress was thin and the bad springs creaked under her weight. He would be confused and prone to panic, and she didn’t want that. She looked at the other woman, who stood in the corner, watching without blinking. “Are you sure this is the best way?” the cutter said. The other woman nodded.
Whispering, the cutter explained where he was and what had happened to him. She warned him that the restraints she’d used probably wouldn’t hurt him but he still shouldn’t struggle. And she assured him that she did not plan to kill him.
“Trust me,” the cutter said. “I’m a doctor.”
Graham, for the most part, kept his head. He licked his lips and when the cutter saw they were dry she gave him a sip from a bottle of water. The first thing he asked was, “Who are you?” She told him her name. He had heard of her. Some of his patients were police officers; one of them was struggling with feelings of guilt over his constant infidelity and as part of an exercise Graham had asked him to list all the women in his life he felt uncontrollably attracted to. The cutter’s name was the first he came up with. Graham told her all of this in one long run-on sentence, babbling and obviously not sure what he was saying by the end of it. He was not yet fully sober. He did not, she noticed, ask him what she planned to do next. Perhaps he knew better. Or perhaps he was too afraid.
The cutter took a sip of water to wet her own lips and then said, “I want to talk to you about another one of your patients. Do you remember Cleopatra?”
Graham blinked, brow furrowed. And then he laughed, too loudly. The cutter shook her head.
“Maybe you’ll remember her if I show you a picture.” The cutter took a folded photograph out of her wallet. The only light in the room was the grainy, unreal blur of TV static, and Graham was still be dizzy from the drugging, so she had to hold it in front of his face for a long time before he made the soft little “Ah!” sound that indicated recognition. “You mean Jane,” he said.
The cutter looked at the other woman in the room, the one who Graham couldn’t see even though she was right in front of him. The other woman nodded. So the cutter hit Graham in the face. He grasped. “Her name,” the cutter said, as Graham winced from the split lip she’d just given him “was Cleopatra. You killed her.”
“What? No!” Graham tried to sit up, and the restraints rattled against the cheap aluminum bed frame. “First of all, you have it all wrong. Second, that was years ago. Third…third…” He paused, unable to focus for a moment, muttering nonsense before his train of thought reconnected. “Third, how do you even, I mean, what’s it to you?”
The cutter unfolded the photograph. There was another woman in it, with her head on Jane’s (Cleopatra’s) shoulder, smiling. It was the cutter.
“We met in medical school,” the cutter said. “Well, I was in medical school. She only said she was. That turned out to be…not a lie, exactly. More like a misunderstanding. Like a lot of things about her and us. Including her name. I guess you think the name Cleopatra is funny? It wasn’t to me. I loved that name. I loved her.” She folded the photo and put it away again. “Until you took her away from me.”
Graham didn’t say anything for a while. The cutter was quiet as well. In the room next door, someone was making a lot of noise. Graham seemed to be preparing his next words very carefully.
“I realize that these are strange circumstances,” he said. “But as a medical professional you should already understand what’s happened here. The woman in that photograph was—is—named Jane Cohen. She suffered from a rare psychiatric disorder, a disassociative identity. ‘Cleopatra’ was the name of an alter ego her subconscious invented. There was no way you could have known this when the two of you met.
“Jane came to me because she said she was suffering from depression. She was wholly ignorant of her real problem, and it was two years before even I began to suspect it. Real disassociative personalities are very rare. In Jane’s case the psychosis emerged gradually; people invent alter egos and fantasy lives for themselves all the time. In Jane’s case it manifested itself in the most extreme way possible. I spent nine years treating her, restoring her to a single functioning identity with—”
“I’ve already read your essays in the journals, Walt,” the cutter said. She stood up. “You’ve done very well for yourself with the story of how you helped poor ‘Jane.’ But you never gave a thought to woman you got rid of. Cleopatra was not an alter ego to me, not just part of some other woman. Even after she left me I still loved her. I spent years trying to find her again after college. And when I finally did, I discovered that she had no idea who I was. She didn’t remember a thing about me. Because the woman I knew was gone.”
Graham tried to sit up again. Next door, it sounded like someone was hitting the wall over and over again. “Listen to me. I knew that Jane had romantic partners under her alternate persona. Part of the treatment was reconciling her primary personality with the actions and relationships of her alternate one. If I’d had any idea that the two of you…that is to say, if we’d known—”
“I know,” the cutter said, nodding. “You did what any responsible physician would do. That’s why I’m not going to kill you.” Graham looked relieved, although she had told him so once already. “Still, you took something away from me. You think you made ‘Jane’ whole, but what you really did was cut her apart. You picked one half of her and you cut the other half off and threw it away. So it’s only fair that I take something from you too. What do you call that in your line of work? Reconciling the schism?”
“Now wait a minute,” Graham said, raising his voice.
“Do you think much about dying, Walt? I do. I’m told that most people in my field rarely do. Makes it easier not to internalize your work. But I think about it all the time.” Graham was saying something, but she talked over him. “Sometimes I think about the soul. I didn’t think there even was such a thing until recently. I’ve been cutting people apart my whole life and I’ve never once found anything that looked like a soul anywhere in them. But now I think there really is such a thing. And I think that even people who aren’t real can have souls. Even someone who didn’t exist can be a ghost. That’s what I think. What do you think?”
Graham didn’t seem to know how to answer, but she hadn’t really been talking to him anyway. From the corner, Cleopatra watched. When the cutter looked at her, she nodded. The cutter turned the television from static to another channel and put the volume all the way up. Human voices through tinny speakers at full blast sounded like shrieking, wordless ghosts. She ducked down, getting something from under the bed. She heard Graham moving, trying to see what she was doing. When she stood up he started to scream; not words, just screaming. The cutter put a finger to her lips, motioning for him to shush.
“I’m pretty sure I can do this without killing you,” she said. “You know the old joke about being a cutter, right? ‘I’ve never lost a patient yet.’” She pointed to his legs. “Do you want me to cut above the knees, or below?”
Graham was beyond answering now; he was just screaming. The cutter hoped that his commotion would not throw her off when she made the first incisions. She was noted in her field for her steady hands. But then again, she thought, as she pulled the chord on the chainsaw and felt it come to sputtering, grinding life in her hands, this was not exactly her normal precision tool.
“Now don’t worry,” she said, pausing with the whirring saw blade just above Graham’s legs. “I’m a doctor.”
From the corner, Cleopatra smiled.
***
“…as it turned out, someone in another room did overhear, and did call the cops, but by then it was way too late to stop her. When we got there…I’ve never seen blood like that. In my line of work you think you’ve seen it all, but that call was the worst I’ve ever been on.”
“Are you a cop?”
“Paramedic. I’m the one who saved the guy. She did a pretty good job on him, all things considered, but he’d still have bled out if we hadn’t gotten there.”
“I remember reading about that when it happened. Two years ago, right?”
“Me too, but how do you know all that other stuff? I never read anything about why she did it.”
“She told us. She hurt herself with the saw so we had to take her to the hospital too. I rode the whole way with her and she told us the entire story. She wouldn’t stop telling us, in fact. Messed my buddy up real bad in the head. He had nightmares for a while. He thought about going to see a shrink, but under the circumstances it seemed…”
“Ill-advised?”
“Ha, yeah, something like that.”
“So you told you about Cleopatra and everything?”
“Yeah.”
“And was there really, you know, anyone else in the room with them?”
“Not when we got there. She did keep talking to someone else in the ambulance, someone she said was there but we couldn’t see. Sometimes I think…no, no, it was all bullshit. That lady was nuts. But she talked a good game, you know?
“So if wanted to know all about ghost stories, well, now you know what’s been haunting me.”
“And I thought I had rough days at work. What do you do after a thing like that?”
“Drink. Speaking of which, anyone want another?”
Credit To – Tam Lin
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Dear Survivor-
If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. It’s for the best.
You see, about four or five days ago, a storm rolled in. Now, this in and of itself isn’t anything strange. The clouds and the rain though, they had a yellow tint to them. It smelled weird and tasted funny too, none of us could really nail down what it tasted like, and all we knew is that it was some sort of chemical or other.
Now, the important thing to know is that we’re a small Hoosier farming community, maybe 1,500 or so people, so unless some radical has a grudge against corn and soybeans, I doubt it was a terrorist attack.
Anyway, a few hours after that weird rainstorm started, people started getting violently sick. The ones affected couldn’t stop throwing up, there were reports of extreme nausea and even an onset of what they thought was tuberculosis, because the ones diagnosed had a bloody and agonizing cough.
Authorities noticed a trend almost immediately after people started getting sick, in that it seemed only fairly weak people got ill. The sick, old, and young were the only ones who got sick with those violent symptoms. It retrospect though, they got the easy way out.
People that were diagnosed with the illness, dubbed the Yellow Rain Fever, died just hours after getting sick. Some of the victims’ immune systems who were already sick just couldn’t handle the increased fever and vomiting, some were simply too weak to handle much of a sickness in the first place, like the old and the very young, and some actually died of blood loss due to the consumption like cough. But they all died shortly after getting ill.
When people were nearing death, they started hallucinating, or what we thought were hallucinations at the time. They all saw these, dark, shadowy humanoid figures with glowing yellow eyes, lurking in dark corners or just inside unlit rooms.
There were only three or four accounts of these figures, due to the fact that almost no one could speak in their final moments of the sickness. It was enough though, people with the same disease sharing the same hallucinations, it made almost everyone extremely paranoid, as common or shared hallucinations, they reasoned, meant a type of drug or chemical.
After the reports came in of these shared hallucinations, the most paranoid of our population started barricading themselves in their homes. Said they were going to wait out the storm, literally and figuratively.
When most of the initial victims had passed, we started seeing fairly normal people getting extremely sick. Healthy, middle aged people getting the same symptoms, and worse, some of the victims actually faced necrosis before their deaths. The second wave of people who were sick didn’t even make two hours. Same as before, there were several reports of people seeing those black, shadowy figures with the glowing yellow eyes, waiting in corners or dark rooms.
Our small town was devastated at this point; we had lost two or three hundred people by now. And I was absolutely stricken with grief when my dear wife Muriel, may God rest her soul, was diagnosed with the Fever.
By the time we had lost another 100 people, and the disease was announced to be contagious, we were quarantined by the CDC, and government agents were coming in to check out the town decked out in air-tight radiation suits, said they were trying to find the cause of the storm.
Not even an hour after the agents came in, they evacuated. The thing is though; there was no story about this on the news. I don’t know what those CDC guys did, but apparently no one was able to contact the media. There was a mention of a flu epidemic in our town, and that’s it.
My friend, Mark, came over to my house almost immediately after the report on the news aired.
“A flu epidemic?” He yelled, absolutely enraged. “We’ve lost almost five-hundred people to this bastardized mix of symptoms from tuberculosis and food poisoning, and they say it’s the damn flu?” I tried to get him to calm down, but he wouldn’t have it. He said he was going to go get out of town, to try and contact the news, something, anything but staying here waiting to die.
The thing is, I kind of agreed with him, I’d much rather go out fighting rather than sitting around and praying not to get this damned fever. There was something in my gut telling me it would be a bad idea to try and get out. I told Mark that I was going to stay here for the time being, he said fine, that if I wanted to die here as a passive waste, that was my decision.
So Mark left in his truck to try and escape the quarantine. It was the last time I saw him alive.
Things got progressively worse from there. First, the disease spread, there were reports of another five hundred people infected. Of course national news was worthless, but channel six, the local news, was running a Fever Watch. That’s how I got most of my information.
After the next wave of reported infections, symptoms got worse again. Pre-death necrosis was a symptom of almost everyone with the disease at that point, not just an unlucky few. Victims also getting extremely paranoid as their illnesses progressed. Almost all of them were scared of the same thing, of the dark, shadowy figures with yellow eyes creeping in dark areas.
Our whole town was in hysterics, people who had boarded up their homes early were envied. Looting and arson was widespread, our town was a chaotic symphony of anarchy.
As the disease spread, nearly seven hundred people had succumbed to the Fever. There were some really minor details that unnerved the living hell out of me, like how the infected started saying the figures were getting closer, not lurking in just pitch black areas anymore.
I was mortified when Muriel, who had only had a slightly wet cough and a light temperature up until that point, started screaming about dark figures lurking in the corners.
When the local news reported our population was nearing eight-hundred after only nine hours after the first yellowish storm cloud rolled in, I locked myself where I am now, in our cellar.
Muriel’s already gone, those damned shadow men got her, and they ripped her throat out. Those news stories were bullshit and I know it, it was these fucking creatures that lurk in the dark that killed everyone. I know, because I’ve seen what they can do firsthand. Muriel’s lying upstairs in a puddle of her own blood because of those figures.
They’re watching me now, with those hungry and greedy yellow eyes. They want me, I can see the dark desires, the urge to feed in their eyes when they stare at me. They’re sitting in the corners, where the light doesn’t reach, waiting for me to make one wrong move, to turn my back or fall asleep, well I’ll be damned if I get eaten by some God-forsaken monster.
They think they have me, I can hear them now, their joyous whispers; they’ve seen my bloody cough. The beasts’ whispers are deafening now, they know I’m growing weaker. What they don’t know however, is that I’ve taken a lesson from Mark. I still have the power of choice. Do I want to go out in defiance, or sitting, waiting for the inevitable? I have to remember to pray to my dad, thank him for leaving me his revolver.
They’re getting closer. I have a few minutes at most, they’re getting closer. At least I get to end this how I want it to end, not how they want it to.
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Subject: FORWARD ALL; ADDENDUM, SITUATION REPORT 37-B
To: ALL
From: ADMINISTRATOR PAIGE
Message: Hello ladies and gentlemen, I’d first like to wish you all a Merry Christmas.
Now, as you can see from the attached document, Project Ion Rain was a massive success. Only ten hours after the weapon was activated, our city of choice was almost completely eradicated. With initial reports saying that 95% of the population died due to disease,4% are clinically insane, and 1% having committed suicide, as you can see from the document above.
Yes I know, there are ethical issues involved in this, why test Ion Rain on our own citizens? First off, the equipment involved to actually produce the deadly toxins from seemingly thin air are not carried around or smuggled easily. And it takes weeks of preparation; we simply don’t have the resources to smuggle this Project into an enemy country and keep the thing hidden.
And the way I figure the situation, and the President agrees with me on this one, is that if we can blame this incident on a terrorist attack, we’ll have the backing of the public to invade whoever we decide to blame.
Well, see you all on Monday, have a nice weekend.
Sincerely, Paul Paige, Administrator of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Credit To – Josh M.
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Annie ran away again the other night. It took me hours to find her in the park, going back and forth on the swings without a care in the world, like she had every right to be there. And she dyed her hair again, blonde this time. I didn’t want to make a fuss with all those people around, so I caught her on the backswing and dragged her home kicking and screaming like a lunatic. It was humiliating: I had to smile and shrug at all the people staring like it didn’t bother me.
As soon as we were home, I sent Annie to her room. She just sat there on the bed, crying and crying. The way she carried on, I didn’t have the heart to yell at her for running away. I guess that’s the real problem, this lack of discipline. I’ve never been good at tough but fair. I’m always going too far one way or the other.
Like a few months ago when she came at me with the kitchen knife. For a minute I really thought she was trying to hurt me, my own sweet angel. But afterward she just lay there in my arms so quiet, letting me stroke her hair and sing her a lullaby, like nothing had ever happened.
But then there was that other time when she started messing around with my doll collection. They’re such fragile things, my dolls, and Annie was playing so rough like she wanted to break them. I love those dolls: they remind me of when everything was easier, when I wasn’t stuck in this house all day long with Annie’s tantrums and Bill’s moping. I got upset, and I hit her. I was so ashamed, when she ran away that night I didn’t go after her right away. I just stayed there, crying and feeling like the worst mother in the world.
I tried to be gentler after that, more understanding. So instead of getting cross with Annie, I let her stay in her room and cooked her some dinner. I turned up the TV real loud so I wouldn’t hear the racket she was making in there. She makes such a mess sometimes, and it makes me so angry, the way she breaks her things like she doesn’t even care about them anymore. I bought her a puppy once, but she wouldn’t even touch it, like she was scared of it. The very day I decided to take it back to the pet store, it vanished. I found Annie in the backyard, holding a little trowel, sitting on a pile of dirt. I helped her wash up and never mentioned it again.
I made her favorite food, macaroni and cheese, hoping it might calm her down. But as soon as I opened the door she slammed into me, trying to get past. I almost dropped the food everywhere wrestling with her like that. She had this wild look in her eyes, like an animal. It scared me, being alone in there with her when she was like that. I put the food on her desk and gently pushed her toward the chair.
“I made it just the way you like,” I told her, smiling and trying not to look as afraid as I felt.
She stared at me like she didn’t understand a word I was saying.
“Will you eat some of it?”
“I don’t want to,” she said. Her voice sounded strange, different than I’d ever heard it before. I hope I didn’t shudder. I didn’t want to upset her.
“Please, Annie, I’m very worried about you.”
“That’s not my name.”
She likes to change her name sometimes. It worries me. One day she’s Beth, the next day Irene. It’s just like her hair, she changes it every time she runs away. I get so scared that one day I won’t be able to find her, and the police won’t be able to help because I won’t know what she looks like or what she’s calling herself.
“Sweetheart, I’d really like you to eat a little bit. Just a little, please, for mommy.”
And then she said, with the meanest look on her face, “You’re not my mommy.”
It hurt so much. It felt like a stab to my heart. Tears welled up in my eyes before I could stop them, so I turned away. I heard her scramble onto the bed, her fingernails scratching like little claws on the posts. When I looked back, she had her back pressed against the corner of the room, legs drawn up to her chest, rocking back and forth. Staring at me with those wild animal eyes.
“I love you, Annie,” I said with as much dignity as I could manage. “But sometimes I just don’t know how to deal with your behavior.”
She screamed. Just this one long, loud, echoing screech, like a siren. Her mouth was wide open, but her face was blank. I covered my ears, got out of the room and closed the door behind me.
I had to collect myself before I could go see Bill. He’s been so odd lately, I don’t want to worry him anymore.
I got a second plate of the macaroni and brought it to the bedroom. That’s where he spent all his time, lying in bed.
“Honey, I made dinner.”
He didn’t answer, didn’t even roll over to look. I picked up the plate from this morning, the food on it untouched, and put the new one down where he could reach it.
“Annie’s back. I found her in the park. She’s pitching a fit in her room already.”
He must’ve heard the screaming. I always tried to keep her quiet, told her that daddy needed rest, but she never listened. Sometimes I wondered if he could even hear her. He never got up to see what was wrong.
I knelt beside the bed and looked into his eyes. He stared back at me, not saying a word. He’d been like ever since the first time Annie ran away. They’d been alone together. Then she had run off, and he’d stopped talking. He lay down in bed and never got up again. Lost his job, lost so much weight. He hardly even looked like the man I’d married.
I kissed him on the forehead and left. As I closed the door behind me, I thought I saw him start to get up, but I guess I must have imagined it.
Annie kept on with that awful screaming for hours. I stayed in the living room, sitting on our big three-person couch alone. I turned up the TV as loud as I could, played music, turned on the blender, tried everything I could to drown out the awful screaming. It was like nails being driven into my ears, like spiders crawling up my neck, like ice water splashing on my legs.
Finally it stopped. I thought maybe she’d finally tuckered herself out, but then the scratching started. That was almost worse. It started out quick, rhythmic, but it got slower as time went on. Sometimes Annie would make a noise, like she was crying again. I started to worry that she might be hurting herself, but I couldn’t get that awful thing she had said to me or that wild look in her eyes out of my head. I just stayed in the living room and tried to sleep.
I don’t know how it got to be like this. I’ve thought about taking her to a doctor, but they always give her these strange looks. It’s gotten to where I don’t dare to go to the same doctor twice: I’m afraid they might be thinking of taking her away from me, of doing something awful to her.
I’ve thought about calling in a priest. I know that must sound crazy, but the way she gets sometimes, like she doesn’t even know me, it scares me so much. She’ll call out to people who aren’t there, shout names I don’t know like they’re real people. And there was that business with the kitchen knife. It wasn’t the first time she’s tried to hurt me. She smuggles rocks into the house and tries to hit me with them when my back is turned. When she gets really wild she’ll bite and claw at me. Some days I start to wonder if she’s really my little girl, or something else, wearing her face, haunting me.
After a long time the scratching stopped and everything got quiet. I sighed with relief. The house is so much nicer when it’s quiet.
I looked at the clock and could hardly believe how late it was. She must have finally fallen asleep. When I looked over at her door, I saw the light still on through the cracks. Quiet as I could, I tiptoed over. I would just peek in, turn off the light. Maybe give her a little kiss good night.
I opened the door just a crack, but that was all it took. She slammed through, knocked me to the floor, and scrambled away.
“Annie stop!” I shouted. She was going right to our bedroom, making so much noise I was sure it would wake Bill up.
She shoved through our door and I ran after. But inside she was just standing there, staring at the bed.
“Sweetheart, daddy’s sleeping,” I hissed.
She started screaming again, even louder than before. She pointed at Bill and screamed and screamed. I shushed her, tried to tell her he was sleeping.
But she wouldn’t stop. She screamed and screamed. The sound pierced through me, tore apart every nerve in my body. I covered my ears and scratched at my face and soon I was screaming too, just as loud as she was. I took her up in my arms and we screamed together. I hugged her as tight as I could, squeezed her to me, wishing I could do something, anything to make it stop. I held her so close I could feel her heartbeat, how soft and quiet it was, growing quieter and quieter.
She stopped screaming, there in my arms, and soon I stopped too. I sank to my knees, holding my little girl in my arms, stroking her hair.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that. It was so dark in the bedroom.
I looked down at Annie, but it wasn’t Annie at all. I was holding one of my dolls.
I must have fallen asleep, holding her there, and she snuck away and put a doll in my arms instead. It was a funny doll, one I didn’t remember having. It had such lovely blonde hair.
I felt so silly, holding that doll like that for who knows how long. I got up and carried it to the closet where I keep the other dolls and laid it there. There were so many dolls, and they were all so big, I was starting to run out of room. But I couldn’t throw them out. They were so pretty, such lovely little dolls. They all looked different, but every single one reminded me of Annie.
I checked around the house, but she was gone. She must have been very upset, to run away twice in just two days. I got my coat on and got ready to go look for her again.
Before I left, I went back to the bedroom to check on Bill. Somehow all the noise hadn’t bothered him at all. I touched his forehead, but he didn’t seem any different. My fingers stuck a little bit, and there was some funny green stuff left on them afterward. I wiped it off on the bed and said goodbye.
It was such a lovely day outside. I took a deep breath of the fresh air. I love our house, but every once in a while I notice the worst smell in there.
Somewhere off in the distance, I heard the sound of children laughing. It was so nice to hear after all that awful noise last night. Maybe Annie thought so too. I followed the laughter.
Credit To – Gray
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My mother, dead now these past eighteen months – may God rest her soul – was a fanatically superstitious woman. Her ancestry, a combination of strict Catholicism and Irish folklore, had resulted in a potent blend which caused her to view life as a series of potential transgression (some valid, some merely fanciful) which might culminate in any one of a million unwanted outcomes should she step over some mystical line.
It was a matter of good fortune for me that my father, although a virtuous man, was totally lacking the imaginative capacity to believe very much in either religion or superstition. He would acquiesce to my mother’s demand that spilled salt be thrown over his shoulder where, she firmly assured us, it would hit the Devil square in the eye. Keys, errantly placed on the table, would be removed by him and the underside of ladders were always avoided. All these sanctions were borne well by him and he always played along with a look of mild amusement, total disbelief or loving indulgence, according to how whimsical mother’s demand might be. Never once did I hear him shout at her for the stupidity of her beliefs, nor did he ever refuse to play along. In time, I too learned to humour my mother and indulge her many whims. I walked a line between them and viewed the world of lore with a healthy scepticism and a pinch of open-mindedness.
Of all the stories my mother told me however, the one which scared me most as a child was the one about the Washday Demon. This was a potent morality warning, combining elements of superstition and retribution for wrongdoing. According to mother, if a housewife, or female homemaker (my mother had escaped the subtleties of women’s lib, but was nonetheless able to incorporate single women into her story) committed a black enough sin – such as shoddily darning her husband’s socks – she would be visited by the Washday Demon. This was a foul creature from the pits of Hell, who would pop up and visit the transgressing woman every washday, ensuring that her clean laundry would become inexplicably marked and soiled as it hung on the line. My father found this concept particularly hilarious – if the worst a woman had to deal with for her sins was a mucky-fingered pixie and some soiled linen, then the majority of womankind could happily sin away. Mother, however, always seemed to regard the concept of the Washday Demon with a little more gravity than any of her other bogeymen and hexes. I believe that it was this increased earnestness which made me particularly uncomfortable as a child.
My mother’s own washday was always a Wednesday and, more often than not, as I sat at her feet, watching her peg clothes on the line (undergarments always respectably hidden behind the sheets), she would raise the subject of the Demon. “Let’s hope the Washday Demon doesn’t come in the night and stain our clothes, Meg,” she would whisper. But in all the years that my mother hung up her laundry, he never did. In fact, the Daz doorstep challenge had been invented for women like my mother, and her clothes always glowed with a holy whiteness.
For all this, mother continued to obsess about the Demon. She claimed that when she was a child, her neighbour had been visited by him. Overnight the woman’s laundry became stained and foul smelling and no matter how many times she re-washed it, it refused to come clean until, finally, the woman went mad. I wondered why someone might go mad over dirty laundry, but my mother went on to tell me that the soiling of the washing was always accompanied by some other manifestation – a tangible by-product of the woman’s wrongful deed, and it was usually this which caused the woman’s fear.
The only way to appease the Demon, whispered my mother, was to acknowledge your wrongdoing – not as easy as it might appear, since the Demon could swing by years after a woman’s act of naughtiness. After pinpointing the problem, the woman in question would then have to burn every item of clothing and linen in her house, along with a lock of her hair, as an offering to the Demon. If she failed to do this, the mark on her soul would grow too large to eradicate and her sin would be discovered. Worse still, the Demon, a fractious and mischievous spirit who craved acknowledgement, would twist her wrongdoing into something far worse than it had originally been.
As I grew older, I heard the story less. Eventually, it was nothing more than a vague childhood memory, sharing limited space with all the other childish fairy tales I had heard throughout my youth. When I was eighteen, I moved out of my parents’ house and into a place of my own, by which stage the Washday Demon was a thing of the past. It wasn’t a hugely ambitious relocation, given that I bought a little terrace house a few doors down from them. It sat almost at the rear of my childhood home, separated by a tract of common land which ran in a strip between the back gardens of two rows of houses.
I remained close to my parents, up until my father’s death five years ago and my mother’s recent passing, but having my own place gave me a sense of freedom that I had never felt before, releasing me from the rituals of my mother’s superstition. Rituals which, thankfully, I didn’t feel compelled to take with me.
Since that move, eight years ago, I had barely thought about black cats and Washday Demons, except with an occasional sense of vague nostalgia. I certainly didn’t have cause to fear my mother’s shadow-demons until, that is, last week.
It’s odd but despite the superstitious conditioning of my childhood, the Washday Demon wasn’t the first thing I thought of when I saw the strange shaped mark on one of my white bed sheets. It appeared as a small, irregular handprint and as I peered closer, I saw that it had five long streaks above where the fingertips ended. The whole thing was dark brown in colour and stood out starkly against the purity of the rest of the sheet.
My first thought was that one of Sophie’s kids, from next door, was responsible. They were forever kicking their ball into my garden and letting themselves in the back gate to collect it. I tossed the sheet back into the machine to await the next wash load, thinking that I would let it slide this time. If the little buggers kept getting chocolaty hand marks everywhere, though, I’d have to speak to Sophie about it.
A couple of days later I was in the village running a few errands. I had just cut through to a maze of back alleys, shortcuts behind the shops when I sensed a presence behind me. Swinging round, I saw a child, eight or nine years old, silently following me. He had fluffy blonde hair which stuck up, chick-like, around his head and would have been cute or funny if it weren’t for his eyes. In twenty-six years, I have never met someone with eyes that have chilled me, far less the eyes of a child. For that matter, I have seen very few photographs of convicted killers who have managed to convey quite so much hatred and evil with their eyes alone. There is the infamous photo of Myra Hindley, but even then the image is flat and two-dimensional – seemingly very far removed from one’s own reality. The child’s eyes weren’t. Almond shaped and icily blue, they appeared to be sunk deep into his skull. A predatory, watchful gaze hooded them slightly, and this would have been disconcerting enough on its own. Disconcerting even without the air of full-bodied hatred which sparked off of them, like embers from a grinding stone.
All of this I took in, briefly, in the moment before I turned my back on him and stepped up my pace through the winding alley. It had been my intention not to look back, so unnerved had I been by the child. It was, however, this very sense of unease, heavy as a storm cloud, which forced me to turn again, almost against my will. His evil drew me like a magnet – he was an unwanted fascination; the accident at the side of the road which we glance at, even as we vow to avoid it.
Had I not looked back, I wouldn’t have seen his hands, which now hung limply at his sides. On each of his fingers, reminiscent of Chinese Mandarins, protruded long-taloned nails, curled under in a perfect arc. That time when I turned away I didn’t walk – I ran.
When I returned home, I busied myself with household tasks, tidying and dusting and putting on another wash. Still, at that point, I didn’t think of the Washday Demon. The child, I told myself, was part of a traveling group, just passing through. He’d meant me no ill-will, I had simply overreacted. I continued to tell myself this until, that evening, something pulled me out of a dreamless sleep and urged me to my bedroom window.
Flipping the curtain aside, I saw him there, in the center of my moon-washed garden. He was running a long nail tenderly, almost lovingly, down my newly washed sheet. As though sensing my presence, he glanced up and caught my gaze, his eyes hooding almost imperceptibly. Then, in a whirligig of impish delight, he set about ripping my sheets to shreds – his legs, arms, feet, hands all moving in a grotesque dance of destruction. When he had finished, he looked up again, triumphant and brooding, before setting each of my clothes pegs spinning with one hooked nail. Then he set off at a jog towards the back gate, letting it slam hollowly in the empty silence.
The next morning when I ventured into the garden, every item of laundry was either shredded or stained with his dirty handprints. Moving closer, I now saw that it wasn’t chocolate, as I had first thought, but dried blood. After all the years I’d spent denying my mother’s stories, it seemed that I had my very own Washday Demon. I also had a pretty good idea why he was there.
Within half an hour I had collected every item of clothing and linen in my house – from the timeless Chanel suit I’d spent months saving for, to my plain white sheets monogrammed with my initials – MJP- bought for me as a joke by my best friend when I’d first moved into my house. Everything dear to me was piled high on a bonfire of broken twigs.
I had just struck the second match, and set the whole lot smoldering nicely, poking it with a stick, when my front doorbell rang. Ignoring it, I continued to stir my offering – asking the Demon to remove the stain from my soul. The doorbell again, and then a pounding at the gate. Standing there, stick in hand, I watched as the latch unclipped itself and four policemen threw themselves into my garden. “Megan Patrick,” one said, and I nodded, even though I knew it was a statement, not a question. “I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.” A blur. An awareness of water being thrown onto fire and a hiss as it died, along with any hope. Someone yelling: “There’s blood on these sheets too. She’s tried to burn the evidence, but it looks like there’s enough left to make a match.”
Then I was being dragged out of the back gate and down the no-man’s-land between the houses. Back towards the tract of land behind my parents’ house. Already there was the fluttering of yellow crime-scene tape, squaring off a small portion of mud. I was pushed forward and glanced into the hole and there, wrapped I was told in one of my monogrammed sheets, was a child of eight or nine years old. I knew his age, even though he was decomposing; flesh and bone falling apart. But he shouldn’t have been a child. “No,” I screamed, wanting to speak it out loud, “not a child.” A baby, yes. That was my sin. Pregnant at seventeen in a small community, with a devout mother. Instead of doing something immediately, I waited until I had missed six periods and then I turned one of my mother’s knitting needles on myself. I hadn’t expected the baby to be so formed; so perfect. Nor had I expected it to be quite so substantial. For a moment, I had been sure that it was still alive, but I hadn’t checked twice. Instead, I had run with my burden, in the dead of night, and scraped a grave in the common land behind our garden, where it had remained undiscovered ever since. That was nine years ago. A baby, unborn, but not this child – whoever, or whatever, it was.
Then I saw it. The hands, skeletal and rotting, were nonetheless finished off with long, curving nails. Nails which had taken nine years to grow – nine years in which a dead baby had also, somehow, kept growing. A youthful misjudgment which had evolved into something very different; a game for the satisfaction of the Washday Demon. A game nine years in the making.
As I watched, I saw the death-head turn towards me and one eye clicked open in a languid, conspiratorial wink, as if to say, “Here I am. I’ve caught up with you at last.” And it was then that I remembered the hair. I had started the fire burning but forgotten to add a lock of my hair. Too late. I knew, just as surely as I knew the blood on my sheets would match this child’s blood, that I could never prove the truth of what had really happened. The Demon had taken my sin and amplified it in the most hideous manner; turning it into something that no washing in the world would ever be able to remove.
Credit To – Adena Graham
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The sound of footsteps was audible in the merchant’s square. People walked around buying food, supplies, and the occasional odd item. I was setting up my wares for the day-medicines for the sick and potions to cure pain. I loved helping the people of Florence. Everyone needs healing. No one should be sick. I sold little charms, trinkets for luck, fertility, good health, and many other human needs. I also sold little toys for children, for I felt sorry for them. Especially the poor, the orphans, and the homeless, who wandered the streets cold, hungry, and sad. I kept prices low, so that anyone could buy what they need. If the person could not pay, I would give them the item they needed, telling them to pay when they could. I sympathized with them. I knew how it felt to be in need, and it wasn’t fun.
My business practices, though, seem to anger the doctores and other merchants. “I was pulling customers away!” they would say. All I would tell them was “I am doing what I think is right, not what makes the most money. Please leave me to my work.” I knew it was dangerous to make enemies, but that was the way I thought.
Though if they had known how I made my potions from the beginning, I would have met my demise before I could become a threat.
You see, I practiced the art of magic, something that was forbidden. I never did anything to hurt people. I was always careful. No one needed to know my secrets, and I intended to take my secrets to the grave.
But, even the most careful person can make a mistake…
One night, when I was making a new potion for a child who was coughing up a red liquid, I saw a strange glow from the corner of my eye. I looked up to find one of my books glowing on my work space. The glowing book mystified me. None of my books had done something like this. I opened the book, which had opened to a particular page. It was a summoning spell. Something came over me that night, and I began the spell. I don’t remember what I did, though even if I could, I would not tell you. I remember a flash of light, and a strange, almost menacing laughter, then darkness.
I woke up the next morning on the ground, my head pounding. When I stood and saw what I did, I panicked. A pentacle was drawn on the ground. It looked like it was drawn in blood. In the middle was a circle with an X in the center, this was burned into the ground. I quickly covered the symbols with a rug that I had rolled up in a corner. The rug was big enough to cover the pentacle, and the strange symbol. Feeling that I was successful, I packed up my wares and went to the merchant’s square. Everything was going to be alright.
All day that day I felt uneasy. I could hear the strange laughter in the background of the market. I saw a shadow just out of the edge of my vision multiple times. I became worried. Did I awaken a spirit that night? I did not know. I tried to act natural, but I think that people began to suspect. I know people began to suspect. They were not stupid. They knew.
Near the end of the day a group of children came to my stand, asking for medicine to help their mother. I was out of medicine for the day, so I told them to stop by my home, that I would have the medicine there. “What could go wrong?” I thought, “I covered up the symbols, no one would know.”
At that point, the laughter started again, this time much louder. I waved it off, thinking nothing of it this time. Nothing will happen. Nothing at all.
That night the children arrived. I told them to wait in my living quarters, and went to get the potion. I had found the potion when I heard the screams. Dropping the potion, I rushed out to see what was wrong.
What I saw made me freeze with fear.
The room had been covered with bloody pentacles, in the center that same circle. The children looked at me, horror on their faces, for they knew what that meant. Before I could do anything, they started screaming again. I tried to hush them, but no matter what I did, they continued to scream. Guards had come soon after.
I do not remember what had happened after that. I do remember days upon days of being locked away in a dungeon, the strange laughter echoing off the brick walls, driving me insane. For what had seemed like years I sat in a corner, listening to the laugh, thinking about those children. Why did they not stop? Why did they not listen? THEY were why I was there, sitting in a dungeon. It was their entire fault!
By the time the guards came, all that was left of me was skin and bone. All I could do was rock back and forth, muttering about children and laughter. One of the guards must have hit me in the head, because the next thing I know, I am strapped to something, a crowd of people standing in front of me, shouting curses and profanities. I was in shock. How could they? When I had helped so many of them?!
The pain started then. It felt like my body was being torn in two. I started to scream, the pain was unbearable. I cursed them back, thoughts back-stabbing, wretched creatures! They would not help me! They hated me! I did nothing to them, and they hated me!
I felt pricks of pain go through my eyelids, then my mouth. I could no longer see, no longer scream. I felt liquid hit me. It burned. I hated them! HATED THEM! All of them! Especially the children. Oh, how they should suffer! If not for them, I would not have been caught! It was their entire fault!
I heard something in my mind. The laughter. Darkness suddenly filled the back of my mind. Behind my closed eyes, I saw tentacles of pure darkness. They wrapped themselves around my mind. The laughter became a voice. A horrible voice.
“Do you hate them so much?”
“Yes.” I said.
“You wish to make them suffer?”
“YES!”
“Then our deal is done.”
The pain subsided. My vision cleared. It was dark, but I could see. I tried to blink, but could not. I felt something, but not happiness, sadness, or even surprise.
I felt anger.
They were still there. Laughing, playing. They will suffer. All of them. But the children will suffer more.
Oh, how they will.
They will…
Credit To – Nighthawk
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“You can only hold a smile for so long,
after that it’s just teeth.”
¬- Chuck Palahniuk
By the time I had made my way into town I was just about ready to collapse. Sprinting for your life through cornfields and over long stretches of gravel roads at 1:00 a.m. will do that to a person. I’m not even sure that I really needed to be running at all, but I wasn’t willing to take any chances. Not after dealing with those… freaks. Getting back to civilization was all that mattered. Not that I was going to the police or anything, I’m not even sure they did anything illegal. Unless being “creepy as all hell,” qualifies as a punishable offense. Maybe kidnapping? Either way, I don’t think anyone will ever believe me.
Okay, stop thinking about it. The past is the past and there’s nothing I can do about it. Just focus on finding somewhere full of people. That might actually be somewhat difficult in a town like this. According to Google, the unincorporated town of Charlottesville NC has a population just a little under 1,000.I walked down Main St. looking for a gas station or a bar or anything still open for business. The streets were deader than dead, everything saturated in the sickly yellow-orange glow of the street lights made worse by unseasonable fog. I was starting to get nervous, the thought of accidentally wandering into the Twilight Zone began to cross my mind just as I saw the first signs of life. A young girl, I’m going to say about 22, had some hillbilly looking guy in an arm hold. She was pushing him out of a bar and swearing a lot. “The next time you try to touch my ass again I’ll break more than just your arm you miserable piece of shit!” I heard her say before shoving his face into the pavement. She turned around and quickly walked back into the bar while I stood there trying to re-hinge my jaw. Despite all the craziness that I’d been through tonight, one thing I had not been expecting to see was a skinny little twig of a girl with weird hair obviously beating the crap out of some trucker twice her size. Am I hesitant to follow her? Yes, yes I am. But the bar appears to be open and I’m sick of being outside in the rain and fog.
The sign on the door said that the name of the place was “The Broken Window.”
I walked in. The first thing I noticed was the overturned table surrounded by a couple of broken beer bottles. Looking around some more I saw that the place wasn’t exactly packed. There was a tired looking guy behind the counter talking to a few sad faced drunks at the far end of the bar. In the corner booth was group of bikers. The girl from earlier was sweeping up the glass as I walked towards a booth. As I passed her, a peculiar man in a pin striped suit reading the paper spoke up.
“I see those judo lessons are starting to pay off.” He said without looking away from the news print.
“And right they should,” Replied the girl, “this place needs a good bouncer.” I removed my duffle bag from my shoulder and sat down.
“Well, I think I’m going to turn in for the night.” Said the man. “See you later Billie. Good night Terry.”
“Sleep tight Stephan.” Yelled the Afro American man behind the bar counter. The man in the suit folded up his paper and walked out into the night.
I put my head down onto the table and inhaled deeply. I wanted to take a nap. When I looked back up, the girl was standing next to me. “You can’t sleep here. Not unless you buy a drink first.” She said. “What’s with the camping gear?”
I didn’t even care enough to feel embarrassed to say it. “I’m hitchhiking north to Albany. The bags and stuff are for when I take breaks at national parks and campgrounds.” The girl eyeballed me suspiciously. “Hitchhiking huh? How’s that working out for you? Not good I’m guessing, considering that your face and shoulder are bleeding. Be honest, you’re a lot lizard aren’t you? It’s okay to admit it, I won’t judge you. What a man does with his mouth is between him and the baloney pony.”
I didn’t know what to say to any of that, so I just starred at her until she burst out laughing. “I’m just kidding, you’re way too ugly to be a prostitute. But seriously, what happened? You look like absolute shit pie.”
I sighed. “I really don’t feel like talking about it. You wouldn’t believe me anyway.” The girl crossed her arms and starred down at me disapprovingly. “You can’t say something like that and expect me to lose interest. Tell you what, first rounds on me if you satisfy my need for story time.” I contemplated the last five hours of my life, considering the complete lack sanity that a summary would entail. I also considered the fact that this chick, Billie, was a total stranger. Her judgment meant nothing to me. “Alright,” I said, “Get me a beer and a shot and I’ll tell you everything.” When the girl returned, I drank both in one gulp before beginning my tale.
“Okay, so I’m guessing that you’re familiar with the area, you know Christian Light Road right?” Billie nodded her head. “Well that’s where it all started. I had been walking down Route 42 for the better half of the day with no luck whatsoever catching rides. Most of the art of traveling by thumb is actually just walking, so it’s not like I wasn’t used to it, but when an entire freaking day goes by without a single car pulling to the side of the road, you start to get desperate. Especially when dusk approaches. It’s not smart to try to hail a ride in the dark, for more reasons than one, so like I said, I was getting pretty antsy. Now, I have this rule where I never get into a car that has children passengers…” “Why’s that?” Billie suddenly interrupted. I lit a cigarette to make her wait. “Because it’s a sign of bad character. I’m a strange man on the side of the road, and when it comes to the mind of a driver to let me hop in with their children… I don’t know. It just seems like a red flag to me. But back to the point of this. It was getting dark, I was tired and had to take a dump, so when finally a station wagon pulls up behind me and offers to give me a lift, I decided to ignore the rule about kids. I mean, they didn’t seem white trash at all, not like they were a family of roaming meth dealers or anything, so I said ‘fuck it’ and climbed into the back.”
I paused for a moment to collect myself. “They were pretty nice and normal, at least at first. I thanked the dad guy for helping me out, and he seemed more than welcome to do so. His name was Frank, and he was wearing a brown sweater vest and a pair of khakis. His wife I guess was sitting in the passenger seat wearing this frilly blue sundress that looked like it was from the fifties or something. I think her name was Janet. The kids in the back sitting with me, a boy and a girl, I can’t remember their names. I didn’t notice it until later, but they were both wearing the exact same clothes as their parents, just smaller versions. They didn’t speak to me the entire time, didn’t even look at me even though I was sitting right next to them. Frank though, the driver, he talked a bit. Mostly questions, the normal sort that I had grown used to. Things like, ‘where are you headed?’ or, ‘who knows where you are right now?’ That last one isn’t as unsettling as you might think. Normally people just ask the general small talk topics, either because they can’t think of anything else to say or possibly out of genuine concern. Of course, I always end up asking the inevitable, ‘What made you decide to stop for me?’ ‘Well,’ said Frank, ‘you were just walking along the road all by yourself.”
“So you’re telling me that these folks were the ones who fucked up your face?” Billie belched through a sip of beer. “No, that happened later during my escape.” I rubbed my eyes in frustration. “I told you that you wouldn’t believe any of this bullshit.” “What? No, I never thought such a thing.” She responded. “Trust me, I’ve seen some pretty bizarre stuff go on around this town. I’ve heard about even more, things that make 4chan seem sane and rational. Every other week some yokel has a mental breakdown after running around sayin’ that he’s seen ‘flashing lights,’ in the sky, or a farmer comes in here babbling about how he saw ‘a giant snake,’ trying to strangle one of his horses. So no, I’m not telling you that I don’t believe you. I’m just asking a question alright? And I’m probably going to ask more. Example, what happened next?”
“Okay, so after they picked me up and following awkward chit chat, Janet and Frank asked me where I wanted to be dropped off. They both tip toed around that question for whatever reason. Anyway, I told them that I had planned to pass through Raleigh because I had some friends up there, but I also mentioned that if they didn’t feel like driving that far they could just drop me somewhere near a camping ground. Frank told me that the only camp site nearby was Raven Rock National Forest, which was about forty miles Southwest of where they lived. It was around this point that Janet leaned over to Frank to whisper something. He nodded back to her, and she turned around to face me. She asked if I wanted to have dinner with them. Of course I was hesitant to answer her; the whole atmosphere of the situation just seemed… I don’t know, unnatural somehow. The way Frank and Janet smiled at me just looked fake and forced, but also completely genuine in a strange way. Like they weren’t smiling at me, but smiling AT me. Kind of like they knew something that I didn’t.”
“Like they were in on some sick joke?” Billie asked, looking straight into my eyes.
“Yeah, kind of like that. But I wasn’t really thinking about it too much at the time. My decision was based mostly on the fact that I really needed to get to a toilet. So I said yes, that I’d be more than thankful to have a hot meal with them. The rest of the drive was quiet, which was fine by me considering how tired I was. I’m pretty sure I dozed off at some point, because I remember shutting my eyes for just a second, but when I opened them the sky had grown completely dark and Frank was pulling the station wagon up a dirt driveway to this cruddy looking farmhouse. I mean seriously, if it hadn’t been for the porch lights I would have sworn the place was abandoned. Frank parked the car and helped me with my bags while Janet and the kids went straight into the house. ‘Welcome to our home,’ said Frank as he walked me up the porch steps. ‘I’m very glad that you agreed to have a home cooked meal with us, we don’t have too many opportunities to share our kindness.’ Yeah, I know, an odd choice of words but I was trying to be polite. So then I walked into the place and asked where the bathroom was, Frank said it was just down the hall. Okay, so here’s the first thing I noticed about that house; all of their furniture was covered in plastic tarp sheets. Not the normal kind either, I’m talking about the blue kind that people put of their roofs after a hurricane. Also the floor was absolutely covered in stains and dirt. Like, the whole place just gave off the vibe of crazy, like imagine that a family of homeless people were squatting in a condemned building while trying to create the illusion that everything was normal. I mean, the walls had framed pictures and the shelves had books, all the lights seemed to be working, but it just didn’t seem quite up to code if you know what I mean. Either way I promised myself that I wouldn’t stay any longer than I had to.”
“Okay, so while Frank moved my bags into the house while I tried to find the bathroom, all while trying to ignore the strangeness. Before I could though, one of the kids, the boy, tugged on my arm. He told me that dinner was ready.”
“I gulped some air and tried to look casual while following the boy into the dining area. He moved ahead of me and sat down next to his sister I before even had a chance to ask any questions. It was here that I looked around the dining room and started to feel an eerie chill crawl along my back. They were all there, sitting at a large wooden table under a bare light bulb. All of them had their heads tilted forward in complete silence. Even though none of them were making even the slightest noise, they looked like they were muttering to themselves, what the fuck was that about anyway? That was I think the turning point when I fully realized that people weren’t right, like at all. Listen, Billie, believe it or not the feeling those weirdos were giving off wasn’t exactly new. I had this dream once, where my family was throwing me a birthday party. But in the dream, it wasn’t my birthday and they weren’t my family. When they brought out the cake, I noticed that their lips and eyes had been shown shut. All they could do was hum the tune to the birthday song. That dream really messed with me. So were these people with their silent mutters.
When they finally noticed that I had been standing there watching them, they all looked up and directly at me in total unison, and smiled. Janet told me that I should take a seat with them and join in prayer. I looked over what I assumed was the meal. It was hard to tell for sure but it looked like a pile of raw meatballs had been dumped onto plates and served without silverware. It was disgusting and creepy, everything about it. I asked if they would mind if I used their bathroom. I know that I should have just left right then and there, and I promised myself that I would. Right after I got to a toilet. Frank smiled, and pointed towards the hallway, so that’s where I went.
Finally I managed to drop a load after having spent a whole day clenching my cheeks. I memention this here because it became obvious in a quick way that my need to relive myself had been fucking with my judgment more than I had thought. Example, by the time I had pulled my pants back up I had already begun to notice that the house had a terrible odor. I guess the best description would have to be a combination of sour milk and ozone. Holy hell it was awful, and I was sure that it didn’t come from me. So I started to wash my hands and, um, hold on….”
I was starting to gag on my own words as I thought about the sink. “What’s up?” Billie asked in a concerned tone. “Um, just give a sec alright?” I replied. Billie stayed quiet as I caught my breath. By now the bar was pretty much empty except for the two bikers in the corner and the bartender, who had walked over to us at some point to listen to the story. He whispered something to Billie without taking his eyes off me.
“I don’t know yet Terry,” She said back to him, “Let’s let him finish his story before we bother Stephan about it. Hey, are you good yet?”
“No, not really,” I said, “But I’ll keep going. So the sink had a drainage problem right? I don’t know why I cared, but I decided to look into the drain for the blockage, which turned out to be that some hair that gotten stuck. I started to pull it out when I noticed that it wasn’t just a little bit of hair either, it wasn’t even all hair. The huge clump was leaking blood. Blood and teeth and hair all wadded together in a mess of something so profoundly fucked up that I almost fainted after realizing that I had just touched the thing. I backed away from the sink trying to think of what the hell was going on. I was getting scared; I had no idea who these people were but my general assumption was that they were going to murder the shit out me and feed my flesh to their children, or something like that. I needed to get out of there as fast as freaking possible, but I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself that would let them know what I had seen. I exited the bathroom cautiously, slinking around the corner towards the front door, I had almost made it to the living room and was just about to grab my grab my bags, when something stopped me. A voice, a small voice coming from behind. I turned around to see who it was. It was the girl, the little one. ‘You can’t leave.’ She said. ‘It needs you.’ The lights flickered when she spoke.
The others had moved into the room. They were standing in front of the front door, I guess to keep me from making a run for it. ‘Yeah, actually,’ I said back. ‘I’m pretty sure I’ve overstayed my welcome. I’m going now.’ Janet was holding some of those meatball things from before, so was Frank. They were smiling, but none of them looked happy.
‘Why?’ they all asked simultaneously, anger boiling up beneath those smiles. ‘Don’t tell us that you’re going to leave now. Our family put a lot of work into this meal, it would be a shame to not even give us the fucking curtsey of trying some.’ That’s when they grabbed me.
Three of them, they rushed me, holding back my arms while dragging me. Janet was screaming gibberish as she tried forcing those meat things into my mouth, but I kept my jaw shut tight. They were smashing up into my face, each one smelling just like the rest of the house, but more concentrated. I think they realized that I wasn’t going to eat those things, because the next thing I knew they were dragging me through their house towards a door, all of them still smiling those crazed fucking smiles of theirs. The girl and the boy, they kept hissing the word ‘other.’ Other what exactly, I never found out, because when I started to hear the noises coming from behind that door, all that banging and screeching, enough adrenaline shot into my blood that I was able to thrash and wiggle myself free. They tried to catch me, but I threw myself out of one of the houses side windows, which is where these cuts came from, and after putting my face through that glass window I didn’t stop running until I got into town. Even though they obviously didn’t chase after me, I didn’t want to stop moving until I found somewhere safe. But holy shit, I’m pretty sure I’d be dead right now if hadn’t gotten away.”
The bar was now completely empty except for us. The juke box had stopped playing music a while back. It was silent until Terry spoke up.
“What kind of noises did you hear behind that door?” He asked me.
“I don’t know really, but it sounded like something large and in pain. You ever hear a jack rabbit getting ripped apart by a coyote? It was kinda like that, like something bigger eating something smaller alive.”
Billie and Terry were both staring at me without expression. I couldn’t figure out what they were thinking at this point.
“You don’t believe any of it, do you?” I asked them. Billie shook her head in disagreement.
“No, it’s not that. It’s not that all. I’m just trying to think what to do now.”
Terry cut in. “Well first of all, we can’t have you wandering around town in the middle of the night. That’s just asking for trouble. So how about you crash on our couch tonight? I promise we’re cool. We don’t even have a basement.” That seemed fine to me, so I agreed. It was nearly three in the morning, and I would have settled for a cardboard box at this point.
I started to walk out of the bar with Terry when I saw that Billie wasn’t following us.
“You’re not coming with?” I asked.
“No, not yet,” She replied. “I’m going to stay behind and close up shop. Maybe make a phone call. Don’t worry about it, I’ll meet up with you guys later.”
Credit To – Stephan D. Harris
Read the prequel here: Harlequin No. 7
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Tapping. I could hear tapping.
My eyes drifted to the faint glow of my alarm clock. 4:42AM. I knew I’d be up in only an hour, so I closed my eyes again. What had woken me in the first place tapped loudly once more, louder than the first few. My heart pounded in my chest. I was wide awake now, but too fearful to move.
Maybe it was Mittens, I told myself. I really did want to believe it was my cat, but she still remained at the edge of my bed. She stared at me with her large green eyes, and meowed. She didn’t seem bothered by the noise at all, and she’d been a skittish cat as long as I’d known her.
Obviously, it had to have been my imagination. I gave up on sleep and stood on my hardwood floor, walked to my computer to retrieve my houseshoes from the desk, then stopped.
The tapping started again, with a few scratches and scraping that almost made it sound like broken Morse code. Tap, tap-tap, scratch, tap, tap.
I turned, wondering if Mittens had followed me and managed to make the sudden noises. But no, Mittens was gone. My closet door had been opened just a crack, just enough for Mittens to have gone inside. I guess I left it open before I slept. I flipped the light switch on my way to the closet. Just as I reached for the doorknob, something soft brushed across the back of my leg. I nearly screamed, it had startled me so badly, and I stumbled backwards onto the floor. I stared at my bed’s underneath, staring into a pair of playful green eyes that shone white in the light. I didn’t expect to see Mittens whole body, seeing as she was a black cat with a name fitting for her white paws. I chuckled nervously, my heartbeat still pounding in my ears, and crawled towards the bed. I said her name, hoping to lure her out without reaching under the bed, knowing the skittish cat would most likely scratch me out of fear. The eyes blinked, and I heard her meow.
It had come from behind me.
I twisted around to see what was behind me while sitting up on my knees. My cat purred and flicked my back with her tail, meowing again. The realization struck me hard, so hard that I faced forward while falling backwards again, catching myself just in time on my hands. Mittens jumped away from me at the sudden movement. I saw her flee to my desk, but I hardly noticed at the time. I was too focused on the bed. The eyes had gone.
In one quick motion, I stood and practically dived for the door, turning the knob and only opening it a little before my closet door slammed behind me. I froze, afraid to turn towards the sound. I heard Mittens scramble through the bedroom door’s crack. I listened in horror as something began to furiously tap at the closet’s interior, with its occasional scratching. It even went so far as to pound on the door a few times before scratching and tapping. I still don’t know how long I had stood at the door, listening, before I snatched my phone and left the room to call the police. From what I remember, they found nothing but Mittens hiding at the top of the fridge.
I’d still gone to work that morning. On my way back home, I decided to stop by the store and buy a frozen pizza and ice-cream, as well as some wine if the tapping started again. My brother had given me a movie to watch before all of that happened, a comedy. Just the night before that…that thing came into my home. I checked the closet the instant I came home, relieved to find it still closed, and I left the bedroom. I’ve never been so grateful to have an old home with locks outside of the rooms’ doors, being able to lock that creature where it resides.
The movie started, and Mittens had already curled up next to me and fallen asleep. About halfway through the movie, my laughter was interrupted. I nearly dropped my spoonful of ice-cream onto the floor at the sound of tapping. I ignored it and gulped down some of the wine, waiting for it to stop. It eventually did, followed by the sound of a closing door. I slept on the couch that night with Mittens, and fell into a drunken slumber.
That had only been last night. When I’d awoken only an hour ago, I felt a very warm hand wrap around my ankle that had dangled off of the couch. Before I could react, I felt sharp teeth sink into the back of my ankle that seemed to come from the hand, and I kicked the thing away with a scream. Within the few seconds I stayed, I now realize that black fur had been scattered around me and stuck to me, matted together with what might have been blood. I didn’t notice before because I just ran, without any hesitation.
I’m hiding in my closet now. I don’t know where Mittens is, and I don’t want to know. My phone is on the coffee table, where I’d left it last night. I can hardly stand on the ankle the creature bit, and I can feel it swelling painfully. It almost feels infected with something. What’s bothering me now is that it’s scratching and tapping on the door as I speak. They’re getting faster and harder, it’s frightening me that I’m stuck in here having to hear it. It just might drive me insane.
What frightens me most isn’t the thing outside of the closet. What scares me most, what makes my heart skip a beat and makes my hands shake uncontrollably, is what is carved into the inside of the closet door. “BEHIND YU”
I just turned to see what had been carved onto the wall on my right. I’ve never wanted to scream more in my life. “NEXT T YU”. I immediately faced the closet door again. But…It’s not just the words etched into the wall that’s bugging me, as much as it should.
What scares me is that I can hear tapping behind me now.
Credit To: Wildfur365
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It was your average evening. The normally blue skies were turning a pale orange as the sun set, the evening breeze was rolling in, making everything a bit more relaxed and a little less hot. It was my last day of summer vacation in Florida, and I have to say I was very enthusiastic to be going home. Although my time there was great, and the locals treated me much better than my last trip to Florida, I was getting homesick; if you could call it that. I was going into my second year of university in Waterloo, Ontario, and I was staying in a townhouse with some of my good friends from first year, Garret and Sean.
I was new to the whole “our own place” thing. I lived on campus most of first year, only moving into the new place about a month before summer. Garret and Sean were great. Probably more of the reason I was homesick over the home itself. The place was pretty nice. It was recently built along with four others, all placed in a sort of square. The back doors of each house led out into a little courtyard in the back. Think of it as a shared backyard. The idea was pretty neat, but nobody up kept the back lawn. All of our front lawns looked amazing. Bright green grass, healthy trees, and the house beside us even had a small rosebush. The back, however, looked like something out of a horror movie. The trees were doing alright because they were hogging all the rain. The two birches in the back were massive. Their leaves created a great shade in the back, making it a great spot to read or relax. The grass, however, was yellow and white with entire patches just missing and replaced with dirt. The flowerbeds that scattered the back were filled with weeds and wildflowers. On top of that there were anthills littered across the lawn, making ants in our houses a regular, and annoying, experience. The actual houses themselves were not too shabby.
All four were identical, save for the colour of our roofs. Mine had navy blue roof tiles, while our neighbors had grey, black, and brown respectively. This made for comic feuds between the houses, such as Blue House VS Grey House. We would regularly play LAN games on Xbox, usually Halo, and the losing house had to do some yard work in the back. That was another reason I wanted to go back. Garret, Sean and I had been planning a LAN party amongst our own house for about a week via text. We would have had more but all of the residents in the other houses were still on vacation or visiting family. My roommates themselves had only recently gotten back from their own vacations. I was a little worried they had ditched me as neither had returned a text in two days, and the ones near the end were very short and told me very little about what we were doing. The original plan was to hit up a few local bars and then return to play some drunk Halo CE. My bet was that they had found a party to go to or something.
My trip home was uneventful. Canadian customs is the easiest thing to get through. Not that they’re not thorough or don’t do their job properly, they are just way less strict and not nearly as “in your face” as American customs. The drive from the airport to home was great. I hadn’t driven my Pontiac Sunfire in two weeks. The little red pile of scrap was the best, I had installed some great subs and upgraded the stock speaker to some actual good quality ones. The one thing I cared about was the music. The car could be a used derby car, but as long as it has good speakers I’m in. Suffice to say when I got home after blasting music for fifteen minutes I was feeling pretty good. I walked up the steps and unlocked the door. I stepped in, took of my shoes (we had a strict no shoes in the house policy) and carried on in.
The interior of the house was somewhere between “what were they thinking” and “these guys are genius”. The man “game room” as we called it (it held out TV’s, consoles, and couches) was directly connected to the kitchen through two openings in both the left and right sides of a wall that went down the middle. From the game room you could see the table through the left and the fridge though the right. This made seeing if anyone was stealing some of your beer during a LAN night very easy. The cupboards, stove, and microwave were covered by the wall. Also connected to the game room was the main staircase. It led up one flight to the “hallway”. The hallway split off into all our rooms, and one washroom. A laundry room was down a flight of stairs on the other side of the hallway. We kept the door to that room closed to keep the noise of the machines down. Finally, and most randomly, down a small corridor (just big enough to fit one person) from the game room was another washroom. This and the laundry room were the two things we just never understood about the house. The rest was perfect.
When I entered the game room, I was surprised to find that Garret wasn’t there. He was usually always in front of the TV. I went to my room and threw my luggage on my bed. I was down for some fun. I could unpack tomorrow. I left my room and went over to Sean’s room, which was directly beside mine. He and Garret were both standing there, looking out Sean’s window. Hadn’t they seen me come in? Why didn’t they come say hi? I walked up and gave them both a gentle push forward. “Hey guys! Long time no see? What the hell are you guys doing?” Garret turned and looked at me. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was a mess. It looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “Are you guys stoned?” I asked jokingly, knowing full well neither of them smoked anything ever. Garret shook his head and said in a slightly agitated voice “tonight is off… Sean and I have decided to go spend some time with our parents… It has been awhile…” He was right. Both of them neglected to visit their parents even once this summer. I went and saw mine before my trip, but they said they would go see them reading week, which is what they did last year. Leaving during the summer to see their parents was odd for them, but hey I missed my parents too, and I saw them just a couple weeks ago. Garret turned to Sean “Alan is here now, we can leave.” Sean nodded and they picked up their bags (which were placed on Sean’s bed) and left. I watched them get into Garrets car and drive away. “Were they waiting for me at the window?” I asked myself. Garret had said that they could leave now that I was here, suggesting they had been waiting for awhile. Is that why they looked so tired? I put that out of my mind and decided tonight was going to be a game night, even if I was by myself.
I went to the game room and put The Orange Box (a small collection of games made by Valve on one disc) into the Xbox. It started and I chose to play Half Life 2, a beloved game from my younger years. I played through a few levels unhindered, until a reached a level that really freaked me out when I was younger. “We Don’t Go To Ravenholm” it was called. The game itself is not a horror game, it is just this one horror level thrown into the mix. It had zombies, a sense of forbidding, and dead bodies everywhere. I loved it, and I hated it. Turns out it was still pretty freaky for my more grown up self. I had just finished the level when I heard a loud screeching sound in the kitchen. At first I was practically crapping myself out of fear, but I manned up and went in. For a split second I thought I could see the image of a face on the shiny surface of the microwave. It was distorted, but I could make out the dark lifeless eyes and a half smile half of broken teeth, rotting in its face. I blinked and it was gone, but the image was burned into my mind. It was getting pretty late, about 1 in the morning, and I was getting pretty tired. I also just finished a pretty scary level in Half Life. I put the event to superstition and went into the fridge and got a Red Bull. I returned to my Xbox to find it off. Although this was unusual it wasn’t impossible. Xboxs tend to surprise you. When I attempted to turn it on again, it didn’t work. I went around back and found that had actually been unplugged from the wall. Now, although Xboxs can be surprising, this was just plain crazy. I could officially revoke my previous ban on my superstition. Nobody else is in the house. Nobody else is even in the other buildings. I am alone and Xboxs can’t unplug themselves. I got up and ran as fast as I could to the door. I got in my car, and drove to another buddy of mine’s apartment.
I gave him some story about how my internet was out and I had to do an online research paper for a summer course I was taking. He allowed me to stay the night to finish my “paper”. What he didn’t know was that I was simply looking for asylum from my own house. In the morning I decided to give my roommates a text to see when they were coming back, and if anything strange happened to them well I was gone. I drove back to my house, now less scared because it was day. I went to my room and wondered how I came up with that excuse to stay at my buddy’s last night. I realized it was so easy because it was true. I had taken a summer course to lighten the load for my second year. The course was just writing papers and doing research. It got you out of a course so I didn’t mind. I had finished most of the material while at my parents and the beginning of the summer. I only had two left. I decided tonight I would finish one, and I hoped nothing like what happened the other night would happen again.
I worked diligently for hours. I had started around 2pm, stopping only for some food and washroom breaks, and worked right till 9pm. Over those hours I had constant feeling of being watched. I know it sounds cliché, but I had never actually experienced it before. I just kept feeling uneasy, and thinking someone was watching me. I never gave into these thoughts to look around, however. I figured this whole mess was just in my head, and if I ignored it I would be fine. After finishing the paper at 9 I browsed the internet for a few hours to cool my head off with random nonsense. Around 12pm my room suddenly became incredibly cold. I got up and tossed a blanket over myself to keep warm, not wanting to use more energy by messing with the thermostat. The blanket didn’t help however, and it just kept getting colder; unnaturally cold for inside a house.
Enough was enough so I got up and made my way into the hallway where the thermostat was. As I opened the door I looked to my left to where the device was, to see the laundry room door open. I had put laundry in when I got in this morning, but I could have sworn I closed the door. I moved to it. I reached for the doorknob, and stopped my hand dead in motion. Just down that staircase, out of the darkness, was a dark shadowy figure. It was roughly my size, although it was hard to see from the top of the stairs. Its arms were contorted and mangled. They looked smashed and broken. On its left hand its normal fingers were replaced with long, claw looking fingers. It was looking down, and I stood there, baffled, terrified, and shocked. My heart was racing, and beads of sweat rolled down my face. My mouth ran dry, and I found myself holding my breath. The thing made a motion to move its head and I had had enough. I ran down the hallway with the full intention of leaving this house and not coming back, but I couldn’t. I was blocked by something. I couldn’t see anything in my way, but if I tried to move forward my legs wouldn’t budge. I looked back.
The thing was still looking down but had made it half way up the stairs. It had placed its claw fingers on the wall and was dragging them with it, creating an eerie scratching noise,much like nails on a chalkboard. Unable to move forward, I retreated to my roommates room to the right of my own, the one furthest away from that thing. I closed and locked the door behind me. I made a move for the window. I attempted to lift it but it wouldn’t budge. The screeching had stopped, so I figured I was safe in the room for now. I noticed something on Sean’s desk, his laptop. Sean was a crazy blogger, he blogged all the time, no matter what. He used his laptop to blog on the go. The fact that is was there means he really must have been anxious to leave. Was this thing what made them all crazy? I realized I could check his blog. He had to have blogged about it. I opened the laptop and entered his password.
He had his blog as his homepage so I just had to open Google Chrome and there it was. All of the blogs until the last week were his normal entries. How his day went, what he saw, what he plans on doing later, etc. Then, on they turned weird. The first three of the week he describes happenings very similar to those that happened to me. Random noises, things moving around, electronics being unplugged, and seeing distorted faces in reflective surfaces. The next two he starts referring to a “thing”, which is also what I had been calling it. I guess there is really no better name for it. In his own words “When I close my eyes I can see it… it’s always there. That face… always there. I see it everywhere I look. I see it even when I don’t look. I can’t get it out of my head! It is toying with me… I know it. Draining me of my energy, not letting me sleep… It wants to take me. Where? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I want to get out! I can’t… I can’t…” There is no entry for the next day, only a small box with the date and nothing in it. Underneath that, was the last blog. It was made on the last day of the week. The day I go back. It said “Alan comes back today… and after yesterday… I can’t. He needs to know. He can’t be here. But he has to… It is the only way… Garret came in today. The thing let him leave. He is here with me. We will wait together…”
Now I was here, trapped in this room as Sean was, and I felt helpless. Outside this thing was probably sitting… waiting. Its claw fingers on the door handle, its face… looking at the ground. I closed my eyes to think and I almost fainted. I opened my eyes immediately. I saw its face, when I closed my eyes I saw its face. I had to get out. I began throwing things at the window. Sean has a heavy lamp in his room, I tried that first. It cracked slightly. It was thick glass. The screeching started again, this time on the door. At the same time the door began bulging, as if this thing was going to push it right off its hinges into the room. I couldn’t be here for that. I began throwing large books, his mini safe, and other small items about the room. It was a futile effort, as nothing was working. I looked at the laptop. It was the only way, my last chance, my saving grace. I picked it up as the door fell in. I didn’t look back. The screeching was in the room now, only feet away from me.
I threw the laptop at the window and it went straight through. I leapt after it and as I did so I felt it touch my leg. As I went through the window the glass cut deep into my leg, and I fell a small distance onto the wonderful grass. It was now littered with small pieces of glass that I began to crawl through, creating small cuts all up my arms and on my hands. I kept crawling and didn’t look back until I was at the ditch. I was bleeding out. I felt weak and I had lost all energy. Just what the thing had wanted. I looked back at the window, and there it was, looking straight at me. This time with a full glaring smile, and its lifeless eyes directed straight at me. My vision blurred and my body went numb. I passed out. I awoke screaming in the ditch in the morning. The first thing I did was check my leg. I had no pain, and there was no tear in my jeans. I rolled them up, and sure enough, not cut. My arms were clean too. No blood or glass anywhere.
I looked up at the window and dreaded what I would see, but it was clear. Not broken, but not new. Just the way it was before, as if nothing had happened. I noticed Garrets car in the driveway and rushed inside. Garret was sitting on the couch playing games “Garret!” I was practically screeching at him. “Whoa man, chill. What’s up?” “That thing, the thing you guys saw, it was after me too! You didn’t warn me! Why?” “Dude, what? What thing?” “That week I was planning the game night, Sean’s blog said you guys got trapped in here right?” “Uh, to be honest I don’t remember much of last week. Too much drinking or something I guess. I think that may be your problem here. You hit up the club last night?” “No! I was right here! I swear I was right here…” I talked to Sean and got a similar story. He laptop was just fine, and we couldn’t find any blogs from that week.
The only thing that remains unchanged is the scratches in the walls. My roommates claim they were always there, but I remember, I didn’t forget like they did. I know what really happened. And I need to get out of here.
Credit To: LordyArg
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I always had a typical child’s fears while growing up. From the whole “I think I see something moving in the shadows!” to “I need you to check my closet for monsters, daddy!” It was childish, but everyone goes through it. After I hit my male pubescent years however, these fears started to disappear. I needed to act like a tough guy through everything, I thought. I was able to rationally think things through. Everything has an explanation.
That was my ultimate rationalization before I met the Man.
I was sitting with my cousin one night. She and I had nothing to do, and we somehow stumbled upon the topic of ghosts. I think we were watching ghost hunting or something on TV to trigger that. Anyways, she decided to entrust me with her biggest secret, that being a ghost that has been following her around since she was a young teen. She told me a few stories of her encounters.
This is the first encounter she had: she had just finished cheer leading practice and was waiting for her mother in the parking lot next to the football field. She happened to glance down at the other end and see some strange person leaning on the pole that supports the scoreboard. She decided to run home, thinking it was a stalker or something. He was wearing a yellow hat, white shirt, and jeans. That’s all she could possibly make out from that distance.
She had also met him once while driving home from work. It was around 9:00pm. She looked into her rear view mirror and saw him. Just staring at her. The description she gave was as follows: He had a yellow construction hat, a white t-shirt covered in blood and dirt around the abdomen area, blue jeans that looked dirty, tattered, and torn, and an expressionless face. He looked to be in his mid-50’s. The only thing that was really weird about him was his eyes. They were of normal human shape and colour, but they were wide open for no reason. Just staring at her intently. She screamed, pulled over, and looked back in the mirror. He was gone.
I dismissed her stories as BS, but sympathized with her (she started crying). I told her to just go home and get a good night’s sleep. I really should have believed her.
I awoke that night at around 3:00am in a pool of sweat. I went to check my AC unit. It was out. I cursed to myself and decided to go mope around in the garage for a fan to lay next to my bed so that the night would actually be bearable. I walked into the laundry room, opened the door to the garage and flipped on the light. There he was. Not even six inches away from my face.
In one quick motion, I lunged backwards, closed my eyes, and screamed. I heard crashing throughout the house (no doubt my family jumping out of bed to respond to my scream). I peeked upwards at him once more for a moment, then closed my eyes again. I didn’t want to believe it, but it was him. Every detail down to the wide eyes was there.
My parents ran into the laundry room frantically asking, “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Are you hurt?” and a bunch of other questions that I didn’t bother answering. I just stared at the spot. He was gone. I told my parents that I tripped and fell. My father left to go back to bed, while my mother have me some medicine to make me drowsy and help me sleep a little. I decided to sleep without a fan that night of March 24th.
I went the next few weeks without an incident. I eventually decided that he just wanted to see my cousin, and she and I hung out so much that he figured she was going to be in the house still. I thought he would leave me alone. I decided to never tell her of my incident.
My cousin had moved back to her home state to be with her husband. I told her goodbye as she left, but all I could think about was how I never had any chance of seeing that Man again. I really should have told her what happened. I regret it so much. Those eyes of his…
A mirror in my room shattered to interrupt my peaceful sleep. I shot up and immediately made eye contact with him. He was standing at the foot of my bed. Head cocked. Eyes open. Wearing all of the exact same clothing. He was mouthing words at me. I can’t read lips, but it looked like a bunch of profanity. His expression was angry, but nothing was moving except his mouth. “He looked to be saying, “You… Protect…” I couldn’t make out anything else. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. My family apparently didn’t hear the mirror shatter, and I was alone. I covered my head in the sheets and blankets, leaving myself in a dark little ball of fear and sadness. I started to tear up and eventually fell asleep.
I awoke to my mother entering the room and asking, “What happened to the mirror?!” I accidentally broke it. That’s all I told her. I called my cousin to ask her a few questions. Here’s the conversation:
Me: Have you had any experiences with Man lately?
Her: No, actually. You sound stressed, are you okay?
Me: He hasn’t bothered you at all?
Her: No. What’s going on?
Me: …
Her: I haven’t had any sightings since around the 24th as I was leaving your house.
Me: Thanks. Talk to you later. Bye.
My cousin died a few days after that. I didn’t realize what Man’s intentions with me were for a long time. He is my protector. He never leaves my side. I don’t want any special treatment though… I’m tired of him looking over me every second of every day. I don’t want to be protected. I just want my old life back.
He’s prevented me from death all this time, then as soon as he leaves me, I will die. Maybe he only follows those who are about to die to buy them a little more time. Maybe he just follows you by choice then decides you must die after he leaves you. All I know is that I don’t want him to leave now. He can’t leave me until I’ve lived my life. I won’t let him. The reassuring wide eyes I see staring at me right now from the reflection of my laptop’s screen make me feel safe.
Credit To: Eriq V.
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With a terrible taste in my mouth, I awoke from a slumber that seemed so deep I would never emerge. Having gone to bed at 1:17 am, it was now only 2:47 am. My hour and a half of sleep had seemed infinity longer than that, filled with twists and turns of the subconscious dream state. But now, reality was all too real. When I say this taste in my mouth was terrible, I don’t mean that standard gopher shit breath every middle aged man has when he wakes up. This taste was very abrasive and unusual; not bitter, but sickly sweet, making me want to vomit. The closest thing I could compare it to, would be the aftertaste of cheap rum mixed with some form of liquified candy corn.
My bare feet touched the cold, hard ground of my new studio apartment, and I walked past my bedroom window and into the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, I opened my mouth in hopes of identifying the source of the taste, only to find that my tongue was covered in white gunk; almost like plaque. Confused, I then brushed my tongue and teeth to eliminate the taste, to no avail.
Beginning to become restless, I then went into the kitchen. Opening the cabinets one by one, I had my mind set on finding something to cut through this terrible flavor. The best option I found was lemon juice, and began downing it like water. Frustratingly enough, the liquid glided over the plaque on my tongue like a protective film, never even touching my taste buds. Throwing the lemon juice to the ground, I went back into my bedroom.
Suddenly and all at once, I was aware of a presence. A warm, throbbing, almost painful sensation came over me; almost like an external source of nerve stimuli, boldly yet calmly letting me know that I wasn’t alone. It was the kind of inherent awareness one would experience in a dream, only this wasn’t a dream. My instincts directed my attention to my bedroom window, to which, almost in a trance, I then walked to and peered out of. What I saw was the visage of an owl, sitting on a tree branch. Not a screech owl or a spotted owl, but more of a barn owl if I had to guess. It was very large, and almost immaculately white.
For the longest time, I was paralyzed, staring into it’s crimson, saucer-like eyes. I didn’t know if I was frightened or intrigued, because this animal wasn’t just staring at me, it seemed to be staring relentlessly into me. After at least 4 or 5 minutes of this, the owl then, with an air of utter calm, smiled at me. Looking into it’s eyes, I felt strangely comforted. The very moment I broke it’s gaze however, everything changed. My tongue began throbbing with a writhing pain I can’t even describe. Almost like every individual muscle inside of it was tearing itself apart. I ran into the kitchen to put water onto it, but it dried up like acid as soon as it touched. Panicking now, I put everything I could think of on my tongue to help alleviate the pain. Nothing seemed to be helping, but I was determined not to give up until the pain abated.
It was 10 minutes later when the swelling began. In addition to the writhing pain that had not let up one iota, now my tongue felt like it was being inflated with air from the inside. Barely able to close my mouth, I ran past my window again towards my bedside; the owl was still there with a smile as big as ever. Reaching for a bottle of ibuprofen, I try to down a handful at once, hoping it will help the swelling. I was unable to swallow though, and the pills fell abruptly out of my mouth.
Nothing seemed to be helping, and in a complete act of desperation, I ran back to the kitchen, past the smiling owl and to the silverware drawer. Opening it, I reluctantly pulled out my sharpest serrated steak knife. Holding my breath, I punctured my tongue with the knife, hoping the wound would release some of the pressure. Instead, all my muscles tightened around the knife hole, making my tongue’s pain increase double-fold. Reduced to flailing on the floor now, I did the only thing left that any rational human being would do. I put the knife in my mouth and began sawing at my tongue. The pain of the blade was nothing compared to what I had been experiencing. Once my tongue was half way severed, I paused for a second so as not to choke on my own blood, which was now pooling quite dramatically on the floor around me. Gagging on the knife blade, I finished the job, ripping the remaining tendrils in half as I yanked the wretched thing out. Showering the floor with blood, my severed tongue landed in front of me, squirming and flapping like a fish out of water.
Disgusted and mortified, I kicked it across the floor into the bedroom and closed the kitchen door so as not to see it, and even worse, not to hear it; flapping around. Plugging my mouth with paper towels, trying desperately to maintain the bleeding, I sat crouched in the corner, suspended by shock and disbelief. As my heart rate finally slowed, I was still frozen with fear. So many thoughts were rushing through my mind, they were almost indecipherable. “What the hell just happened?, is that a medical condition?, am I dreaming?, What was with that owl?, Was that an owl?”. Then, all too suddenly, the most horrifying revelation came over me like a dark cloud.
That owl had smiled at me through the window. It is anatomically impossible for an owl to smile. Overcome with a raw sense of primordial dread, I realized the truth. “That’s not an owl! There is no owl! That’s not an owl!” I screamed to myself. The glowering question now remained, if it wasn’t an owl, what was it? I was beyond caring, I didn’t want to know the truth, I didn’t even want my tongue back. In that moment, all I wanted was to get away from the owl and back to placid safety. That is when a swooping noise broke my train of thought. Quickly, all fell silent; almost as if things were normal again.
After waiting, I slowly opened the kitchen door to find that the severed tongue was gone. Approaching the bloody pool on the ground, I looked out the window once more, which was now strangely open. Staring back at me with crimson eyes, the owl was still perched on the branch, however now, it was poised to open it’s mouth. What happened next is beyond my realm of understanding. I knew it was impossible yet it happened anyway. The owl opened it’s mouth, and with a brand new tongue, spoke to me with an unholy voice. “I will survive” it said. It’s smile then spread wider than it had before, revealing a pearly white set of teeth. It was at this point that I blacked out from fear.
Once I awoke, the owl was nowhere to be found. The bleeding in my mouth had clotted and I immediately got my things together and headed to the hospital. Once I was in the emergency room, having to communicate with a pad and pencil, I informed the chief surgeon where I came from. A look of general unease came over his face as he reluctantly told me that the previous tenant of my apartment came in exactly one month prior, mysteriously missing all of her teeth.
The End
Credit To: Justin Suttles
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You know that ringing sound that you will perceive when you are in a very quiet area? Some people say this is an auditory-illusion brought about the ear’s inability to detect frequencies below the threshold of the human senses. This is completely wrong. That ringing covers up something else altogether. If you are quick, patient, and maybe a little lucky, you will be able to hear past the ringing. What you will hear are voices whispering to each other. They will silence themselves quickly but with practice, you will become more adept at catching and interpreting what they are saying. You will hear things of the past, the present, and the future. However, you must be careful. Because there is no such thing as a voice without a body.
And when you start noticing them, they will start noticing you.
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Do you ever just sit and watch your sleeping dog? Observe as their little feet run along the ground, just waving halfway in the air as they let out innocent half-gruntled barks. Have you ever just wondered what’s going on inside their sleeping minds, what they’re dreaming about? Maybe it’s a squirrel they’re chasing, or a ball. Maybe they’re simply enjoying time with their life partners, their owners, their best friends.
Or maybe what’s going on is something entirely different, lurking just beyond the realm of what we can possibly comprehend, something so terrible we’d be better off in the gleeful shadow of ignorance.
I wish I could tell you this was all just speculation, crazy ideas conjured up by a bored mind, but the truth is that I’ve seen what exists inside the mind of a sleeping dog, and it terrifies me beyond what I ever imagined possible.
* * * * * *
The idea of mind-reading itself is an old one, and while it might sound like something taken out of a science fiction novel, we do possess devices that can give a basic translation of what occurs inside an individual’s resting mind.
In reality, in a dumbed-down version of neurology, everything we think, dream and feel, is a product of chemicals and electrical signals surging through our flesh, producing a flux of ideas and emotion, which results in pretty much everything we are. With the right equipment, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to translate these impulses into text, audio, or even images.
That’s what I’ve been working on for the past decade. A device that not only reads the electrical impulses within your brain, but one that can also give a basic picture of what’s going on.
It might sound horrifying enough on its own, but don’t fall into a pit of despair. This is nothing to be used as a torture device, or to extract information from unwilling participants. This was always planned to aid these no longer able to communicate with the world surrounding them.
People suffering from locked-in syndrome, unable to speak, but fully conscious, horrified as they’ve lost the ability to interact with the people around them. The device we worked on was supposed to aid them, give them a way of talking to their friends and family, to let us know they’re still in there.
The project itself was called ‘Dreamweaver’, and came in the form of a hairnet containing hundreds of tiny electrodes, able to read the brain’s electrical signals from the surface of the skin. Much like encephalography, it read brainwaves, but unlike the standard EEG, it was also capable of translating them.
Even from the very early prototypes, we were able to pick up some vague shapes and sounds from our first test-subject, which just so happened to be me. Both while awake, and asleep, we managed to reproduce my thoughts, displaying them on a nearby monitor, and then recording them.
Awkwardly enough, the first dream happened to be erotic in nature, witnessed by all four of my fellow scientists, laughing hysterically as I was forced to confirm they were, in fact, my dreams, but regardless of how embarrassed I felt, we were all ecstatic to have taken such a massive leap forward in science.
* * * * * *
After that first, successful, but slightly awkward attempt, we decided it would be more professional to find a third party of willing, and hopefully shameless volunteers, to share both their conscious and unconscious thoughts.
A couple of weeks went by, and we recorded grainy, hardly intelligible thoughts and dreams from about a dozen people. Each aiding us in our goal to properly calibrate the Dreamweaver device, and to translate the signals.
The main problem that we quickly discovered, was that while our technology was state of the art, the human mind was simply too complex to easily translate. Too much noise, too many emotions, and an overabundance of useless information stored in our high functioning brains, all making it difficult to properly read anyone’s thoughts with a high level of accuracy.
Then, one of my colleagues suggested we take a step back, and start over with a more primitive creature. One that we can confirm have dreams, emotions and thoughts, but to a lesser extent; Humanity’s best friends: Dogs.
* * * * * *
Yes, we could’ve used more primitive primates, but that meant time had to be spent on an excessive amount of paperwork. Dogs were more readily available. I was quick to volunteer up my own best friend, Robby, as our very first, animal test subject. He spent most of his days sleeping away or eating anyway, so having us monitor his dreams wouldn’t make much of a difference.
All we needed was an endless supply of snacks, and he’d happily drift off and snore, wherever, and whenever he could. It was something I’d noticed even as Robby was a puppy, one who’d just eaten half a pizza he found lying on a bench; Swallowed in just a few seconds before I could stop him. Being a Bernese Mountain Dog pushing a hundred pounds, carrying him home, even back then, was a tremendously difficult task.
I brought him to the sleep lab, accompanied by his favorite toy, blanket, and a bag of snacks sufficient to put him into a coma for a couple of hours.
As predicted, it didn’t take more than half an hour of enough of petting and feeding, before Robby fell fast asleep on top of his blanket, snoring like a tractor, and wearing the Dreamweaver.
Now, we just had to wait for Robby to go through the stages of sleep, before finally reaching REM, the interval of dreaming.
The image appeared quickly, just vague outlines at first, hardly resembling anything more than abstract art, but as we calibrated the machine, we quickly managed to conjure an image clearer than anything we’d seen in a human being. A remarkably accurate representation of Robby’s mind, vivid beyond what we thought possible.
We saw the picture from Robby’s point of view. Him running through what looked like a narrow alley, the ground full of debris, metal and other junk. He sniffed frantically around, periodically lifting his head to reveal thick, black smoke obscuring the view above.
He stopped and barked, not a threat, but one calling out for someone, before he kept moving through the alley, and onto the main street.
Just like the alleyway, it was poorly maintained, full of cracks and covered by various trash. Most of the buildings around were on the brink of collapse, with one of them engulfed in wild flames that shot far up into the sky above.
Robby instinctively ran over to the burning building, defying his usual cowardly soul, and stood outside growling at it. Before long, a woman burst out from the front door, her clothes on fire as she screamed in a mixture of horror and agony.
He chased after her while she ran around in panic, only lying down in a hopeless attempt at extinguishing the flames. All the while, Robby barked at the fire, not understanding that they weren’t a living creature, a thing that he couldn’t scare away; He just saw something moving around the woman, hurting her, and he wanted so desperately to help.
It was a futile fight, and the woman couldn’t escape the heat. Within a couple of minutes, her skin had melted, with her hair burned away, and her own eyes turned to goo inside her skull. After what must have felt like an eternity of pain, she’d suffocated from the smoke, and fell silent on the ground.
Then Robby woke up…
He shot to his feet as he quickly inspected his surroundings, the horrible dream fading rapidly from his easily distracted mind. Once he noticed me there by his side, he immediately returned from worry to joy, violently wagging his tail and jumping up to lick my face.
I petted him, and smiled at his dumb, loyal face that had long since forgotten the dream. On the inside, however, I was filled with terror, what the hell had we just witnessed?
Right then, I wished for nothing more than to be able to verbally communicate with my dog. The device we’d invented read minds, but it did little to translate it back to animals. There were too many questions for me to even begin, the main one being how he’d come up with such a horrific scenario.
I’d had Robby since he was nothing but a tiny puppy, small enough to fit in one hand. Destruction, fire, death; These were all concepts he shouldn’t even understand, let alone have the ability to recreate in such an apocalyptic scene, a nightmare to match anything I’d ever experienced myself.
After a short discussion with my colleagues, we decided to keep Robby at the lab for a few more nights, check if the dream was a one-time event, or if they were thoughts and worries that haunted him each and every night.
Robby naturally loved the extra attention he received at the lab, and couldn’t be happier. For the next week, we kept him close, feeding him, and making sure he felt comfortable enough to spend a sufficient amount of time sleeping.
While most of his dreams were exactly what one would expect from a dog: Running through the woods, chasing butterflies and eating all the food in the world, about a third of his dreams were exactly the nightmares we’d witnessed during the first experiment. A post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with the corpses of animals and humans, just rotting away on the already broken streets, surrounded by collapsed buildings, and a sky so consumed by smoke that the sun was nothing but a faint memory.
Some of the still-standing buildings I could recognize. Landmarks from our city that Robby hadn’t even seen in his entire life, yet there they were in his dreams, as clear as my own memories of them. He saw our ancient, local cinema, our apartment building, the park, and the history museum.
He traversed the desolate streets in search of any sentient life, but only came across bones of those long since dead, debris and leafless trees looming over the streets.
Whatever had happened to the world, it had caused utter destruction beyond repair, and if humanity had endured, they were nowhere to be seen.
It wouldn’t be until the fifth recording, before Robby finally came across another person stumbling aimlessly through the ruins. He collapsed to the street before he even noticed my dog, and it quickly became apparent that he too was standing on death’s doorstep.
Robby wandered over and licked the stranger’s face, whimpering as he attempted to wake him back up. His shirt had been torn, and a partially healed, severely infected wound covered most of his bloated abdomen.
He briefly opened his eyes, and smiled weakly at the friendly creature there to see him off as he passed over to the other side of life. Once he let out his last breath, Robby lay down beside him and cried, left alone in a broken world.
Days passed and we kept monitoring his dreams. The story they told was broken into different pieces, and was hard to put together, or to understand from a dog’s point of view, but they always displayed destruction, and Robby wandering through the lonely world, hopelessly searching for someone he’d probably never find…
Me.
* * * * * *
It could have been a terrible coincidence, that my dog simply had the most creative imagination of any animal on the planet. I prayed that his dreams were mere fiction, rather than a look into our bleak future. But if the world he’d dreamed up wasn’t real, then how could he invent real places he’d never seen?
Once we’d been sufficiently horrified by Robby’s unconscious mind, we decided it would be best to confirm our findings by monitoring other pets. A control group of animals from various places in the country, all who’d lived a long and happy life with their owners, safe from all the terrors in the world.
We patiently waited as dog and cat owners signed up for the experiment, and while the pay wasn’t all that great, they were more than excited to get a quick view into their loving pet’s minds. After all, there wasn’t any harm in the project, and they were given plenty of attention and food to compensate for the new environment.
After we gathered a couple of dozen volunteers, we got to work, monitoring both their waking and sleeping minds, each for a week.
We recorded their dreams, and showed it to their owners after the fact, to prevent them from being exposed to the same nightmares we’d witnessed. Our plan was simple: if they had normal dreams, we’d just give them a copy of it on a USB stick, and if not we would blame it on equipment malfunction, and pay them their fee, no harm done.
Most of the animals showed little more than your average dog catching a stick, or a cat playing with yarn, and as we got through to the fifth, sixth and even seventh subject without another incident, we almost allowed ourselves to fall back into blissful ignorance.
But then, we saw another nightmare…
It was remarkably similar, a barren hellscape devoid of any sentient life, just pets roaming the ruins, looking for anyone to keep them company at the end of the world.
One cat dreamed of a minute society in the middle of the wasteland. Just twenty or so people clinging onto life in the middle of the immense destruction, all looking fatigued and emaciated.
Another dog saw dried out oceans only occupied by the occasional corpse submerged in the few puddles that remained. Searching for half-rotten fish and other dead animals it could feed off of.
And then, against all odds, one found the half-burned remains of their former owner. We could recognize her face as one of the volunteers, twisted in an everlasting expression of agony and confusion. Whatever she had seen, or would see in the future, would remain a mystery.
We ended the experiment there. Those lucky animals who had pleasant dreams were recorded and given to the owners, the rest were discarded, locked away on a hard drive to be kept hidden, as we apologized to the volunteers under the pretense that our equipment simply didn’t find anything, let’s just say ‘machine malfunction,’ is a popular excuse in the science community when they find something they don’t want you to know.
* * * * * *
Following the dreadfully successful experiment, we handed the recordings and device over to more appropriate scientific groups. Whether we’d discovered something about our near future or not, we needed people with better resources to deal with it. A group called Artifex quickly swooped in and took all our equipment, with the exception of the first prototype, which I’d brought home to calibrate months before the ordeal.
I decided I would check Robby’s dreams one last time before scrapping the device, hoping to find just another pleasant one I could keep as a memory.
Away from my colleagues, and the stressful setting of our lab, I fed him, and he fell asleep in my lap, wearing the Dreamweaver…
Just like before, I was presented with another post-apocalyptic world. As the hellscape came into view, Robby frantically sniffed his way through several, partially collapsed streets. He squeezed himself through a crack in a wall, entering a well-lived in building. One that had since been abandoned, filled with empty cans of food and water bottles.
In the corner, by the entrance lay a man trapped under a slab of concrete. His lower body had been absolutely crushed, but he hadn’t bled out, as the pressure kept him alive and breathing.
“Hey boy,” the man uttered in a weak voice, followed by unintelligible human sounds Robby couldn’t understand.
He recognized the voice, and immediately spurted over to the slowly dying man. In shock, I realized that the broken man was myself, on the brink of death.
“Robby, how did you find me?” I asked as I lifted my hand onto his head.
He bit onto my sleeve and tried to pull me out from under the debris, not realizing that in only minutes, I’d be dead. He whimpered as he heard me groan in pain, and despite his lack of understanding of death, he could tell I was suffering.
Without any other options, he simply sat by my side as the city before us kept burning, keeping me company during my final hour.
I kept petting him until I drew my final breath, but he remained by my side even as I’d turned to little more than a limp pile of flesh, rid of any mind or soul.
Then he awoke in a panic, one that immediately softened as he found himself lying in my lap, back to safety, realizing it had all been just a dream…
…a dream of a future yet to happen. Whenever, and however, dogs only live so long.
They know our future, but don’t realize it. They just remain in our lives, the most loyal creatures in existence. Even as the world around them collapses, they try their absolute best to keep us safe, because they love us.
I hope this future can be avoided, but if not, I know that when my time comes, at least I won’t be alone.
|
In our town, you prayed for a boy when you first felt that kick in your belly. Mama said she cried the day I came out of her, she was so happy I’d been blessed as a son. Every birthday was a celebration for us, whole family coming around with sweet cakes and rye whiskey, friends and neighbors filling our back porch. My gramps would bring his guitar, only played on special days since his hands were lost to arthritis. We’d stay up until the stars showed, everyone drinking, my uncles pouring out baby drinks for us young ones in tin cups, everyone laughing in the bonfire light, coyotes howling in the blacktop mountains behind the fence that separated our backyard from the edge of the tree line. Birthdays were a cause for joy, a reminder that sometimes God listened to your prayers, didn’t always make you suffer.
Birthdays for my cousin Lyla were a different affair. She was three and some years older than me. She’d babysit when my parents would go out dancing, as if those three years between us meant much more than the fact she was a head taller and always beat me at hide and seek. She had long strawberry hair our Gramma would brush out in front of the TV for her. Lyla loved watching quiz shows, so sharp she’d always know the answers before they came up on screen. I half-believed her when she’d wave her hands in the air in front of her face and tell me she wasn’t smart, just psychic. Gramma would always shush her and say we shouldn’t joke about such things, but she would wink at Lyla and smile. When I was really small and couldn’t sleep she’d sing to me, old songs about apple trees and drowned lovers, songs her mama sang to her. I could never remember the words. Some nights I’d lie awake in the dark and try singing to myself but the sounds got stuck in my chest, buried too deep to dig out.
Lyla was also the only one my parents would let take me swimming in the creek round the back of Gramps’ farm where nobody could bother us. My uncles offered time and again but mama always refused, laughing and pouring another beer to pacify their pride, saying they were more likely to drown me than show me how to float. Lyla was the one that taught me to swim, hands ever-patient and holding my head above the water when I went under for too long.
“Swim, Wren. You gotta swim!” she would say as she pulled me to the surface.
On her birthdays, the women would go over in the early morning, sitting around her and her mother, overlapping arms in their cotton print sundresses, offering what little comfort they could, sipping berry wine and praying occasionally, hands all tangled in the wooden rosaries they carved in the winters. Mama would be up the night before baking, sweetbreads and whiskey doughs. My daddy always told me to stay out of the kitchen on baking days. Baking days were just for mama, when she’d get out all her grief and pour it into the food she made for her sister, each dish an apology, a comfort, an acknowledgment of loss. Us men and boys would go over in the evening, sitting silent and smoking around Lyla’s old man and her stepbrothers, tobacco passing between uncles and cousins and all the things that went unsaid. On Lyla’s birthdays, everyone was drinking for a different reason, bittersweet.
In our town, birthdays were a reminder of another year gone. Another year closer to the day they would die. In our town you were only safe once you turned eighteen, down to the hour. In our town once there was blood between your legs, you only had so many summers left.
* * * * * *
In the old days, my gramps told me it used to just be once every six years. The town would go down to the lake on the last Sunday of the summer, dressed in white or the closest you could get, everyone lining up along the banks to wash their hands clean in the water. And then a name would be drawn. Somebody’s daughter. Sister. Lover. Cousin. A girl next door, a girl you had grown up with. Someone with dreams about seeing the world outside the state lines, someone with favorite songs and best friends and promises to keep. The girl would walk into the lake and would be held by her mama for the last time, the woman she was grown from dipping her low into the water so she shone in the sunlight, skin dripping. She’d smile for her daddy, despite the tears he’d catch with his hands, so he’d remember her well. Then she would start to swim, out into the middle of the water until she reached the other side, the one always lost in the mists even in deep summer. Nobody had even seen the other side, even from the boats. It was something you stayed away from, the current always tugging you back, a warning. And she’d never be seen again.
The thing was, it wasn’t the old days anymore. Gramma told me things started going wrong in the gaps between those six years, just after my parents and uncles and aunts had graduated high school. Lambs being born with the skin around their eyes green, blind from the moment they came into the world. Dogs howling for days on end until their lungs collapsed and they died from exhaustion. People waking up with dead moths covering the floors of their hallways, piled so deep you couldn’t see the carpet beneath them. At first, people just came to accept that something in the trees was changing and for whatever reason was throwing things a little off balance. Then the rains stopped. People began to worry, but put it down to a dry spell and nothing more, despite the fact that the rain came every October without fail, and had done so since people first lived here back in the days of candlelight and wagons, before the trees were tamed.
Then the cows started milking blood, and the dirt started turning black, swallowing anything planted. And then the babies started being born without their legs, or their arms or their eyes. My uncle Jonah was born legless, momma’s youngest brother. Gramps says it didn’t matter ‘cause he could drink like a man standing up. I liked Jonah best. He was always loud, laughing and cracking jokes that had everyone clutching their sides like their ribs were about to spill their organs on the floor. He had a voice like Johnny Cash and you could tell Gramps was proud when he sang along with his guitar, ‘cause when Jonah sang everyone would forget about his legs a while. But he could be quiet too, could convince birds down from the trees to eat out of his hand. Sometimes I’d catch him looking real sad though, watching me and my cousins playing tag, or watching his brothers dance with their wives.
So Gramma said that six years became four years and it was okay the first time. But then the lake started to dry up. And things started washing up on the shore, baby bones and drowned rabbits with too many eyes. Deer started getting bloodthirsty, running out of the woods with their eyes white and teeth sharp, stealing chickens. People had to stop fishing out on the water because when they would drag up their nets they would be full of snakes. They would toss them back, but a few always made it to shore. One of them found their way into church and bit the preacher right on the wrist. The preacher bashed its head in with his bible. Old folks started sleepwalking at night, lining up on the edge of the lake and waking in the morning with no memory of walking there barefoot, feet all cut up and muddy.
So four years became two years and it was okay the first time too. But people started getting scared to bring their babies into this world and so parents stopped having kids. People started seeing things in the mist. Then the dreams started. My best friend Tommy’s dad was one of those that had the dreams. I went with him to the cemetery a couple of times to visit when we were kids. Tommy always brought one of his power rangers or a race car to leave on top of the grave in case his daddy got bored in heaven, even though there wasn’t actually a body down in the ground. Tommy said he didn’t know what the dreams were about and that his momma wouldn’t tell him. Gramma wouldn’t tell me either but she said the dreams made thirty people real sad, and that they couldn’t stop feeling sad, so they all swam into the lake one day and they didn’t stop until they reached the bottom.
So two years became once a year. And the rains came back, and people started sleeping better, and people started fishing on the lake again. And the flowers grew a little brighter and the air a little warmer, and the high school football team suddenly won every game. The mini-mart that had been on the edge of closing down suddenly sold fruit so good people would drive in from towns over to buy it, cherries like drips of blood, peaches soft enough to be skin and everywhere over town the apple trees heaved with offerings. And yet, families lived in constant fear of having a daughter, like all of them were walking around with hunting knives twist deep in their spines that they just had to bear. Little girls grew up walking around with grief so heavy it would break their back if they had understood what was coming for them when they grew up.
* * * * * *
It was Lyla’s fifteenth birthday and she was nowhere to be seen. Her momma Clara was crying on a lawn chair, sipping some lemonade she had pressed with me and Lyla the night before, hands sweet with sugar and rind. Clara was my momma’s younger sister but she looked years older, lines pressed into her face from years of holding all that sorrow just beneath the surface. When she laughed though you could see her true age, smile lines softening around her eyes as she grinned, hair coming loose from the tight braid she normally pulled it back in. Lyla loved to make her laugh, was often the only one that could.
Momma and her sisters in law sat around her, long-legged and stretched out in the afternoon sun, a couple of my baby cousins tugging at the bottoms of their frayed jean shorts for attention or hanging off their hips. Daddy sat with my uncle Red, Lyla’s father, hand resting on his plaid-clad shoulder. None of her friends had come to her birthday party and she had run off, heartbroken. The year before last summer, Sky, Lyla’s best friend since the first day of school had her name pulled. None of her friends could face another birthday party that could be any of their last before they headed out across the water, so it’d been a no-show. Candles and cake lay melting untouched dripping off the pine table Red had made way back when, and there was more than just lemonade in Clara’s glass.
But I knew where to find her. I walked to our grandparents’ farm in the low slung sunlight, kicking up dust trails with the tops of my sneakers, scattering the June bugs still sucking on the flowers even though June was long gone. The farm was empty except for the cows. I lowered my head as I passed them, white-bellied with their long eyelashes keeping away the flies. I hated the way the cows watched you pass, eyes all-knowing as they stood so still, all of their heads turning to watch you go. Gramma said sometimes it was best not to look at the cows, just to let them get on with their business. She told me I had nothing to worry for as long as I didn’t turn around once they were behind me. They didn’t take kindly to that. As I walked I could feel them watching me in the heat, grass a hush around my legs as I walked through the fields and past the barn with its peeling red paint.
Lyla was floating in the middle of the creek, hair around her head like strings of bloody flowers. She looked so peaceful with her belly up to the sun, eyes closed and trailing her hands through the lily weeds. I called her name and she didn’t move. Behind me, something rustled in the tall grass, maybe a snake or a rabbit. I called again, voice drunk up by the fields. She was dead I knew, kicking my shoes off and running out to her, ready to push the water from her lungs, bring her back. I fell into the water, throwing my shirt behind me, yelling her name. She flipped over and turned to face me.
“Wren! Calm down. I was just daydreaming,” she half-smiled, pushing her hair from her face.
I splashed her, sending an armful of the creek over her head.
“You scared me!” she laughed, splashing me back, both of us fighting until we could hardly breathe for laughing and the water in our mouths.
“Everyone’s lookin’ for you at the party,” I told her. She shrugged and turned to float belly up again, toes stretched out to kick at the butterflies skimming the surface. I joined her, drifting.
We spent the afternoon together, swimming and daydreaming and trying to catch the tiny fish that lived in the mud with our hands. As the sun went down behind the barn and the creek turned cool and green we lay out on the bank in our underwear, letting the sunset warm us dry. Lyla turned to me. The lights in the farmhouse were on, porch lit and beckoning us home.
“You gotta promise me some things, alright? When I’m gone-” I cut her off.
“Where are you going? Can I come?” She didn’t reply, just carried on as if I’d said nothing.
“When I’m gone I need you to promise me you won’t ever go swimming with anyone else. And if you try out for the football team, shower when you get home okay? Don’t ever drink and drive or your daddy will kill you. Be nice to girls but don’t start dating until you’re out of school. Don’t let them get in your pants either. Trust me on that one, us high school girls got nothin’ to lose. Kiss your mama goodnight, listen hard to Gramma when she tells you stories ‘cause most of ‘em are truer than you could ever know. Make Jonah teach you how to get birds in your hands ‘cause he never had the time to teach me and now I’ll never get to know.” She smiled, but it wasn’t in her eyes. Her voice wobbled a little towards the end. “And tell my momma about me every once in a while. You don’t have to do much, just sit with her sometimes and talk. I don’t want her to forget.”
She jumped to her feet then and ruffled the hair on top of my head, messing it up like she had done since we were little. She ran off into the purple dark, long-legged with her hair out behind her. It was the last time I ever saw her.
The day Lyla was chosen, I was in church with all the other kids who weren’t allowed down to the lake on the last Sunday of summer. Me and Tommy and his cousin Beth were seeing who could run the fastest, racing down the wedding aisle, sunlight streaming through the high glass windows in golden lines, zigzagging between us. Beth was sad that day because her best friend Leanne was allowed down to the lake for the first time, and she was real worried she wouldn’t come back. So I’d let her play tag with us, even though Tommy said girls couldn’t run for shit. I was going to go slower and let her outrun me so she’d feel better. Beth proved us both wrong, beating us every time, so fast we didn’t even have to let her win, could barely keep up as she paced through the pews, hair flying out behind her as Jesus watched us from the cross above the door.
When my dad came to pick me up, I asked him where mom was as she always came to get me on church days. Daddy said she was with Clara and Gramma and when I asked why he said he’d explain when we got home. We drove home in his pick-up and he let me choose the music the whole ride home.
The house was empty when we arrived, followed by a low sinking feeling in my back teeth I always got before a storm even when the sky was clear. Dad sat me down on the porch and opened two beers, pouring half of one out into the grass before handing it to me. I wondered absentmindedly if the beer would get the worms chewing on the soil drunk. I wondered if they would be too drunk to get home. Dad explained that Lyla had gone. I told him I knew, that she’d told me last week she was going away. Daddy started at that, shoulders jumping like a coyote backed in a corner. He smiled with tears in his eyes, sipping his beer.
“I’m not surprised. That girl always knew what was going to happen. Had your Gramma’s witchy ways about her.” He grinned, shaking his head and brushing a stray tear away with his thumb knuckle. Daddy opened his second beer as he explained that Lyla’s name got pulled and she wasn’t going somewhere you came back from. Boys don’t cry, even when it hurts, daddy always taught me that, but he had cried too so I thought maybe this time it was allowed as I put my head in my hands. Daddy put a hand on my shoulder and let me cry it out as the moon slid slowly out from behind the blacktops, until I felt the whole sky would fill up with all that grief stacked up on our shoulders.
It was two summers after Lyla had gone. I was fourteen, had started high school. Me and Tommy had decided to shave our heads and start lifting weights my uncles let us borrow, determined to be the hardest guys to walk the hallways when we got back. Beth had even done us matching tattoos on the backs of our shoulders with a biro and her momma’s sewing needle, matching crosses, bone turned holy before we’d fully grown. Gramps let me borrow his truck sometimes, and me and Tommy would drive to the McDonalds in the next town over ‘cause our town didn’t have one. Sometimes we’d take the girls with us, impressed by four wheels and the promise of a milkshake, even though they intimidated us a little. Girls in our town were like wild animals. They could drink more than both of us combined, wore their skirts short enough that you didn’t have to imagine that hard what was underneath. When they kissed they were all teeth and hands.
Beth and Leanne grew up fast. Leanne had her tongue pierced and liked to take boys under the bleachers when she got bored. Tommy was one of those boys, came back to me with stories of belt loops and lip gloss stains. Beth said the girls in our town were ticking time bombs that had no idea when they were gonna go off. Beth once kissed me in the back of my daddy’s truck after I’d driven her home, in the winter when snow had turned the mountains into ghosts. She’d asked me to stay and have a smoke with her, said it made her lonely doing it by herself. She’d tasted red, like the cherry wine her older sisters gave her and she undid her winter coat and put my hands inside her shirt. I could feel her heartbeat through my palms. When her hand moved down to the zipper on my Levi’s I pushed her away, gently, remembering Lyla’s warning. She’d cried then, and I’d held her, fourteen and unsure what to do but kiss her forehead do her coat back up. She told me if she was still here when we graduated she was gonna love me forever.
* * * * * *
It was the night before the last Sunday of summer. The sun had all but gone from the sky, leaving town in a hurry. I’d gone to bed early that night, a low sinking feeling in the back of my teeth like the ones I’d get before watching a game our football team would eventually lose. Outside the windows I heard the coyotes start to sing, weaving their voices with the night birds high up in the trees. I could hear the TV on downstairs, drifting upstairs like muffled waves. I dreamt about Lyla running through the purple sky, hair streaming out behind her. I’d had this dream many times before, and each time I ran after her she’d be too fast, leaving me behind. But this time she turned around and stretched her arms wide out towards me. Her voice was slow, like she was talking through a wall, lagging in time.
“Swim, Wren! You have to swim!” she said, eyes wide as she pointed behind me. I turned as a wall of lake water rushed at me, pulling me under into the deep.
I woke up sweating, sheets a tangled mess beneath my back. The sky outside was turning blue, streaked up with gold like God spilled something across it. I could hear my heart banging so loud it sounded like it was coming from every direction. There was a wetness between my legs I could feel on the insides of my thighs. I yanked the sheets back and my hand came back red and sticky with blood. I yelled for my momma, convinced I was dying, organs bleeding out through my stomach. My heartbeat was so loud I held my head in my hands. Mom ran into my room. She saw the blood on my hands and collapsed on the ground, knees bending like she was about to pray.
“Jesus, forgive us,” she started to cry. I saw Daddy grab his gun from under the bed and stand at the top of the stairs. “Please forgive us.”
“They’re coming, Lorna, not a thing we can do.” He turned to look at me over his shoulder and something like the seven stages of grief passed over his face faster than I could keep up with. “Wren. I’m so sorry. We thought we could save you.”
The banging was now so loud it was shaking the walls, and as the front door was kicked in I realized it wasn’t my heart at all but the sounds of fists on the walls of our house. Gramps ran up the stairs followed by Gramma who was clawing at his arms, wild, trying to hold him back. He pushed her aside. He looked down the barrel of my daddy’s gun and dad handed it over silently, turning away with his eyes closed as mom screamed at him. Mom jumped from the floor and stood in front of me like she was shielding me.
“Step aside, Lorna.” Mom shook her head. Gramps stepped towards her, pointing the gun. “Don’t think I won’t. It’s the way things have always been, and the way they always must. Step aside!”
“Momma.” I stood, hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her aside to face my grandfather. This was the same man who taught me to drive, the man who gave me my first beer, the man who sat up with me all night during thunderstorms when I was little, sitting under the kitchen table with me as I cowered and telling me it was just God moving his furniture and there was nothing to be afraid of. The same man who was now pointing a gun towards the center of my chest. He was crying, I realized, which scared me even more. I’d never even heard of my Gramps crying, not on his wedding day, not even when Lyla went away. He gritted his teeth and held out a hand towards me.
“You best come with me, Wren.” So I did.
* * * * * *
We drove to the lake in silence. In the glare of the taillights, I could pick out daddy’s truck following behind. I studied my Gramps, watched his hands on the wheel, the button on his shirt he’d missed, obviously dressing in a hurry. I had nothing left to say to him, so I didn’t. When we got to the water, most of the town was already there, lined up along the lakeside. All the girls were dressed in white, with flowers in their hair. Gramps opened the door. He hesitated and tugged the rosary down from where it hung on the rearview mirror and placed it around my neck. He walked me to the water and everyone stared in eerie silence. It was as if the people in town moved as one, the closer I looked, all of their chests rising and falling at the same time as they slowly raised their left hands to point at me from the crescent they made around the lakeside. Gramps turned to momma, who had come up behind us, held up by dad as she cried, grief trying to pull her bones to the ground.
“Please, Lorna. Please don’t make this worse than it needs to be. Wren deserves that at least.”
I saw Tommy and his momma in the crowd. Both were blank-faced and pointing, even when I caught Tommy’s eye. His momma’s wedding ring flashed on her finger, still there even after all these years. I felt a hand slowly slide into my own, knotting our fingers together. Me and my mother walked into the lake together. The water was cool around my waist as we stood facing each other, me in my ratty t-shirt and her in her sweatpants. She smiled, bottom lip held fast by her teeth to stop the shaking as the tears kept coming. She held my face in her hands a moment, staring into the green of my eyes we both shared, same as Gramma. Same as Lyla. I had none of my daddy’s brown-eyed ways about me, just that strange light green. Momma cradled me a moment in the water and dipped me low.
The lake rushed over my head, cool green and soothing, like fingers running through my hair. I thought I could hear singing, soft and half-drowned sounds about apple trees and murdered lovers. And suddenly I understood everything about everyone in town. It was like the lights turning on after being born in the dark, terrifying and brilliant all at the same time. I knew why Tommy’s daddy swam into the lake. I knew why Jonah drank at home alone on his twin size mattress. I knew why Beth’s parents had divorced when she was small. I knew what the preacher really did on Sunday nights at the strip club in the next town over. I knew why the girl that sat behind me in math had hidden scars all the way up both of her legs from ankle to hipbone. I knew that Lyla had known she was going to die the last time I saw her. I knew every story and addiction and sin from the people that had raised me, the people I’d grown up with, every dirty thing behind every closed door, every unsung act of kindness and salvation, beatings and bruises and love, so much love, all wrapped up in hundreds of heartbeats from my neighbors and friends and the strangers I’d pass on the streets of our town every day.
My head broke the surface of the water and I knew what was really between my legs, that when my momma had felt that first kick in her stomach like all the women in our family she had known what would happen, had felt that low pain in her back teeth that I would be born a girl, green-eyed and raised to be swallowed by the lake. So she and my daddy had made a decision, to raise me safely, to protect me from the thing that kept our town’s blood flowing. I saw my whole life around me as I went under again, every rule they’d made, every passing piece of advice that was carefully constructed to keep my reality intact. A secret my parents had carried around with them for fourteen summers. But you can’t hide from nature.
I felt it then, the thing under the lake, older than anything up on the land, with our fragile bones and thin minds, our Gods and our houses, somewhere deep within the water. I felt it calling me, tugging at my ribs and lungs. I started to wade out into the deeper water, the lake slowly rising up to my ribs. My mother made me when I grew inside her, and as I left my mother behind, I forgave her. I forgave my daddy for not fighting what was inevitable. I forgave my uncles and aunties, the people my little cousins would grow up to be. I forgave my Gramps for the rage and the grief that had got the better of him. I forgave my Gramma for not telling me sooner. I forgave everyone in the whole damn town standing up on the lakeside watching me go, all the terrible and beautiful things they would do and had done throughout their long, little lives. The lake reached up to my jaw and started filling my mouth, cool against my tongue. I felt the trees shift in the dirt, felt the chain-link fences in the backyards swaying, felt the bends in the roads and the fruit as it grew. I felt everything and I knew everything. I heard Lyla’s voice calling me from the other side, through the mist. I imagined her red hair floating on the lake surface, like blood, or strange flowers.
“Swim, Wren. You gotta swim.”
And so I did.
|
It was in the year of our Lord 1778, when I, Frank Aaron McDougall, made voyage from Ireland, carried upon the wind of freedom was I bound towards that shining light across the sea, to meet up with me brother Newly and his kinfolk, in the Carolinas. It was a fair and prosperous land he proclaimed, free from the tyranny of the king’s clerics and their prying eyes…an ocean away it was…a world apart he said.
So, being inclined, I hawked all me worldly possessions and made passage with my dearest wife and sweetheart Cathy. My wee, gentle son Tom Tom, who was taut of tongue, but so meek and mild was he, he could even charm the fairies from all their worldly treasures… pure gold, the lad was. And his elder sisters Ruthann and Elizabeth, being the very spitting image of their own beautiful mother, as lovely as Eve they were upon creations first dawn.
We were now to be christened Overmountain Men for the cities wouldn’t have us, dunked in their shameful baptismal of disdain as me brother would come later to explain (being he more tongue and cheek, of course, as he bellyached and told), “For one reason or another they have sharpened their scalping knives against us, brother!”
But in his heart he knew it was because we were Calvinists, and being undeterred in the least I laid me money down in exchange for some acreage adjoining his…for as he gloated, “The earth is so very rich you can grow anythin’, why even me roosters are laying eggs now. And don’t ya even get me started about me pigs…their size of horses and me cows are a sight to behold, like great, lumbering elephants they are. I tell ya, you’d have to raise barns the size of heaven’s chapel to store such a bountiful harvest… nothin’ but milk and honey as far as the eye can grasp!”
And so, needing no further swaying, I built the family a little cabin, for a mangler of both wood and words am I. For carpentry was to be me trade and doodling in this journal when time pens me down by the ears, when me hands grow idle and when me back won’t bend and thus these fingers of mine begin to twitch. But, alas, farming was another earthly matter altogether, I being a tiller of wood and not of earth hadn’t dealt with before or much studied on, but God being merciful had in his providence blessed me brother with a green thumb and one to spare, you’d almost swear he had five of ’em at times how the ground obeyed him. But, alas, from cradle to grave we tread a world of pitfalls to only realize the peril once it’s too late.
Aye, I remember it as if it was only yesterday, the memory is as clear as the lagoons of the Isle of Skye.
I, as usual, was finishing up clearing away me field with me good, ole, mule Daisy leading the way, when all of a sudden-like, as fast as ricking an ankle bone, she fell into a gap left by an old, rotten stump. It must’ve been the most long-rooted thing to ever push its ugly face through the topside of God’s green earth, and now caught tighter than a quirk she was…wedged in its nook. And not being able to budge her in the least without bustin’ a gut, I threw me hands up and hastened to fetch me brother…being two shovels faster than one…thus we resolved to dig her out.
And upon our return Newly complained, “Are you pulling me leg now, I with my own fields to tend to and a wife expecting…is this not April Fools’ then?” For by thunder there stood Daisy leisurely ambling about, and judging from my expression me brother believed me report and suggested, “Maybe it was some Cherokee having a bit of fun with ya.” And being mostly relieved I thought, if it was I could have surely kissed each and every one of ’em…God bless ’em all I said for every ear to hear!
So giving no further mind to it I soon commenced to planting me crops, when then I first became aware of my son Tom Tom spending more time exploring about the rim of the wood, and thus I would call a warning out to him,” Don’t ya leave me eye, son, and watch out for those bugaboos, they’ll nab ya given half a try!”
And before long I would be lost in me work again rootin’ around like some critter in the dark loam of the earth. And now as I think back upon it, the boy was most probably gone for hours at a time. Being I so fearful of me crops and all, I paid no never mind to his wonderings, for my time was held captive by the field and plow, I had none to spare and with hungry mouths to feed, no less. But thankfully though his speech was improving a bit, and that’s when I first heard the ring of Toby’s name as young Tom Tom struck out as a meteor from the clear blue and said, “Toby likes to smile a lot. He…he has big square teeth. He…he don’t talk so good either like me.”
“Who on earth is Toby, boy?” I inquired.
“He…he’s the man that lives in the woods, he…he’s the man that pulled Daisy out.”
“Ah, the man that pulled Daisy out ya say, well,” I asked,” did he have any friends to add him, any?”
“Nope,” the child simply answered,” it was just he…he…him.”
“I see, I see,” I replied just going along with his ruse, “he must be a really big fella, then?”
“Yes!” Tom Tom excitedly shouted.
“Well,” I jested, “if you ever see him again, would ya kindly ask him to pull the rest of these stumps out of the ground for your poor, old da (dad), me back is killing me something fierce don’t ya know?”
And then the youngin’ came up with a real doozy and said, “I think he…he…his name is really Mo…ho…be, but he…he likes it when I call him Toby, it makes him smile all the bigger. He…he calls me Ka-knock-a-too (which means little foot).”
Then the boy said as he stretched his palm high above his head whilst standing on the very end of his tippy toes, “He…he lets me stand in his hand, and he…he picks me up way like this, so I can see all the pretty birds in the trees!”
Why, I almost wanted to believe the little charlatan as I replied, “That is a mighty big fella, and his name is Mohobe you say?”
“That’s it,” he said, “and he…he has a dog too, a great, big, ole wolf. He…he saved him when he was just a wee pup.”
“He did now,” I asked,” and how did he go about doing that?”
“He…he got stuck between two big rocks one day,” he told,” and Toby showed me the one he…he broke in half to get’em out…Toby is really strong!”
“That he is lad,” I replied with a great big smile on me face, “as well as having a fine name, too. It must be nice to have a Toby always pulling ya out of a jam when ya find yourself in a fix?”
Then listening to the rumblings of me stomach I asked,” Do ya have any of that fine cornbread left your mother gave ya, I’m hungry enough to eat a nest full of buzzards eggs I am? “
“Nope,” he replied, “I shared it all with Toby, he…he really loves momma’s cornbread a whole bunch he does.”
“Well,” I said being hungrier than ever, “we best be gettin’ home for some supper, or your mother will be sorely cross with us, and we can’t have that can we.”
And then I told having a bit of fun with him, “Now, I might not be able to tote ya in me hand and all, but I bet me bottom-dollar I can give ya a left on me shoulders!”
And off we went a-ripping and a-blazing and a-cutting up all the way home, we made such a merry ole time of it, there was none better in all the world. Then later on in the evening, after supper, with all the youngin’s nestled away for the night I told my Cathy about our Tom Tom’s newest acquaintance as I whispered into her ear, “Do ya know our son has an ogre for an imaginary friend, I never heard him talk so much in me life. It’s like how many pixies can do a jig on the end of your pinky…as many as ya want. He has an awfully big imagination as big as his friend.”
“Praise be,” my Cathy softly spoke as not to wake the children, “it does my heart well. But are ya sure, Frank? He may not be fibbing, for I never known him to tell a lie before. It’s like if he said he seen a chicken dipping some tobacco, all you have to do is check under its wing to find its snuff box.”
“It has to be darling,” I replied, “for no one man could have pulled Daisy out… not by himself. No…no there’s not a man made of earth nor under heaven’s eye can do that sort of feat.”
“If you say so dear,” my Cathy softly replied, and thus we drifted off to sleep pondering such things as they were. When not too long afterwards then, upon the following morning, I sprang as a rule straight in me bed, in the most, dread, mortal fear, to the shrillest shriek of death I ever before heard in all me thirty-two years, for it was my Cathy a-hollering and a-yelling from atop the planks of me porch, making such a ruckus as even to wake the slumbering dead in their eternal rest. And as I came a-bustin’ out the door half out of me wits and still half asleep was I, almost too afraid to ask what was the ungodly matter, or who or what had died, when then I nearly tripped over a slain deer left on me front stoop. It took me a second to consider our predicament, and thus I reasoned as I reassured her and said, “Don’t ya be a-worryin’ darling, it was only Newly leaving us some fresh venison.”
And she too agreed and replied, “It’ll be brammer (lovely) to have some meat in our potato soup; it’ll fill it out nicely it will.”
And so we went on about our business, when out of the corner of our eye we spied little Tom Tom standing upon the edge of the field facing the wood, as a pastor towards his congregation just chattering away when my Cathy remarked, “Isn’t it sweet, his preaching to the fairies which live in the trees.”
Then she called out to him, “Tom Tom, come and get your breakfast before it gets cold!”
And not long after which I began to dress out the stag with me good, ole, handy, buck knife, when suddenly it struck me queer not to find a wound upon it. My eyes, indeed, would go blind before finding a mark, when then I figured it was only me brother and his Indian ways which fell the deer. Therefore, I purposed to ask him this very question later, when time permitted, for I too now had a field to tend to so off I went with hoe in hand to render me daily labor whilst whistling a lively tune. But still the question caused me some fret, but, however, the notion had soon sprouted legs and taken an’ skedaddle, for mine eyes angrily beheld something had been eaten on me peppers and potatoes, in a little corner patch I had planted, and I seen whatever it was had stopped at the radishes only taking a single bite from one and discarding the rest. And now too I found myself preaching to the trees and saying, “That serves ya right ya dirty bugger…gnaw on that for a while will ya!”
As I shook me fist in the air for cause of all me work and sore back and all, and so I thought in me displeasure, “Oh well, I’ll have to be doing it all over again, like one time wasn’t enough already!” – a fact which gave me no greater lament, it was the vexation of vexations…a true bother it was. But, nevertheless, me dark mood would lighten up again, not wanting me family to see an angry scowl upon me face and all. And when gettin’ home in the evening I asked my Cathy, “Where on earth has Tom Tom been all the-do-long-day, I haven’t seen hide nor hair the little June bug since breakfast?”
And as she pointed out the window and informed, “There he is, he’s been there quite a spell now just talking away he is.”
Then I inquired of her, “Do ya not see that darling at all? What ya talkin’ about?”
She unknowingly replied. “That tree in front of our Tom Tom,” I said, “there’s not a lick of wind yet it is swaying back and forth.”
And then my Cathy with her eyes being young as they were and sharper than mine strained all the harder to see, when suddenly all her color ran out. Her face became as pure alabaster it was (which gave me quite a scare, the most awful sight I must say). For was she not then petrified as Edith, Lot’s once betrothed as she longingly gazed back towards that evil city’s destruction, as she then most stridently screamed aloud and said, “That’s not a tree…Dear Lord! Tom Tom, get away from there now! RUN… RUN!” she cried as she smacked the door, hightailin’ it whilst pulling at the ringlets of her chestnut, brown hair, with me no sooner trailing after her flowery skirt tail, no less.
Now, yelling too, for what thing I knew not, but my darling Cathy had seen something and that was for certain sure. Now our Tom Tom being a good boy, he heeded his mother and I and came a-Johnny on the spot without nary a complaint, and as we met in the midst of our field my Cathy scooped him up into her anxious arms, towards her thrashing breast. Why, I never seen her so scared in all me life, as she then swung upon her heels a-blazin’ her a fiery course all the faster back to our homestead, it was as if her feet were bounding upon air never touching the ground once…so truly afraid my wife was is all the words I have to tell. And now It seemed though, the acres would never end in their merciless, endless track, they just went on and on rolling out as a hundred miles or so before us, until I reckoned me wore out legs were going to fall off for sure, and thus was I sorely tormented by the fact, that just maybe I should’ve gotten a farm just a wee bit tinier instead, for apparently me eyes were bigger than me plate I pondered. And as this thought was yet bouncing ‘round and accusing me of its various accusations, with me two lungs a-burnin’ as a red hot poker inside…now as if setting me very ribs upon fire like dry kindling it was.
When most thankfully, alas, it couldn’t have arisen any sooner as we then flew headlong through the door in our mad dash, now floppin’ we were as two fishes on the floor near winded from the heat of the race, and when finally my Cathy had found her breath again she screamed to me, “For heaven’s sakes lock the shudders and bar the door…may God have mercy upon us!”
And still not knowing I did what she bade, as she sat there just a-shiverin’ in the corner whilst holding our little Tom Tom with Ruthann and Elizabeth in now all but tears asking, “What’s wrong…what happened to momma!?”
“I don’t know girls, but everything will be alright,” I said as I tried to calm them all down…all except for little Tom Tom for he showed no fear at all. And tried though as I might, I couldn’t figure what ailed me poor wife, for my Cathy wouldn’t speak of it in fear of if she gave words to it, it would become real or something. So I asked Tom Tom directly, “What did your mother see?”
And then I seen Tom Tom loved on his mother’s neck all the harder with his tiny, little arms, as he thusly spoke with the sweetest words of encouragement as only a child could do, “Don’t ya be afraid, Toby will never hurt ya, we’re f…f…friends.”
And, alas, when me darling Cathy calmed down she said, “I don’t want ya to play with Toby no more, and stay out of the woods do ya hear.”
“Aw, do I have to, momma?” Tom Tom unhappily wined.
“I really mean it young man, or I’ll gie ye a skelpit lug (I’ll give you a slap on the ear),” His mother told, and by all appearances, it looked like she meant every word of it, and was soon to do it for sure.
And then I asked, “Dear heart, what did ya see?”
“Frank,” she finally told, “If I wasn’t such a Christian I could kill your brother for bringing us out here…a land flowing with milk and honey and giant cows, well…he didn’t say anything about monsters. It was the most evil thing I’ve ever seen, its eyes just hung there as two, great, big, ole, empty suns just staring back into my soul from a black sky.”
Oh, momma, Toby ain’t no monster, he… he’s good,” Little Tom Tom cried.
“Mind your mother dear heart,” she replied, “I don’t want to hear that beast’s name ever mentioned around here again,”
“But darling, what did ya see?” I asked again.
“I don’t want to talk about it!” she snapped, and seeing her mind was made up I let it alone, but even still I couldn’t help but saying beneath me breath, “Perhaps it was just some sort of trick of the light,” which, of course, she quickly overheard and chided, “A trick of the light me eye, I know what I saw…a monster it was!”
“Oh boy,” I thought to myself, it was going to be a long, hot night under a Carolina moon jumping at every sound and with no supper, no less. I must say I felt as helpless as a motherless child in regards to the whole ugly matter; it was like trying to resurrect the ashes in which I had no power over…it wasn’t like I was the good Lord or something. But to my surprise when morning finally came all was well again, it was as if nothin’ happened at all, and when I went out on the porch to stretch me stoved up legs I was dealt an even greater shock… for now I saw all the stumps had been pulled from the ground with their roots pointing sunny side up for the first, and that’s when I felt wee Tom Tom’s little hand in mine whilst saying, “Toby is really strong isn’t he? Toby likes potatoes, he…he hopes ya like the deer.”
And it was the first I was a-loss for words, all I could think I was going to be spending the rest of me life covering them bloody holes, but at least they were gone now thank goodness. And once I gathered me thoughts I further inquired, “Did ya ask your ogre friend to do all of this for ya poor da?”
But before the child could answer I seen me brother Newly come a-running across me field wildly flaying his arms and rifle about and yelling something about the British, and, alas, when we were finally face-to-face he told, “Let me catch me breath for a minute,” and when he had he said, “Cornwallis and his Tories have their eyes on our neck of the woods! Mind your Cathy and youngin’s and hide all your valuables…they have sticky fingers don’t ya know.”
“Are ya certain of this?” I asked.
“Trust me,” me brother said, “Ferguson is on the move and he promises to lay waste to our lands with fire and sword if we don’t surrender our arms and bend a knee to him.”
Then he said,” I sent me wife to her parents and now I’m headed directly for Sycamore Shoals to join up with Shelby and his Patriots.”
And as he was leaving he yelled over his shoulder, “Brother, when life deals ya an ax it’s best to get started to choppin’ some firewood!”
And as I turned ‘round whilst wringing me hands together as me brother fled from sight, I seen my Cathy a-glarin’ at me with those steely blue eyes of hers, which directly sent a shiver up me spine, as she now complained for goodly reason, and thus I was bracing for a “I told ya so” as she admonished, “Frank, you know I love ya and all, but God as my witness I could really kill your dumb brother…roosters laying eggs…pigs the size of horses and now the British going about despoiling the land as the Ten Plagues of Egypt…what on earth have we found ourselves in, here?”
“Yes,” I thought to myself, “what have we found ourselves in?”
A dread pondering it was which rattled ‘round as a dark pebble within the echoes of me mind. For sure, I had a bad night and now I was guaranteed to have an even worse day. What else could go wrong? – the notion stabbed betwixt me ears over and over again as a knife. Yes, it seemed we were all in the eye of a perfect cac (dung) storm blowing its stinking muck about, and all I could think, I didn’t even have to leave me own fireside and yet trouble came a-knocking. Oh well, tomorrow will be a better day I thought, so I said, “Darling, let me fix ya some breakfast? I’ll make your fritters just the way ya like’em.”
Seeing that she was still madder than a wet setting hen, of course, for her fear had long since stewed over into anger, and it was just my wee hope to smooth things over a smidge. But, alas, it wasn’t meant to be, for I hadn’t even finished with me blooming sentence yet, when I heard a rifle butt bashing against me door, and upon answering it I beheld four men dressed in summer coats, all brandishing muskets whilst saying, “Will you not join Cornwallis’ army, we need men like you to fill his ranks?”
And my reply was, “No lads, all I want is a bit of peace and be left alone.”
And it was clear the tall, skinny one wasn’t liking me answer in the least, and, too, it was as if the devil himself was peeing down his ear, no less, as he loomed there as a beanstalk, a real Skinny Malinky Longlegs he was and told, “Well then, if you’re not a loyalist and will not join the king’s army, then that either makes you a rebel or a traitor and we hang traitors around here don’t we fellas?”
And thus they all agreed hankering to see some killing, and then he commanded the others by saying, “Now drag this man out and hang him upon yonder oak!”
And as they were drawing me to the tree of my most certain demise I argued with them, “What gives ya the right to murder a man in cold blood!? Do ya not see I have a poor family that’ll be left all alone to fend for themselves in this pitiless world!?”
Hence the tall, skinny one being in charge glibly said, which, of course, his words didn’t exactly inspire confidence in me grim future and all (being he now only interested in stealing and plundering, no doubt), “I tell ya what gives us the right, the king and his parliament and Ole Miss Brown Bess here.”
And as he patted his gun and further told, “Hell has no currency, but it pays its debts in flesh, now string him up…I want to see ’em dance, and mind ya not to bind his hands for sure!”
And then they left me there with not even a bloody bucket to stand on anymore, a- strangling for me breath and a-kicking as I swung back and forth as some ghastly pendulum held betwixt the earth and sky, as I listened to the wails of my family a-squalling. All except for my little Tom Tom, all he did was just stand there and called out, “Whoop…whoop…whooooop!” as loud as his wee lungs could carry.
As all the while the heartless bandits, these Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse, chuckled and blithely exclaimed, “The boy has lost his mind seeing his father dying!”
And after which the little, runty one petitioned with his dark eyes as black as the Earl of Hell’s Waistcoat itself and said, “Let me stick ’em with my knife, boss, so as he will shut his mouth up?”
And the tall, skinny one answered now appearing more as a devilish scarecrow than a man, “Aye, there will be time enough later for that, boys.”
Lastly but not least, the fat grubby one with the gimpy leg most wickedly requested, as he greedily rubbed his paws together whilst wiping the tobacco juice from his snarled lips, “After his sendoff to the Great Pearly Gates…can we have some horizontal refreshments with his lady folks?” (As saying this he grotesquely chewed away on his tobacco plug as a gruff Billy goat giggling the whole time.)
And thus the tall, skinny one, that dread, scraggy scarecrow of a man said as he smiled with the most vile grin, revealing his blackened, dead teeth, all spread out like rotten fencepost in his foul mouth, “There must be a bit of gypsy in ya for ya read my mind to a tee.”
And thus all started to their snickering, which made me blood boil all the harder as I tried to kick at them with me loose feet. Which, however, only served them to taunt me more as now the murderous scarecrow cruelly bragged, “Best to get all your sinning and killing done while you’re still livin’ ‘cause you’re going to be dead for an awful long time, and ole Death won’t be letting ya have any fun now will he.”
And as before all commenced to laughing and slapping each other’s backsides once more, as then the fat grubby one said whilst scratching his gimpy leg, “We’re all going to be bustin’ some hell wide open when we be getting there…aren’t we, boss!?”
“Ah,” replied the scarecrow, “Hell is a far richer place to be than being a dead-end drunk livin’ down a dead-end track, just like my sorry, ole paw…for I put that mad dog down with a frying pan without touching a single drop. Yes, best to be doing all of ya debauchery while you’re still sober, and afterwards you can study the rum…it gives ya something to look forward to doesn’t it, boys?“
And if like that wasn’t already horrible enough he said, “We’re going to be a sight to behold…we want be playing no second fiddles there I give ya my word!”
“We be the devils very own flesh puppets,” threw in the fat grubby one just for sorry measure he did (and judging from the cut of his eye), “who can stop us from having his fun.”
“It’s of no concern of ours,” squawked the little runty one, “we’re going to be a-livin’ to be a ripe old age and that’s for sure.”
“True,” replied the scarecrow with a wink, “ it’s because of all these pure thoughts and clean livin’ we been practicing,” – which only made them belly laugh all the harder a second, until it seemed their sides were going to burst from all their sickening joy.
When then I heard Tom Tom started to his whooping and hollering again, when without warning the little, runty one bloodied my son’s mouth by given him the backside of his boney hand, now striking our wee Tom Tom down with his blinding swipe and crowing, “That’ll teach ya to shut your clatter-trap, boy!”
Oh, how I wanted to lay hands on ’em to kill’em, but, alas, with all me squirming the rope slipped tighter around me windpipe, and as I was drawing in me last breath, as I seen the world a-passin’ before me eyes as one funeral at a time, and, alas, it was mine with me poor family soon to follow for sure, by the hands of these murderous cutthroats, no doubt.
Now all I was left was with me unanswered prayers as I dangled there at the end of me rope, when all of a sudden-like it felt I was kicked square in me chest with a full-sized boot, with that of a booming roar so mightily deep, so long and drawn it was, it had the voice of a thunderous waterfall crashing upon rock, which was then quickly proceeded by a great tearing through the wood. It all very much sounded to me as a team of draft had broken free whilst hauling a heavy log, as now the tall, skinny one, that dread beanstalk of a scarecrow having the filthy smirk wiped clean from his face most fearful inquired in his consternation, “What in hell’s creation is that infernal noise…has the devil called forth his unholy choir…Damnation, what is that commotion drawing nigh!?”
For now what raced across me field upon the fleetest, most agile feet…even faster I swear than the hooves of the swiftest deer…what appeared to be as a wild man ten or more feet tall…as a raging Irishman he was, all covered in reddish-brown fur. I never seen anythin’ so big and fast in all me life, for he was upon us in an instant…within the twinkling of an eye. So sudden it all was (striking like a disaster) that no one had time to even utter a word…much less cry out. For now it all became as the fox which found itself in the chicken house to steal itself a hen only to realize a ravenous lion in its wait.
When suddenly, as from nowhere, the hairy giant landed in our midst as a blinding bolt, as a great, flaming mountain was he, as he kicked the fat grubby one with the gimpy leg dead-level in his stinking, pot belly, (now making it was the most terrible crunch) as it sent him a-sailing as some unspeakable, ghastly ball with his stubby arms and legs cartwheeling for better than twenty yards or more…just as he grabbed and broke the rope I was slowly strangling on. All mind you, whilst he was going about this goodly deed, he held in his other hand the barrel end of the tall, skinning one’s musket, which then the murderous scarecrow promptly fired into his massive chest, and with but a jerk the giant flung the man, he and his rifle over me field. He was now as a scarecrow riding a witch’s a broom, cawing all the way through a flock of blackbirds, for, alas, he held on to his gun to the bitter end as he landed on me picket fence with a great, crashing thud.
Then the raging giant with his now free other hand became he as a gardener and plucked the head clean off the other, as a crofter would a rotten apple from its laden branch. And lastly he laid holt to the little, runty one by his scrawny shins and began to wield him as an ax to the oak, now girdling his body ‘round what was intended to be my death tree for sure.
And, alas, when all was said in done, (when the bloody butcher’s bill was paid in full) he just stood there with my little Tom Tom clinging to his gargantuan leg. Then my Cathy Said, “He’s not pretty and I’m not ugly, but he’s the most darling thing I’ve ever seen.”
“That he is.” I replied as I wiped the blood from me eyes for cause of all my choking, and after a brief coughing spell I cleared me throat and finished with me saying, “Ya can have all the vittles from me field and cornbread ya want. Why, ya can even take supper with us at the dinner table if ya like.”
And that’s when these eyes still being a bit blurry from me botched hanging and all, had spotted a little trickle of blood issuing forth from his colossal chest, and I could just barely make out the hind end of the lead shot peering, and thus I marveled how his physique had stopped the ball dead in its track.
He was as a thousand pounds of iron with the strength of Sampson no man or beast on earth could stand against when he was crossed. Still me ole puzzler (mind) was scattered about a bit, which left me with a terrible ringing in me ears, but at least it wasn’t as a belfry going off in me head no more, as mercifully it had begun to slacken off as me blood flow resumed its natural course from me neck up, when suddenly I heard my Cathy exclaim with her hand to her forehead, “Dear Lord, Frank, we’ve got to get rid of all these corpses, for what will we tell the constable…we certainly can’t bring up Toby can we!?”
Yes, I pondered, bodies are, indeed, a hard thing to explain away, and then the thought popped in me head and went straight to me mouth without stumbling once, “We’ll plant ’em as hole fillers for the stumps. They weren’t much good for anything else in life, but they will make great compost for me plants.”
And then as I craned me head up towards Toby now lost in his shadow was I, with me neck still a-paining me something fierce…still feeling much like a limp noodle and a foot longer it was and said, “I don’t know exactly who are what ya are, or whence ya come from, or where ya bound, but I do know there’s good in your heart, for ya found a place in it for our Tom Tom.”
And then I thanked him and told, “You’re a far sight better than most, ya ask for nothin’ yet ya give so much of yourself…thank ya for saving our lives and all ya done…may God bless ya for doing it.”
And as he looked down upon me now mollycoddling my wee youngin’ so friendly in his tree-like arms, I swear I saw him crack a great, big ole smile, and, by George, Tom Tom wasn’t lying, for he did have big, square teeth after all.
Now it was all so very amazing and once again I was glaikit (stupid) for words, I had none to spare or explain…for how could I. And so time being no man’s friend we went about our business of planted the nameless rogues, just as nameless they were as from the accursed day their poor mothers birthed them, and mercifully no one was ever the wiser, all except for the worms, of course, and they tell no tales…all glory to the heavens above be praised
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Part 1
Let me start by saying that Peter Terry was addicted to heroin.
We were friends in college and continued to be after I graduated. Notice that I said “I”. He dropped out after two years of barely cutting it. After I moved out of the dorms and into a small apartment, I didn’t see Peter as much. We would talk online every now and then (AIM was king in pre-Facebook years). There was a period where he wasn’t online for about five weeks straight. I wasn’t worried. He was a pretty notorious flake and drug addict, so I assumed he just stopped caring. Then one night I saw him log on. Before I could initiate a conversation, he sent me a message.
“David, man, we need to talk.”
That was when he told me about the NoEnd House. It got that name because no one had ever reached the final exit. The rules were pretty simple and cliche: reach the final room of the building and you win $500. There were nine rooms in all. The house was located outside the city, roughly four miles from my house. Apparently, Peter had tried and failed. He was a heroin and who-knows-what-the-fuck addict, so I figured the drugs got the best of him and he wigged out at a paper ghost or something. He told me it would be too much for anyone. That it was unnatural.
I didn’t believe him. I told him I would check it out the next night and no matter how hard he tried to convince me otherwise, $500 sounded too good to be true. I had to go. I set out the following night.
When I arrived, I immediately noticed something strange about the building. Have you ever seen or read something that shouldn’t be scary, but for some reason a chill crawls up your spine? I walked toward the building and the feeling of uneasiness only intensified as I opened the front door.
My heart slowed and I let a relieved sigh leave me as I entered. The room looked like a normal hotel lobby decorated for Halloween. A sign was posted in place of a worker. It read, “Room 1 this way. Eight more follow. Reach the end and you win!” I chuckled and made my way to the first door.
The first area was almost laughable. The decor resembled the Halloween aisle of a K-Mart, complete with sheet ghosts and animatronic zombies that gave a static growl when you passed by. At the far end was an exit; it was the only door besides the one I entered through. I brushed through the fake spider webs and headed for the second room.
I was greeted by fog as I opened the door to room two. The room definitely upped the ante in terms of technology. Not only was there a fog machine, but a bat hung from the ceiling and flew in a circle. Scary. They seemed to have a Halloween soundtrack that one would find in a 99 cent store on loop somewhere in the room. I didn’t see a stereo, but I guessed they must have used a PA system. I stepped over a few toy rats that wheeled around and walked with a puffed chest across to the next area.
I reached for the doorknob and my heart sank to my knees. I did not want to open that door. A feeling of dread hit me so hard I could barely even think. Logic overtook me after a few terrifying moments, and I shook it off and entered the next room.
Room three is when things began to change.
On the surface, it looked like a normal room. There was a chair in the middle of the wood-paneled floor. A single lamp in the corner did a poor job of lighting the area, casting a few shadows across the floor and walls. That was the problem. Shadows. Plural.
With the exception of the chair’s, there were others. I had barely walked in the door and I was already terrified. It was at that moment that I knew something wasn’t right. I didn’t even think as I automatically tried to open the door I came through. It was locked from the other side.
That set me off. Was someone locking the doors as I progressed? There was no way. I would have heard them. Was it a mechanical lock that set automatically? Maybe. But I was too scared to really think. I turned back to the room and the shadows were gone. The chair’s shadow remained, but the others were gone. I slowly began to walk. I used to hallucinate when I was a kid, so I wrote off the shadows as a figment of my imagination. I began to feel better as I made it to the halfway point of the room. I looked down as I took my steps and that’s when I saw it.
Or didn’t see it. My shadow wasn’t there. I didn’t have time to scream. I ran as fast as I could to the other door and flung myself without thinking into the room beyond.
The fourth room was possibly the most disturbing. As I closed the door, all light seemed to be sucked out and put back into the previous room. I stood there, surrounded by darkness, not able to move. I’m not afraid of the dark and never have been, but I was absolutely terrified. All sight had left me. I held my hand in front of my face and if I didn’t know what I was doing, I would never have been able to tell. Darkness doesn’t describe it. I couldn’t hear anything. It was dead silence. When you’re in a sound-proof room, you can still hear yourself breathing. You can hear yourself being alive.
I couldn’t.
I began to stumble forward after a few moments, my rapidly beating heart the only thing I could feel. There was no door in sight. Wasn’t even sure there was one this time. The silence was then broken by a low hum.
I felt something behind me. I spun around wildly but could barely even see my nose. I knew it was there, though. Regardless of how dark it was, I knew something was there. The hum grew louder, closer. It seemed to surround me, but I knew whatever was causing the noise was in front of me, inching closer. I took a step back; I had never felt that kind of fear. I can’t really describe true fear. I wasn’t even scared I was going to die; I was scared of what the alternative was. I was afraid of what this thing had in store for me. Then the lights flashed for a second and I saw it.
Nothing. I saw nothing and I know I saw nothing there. The room was again plunged into darkness and the hum became a wild screech. I screamed in protest; I couldn’t hear this goddamn sound for another minute. I ran backwards, away from the noise, and fumbled for the door handle. I turned and fell into room five.
Before I describe room five, you have to understand something. I am not a drug addict. I have had no history of drug abuse or any sort of psychosis short of the childhood hallucinations I mentioned earlier, and those were only when I was really tired or just waking up. I entered the NoEnd House with a clear head.
After falling in from the previous room, my view of room five was from my back, looking up at the ceiling. What I saw didn’t scare me; it simply surprised me. Trees had grown into the room and towered above my head. The ceilings in this room were taller than the others, which made me think I was in the center of the house. I got up off the floor, dusted myself off, and took a look around. It was definitely the biggest room of them all. I couldn’t even see the door from where I was; various brush and trees must have blocked my line of sight with the exit.
Up to this point, I figured the rooms were going to get scarier, but this was a paradise compared to the last room. I also assumed whatever was in room four stayed back there. I was incredibly wrong.
As I made my way deeper into the room, I began to hear what one would hear if they were in a forest; chirping bugs and the occasional flap of birds seemed to be my only company in this room. That was the thing that bothered me the most. I heard the bugs and other animals, but I didn’t see any of them. I began to wonder how big this house was. From the outside when I first walked up to it, it looked like a regular house. It was definitely on the bigger side, but this was almost a full forest in here. The canopy covered my view of the ceiling, but I assumed it was still there, however high it was. I couldn’t see any walls, either. The only way I knew I was still inside was that the floor matched the other rooms: the standard dark wood paneling.
I kept walking, hoping that the next tree I passed would reveal the door. After a few moments of walking, I felt a mosquito fly onto my arm. I shook it off and kept going. A second later, I felt about ten more land on my skin at different places. I felt them crawl up and down my arms and legs and a few made their way across my face. I flailed wildly to get them all off but they just kept crawling. I looked down and let out a muffled scream – more of a whimper, to be honest. I didn’t see a single bug. Not one bug was on me, but I could feel them crawl. I heard them fly by my face and sting my skin but I couldn’t see a single one. I dropped to the ground and began to roll wildly. I was desperate. I hated bugs, especially ones I couldn’t see or touch. But these bugs could touch me and they were everywhere.
I began to crawl. I had no idea where I was going; the entrance was nowhere in sight and I still hadn’t even seen the exit. So I just crawled, my skin wriggling with the presence of those phantom bugs. After what seemed like hours, I found the door. I grabbed the nearest tree and propped myself up, mindlessly slapping my arms and legs to no avail. I tried to run, but I couldn’t; my body was exhausted from crawling and dealing with whatever it was that was on me. I took a few shaky steps to the door, grabbing each tree on the way for support.
It was only a few feet away when I heard it. The low hum from before. It was coming from the next room and it was deeper. I could almost feel it inside my body, like when you stand next to an amp at a concert. The feeling of the bugs on me lessened as the hum grew louder. As I placed my hand on the doorknob, the bugs were completely gone but I couldn’t bring myself to turn the knob. I knew that if I let go, the bugs would return and there was no way I would make it back to room four. I just stood there, my head pressed against the door marked six and my hand shakily grasping the knob. The hum was so loud I couldn’t even hear myself pretend to think. There was nothing I could do but move on. Room six was next, and room six was Hell.
I closed the door behind me, my eyes held shut and my ears ringing. The hum was surrounding me. As the door clicked into place, the hum was gone. I opened my eyes in surprise and the door I had shut was gone. It was just a wall now. I looked around in shock. The room was identical to room three – the same chair and lamp – but with the correct amount of shadows this time. The only real difference was that there was no exit door and the one I came in through was gone. As I said before, I had no previous issues in terms of mental instability, but at that moment I fell into what I now know was insanity. I didn’t scream. I didn’t make a sound.
At first I scratched softly. The wall was tough, but I knew the door was there somewhere. I just knew it was. I scratched at where the doorknob was. I clawed at the wall frantically with both hands, my nails being filed down to the skin against the wood. I fell silently to my knees, the only sound in the room the incessant scratching against the wall. I knew it was there. The door was there, I knew it was just there. I knew if I could just get past this wall –
“Are you alright?”
I jumped off the ground and spun in one motion. I leaned against the wall behind me and I saw what it was that spoke to me; to this day I regret ever turning around.
There was a little girl. She was wearing a soft, white dress that went down to her ankles. She had long blonde hair to the middle of her back and white skin and blue eyes. She was the most frightening thing I had ever seen, and I know that nothing in my life will ever be as unnerving as what I saw in her. While looking at her, I saw something else. Where she stood I saw what looked like a man’s body, only larger than normal and covered in hair. He was naked from head to toe, but his head was not human and his toes were hooves. It wasn’t the Devil, but at that moment it might as well have been. The form had the head of a ram and the snout of a wolf.
It was horrifying and it was synonymous with the little girl in front of me. They were the same form. I can’t really describe it, but I saw them at the same time. They shared the same spot in that room, but it was like looking at two separate dimensions. When I saw the girl I saw the form, and when I saw the form I saw the girl. I couldn’t speak. I could barely even see. My mind was revolting against what it was attempting to process. I had been scared before in my life and I had never been more scared than when I was trapped in the fourth room, but that was before room six. I just stood there, staring at whatever it was that spoke to me. There was no exit. I was trapped here with it. And then it spoke again.
“David, you should have listened.”
When it spoke, I heard the words of the little girl, but the other form spoke through my mind in a voice I won’t attempt to describe. There was no other sound. The voice just kept repeating that sentence over and over in my mind and I agreed. I didn’t know what to do. I was slipping into madness, yet couldn’t take my eyes off what was in front of me. I dropped to the floor. I thought I had passed out, but the room wouldn’t let me. I just wanted it to end. I was on my side, my eyes wide open and the form staring down at me. Scurrying across the floor in front of me was one of the battery-powered rats from the second room.
The house was toying with me. But for some reason, seeing that rat pulled my mind back from whatever depths it was headed and I looked around the room. I was getting out of there. I was determined to get out of that house and live and never think about this place again. I knew this room was Hell and I wasn’t ready to take up a residency. At first, it was just my eyes that moved. I searched the walls for any kind of opening. The room wasn’t that big, so it didn’t take long to soak up the entire layout. The demon still taunted me, the voice growing louder as the form stayed rooted where it stood. I placed my hand on the floor, lifted myself up to all four and turned to scan the wall behind me.
Then I saw something I couldn’t believe. The form was now right at my back, whispering into my mind how I shouldn’t have come. I felt its breath on the back of my neck, but I refused to turn around. A large rectangle was scratched into the wood, with a small dent chipped away in the center of it. Right in front of my eyes, I saw the large seven I had mindlessly etched into the wall. I knew what it was: room seven was just beyond that wall where room five was moments ago.
I don’t know how I had done it – maybe it was just my state of mind at the time – but I had created the door. I knew I had. In my madness, I had scratched into the wall what I needed the most: an exit to the next room. Room seven was close. I knew the demon was right behind me, but for some reason, it couldn’t touch me. I closed my eyes and placed both hands on the large seven in front of me. I pushed. I pushed as hard as I could. The demon was now screaming in my ear. It told me I was never leaving. It told me that this was the end but I wasn’t going to die; I was going to live there in room six with it. I wasn’t. I pushed and screamed at the top of my lungs. I knew I was going to push through the wall eventually.
I clenched my eyes shut and screamed, and the demon was gone. I was left in silence. I turned around slowly and was greeted by the room as it was when I entered: just a chair and a lamp. I couldn’t believe it, but I didn’t have time to well. I turned back to the seven and jumped back slightly. What I saw was a door. It wasn’t the one I had scratched in, but a regular door with a large seven on it. My whole body was shaking. It took me a while to turn the knob. I just stood there for a while, staring at the door. I couldn’t stay in room six. I couldn’t. But if this was only room six, I couldn’t imagine was seven had in store. I must have stood there for an hour, just staring at the seven. Finally, with a deep breath, I twisted the knob and opened the door to room seven.
I stumbled through the door mentally exhausted and physically weak. The door behind me closed and I realized where I was. I was outside. Not outside like room five, but actually outside. My eyes stung. I wanted to cry. I fell to my knees and tried but I couldn’t. I was finally out of that hell. I didn’t even care about the prize that was promised. I turned and saw that the door I just went through was the entrance. I walked to my car and drove home, thinking of how nice a shower sounded.
As I pulled up to my house, I felt uneasy. The joy of leaving NoEnd House had faded and dread was slowly building in my stomach. I shook it off as residual from the house and made my way to the front door. I entered and immediately went up to my room. There on my bed was my cat, Baskerville. He was the first living thing I had seen all night and I reached to pet him. He hissed and swiped at my hand. I recoiled in shock, as he had never acted like that. I thought, “Whatever, he’s an old cat.” I jumped in the shower and got ready for what I was expecting to be a sleepless night.
After my shower, I went to the kitchen to make something to eat. I descended the stairs and turned into the family room; what I saw would be forever burned into my mind, however. My parents were lying on the ground, naked and covered in blood. They were mutilated to near-unidentifiable states. Their limbs were removed and placed next to their bodies, and their heads were placed on their chests facing me. The most unsettling part was their expressions. They were smiling, as though they were happy to see me. I vomited and sobbed there in the family room. I didn’t know what had happened; they didn’t even live with me at the time. I was a mess. Then I saw it: a door that was never there before. A door with a large eight scrawled on it in blood.
I was still in the house. I was standing in my family room but I was in room seven. The faces of my parents smiled wider as I realized this. They weren’t my parents; they couldn’t be, but they looked exactly like them. The door marked eight was across the room, behind the mutilated bodies in front of me. I knew I had to move on, but at that moment I gave up. The smiling faces tore into my mind; they grounded me where I stood. I vomited again and nearly collapsed. Then the hum returned. It was louder than ever and it filled the house and shook the walls. The hum compelled me to walk.
I began to walk slowly, making my way closer to the door and the bodies. I could barely stand, let alone walk, and the closer I got to my parents the closer I came to suicide. The walls were now shaking so hard it seemed as though they were going to crumble, but still the faces smiled at me. As I inched closer, their eyes followed me. I was now between the two bodies, a few feet away from the door. The dismembered hands clawed their way across the carpet towards me, all while the faces continued to stare. New terror washed over me and I walked faster. I didn’t want to hear them speak. I didn’t want the voices to match those of my parents. They began to open their mouths and the hands were inches from my feet. In a dash of desperation, I lunged toward the door, threw it open, and slammed it behind me. Room eight.
I was done. After what I had just experienced, I knew there wasn’t anything else this fucking house could throw at me that I couldn’t live through. There was nothing short of the fires of Hell that I wasn’t ready for. Unfortunately, I underestimated the abilities of NoEnd House. Unfortunately, things got more disturbing, more terrifying, and more unspeakable in room eight.
I still have trouble believing what I saw in room eight. Again, the room was a carbon copy of rooms three and six, but sitting in the usually empty chair was a man. After a few seconds of disbelief, my mind finally accepted the fact that the man sitting in the chair was me. Not someone who looked like me; it was David Williams. I walked closer. I had to get a better look even though I was sure of it. He looked up at me and I noticed tears in his eyes.
“Please… please, don’t do it. Please, don’t hurt me.”
“What?” I asked. “Who are you? I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Yes, you are…” He was sobbing now. “You’re going to hurt me and I don’t want you to.” He sat in the chair with his legs up and began rocking back and forth. It was actually pretty pathetic looking, especially since he was me, identical in every way.
“Listen, who are you?” I was now only a few feet from my doppelgänger. It was the weirdest experience yet, standing there talking to myself. I wasn’t scared, but I would be soon. “Why are you-”
“You’re going to hurt me you’re going to hurt me if you want to leave you’re going to hurt me.”
“Why are you saying this? Just calm down, alright? Let’s try and figure this-” And then I saw it. The David sitting down was wearing the same clothes as me, except for a small red patch on his shirt embroidered with the number nine.
“You’re going to hurt me you’re going to hurt me don’t please you’re going to hurt me…”
My eyes didn’t leave that small number on his chest. I knew exactly what it was. The first few doors were plain and simple, but after a while, they got a little more ambiguous. Seven was scratched into the wall, but by my own hands. Eight was marked in blood above the bodies of my parents. But nine – this number was on a person, a living person. Worse still, it was on a person that looked exactly like me.
“David?” I had to ask.
“Yes… you’re going to hurt me you’re going to hurt me…” He continued to sob and rock.
He answered to David. He was me, right down to the voice. But that nine. I paced around for a few minutes while he sobbed in his chair. The room had no door and, similarly to room six, the door I came through was gone. For some reason, I assumed that scratching would get me nowhere this time. I studied the walls and floor around the chair, sticking my head underneath and seeing if anything was below. Unfortunately, there was. Below the chair was a knife. Attached was a tag that read, “To David – From Management.”
The feeling in my stomach as I read that tag was something sinister. I wanted to throw up and the last thing I wanted to do was remove that knife from under that chair. The other David was still sobbing uncontrollably. My mind was spinning into an attic of unanswerable questions. Who put this here and how did they get my name? Not to mention the fact that as I knelt on the cold wood floor I also sat in that chair, sobbing in protest of being hurt by myself. It was all too much to process. The house and the management had been playing with me this whole time. My thoughts for some reason turned to Peter and whether or not he got this far. If he did, if he met a Peter Terry sobbing in this very chair, rocking back and forth… I shook those thoughts out of my head; they didn’t matter. I took the knife from under the chair and immediately the other David went quiet.
“David,” He said in my voice, “What do you think you’re going to do?”
I lifted myself from the ground and clenched the knife in my hand.
“I’m going to get out of here.”
David was still sitting in the chair, though he was very calm now. He looked up at me with a slight grin. I couldn’t tell if he was going to laugh or strangle me. Slowly, he got up from the chair and stood, facing me. It was uncanny. His height and even the way he stood matched mine. I felt the rubber hilt of the knife in my hand and gripped it tighter. I don’t know what I was planning on doing with it, but I had a feeling I was going to need it.
“Now,” his voice was slightly deeper than my own. “I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to hurt you and I’m going to keep you here.” I didn’t respond. I just lunged and tackled him to the ground. I had mounted him and looked down, knife poised and ready. He looked up at me, terrified. It was like I was looking in a mirror. Then the hum returned, low and distant, though I still felt it deep in my body. David looked up at me as I looked down at myself. The hum was getting louder and I felt something inside me snap. With one motion, I slammed the knife into the patch on his chest and ripped down. Blackness fell on the room and I was falling.
The darkness around me was like nothing I had experienced up to that point. Room four was dark, but it didn’t come close to what was completely engulfing me. I wasn’t even sure if I was falling after a while. I felt weightless, covered in dark. Then a deep sadness came over me. I felt lost, depressed, and suicidal. The sight of my parents entered my mind. I knew it wasn’t real, but I had seen it and the mind has trouble differentiating between what is real and what isn’t. The sadness only deepened. I was in room nine for what seemed like days. The final room. And that’s exactly what it was: the end. NoEnd House had an end and I had reached it. At that moment, I gave up. I knew I would be in that in-between state forever, accompanied by nothing but darkness. Not even the hum was there to keep me sane.
I had lost all senses. I couldn’t feel myself. I couldn’t hear anything. Sight was completely useless here. I searched for a taste in my mouth and found nothing. I felt disembodied and completely lost. I knew where I was. This was Hell. Room nine was Hell. Then it happened. A light. One of those stereotypical lights at the end of the tunnel. I felt ground come up from below me and I was standing. After a moment or two of gathering my thoughts and senses, I slowly walked toward that light.
As I approached the light, it took form. It was a vertical slit down the side of an unmarked door. I slowly walked through the door and found myself back where I started: the lobby of NoEnd House. It was exactly how I left it: still empty, still decorated with childish Halloween decorations. After everything that had happened that night, I was still wary of where I was. After a few moments of normalcy, I looked around the place trying to find anything different. On the desk was a plain white envelope with my name handwritten on it. Immensely curious, yet still cautious, I mustered up the courage to open the envelope. Inside was a letter, again handwritten.
David Williams,
Congratulations! You have made it to the end of NoEnd House! Please accept this prize as a token of great achievement.
Yours forever,
Management.
With the letter were five $100 bills.
I couldn’t stop laughing. I laughed for what seemed like hours. I laughed as I walked out to my car and laughed as I drove home. I laughed as I pulled into my driveway. I laughed as I opened my front door to my house and laughed as I saw the small ten etched into the wood.
Part 2
It had been three weeks since I heard any word from David. In the six months since we started dating, we had only gone three days without talking, and that was after a pretty intense fight. There was nothing out of the ordinary when I had talked to him last, he had just mentioned that he was going to check something out a friend told him about. But then I got a really weird text the night before. It was from David, but it wasn’t from his number. It only had five words in it:
“no end dont come david”
Something was wrong. After I read that text I felt nauseous, like I was seeing something I shouldn’t. I decided to get a hold of Peter, but I had talked to this ass before. He was a deadbeat, but at least he might have some information on where David might be. I decided to log onto AIM with David’s account. I figured it would be easier to start something with Peter if he didn’t know it was me. When I logged on, he immediately messaged me.
“David?! Holy shit you had me worried I thought you went to the house.”
“What do you mean?”
“NoEnd House, man, that place I told you about I could have sworn you were gonna go.” NoEnd. This guy knew what was going on.
“Yeah, I actually couldn’t find it. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow. Where was it again?”
“No way, you already had me worried fuck that place I’ve been there you do not want to go there.”
“Peter. This is Maggie.”
“Wait… what? Where’s David?”
“I don’t know, I thought you would know but apparently not.”
“Oh, shit. Oh, shit shit, shit, shit.”
“What? Seriously, Peter, you need to tell me what’s going on.”
“I think he went to the house. It’s outside of town, maybe four miles down Terrence St. Unmarked road turn right. Shit, man, he’s gone.”
“No, I don’t think he is.”
“What are you planning on doing?”
“I’m going to get him back”
I left the next night at around eight. There wasn’t a single car the entire trip, and as I turned onto the unmarked street I saw a sign pointing down the road:
NoEnd this way
Open 24hrs
My breathing hadn’t been steady since I left my house, and seeing the house didn’t help. There weren’t any other cars around, which made me think that it wasn’t open. Light from the front stoop illuminated the surrounding area, and the windows showed that lights were on inside. I parked my car, walked up to the front, and made my way in.
The front lobby was normal enough, but as I predicted there wasn’t anyone there. All the lights were on, but no one was there. Besides the door I came through, there was only one other. Posted next to it was another sign:
Room 1 this way. Eight more follow. Reach the end and you win!
That wasn’t what made my stomach sink. That wasn’t what stopped my heart. There was more below, scrawled and handwritten in red:
You won’t save him.
I must have stood in the lobby for an hour. I was frozen. I didn’t know how to go on. Did I go through the door? Did I call the police? After reading the sign I decided that I may have bitten off more than I could chew. I’m average height for a girl, but pretty thin. I wasn’t about to fight off some psycho that was holding David hostage. I decided calling the cops was the best thing to do, so I reached into my pocket and opened my phone to call. No service. The house must be blocking the signal, and it was basically in the middle of nowhere. I walked towards the entrance, figuring I’d find service outside. I reached to the knob and twisted, and nothing. It was locked. I shook it harder. Nothing. It was locked from the outside. I slammed my hands against the door and called out to anyone that could hear me. I knew it was useless, no one was out here except me.
Then I felt a vibrate in my pocket. I reached down and looked at my phone. One unread text. At first, I was really glad I had service, I was saved. Maybe the text was from David that he was alright. It was from a different number, one I didn’t have in my phone. I pressed open, and nearly dropped the phone:
You can’t save yourself either.
My entire body was shaking. I wanted to pass out. I was stuck there. A cell phone with no service, in a room with no exit. My eyes scanned the room, and landed on the door across the room. A gold ‘1′ was mounted on the front; it looked like a room door in a hotel. The ground felt far away as I walked closer to the door. In a few moments I was within inches of it, and I placed my head against the wood and listened. All I heard was distant Halloween music. Just creepy instrumental music you’d hear at any haunted house. Suddenly I got a little calmer. David was always known for his pranks. He would tell me about these elaborate setups he and his friends would make for the new players on their soccer team. Somehow a smile found its way onto my face, and I opened the door without fear.
Entering the first room alleviated my fears even more. The room was a completely normal attempt at a haunted house, though rather lacking. In each corner was a scarecrow, but not even scary ones. They were the kind you used to see in grade school, with the big smiling faces. Paper ghosts hung from the ceiling, and a fan in the corner added a cold breeze that made them spin. Next to one of the scarecrows was again the only other door in the room. Printed on the front, similar to the first door, was a large ‘2′. I laughed and left this lame room behind me.
When I opened the door to room 2 I couldn’t see three feet in front of me. It was completely filled with a gray mist that smelled like rubber. I guessed there had to be some fog machine in here, and it must have been pumping this stuff for hours. There were no windows in the last room, so the ventilation must have been terrible. I walked slowly forward and let out a small shriek. I had bumped straight into a large robotic Jason Vorhees. His eyes flashed red and the knife in his hand went up and down in a jerky stabbing motion. My heart was racing, and if anyone was with me I would have felt incredibly embarrassed. I covered my mouth and mad
|
In the spring of 1953, when I was nine years old I saw my brother die.
I’ll remember that day for the rest of my life. The memory has never left me and it never will. Part of it is the trauma, the slow, insidious realization that he was gone, that crept into my life afterward. But there is more to it that I don’t talk about. I’ve held onto it for years, and I don’t want to hold onto it any longer.
It was the 10th of April. School had just finished, and Charlie and I were walking home like we always did. Those were good times. Mom always had a snack waiting for us. Good old cookies and milk. Charlie was the kind of kid with a smile that could light up a room. He was a year above me, but he seemed to be full of more energy than I could have mustered. Outside, we’d play Superheroes, like the ones in the comic books. He was always Captain America, and I was Bucky Barnes. With wild ginger hair, freckles and sparkling green eyes, he didn’t look like much of a superhero, but he sure knew the part well.
After our snack, he’d grab the garbage can lid, and I’d grab my BB gun, and we’d go out to fight the Bad Guys, on the front lawn.
We’d been hoping to play like that when we got home, and Charlie was ahead of me, looking back and yelling for me to keep up.
“Come on, Felix! Mom’s waiting!”
I remember the smile on his face. I remember seeing that green 1953 Chevy Corvette around the corner behind him, as it came barreling down the road. For a moment, I didn’t think much of it. Why should I have? The Corvette should have passed us by with no issue. Sure, he was going a little fast, but, there should have been nothing to worry about.
Charlie turned to look as he heard the scream of rubber on asphalt. I can only imagine he was admiring the Corvette… We used to think they were the coolest.
When I heard the bang of the tire, I didn’t know what it was, at first. The plume of debris was a little shocking, and it distracted me just long enough to realize that the Corvette was headed our way. I caught a glimpse of the driver’s face which had frozen into a panicked look as he tried to regain control of his car.
Charlie didn’t even have time to move. The Corvette jumped the curb, hitting him head-on. He was thrown back like a toy, as the Corvette went over the sidewalk, and down into the shallow ditch beside us, burying him beneath it. I had felt nothing but the wind as it had sailed past me, and heard nothing but the scrape of metal.
Tossing my backpack to the ground, I ran towards the wreckage to tend to my brother. I could still see his face, contorted into a mask of agony. The Corvette was crushing his lower half and you could tell he was in pain from his screams. Those screams still haunt me today.
I was unable to speak. His pained howls made speaking almost useless. I stole a glance inside the sports Corvette. The windshield was cracked and I saw blood. The driver wouldn’t be helping us any time soon.
“F-Felix!” I could hear his voice, fragile and pained, “H-help… Please!” The tears streamed down his cheeks, and I didn’t want to leave him… but I knew there was no choice. I ran back up to the side of the road and looked for a passing car, somebody to help us. Anybody.
Only moments ago there had been other cars on the street. But now everybody was gone. The world seemed dimmer, the sunlight seemed to be cutting through a thick fog that had not been there before. There was no sound other than Charlie’s screams, which quickly subsided into whimpers. I looked around frantically. In the distance, I could see a figure in the fog. I waved at him and yelled.
“Hey! Mister! We need help! Please!”
The figure in the distance didn’t come any faster. I called out for him again, waving my arms to grab his attention.
“Sir! Please come fast! We need help!”
I looked down at Charlie. He was so horribly pale… his hands on the grilled of the crashed Corvette that pinned him.
From behind me, I heard a high and squeaky voice.
“Well, ain’t that a little bit of a predicament?” I jumped and looked in the direction of the voice. It was the man from the distance. How had he gotten here so fast by just walking? Had he run towards us when I wasn’t looking?
He was dressed all in black. A heavy black coat, a black fedora, and black leather gloves. He looked like a businessman on his way home from work.
“Sir,” I said, my voice shaking, “please. We need to call somebody. A hospital, something!”
The man laughed. It was such a carefree sound, and it filled me with rage. How could he laugh, at a moment like this?
“My dear boy, a hospital won’t save your friend now. Oh no, I’m afraid he’s a little too injured for that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, panicked.
“Well, your friend is going to die I’m afraid,” The man said, “but that’s why I’m here.” He extended a gloved hand towards me. I didn’t shake it. All I could do was stare.
When I didn’t move, he patted my shoulder, and brushed past me, making his way down the ditch and towards the car, moving casually, as if Charlie’s cries for help meant nothing to him. I didn’t have the capacity to speak, trying to process all he had said. I wasn’t sure if this man was insane or sincere. He knelt down beside my brother, his smile carefree and infectious.
“Don’t worry dear boy,” He said, caressing Charlie’s forehead, and just like that, he stopped his tormented shrieks. His body went limp and he let out an almost relaxed sigh.
“There, there. Let’s get you out of this awful place.”
The Man grabbed Charlie by his arms and gave him a sharp pull. I opened my mouth to protest but before I could say anything the deed was done. Charlie had been pulled out from under the car in one piece and he was standing. Standing there like nothing happened.
I called his name and reached out to hug him but the man stood between us, blocking my way.
“I can’t allow that,” he warned me. “I’m sorry.”
“Why not?” I begged, and his expression turned solemn.
“You aren’t supposed to be here… My work isn’t exactly for prying eyes. But, here you are all the same. I don’t question the why of it. Sometimes these things just are, and there is purpose in everything. Besides, I really don’t mind the company. But I can’t allow you to touch him. He is no longer of your world.”
Charlie didn’t say anything to me, he didn’t even look at me. His eyes had a dead, ignorant look to them.
The Man brushed past me and opened the door of the fallen car. He thrust his hand in and pulled the driver from his seat. He was only a teenager but I was horrified when I saw him. His neck was bent at an impossible angle. I could see bones pressed against the skin. His neck had to have been broken. He shouldn’t have been alive!
The Man remained indifferent to the seemingly fatal wound on the driver and simply placed his hands on his cheeks and with a sudden movement, jerked his head back into place. There was a sickening crack.
“All better,” he said sweetly and looked at me.
“What… happens to me?” I asked. He’d said that Charlie was going to die, and the driver was clearly dead too… But then, if I was seeing him, was I also dead? Was he going to hurt me for seeing him? Whatever exactly, he was.
“Oh I’m not going to hurt you, and you’re very much alive, Felix!” He said and offered a warm smile. I hadn’t said anything to him. How did he know what I was thinking? I was too stunned to speak.
“Very rarely do humans see me. They don’t want to see me, and what I do.”
“Wha… what do you do?” I asked. My voice shaking. It was just one of a million questions I had.
“Well, I’m something of a chauffeur,” He said. “I pick people up and I drop them off. I’ll be picking you up one day too.”
“How do you know my name?” I stammered.
He didn’t reply. He smiled and he took the hands of both Charlie and the teenage driver.
“Don’t you worry about it. That won’t be for a while. For now, I’ve got to run. I’m a very busy man you know.”
With that he led both Charlie and the driver back up to the road. A black car was waiting there, it hadn’t been there before. An older model, that later in life I’d recognize as a 1935 Dusenberg Convertible.
He put Charlie and the driver into the back seat before climbing behind the wheel. The last I saw of him was a friendly wave he gave me before he drove off.
That was it.
I sat down on the grass, my back to the car and started to cry. I looked down at where Charlie had been, and to my surprise, he was still there. But he wasn’t screaming. He wasn’t even moving. He lay there, pinned beneath the vehicle, with his eyes staring vacantly up into the sky.
I was still in the ditch when the police came, and when they took Charlie away. I remember watching them take the driver of the car out too. His neck was broken the exact same way it had been when that Man had taken him out earlier. But nobody just cracked his head back into place. The wound had been as fatal as I’d thought.
I had no idea what I’d witnessed until much later. Even today I’m still not so sure. Every now and then I’ll be driving down the road, and I’ll see a car accident. Parked right beside the police cars is a black Dusenberg Convertible. I don’t think anybody else sees it. Once, I saw the same gaunt man, and I swore he looked at me, and winked.
I’ve taken to referring to him as Mr. Ghost. It’s the only name that seems to fit the man. On the streets, sometimes I’ll see the car driving past. Mr. Ghost’s car. I assume he’s on his way to other business. People are always dying you know. I learned a lot about the world that day, maybe more than most people know. I learned about the methods of death. But every day I wake up. I’m thankful not to see him standing over my bed, hand extended and carefree grin on his face. I know that is what’s going to happen one day, and I just hope I’m ready when it does.
|
Cooper’s eyes slowly opened, but his surroundings remained blurred as his vision began to focus. The afternoon sunlight was partially blocked by thick canvas curtains, causing a sickly yellow light to fill the room. Almost immediately, a jolt of pain throbbed on the back of his head. After a few moments of agony, it dulled to a pulsing discomfort. While the shape of a couch and end table began to come into clearer view, he attempted to lift his hands from the armrests of the rocking chair. His movement was restrained as he was met with the jagged edges of old cable ties cinched tightly around his wrists. Feeling confusion at first, this soon gave way to an overwhelming sense of panic as he fought against the bindings.
“I would advise against struggling.”
Cooper lifted his head as a voice from another room echoed towards him. To his left, he could see the shadow of a man standing over a table. The black shape lifted a knife and brought it down with one fell swoop. The metal blade made a mighty chop has it contacted the butcher’s block.
“Just give me a few moments to finish up my work. I typically find it rude to keep my quests waiting, but this is a matter that simply cannot wait.”
Without waiting for Cooper to give any sort of rebuttal, the man’s shadow went back to chopping meat. Cooper’s vision had now returned to its full clarity as he blinked away any remaining fuzziness. A vintage television set sat on a shelf on the opposite wall. To his left, the couch came into full view. While one cushion looked untouched, the other had clearly been slightly worn by years of use. To his right, he could see a hallway leading to a flight of a stairs and the front door.
“All done,” the voice said with calm delight as the door to a refrigerator snapped shut.
Cooper sat petrified while the stranger’s heavy boots thudded on the hardwood floor. Soon enough, he turned the corner and stood in the doorway. The man stood, to Cooper’s best guess, a hair over six foot. A shirt stained with blood at the rolled-up cuffs hung loosely over his gaunt frame. The skin of his face was pulled tight over his jaw and cheek bones. Patchy stubble dappled parts of his face.
“I apologize for making you wait. That took much longer than expected,” he said while motioning towards the kitchen. Although Cooper was unable to see what he was referencing, he had no interest in finding out what it was.
“Dinner is on the stove and should be ready in a few minutes. I take it you’ll be joining me?”
Cooper looked down at his wrists and then back up at the man.
“I guess I don’t really have a choice, now do I?”
This caused the man to let out a bellowing laugh and slap his knee. While he made a spectacle of himself, Cooper sat in silent observance.
“Let me tell you something, Cooper, you certainly aren’t like any of the others that have been here. You have a sense of humor! You may look boring in your driver’s license photo, but you seem to be anything but.”
Still chuckling, the man walked out the room and returned to the kitchen. Cooper heard him open a cabinet and pull out plates and silverware with a rattle. While he set the table for dinner, Cooper looked around the room and studied his surroundings more. The sun was sinking lower, causing the light being filtered by the curtains to now be slightly tinted orange. Although the house was likely decades old, the stranger obviously took good care of it. Every surface was free of dust, and the floor lacked any imperfections, save for a few stains here and there.
“All right; everything’s set!”
The man returned from the kitchen with a small paring knife clenched in his slender fingers. A wave of fear swept through Cooper as his imagine raced at the possibilities that lay ahead. His eyes went wide as they locked on the knife. In turn, the stranger lifted his empty hand in a sign of calming.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to use this to hurt you, unless you don’t follow my instructions.”
He knelt in front of Cooper and slipped the blade between the cable tie and the leg of the chair.
“Now I’m going to cut you free so you can come sit at the table for dinner. You are only to walk from this chair to the place I set for you. I don’t want to have any trouble, but trust me when I say that things will get real ugly, real quick if you cross me. Got it?”
Cooper simply nodded and continued to remain motionless. The man slid the blade and cut the tie. He continued to cut the others until Cooper was no longer restrained. Standing up, the stranger motioned for Cooper to join him in the kitchen.
“Please walk slowly, and remember, no funny business.”
Cooper listened and walked to the kitchen and sat down in his new seat without any problems. As he tucked the chair under the lip of the table, his captor approached the seat on the opposite end. Before sitting down, he withdrew a large pistol from his waistband and placed it next to his silverware.
“This is the first time I didn’t have to use this on one of my guests. They typically make a run for either the front or back door. If you happened to look at the floor in the living room, you should have been able to tell that they never made it far. The more I get to know you, the more I like you, Coop.”
Cooper gave a forced grin while his mind raced with images of numerous other victims being gunned down no less than ten feet away from where he sat. At least that explained the stains on the floor. The visions unsettled him, but he made sure to keep his composure. Whatever situation he was in, he needed to remain calm if he had the slightest hope of getting out of this mess intact.
“Is it alright if I call you Coop? I don’t want to seem informal,” the man said while scooping mashed potatoes onto both plates.
“That’s fine. What do you want me to call you,” Cooper asked while attempting to keep his composure. The task was growing more and more difficult as time went on.
“Oh, how rude of me. I forgot to introduce myself. You can call me Gunnar.”
Cooper gave him a confused look as Gunnar slid a plate loaded with food in front of him.
“It was my father’s idea to name me that, and I never questioned my old man.”
Gunnar slapped a cut of meat on his plate and placed the lid back over the pan. Taking his seat once more, he neatly folded a crease in his napkin before placing it in his lap. Cooper glanced around the kitchen and observed the small room. The dishes Gunnar had used to cook dinner were already washed and drying in a rack next to the sink. All dishes and food items were hidden away in cabinets, leaving the kitchen spotless. He had yet to see anything out of place in the house, leaving him to ponder on the obsessive nature of this man.
“Coop, I’m going to make you a deal. I didn’t shackle you to that chair because you didn’t attempt to run from the living room. If you continue to behave yourself, I’ll consider letting you off easier than I intended.”
Cooper stopped cutting his food and looked up from his plate. Gunnar continued to scoop some mashed potatoes onto his fork and into his mouth, acting as if what he had said should not warrant any questions.
“May I ask what you mean by ‘letting me off easier’?”
“That’ll come in time. Now, let’s get to know each other. So tell me, Coop, what’s your story?”
Before Cooper spoke, his mind raced with the possibilities of Gunnar’s statement. Deciding it was best to play along with this twisted game, he knew acting casually was his best defense.
“Well, I actually live one state over in Louisiana. I was in Houston for a business meeting and driving home when…”
Cooper trailed off as his mind drew a blank. He attempted to remember how he got in this man’s house, but every image that came into his mind’s eye was fuzzy at best.
“When I found you…” Gunnar let out.
Cooper’s head shot up and his gaze locked with Gunnar’s. In the orange glow of the Texas sunset, Gunnar sat still in his chair. The room was now washed in the light, causing Gunnar’s shadow to loom over them on the wall behind him. He rested his elbows on the table and drummed his fingers on the edge of his glass.
“Is it starting to come back to you, Coop,” he asked as a small grin pulled at the corners of his mouth.
At that moment, everything came back to Cooper in a sudden burst. He remembered standing on the side of the interstate. His car had a flat tire and he flagged down the first car coming in his direction. It had pulled onto the shoulder, and Gunnar stepped out with a tire iron. Although he had thought not much of it at the time, Cooper released he should have been more cautious. He remembered showing Gunnar the gash in the wall of his tire when the blow hit the back of his head. From there, his vision began to blur before he succumbed to darkness.
“I guess you remember now. Sorry about hitting you a little too hard. You just seemed so big that I didn’t want to take any chances of not taking you out on the first try.”
Cooper continued to stare down at his plate. The bump on the back of his head throbbed once again and his hands began to tremble. Outside, birds chirped in a tree and a slight breeze made the wind chime on the porch let out a few solemn notes.
“Why…”
Gunnar swallowed the bite he had taken and gently rested his fork down on the table.
“I’ll need you to speak up, Coop. Working with power tools all these years has left my hearing a fraction of what it used to be.”
“Why… why did you do this to me?”
Gunnar took a sip from his glass, making sure to not break eye contact with his guest.
“And there it is. Every time I’ve had a guest over, the conversation always reaches a point where they question my reasoning. I must say though, Coop, you’re the calmest one I’ve ever had. May I ask why that is? Certainly, this must frighten you to some extent.”
Cooper decided at this moment to lay out all his cards on the table. This was make or break.
“It does, but I feel that remaining cool and collected is my best chance of leaving.”
For the first time that night, Gunnar frowned. Without saying a word, he gathered his plate and glass and carried them over to the sink. The garbage disposal whirred to life as leftover food scraps where jettisoned into its metallic jaws.
“I thought that by now you would have understood that I can’t let you leave. I’ll admit that you were the first person to be calm and respectful about it, but I still can’t let you leave.”
He flipped a switch and the hum of the disposal slowly died. Gunnar began washing his plate with his eyes staring out at the setting sun. The lower it sank towards the horizon, the more orange the room became.
“I’m going to give you fair warning that what I say next is typically what drives my guests over the edge if that hadn’t been already. You’re different from the others, so I’m expecting that you’ll take this with a slight bit of discomfort, but no extreme over exaggeration.”
Gunnar slid the plate in a slot on the drying rack and dried off his hands with a crisp, white towel.
“I kidnap people with the intent to eat them.”
Cooper felt his body tense in fear. As his mind attempted to firmly grasp this new information, he felt a tear escape the corner of his eye and roll down his cheek.
“Now I know that sounds bad, and I must sound borderline psychotic for trying to downplay it, but I have my reasoning. It’s kind of a long story, so please bear with me.”
Gunnar sat back down in his seat and made himself comfortable.
“You see, I dropped out of high school without getting my diploma. This left my career choices to be less than desirable. The only option
I was left with was working in my father’s repair shop. We would take in vehicles with large engines like tractors or oversized trucks used for hauling. He forced me to do the menial tasks like scraping rust and cleaning off oil and grease. It was far from being the ideal life, but it put food on the table, be it barely.”
Cooper continued to stare at the table, but managed to take in every word that left Gunnar’s mouth. A few more tears escaped from his eyes, leaving lines through the dirt on his face.
“You see, Coop, this town suffered a major crisis some fifteen years ago. We had a major drought, causing most of the crops to wither away and perish. The little water we had was spent keeping livestock barely clinging to life. The ones that lived long enough to be taken to slaughter were too malnourished to yield any meat worth eating. After all the meat was deemed uneatable, the town met in the city hall to discuss how to move forward. We argued for hours, but every solution was shot down almost immediately. Just when we thought there was no middle ground in sight, my father came up with an idea. We should eat a few residents.”
Cooper slowly looked up from the table and locked eyes with his captor.
“He explained that we should only eat what was necessary for the town’s survival. The weakest would sacrifice themselves for the betterment of the townspeople. At first, no one said a word. As I looked around the room, a few people stared at my father with blank expressions. Some glared at him with bewilderment and disgust, while others didn’t really know how to react to such a horrid recommendation. Eventually a few people spoke up in agreement of the idea, causing those opposed to start a shouting match. My father slammed his fist on the table and received everyone’s full, undivided attention. He suggested putting it up to a vote. When he asked for those in support to raise their hands, roughly a quarter of the town did so. When asked for those opposed to vote, another quarter of the town raised their hands, leaving almost half the town undecided.
Suddenly, gunshots rang out through the room. Everyone who had voted in opposition slumped forward in their seats. Some people screamed, some people cried, some sat in complete calm. My father had arranged the whole ordeal before the meeting. His closest friends had all agreed that cannibalism was the only option they had left, and felt it necessary to take out anyone who would try and block their path. As the bodies were pulled from the room, my father informed everyone who had not voted that he was going to be in control of handing out everyone’s rations. You would either take meat for your family, or be gunned down on the spot. Anyone caught trying to contact state authorities or leave would also be met with a grim demise.”
Cooper sat in silence as he absorbed the information. Wherever this place was, he was now caught up in a mess of a situation.
“The bodies of those at the meeting were dried and preserved for future consumption. When that supply finally ran out, my father and a few of his buddies resorted to abducting stranded motorists. He knew better than to pick them all up near the town, so he would drive out in his work truck and pick up fresh meat all over the eastern part of the state. This new practice of picking up innocent victims went on for a couple of months, but eventually, the drought ended, and the town slowly began to mend its wounds. However, some of the residents still had a craving for human flesh. My father didn’t see the need in continuing this operation if it was no longer necessary for their survival. He made a deal with those who still wanted the meat that he would supply them with it on special occasions, like Christmas, the Fourth of July, or someone’s birthday.”
Lifting the pistol from the table and pointing it square in the center of Cooper’s chest, Gunnar chuckled to himself.
“If it’s of any consolation to you, you’re a gift for a girl whose celebrating her sixteenth birthday tomorrow. She’s been looking forward to it for months now, and I’m sure you won’t disappoint her.”
Gunnar laid down the pistol and walked over to the refrigerator. Opening the door, he withdrew two beers. He popped the caps off into the trash can and set one down in front of Cooper.
“I really do like you, Coop. You’ve been so respectful to me, so I’ll treat you to one last beer before I take you outside. I know it’s not the ideal circumstances to have a final drink in, but I feel obliged to offer.”
Cooper sat motionless and stared at the beer. Condensation rolled down the hazy brown bottle before settling on the table in a small pool.
“Now, I know you probably want to say good bye to your friends and family, but we both know why I can’t let you do that. So go ahead and enjoy your drink before we get started.”
“I hate my father…” Cooper muttered under his breath.
Gunnar lowered the neck of the bottle from his lips and gently rested it down on the table with a soft clink.
“What was that?”
“I said I hate my father,” Cooper let out through gritted teeth.
Gunnar’s eyes opened just a hair wider as he was taken slightly aback by the admission. Never before had one of his victims stated resentment for a parent.
“Oh? And why’s that?”
Cooper lifted his head up and glared with intense detestation burning in his eyes.
“He’s a bitter and abusive old man who took every chance he got to demean me, whether I actually deserved it or not.”
Gunnar rested his elbows on the table, a look of interest crossing his face. He motioned with his hand for Cooper to continue.
“Every time something would go wrong at work, he would come home and take it out on me. Because my mother had died giving birth to me, my father and I started out from the very beginning on the wrong foot. If I got below a B on my report card, he would yell at me and make sure I felt guilty for my mom dying. Every little slipup I made was met with a punishment exponentially worse than the action that brought it. His favorite thing to do was tell me how if she had lived through it all, she would be disappointed in what a disgusting disgrace of a son I had become. This continued all the way through high school.
When it was time for me to choose the career path I wanted to take, he forced me to study engineering, just like him. I wanted to go into something like medicine, or physical therapy. I wanted to feel that I was directly bettering someone’s life, but he wanted to hear nothing of it. He was paying for my tuition, and held that over my head and used it as leverage. As miserable as it was, I got my degree and found a job. We both work at the same firm, but I feel to this day that he wanted me to be an engineer so he could continue to abuse me at work. I make good pay, but I’m not exactly happy.”
Gunnar remained silent and attentive.
“So to answer your question in a lengthy way; no. I don’t want to say goodbye to my father. He’s a monster, and I wish him the cruelest fate imaginable. I’m no saint, but compared to him, I’m close enough. I just… I just wish that horrible man gets what he deserves in the end.”
Gunnar sat in silence for a few moments. After letting his mind process its thoughts, he finished off the last of his beer. He walked over to the trashcan and discarded it. Staring out the window, he watched as the last orange slivers of the sun vanished over the horizon.
“What if we make sure he does?”
Cooper turned around and gave Gunnar a puzzled look.
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m going to make a deal with you, Coop. I like you; I really do. If you can get your dad to come here, I’ll let him take your place. Of course you still can’t go home, but you can live here with me. I know it may not be the most ideal situation for you, but hopefully you’ll find it better than being served at the party tomorrow. I’ll give you a few minutes to think it over, so go ahe-”
“I’ll do it.”
Gunnar turned around with a slight look of bewilderment at how quickly Cooper had made up his mind.
“Are you sure?”
Cooper gripped the edge of the table tightly at the thought of his father finally getting the treatment he deserved. After all these years, vengeance was within his grasp. Without saying another word, he nodded.
“Well then, I’ll give you the phone. Go ahead and give him a call and ask him to come pick you up.”
Gunnar turned and pulled the phone from the receiver mounted on the wall. Handing it to Cooper, he gave him a final look asking that he was fully confident in what he was about to initiate. Without hesitation, Cooper took the phone and dialed his father’s number into the keypad.
——————————-
“I hope you’re happy with yourself. I had to reschedule my whole day, as well as tomorrow, to come out and get your ass back home!”
Cooper’s father slammed the door to his car shut and marched towards the front porch. Cooper stood on the steps with his hands in his pockets and his head hanging low. Gunnar stood in the doorway, watching in quiet observance.
“You’ll be reimbursing me for the gas I wasted hauling that trailer out here to take your car home.”
Cooper nodded his head and didn’t say a word.
“And I expect you to pay this man for towing your car here, feeding you, and letting you spend the night. I apologize for all this, mister…?”
“Hansen,” Gunnar said while extending his hand out.
Cooper’s father shook it.
“Pleasure to meet you. My name’s Keith. I apologize it wasn’t under better circumstances.”
“It was really no trouble. Your son really is a fine man.”
Keith rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath.
“Believe me that if you lived with him, you’d think a lot differently.”
Keith turned and walked down the steps. The humid summer was starting to take its toll, causing him to loosen his tie.
“Alright, Cooper, let’s get your car loaded up and get the hell out of here. I’m already starting to break a sweat, so you’ll have to buy me a new shirt after all this.”
Keith stepped onto the grass and started in the direction of Cooper’s car behind the house. He stopped after a few paces to find Cooper still standing on the steps of the house. His gaze was directed out at the setting sun.
“What, are you deaf, too? I said let’s go!”
Cooper remained motionless and bathed in the orange glow of the Texas sunset. The wind blew, causing small pieces of dead grass to swirl around his feet.
“I don’t have time for this shit,” Keith muttered as he trudged back in his son’s direction.
Grabbing his son’s arm, he attempted to pull him off the steps. When Cooper refused to budge, his father grabbed his arm with both hands and pulled harder. Suddenly, Cooper took his free arm and wrapped it around his father’s neck. Pulling him close, he removed his other arm from Keith’s grasp and retrieved the knife from his pocket. Withdrawing the rusted and stained blade, Cooper gave his father one last look before bringing it against his neck. With one quick motion, he slit his father’s throat.
The knife made a sickening tearing sound as it tore the flesh of Keith’s neck open. Cooper dropped the blade and placed his hand over the wound. As the blood seeped between his fingers, he closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath. The warm, crimson fluid flowed down the back of his hand and soon meandered around his arm before seeping into his shirt sleeves. Opening his eyes once more, Cooper watched as the life slowly fled his father’s eyes. Keith slowly lifted an arm and brought his hand up to his son’s face. His fingers lightly caressed his cheek, before his body began going limp. Cooper removed his hand from over his father’s throat as his body collapsed and he plummeted to the ground.
“Nice job, son. Quick, but painful,” Gunnar let out from behind him.
Cooper turned, keeping his face expressionless.
“Let’s go ahead and bring him to the barn so he can drain before we serve him tomorrow. You need any help?”
Cooper stood over his father’s body as blood continued to gush from the jagged slit in his neck. It pooled under his head, turning the dirt and grass underneath a dark brown.
“I’ll handle it myself.”
Without saying another word, Gunnar walked ahead to open the barn doors. Cooper grabbed his father’s ankles and pulled the body through the grass, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. With each step, the sun sank lower in the sky. The wind blew and the crops swayed in the heat. Nearing the barn, Cooper dropped Keith’s ankles, causing he legs to slam onto the ground and kick up a small cloud of dust. He retrieved the length of chain lying next to the door and brought it over to his father. Wrapping the chain around his ankles, he fastened the loop over the hook at the end and pulled the bundle taught.
Behind him, Gunnar pulled the doors open as they groaned on their hinges. The smell of oil and old wood flooded out, filling Cooper’s nose with something else besides the smell of blood and grass. The light hanging over the entrance to the massive barn flickered to life with a loud crackle. It hummed and began to draw in bugs. Gunnar propped the doors open with two chunks of concrete and leaned against the frame. Motioning for Cooper to follow him inside, he vanished into the darkness.
Cooper looked out at the horizon as the sun finally vanished, leaving him surrounded by darkness, save for the light on the barn. Cicadas buzzed around him as they welcomed the slightly cooler weather of the night. Lifting his blood-stained hand up to his nose and inhaling deeply, Cooper smiled and pulled his father into the barn.
|
Fire burns.
It’s a simple fact of life. Fire burns everything it touches in one way or another. This particular fire was being gulped down the throat of an overweight man in his late thirties. The man chugged the liquid like it was the antidote to every ailment that could ever affect him. In one way, it was working.
He was slipping away.
The man took another sip –a much smaller one, as he looked up from the little corner he had created for himself. Way beyond a simple buzz, his hand shook as he raised his glass in the air ever so slightly, asking for another.
The bartender, a tall lanky man, poured him another against his own better judgment. The middle-aged man downed it what seemed to be seconds –asking for another as quickly as he had finished it. A wave of agitation washed over the man as the bartender shook his head.
“What the Hell man? Turnin’ down a paying customer?” slurred the man, lifting up his head high in a facade of confidence. The bartender paid him no attention –staring at the other nonexistent patrons of his bar. “Come on! I be the only one here! Tellin’ me you don’t notice me?”
The bartender sighed, reaching for the man’s empty mug to refill it. The man’s lips tilted upward at the thought of having that familiar fire run down his esophagus again. The bartender set down the now filled mug in front of the disgruntled man.
“What’s got you so down, sir?” asked the tender. Man responded with only an angry grunt and another sloppy chug.
“Sir, you’ve drank enough to create half the day’s income. Something must be bothering you,”
The man still didn’t answer but he did look up at the much taller –and much thinner man. The tender’s eyes gleamed an artificial red. ’Contacts…’ thought the man through his drunken haze. Staring up at the tender gave the man some sense of comfort. He had no clue why, but it did. He felt as though the bartender deserved to know everything. Before he even knew it himself, words that gave him away tumbled from his blubbery lips.
“My wife is such a bitch,” began the man. “Every day –every damn day, she’s sittin’ there waitin’ for me. She must be there all day just to find things to yell at me for. What a bitch… Every damn day…” he muttered, losing his battle with alcohol to speak coherently.
“Guess I just wanted some payback…” he mumbled, “Slapped the bitch so hard she spat up her nasty-ass blood… That bitch…” The bartender said nothing. His gaze lost its power and the man realized what he had told. “But I regret doing it,” added the bastard, trying to make himself out to be a better person than he was.
The bartender remained silent, his face molding into a scowl. The man knew he had messed up –he shouldn’t have said that. But, strangely, the tender didn’t look angry or confused, he just looked disappointed. The man knew if he stuck around for much longer he’d let the rest of what he did spill –and he didn’t want a prison sentence anything soon.
The man stood up shakily, about to stumble out to his car to escape the bar and its tender. Despite his best efforts to keep his already cracked composer, he fell to the floor –to disoriented to walk or even crawl in a straight line. Still remaining mute, the bartender came out from behind the bar’s counter, helping the man up by grabbing his upper arm. The man muttered an almost unbearable thanks before getting right back on his unsteady feet.
Even though the man was standing and ready to leave, the bartender didn’t release his hold.
“What the Hell, man?” half growled half laughed the man, “I told ya I didn’t mean it! What’cha gonna do? Turn me in? Ya got no proof I killed the bitch!”
The bartender remained completely silent, even his breathes inaudible. He stared at the man, not saying a word or showing a single emotion. The man was already uncomfortable, knowing exactly how much trouble what he let slip would get him in. But having those artificial red eyes staring down at him made him feel actual fear.
The thin man smirked.
“Hey, man,” whimpered the male, “Let me go already.” The bartender complied, almost throwing the man by the arm. The man collected himself the best he could in his intoxicated state and turned his back to leave once more.
“Wait, sir.”
The man turned around to see the bartender standing at his full, towering height. “Sir, I won’t tell anyone if you’re willing to shake my hand and pay me back the next time I see you.”
This stunned the man.
He said nothing as the bar’s caretaker came towards him at an almost threatening pace. “I promise I won’t tell. I’m not looking for money, just for you to shake my hand.” The thin man stuck out his hand.
The man made no movement. He swallowed, his mind too foggy to think through what the tender was offering him. He got the gist of it, knowing that something horrible would happen if he didn’t compose himself and shake that twig of a man’s hand.
So he did.
He took the man’s hand in an awkward fumble that could only be described as a handshake under its loosest meaning. The bartender smiled at the man but said nothing. The tender went behind the bar like their entire confrontation hadn’t even happened. The man, knowing it was his time to leave shambled out, getting in his car and driving away without another word.
The extra set of eyes from the alcohol made it hard to drive, but not exceedingly so.
He managed to make his way home –quite a feat. When he opened the door to his home he noticed something was off about the smell. He had left the place reeking of bleach, cleaning products, and blood. Why the Hell did it smell like his little event didn’t happen? The man walked around the house, looking for any sign of life. A quiet humming drifted from the kitchen, buzzing past the man’s ears.
His wife stood there, washing the dishes like nothing had happened.
He paled.
The only person who knew –or even had a clue about what he did was that bartender. There was no possible way she could be alive. He’d beaten the bitch to death –he was positive he did.
“Oh! Hon! Where have you been? I’ve–”
The man ran.
He bolted as fast as he could back to his car. He threw open the doors and left his home faster than he had ever before. He knew where he needed to go. He had to go to that stupid bar by the stupid name of Ninth Circle to see that stupid bartender. He had to find what the actual Hell was going on. He became so focused on his task that everything else faded away from him.
Including the basic road safety laws.
The man crashed full speed into an oncoming vehicle.
=-=-=-=-=
“Ugh…” groaned the man, waking up. He’d never felt more clear headed or well rested in his life. He ran his fingers through his hair as he realized where he was, or rather –where he wasn’t.
This was most certainly not the realm of the living.
He was in a room made entirely of glass. With the ice beneath starting to cool the room, dropping to impossible temperatures. The man made no movements. He simply sat in the same spot where he woke, too afraid to move in any direction. It was too cold to move.
Smoke began to fill the room.
The black mist hovered at the ceiling’s level. In an instant, it began morphing and congealing to reveal a very thin, very familiar man.
It was the bartender.
“What-what the Hell am I doing here? What’s happening? How is this happening! I need answers damn it!” screeched the overweight man, smashing his fists against the bottom of the glass like a child. “What the fuck! Give me an answer!”
The bartender said nothing as he came to stand right in front of the man, leaving less than a foot between them.
“You see, sir…” smirked the tender, “You promised to pay me back on the condition that I tell no one what you did to the poor woman you call your wife.”
“I–”
“And that I did,” he cut, glaring down at the man as a form of scolding. “But, you see, as a parting gift for giving me such an amazing deal I gave you back something you claim to regret losing.” The bartender smiled down a Cheshire grin. “Sadly, you don’t see pleased by my gift to you. And for that I am sorry…” The thin man bowed.
The man on the floor stayed still and silent.
“Why are you doing this?” breathed the man, beginning to understand what was happening.
“Sir, you made a contract with me. That you did,” explained the taller man. “When you shook my hand, you made a deal. I would stay silent at the price of your soul… And now that you’ve gone and gotten yourself killed… Oh, come one sir. Don’t cry now, we haven’t even started yet.”
Despite the demon’s protests, the man’s tears continued to fall.
“What you did to that woman was inexcusable. That’s why you’re down here in the Ninth Circle. Sir, I am terribly sorry for your tragic death, but I’m much less sorry to do this…”
The glass fell away.
Ice, it came at the man from all angles before he even hit the floor. It grabbed at his limbs as he thrashed them around to escape. It burrowed into his very being as it pierced his chest and invaded its cavity. The man howled in pain, his blood dripping down the pikes that pulled him into the ice sheet. That’s when he noticed it. Thousands, maybe millions of people frozen beneath the ice.
The man screamed as the ice finally swallowed him whole.
In his final feeling, he felt warm –almost searingly so. And, as a final thought, the man realized something.
Fire isn’t the only thing that burns.
|
As I walk down the familiar venue of Myriad Boardwalk, I realize that this shoreline amusement park is different from it once was. I remember the bright, rich colors of the tents as vibrant displays of red and white. Colorful flags always flapped in the cool ocean air. At its prime, this popular retreat hosted locals and travelers nearly every weekend since its opening in the summer months of 1945. Now, with its dwindling number of guests and lack of ambiance, the Myriad is quite literally dead.
I continue forward, only passing a few others every now and then. None of them look familiar. Today is unlike most; the sky is gray and spotted with shadowy clouds that block the sunshine rather than welcoming it onto the beach. Most of the concession stands and games are closed. Only a few offer a moment’s amusement for a hefty price and a high chance of failure. To be quite honest, it is sad. The staff that now patrols the boardwalk reeks of oil and the sick stench of bitterness. The rides are useless in their mechanics. Nobody rides them anymore. With the passing times, the Ferris wheel became the symbol of amusement parks across the globe. At the Myriad, it is the symbol of a faded era.
When I was a little girl, I loved Myriad. As a small girl bouncing around in a yellow sundress, I went from stand to stand and begged the cheerful men to slip me a free treat. The first stop on my routine Myriad run was the cotton candy stand. The man who operated the machine, Pops, as I called him, always patted my bouncy curls and handed me a large swirl of pink cotton. I would thank him in my own girlish way and go off to bother someone else. Then I made my way to one of the numerous games. The staff all looked the same in their white suite jackets lined with red stripes, but that did not stop me from creating personal nicknames for each one.
I can remember this place as being grand and filled with life. I sometimes wonder both how and why I end up back here even when I know the memories I’ve made have died. Back then, my parents were young, jubilant, and in love. They took me to Myriad nearly every weekend. My mother always wore her high-waisted denim shorts with a polka dot bikini top. My father, the business man, wore a stunning brown suit with sleek pinstripes. I would later come to know that my father played a large role in the organized crime ring upon which Myriad was, more or less, founded. When he wasn’t placing loving pecks on my mother’s rosy cheeks, he was usually somewhere inconspicuous with his colleagues. Too young to thoroughly enjoy most of the rides at Myriad, my parents were sure to take me on the giant Ferris wheel. If we happened to get conveniently stuck at the very top, I squealed with delight. Then, against the setting sun, my parents would share a loving kiss that always made me feel as if I was the luckiest girl in the world. I knew heaven had to be real, because the Myriad Boardwalk was nothing short of paradise.
Even though the ocean was only a few feet away from the Boardwalk, I cannot say that I spent much time in the water. Sure, on the hotter days, my parents and I would splash around in the cool water, but most of the fun occurred on the Boardwalk itself. It was something that had become a part of me. The Myriad was a part of my life, and when I wasn’t dancing down the Boardwalk in my yellow dress, I didn’t feel like myself.
I haven’t since. It has been a good number of years since I have been back on these very same sandy planks. And like I previously mentioned, nothing is quite the same. It is depressing, really, to see such a vital part of my childhood eroded away by time.
Still wandering around, I spot off in the distance a couple holding hands and strolling down the shoreline. They look familiar to me, but I cannot see their faces. From behind, the couple seems old, but their love is still obvious as they share warm smiles and hands. I quicken my pace to have a better view. As I finally recognize who they are, my breath hitches in my throat. I start to jog, thinking that the faster I reach them, the better of a reunion it will be. It warms my heart to see their faces again.
I reach out to them, to place a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. Before I touch her, the woman stops and looks back at me. She studies me for a second as I say, “Momma?”, but she turns away. My father asks her what is wrong. Her brow furrows, and she says, “I thought I felt something, but it was nothing.” They continue their stroll down the beach. I jump to grab my father, to beg him to stop and turn around, but my hand grabs air.
Some time ago, I strayed too far from my parents’ watchful eyes. Not because I disobeyed, but because I was a teenager. I thought boys were cute, but my father made boys nervous, so I often wandered off to meet my friends during our routine weekend trips to the boardwalk. My parents were particularly preoccupied with my father’s business affairs. He and his colleagues had gone too far in their quest for complete control of the city. It was around this time that my father had struck up a lucrative deal with the local police. In exchange for some exaggerated information about a rival family and a good amount of cash, the police effectively eliminated my father’s rivals from the city, killing some and jailing the others. My father and his associates walked away from the deal completely satisfied and with no blood on their hands.
The rival family’s remaining immature members raged at the news. Suddenly their fathers, uncles, and friends were behind bars or buried underground. Cash stopped flowing; instead it was rerouted into the pockets of my father’s fine-tailored suits. The struggling rival gang formulated a plan for retaliation, ensuring it would be painful, effective, and yet extremely personal. They decided on a course of action. When the time was right, they planned to load a car with weaponry and men and drive until my father lay dead in the streets. My father caught wind of this plan but chose to ignore it. He scoffed at the idea of such a public retaliation. He refused when my mother persuaded him to alert the authorities. Instead, he insisted my mother and I get into the car for another weekend trip to the ocean.
I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye. What my father’s source failed to tell him, because his source was a rat, was the intended target was not my father or his friends.
It was me.
On a warm sunny afternoon, I stopped believing the Myriad Boardwalk was heaven. I died with a pink swirl of cotton candy in my hand. For now, I aimlessly wander here, stuck in this wasteland of memories, transparently observing life from the other side.
|
Looking back, I remember how all of my family’s summer barbecues went the same way. There’d be the initial bustle of uncles and aunts arriving with kids, clinking paper bags full of liquor, and lopsided foil trays of macaroni and lasagna. First drinks were poured, meat was thrown on the grill, and cackles followed light gossip in the crowded kitchen. We ate. Parents drank. And as the afternoon progressed, all of the cousins overcame their shyness and darted around the open back yard. The older crowd took up residence in plastic woven chairs with cups in hand. As they ventured deeper down into their drinks, so too did the light chatter from earlier in the afternoon descend into more serious subjects. It wasn’t until I had reached 11 or 12 years old that I began to recognize the recurrence of the name “Carrie Mae” uttered from the semicircle of elders across the lawn. I asked my mom about who she was while driving home from a barbecue one afternoon. She just said, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
I am 15 now and the “grown-ups” still fall into whispers when I pass by their drinking circle if Carrie Mae is the topic of conversation. Little do they know that I have done a bit of sleuthing on my own. Through equal parts hearsay (courtesy of older cousins) and eavesdropping, I have since managed to piece together a general account of what happened to my distant cousin, Carrie Mae and her family. After the fact, I can understand why my mother and all of the other grown-ups chose to keep her story from us kids. It’s to this day the scariest thing I have ever (or never) heard:
It happened in a little town on the North Shore of Massachusetts called Middleton where Carrie Mae and her parents (my aunt and uncle) lived. Middleton was still pretty undeveloped in the mid-eighties. Young couples looking to start a family often opted for the paved and well-lit streets of neighboring Danvers or Salem over the pocked dirt roads of Middleton. But my Uncle Steven and Aunt Lena (Carrie Mae’s parents) were known for being somewhat bohemian. They were both painters who relished the unfettered wilderness that the small wooded town had to offer. The family fit in well there. Carrie Mae grew up surrounded by the likes of artists, painters, and eccentrics who called that small stretch of forest home.
On the evening that Carrie Mae went missing, her family was visiting a public patch of garden rented by one of her father’s friends. This particular field was divided into dozens of small plots where the town’s citizens could grow anything from cucumbers to black-eyed Susans. Their friend’s plot bordered the forest surrounding the field. While the parents sat in rickety chairs among the watermelons, the kids darted in and out of the trees and played hide-and-seek. At one point in the evening, the other kids in the group came back to their parents saying that they couldn’t find Carrie Mae. They had been playing a game of hide-and-seek. And even though the game had been over for 20 minutes, Carrie Mae was still nowhere in sight.
At first, my aunt and uncle weren’t that alarmed. They yelled her name from where they sat, expecting her to come running from the woods once she heard their voices. Carrie Mae was a playful and imaginative girl, but she was always well-behaved. That’s why my Uncle Steven and Aunt Lena started to get worried after only a few minutes of getting no answer from their calls into the woods. As the sun began to set, flashlights were retrieved from cars and the grown-ups in the group fanned out into the surrounding woods to search for Carrie Mae. They called her name until nine o’clock or so. After that, they called the cops. Days went by. Weeks. All the while police officers and volunteers from Middleton and neighboring towns combed the woods, going miles into the New England forests. Yet, despite the fervor of the search, not so much as a shoelace was recovered. After one month of fliers, false tips, the whir of helicopter blades, and television appearances, my aunt and uncle first began to consider the possibility that they would never see Carrie Mae again.
But then something extraordinary happened. Contrary to all statistics for missing children, kidnappings, and the rule of the first 48 hours, Carrie Mae was found…or, more accurately, she just showed up. One day, roughly five weeks after her disappearance, she emerged naked, bruised, and scratched from the woods at the exact spot that she had entered from. No one was at the gardening plot at the time as it was five o’clock in the morning. So she walked barefoot across the misty field and down the country road into town. Angus McLeod, a fry-cook at N&J Doughnuts, was the first one to spot her. He called the police who picked her up and brought her to the station. By 7:30, there had been a tearful reunion between Carrie Mae, Uncle Steven, and Aunt Lena; by 9:00, the news of Carrie Mae’s return had trickled through the neighborhood and was spilling over into neighboring towns; 12 o’clock saw the long driveway to their home jammed with vans from every newspaper and television station on the North Shore; and by dinnertime, all of Essex County was in celebration for the darling 13-year-old who had finally come home. “It was like a bad dream,” Aunt Lena whimpered into a Channel 5 microphone. “A bad dream that I couldn’t wake up from. But today, I woke up.” And so it seemed to that small pocket of Massachusetts in the dog days of 1985, like some great nightmare had hovered for a spell over their town only to move on, saving its worst for another time and another place.
The story of Carrie Mae was not so simple and joyous as all of the headlines and news anchors lead the county’s residents to believe, however. While vast coverage was devoted to Carrie Mae’s initial reappearance, virtually no attention was given to the events which ensued weeks later, after all of the fanfare had died down. By that time, Carrie Mae had had countless interviews with investigators and child psychiatrists regarding her disappearance. Each of these efforts to discover what actually happened was discouraged, however, by Carrie Mae’s persistent reply: “I don’t remember anything.” Making no headway, the professionals backed off but encouraged my Aunt Lena and Uncle Steven to monitor Carrie Mae carefully for any unusual behavior. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” was their typically bohemian reply. They were just happy to have their daughter back. Carrie Mae was home! What was there to worry about?
And indeed, for the first few weeks after Carrie Mae’s return, there did seem to be little need for concern. Back at home in her own room, Carrie Mae quickly slid back into the old grooves of life-as-usual. She strung and beaded another dream catcher, feverishly chopped up fashion magazines for a new collage, played Carole King’s “Tapestry” until the needle was shot, and ate tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches by the stack (with a side of cherry coke, of course). My Uncle Steven hired a few extra hands at his house-painting company so that he could take some time off. The three off them made a trip up to Canobie Lake Park where Carrie Mae rode the Cannonball roller coaster a total of eight times in two hours, breaking her own record; within a two-week period, they ate lobster rolls and french fries at the Clam Box three times; and they caught so many fireflies in the evenings that Aunt Lena guessed they could light Fenway Park with them. It truly seemed that life had returned to normal for the small family.
Unfortunately for Carrie Mae, Uncle Steven, and Aunt Lena, those two happy weeks would prove to be no more than the eye of the storm. Something truly sinister lay on the horizon, and it came for a visit about three weeks after Carrie Mae’s return. On the night it happened, Carrie Mae woke her parents up, saying that she couldn’t sleep because of a noise in her bedroom. When asked what it sounded like, she said it was a sort of rubbing or grinding. My aunt and uncle went to her room, switched on the light, checked the corners and closet. They listened too. But after a minute of hearing and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, they told Carrie Mae that she could sleep with them that night. They’d take a closer look at things in the morning. So all three of them went to bed and were soon asleep.
In the very early morning, my Aunt Lena woke up to go to the bathroom. It was down the hall on the left just past Carrie Mae’s room. After using the toilet, she was passing Carrie Mae’s room when something caught her eye at the window. From the door, she could see Carrie Mae’s window which was open as it had been earlier that night. Nothing unusual there. What was unusual, what made my aunt’s blood suddenly run cold was the flap of torn screen hanging down into the room. Slowly, she padded past the threshold, across the floorboards, over to the window. Reaching down and picking up the flap of screen, she noticed that the edges were gnarled and frayed as if it had been sawed through with a blunt instrument. With a chill, she realized that this was likely the sound that Carrie Mae had heard, the cutting of the screen. As she examined it, she suddenly noticed something long and dark lying on the floor beneath the window. Picking it up, she noted its lightness, how it was smooth on one side but curled and grimy on the other. One end of it was jagged, as if it had broken off of something. The other was a fine point with a sharp edge running down one side. A bone? she thought, looking back and forth from the object to the window screen. She had felt the material before, felt it every day of her life. No, not bone. It’s a…it’s a….
It was then, just as she came to the sickening realization of what had been used to open the screen that she heard it, a wet guttural growl: “GRRRRRRLLLLLL..” She turned quickly to her left expecting to find an animal. What she saw instead made the room spin. There in the corner, lit partially by moonlight, stood a woman…but not just any woman. It was the most horrifying creature, animal or man she had ever seen. The mere sight of it made her sick with revulsion and terror. It was completely emaciated. A filthy floral dress hung loosely from its shoulders. Its neck barely looked able to support the large head covered by a great wild and greasy nest of dark hair. Strands shot out in rays all around its skeletal face. It’s wide pale eyes, hid back in two caves within the skull, looked drugged, frantic, desperate, and even a bit mirthful. They hung above a thin carved sliver of mouth which seemed both to smirk and scowl, revealing flashes of black rotten teeth. Bloody scratches and splotches of mud, dirt, and filth speckled its twig-like limbs. It had no shoes on. Both feet were black with earth and brown claw-like toenails dug into the floor where it stood. The nails on its hands were easily the length of the fingers from which they grew. In a flitting observation, they reminded Aunt Lena of the sloths she had once seen at the zoo. Nine great black curls hung from ten grimy fingers. The tenth, of course, Aunt Lena held in her own hand. It had belonged to the left index. Upon seeing the cracked stump where it had once been, she dropped it to the floor.
The “thing” raised its right arm and pointed a dagger-nail at Carrie Mae’s empty bed. It growled again, only this time Aunt Lena realized that it wasn’t a growl at all; it was a word: “Giiiirrrrllll. Giiirrrllll. Weeeerrrrzzzz da giiiiirrrrllll?” As it spoke, drool dribbled from its cracked lips, from between jagged black teeth. Strings of it glistened in the moonlight and pooled onto the ends of its massive toenails. Some of it hung from the dark slender chin before stringing down onto the front of its dress. While watching the spittle roll down past the bumps of its tiny breasts, Aunt Lena came to another horrifying realization. She had seen that pattern before: purple flower yellow flower purple flower yellow flower. TJ Max. Back-to-school-sale. Dear God. I bought that dress. That’s CARRIE MAE’S dress!!! The thing lurched forward, now with something clutched in its left hand, something that had been hidden in the darkness: a sack, a giant coarse, ancient-looking burlap sack with it’s wide dark mouth gaping open. As the creature clicked forward on its gnarled toenails, the great sack hissed across the floorboards at its side. As it advanced, the mouth tightened from a bitter scowl into a wide black grin, a grin denoting an epiphany. “ YOOLLDOO YOU’LLDO YOU’LL DO,” it gargled and practically giggled as it motioned with its free hand towards the open sack. “GETTIN. GETIN. GET IN!!!” It’s eyes went wide, wider than any eyes Aunt Lena had seen before. Its wet black mouth opened and shut in a gnashing grin as it began to make clumsy swipes at my aunt with its right hand. “YOU’LL DO. GET IN!,” it barked all in one garbled word: “YOU’LLDOGETIN!”
At this point, Aunt Lena found her vocal chords which, up until that point, had been stifled with pure terror. Her survival instincts loosed the screams that had been mounting in her chest since seeing that flap of torn screen. She screamed with all of the delirium and abandon of a creature caught in the claws of death. Backed up against the wall behind her, she quickly scuttled sideways towards the doorway and dashed screeching down the hall towards her bedroom. My Uncle Steven was already out of bed. He followed my aunt’s shaking finger back towards Carrie Mae’s bedroom only now to find gauzy curtains fluttering in the wind and moonlight. At the window, he could just make out a thin dark form retreating to the forest’s edge.
Dawn saw many of the same officers who had calmed and questioned Carrie Mae three weeks before combing the property, kicking through tall grass and brush with flashlights. Not far from where Uncle Steven had seen it enter the woods, officers found what looked like a rudimentary campsite. The bones and viscera of squirrels sat in a pile by a leaf/pine needle “mattress”; a dug-out latrine sat ten paces from the bed; and under a log near the squirrel remains, officers recovered soggy moldering newspapers chronicling the return of Carrie Mae. The entire site had a direct view of Carrie Mae’s bedroom window. It was quickly surmised by everyone at the scene that the woman had camped out in the woods near the house for some time before attempting to abduct Carrie Mae. Maybe a week. Perhaps more.
Police obtained a sketch of the woman based off of my Aunt Lena’s account of that night. It was distributed throughout the county’s police departments. The sketch was also used in one final interview with Carrie Mae following “the incident” at the house. Carrie Mae, who had been surprisingly calm during the whole event, took one look at the sketch of the woman and began to shake uncontrollably. She had a fit bordering on epileptic there in the office of the Middleton police chief. While screaming, she attempted to rip off her own skin with her fingernails screeching “LIKE THIS! SHE DID IT LIKE THIS!” A team of psychiatrists later theorized that Carrie Mae’s previous abduction had been so traumatic that she had repressed it, leaving no conscious memory of her time in the woods. Upon seeing a portrait of her abductor, however, those memories all came rushing back, overloading her conscious mind, frying it with madness. She left the police department that day on a stretcher, her hands and feet bound by leather straps. Rumor has it that she began to laugh uncontrollably in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. She has lived at McLean’s Psychiatric Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts ever since.
“The North Shore Snatcher,” as she came to be called in local folklore was never found. It’s 2016 now and for all I know, she’s dead. Or perhaps she’s moved on to woods in some other county, some other state. Who knows? The truth is, she doesn’t even need to be alive or present to exist. Like something as traumatic as a shark attack or a plane crash, the memory of what happened to Carrie Mae and her family echoes down the years so that even decades later, the fear remains fresh. So odd and disturbing was the event that the older folks are still left glued to their chairs at summer barbecues, brooding over their drinks and trying to piece it all together. All the while, they keep a watchful eye on that border where the lawn ends and the woods begin. Occasionally, a younger cousin’ll dash in among the trees only to hear behind them “Hey! Get outta there!” from their parents. “You don’t know what’s in there!” The little culprit will emerge from the bushes stomping its feet in protest and whining: “why not?! There’s no poison ivy around here!” But by that point, the parent’s looking past the child into the gloom beyond the birches; more to themselves than to anyone else, they’ll mutter, “It ain’t poison ivy I’m worried about.”
CREDIT: Daniel DuBois
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I lay awake under the covers of my bed. I’d grown accustomed to sleeping with my head completely underneath due to the extreme coldness in my bedroom. We had recently moved house and although we were settling in quite well the cold was something we all had to adjust to, especially with winter slowly creeping in.
As I gazed blearily into the dark blankets I started wondering what had awoken me, for I had been sleeping peacefully until just this moment. I strained my ears and caught a very faint creaking sound, almost rhythmic in its regularity. I shut my eyes once more, it was simply the shutters on the windows creaking in the wind. I settled back into the pillows and listened to the noise, it was almost soothing in a way.
My eyes suddenly shot open, my old house had shutters that would sometimes creak in the wind but this new one didn’t. I’d inspected the windows thoroughly a few days before fruitlessly trying to plug up any gaps that might be letting the cool air in. I’d asked my parents to change bedroom but they said they needed the space in the other rooms and my brother definitely wasn’t swapping his, he had the warmest room in the house next to the boiler.
Listening intently I realised another thing, the sounds didn’t seem to be coming from the direction of the window. Although slightly muffled by my blankets, the sound seemed to be coming from directly above me as if I had some ancient creaking fan on the ceiling. I still didn’t want to leave the warmth of the covers so I turned my head to try and listen to get a better idea of what it was.
As I moved my head the sound abruptly stopped. I lay there holding my breath trying to catch any hint of the creaks again. Just as I thought the noise had stopped for good I heard something that chilled my insides, even in the warmth of my bed. A grating scratching sound like teeth grinding on a bone uttered the words:
“Don’t peek”
Lying completely still, my heart was racing. The creaking had once again started slightly faster this time, and with a jolt I suddenly realised what it was. Breathing. The horrible thing that was hanging above me was breathing. How could I have thought it soothing before? It was a horrible choked noise, sounding more like a death rattle now than the quiet creaking of before. The voice had been inhuman, utterly devoid of any emotion.
I lay trembling listening to the quickened pace of the breathing. Minutes dragged on and after seemingly hours daylight began to creep into the room. I must have dozed off at some point, even amidst the sheer terror that I was feeling that night, because I couldn’t remember that horrible breathing stopping. It was silent now, but I refused to get out from under the covers.
It wasn’t until my mother came in to wake me up for school that I braved leaving the safety of my bed sheets. I tried to tell her about what had happened the previous night and she initially seemed concerned, but that was mostly due to the bags under my eyes and lack of sleep than some kind of “make believe monster”. I went down for breakfast dreading the day of school that lay ahead of me in my tired state.
As I predicted school went by slowly and I dozed off in class multiple times much to the annoyance of my teachers. After a short talk with the principal after school about making sure I get enough sleep and not to let it happen again I could finally start the walk home. As I walked a new dread filled me, would it be back tonight?
Forty minutes later and I was walking down the driveway. Seeing the lights from the windows was comforting, it was already getting dark and I really didn’t want to be walking alone at night. I went inside and was instantly cornered by my mother who’d had a phone call from school earlier on. They had told her about me sleeping during lessons and she wasn’t all too happy. I was told I was going to have supper and then get an early night so that it wouldn’t happen again, much to my disdain.
I ate supper as slowly as I could in order to prolong the time it took for me to have to go into that room again. All too soon my plate was cleared and I was sent up to bed with a warning about no TV if I let it happen again. That was the least of my worries.
I climbed into bed and made sure that my door was ajar and the landing light was left on. I could hear the TV and murmurs of my parents which gave me some comfort, at least they weren’t too far away. The room was getting cold again but I refused to go under the covers, the light from the door partially illuminated the room and banishing the darkness giving me courage.
I lay like this for a few hours, partially dozing off when I heard the sound of the TV go silent and movement signalling that my parents were heading for bed. I listened to their door close and sighed, maybe there was nothing after all. The light spilling into the room comforted me and I curled up underneath the covers away from the cold.
I awoke staring into blackness, it took a while for me to realise what was wrong. The light from the landing had gone off, I could tell without leaving the warmth of my bed sheets. I felt an icy chill and memories from the previous night came rushing back. I lay still as a corpse as I held my breath, listening.
It was there, I could hear the rasping rattling sound of its breath. A shuddering sigh escaped my lips and I realised that was a mistake. The hideous breathing intensified, as if some inhuman being had realised its prey was trapped within its grasp. To my horror the breathing got louder, it seemed to lower from the ceiling towards the thin barrier that lay between me and it.
It sounded like it was a few feet above my bed now, its dry rattling was all I could hear. Until once more:
“Don’t peek”
The voice sounded even more terrifying when it was this close, it was all I could do not to scream. I knew that if I tried to make a noise it would silence me before the sound had left my throat. I closed my eyes, tears escaping through my scrunched eyelids as I waited for dawn. And it watched.
I was awoken by my mother yet again, sometime in the early hours I must have passed out from either fear or tiredness. Perhaps both. I felt awful and I must’ve looked it too because my mother did a double take when I rose out of my blankets. She suggested I take the day off school, that I must be ill. I was tempted until she said “A day in bed will do you good”. I sat bolt upright and flat out refused, I was ok, I just felt a little iffy but I’m sure it’ll pass.
My parents both have work and my brother would be at school, there was no way in hell I was staying in the house, in that bedroom on my own. Even in daylight it was an uncomfortable thought.
The school day was another blur, falling asleep in class and speaking to the principal again. He was getting frustrated at my apparent lack of interest in my subjects, seemed to think I was doing it on purpose for attention now. I didn’t argue, sitting in his office after school delayed going back to that room.
That night played out much the same as the one before, except the creature was getting closer once more. Night faded again to a bleary day repeating the same old steps, falling asleep, principles office and dreading going home. This time I was promised a detention after school the following day and if my behaviour continued then they would discuss further options.
That night I sunk into bed once more feeling utterly defeated. It was just going to continue like this, it was going to ruin my life and keep me awake forever. I’d read about people dying from sleep deprivation, was that going to be my fate? Soon enough the breathing started again as I lay powerless beneath the covers. This time it felt like it was merely a few inches from the top of my sheets. I could feel them quiver with each breath the thing took.
“Don’t Peeeeeeek”
It rasped the words so loudly I half expected my parents to come bursting into the room to see what was going on. But as with every other night they were either sound asleep or just deaf to the nightmare that was happening in my room. I could feel pressure on the covers, it was pressed right up against them now. My mind raced in panic, all it had to do was rip of the sheets and it could devour me or take me or do whatever other horrific thing it had in mind.
If this is how I’m going to die I want to go out with a fight at least. I had no idea how strong the monster would be, or if I could even hurt it at all but I had to try. I grabbed the top of my bed sheets and paused for a moment, steeling my resolve. Its gasping breathing had increased now as if it could sense what was happening.
With a roar I pulled the bed sheets down from over my head and swung upwards as hard as I could with my fist. I hit nothing but air. Scanning the room for any signs of the creature I quickly jumped out of bed and sped towards the light flicking it on. As the room filled with brightness my eyes took a while to adjust, I had my back pressed against the wall so nothing could get behind me in my temporary blindness. Once my vision had returned I had a proper look around, rummaging through my cupboards and under the bed. There was no sign of anything abnormal. I stood shivering, after the initial adrenaline rush I was feeling the cold of the room again. My breath appeared mist-like in front of me.
I glanced at the bed again wanting to get back under the covers. After a few moments of consideration I climbed back into the warm blankets. This time I refused to put my head under the covers no matter how cold it was. I had left the light on which gave me comfort, I was sure the thing needed darkness to manifest itself. A glance at my clock told me it was 1.47am. Had I defeated the monster? Maybe it didn’t want me to peek because that was what it gained strength from, fear of the unknown. These thoughts swirled around in my head as my eyelids drooped.
I awoke the next morning feeling refreshed, that was the best nights sleep I’d had in a long time. As my mother came to make sure I was up she commented on my appearance, the bags under my eyes that had been present for the last few days had gone and my face had colour once again.
The day at school went well, not once did I fall asleep and I tried my hardest to catch up on what I missed. I still had the after school detention to get through but even that didn’t seem so bad now I was properly awake. I could use the time to catch up on my work. As the school day drew to a close I went towards the detention hall feeling confident that the past weeks horrors had ended.
After the detention I started the walk home from school. I wanted to hurry because it was already getting dark. By the time I saw the comforting lights of my house the sun had fully set. Opening the door I called out an apology for my lateness before heading into the living room. The television was on, the usual wildlife documentaries my parents watch that I never had much interest in. The room was empty however, so I headed for the kitchen thinking maybe they had already started dinner without me.
Upon entering the kitchen however, I stopped confused. They had indeed started eating without me, plates containing a half eaten meal were sitting on the table. But there was no sign of my parents or my brother. A quick check in the other downstairs rooms confirmed they weren’t there either. I headed upstairs in the vain hope they had decided on a very early night. Even if that was the case they wouldn’t have left their meals like that.
My heart was a dull thud in my chest when I reached the top of the staircase. A peek into my parent’s room showed it empty, the same with my brothers. I was beginning to sweat now as I walked slowly towards my bedroom door. I gripped the door handle, my mind was telling me to turn around and leave, but I had to see. I pushed open the door and looked towards the bed.
Three black silhouettes were sitting up against the headboard, two larger and one smaller. They were the unmistakeable shapes of my parents and brother. Something looked off about them however. I groped towards the light switch as the voice in my head screamed at me to go downstairs and run to the neighbours, to call the police. Ignoring it I flipped the switch.
The vacant eyes of my family were all staring at me, glasslike but somehow they were looking right at me. Their heads were hanging at an unnatural angle, as if their necks had been simply snapped. They had been propped up against the bed like grotesque puppets. A cry was caught in my throat as I stood rooted to the floor. I willed myself to take a step back when I heard it again, the sound that had tormented me all those nights. The breathing really was a death rattle now, it sounded somehow even more full of malice than the previous nights. And it was coming from right behind me.
“You Peeked”.
Credit To – Spamalot2006
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Thanks for the info, niceguyphil13.
I started digging around for myself using my top internet sleuthing tools (aka cached Google results and WayBackMachine) and found some forum posts. He went by “BenjiMCFC93” and was quite prolific, it appears. Mostly just memes and arguing about WWE with people, but there’s one that really stands out.
I think it’s the last before he went missing. And – whoa. Did they ever even question the dad? I can’t find anything in the local news archives that even mentions K****.
///submitted Aug 28 by BenjiMCFC93
So I’m over at my Dad’s, I ask if I can use his work laptop for the internet because there’s nothing else to do here. He says sure, so I go up to his study, flip it open and there’s a browser window already open (I swear) with this string of emails. I know I shouldn’t have read them, but I didn’t even know Dad was seeing a therapist so I guess I was just concerned and wanted to check everything was okay. I really, really wish I hadn’t read them.
From: r*****@r****************.com
To: k*****@btinternet.co.uk
Subject: Your first session
Hi K****,
I hope you feel that you managed to get something out of our first meeting, despite the teething troubles we encountered in vocalising your memories and thoughts from that period. It’s not uncommon for people to struggle initially when trying to open up about traumatic experiences – it takes time. Eventually, I believe you’ll find it immensely beneficial to be able to talk to someone in person. Don’t be perturbed!
We can take the next session as slowly as you like. You’re in control, and you can choose to use our time together exactly as you like.
Best regards,
R*****
From: k*****@btinternet.co.uk
To: r*****@r****************.com
Re: Your first session
R*****,
I came away feeling quite frustrated, to be honest. I’m not sure what I expected of myself, or the situation as a whole, but I suppose I’d imaged it’d be easy to talk about everything.
Look, in honesty, I feel a lot of shame associated with my behaviours. It’s all very difficult to admit to myself, let alone try to explain to someone else.
If you’re open to the idea, can we try to talk about it on here first and pick up on it in person at my next session? I think it’d really help. I might be able to get that whole situation out onto a laptop screen more easily than I could through my mouth.
Best,
K****
From: r*****@r****************.com
To: k*****@btinternet.co.uk
Re: Re: Your first session
Absolutely, if that’s what you find most comfortable. We can pick up the conversation in person when you next come over, as you say.
R
From: k*****@btinternet.co.uk
To: r*****@r****************.com
Re: Re: Re: Your first session
Okay. Here goes.
As I mentioned, Ben and I were best friends from age 11. We’d spend a lot of time at each other’s houses or at the park, mucking around, making dens, fighting. Kid’s stuff. He was always the more mischievous of us, but we never did anything that I’d consider serious or dangerous in retrospect.
During third year of secondary school, Ben started acting differently. He was around my house a lot more, I’d say almost every weeknight and certainly both days of each weekend until quite late at night. My parents began to ask questions. I’d become slightly wary of him, too. The mischievous ideas he’d have suggested previously had given way to darker suggestions. He spent a long time trying to make a bomb using matches, tinfoil and various measures of fertilisers and cleaners from around my garage. I can remember being very worried I’d get in trouble if either of my parents came in and saw what we were doing, but being more worried about losing face with Ben if I suggested we stop.
One rare evening when I was over at his house for a change, he left the garage (where we’d been shooting paint tins with a BB gun), came back in a moment later with a kitchen knife, and told me to get in the chest freezer. That alone wasn’t alarming – we were regularly trying to scare each other like that. I laughed it off, but he continued the act for several minutes, insisting that I climb inside the chest freezer or he’d slit my throat. There was a peculiar intensity about him as he said it. Let me be totally clear: at no point was I under the impression that my life was genuinely in danger if I didn’t comply. But I could tell he really wanted me to believe it was, and I felt a unique anxiety at that. After what felt like far too long, he dropped the act and we continued shooting objects in his garage.
But the strange energy he had remained. I found it increasingly difficult to be around him, as did our other friends at school. We were on the verge of ostracising him completely when he told us that his parents had divorced. His mum had moved out and his brother had gone with her, leaving Ben and his dad. I remember my mother saying that explained everything when I told her. She told me it was probably a big deal for Ben to tell us, after apparently keeping it a secret from everyone for so long. An indication that he was back on the right track.
I suppose I saw it that way, too. With my teenager’s understanding of psychology, I waited the best part of a week for the old Ben to re-emerge, smiling and ready to come and play football with the rest of us on the school field. When he didn’t, I finally broached the subject. I told him I noticed he’d been acting differently for the past few months, and that I guessed the divorce must have been hard on him but he didn’t have to push me and other people away. He started crying. I think it was the first time I’d seen him cry. “It isn’t that,” he said.
He made us walk to the edge of the village, out in the woods, before he’d tell me what it was. He told me that around six months previously he’d seen a man in the supermarket who he’d stared at because of the way he pushed the trolley around, slumped over the bar like it was a Zimmer frame, and because his skin was so yellow. When his mum saw him staring she told him the man was probably terminally ill, and “didn’t look long for this world.” Those words, that particular choice of phrasing, always stayed with me, as I’m sure it stayed with Ben.
That same week, Ben said, he got out of bed one night to draw his curtains and noticed something out in the garden. It was the man from the supermarket, standing completely still in the middle of his back garden, looking straight up at him, arms by his sides. They held each other’s gaze for a second before Ben sprinted over to his light switch to turn it out, pulled his curtains shut and pulled the duvet over him. He could still feel the man looking at him, he said.
He wasn’t telling this story to scare me. Ben wasn’t such a good actor. His breathing was irregular, his voice wavered and broke, and tears kept creeping into his eyes. Whatever Ben saw, or thought he saw, had evidently profoundly affected him. If I were telling you about this in person – and as we’ve established in our first session it’s extremely unlikely I’d be able to get this far – you’d certainly see the same signs from me.
It happened once every couple of weeks, Ben told me. Almost enough time would pass for him to start relaxing and explaining it away with logic, then he’s see the man again, looking up at him through his bedroom window from the garden, alone and unknowable in the pitch darkness. He never told his mum or dad about it, he said. Telling them would be admitting to himself that it was really happening. I was the first and only person he’d spoken to about it.
There was more. He’d been having terrible nightmares since the first time. One night he dreamed he was preparing to hang himself in the back garden and videotaping a message to his parents while he did it. There was a recurring dream in which he’d find a girl’s body in a bin bag, limbs cut off and emerging from the bag at strange angles. I couldn’t think of anything to say for a long time after he stopped talking. Finally, he said “I just don’t know what’s going on anymore.”
I believed him, inasmuch as I believed he was seeing something, and it was causing him a lot of emotional distress. So when he asked if I’d stay over, I did feel scared. But I also felt I might somehow be able to understand what was going on, explain it, and make everything magically return to normality for Ben.
It would have been late November. We were watching a Bond movie with his dad downstairs, eating chow mein on our laps. Over the course of the night the things he’d told me had slipped to the back of my mind. Ben seemed to relax around his dad, and became someone more like the kid I used to climb trees with in the woods. I started to consider the possibility that what Ben told me wasn’t true – specifically, that he couldn’t own up to the truth, which was that it was the divorce that had rattled him so much. It was easier to invent something fearsome to explain his emotional state than it was to deal with the raw wounds of his parents’ separation.
I’d become quite set on that idea when Ben asked his dad if we could all stay up and watch the boxing at 12AM, live from Vegas. “Not a chance,” his dad replied, laughing. It was a school night for us, and a work night for him, he pointed out. But Ben pushed again for it. And again. It quickly turned into an outright argument between the two of them. I looked down at the patterns of oil and soy sauce on my plate until it simmered down. Ben really didn’t want to go to bed, that much was clear. But he was swimming against the tide with this one.
When we went up to his room to pull out the futon, I was trying to think of way to tell him it was okay to be angry, or sad, or even scared after the divorce, without suggesting I didn’t believe what he’d told me out at the woods. Before I could get anything out, he looked at me nervously and asked if I wanted to check the garden with him from the window. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t sure whether to go along with it, or to confront him directly in the hope that the reality check would help him resolve whatever he was going through. Inevitably, I did neither. We walked over to the window, looked down into the garden below, and saw no one. Ben sighed in relief, then jabbed me in the kidney to try and scare me. We drew the curtains, talked about which girls from school we fancied with the lights off for a while, then both drifted off to sleep.
I woke up a few hours later needing to pee, having had a couple of cokes after dinner. The bathroom was to the left of Ben’s room, and around a corner, and I made my way to it without turning on any lights. I remember not wanting to wake Ben’s dad, since he’d been so vocal about getting a good night’s sleep for work the following morning. The only light in the bathroom was the moonlight from outside, so I think that drew my eye in the window’s direction. I remember choosing to glance out into the garden to reinforce the belief that there was no one there, as we sometimes check the corners of a dark room to strengthen the belief that we’re safe. And, honest to God R*****, I saw him. I saw the man.
He was standing in the middle of the lawn, next to the washing line, absolutely still, in what looked like tracksuit bottoms and a tweed jacket. He wasn’t looking up at me, but over at Ben’s room. The window, with its curtains pulled. Staring at it.
I rushed back to Ben’s room and woke him up to tell him. I simply said “he’s out there.” I won’t ever forget the look on his face. We both crept over to the window, pulled back a corner of curtain and looked down to see his ill-looking face already staring in our direction. He wasn’t quite expressionless, though almost. I remember seeing what looked like sadness in the faint moonlight. Ben started to cry. He tugged the curtain in place again, dragged the duvet off his bed and pulled me into the corner of the room with him, where we sat hugging out knees, the duvet covering us completely. Neither of us spoke. Ben sobbed. I knew then what he had meant when he said he could feel the man looking at him still.
It was just over a week later that Ben went missing. December 7th, just before the Christmas holidays. As I mentioned yesterday, they never found him.
From: r*****@r****************.com
To: k*****@btinternet.co.uk
Re: Re: Re: Re: Your first session
How awful that must have been for you. It must have taken a tremendous amount of bravery to endure that period, and more still to open up and talk about it now.
As painful as those memories are to access, I hope you’re encouraged by the fact you’ve been able to relay them to me. I’m curious – did you mention your experiences prior to Ben’s disappearance to anyone afterwards?
R
From: k*****@btinternet.co.uk
To: r*****@r****************.com
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your first session
It was extremely difficult. The school put on an assembly to explain to everyone what had happened, but I got a nosebleed almost instantly and had to leave. There were flyers around the entire area for weeks after, perhaps months. I hated having to see his face wherever I went, becoming more and more weathered as time went on. I understood why the flyers were there, but it seemed sick to me at the time. I suppose I’d accepted quite early on that he was gone. That he would not be found.
The police came over to my house one evening to talk to me, and I did try to talk about the night I’d stayed over the week before, and about what he’d told me, but I didn’t get the impression they took it very seriously. They were more concerned with his hangout spots, where he might go to if he wanted to run away. He hadn’t taken anything with him if he had run away, though. Not even shoes. There was no sign of a forced entry in his house, nothing out of place in his room. I’d heard these things via a friend in school whose dad played golf with Ben’s dad, so looking back they weren’t concrete truths. But I do remember everyone, the school, the police, and his parents, all talking as if Ben had run away, rather than been taken, in the weeks following his disappearance.
From: r*****@r****************.com
To: k*****@btinternet.co.uk
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Your first session
We’ve covered a lot of ground here, K****. I think it would be best if we continued this in person, and thus avoid the risk of overwhelming ourselves and losing focus. This has been a vital first step.
R
///submitted Aug 28 by BenjiMCFC93
I know I shouldn’t have read it. I totally get that. But I can’t un-read it now, and it’s all freaked me out so much I don’t know what to do.
Here’s the thing: my dad has NEVER mentioned anyone called Ben from when he was younger. He had two best friends, Gareth and Tom, the three of them met at pre-school and went through the whole education system together. I’ve met them both loads of times. They send me birthday cards. None of them have ever mentioned anyone called Ben.
Also: dad definitely didn’t grow up in a village near some woods. He’s from Walker, in inner-city Newcastle. There just aren’t any woods there, not now and not when he was a kid.
Then there’s the part where he mentions his “behaviours”. I’m guessing, but I think he must be talking about something that happened before Mum left. One night my sister went downstairs to pick up a book she’d left in the lounge, and found dad in there, with all the lights off, just standing. It scared the shit out of her. She screamed and turned on the lights, asked him what the hell he was doing down there like. He just mumbled something and stayed there. Rachael left him to it, I guess she must have wanted to go back to sleep and pretend it hadn’t occurred.
It happened a few more times – once mum found him in the garden in his dressing gown at 5 in the morning after she’d woken up and realised he wasn’t in bed. Then there was the night I woke up and found him in my room, standing by my bed, looking at me. We thought it was sleepwalking, but after things between him and mum got worse, man… idk.
And, I mean… Ben’s my name. Obviously. So that story he tells the therapist bloke really gets to me. Why would he lie? I honestly don’t know what to do, guys. Should I bring it up with him?
Advice?!
Credit To – Man1ac
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The river runs foul with the stench of death. It won’t be long now. For ten years I have fled, found each and every rock to hide beneath, a plethora of gutters soaked in the outcast remains of civilisation. No city, nor village, nor town has provided me with shelter. No home or friend to offer me sanctuary. I am untouchable, a rotten reminder that knowledge can be the bane of all who seek and thirst for it. Ten years of night have passed quickly since, and the dust does not shake easily from my feet, nor does the memory of what I uncovered simply dislodge from my mind. This recording will be my final testament, and this piece of rock by the river Nile my last resting place. Thank God for that, for I cannot continue in this wretched shell. To those who are listening, heed my story, forget the relics of the past, for they are surely cursed by things far fouler than the modern mind can ever comprehend. I must speak quickly, for the sun is low in the sky, and soon my pursuer will be upon me. My name is Dr Samuel Russell, and if you’re listening to this, let my tale be a warning to the curious.
*
When all this started I was an ambitious type. As an archaeologist I dreamt of the day that I would make an earth-shattering discovery, one which would lead to fame, a sentence in the history books, perhaps even a paragraph or a whole volume, a name not to be forgotten at the very least. This was my desire, my passion – to find a fragment of mankind’s past which would rewrite a chapter of our story as a civilisation. By the age of 32, I was convinced that I had found just such a thing.
The public does not realise that many archaeological breakthroughs have been made decades after their initial discovery. So many digs, so many ruins uncovered, so many bones unearthed – too many in fact. More often than not these relics lie packed away in crates and boxes in the bowels of academic institutes and museums, waiting to be categorised and understood by future generations. In some instances this can take years, and in the case of my discovery – the dusty old crate which held the tainted promise of fame and fortune – had been left to fester for over a century in the dark.
I had been searching through the archives at the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow, Scotland, after travelling there from New York to study the South Uist mummies. A colleague, Dr M. Grealy, was kind enough to allow me access to the Museum’s basement areas where vaults of crates, documents, and relics from digs over the past two centuries waited to be rediscovered.
It was purely by accident that I stumbled across the tablet. I was looking for an old text on ancient burial practises, to aid my study, when I noticed a strange entry in an archive book. It read: 1883, Predynastic Stone Tablet. Origin Unknown. How could I refuse such a mystery? Surely I could spare a few hours to investigate such a curious description? As I wandered between the crates and other boxed relics looking for the item, my excitement grew at the possibilities held within that description: ‘origin unknown’. How could its origin be uncertain? After all, it was a relatively easy task for an expert to identify such things, the language or hieroglyphs used, where the material was quarried from etc.
After much wandering around the labyrinth of dimly lit containers, cases, and bookshelves, I finally found it. The wooden crate had a number of old weathered travelling stamps on its side which read “Al Fayyum, Cairo, Boston, Vienna, London, Glasgow”. It certainly had done the rounds, no doubt being handed from expert to expert as they scratched their heads trying to identify it. The crate was nailed shut, and as I prepared to pry it open with a crowbar it was at that moment that I first noticed it. A sensation which would grow with time, becoming a constant unwanted companion through these past few years. I can only describe it as the feeling of someone walking over my grave. Dread, and foreboding, a coldness running up my spine, and the blood draining from my face. It was not unusual to feel uneasy in such a quiet isolated basement, but there was something uncanny about the experience – a momentary breathlessnesses, as if suffocated by the earth, with the taste of sand in my mouth.
The uncomfortable feeling passed, and my zeal for a new discovery soon quelled such thoughts. Plunging the sharpened end of the crowbar underneath the crate’s lid, and with some effort, it finally gave way, offering up its secrets to me. Wrapped in cloth the stone tablet lay there, cadaverous and solemn. Its appearance immediately surprised me. I had encountered other Egyptian tablets before, but this one was unique; older, cut in a peculiarly haphazard fashion, its greyed edges cracked and crumbled like ash. It was obvious why the archaeologists of 1883 had difficulty reading it. The face of the stone had been chiselled at, vandalised by some implement. It did indeed seem as though the tablet was barely legible. Someone had not wanted its message to be read.
On consulting with the museum’s archivists, they could only tell me that a letter sent with the tablet was the last known mention of the archaeologist who had discovered it. His name was Dr Fitzsimmons, apparently a well-respected academic of his time. Accounts were blurry, incomplete, but it appeared as though Dr Fitzsimmons had discovered the tablet somewhere in the Saharan desert in Egypt, before falling gravely ill with a sickness. In his letter, a feverish nonsensical mess, he repeated the bizarre phrase “a thing of ash” several times, a description which for some reason made me shudder. It was clear that Dr Fitzsimmons had been struck down by a terrible illness shortly after his discovery, one which had left him delirious, and his disappearance was probably the result of his premature death in a foreign country.
With a little persuasion, my friend at the museum was able to procure the tablet for me so that I could study it more closely. Indeed, most of the museum’s other academics seemed relatively uninterested in an illegible inscription from the past. For them, the message was lost to eternity. But it was not lost for me. It fascinated me, occupying my every thought, almost to the point of obsession. I was continually fixated on the message which had been erased from the tablet, what could it have told us about the past? And why was it deemed offensive enough to be deliberately removed, something which would have clearly taken some time and effort? From then on my days were filled with studying the tablet as best I could, and at night I thought of nothing else; I dreamt of the sands of the Sahara desert, and what secrets lay covered by the grains of time.
It was then that I stumbled upon an idea. I knew that several recent scanning methods had been used to decipher messages, inscriptions, and details from old texts and pottery; words and pictures which to the naked eye seemed unreadable, and yet could be enhanced through modern imaging techniques. I wondered if a similar approach could be taken with the tablet. Perhaps enough information still remained within the stone, subtle depreciations and marks which would reveal the hidden message beneath. In 1883 archaeologists could not have conceived of the investigative tools available to their 21rst century counterparts. It was a long shot, but after a few months, and a not inconsiderable amount of money, I was able to glean new data from the tablet. Thankfully, I had been working alone with the equipment I had procured, and you’ll forgive me for not mentioning the methods I used, or the exact details I uncovered. I simply cannot take the risk that some other unfortunate soul will use this information to seek out the truth, and find themselves in the same horrid predicament as I.
What I can tell you is that the inscription spoke of a tomb which dated back to before the founding of the great Egyptian dynasties. I was enthused. There was the very real possibility that the images I stared upon were the oldest known examples of Egyptian writing. Furthermore, it was clear to me that they depicted an event which to my knowledge had never been seen in all of archaeology, along with a unique location; one which I knew of almost immediately due to a distinct geographic feature which exists to this day. At the foot of a mountain range in the Egyptian part of the Saharan desert, the tomb lay nearby, in line with the rising and falling of the sun, and a constellation above. Whoever had carved the tablet was reaching out from the past and telling me where something important could be found. As for the depicted event, much of its story remained too damaged to tell. It seemed to depict a celebration, of a group of people visiting the tomb, their arms raised praising the sun. And yet one part of its broken facade bothered me – a stone carving of a malformed withered figure, standing amongst those who had celebrated now lying still and dead. I was certain that this was a metaphor for a plague of some sorts, which must have killed many people to have been recorded in a tablet.
Not wanting to share my discovery with the wider academic community quite yet, for I feared that someone with more influence would seek to claim whatever lay inside the tomb for themselves, I returned the tablet to the museum and kept the recorded images for myself, informing those at the museum, even my friend, that I had failed to uncover anything of interest. Ego was indeed my first sin, but it most certainly would not be my last.
It was not long before I was headed for the Egyptian desert; to the place where the tomb lay – the source of all that has befallen me since. Of course finding it was difficult, indeed it took me over nine months of geophysical surveys and failed digs, but by God I found it eventually. At the foot of the mountainside, covered in its shadow, I quickly saw the proof I needed. I had hired four Egyptian archaeology students keen to make a name for themselves, and, under the suggestion that after such a discovery they could work anywhere in the world, they were more than happy to keep the expedition a secret. Indeed, we did not officially have permission to dig there in the first place, but I wagered that the uncovering of an ancient part of Egyptian history would outweigh any punishment, and my name would already be heading for the history books by then, which was all that mattered.
We soon found our first relic deep under the sand and earth of the Sahara. But it was not an ancient piece of stone or pottery as expected, but rather a digging tool, one no doubt from the 19th century. As we dug further we found more, shovels, trowels, and then bags, old supplies – all manner of provisions. While the desert was quite capable of covering anything in vast amounts of sand, as we continued digging, that horrid sense of dread which I had experienced the first time I set eyes on the tablet, welled up inside when I thought of what it might mean. I suspected that the area had been deliberately filled in by someone, covering whatever lay below; both relics from 19th century archaeology, and objects from the dawn of history. There was little doubt in my mind that the belongings were from Dr Fitzsimmons’ excavation, as we uncovered an old empty box with the date 1883 on it. It seemed likely that he had found the tablet elsewhere, and like me followed its directions to the unknown tomb. But why had he left his equipment to be reclaimed by the sand? Worse still, why would he have buried such a discovery, what was there to fear beneath the desert surface?
Unperturbed by such ruminations, we continued. For three days we dug deeper, and at night, as the cold and dry desert wind blew through our camp, I slept little. There was a palpable sense of urgency amongst the group, and while the student archaeologists I had hired were grateful to be given the opportunity, they began to complain about the situation, accusing one another of rummaging around in their belongings. One of the students, a man by the name of Harking, even claimed to have awoken just as the figure of an intruder left his tent, scampering off into the night.
As the most experienced member of the team, I had to calm their nerves, and told them to focus on the dig and the incredible discoveries of which we would all be part. But this seemed to only act as a catalyst to the tensions, and by the fourth day as we dug, each member remained silent, eyeing one another suspiciously.
The silence was finally broken later in the day by a celebratory yell from Harking. Clawing at the sand, each of us worked furiously, digging, shifting buckets of golden grains away from the focus of our efforts. And there, finally, it stood. The sealed stone entrance to a tomb of unknown origin, a completely new discovery in the realm of archaeology, well, except for poor Fitzsimmons, but I was sure that I would honour his memory in any papers I published on the subject.
It quickly became apparent that the tomb had indeed been previously opened, as several blocks at its mouth lay discarded in front, square holes wide enough to fit the body of an archaeologist, a tomb robber, or perhaps something from inside. A peculiar thought, but nonetheless one which gripped me for a moment before passing.
As the sun dimmed in the sky, I packed my haversack with a voice recorder, dynamo flashlight, and camera to document any immediate findings, and gave orders that the others should set up battery powered lamps and remain outside within radio contact; partly to make sure that as little of the inside would be disturbed as possible, and partly because I wished to be the first of our group to lay eyes on what the tomb contained. I did, however, allow Harking to follow me, as he had been the one to first recognise that we had found what we were looking for, and it felt only right to include him. As we slid through the open wounds in the tomb’s exterior, disappearing into its embrace, I could feel the blood drain from my face, sharply, and the dried taste of sand return to my mouth. I will not lie, this did make me apprehensive, but I did not wish to share those misgivings with the other archaeologists, as they were already nervous of the dig.
I had feared that the tomb’s ceilings could have given in at some point to countless eons of sand and wind, and it appeared that those concerns were justified. A long stone corridor led off into the darkness, with broken rubble and sand from above obscuring most of the way. Thankfully, one slab from the ceiling had landed at an angle, holding back the unknown tons of material on top. This gave us a tight gap through which to continue towards whatever secrets the tomb contained. As we crawled along small openings and across ancient sands, which had festered for an age within that silent place, we whispered quietly and treaded carefully for fear of causing a dangerous cave-in.
Finally, the passageway opened up into a small room, and as my flashlight illuminated the cold interior, at first I was disappointed – the tomb seemed to contain only one chamber. But quickly this disappointment bled into utter excitement. While the room was in bad condition, an entire section of the roof having fallen with age allowing piles of sand and earth to reclaim that world beneath, something wondrous lay at the heart of the ruin. There, entombed for thousands of years was a relic unlike any I had seen before. Rising up above me was a statue at least 5,000 years old, if not even more ancient than that. I rushed over to it, utterly enthralled. Reaching my hand out, I touched its cold and jagged blackened surface without thinking. Two aspects of its appearance were immediately captivating, it was entirely made from Onyx – jet black volcanic glass – and it was of a style and form I had never seen or heard of before. It was shaped something like a man, with arms and legs, but its appendages were misshapen, as if twisted by a genetic malformity. One arm was longer than the other, and its legs gave way to a curved stoop, as it contorted at the hips. Stranger still, the statue was faceless, no eyes, mouth, or nose to speak of, and yet its head bowed down towards me in frozen pose, its surface crumbled and uneven. Yes there were no eyes, but in every way it felt as though I was being looked at.
I took out my voice recorder to document my thoughts, when it occurred to me that in all of my excitement I hadn’t heard Harking’s reaction to the statue itself. Turning round to face my colleague, I was greeted with an emptiness I cannot describe as my heart thumped what felt like frozen blood through my veins. Harking screamed and stumbled backwards falling to the ground. Quickly he scrambled to his feet and ran off into the tunnel back towards the entrance. At first I thought he was merely spooked by the strange statue, but no, the horrific truth was much worse than that – we were not alone in that room. Nor had we ever been. Something ancient had been watching. From behind me I heard nothing but the sound of sand, powdered, grained, shifting – moving with purpose. Spinning around I caught only a glimpse of what was there, uncertain but definite in its existence, almost human, a thing which lacked substance. I’m not sure how it appeared at first, for terror had taken me, but its face turned towards me from the corner of the room, and in that instant I recognised that it bore a startling resemblance to the statue at the centre of the tomb, charcoaled misshapen limbs and all, looking yet not looking, seeing with eyes which were not there.
The madness which then took me was all encompassing. No longer did I care about a cave-in or the fear of being buried alive. I had to escape. I rushed from the room into the precarious corridor, and scrambled over fallen blocks and through layers of festering sand. And yet as I reached the entrance I heard the thing in the tomb; an utterance of some unknown origin, a language which I did not recognise or comprehend. Yet some sounds are universal, transcending all epochs and cultures, and in that moment I was certain that the indefinite figure in the darkness, laughed.
By the time I neared the outside, I found the rest of the group attempting to console Harking from his delirium. As I slid back through the opening into the now nighttime desert landscape, the air seemed strange, colder somehow, almost burning my lungs with each breath. I opened my mouth to speak, and as I did so one of the archaeologists looked up. His reaction took me by surprise, for he screamed in abject terror. All four of my colleagues jumped frantically to their feet and panicked as they scratched and clawed their way out of the excavated hole. I chased quickly after them, asking what was wrong, but they only continued their escape.
I then found Harking cowering in his tent, and as I entered, he pleaded with me to spare him. I spoke nothing but calming words, but it seemed as though recognising my voice sent him into a more pronounced madness. He screamed with such despair that I stumbled backward in shock, falling to the ground outside.
A searing pain suddenly etched across my face, as one, then two of my colleagues began to attack me, kicking at my face and hands as I lay helpless on the ground, each kick showering me with the grit of the desert. As blood poured from my nose and mouth, I realised there and then that my team was going to kill me, they were going to beat me to death. That realisation gave me a life-saving surge of energy, and as they continued their attacks, I was able to crawl onto my knees, then to my feet, before running away as fast as I could. I fled our camp, confused, bloodied, and afraid.
**
The desert did not want me. My insides were frozen, and while I had no water, no provisions to speak of other than the haversack I took into the tomb with me, I welcomed the unrelenting Saharan sun, as it finally rose above the sand dunes, baking the landscape below. Yet I felt no warmth, no comfort. I felt only ice, as if my insides had been steeped in snow. The pain spread to my bones, and while I could bear the sensation, before long I could think of little else. Utterly lost, I knew that whether I could feel the heat or not, it would soon kill me. And so I had to search for our camp, hoping to reason with my team, who it seemed had been devoured by some form of hysteria; or if they could not be reasoned with, perhaps I could at least have taken some provisions. Just what had happened to them? But to no avail, I was lost, and the thirst, utter thirst which could not be quenched, had grown so strong that my mouth felt like sand, removed of any moisture; a torturous feeling which continued unabated and unrelenting as if springing forth from some infinite source of horror. I staggered through the desert, shivering to the bone, yet suffering from the fatal symptoms of severe dehydration, while the sun shone bright and unforgiving in the sky.
I continued on, with each and every icy breath, looking for hope, some way to survive my cursed situation, but I knew that the thirst would soon kill me; and before that the searing pain and confusion of sunstroke would arrive. I’ve never considered myself a particularly lucky person, but it was at that moment that luck perhaps tried to shine on me. For as I descended a steep sand dune, I saw before me a long thin crack in the desert floor. A ravine of some sort, and thirty or forty metres below, a small subterranean pool of clear water sat like an oasis in shadow.
In my weakened state I knew that I risked falling to my death, but I had to try the descent or otherwise the thirst would kill me. With each movement of my leg, and tight grip of my hands I squeezed down through the slit of rock towards the water below. But despite my caution, a shard of stone which I was grasping onto gave way, and I fell to what should have been my death. All I remember is clipping my elbow and dragging my face off the opposing rock wall, before smashing abruptly against the stone floor.
I do not know how long I was unconscious, but the sun was no longer high in the sky, and night was approaching. The thirst continued, as did the coldness within, and my throat felt as dry as the sand which surrounded everything. Nearby, I could see the pool which could save me, and eventually managed to get to my feet in anticipation of a soothing gulp of clear water. But no sooner did I step towards the pool that I saw the liquid begin to change, turning from its healthy transparency to a blackened ooze. By the time I stood over it, nothing faced me other than an oily sludge, foul smelling and curdled. I could not understand such a hideous transformation.
Collapsing once more to the ground, I admitted defeat, and the thirst which so painfully engulfed me, persuaded me that death would be a sweet release. There I lay, waiting for my demise; and yet I did not die, I only festered. Hours turned to days, and my torture continued without mercy, with no end in sight. Then, on the third night, as I lay beside the poisoned water, I heard the footsteps of someone nearby. I looked up, and in the moonlight I could see out of the crevasse to the world outside. The stars shining bright in the night sky. My heart began to falter as I saw the shape of someone peering down at me from above.
With all the energy I could muster, I yelled upward for help. Hoping beyond hope that whoever was staring down at me could get me out and back to civilisation. But there was no answer. Instead, the shape just glared at me and then, without making a sound, slowly started climbing down towards me. There I lay, and as I watched the figure scramble across and down the rock-face, I began to dread its every movement. How I wished I had remained silent, and allowed the nighttime passer-by to have moved beyond the ravine, and continued on its journey.
But no, I had yelled; playing dead was useless to me. The figure’s back arched and convulsed in the moonlight, and as it drew closer to the bottom of the pit, I could see that its arms were of different lengths, and its movements malformed. Almost human, almost, but not quite. Finally it had reached the foot of its descent, and then moved quickly towards me, on two legs cumbersomely at first, then on all fours, faster, quicker, its shoulder-blades contorting and skewing with every movement.
I let out a scream, not for help, for no one could save me from whatever evil I had disturbed in that tomb, rather, my cry was of dread, gripping and complete. As it approached I could feel the coldness within me growing, an icy chill deep within my bones, painful at first, and then agony. Just a few meters away, the thing from the tomb rose back up to its feet, and for some reason, of everything which disturbed me, one aspect of its being provoked the most terror – for all its movements, its climbing of the rock face, its crawling and stooped advances, there was no hint of breath from its form, and without breath, surely there can be no life.
A shard of moonlight caught the side of its head, charcoal, crumbled, no features, a darkness of the earth, something older and more putrid than even the heart of humankind. ‘Something of Ash’ as Dr Fitzsimmons had put in his letter. A warning which could not protect me in that cavernous gorge of the Saharan desert, but how I wished I had listened to it.
Reaching out its powdered fingers, the creature placed its hand on my chest. Ice ran through my heart, searing through my body. I convulsed, and with one last ounce of strength I instinctively turned to my side, and fell into the rotten pool of liquid which had once been water. I sank deep into the unknown. The thick soup of viscous, rancid sludge pulled me down into the abyss. I flailed, I kicked my legs and threw my arms as hard as I could, vainly attempting to swim. Yet each panicked movement only pulled me deeper into the dark. The sludge touched and stuck to my open eyes, covering my vision in an absence of light. I held my breath and continued to fight against my descent into the filthy tar-like substance, but it was too much. I could hold on for no longer. Finally, I involuntarily took a deep breath inward. The thick goo, oozed down my throat, filling my lungs and choking me. My eyes felt bulging, and the accompanying pain in my chest made me feel as though I was being crushed from inside. As the pain continued I gave up, exhausted. I stopped fighting, and waited for death, indeed I welcomed it by then.
And yet I did not die. I did not drown. I merely stayed. Remained in this world, and lingered at the bottom of that pit of rotten liquid. For the next few hours I experienced an agony which words cannot fully convey. I was drowning, continually drowning, but I would not die. If I could have killed myself I would have, such was the anguish I experienced, but I soon realised that, for whatever reason, the world would not let me go. To escape the pain I moved around from side to side, and eventually found the wall of the pool with my hand. Fighting against the weight of the thickened liquid on top of me, I pulled myself up inch-by-inch. All along with no breath; perpetual suffocation. Even in the throes of such pain, I knew that I was merely climbing towards my death and that ashen figure above, but any alternative to drowning, but not dying, was a far more desirable situation to the one I currently faced.
Finally, after many hours, I felt the air with my hand, and with one draining effort, I pulled myself out and onto the floor of the ravine. The black liquid stayed in my lungs at first, but as I wretched, coughed, and vomited, the rancid gunk was slowly expelled through my mouth. Scraping the sludge from my eyes, I looked around, and was surprised to see that I was alone, the sun beaming down through the slit above. I assumed that the thing from the tomb had believed me dead, and let me be, hopefully forever.
The thirst was still resolute, and all I could think of was finding another place, another source of cool, clear water, to quench the urge, and remove the barren, arid sensation from my mouth and throat, which had quickly returned. There in that stone prison, I knew, I had to escape and find water. Or perhaps even find my team, who I hoped had survived the madness which seemed to have taken them. It was clear to me that we had all been affected by our discovery, and that while it seemed outlandish, there was only one word to describe my situation – cursed.
Though it took a monumental effort, nearly falling to my death several times, I managed to climb up the rock-face, taking a similar route as the creature from the tomb had but in reverse, and found my freedom. The sun beat down upon me, and yet the icy chill in my bones remained. At the time I hypothesised that it was a disease, an illness or poison of some form, contained within the tomb which perhaps invoked severe hallucinations.
For weeks I searched the Saharan desert, looked for a sign of civilisation, hoping above all else to find water, to quench my horrendous thirst, and a fire to take away the perpetual coldness. On two separate occasions, I did locate a small pool of liquid, but as I approached, both turned to the same blackened, horrid sludge as before; an undrinkable festering ooze. And yet, again, no matter how dehydrated, I did not die. While I experienced all of the agonising realities of thirst, the world would not relinquish its grip on me.
And then, there were the nights. While others would prepare for a comfortable sleep after the sun had set, each time that swollen globe of light dipped beneath the horizon, I knew it would not be long before the thing from the tomb, that ‘something of ash’, would find me. Relentless, climbing along the sand dunes, no matter where I was in the desert, it would appear with the dark. Chasing, stooped and malformed, lifeless, and yet of intent. Its charcoal appearance, crumbled and powdered, sought nothing else but to reach me. For what purpose I did not know, but I was certain that its reasons were steeped in an ancient and inhumane mind.
All I could do was run, and so it was that I found myself a fugitive of my previous life, running from an ancient horror after sunset, and getting any rest I could during the day. Finally, one night, as a small sandstorm cast its grains across the landscape, and I moved quickly through the desert to ensure the ashen figure did not catch me, I did indeed find civilisation – a small Egyptian town. Its name meaningless to me, but at the sight of it, I cried, sure that it and its people would prove my salvation.
Several of the houses still had light beaming through their windows, and unable to contain my joy at the possibility of seeing another human being, I walked into the nearest open doorway I could find, yelling for help. The first person to see me was a young man in his teens, who screamed both in fear and rage at the sight of me. Quickly, others from the town appeared, and their reaction to me was violent and brutal. I was hit across the back of the head with a stone, and then I staggered through the town’s streets, unable to comprehend why they hated me so. A mob soon formed, and it became clear that my life was in danger, as it had been before with the archaeology team. The same madness, the same terror, the same violent anger. They chased me, throwing rocks, and beating me with sticks and other accursed objects. Luckily I was able to make it to the town’s outskirts, weaving and dashing along lanes and through small gaps between houses. Soon, the sandstorm obscured me, and the townspeople did not follow, cheering that they had driven me out.
I rested for a moment, unsure if the taste of grit in my mouth was due to the storm or my constant, agonising thirst. I sat in the shelter of a dune, utterly heartbroken, and as the wind howled bringing forth the sands, I looked out to the night, and saw the malformed figure of my ashen pursuer, wandering through the elements towards me.
***
Each night I would walk, and each time I stopped to rest, or ceased moving in the hope that the thing of ash would not follow, it soon appeared out of the night. Clambering, shifting, decrepit and yet unstoppable, roaming over the sand dunes in search of its prey. With no town or village willing to take me – for there had been many – and nothing in front of me but an endless escape, I knew the only recourse left to me: I had to return to the tomb. Perhaps there I would find an answer, a hint of why this had occurred, reaching out from the darkness of time, and therein a solution. Something to end my suffering.
For years I walked th
|
A few months ago I was busy preparing to move to a new house when I came across something from my past.
I was going through my belongings, trying to figure out what to keep and what to discard, when I found an old shoebox stuffed down the back of my closet. Curious, I opened it up and found that it was full of CD’s. I flipped through them and realized that these were backups of files from over ten years ago.
I remembered that this was how I used to back up stuff before external hard drives became affordable enough for me to just start backing up with them.
I stopped packing and started checking out the CD’s on my computer. They were mostly full of stuff I’d collected off of the net like mp3s, roms and animated GIF’s.
I then came across a CD that was labeled ‘Conversations with Pahn’. I stared at the CD with some reservation for a moment before loading it into my computer.
The CD contained a bunch of images, a couple of audio files and some text dumps from a message board.
Looking over these files made me recall an incident that had occurred many years ago. It was an incident that had slipped from my mind until I saw that CD again.
Honestly, I was glad to have forgotten about it. It was a pretty freaky experience and to this day I still don’t know what to make of it.
It was 2004, I was in my last year of high school and I spent most of my free time being an admin for an emulation message board.
It wasn’t a particularly taxing job, I was one of three guys who were admins and the board itself was pretty niche, so we usually didn’t get a great deal of traffic.
Back then there wasn’t the bot problems you find on boards these days. Most of the time I just had to log in, check my messages, then browse through the forums to see if anyone was breaking any rules or just being a dick.
It was a pretty fun gig, I got the most enjoyment out of messing with persistent trolls.
Being an admin allowed me to change their avatars(I had pics of crying babies for such occasions) or edit their posts.
Usually I’d have them say stuff like “I suck”, “I cry into my pillow at night” or my personal favorite “I left my brain in the womb”.
Basically I used to get a real kick out of administrating justice on the board.
So one night a new guy registered to the forum and created a thread called “Need help to pull apart my nes”.
The following is from that thread:
I was slightly mystified by his question and I had some time to kill so I thought I’d ask him.
I almost laughed at this. I explained to Pahn what roms were and he got really excited.
I got the gist that he really wasn’t very technically savvy. Which was fair enough, we all had to start from somewhere.
After explaining to him about roms and emulators I didn’t hear back from him for a few days.
He then came back to the board and became a bit of a regular. He would mostly start threads in which he was asking questions about emulation problems he was having.
A lot of people didn’t have any time for him.
They felt that he was just an annoying person who asked dumb questions. I remember one night he started a thread about how he couldn’t get an emulator to read games he had downloaded. We then had to explain to him what a zip file was and how it worked.
One of the other admins was thinking of banning him. He didn’t like the fact that Pahn was starting up new threads about stuff that had been already answered in earlier threads.
I told him not to do that, I’d have a word with Pahn. I don’t know why I decided to step in, I sort of felt bad for the kid I guess. I also felt a bit of a connection to him because he was one of the few people I’d run across who was also a fan of the RPG Suikoden.
So I told Pahn to check through the board before posting any questions that might have already been asked and answered. I then told him if he got really stuck to just private message me.
It wasn’t long before he started messaging me. At first he would just ask me questions.
Lots of questions.
Fortunately he seemed to be a quick study, I didn’t find myself having to explain things to him over and over again. So I wouldn’t say he was stupid, just green.
Soon enough he asked me for some game recommendations and this lead to us talking about what games we were playing. It was from there that we started having a correspondence over the next few months.
We only really talked about games and movies though, the only personal stuff that I knew about him was that he was 16 and he lived in London.
One night we were having a conversation about Metroid games. I’d just clocked Super Metroid for the millionth time and was thinking about dusting off the original Metroid and giving that a go.
It was a pretty well known glitch. Basically how it works is, if you are falling down a long shaft in some places in the game and then press the select button repeatedly really fast, you can make wall tiles disappear. If you go through the tunnel that is created you’ll end up outside the map.
You can then find rooms that are tile swaps of regular rooms, rooms that scroll repeatedly forever and rooms that look like they have been randomly thrown together.
Apart from using it to sequence break, it’s pretty pointless. It’s more of a novelty then anything else.
Some people started up a website devoted to the ‘Secret Worlds’. They were obsessed with mapping the whole thing out. Like they were explorers braving uncharted territory or something.
I tried it out myself once on my gameboy. I quickly got frustrated though after I kept getting stuck in walls when I moved between rooms.
I didn’t hear from Pahn for a couple of days after that. Then one night he sent me a message.
I taught Pahn how to take snapshots and upload them so that he could show me the stuff he was finding.
A few days later I got a message.
After that I didn’t hear from him for about a week. Then one night I was on the message board and got the following message:
Pahn sent me the links and I looked over the images he had uploaded.
I knew straight away that this wasn’t a glitch.
I asked him where he had got the rom from and he gave me the address. When I checked it out, the page wasn’t there anymore. Which wasn’t really surprising. Back then rom websites were frequently popping up and being taken down almost immediately.
Just before I was about to go to bed I looked at the pictures again. It occurred to me that the words might form a sentence. I wrote the words down on a piece of paper and started trying out combinations. Eventually I came up with;
“HOW DARE YOU. STOP STEALING MY LEGACY.”
I thought it was a rather strange sentence. I couldn’t figure out why anyone would even bother hacking that message into the game, I didn’t even understand what it meant.
A few days later I got another message from Pahn.
I taught Pahn how to capture the audio and gave him my email address. I told him to attach the file there if he did manage to record any sounds from the game.
I thought about what Pahn had described to me and I had to admit that I was pretty impressed by the hack.
I also agreed with Pahn’s reasoning. If someone had bothered to put this much effort in, then it was likely that they had done more. It was just a matter of finding it.
Though I was surprised that I had never heard of the hack before. I started browsing through rom hack sites, trying to find the one that Pahn was playing. I didn’t have any luck so I asked around in a few IRC channels but no one had seen anything like what I was describing.
The following night I was browsing the message board when I noticed I had a new private message. I saw that it was from Pahn and opened it up.
The audio file finished downloading and I listened to it while I waited for Pahn to come back.
[fvplayer src=”http://youtube.com/watch?v=ceS83DlV1QY”]
I didn’t know what to make of it, I’d never heard a gameboy make that kind of sound before.
At first it just sounded to me like a foghorn, but then another sound started to play over the top of the foghorn noise.
The other sound did seem familiar to me somehow, but I couldn’t quite place it. I found myself getting spooked so I quickly closed the file.
I got up and made myself a cup of coffee and a snack. By the time I got back to my computer 15 minutes had passed.
I waited a few more minutes but I didn’t get a response from Pahn. I got worried for a moment but then just figured either a friend or family member had come by and he was busy.
I surfed the net for a bit, did some Admin duties then checked my messages again. Pahn still hadn’t come back. I was pretty tired by that point so I shut down my computer and went to bed.
I got up early the next day and checked to see if Pahn had left me a message.
He still hadn’t gotten back to me.
I headed off for school and didn’t get home till the evening. After I grabbed a bite to eat I sat in front of the computer and checked my email and private messages. There was still nothing from Pahn.
I left a few more messages and waited for his response. Over the next few days he still didn’t get to me and I really started to freak out.
I skipped school for a few days and stuck pretty close to my computer. One afternoon, after performing some minor admin duties, I re-listened to the sound that Pahn had sent me.
I still couldn’t make out what it was so I started playing around with it in sound recorder. I sped it up a few times and realized that the foghorn sound might be the the music that plays right before you fight the Metroid Queen. As I continued to speed the sound file up I realized what the other sound was, someone was talking over the music.
I had to speed the sound up over ten times to get it to sound like it was playing at the right speed. Once I had done that I tried to make out what the voice was saying. I had to listen carefully a few times before I got it.
[fvplayer src=”http://youtube.com/watch?v=U_eeXKqmQlU”]
The first part was an introduction. Someone was saying “I am…” and after that was presumably their name. I couldn’t catch what it was though, it wasn’t an English name.
The second part of the sentence was clear enough though.
“Knock Knock, I am here.”
Needless to say I was quite unnerved at that point.
I hit the internet again, trying to find out anything I could about the version of Metroid 2 that Pahn had been playing. I emailed people at the “Secret Worlds” website, I posted messages on numerous emulation websites and I spoke to people on various IRC channels.
Most people though I was joking, the rest thought I was crazy.
It seemed no one knew what the hell I was talking about.
Then one night I got a private message.
I was a bit startled. When I’d been going around asking questions about Metroid 2 I hadn’t been using Pesmerga as my username. Nor had I mentioned what message board I was from.
I replied back to the message, wanting to know who was messaging me and how they had found me. But the user never got back to me. After that night I kept an eye on the logs of user activity to see if he came back to the site, but he never did.
I then took the message’s advice and looked up the name Gunpei Yokoi.
It didn’t take me long to find out who he was.
It turns out that he was hugely influential at Nintendo. Some of the games he worked on included the original Donkey Kong, Mario Bros, Kid Icarus, Metroid and Metroid 2.
But what he is best known for is arguably his greatest creation, the Gameboy. It’s often described as his legacy.
I kept reading the article in fascination when I got to a section that was about his life after leaving Nintendo. Not long after he left Nintendo and started his own company, Gunpei Yokoi died in a car accident. I glanced at the date of his death and that gave me a shock. It was October the 4th, 1997. The same day that I got my last message from Pahn.
I listened to the sped up version of the audio Pahn had sent me and that’s when I knew that the first part of the message was “I am Gunpei Yokoi.”
It was after this realization that I went through a period, which went on for about a year, in which I flat out refused to answer a door unless the person identified themselves.
Over the next few months I scoured the internet for any news stories concerning a missing teenager in London.
There were several stories that would pop up but the details were so vague that any one of them, or none of them, could have been Pahn.
There was one story that did catch my attention. It was about a missing teenager who had been last seen at home.
His mother had left for work and she said that he had been on the computer in the lounge room.
When she returned several hours later the lounge room was empty but the computer and various other electrical appliances were still turned on. At first she thought that he might be in another part of the house, but when she checked she found that it was empty.
She then tried to call his mobile phone and that was when she discovered that his phone and wallet were by the computer. It was at this point that she called the police. They investigated and found no sign of disturbance in the house and nothing was missing, well except for the teenager. He had vanished without a trace.
I looked for more information online but couldn’t find anything else.
I contemplated getting in touch with the police in London. But one thing stopped me, there was no way I could think to word my story without sounding like a crazy person.
Even if I could figure out how to word it properly, and if this missing teen did happen to be Pahn, there was no information that I could give them that they wouldn’t get off of his computer anyway. And if it wasn’t Pahn then I would just be wasting their time and possibly end up in some sort of legal trouble.
The words ‘hindering a police investigation’ popped into my mind.
I went back through my conversations with Pahn to see if there were any clues to his real identity that I hadn’t noticed before. But there was nothing there that revealed anything I didn’t already know about him. It was then that I realized that I always just assumed that he was a ‘he’ in the first place.
But there was nothing in our conversations to dismiss the possibility that Pahn had been a female. The possibility of Pahn being female instantly made the task of finding Pahn twice as hard.
In the end I had to give up, I just didn’t know what I could possibly do. I took screenshots of all of my conversations with Pahn, copied the pics and sound files he had emailed me and burnt them onto a CD, just in case I ever needed them again.
Not long after that I finished high school and then started working.
Within a month I stopped being an admin. I still stuck around the board for a few more months, but by then I no longer had the free time to post with any regularity. Over the following years I got busy with life and everything that happened with Pahn drifted further and further from my mind.
I decided to write this all down and put it online in the hopes that after all these years someone might know something about what happened to Pahn, or know of the version of Metroid 2 that he found.
As I said at the beginning, I honestly don’t know what to make of this.
Is there a copy of Metroid 2 floating around the internet that’s haunted by the ghost of Gunpei Yokoi? And if you have the misfortune to stumble across it does he come to your door, angry that you have dared to defile his legacy?
I try not to think too much about it.
When it does cross my mind now I like to imagine that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax perpetuated by Pahn. That he set the whole thing up months in advance. He created the images and the audio files. He came onto the message board, pretending to be a technically inept teenager, when really he was brilliant with a pc.
He was user12345, he was the one who told me to look up Gunpei Yokoi.
I like to imagine that he is somewhere out there, still laughing about the wonderful joke he pulled all those years ago.
Sometimes I can almost convince myself that it was just a hoax.
I think that was how I was able to get to sleep at night in the months after I lost contact with Pahn.
And I think that telling myself that it was all a hoax now is going to come in real handy on those restless nights in the days to come.
Credit To – Yuber Neclord
|
“That reminds me of a story.”
“What does?”
“What she just said about being late to catch the train.”
“Me? I didn’t say anything?”
“Well, I’m sure I heard someone mention it, and that reminds me of a story that scared the hell out of me. Do you remember that subway drver last month who went nuts?”
“Remember it? I was on that train.”
“Do you want to tell the story about it then?”
“What else is there to tell?”
“A lot. Plenty of rumors around dispatch about that one. Not that I believe any of them, mind you, but the way I heard it, it happened like this…”
***
That voice was really starting to get to the driver.
“We will depart shortly. Please wait.”
They’d been hearing that for twenty minutes now. The train was stalled two miles into the Transbay Tube. It wouldn’t budge an inch, but the driver’s console showed that everything ought to be working, so it must be a problem with the tracks. She’d called it in, then assured her passengers everything was all right, and then waited. It wouldn’t be so bad if the PA didn’t seem to be on the fritz as well. Every few minutes a woman’s disembodied, mechanical voice chimed:
“We will depart shortly. Please wait.”
She couldn’t turn it off. She didn’t remember ever hearing that announcement before; but then, she’d never had a breakdown like this before either. The train hummed on its electric rails, sealed up inside a steel tube submerged 130 feet below the surface of the bay. Her ears were stopped up from the pressure the water above them. Up ahead, all the driver could see was darkness, the occasional lighting fixtures doing nothing except demonstrating precisely how pitch black it really was down here. She’d made this trip six times a night every night for seven years, back and forth across 30 miles of track between SFO and Bay Point, which meant back and forth through the underwater tunnel six times, and never before had she stopped to consider the crushing weight of all that water. She thought she could hear bolts straining and water dripping somewhere. Just her imagination, of course, but still…
“We will depart shortly. Please wait.”
She toggled the PA switch again; it hadn’t done anything the last five times, but she could help trying nce more. She checked the security monitors; the passengers seemed calm enough, considering the circumstances. Her four-car train held only seven people as they came up on one o’clock in the morning. Two were dozing and one was pacing the aisle. All but one had white earbuds snaking into the sides of their heads, and they would nod now and then to whatever they were hearing. She envied her rider’s calm. If it just weren’t so dark out there she might not be so frazzled. The tunnel looked like it went on forever. And if they had stopped anywhere but under the water. And if that damn voice would just knock it off…
“We will depart shortly.
“No one can hear me but you.
“Please wait.”
The driver blinked. What was that? She toggled the switch again, but of course, nothing happened. Up ahead one of the lights winked out. Or was that her imagination again? She fanned herself with her clipboard; the stalled train seemed hot and stuffy all of a sudden. The air conditioning was still on, according to her diagnostic panel. Perhaps it was just the confinement wearing on her. Would dispatch ever tell her what was going on? She thumbed the call button again.
“Any word on that track problem?” she blurted it out, not even bothering to identify herself first. The only answer was static. She frowned and hung up. She began to sweat, and she pinched the ridge of her nose, eyes squeezed shut. A headache was coming on.
“We will depart shortly, please wait” the automated voice whirred. Then: “They’re already inside. Look at the riders.”
The driver’s eyes snapped open. What did it say? She looked up and did a double take. She grabbed a Windex-soaked rag and rubbed the monitor screens, but nothing changed. Something must be wrong with the cameras? Cars three and four looked fine, but in car two both of the sleeping passengers looked like indistinct, grey blurs. In car one (the same car she occupied, in the driver’s carriage up front) the pacing man looked perfectly normal, but the woman in the backseat with the earbuds in also appeared blurry and distorted, as if a film of cobweb or a tiny fog bank covered her body. The driver looked over her shoulder, peering into the car through the plastic divider; the woman was still sitting there, staring at the blank tunnel wall outside her window, nodding her head to whatever was streaming through the wires in her ears. She looked perfectly fine. The driver chuckled a little at having scared herself, then rubbed her temples. The annoying recorded voice pinged again:
“We will depart shortly—
“No we won’t. We won’t leave until what’s keeping us here lets us go. You are not watching the riders.”
This time the driver was sure of what she’d heard. What the hell? She reached for the toggle.
“You can’t turn me off. No one can hear me but you.”
A tingling sensation crept across the back of the driver’s neck. Her hand froze halfway on the switch. Her fingers trembled.
“Look at the riders again,” the voice said. She hesitated. “Look!”
When the driver looked she squinted and then leaned in, as if being closer would somehow change what was there. Two more of her passengers had lost definition on the video feed, leaving only two still showing up clear. The driver tapped the screens. What the hell? The sight of those blurry figures gave her chills, for some reason. Their images seemed to wriggle and writhe, as if a cloud of tiny insects were crawling over them.
The two sleeping passengers woke and, walking in unison, moved up to the first car. She expected to be able to see them clearly once they’d moved, but the grainy blur stuck to them as they moved. She looked over her shoulder again; both of them were in her car now. One was a teenager, short and fat, the other an old man, gray and thin. They sat side by side in the front seats, though they’d been separate before. The pacer didn’t seem to pay them any mind, but he did finally sit down. The driver watched as he fitted in white earbuds.
“It’s spreading. They’re inside. You have to get out of here,” the train’s voice buzzed at her.
“Shut up,” the driver mumbled. She looked at the monitors again: More passengers had moved up; four were in the second car now. They all sat rigid in their seats, and they all faced forward. None of them spoke. She called dispatch again, but this time there was not even static, just dead air. Outside, the tube lights were turning out one by one, and the train’s lights were flickering too.
“Help won’t come in time,” said the train. The PA warbled’ it was losing power as well. “You have to run. They’re in the wires.”
Now everyone was crowded into the lead car. All seven riders sat side by side in the front-most seats, staring at her. Their unblinking eyes looked flat and painted-on in the flickering florescent lights. She tapped on the plastic divider. “Folks,” she said, working hard to stop her voice from trembling, “they’ll be here to help us any moment. If you could all just head back to your original seats. We shouldn’t crowd the lead car in case…in case of an emergency.”
No one answered. No one moved. The man nearest her removed his earbuds and looked at her. Her CCTV monitors were failing one by on. The faithful voice of the PA buzzed in her compartment, barely audible as the train’s electrical systems slowly died. “They’re turning everything off,” it said. “They’re…sorr—…tried to warn…they’re in the wires. They use the wires to…”
The seven passengers all stood up. The driver went to open the door to her compartment, then thought better of it and locked it instead. Only the emergency lights were on now, and the passengers were dark blue silhouettes in the gray electric haze.
“Folks, just return to your seats. Return to your seats and…and…” Her mouth went dry.
“—oo late.” The PA was overwhelmed by static. “—ired in…—just voices.”
The static cleared for a moment:
“The dead are just voices, but we can travel through the wires, into machines, even into bodies, through the wires, through—”
Seven shapes crowded around the window. The driver tried to shrink back, but there was no room in the tiny compartment.
“The eight want new bodies. I told them not to do it but they wouldn’t listen. I tried to warn you. I tried. I—”
The PA went dead. The consoles were all dark. Outside, the tunnel was a long black passage to nothing. Inside, only one light was working. The driver heard fleshy palms slapping against the divider. Someone was pulling on the door. The flimsy lock jiggled. The divider broke in half and fell in, and then hands were grabbing her, pullin her, dragging her out. They were cold hands. She was screaming now, but with two miles of empty tunnel on either side and 130 feet of water overhead there was no one to hear her. They held her down. “Let me go!” she said. She felt cold all over. She felt something that made her think of the icy belly of a snake slithering across her body. One of the passengers leaned in.
“It’s okay,” he said. Cold breath tickled the driver’s ear. “It’s okay,” the passenger repeated. “We’re not going to hurt you.
“We just want a ride.”
***
“…and then what?”
“That’s it. I mean, someone finally showed up to evacuate the passengers from the trapped train, and when they did they found that driver curled up in a corner, screaming that she wasn’t herself anymore.”
“Wasn’t herself?”
“Yeah, you know, that there was someone else living inside her head now.”
“Oh God, that’s awful. I’m never riding at night again.”
“Man, this whole city’s going crazy.”
“Is it just craziness, do you think?”
“That’s a good question. I mean, look how many strange stories we’ve found right here in this bar. Maybe something terrible really is going on. Under the surface.”
“Like I said, it’s all just rumors. Hey lady, you said you were on that train, right? Did my story…wait a minute, where’d she go?”
“Lady?”
“Ma’am?”
“…huh. That’s funny. She snuck out?”
Credit To – Tam Lin
Please wait...
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There is a way that you can bring back a loved one after death. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. Death is final and cheating it always leads to bad results. But you’ll want to know anyway. Well, here you go:
Go to the cemetery that your loved one is buried in. This only works for those who’ve been buried, though (there’s probably another method for cremation or something, but I don’t know it). Make sure that you take the one material object that is most important to you with you. The emotion from this object, this sacrifice, will provide your power. Take it to the plot of your loved one and bury it over their grave. You don’t have to go very far down, so don’t worry about running into the slab or anything. Before you cover up the hole with your object, don’t forget to add a few drops of your blood to it. This imbues the ritual with your own life essence and… draws them in.
Then comes the final steps. Take a small handful of dirt from where you buried your object and swallow it. Disgusting, but necessary. This creates the link between you and where you need to go. After that, get yourself as comfy as you can and fall asleep upon the grave.
If everything was done correctly (and you get a bit lucky) you’ll awaken to find yourself standing at the gate of the graveyard. It will be dim, foggy, and you’ll notice a lack of color in this drab place. You’ll also see that there seem to be people wandering around the gravestones. Exactly how many and what they’ll look like will depend on the cemetery you went to, but I’ve never heard of a location not having at least a few dozen of them wandering around.
Whatever you do, stay away from them. These are the shades of those left behind from failed rituals or weak spirits drawn from the surrounding areas to the power of your blood and object. Even if you recognize some of them, do not go near them. They’re little more than instinct now and desire one thing above all else: life. They want another chance to live and crave nothing more, even if the shade’s mind is so far gone it doesn’t even recall why. And if one catches you, it WILL try to steal that life away from you.
They may notice you, they may not. If they do, evade them. It shouldn’t be too hard as they’re reflexes and control are not nearly as sharp as they used to be. Avoid them and look for your loved one. The person may be at their grave or wandering the walkway. You may even find them hiding, terrified of the scene before them.
When you finally see your loved one, stop. Don’t go near them yet. Call out the person’s name and wait. If the response seems genuine, everything is going as plan. If the response is delayed, quiet, distant, or not even present, then hold on. Ask, from a distance, what was the one thing the person hated in life. As these shades progress and their minds dwindle to nothing, some of the first things to go are the memories of the things they hated in life. Any bad memory that makes life seem terrible would slip away to be replaced by that deep desire to return to the living. If your loved one’s answer seems legitimate, take their hand and pray that you weren’t wrong. If you are, you may find yourself as a replacement shade wandering this foggy graveyard.
Be aware their hand will be cold. Freezing. Like grasping solid ice; but never let go. Even if your hand starts going numb and your fingers turn black, do not let go. After feeling that rush of life touching their hand and immediately losing it moments later, your loved one may not be able to resist the urge to take it all from you.
Take your loved one back to the gate, avoiding other shades as you can. More may notice you now as your living body is connected to their realm via your lost loved one. Be quick, be decisive, and DO NOT let go of your loved one’s hand.
Should you make it and step through the gate of the cemetery, you’ll find yourself back in the living world; however, this time your loved one will have rejoined you at your side, still clutching your hand.
To the rest of the world, it will just seem like your loved one went on a long trip somewhere and recently came back. Nobody will be able to recall where it was they went or what they did there (well, nobody except you and your loved one) but they will be happy to see the person’s return.
After this, I suggest that you never stay in one place too long. Keep moving, keep roaming. The more random your journeys, the better. The moment you start to see the sickly, pale look come across your loved one’s face or the bit of decay that might start forming on your skin, move. Death hates to be cheated, and if he catches up with you and your loved one, he’ll make sure that you both feel every bit of the rotting sickness that will build up in your bodies until your loved one once again falls to the grasp of death and returns to the cemetery. This time, however, they won’t be alone. You will be joining them.
Maybe you’ll get lucky, though. Maybe someone might make this journey for you. They’ll take your hand and drag you back to the world of the living… only for it all to start over once again.
Credit To – David
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There exists a curious legend among the people of South Africa. Although somewhat obscure now, it was prevalent during the late 19th Century colonisation of Africa which saw the construction of railways across the countryside for the transport of workers. This is the legend of the witch trains – ordinary-looking trains, but staffed by the debased servants of a powerful being generally thought to be a witch, or sometimes even thought to be multiple witches. These trains would appear to people travelling alone at night in the countryside and take them aboard, never to be seen again. This was far from the full extent of the machinations of the being that controlled the trains, who will henceforth be referred to as the Witch, but more on that later. Although the activity of the Witch and Her trains has subsided as of late, there is one witch train still roaming, still waiting to return to the Witch’s house.
Seeking out this train is difficult and will take some time; the rails themselves are not mapped so prepare a rucksack for a long day’s journey – and to carry what you will be bringing back. On the first or last day of any month – this is most conducive to the likelihood of the rails appearing – travel by any means to the town of Karasburg in South Africa. When the sun has gone down, begin walking in any direction between north and north-east of the town. It may be advisable to prepare some sort of self-protective gear for travelling the South African countryside at night, but be warned that, once you reach your destination, whatever protective items or weapons you may bring will not be of any use against what you will encounter there.
Keep walking until you find a railroad track. Inspect it carefully to ensure that it is not merely an ordinary track. The track you are looking for will be in excellent condition, and if you look closely, the ground beneath the track will be completely undisturbed – there should be no difference between ground beneath the track and nearby uncovered ground. Walk in either direction along the track. It should take no longer than an hour for you to reach the station.
In stark contrast to the track, the station is a hovel. You will find the few small buildings completely deserted, and all but one have been burnt to the ground. The one that remains standing is a blackened, rickety, wooden shack, though the single front door appears brand new. A sign nailed to it reads,
“STAFF ONLY.”
In older days this station would have actually had staff – the station hadn’t been burned, either. The witch trains didn’t just stop abducting people of their own volition. The train you are looking for will stop here for you soon, but to make proper use of it you need something from the staff room. No matter what you try, the door will not open for you, but fortunately the Witch gave no special treatment to the walls, trusting them by themselves, along with Her staff, to keep intruders out. They are badly burned and worn. A good kicking at any wall should provide an entrance. The staff room is completely bare, save for a few equipment closets along the walls. Search them thoroughly. Most will contain generic, 19th Century mechanical equipment not worth taking, but one will contain a silver control rod for a gearbox. This control rod will be easy to find – it glows, yet curiously it provides no illumination for anything at all save for itself, no matter how dark the environment is. This is what you need. Take it and wait outside. Now wait, however long it takes. Eventually, you will see the decrepit old passenger train come trundling to a stop in front of you.
A train attendant will open the door for you. This train unusually employs both white and black workers, but regardless of his skin colour he will wear an extremely worn and filthy train staff uniform. He will stare at you with decidedly vacant eyes for a moment, and you will very likely feel a sudden, acute sense of discomfort. You would be right to feel this way – the stare is intense, yet there is no-one behind those dull eyes. The man will then say one word:
“Return.”
The tone will sound odd – as a statement, yet there will be the faintest hint of a query in the sound of it. This is because the man’s speech is meant to be a query. In the past, this man and his fellow staff would, upon stopping and opening the doors for them, ask unfortunate travellers of the South African countryside,
“Single, or return?”
If you were to answer the attendant with “return,” you would be taken on the train and ferried a fair distance along the countryside before being brutally beaten by the train staff and thrown off. This is the same for any others who would have been encountered by this train. Any other answer will simply result in him repeating his question until you give one of the expected answers. The other expected answer you can give is, of course, “single,” however, fortunately for you, the train and its staff no longer have the means to carry out their programmed response to this answer. This is why that part of their dialogue has been removed from their usual protocol. If you answer with this, the attendant will simply stare at you and do nothing until you give another response.
This is where the control rod you have comes in. Without saying a word, produce it and hand it to the attendant. His face will not have any reaction to this, but I can assure you that if he had even the remotest capacity for emotion, he would be profoundly relieved to see it. He will silently take the rod and then step off the train to walk briskly over to the conductor’s car. When he does this, simply climb aboard the train and close the door; nobody will hinder you now, and the attendant will not return to this car. It is a standard passenger car, with rows of wooden seats along the walls, everything thickly coated in dust and worn by centuries of age and neglect. The doors to the other cars, as well as the windows, are boarded up. You must spend the whole journey here, but worry not. It is a short trip, and there is nothing you need to see outside the windows anyway. Sit and wait, you will soon feel the train start to move.
The journey will be short, however, it is unlike any other you have ever taken – the train crosses more than just land, indeed, it crosses more than space, but let’s not dwell on that for now. You will not feel anything during the transition, nor will you feel anything when the train arrives at the destination, however, it is extremely important that you do not open the door until you are absolutely certain that the train has arrived – the transition is lethal to unprotected human life. To tell if the train has arrived, first wait ten minutes – this is the longest it will take to enter the transition – then periodically tap the boarded up window with your finger. A hollow knocking sound will indicate that you have arrived, whereas if your finger produces a dull thud, as if you are tapping against a completely solid object, you have not arrived yet. Disembark as soon as you are sure the train has reached its destination.
As you step off the train you will find yourself on a barren, rocky plain, surrounded by a thick mist. Probably the first thing you’ll notice the large number of rotting human bones scattered across the area. The Witch, in its activities in Earth, made a large number of servants. It also made a large number of enemies. The bones that profane the grounds here belong to both camps. The battle that made such a necropolis of this place is also the reason for the abrupt disappearance of the witch trains and new reports of them. A short distance away, not obscured by the mist, you will see a dilapidated church of white stone. Staying close to the edge of the fog but being very careful not to lose sight of the church, make your way there.
This part is important – you must keep a close eye on the church, for you will soon see a small crowd emerge from it and start approaching the train. These are more of Her servants. As soon as you see them, immediately run into the fog as far as you dare but do NOT lose sight of the church – this place is not a natural part of our world, and consequently the geometry of the land is abnormal. If you proceed in what may seem like a straight line too far into the fog, reversing your direction will not bring you back, and in this way it is far too easy to become hopelessly lost there, so do not lose sight of the church! Wait in the fog as the servants go past. They all wear the same, worn out train staff uniforms, and they all wear the same, utterly vacant expressions on their faces. Don’t let this fool you though; if they catch you trespassing on Her land they will tear you apart with a fanaticism and strength no human could match. Once they reach the train, they will stay there – this is the first time it has been here in over a century. Proceed to the church at this point, but stay close to the fog just in case.
Approach the white church and take note of the damage. The walls are adorned in scorch marks and bullet holes. More of the skeletons of the Witch’s servants and enemies surround the church and are scattered amongst the floors and aisles of the nave inside, as you will see through the blasted front doors. You won’t end up like these skeletons at this point; all of the Witch’s servants in this place have gone to the train and will stay there. The people who attacked this place made sure to destroy the Witch’s means of re-entering our world, such as the train and the control rod for activating the transition, so Her servants will be hard at work investigating the train you have brought here. But don’t worry, if you do this correctly, you should be able to return back with the train and control rod before the Witch can make use of them once more.
Enter the church and proceed through the nave to the doors behind the altar. Muster up your courage and determination here, and perhaps prepare something like a rag to cover your face with. The reports I have on this church do not indicate a good ventilation of the next hallway. When you are ready, enter.
The dim light of the hallway will illuminate the carpet of half-decayed corpses across the floor. On the walls you will see the sources of these dim lights; small globes wired into the distended mouths of rows of mutilated heads attached to bizarre machinery set into the walls. Unlike the previous areas, most of these bodies belong to Her enemies, not servants, ambushed and slaughtered here when they tried to make their way to confront the Witch Herself. Walk as quickly as you can through this hall while being careful not to trip, there is certainly no need to take your time here. You may notice that a few of the light globes are dark. Consider the bearers of those lights extremely lucky, for the truth is that these light globes are powered by the electrical signals in the brains of these heads, kept alive by the arcane machinery that supports them. Try not to dwell too much on their fates, you should save your mental fortitude for the trials ahead, And don’t attempt to turn any more of these lights off – the Witch is coming very soon, and if you do not escape, many more people in our world, including you, will end up like this.
My information on this place is based on the accounts of the few who attacked it over a century ago and managed to escape. Thus, I can’t give details on what you will find beyond this forsaken hallway, but I know that among the things here you should find a library, a door of the same luminous silver of the train’s control rod, with a crucifix set into it, and a pool of blood. Avoid the door for now, and the pool of blood at all costs. Instead enter the library. Most of the books here are worthless, except for one set, which should be the centrepiece of the library. Though these ancient books are penned in Hebrew, their place is marked by a sign in English reading “The Annals of the Connexion of the Thrones of God,” or simply “The Annals of the Connexion.” In layman’s terms, this odd phrase refers, essentially, to telepathy. These are what you are looking for.
Before the end of your journey you, one way or another, will be able to read Hebrew, and many other languages. However, it is advisable that you use your discretion in reading these books should you ever so choose. Aside from instruction on the creation and control of the servants that the Witch uses, these books talk about the precise nature and origins of the Connexion of the Thrones of God, the universe, of God and the other deities of the universe. It also details the origin of our species, and what we are to these beings. These things are explained in as much detail as the human mind, or the mind of any other being of this dimension, is capable of conceiving, and it is reported that an alarming majority of those who have read these texts were unable to reconcile themselves with the bleak truth of our existence, and would suffer insanity or depression at the least, often committing suicide. Carefully consider your life and outlook before you seek the knowledge in these texts.
The other copies of these books were destroyed a long time ago by the Witch, as well as others like her, along with most of the people in the world who naturally had the telepathic Connexion. These people made up a large part of the Witch’s enemies who attacked her here. Take these books and leave now – it will not be long before the Witch emerges from Her slumber, yet there is one more sacrifice you must make to facilitate your escape. Find the room with the silver, crucifix-set door, and steel yourself, for this will not be pleasant. Open the door.
The room is pitch black, but you can clearly see the machinery surrounding the chained, furiously screaming man inside, all of it in the same silver of the non-illuminating glow. Try to find something to hold onto as this man, cut off for so long, forces his mind upon you. Your head will feel as if it is being squashed like a balloon to the bursting point as the last man with the Connexion transfers it to you. It will feel like years, but it will only take seconds before it is done. The man will thankfully die from the strain, making him one less person left behind on your conscience. You will want to take time to process all this, as the knowledge and outright changes to your brain will be unimaginable, but you don’t have a moment, you must run now. If you pass the pool of blood on your way out, you will notice that it is bubbling. The Witch is emerging. Run to the hallway, and prepare yourself for the hardest part.
This hallway was created for the Connected when they attacked this place. All the people now set into the walls have been subjected to unthinkable horrors before being forced inside their minds by destruction of all five of their senses. But with the Connexion you will, upon entering the hallway, feel all of their ghastly thoughts inside your mind. This is why the Witch did this – to weaken the Connected at this hallway with the tormented thoughts of these people so as to defeat them more easily. As hard as it will be, you must focus yourself on running through this hallway. Once you are out, you will be fine, but you must get out quickly.
Get to the train, where Her servants will still be. As long as She is not nearby, you can now use the Connexion to force your will upon them, preventing them from attacking you, but not for long. Quickly enter the conductor’s car on the train, and use your will on the control rod in the same way to make your escape from this place.
If you successfully escape, what you do with your newfound talents and books is entirely up to you. As mentioned before, you now have the capability to read the Hebrew language of the Annals, and other languages. There are many people who will offer incredible sums of money for the Annals of the Connexion, as well as unthinkable gifts, many of which will sicken you with their degradations. Many more people will hunt you for the Annals, as well as for simply what you now are. Most likely, you are not able to predict what you will do, as you will surely be a completely different person at the end of this journey, so at the very least you should hope that you can adapt to your new life quickly enough before it can overwhelm you.
Credit To: corpulent
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If you want to understand why I left the place I was at, you’re really just going to have to hear the entire story. You won’t believe it, of course. But your skepticism means nothing. Because what I saw that night on the bayou has been with me ever since. In my mind, in my thoughts, and sometimes even in my dreams. It exists as a disturbing memory that I cannot shake away. That will never go away, just so long as I live. It will be one of those things so terrifying that it’ll still be just as keen in my mind on my deathbed as it was the day it occurred.
But whether or not you believe me, I’ll tell it to you anyway. If not only to serve as a warning, a plea for caution, if you ever find yourself near the swamps late at night…
At the time I was working at a shitty little fast food place.
The only thing worse than working at a shitty fast food place is working at a shitty fast food place on the night shift, by yourself, without a vehicle. Especially when you just so happen to live in the heart of rural Louisiana. Such was my case some years ago, the night this event happened to me.
During this time I lived quite a few miles away from the restaurant I worked at, and due to my lack of a vehicle or any access to a public bus system, I was dependent on others for my transportation to and from work.
One night, after a busy evening of serving customers, I closed the store and locked up the restaurant. When I phoned for my ride nobody answered. Now, I’m not here to throw a pity party, but I can’t help but to express anger at the fact that the person who drove me to and fro to work was my roommate, who had a car but no fucking job, and I was basically the only person in our house who paid the rent at this time. And this loser had the carelessness to fall asleep, leaving me with no fucking option but to walk– again. This was not the first time that this had happened.
The first time this had happened, it took me an hour and a half to get home, walking briskly. And to those of you who have never been to the rural regions of Louisiana, you have no clue. Here we have what is called a Bayou. It’s basically swamp. Thick, murky, moist, frog laden, mosquito swarming, gator infested, crappy smelling swamp– with thick tall grass, cattails, cypress trees, and heaves of pond scum.
And I just so happened to live on the Bayou, all the way down a long dirt road with hardly any street lights and thick swamp on both sides of the road. There are no side roads, and the houses down this street are separated sometimes by more than a quarter-mile apart.
It’s not merely spooky walking down this road at night– it’s fucking terrifying. You hear sounds, both real and imagined, coming from the bayou. Chirping, croaking, howling, grunting animals.The rustling of leaves and branches in the canopy of the cypress trees, and the splashing water from underneath them. That’s the worst. You can hear the sound of something lurking nearby abruptly dunk under water. It can be a turtle, a snake, or an alligator. You never know; you just keep walking, with your teeth and hands clenched tight, hoping nothing crawls through the tall grass next to you and onto the road. Or, even worse than the subtle dunking sounds, the sudden splashes that happen when you’re walking and scare a toad or frog and it jumps into the water. The sound makes you almost shit yourself as you begin a running spree that lasts about three seconds before you realize what it was– and then you’re left with your heart pounding so hard that the sound of your blood gushing in your temples scares you just as much. These are the types of things that happen when you’re in the Bayou.
This is what I had to look forward to that night as my asshole roommate slept sprawled out on the sofa with the television set probably tuned into re-runs of the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers.
And don’t get the impression that I simply called once and gave up. You can trust that his cell had around seven or so missed calls, three very unfriendly voice mails, and several aggressive text messages. I could just imagine his phone laying in another room of the house softly vibrating in my desperate attempts to reach him as he snored.
But eventually I gave up, and having just about no other friends to contact in the area as a recourse, I stopped by the nearby gas station, grabbed an energy drink, and began my ways back home.
Now, you must understand, the first thirty or so minutes of my walk isn’t that bad. I’m still in the most populated part of town, and there are street lights, stores, houses, and cars passing by in large numbers. That’s important, if there are a lot of cars going by you feel safer than when there are very few cars going by. Because when there are only one or two cars that pass you every three minutes that means that there could be a psychopath in one of those cars, and they may have enough time to stop by and murder you without being caught. But if there are a lot of cars around, there may be psychopaths passing by, but they’ll most likely not kill you then because there are too many people around to witness the crime. At least that’s my reasoning. I digress.
No psychopaths pulled up next to me as I walked about this part of town.
Next there comes a time in my journey where I have to turn down several suburban neighborhoods, and walk some streets to get where I am going. And here’s where things get a little less safe, and I have to be a little more cautious. There’s less traffic down these roads and you never know when some punk or gang may be hanging out in some empty lot or house, who might mess with you are try to pick a fight or mug you or just take an empty bottle of malt liquor and bash your skull in– you know, as an initiation ritual or something. These are the thoughts that go through my head as I walk this region, and they keep me on my toes, until I reach the point where houses become fewer and fewer, and the bayou begins. This is where the dirt road leading to my home is. And that’s where I found myself this night– on foot.
I looked down the narrow road. You can only see so far before it fades into misty darkness. I resented that I would have to spend the next hour walking its distance until I reached home. But anger took hold of fear when I thought about how all of this could be spared if not for the neglect and carelessness of my roommate. When I got home, I was really going to have it in for him. I truly considered at that time the possibility of physically smacking his damned face.
And with this thought in mind I launched defiantly down the road. And the further I walked, the darker it became, until no light shined but the stars and a sliver of the moon above me. Very soon the sound of any vehicle was completely non existent. There was just me, the road, and the bayou. And whatever creatures dwelt there. I heard the crickets chirp and the frogs croak and the occasional bird coo. To avoid fear, I focused on their chorus and let their sounds preoccupy my mind. I walked watching my shoes press into the sandy dirt as I placed one foot in front of the other. I would count my steps until I reached one hundred, and then I’d begin again. I tried to lose myself in the repetition.
My shoes became damper and damper, and I felt the soles of my feet become moist. I stopped counting to ponder whether I should smack my roommate with a wet sock, but my thought was interrupted when I glanced up for a moment, and saw that I was not alone on this road. A sharp panic seized my heart and I became very nervous. A long distance up ahead of me I could discern the soft silhouette of a figure. It was so far away that I couldn’t tell whether it was moving ahead, or in my direction. I froze, and I could feel the blood gushing in my temples.
What where the chances of their being some malicious punk wandering this street at night looking to rob me or pick a fight?
This was the reassuring thought I had as I tried to convince myself that I was safe. I tried to keep calm, to not let my nerves get the best of me. I mean, whoever this was was probably just as frightened of the prospects of me as I was of them, if they had already detected me… that is.
I didn’t know what to do. Run? There was only two directions. Continue walking? What were the risks? As I stood there I saw that the figure was indeed moving in my direction, and its form was becoming more defined. And this was the time I began to notice how awkward it was moving. The figure didn’t walk normal. It didn’t bob up and down, like how a normal person looks like as they walk. What was coming towards me, it would seem from my perspective, moved in short, quick, jerking movements.
And I could see from what light was present how its twitchy limbs projected from its torso. And how it was getting closer.
And how its head stuck out from a neck that was longer than any human neck should be.
And how at this time I could now faintly hear the noises that it seemed to make. The sound of suckling. And how It was moving quicker.
And how its face lifted, and I could see its eyes glare like glowing yellow beads.
And how these wide beady eyes locked onto mine, staring at me.
And how it stopped.
And how we both were there, motionless, yards away. Looking at each other.
And how it then let out the most ungodly, inhuman screech I have ever heard. Like a pig being gutted. It squealed violently, and the sound resounded through the bayou. And the chirping and croaking of crickets and frogs stopped. Everything stopped.
And the rumbling and humming was all that could be heard afterwards.
The rumbling and humming of a motor ahead, a vehicle speeding towards us, tires racing loudly– the thing in front of me hunched over and turned to see the headlights beaming our way. It hissed, getting down on all fours, only pausing for a moment to turn back towards me, gawking at me with its wide eyes, before crawling hastily into the swamp.
The vehicle that scared the thing away was my roommate’s car. He never saw it, whatever it was. And I never wanted to see it again.
I moved as soon as I could. And haven’t been there since.
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A 2ch story from 2004, posted in the middle of a thread called “Post About Strange Occurrences Around You: Thread 26.” The poster was anonymous at first, but started attaching their name later.
For your convenience, #??? and Hasumi indicate posts made by the thread creator. #2ch indicates a post made by any other 2chan user, they are not all the same person.
Please enjoy this story.
#???
This may just be my imagination… Can I post it anyway?
#2ch
Go ahead.
#2ch
What’s going on?
#???
I’ve been riding a certain train for a while, but something seems off.
#2ch
Hmm…
#???
I always take this train to work. But it hasn’t stopped at any stations for the past twenty minutes or so. It usually only takes five minutes, seven or eight at worst. Oh, and there’s five other passengers, but they’re all sleeping.
#2ch
Did you take the express train by mistake?
#2ch
Is it a high-speed train?
#???
Well, it’s possible I may have just missed my stop. I’ll wait a little longer. If anything else strange occurs, I might bring it up here.
#2ch
Try going to the car on the end to see the conductor, maybe?
#2ch
It would be really bad if the driver had an epileptic fit or something. You should check on the conductor!
#???
Still not sign of stopping, so all right, I’ll take a look.
#???
There were blinds or something covering the window, so I couldn’t see the conductor or the driver. The route is a private railway in Shizuoka.
#2ch
Knock on the window?
Hasumi
I tried that, but nobody answered.
#2ch
Can you see out the window?
Names of stations you’re passing, etc.
Hasumi
We came out a tunnel, so we’re dropping speed slightly. There usually aren’t any tunnels, though… It’s a train from Shin-Hamamatsu.
Hasumi
Looks like we’re finally stopping at a station.
#2ch
You aren’t going to get off there… are you?
Hasumi
We’re stopped at Kisaragi Station. I wonder if I should get off. I’ve never heard of this place before.
#2ch
Definitely check it out.
#2ch
No, stay on until the last stop.
#2ch
Oh, but it’s probably already departing now…
#2ch
When did you get on the train?
Hasumi
I’ve gotten off the train. The station’s unmanned. I believe I got on the train at 11:40.
#2ch
I’m not finding any information on Kisaragi Station…
And Hasumi, your train was going for over an hour?
Well, that’s really strange.
#2ch
Yeah, I’m not getting any results for Kisaragi Station…
Hasumi
I’m looking for a schedule so I can get back, but I can’t find one. The train is still stopped, so it’d probably be safest to get back on… Well, it left while I was writing that.
#2ch
Is there anyone nearby, or any buildings?
It’s cold out, so be careful.
Hasumi
I’ll look for a taxi from the station. Thank you very much.
#2ch
Sounds good.
Take care.
#2ch
Way past the last train, at an unmanned station…
Really questionable if you’ll have any luck finding a taxi there.
#2ch
And so Hasumi became an inhabitant of the two-dimensional world…
Hasumi
There don’t seem to be any taxis anywhere. Hmm…
#2ch
Call 110? [Number for police.]
#2ch
Call the taxi company?
#2ch
If there’s a telephone booth nearby, look up the taxi company in the phonebook and call.
Hasumi
I called home and asked to be picked up, but neither of my parents seem to know where Kisaragi Station is. They’ll look for it on the maps so they can come get me, but I’m getting a little scared now.
#2ch
What about the others?
Are you the only one who got off the train?
#2ch
I checked online too, and the name Kisaragi Station isn’t coming up.
Am I wrong in assuming it’s around Shin-Hamamatsu?
I’ll check Yahoo.
Hasumi
I looked for a public phone, but there’s nothing. And no one else got off, so I’m alone now. It’s definitely called Kisaragi.
#2ch
Sometimes they have phones outside the station.
Hasumi
Looking into it, apparently it’s written with the kanji for “Devil,” but it’s read “Kisaragi”…
#2ch
Devil Station…?
Yikes…
#2ch
Are you a gaming nerd? ‘Cause a game comes up if you Google it.
#2ch
Tell us the names of the stations before and after Kisaragi.
Hasumi
What do you mean, a game? It doesn’t say what the next and previous stations are.
#2ch
Walk back along the track.
#2ch
If you start running now, you might catch up to the train!
#2ch
There must be houses around the station, right?
Hasumi
Yes, there are. I didn’t quite notice since I was panicking. I’m waiting for my parents to call while walking along the track. I tried checking town information on i-mode, but it gave me a “point error” or something. I want to go home.
Hasumi
There’s really just nothing around here. All I can see are fields and mountains. But I think I’ll be able to make it back if I go down the track, so I’ll keep pushing on. Thank you very much. Treat this as a joke if you will, but can I come to you if I encounter any more trouble?
#2ch
Of course.
Just be careful out there.
#2ch
Sure!
Just make sure you don’t run out of battery. Your phone’s your lifeline right now.
#2ch
Don’t get lost.
And be careful in the tunnel.
#2ch
Huh, you can get a signal out in the middle of nowhere?
I kinda think you shouldn’t stray far from the station…
#2ch
All alone on a cold night, at a station with no attendants…
Soon the lights could go out, and it’ll be pitch black…
#2ch
It really might be safest to wait for daybreak at the station, though…
#2ch
Oh geez, this sounds bad…
Hasumi
I got a call from my father, and he had many questions, but simply couldn’t find my location. I’ve been told to call 110, which I’m a little opposed to doing, but I’ll try asking them to help me now…
#2ch
I really think you should wait until it gets lighter out before you do anything…
#2ch
Waiting all alone in the dead of night?
And in some ominous place, yikes…
#2ch
^ Going through a tunnel alone in the dead of night?
And on some ominous train line, yikes…
Hasumi
I called 110 and tried my absolute best to explain the situation, but they thought it was all a joke and got angry at me. So I got scared and apologized…
#2ch
Apologized for what?
Should probably give up for today.
Wait for the first train.
#2ch
What’s it like around the station? What’s there?
Hasumi
I hear what sounds like a beating drum mixed with some kind of bell way off in the distance. Honestly, I have no idea what to do at this point.
#2ch
Get back to the station for now, Hasumi.
It’s best to return to where you started when you’re lost.
#2ch
Here’s where it gets going…
#2ch
Are they having a festival or what?
Hasumi
You might think I’m kidding, but I’m too scared to look behind me. I do want to go back to the station, but… I don’t dare turn around.
#2ch
Run. And don’t look back.
#2ch
You can’t go back to the station now.
Run through the tunnel!
I’m sure you’ll find you’re not far.
Hasumi
Someone behind me yelled “Hey! Don’t walk on the track, that’s dangerous!” I looked around expecting to see an attendant, and saw an one-legged old man, but he vanished. I think I’m too scared to move.
#2ch
I told you not to look back! RUN
#2ch
Calm down and listen to big bro, okay?
Check out where that drum’s coming from.
There’s bound to be somebody playing it…
#2ch
^ Where the hell are you planning to take Hasumi?
#2ch
Why’d you know it was an “old man” if it was just a single leg?
#2ch
^ …Uh, I think Hasumi meant an old man who lost one of his legs.
#2ch
Must’ve been an old man who died and lost a leg after walking along the track.
Hasumi
I can’t walk or run any further. The drumming sound is getting a little closer.
#2ch
Wait for dawn.
It won’t be scary in the daylight.
#2ch
I’m glad I stayed on the train…
Hasumi
I’m still alive. But I fell and started bleeding, and I broke a heel, so I’m sitting still on the ground. I don’t want to die now…
#2ch
It should be safe if you leave the tunnel.
Once you get out of there, call for help immediately.
Hasumi
I called home. Dad’s calling the police, but the sound keeps getting closer.
#2ch
I hope to god that’s not the sound of a train…
But it might be too late…
Hasumi
I finally managed to make it to the front of the tunnel. The name says Isanuki. The sound’s still getting closer, so I’m going to leave the tunnel. If I’m safe once I get out of the tunnel, I’ll post again.
#2ch
Good luck.
#2ch
This is the end.
Forget about trains and stations.
Forget about going back.
Forget about someone chasing you.
The sound you’re hearing is just something you imagined.
Run out of the tunnel.
If you stop, you’ll only succumb to something which does not belong in this world.
Hasumi
I left the tunnel. There’s someone up ahead. It looks like all your advice was right after all. Thank you so much. My face is such a mess from tears, he might just mistake me for a monster.
#2ch
Wait, Hasumi!
Don’t die on us!
#2ch
Stop! That can’t be good!
#2ch
Someone there? This late at night?
That’s suspicious…
Hasumi
He seems gentle, and was worried for me. He called for a train to take me to the nearest station. Apparently there’s some kind of business hotel there. I’m truly, truly thankful to all of you.
#2ch
Hasumi, please answer me this one thing.
Can you ask that man what that place is?
#2ch
Is he really gentle?
He sounds kinda scary from what you said…
#2ch
That guy’s no good!!
Why’s he by the track at this hour?
He must’ve been a corpse or something!
Hasumi, RUN!!
Hasumi
I asked him where it was, and he said Hina. That seems extremely unlikely, though…
#2ch
Hasumi, get off the train!
#2ch
Excuse me, Hasumi? Where’s Hina?
Hasumi
We’ve been headed toward the mountains for some time. It really doesn’t strike me as a place where trains would go. And he’s stopped talking to me entirely.
#2ch
Probably because you’re constantly messing with your phone?
#2ch
Hasumi, oh no, oh no…
Did you contact your parents after you got out of the tunnel and received aid (?) from this guy?
#2ch
Hasumi.
Please call 110.
This might be your last chance.
Hasumi
My battery’s almost run out. Things are getting strange, so I think I’m going to make a run for it. He’s been talking to himself about bizarre things for a while now. To prepare for just the right time, I’m going to make this my last post for now.
* Afterward, “Hasumi” was never heard from again.
|
Some murderers see their work as an art form. If their piece is a success, they will continue on with their life, outside of jail. However, with the limited capability of understanding humans possess, combined with their narrow mindedness, the true secret of a killer can go entirely missed.
The following is a video log of young man recording his last moments. It spends its time quietly residing in a dark, silent evidence room, calling out to whoever may hear its cry. Upon deaf ears will its shrill screams always fall.
The video starts off recording the youth adjusting his camera. His room is entirely dark, not a single spec of light to be found. The camera records in night vision as the man looks directly into the lens and begins speaking.
“Hello. My name is…” The voice pauses for a moment, deciding how he should start off. “Ugh. No, I’m not beginning it like this. It sounds too much like I’m recording my last words. That isn’t what I want this to be. Instead, I’ll just get straight to the explanation. I’ll describe to you the hell that has been nipping at me for god only knows how long now. It started the night of my 18th birthday. January’s cold held reign over our outside activities. It was just a small party, if you could even call it that. A few presents from my family, cake, the norm. All irrelevant. It was that night, as I was lying in bed, my lights out with my TV providing the only light for the room, that my story begins. My curtains and blinds were closed, which gave the room a nice ominous feel at the time. I liked that sorta thing back then.”
The man takes a slow breath, looking away from the camera for the first time. His focus returns after a brief moment and once more he begins reciting his story.
“Right. Back to what I was saying. My TV was in front of me, and the light it gave out cast a shadow on the wall beside me. I was a bit bored, so I decided to entertain myself by interacting with the two dimensional doppelganger of myself. My hand traced along the wall, as if I was playing a game of tag with my shadow’s hand, which seemed to be trying to flee from me, going out in front of me. That was the first sign, but I didn’t notice it. I should’ve been more aware.”
A brief pause accompanied by a stressed exhale and quick inhale. His expressions seemed to show that he was trying to think.
“After that, I’m sure there were more signs, I’m positive. They were probably just too subtle for me to notice. By the time I did notice something wrong, it might as well have been written in big bold letters in front of me. It was later on in the day, and I was in the kitchen of our house by myself. It was mildly lit. Just enough to see where you’re going with out needing the aid of a light. I got some snack out of a cabinet, but knocked over a box onto the ground in the process. No big deal. I bent over to pick it up, and noticed the presence of my shadow. It immediately struck me as awkward. There was no light in here to cast a shadow. I put the box and my snack on a nearby counter without letting my eyes leave my shadow. If they were deceiving me, I wanted to know right away. My interest in the paranormal may have made me a bit paranoid, but I knew that the tenseness I was feeling now wasn’t unwarranted. I took a step towards the room’s exit, and of course my shadow mimicked me. I raised my left arm, as if tempting him to continue mirroring what I was doing. He raised his left arm. Then he raised his right arm. Mine was still at my side. My skin crawled like a trillion tiny little bugs were trying to make their way out from under it. Then in one swift movement his hands wrapped around his neck, and I was the one who felt its effects. My throat was pained and my breathing stopped. I struggled frantically, but against what? My attacker was my own shadow. I don’t remember what happened after that. Only what I was told by my family when I woke up. My blood was on the corner of one of the cabinet doors I had left open. Apparently I knocked myself good and passed out on the floor. Back then, I was happy to believe that’s what really happened. After all, this kind of stuff only happens in stories.”
Once more he collects himself from the rough memories with a deep breath of air.
“After that, I was always suspicious of the me that didn’t talk, that didn’t have any facial expressions, that would never confess to what he did to me. But what I had thought happened had a perfectly logical explanation. I couldn’t doubt it. Instead, I carried on, always holding that distrust in the back of my mind. But he didn’t assault me again. Though several times I noticed things that just couldn’t have really happened. I’d brush my teeth with my right hand, he’d use his left. I’d scratch my back, he’d scratch his head. I’m sure he was just taunting me. Probably the same reason he let me live the first time he attacked me. For fun, no doubt.”
There is a creak off to the man’s left, which catches his attention. He stares at the origin of the sound intently for a moment before returning to his monologue.
“The next attack… I’m betting this one was planned to finish me off. Once again I was in the kitchen, home alone for the time. I had an apple on a plate, and I grabbed a steak knife from its group. Not entirely necessary for cutting an apple, but it was in easy reach. Only half way through grabbing the knife did I realize that when I had it, so did my shadow, my enemy. Stunned by my lack of thinking, I dropped the knife. As I feared, my shadow did not repeat this action. If he had a face, I’m sure it would have been filled by a crooked and malevolent smile. I whispered “No.” as best as I could. My voice was barely more than a whisper but I doubt it made any bit of a difference. My silhouette raised the knife, and then brought it down in one swift, uncaring motion. The result was a jet of blood from my arm and a surge of pain that reverberated several times through out my body. But on instinct I turned around and ran. I didn’t know where, and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t out run him. Another stab. This one brought me to my knees. The nearest room was the bathroom. I dragged myself across the carpet, slowly into the room, and shut the door behind me. There was no window to the outside, which made the room completely dark. I waited for him to return, I was expecting to be ended by something that was essentially me. Hours went by and nothing happened. That’s when I learned how to defeat him. He can’t exist in total darkness. He becomes nothing.”
The young man looked around his surroundings, devoid of any light, and then back to the camera.
“And that’s why I’m here now. I couldn’t do this at home. If I tried to explain, I would’ve been sent out to an asylum. I had to run away. I suppose he let me get this far as a sort of show sportsmanship. Twisted. Doesn’t matter, really. So long as I’m in this chamber of darkness, I’m safe. That’s all that matters for now. Although I can’t help but wonder how long I’ll be trapped in here. What do I do when I run out of food? What do I do-“
The sound of cars pulling up and parking outside stop the young man midsentence.
“Taylor? Taylor are you in there? Please, Taylor, say something!” A voice yelled just outside the door, and the young man’s previous moderately calm demeanor has changed to one of panic.
“Go away! Just go! I don’t want you here, go away damn it!” He screamed back. His voice was so angered that the woman on the other side was silent for a minute.
“Taylor, we’re coming in honey. It’s for your own good.”
There was a smash against the door. Then another, followed by a soft spoken “No…” from the young man. The third crash brought the door down with a tremendous thud. Light from outside flooded the room, and almost immediately the man was knocked to the ground by some invisible force. In the struggle, the camera is tipped backwards and only records the sounds of Taylor struggling for breath as his mother and the accompanying police officer try to help him in some manner, without avail.
—
Credited to Poizn.
|
In a small orphanage in a small village in Russia, there is a young boy. His hair is jet black, and messy, and he tattered jeans and an old dingy grey shirt.
Nothing is known of him. For 10 years, he sat in the bed in his room, never moving, never blinking, never eating or sleeping. In the 10 years, he has not seemed to age at all, continuing to look like a 7 year old boy. The only thing that proved he was alive is the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, and the refusal to take his eyes off anyone who enters the room alone.
A lone psychiatrist came over in an attempt to find out why the boy had done nothing in 10 years. He entered the room, and shut the door behind him.
30 minutes later, the orphanage’s nurse came to check on the 2 of them. Opening the door, she saw the child, still sitting, still not moving, eyes fixed on her. However, something seemed different. He appeared a slight amount larger, not by much, but enough to make him look like a late 8 or early 9 year old. The psychiatrist was no longer in the room. The door was the only exit, as the room had no windows, vents, or anything, and it was, in fact, in the exact center of the orphanage.
He continued to sit, only seen occasionally by the lady who came in to check on him, and she never closed the door upon entry.
A week or so later, 2 law enforcement personnel entered the orphanage, demanding to speak to the boy about the disappearance of the psychiatrist. The 2 of them entered, closing the door behind him, as the head of the orphanage stood outside the door.
30 minutes passed, and not a sound came from the room. The Head eased the door open. The boy was still on the bed, but the officers where no longer there. The boy was know quite noticeably bigger, about the size of a 15 year old. His skin was darker than usual, and he looked angrier than ever. But one thing remained the same: His cold, unforgiving eyes that stared at whoever entered.
Eventually, the law organized a large group of 10 officers to speak to the boy. They entered the room, and left the door open, until one of the younger orphans ran up and shut it, apparently in a daze.
The head quickly ran to re-open the door, and upon doing so froze him in horror. A low rumbling noise came from the room….
“…..One….more….”
If you return to that orphanage, you will see it still continues to run. The orphans live in good care, health, and education. However, there is one room, that you sill see is boarded up, and far from enterable. If you ask what is behind it, you will be removed forcefully from the orphanage.
However, when no one’s looking, if you place you’re ear to the door, you will hear a low ominous growling sound, and if you listen for a bit, you will hear….
“…..One…..more….”
|
I grew up in a tiny town in Vermont. Tiny in terms of population, not size—there were huge sprawling farms and wooded areas, but almost no people. More cows than people, which is standard for a lot of small towns in Vermont. So, clearly, not the most fun in the world for a kid who was sick of freezing winters and awful, balmy summers surrounded by boring Vermonters that didn’t have many kids my age.
My only close friend was Tina, who was a year older than me. We spent almost all our time with each other, constantly dreaming about life outside of Vermont. The people in our town were strange folk. Different. Different than in other places. One thing I didn’t realize about small towns until I moved to the city is how incredibly superstitious people in towns like mine could be. They believed in the strange, the paranormal. They believed in Luvia.
Luvia was an older French-Canadian woman who had moved to Vermont when she met her husband. And everyone in town thought she was a clairvoyant. Psychic. Even my own parents did. One day, my mother lost her wedding ring. She had looked around everywhere for it. They called Luvia, and she immediately told them it was “under old, rotting wood”. They looked in the backyard, where my father had been tearing apart a decaying piano he’d found. My mother had helped him one day. The ring was there. Under old, rotting wood.
After hearing a lot about Luvia from older townsfolk who seemed to think she was 100% credible, Tina and I decided to go see her one evening to try to find out whatever she could tell us about “the future”. I was skeptical. But it seemed like a fun thing to do as a joke.
So, we dropped by her house in the early evening, and she opened the door as we walked up the pathway to her house, before we even had a chance to knock. Tina elbowed me hard in the ribs and whispered that Luvia was clearly a psychic—she sensed us coming to the door! I whispered back that it probably had more to do with her house being full of windows, and the fact that she probably saw us coming from a long way away. Either way, I started to feel strange the minute we got close to her. She was very, very old—very tiny and kind of… sunken. Sunken eye sockets and sharp cheekbones and a sort of concave chest cavity. It was more than a little unnerving. But she smiled, and was sweet to us, and I started to warm up to her. Nothing about her or her house screamed “creepy psychic” to me—just a well-dressed older woman in a cabin-style house. It looked like you’d imagine any typical grandmother’s home—doilies, knitting, family magazines, etc.
We told her that we were interested in a “clairvoyant reading”, and handed her about twenty dollars that we had scrounged together between the two of us. She led us to her kitchen table, and asked which of us wanted to go first.
“What can you tell me about my love life?” Tina asked.
Luvia had no crystal ball, tarot cards, or tea leaves. She just closed her eyes and sat silently for about two minutes. Then, she took a deep breath and said, “Michael Carten.”
Tina stared at her for a few seconds, until Luvia repeated: “Michael Carten. The man you’re going to marry. Michael Carten.”
Tina thanked her, and repeated the name to herself a few times. Michael Carten. Michael Carten. Michael Carten. Luvia then turned to me.
“Whatever you can tell me, I’d like to hear,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be about my love life or anything.”
Luvia closed her eyes for a few seconds, but information about me seemed to reach her much quicker than her visions of Tina’s husband. She looked straight into my eyes, grabbed my hands and said:
“The thing that will kill you is shedding its skin.”
“The thing that will kill you is sharpening its teeth.”
“The thing that will kill you is washing the blood off of its claws.”
“The thing that will kill you is gathering skins.”
“The thing that will kill you… you won’t see it coming.”
The three of us sat there in silence for quite a while. I felt sick. Shaken up. Luvia looked as if she wished she didn’t have to tell me that. “Is… is there anything I can do to stop it?” I asked. Luvia slid our money back across the table to us.
“No charge for the reading.”
Tina and I slunk out of Luvia’s house quietly. We didn’t say a word on the way back to our houses. Tina just found out the name of the love of her life. I got to listen to a horrifying cryptic message about my death. I was twelve years old. I was fucking terrified.
When Tina left me at my doorstep she tried to make light of the readings. “How does she know who I’m going to marry?” she asked. “And it’s not like some monster’s going to get you. Some skin-shedding, bloody, sharp—it’s not like some monster’s going to get you. It’s not like… some monster isn’t going to get you.”
For years I looked for it. The thing that will kill me. I could almost feel it. Sensed it just behind each car, swaying behind the trees at night. Underneath the fresh snow. Waiting outside my window. With every step I hesitated. Every time I tried to sleep, I could almost see it. What had she said about its teeth? I looked out for sloughed skin. For blood. For skins, for hides.
But I never found it.
When I was eighteen, I left for college in California, to get far away from the snow and the cold and the thing that will kill me. I stopped sensing it everywhere. My heart stopped pounding whenever I walked alone at night. Maybe, whatever it was, it stayed in Vermont. Maybe it wasn’t a thing at all. People in California laughed when I told them the story and it stopped seeming real. Just the ramblings of a tiny, ancient French-Canadian woman. It wasn’t real.
When I was 27, a wedding invitation came in the mail. Tina was getting married! This was the first I had heard of it. I was still in California, and barely kept in contact with anyone from back east. It seemed like a past life.
“You are cordially invited to the wedding of Michael Carten and Tina—”
Wait. No. She had… clearly, she had the name in her mind. Michael Carten. And she sought him out. It had nothing to do with Luvia. Her predictions weren’t real. They couldn’t be. Clairvoyants don’t exist. It’s ridiculous to think that kind of thing happens in the real world.
I went to the wedding. Tina, Michael, and I laughed about the whole thing—the psychic “knew”! She “predicted” it! Of course she didn’t. Tina and Michael decided it was nothing more than a funny story to tell their future children.
“Just tell us if you run into some beast with razor-sharp teeth that’s ‘gathering skins’, okay? Then we’ll think it’s more than just a funny coincidence.”
I left the wedding as sure as I ever was that “the thing that will kill me” wasn’t real. Didn’t exist. I’d look behind the trees. Behind the cars. Nothing was waiting for me. Nothing was ready to skin me. I didn’t know why I had been scared so long.
The best thing about Tina’s wedding was that we got back in touch for the first time in a very long time. We were very different people than we had been as children, but we still shared more of a bond than we realized. She was happy, living in Vermont with Michael. She told me everything that was going on in our town. The population slowly increasing. The new schools they were building. The babies that were born.
Luvia dying.
As the years went on, her calls and emails got less and less frequent. She always seemed to be busy. Soon they tapered off completely. I missed her, of course, but I had my own life. And I could check in on my childhood home whenever I wanted. One winter, I came into town to visit my parents for the holidays, and decided I’d swing by Tina’s house. I’d normally never just drop by, but she was pretty bad about answering her phone, and I really wanted to see her.
I pulled up to her and Michael’s house. Two cars were in the driveway, so I figured they were both home. I walked up and rang the doorbell. Michael opened it, dressed in several layers and a large coat, as if he had just come in from the snow. He invited me inside. He looked very surprised to see me, and asked if I had talked to Tina recently.
“I haven’t, actually. Not in several months. Sorry for the invasion, I don’t usually just drop by like this, but I was wondering if I could see her?”
“I uh, I figured you’d know. That you’d have heard. She left me. A few months ago. Just up and left. Hasn’t spoken to me since.”
“Oh god,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
He took off his coat and hung it on a coat rack by the door. “Can I take your coat?” he asked. I told him it was alright; that I wouldn’t be staying long. I was just so shocked she’d do something like that. He was a really good guy.
“I’m sorry—I was about to get ready for bed. I’ve got an early workday tomorrow. Do you mind?”
He kicked off his shoes, pulled his sweater off, and headed toward his bathroom. I settled in. Looked around their home.
“Of course I don’t mind. Do you know where she went?”
“I don’t,” he yelled from the bathroom, mouth full of toothpaste. “She didn’t call until after she was gone.”
“That’s awful. I’m sorry.”
He started flossing, and when he saw me looking toward him, closed the door for privacy. When I heard the shower water start running, I pulled out my phone, figuring I’d take this time to look through Tina’s last messages to me, to see if she gave any hint to where she went. Any clue. My phone fell out of my hand as I grabbed if out of my bag, and I saw it drop beneath the couch. As I felt around under the couch for my phone, my hand hit something else. A massive clump of long hair.
I pulled it out from beneath the couch. It seemed so strange, such a large mass of hair.
Brown hair, Tina’s shade.
Hair with a piece of scalp still attached.
“The thing that will kill you is gathering skins.”
I turned toward the bathroom door. Michael was still showering.
“The thing that will kill you is washing the blood off of its claws.”
Flossing, brushing.
“The thing that will kill you is sharpening its teeth.”
Sloughing off his outer clothes, his shoes.
“The thing that will kill you is shedding its skin.”
Oh god. The thing that will kill me.
I heard the water in the shower stop. Movements from inside the bathroom.
I ran. Out the door. Slammed the door. Sprinted to my car. Shaking. Watching the door. My hands fumbled with keys. Shaking. Shaking. The door to the house opened. My car started. I drove. I didn’t look back. I drove. All through the night. Through most of the next day. Only stopping when I absolutely had to. I had no idea if he was following me. I had no idea what I had just seen. My heart didn’t start beating normally again until I was two states away. I went home.
This was months ago. I called the police. They investigated. Nothing turned up. They’re sure she just left him. Moved away.
Maybe she did. Maybe she’s far away. Safe. Maybe nothing’s coming for me. Maybe Michael’s just a poor guy whose wife left him. Maybe it’s nothing behind the trees, in the snow drifts, underneath the cars. Outside my door at night. And the windows. Maybe it’s nothing. Probably it’s nothing.
Luvia’s been wrong before.
Hasn’t she?
“The thing that will kill you… you won’t see it coming.”
|
Have you ever been down to Brantford? It’s not a bad place to live, although there honestly isn’t that much to see. So much is just abandoned, or so old you can’t even imagine what it was like when it was new. It doesn’t really feel like a city, more like a small town that got too big for the ‘town’ label.
Most of the places that hire are warehouses, and even then, they tend to go through the temp agencies rather than actually hire people. It’s easier to get rid of them when you don’t need them anymore that way. I don’t know how many people are stuck bouncing from temp job to temp job. I only put up with it since at the time, I was a nineteen-year-old kid, just happy to get some work. Most of it was in warehouses or factories. I preferred the warehouses. Less risk of losing a finger on some machine just because they couldn’t be bothered to actually train you.
It was one of the warehouses where I met Frank. He was one of the full-time employees, at this place called Colemans. It was pretty small by warehouse standards, and easy to miss. I suppose it didn’t help that the area surrounding it was full of run-down buildings that had fallen into disrepair. They mostly stored sporting equipment, brought in from Indonesia or Thailand and some of the boxes there were pretty old, with thick layers of black dust on them. Frank once told me he’d been there for about ten years, and the place had been just as dead, and run down even back then. He had no idea how old it actually was, and there were only him and the owner of the place as the actual full-time employees. Whenever things got busier than usual, they just brought on a couple of temps for half a day.
Back then, I was gearing up to put myself through College. My plan was to work until September of the next year, picking up odd temp jobs, and save up as much as I could for tuition. That was just about all you could do in Brantford. It’s hard to get a real job, but the staffing agencies always took just about anyone.
The first time I was sent to Colemans, Frank was out back waiting for me and the two other temps who were supposed to show. Only one of them actually did. He gave us the basic orientation, most of which I breezed past since this wasn’t my first rodeo.“We’ve only got the one truck today. Buncha little boxes, you know how it is. Which one of you is better at wrapping skids?” He asked, then coughed, covering his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. I’m pretty sure it was the first thing he ever said to me.
The other temp did the wrapping, while Frank and I ended up being the ones actually building the skids. When you’re working with a guy in a truck, doing something as boring as building skids, you inevitably get to talking.
“Might be an early day,” he said, a little relieved when we were about halfway through the truck. “It’s been pretty slow around here, given it’s the holiday rush and all that. It doesn’t bother me, though. Y’know what I heard today?”
“What’s that?” I asked him.
“I heard I’m gonna be a Dad. Imagine that, right? My wife told me this morning!”
“Oh really, well congratulations!” I said. It wasn’t much more than a formal statement made to a man I barely knew. Frank coughed hard into the sleeve of his jacket again.
“Yeah, best damn day of my life, right now. Best day of my life.”
With the skid built, he let the other temp get to the wrapping, and stepped off to the side, near the edge of the loading dock for a smoke break, and beckoned me over to join him.
“Now’s about as good a time as any for the first break. Dunno if you’ll even be here for the third… It gets too quiet around here most of the time,” he said.
“Are you staying the whole day?” I asked.“Maybe. Was kinda hoping to make it home, although Laura can take care of herself for the most part right now. I might need a bit of extra help, though, if you’re offering.” He was watching the other temp drag his feet as he took our latest skid way out to the back of the warehouse, with the rest.
He was right about it being an early day. We were done before lunch. Frank sent the other guy home, but me, he kept me around for another hour or so, helping out with some of the other more minor jobs he had, although there wasn’t really enough to justify either of us staying after that. Still, that hour alone, we were talking as if we’d known each other for years.
I got sent to Colemans a couple more times after that, over the next two weeks. Sometimes, it wound up just being me and Frank. We got along pretty well, the way people do when they’re stuck working together. Friends for the moment, even if we only barely knew each other. It was Monday in the third week when I came in for my last shift as a temp. It was just me and Frank alone in the warehouse. There were two trucks, already empty and needing to be filled. Loading was faster work than unloading, usually.
Frank was quieter this time, giving me only the basics before setting to work.
“Hey, how’s the wife?” I asked as we pushed the first skids into the truck.
“Huh? Uh, yeah. She’s fine,” Frank said, distracted. “Baby’s doing alright.”
He coughed into his sleeve.
“Yeah… Baby’s doing alright… Hey, Jacky. you’re saving to go to school, right?”
“Yeah, I was thinking of going into Marketing, over at Mohawk.”
“You looking for full-time work?” Frank asked, looking over at me. “We’re getting a proper opening soon, and you don’t seem to have your head up your ass like the usual yokels they send our way..”
Of course, I jumped at the opportunity. Sporadic Temp work wasn’t really getting me what I needed. My agency would call me whenever they had something, sometimes an hour after it had already started. Sometimes I got to the work site and just got sent home. It was disheartening, to say the least.
“The guy that owns the place, Gary was in the other day. I was talking to him, we need the spot filled fast. I already asked him about you, he’s willing to give you a shot. If you want it, he’ll be in, in a couple of hours. You guys can hash it out.”
“Yeah, that’d be great! I’m your guy!” I assured him. Frank just nodded slowly, without looking at me, and got back to work. I was so happy about the prospect of getting a solid full-time gig, I didn’t notice just how lethargic he seemed.
I hadn’t actually formally met Gary before. Just seen him around every once in a while. He was an older guy who spent most of his time in his office, near the front of the building. The interview was pretty informal. There wasn’t even a contract to sign. He just agreed to pay me in cash. Looking back on it, it was a little shady, but I’d never actually had a full-time job before, so I was just glad to be making money. I was back again the next day, no questions asked for another day of work.
The year ended on a pretty high note, all things considered. Frank was in, training me for the first week or so, but after that, it was mostly just me and the temps. Christmas came and went, and a couple of weeks into January, I was still at Colemans.
Frank wasn’t in as often as I’d expected him to be. Some days, it was just me, all by myself in the warehouse. I’d figured out that I’d probably only been hired to cover for Frank while he took care of his wife, although it seemed kind of odd for him to take time off so early in the pregnancy. I didn’t question it too much. He’d come in two or three days a week, and we’d shoot the shit while we worked.
It was around the last week of January, on a Thursday when Frank collapsed. It was the only day that week when he’d been in, and we’d just been packing a skid, when he started coughing. He coughed a lot, and I usually didn’t say anything, but this time, he was doubled over, and I half expected to see him start spitting up blood.
“Frank! Frank?!” I was at his side immediately, not sure what to do to help.
His knees gave out beneath him, and I at least was able to stop him from collapsing face first into the skid. I guided him into a sitting position on the ground, listening to him gasp and wheeze.
“Jesus, are you alright?” I asked him.
“Y-yeah…” he lied, his voice hoarse and garbled by mucus. “I’m…” He coughed again, preventing him from finishing. “Fuck… I ain’t doing so good, Jack.”
He avoided my eyes, and I sat with him, waiting for his explanation about just what the fuck had been going on here.
“They…caught it about a month ago. A tumor in my lung. Stage 4.”
“Jesus, why the hell didn’t you say anything?”
“It was none of your damn business, that’s why.”
“Well, can they treat it? What about your wife? Your kid?”
Frank didn’t answer me, he just stared out into the darkness of the warehouse, then tried to stand up.
“I’m going on break,” he said. “We’re done talking about this.”
He headed towards the tiny breakroom, and it was the last I saw of him that day. I didn’t even see him leave.
It was almost three weeks before I saw Frank again. I’d asked Gary about him, and he told me he’d given Frank some time off to “Get his shit in order.” I tried to pry, but Gary refused to say anything else.
Then, one day I came into work and found Frank already there. He was loading a truck by himself, and he’d already gotten two skids in by the time I’d walked in the door.“Jack!” His voice was so cheerful, carefree, almost.
“Running late, huh? Go grab a pump truck. We got two more trucks today!”
His enthusiasm was unusual, and as I joined him at the truck, I had to ask about it.
“You’re looking better,” I said.
“I’m feeling better! Damn, I haven’t felt this good in years!”
“You talk to a doctor?”
“Something like that,” Frank cracked a wry smile. “Tell ya what, the third trucks due in at 4, if we finish up fast, we’ll head out for lunch. I’ll tell you all about it.”
Well, that sure as hell whetted my curiosity. I worked with almost the same vigor as Frank had to get through those first two trucks.
We finished up around noon. I climbed into Frank’s pickup truck, and we stopped by a little diner just down the street for lunch. Gary wasn’t even in the office, so he wouldn’t give us shit for slacking off for a little while. He ordered two beers, and sat there, studying the menu before I asked.
“So, you doing alright? You in chemo or something?”
Frank’s cracked lips curled into a small, wry smile. The kind of smile you see on a man who’s seen things.
“I was, for a bit. Not right now, though. I’m in remission.”
“Wait, the cancer’s gone? How?” I’d never heard of someone bouncing back from the big C that quickly, and Frank looked better than he’d ever been since I’d met him! The waitress brought us our beers, and Frank took a long sip from the bottle, before speaking again.
“Tell me something, Jack. Do you believe in God?”
“I guess so? I never really went to Church, but I guess I like the idea of there being a God.”
“Good. What about the Devil? Do you believe in that, too?”
“I guess?”
“You know… when someone gets really low, they get desperate. God, the past couple of weeks, I’ve never been so scared in all my life! I was looking into treatment, and people kept telling me about how bad my chances looked. They didn’t come out and say it, but they might as well have. Everyone was convinced I was gonna die… I’m thirty-eight years old, Jack. If you ask me, I’d say I’m too young to die. Hell, with my kid on the way, I don’t want to die! I don’t want them to grow up without a Dad, I wanna provide, I wanna be a breadwinner! So… I started looking around at things. The kinda things people might not usually look at.”
“What, like herbal medicines and stuff?” I asked.
“That was some of it,” Frank said, “But other stuff as well. Herbal techniques, and some really obscure stuff… Occult stuff… See, I made some friends while I was poking around on some of those obscure sites. I didn’t put too much faith in it, but I happened to mention my diagnosis to one of them. They sent me to a forum on some unlisted onion site… Now this site, this site was 12 different kinds of fucked up. Really heavy occult shit. Rituals to summon Demons to kill people, help you get your rocks off… even summon the big man himself… Crazy, right? But, I took a look around. I didn’t exactly have high hopes, but I figured that people probably bought into this shit for a reason. There was this one ritual that people kept bringing up. There was a lot of debate as to whether or not it was summoning the Devil, or just one of his demons. That wasn’t what interested me though… See, people kept talking about this ritual as if they actually did it, and it worked! So, I thought, ‘What have I got to lose?’
The ritual didn’t call for a lot. A mirror, a circle of salt, homemade candles with my own blood inside of them, and a chant done at 3 in the morning. Pretty standard demonic horseshit, right? But… well, all these people seemed to think it worked, and like I said. What did I have to lose?
I rented a motel room for a night. Made the candles, and set everything up in the bathroom, right in front of the mirror. Then at 3 AM, I did the chant. I probably butchered the hell out of it… at first, I thought it didn’t even work. It was just my face in the candlelight… That’s when I saw it, though… In the reflection, a woman walked through the bathroom door. I turned to look at her, but there was no one there! All there was, was her reflection in the mirror!
She walked up behind me, stopping just inches away from me, her face just over the reflection of my shoulder. She was pale, with thick black hair that cascaded over her shoulders, and a calming smile.
“Hello, Frank,” she said in the sweetest voice I’d ever heard. Her chin rested on my shoulder. My mouth went dry… I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and I didn’t even know what to say! I honestly don’t think I expected it to actually work…
“It’s alright,” she told me. “I know why you called. And yes… I’d love to help. It’s my job afterall, to help people like you.”
“It is?” I asked, and I probably sounded like a complete dumbass!
“Oh yes. I could make it all go away. For a cost. I don’t work for free, Frank. I do something for you, you do something for me!”
“So you sold your soul?” I asked. I’d been sitting, immersed in his story up until then. I hadn’t even touched my beer, and Frank chuckled.
“See, that was what I asked too. But… No. She just laughed when I brought it up.”
“No,” she said, ‘I prefer something a little more tangible… But the cost is always high, Frank. Always.”
“What do you want?”
“Your wife, she’s pregnant, isn’t she?”
God, my heart froze in my chest when she said that… and that smile on her face, that horrible, innocent smile.
‘That’s what I want, Frank. I will cure you, and then I, after they’ve been born, I will take the child, and you’ll be free. No more cancer.”
My heart was racing. I couldn’t have given up my kid, Jack… I just couldn’t… But that look on her face, she already knew my answer. But that’s when I got an idea… See, a couple of days before I’d been with Laura at the prenatal clinic to get the results of a blood test we’d done. Something pretty basic just to determine if the kid was gonna have any defects, but they also told us the sex of the baby… I’m gonna have a little girl. And that’s what got me thinking…
I looked at the reflection of The Devil in the mirror, and I said “Okay.”
I said, “When my son is born, I’ll perform the ritual again, and I’ll give him to you.”
And you know what? That smile on her lips grew wider, maybe too wide, but the look of utter satisfaction on her face both terrified and comforted me.
“It’s a deal,” she said. “I’ll see you soon, Frank…”
And then she was gone. I blinked, and she wasn’t there anymore. The candles still burned, it was like nothing had happened at all…”
Frank took one long pull of his beer, and let out a sigh.
“A couple of days later, I was in remission. It was the best Goddamn feeling in the world.”
“But then what happens when the kids born?” I asked him, “Son, daughter, it shouldn’t matter, right?”
“I wondered the same thing myself. According to the people into this sort of thing, Demons are all about specific wording. I promised it a Son. I can’t give them a Son. The deal’s a paradox. They already gave me what I wanted, I didn’t fail to deliver on the terms, I just won’t ever have a son!” He laughed.“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
He lifted up the menu for the first time since we’d sat down, and looked down at it.
“Ah, but I’ve been going on long enough, what looks good?”
I sat there for a few moments, processing all that he’d just told me. He had to just be pulling my leg. That whole story just had to be complete bullshit! But the way Frank had told it… I was pretty sure that he completely believed it, even if I didn’t.
Whatever the truth was, Frank seemed fine over the next few months. Every day I came in, he was usually already there. As I settled into a routine, I convinced myself that Frank was just pulling my leg. Maybe the cancer hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought. He’d probably just found a treatment that actually worked, and made up that story either to screw with me. Or, maybe he really did believe it, in which case, maybe he’d been on some sort of drug. He had mentioned he’d been looking into ‘herbal’ treatments, after all. Either way, I was pretty sure that the story he’d told me was just that. A story, and as the months went by, I almost forgot about it.
Eventually, I started applying for Colleges. I’d saved up enough to get me through a couple of semesters, and Gary was willing to let me switch to part-time work for a while, so I saw less of Frank. On the days where I was in, we’d shoot the shit, and he’d talk about his wife, and the pregnancy, how she was progressing, names he and his wife were thinking up for their Daughter. Honestly, it was kinda nice seeing him that way. As far as I could tell from what he told me, he’d stayed cancer free too. He told me his Doctor had run some tests on him to see how he’d bounced back so quickly, but hadn’t come up with anything. In the end, he’d just chalked it up to misdiagnosis and kept an eye on him.
It was July when Kate was born. That was the name Frank and Laura had gone with. He kept texting me pictures of his newborn little girl on the night he’d taken her to the hospital. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so happy before. It was kinda heartwarming, actually… And I thought about the story he’d told me back in January. I hadn’t dwelled on it, and Frank had never mentioned it again afterward. Like I said, I’d convinced myself he’d either made the whole thing up, or been high off his ass when it had happened, but it was hard not to remember the way he’d spoken as he’d told me about the Woman in the Mirror.
Frank was still as full of energy as he’d been back in January. All he talked about was his daughter, how happy he was to have her, how much he loved her. That kid meant everything to him.
“Doc said he’d never seen such quick labor,” he told me, as we built a skid one afternoon. “Usually it’s a few hours, yeah? But Laura’s water broke and Kate was out about half an hour later. I looked it up online. I guess it’s not common, but sometimes it happens! Weird, right?”
“I’ve never heard of it before, but at least it was quick and she’s healthy.” I’d replied. “Have you… seen anything weird, lately? In the mirrors?”
He paused.
“No, I haven’t,” he said after a while, his voice getting quiet. “Y’know, I’ve been wondering though. You would’ve thought that if anything were gonna happen, something would have. But no. It’s been quiet.” He cracked a tiny, smug little smile.
“I guess I did promise that bitch a son, didn’t I?”
“I guess you did,” I replied. Frank’s smile faded slowly, and he laughed quietly.“Maybe I’m in the clear then.” He said, before getting back to work.
Given that nothing had actually happened, I was almost sorta inclined to agree with him.
Nothing kept happening. I’d applied and got accepted into Mohawk, all geared up to start in September. Gary agreed to let me switch to part-time, just to give me some income during classes, and as August came to a close, I was getting ready to make that shift.
I had about a week left when things changed.
Frank and I were loading a truck when Gary came down from his office and headed towards Frank, not quite running, but moving a lot faster he usually did. I was inside the truck, and could just see him tap Frank on the shoulder from across the warehouse, and say something to him. Frank dropped the handle of his pump truck to sprint across the warehouse towards Gary’s office. A couple of minutes later, he sprinted past the truck, to the door of the warehouse faster than I’d ever seen him move.
I found out later that a truck had blown through a stoplight, and hit Laura on the driver’s side while she’d been out running some errands. The report in the newspaper said that first responders had tried to get her out of the wreck, although she was dead before they could get to her. Looking at the picture that accompanied the article, I was amazed she’d even survived. Her car was crumpled like a piece of paper. Bent almost in half from the impact. There was no visible gore in the photograph, but when I later heard it was going to be a closed casket funeral, I wasn’t surprised. As for baby Kate in the back seat, the only consolation was that she had likely been killed in the initial impact.
I was a pallbearer for Laura at the funeral for her and Kate. Frank didn’t have many people in his life, and I was one of the few he considered a friend. I hadn’t known Laura very well, but I did it more for him than for her. There was no wake afterward. After the funeral, I just drove Frank home in silence, helped him inside, and watched him pour himself a glass of whiskey almost immediately.
“What do I do now, Jacky…” He asked me, his voice hoarse and weary. He’d been fighting the urge to cry the whole time, but now he just let it out.
“What do I do now?”
He downed the whiskey, and collapsed into an armchair in his now empty living room, looking at the abandoned baby toys on the floor in front of him.
I couldn’t find the words to comfort this man… All I could do was just sit there and listen as he drank and mourned.
“It’s my own damn fault,” he finally said.
“No, it’s not, Frank. You weren’t there… you couldn’t have.”
“It is! I promised that bitch a son… She knew I tried to dupe her, and she just had to have the last laugh.”
He knocked back another drink. The bottle he’d taken with him was almost empty. I’d barely even finished one drink of my own.
“That fucking bitch…”
“Frank, none of that was real!”
“Of course it was fucking real!” he slurred. “I saw it with my own two eyes! That bitch in the mirror! I shoulda known better… Shoulda known not to fuck with that occult shit.”
He went to refill his glass, and stared at it for a moment, before deciding to just finish off the bottle instead.
“If I ever see her again, I’ll kill her… I swear to fucking God, I’ll kill her.”
“Frank,” I got up and moved closer to him, “you’re not thinking straight.”
He paused, ready to yell again and glared at me so angrily, and I saw that anger in his eyes burn down a little.
“Maybe…” he said after a while, and sighed, swirling the contents of the mostly empty bottle around. I took it out of his hand.
“Go to bed, Frank. You’ve had too much. C’mon, let’s get up.”
I helped Frank to his feet and led him upstairs to the bed, where he collapsed into it. Then I went back downstairs and sat on the couch, polishing off my own drink. I thought about going home, I wasn’t exactly buzzed, although I’d probably get in deep shit if I was caught. Besides, given the condition Frank was in, I was worried he might wake up and do something stupid, like kill himself or something. Maybe it was better if I stayed the night.
I texted my family, to let them know I was safe and decided to hunker down on his couch.
I think I maybe got, at best an hour of rest before the screaming started. I was woken up suddenly by the noise, and for a moment, I didn’t even know where I was.
“GET OUT HERE YOU FUCKING BITCH! I’M RIGHT HERE! COME AND GET ME!”
I almost tripped over my own two feet getting up off the couch and hurrying upstairs to check on Frank.“YOU TOOK THEM… THEY MEANT EVERYTHING TO ME AND YOU FUCKING TOOK THEM!”
His bedroom door was closed. I tried it, but it wouldn’t budge. Had he locked it?
“Frank?!” I called, pounding on the wood. “Frank! Open up!”
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!” Frank screamed, not at me though. He wasn’t paying any attention to me.“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU FUCKING WANT FROM ME, YOU BITCH!?”
No amount of jiggling the door handle was going to help, and I slammed my shoulder against it. It gave pretty easily, and I could see Frank’s bed was empty… but the door to the bathroom was closed.
Frank screamed, an almost primal sound of pure animal rage and grief. I sprinted towards the bathroom door, not even bothering to try and open that one nicely.
“I’LL DO IT! I’LL DO IT, OKAY? I’LL HONOR THE BARGAIN! I’LL HONOR IT!”
“Frank! Open the door!” I yelled, and he didn’t answer. I heard him sobbing on the other side, and I slammed into the door again and again, forcing it to budge.
“Do whatever you want… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…” Franks screams had become miserable whimpers, and at last the door gave beneath me, flying open and sending me spilling into the dark bathroom. Just as it did, I heard the sound of glass shattering and went for the light.
The bathroom was a disaster. Frank lay curled in a ball in the bathtub, face wet with tears, and the bathroom mirror lay in pieces on the floor. He hadn’t cut himself, thankfully. He just lay there, crying and refusing to move or even so much as acknowledge me.
I let him be for the time being, and went to collect some of the broken glass. Somehow, I got Frank back to bed that night, and he was still asleep and okay when I left in the morning. I didn’t see him back at work for the rest of the week. Gary said he’d given him some more time off, and honestly, I think Frank deserved it.
Frank killed himself two weeks ago. Gary called me a couple of days after it had happened. I guess the weight of the loss was too heavy on him. He went out to his garage, ran the garden hose from the exhaust of his car to the window, and keyed the ignition. Gary told me he must’ve had some sort of mental break before he did it, he’d taken a hammer to the car before he’d done the deed, smashing out the side view and rearview mirrors.
Frank didn’t have a lot of friends, or family. Just a few drinking buddies, a Brother who covered the expenses, Gary and me. I never made it to his funeral, but I was at the viewing.
The casket was open, and I felt my heart sink as I saw Frank lying there, as I thought about what had driven him to this. I didn’t notice the woman appear at my side. She couldn’t have been older than 30, with long dark hair that spilled over her shoulders.
“It’s such a shame, losing him now,” she said softly to me. “Were you and Frank close?”
“Kinda,” I admitted. “He was good company, y’know?”
“I know,” she replied, smiling softly at me, “It hurt me to see how bad he got at the end. I was there with him a lot, over the past couple of months, trying to help him. Sometimes a man needs help.”
Her hand dipped down a little bit, towards her stomach where I noticed the slightest bulge.
“I was going to give him the news the night he passed. I got the results back. He was going to have a little boy.”
There was something in her smile. Something I didn’t like. Something that made my heart race.
I excused myself, almost on instinct wanting to get away from this woman. She didn’t try to stop me. As I stepped out of the room, my eye was drawn to the mirror across the hall, casting a reflection of Frank’s viewing.
I could see his brother, Gary, and a few of the other guys. But that woman…
I looked back and saw her standing in the middle of the room, eyes locked onto me, a knowing smile on her lips.
|
“Welcome back to the bottom of the ninth inning ladies and gentlemen and it appears that we have yet to receive an update on the injury to the twenty four-year veteran, Bryce Harper, who was hit by that devastating fastball to start the inning and had to be carried off the field. Obviously we’ll let you know the moment we have any definitive information. That blazing fastball has been this pitcher’s bread and butter all night.”
“Completely unhittable.”
“Completely Keith…as Harper, who would have represented the first baserunner of the game for the home team had he been able to stay in the game, might have paid the ultimate price for the first mistake this pitcher has made the entire game after getting drilled in the chest.”
“Ron, I don’t know about you, but I would have never imagined that it could be as quiet, let alone would be, as it is now in this, the largest sporting venue in recorded history.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth Keith. As we saw in Angela’s excellent pre-game report, three months of fevered construction went into converting the Indianapolis Speedway into a baseball diamond and expanding the seating of the stadium that already held two-hundred and twenty thousand people into one which could accommodate tonight’s crowed of nearly a half-million people. I’ve honestly never been around such a large assembly before and frankly, after the deafening roar that they put up in the first few innings, it seemed inconceivable that the decibel level could be this low. Other than the beer and peanut vendors, you could probably hear a pin drop.”
“I was thinking the exact same thing Ron. Obviously there’s a tremendous amount of concern for Harper but you would think getting that first runner on, trailing one to nothing, the crowd would try to muster up some sort of inspirational cheering.”
“You’re right about that my old friend…you’re right about that. I think it’s safe to say that the massive ramifications of tonight’s game combined with the performance that their home team has put forth so far had frayed the nerves of these people to their very end. This record crowd may not be making a lot of noise at this point, but no one’s left the stadium as of yet. Mostly they’re in a state of shocked silence; I’m seeing a lot of fingers being bitten to their quicks and butts barely clinging to the edges of their seats. The importance of tonight’s very special game isn’t lost on anyone here tonight or the millions watching on television in North America or the billions anxiously observing online from all around the globe; the tension is palpable. That being said…as dominant as the pitching has been for the visitors, it’s still only a one-run game. If we can somehow manage to scratch out a single run, Keith, then I think everyone would be perfectly happy to stick around for extra innings.”
“Well Ron…I think you’re probably right. Given that the viewers of this amazing spectacle are fully aware that this might be the last baseball game they’ll ever get to see…well…I don’t think anyone’s in too big a hurry to call it a night.”
“Well said Keith…well said. So folks, with speed-demon Charlie Rucker standing on first base and another long-tenured veteran, Aaron Judge, slowly making his way to the box, we’d like to remind you that the first out of the ninth inning is brought to you by ‘Bare-steel Ladders’. ‘Bare-steel Ladders…when you absolutely have to get to the top’.”
“I have a Bare-steel ladder in my garage Ron.”
“Really?”
“Yea.”
“I didn’t know that; how do you like it?”
“Oh…it’s great. I find myself looking for excuses to climb it.”
“Well that makes sense Keith.”
“Yea…I can honestly say that I’ll never use another ladder.”
“Well…if our boys are unable to pull off this ninth inning miracle…that might be a moot point.”
“Ha…so true Ron. Although Jim in the truck is telling me that, given the circumstances, we probably shouldn’t joke about it.”
“That makes sense Keith…and if I gave a damn anymore I probably wouldn’t. Anyway, Judge, gloves adjusted, has settled into the box. He’s doing his best to stare down the pitcher…but the effect is probably diminished after the night he’s had so far.”
“Yea…oh for four at bats with four strike-outs. Probably not the results he was expecting coming in.”
“That’s true Keith, but it’s not like anyone else is doing any better…the team getting no-hit through eight innings. But then again…it’s unlikely that any of them expected to try to hit pitches that regularly hit one-eighty on the radar gun.”
“So true. You know…it occurs to me that it was likely that when President Bieber offered up ‘baseball’ as the official competition, he was doing so facetiously. However…when they immediately accepted, I think the majority of people around the world felt confident that it might actually have been a wise decision, the President’s sarcasm aside. After all…it was a sport that they were completely unfamiliar with and by looking at them…well… ‘baseball players’ wasn’t exactly an impression that leapt to mind.”
“We were all guilty of making certain assumptions about their physical abilities. How could you not? It only took a few innings of watching one violent fastball after another, however, to wash those away unfortunately. Speaking of which…Praxus-2187 goes into his…I don’t know, are we still calling it a ‘wind-up’ Ron?”
“Who knows Keith? It’s some type of repetitive motion…that’s for sure. Whatever it is he does to get that ball moving, he just put his seventy-eighth pitch across the plate at one-hundred and sixty-five miles per hour.”
“It seemed like he took a little bit off that pitch but, much as he’s done all night, Judge could only blink as it passed him by for the first strike here in the ninth. Has anyone even put the bat on the ball tonight for this team of all-stars from around the world…because I can’t recall even a foul ball so far?”
“You’re completely right about that one Keith. Praxus-2187 has been nothing short of dominant…and there’s strike two. That one clocked at one fifty-five; he’s definitely starting to lose some of his juice. Unfortunately for Aaron and the rest of the home team, Praxus-2187’s worst is still better than anything they’ve ever seen before. Here’s the pitch…Judge swings weakly at strike three.”
“Aaron looks completely dejected Ron.”
“Well Keith…if you look up and down the bench, he’s got the same expression they all do. There was a lot of excitement in that club-house before the game…but after a few innings of seeing what this guy was throwing at them; it was almost as though they knew they were going to lose before the first run was scored.”
“It was like a virus. It started in the dugout and slowly spread through this crowd, stifling even the most rambunctious fans.”
“Excellent observation Keith. And on that note…the second out of the ninth inning has been sponsored by the ‘Colonel’s Crazy Chicken’. If the home team pulls off a victory tonight, Colonel’s Crazy Chicken will give everyone that comes into any of their four thousand locations tomorrow a free ‘Straightjacket Chicken Sandwich’. You’ll need to arrive at your local CCC’s at exactly 2:27pm to claim your free sandwich. ‘Colonel’s Crazy Chicken…we’re not KFC’.”
“I eat at CCC’s at least once a week.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. So you’re a big fan of the Colonel’s chicken?”
“Big time. I love the ‘Asylum Mega-meal’.”
“That’s great Keith…I’ll have to try that myself. Hopefully I’ll be able to claim that free sandwich tomorrow…although we are running out of chances. With only two outs left to try and even this thing up, Willie Gellstar, steps to the plate. Gellstar’s pinch hitting for two-time MVP, Duane Paulson, who’s wearing the same Golden Sombrero that the rest of tonight’s starters have on. Regardless, I’m not really sure why they would pinch-hit for Paulson here.”
“Ron…they’re telling me that the coaches tried to get Duane to go back out there but he’s become so despondent that he’s completely non-responsive to any outside stimuli. The manager has told us…and I quote… ‘he’s fled to his deepest recesses where we are no longer able to contact him’.”
“Well that clears that up then Keith…makes perfect sense. Thanks for staying on top of things for us. If you think about it…it really is kind-of hard to believe. On paper, this looks like the greatest team ever assembled on one field.”
“You can throw all the analytics out the window for this one Ron. I can tell you, as a hitter it’s got to be nearly impossible to put good wood on pitches coming in that fast…let alone put the ball in play. That doesn’t even touch upon the difficulties the hitters have been having just trying to pick up the ball’s release point. While Praxus-2187 has been using the same appendage to pitch with each time, his other two…what did we decide to call them…tentacles? Anyway, his other two do an outstanding job concealing the ball. All of the waving and flopping that they produce…as well as whatever the hell those things are dangling from his head…can be very disorientating.”
“It’s chaotic Keith. It reminds of me of when my dog ‘Baxter’ shakes his favorite chew-toy.”
“Agreed. Very chaotic. I have a cat though. His name is ‘Purrnandez’.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. That’s great Keith. Cats are really top-notch. Gellstar watches as strike one sails past him. Wow…that pitch came in at a mere one hundred and twenty miles per hour. Even though we were all starting to believe it wasn’t possible…it looks like the pitcher is finally beginning to tire.”
“But is it too late to matter Ron?”
“I don’t know Keith, but the velocity has dropped significantly with each pitch he’s thrown this inning. It also seems that the away team has nobody warming up in the bullpen either…and there’s strike two.”
“That’s true Ron…but if you recall, Praxus-2187 didn’t warm up either. He just kind-of flopped his way out to the mound and started throwing bullets. To look at them, you’d think they’d be more at home in water than on land…”
“Makes me crave calamari for some reason.”
“…but it’s not like it’s been necessary for any of their fielders to actually move any in this game so far anyway, so who knows if they can actually field the ball? It’s been the Praxus-2187 show from the very beginning.”
“And there’s strike three Keith as Willie cracks his bat across his knee in disgust, snapping it in two.”
“That’s an impressive show of strength Ron…and anger.”
“Indeed Keith. If you recall…in his pre-game interview Willie said his motivation in this game was coming from his mother and younger sister. For several days after the game was announced and scheduled, Gellstar had vivid nightmares of the beloved women in his life in chains as slaves or worse…being put on that list the visitors called the ‘menu’.”
“Ron…I think it’s safe to say that we’re all hoping to stay off that list. Personally, I’ve spent the last month doing everything I can to make myself look as unappetizing as possible.”
“Well I think you’ve succeeded, old friend. You seem…chewy…to me.”
“That’s just what I was going for.”
“So we’re going to get another pitch-hitter here as we’re down to our final opportunities. Tanaka Hirito, who has been, arguably, the greatest hitter to ever play Japanese professional baseball is taking deliberate cuts in the on-deck circle, in no obvious rush to put himself in the box as he prepares to take the place of fellow Japanese MLB all-star, Shohei Ohtani. While he’s doing that, let’s take a moment to talk about our third out sponsor…Spittle’s Candies. ‘Spittle’s…a rainbow of colors to choose from…but only one flavor’. What about Spittle’s, Keith? How do you feel about those?”
“I don’t care for them Ron.”
“Oh…that’s okay Keith. Just remember…there’s a rainbow of colors to choose from.
“I’ll do that Ron; too bad they all taste like shit. Well, it looks like Hirito is finally ready to take his cuts. I can’t even imagine the pressure that’s on that young man’s shoulders right now.”
“The weight of the world, Keith…the weight of the world. Here’s the pitch…and…strike one. That pitch was around one-fifteen. They’re coming in slower now…but not slow enough, unfortunately.”
“As you look around the crowd Ron, you can see a lot of fetal positions developing and tears beginning to flow on many faces…and…what’s that noise? I think some people are…wailing.”
“That’s understandable Keith. I could probably do with a little cathartic wailing myself about now. The pitch…strike two. We are down to our final strike ladies and gentlemen. Keith…on a personal note…I’d like to say that the last twenty years in the broadcast booth with you have been the happiest of my life. You’ve been a great friend and partner and I wouldn’t trade that time for anything.”
“Ron…I…” (Sob) “I don’t have the words. I love you, old buddy. I will miss this time…maybe more than anything.”
“Praxus-2187 is taking a moment before throwing what might be the last pitch ever thrown…perhaps savoring his impending victory…and Tanaka steps out of the box. He’s staring intently at his bat and forcing himself to take slow, purposeful breaths.”
“He’s trying to keep his composure Ron.”
“I think we all are Keith.”
“Ladies and gentlemen…I know we’ve already said it a couple times but they want me to reiterate one more time: do not try to fight back against the new overlords if we lose tonight’s game. The death-ray demonstrations that were given on CNN and the BBC in the last month are very real. Resistors will be automatically placed on their menu list. If, however, you find yourself on this list…unray as astfay as ooyah ancay and idehay.
“Well said Keith. Hopefully our audience can read between the lines. So Tanaka finally steps back into the box and…what’s this…is he closing his eyes?”
“It looks that way Ron. In all honestly…does it really matter? I can’t really blame him. I’d like to close mine as well right now.”
“You may be right Keith but…well…you may be right. Here’s the pitch…Hirito takes a cut.” (CRACK) “HE HIT IT! It’s a deep fly ball!”
“GO BABY! GO BABY…GO!”
“It’s still going. IT’S GONNA BE OUTTA HERE! I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! Tanaka will have won the game with a home run to dead center field as Praxus-4588 watches the ball sail over his head. It’s going to be pandemonium…WHAT! What just happened? It was too quick to see and even the umpires are going to have to go to the replays just to see what just transpired.”
“I don’t know Ron but this monster crowd has just erupted. There’s singing and dancing in the aisles. Like my bi-polar sister, they went from the lowest depths to jubilance in a matter of a few seconds, but I don’t think they realize that the play hasn’t been called a homerun yet.”
(TA-NA-KA, TA-NA-KA, TA-NA-KA)
“You hear that Keith?”
“Of course…how could I not? That’s the sound of a half-million people chanting one man’s name. It’s inspirational…but then again, is it going to be in vain?”
“Okay Keith, here’s the replay which the booth has slowed down to one one-hundredth of its normal speed. The ball is just above the wall in center field when…WHOA…what in the holy hell is that Keith?”
“Ron…I really don’t know how to process what I’m seeing. It would appear, ladies and gentlemen, that the visitors have an additional appendage that we’ve all been unaware of. Another one of those long, black, snake-like tentacles seems to have rocketed out of the area we were all assuming to be their derrieres with speed beyond what our normal eyes could perceive and plucked the ball from the air just before it cleared the center field fence. There’s really nothing more that can be said besides…WTF?”
“WTF indeed Keith. I don’t think anyone saw that one coming and it should only take the umpires a moment longer to pronounce this game as being over with a final score of one to nothing. I would expect the suicides to rate in the thousands before most folks even make it back to their cars.”
“Yea…it’s a real shame. I guess we should go ahead and sign off before the real carnage begins. What do you think Ron?”
“You’re probably right, old buddy. Just a couple of words before we send this back to Marcus and the team in the studio: we’ve gotten an update on Bryce Harper’s condition. Unfortunately, it would appear that the perennial all-star has passed away…killed by a pitch that shattered his entire ribcage at the age of thirty-nine. I’m also being told that Aaron Judge has taken his own life by walking into the batting cage without a bat or helmet and sitting cross-legged on the plate.”
“That’s a hell of a way to go Ron.”
“Well…Aaron always had his own way of doing things.”
“Fitting…I guess.”
“True…so true. Tonight’s completed game was brought to you by Morton Blotless Paints: ‘Let Morton Blotless bring beautiful color to your world’ because ‘Morton Blotless Paints coat your life with joy’; and Highmark Greeting Cards: ‘Highmark is more than a card…its love’. Thanks for tuning in to humanity’s last sporting event ladies and gentlemen. If you live in North America, please make sure that you and your families report to your nearest processing office by next Monday for your detention camp assignments. You know what happens if you’re late. May God help us all and… ‘Long Live Praxus!’”
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Mena had been in the shower for nearly an hour when the water-heater spit out the last drops having any semblance of warmth to them, prompting her to quickly shut off the flow before that damn chill re-attached itself to her. It was honestly the first time she had felt warm in a week. There were only two towels and they were…suspect, at best, but she made do nonetheless. The odds of her winning the lottery were probably higher than the odds of finding anything clean in this place. Two weeks ago something like that would have driven her crazy.
In a race against the cold, Mena dried off and put on the only clothes she could find that stood any chance of staying on her frame. Obviously, there would be nothing that would fit her, but with creative use of a belt, a red-flannel shirt acted as a dress and a pair of long-underwear were turned into baggy leggings. She placed three pairs of socks on each foot to act as shoes; avoiding the bathroom mirror at all costs.
The prospects in the kitchen were just as bleak. An extensive search turned up a half a loaf of stale, but fortunately mold-free, bread, unopened cans of green beans and corn and some ketchup. There was a large, meat-freezer in the corner of the filthy kitchen but…she wasn’t that hungry yet. She opened the cans at the table and put the ketchup on the bread; it was Thanksgiving dinner! She ate like a wild animal, lips-smacking, mouth open, and giggling uncontrollably while she did.
Mena had never known such hunger existed. Despite that, she had to stop half-way through her feast; her stomach had shrunk and it was painfully evident that if she continued to shove it in, it would just come right back out. Her stomach gurgled in unsettled agreement and she washed it down with a glass of ruddy tap-water. Leaving her mess on the table, she stood, stretched and yawned loudly; she was exhausted. She could sleep for a week…if only.
Meandering to the living room, stepping over a deconstructed lawn-mower and small stack of plastic, Christmas reindeer lawn ornaments on the way, she finally collapsed on the couch. It was the only piece of furniture in the room that hadn’t disappeared beneath a pile of crap in this hoarder’s wet-dream of a house. The television remote was on the floor next to the well-worn couch and Mena flipped on the old tube-style RCA across the room.
After a couple seconds of flickering, the picture came to life and the colorized version of “It’s a Wonderful Life” began to play. Mena sighed; was it close to Christmas? She couldn’t remember. It seemed there was quite a bit that she couldn’t remember. She flipped through the channels before stopping at her own face. It was her cheerleading picture. She loved that picture. Smiling, Mena turned up the volume.
“…again Jane, authorities are asking for any information that anyone might have that could aid the investigation, please call the number at the bottom of the screen. Mena Renee Metzler, seventeen, was last seen at the Hardwick Exxon on Claymore and Forty-ninth Avenue eight days ago. Her twenty-eleven Subaru WRX, was found deserted on Mishway Road and authorities do believe there were signs of a struggle. Police do believe there is a strong possibility that Mena may still be in the area and,” they changed the picture to one of her at the beach last summer with her mom and dad. That was a good day. “…they are asking everyone to please keep their eyes open and…” Mena turned the volume back down.
She looked at the picture on the television and then at her own greasy, stringy blonde hair; so many damn split-ends!
“Fuck it,” she said to no one as she got back up and made her way back down the hall to the bathroom. She didn’t want to see before, but now…now she did. Using one of the wet towels she had tossed on the floor, Mena scrubbed away as much of the crud from the mirror as she could and took a good, long look. Wow. She knew it was going to be bad, but this…could this have really happened in one week? It had felt like a month at the time and now…now it kind of looked that way as well. Mena was a shadow of herself.
She recognized her eyes, but that was about it. Her skin looked sickly pale and was pulled taut against her bony frame. There were large, black circles around her eyes and her cheek-bones seemed to poke out at a sharp angles that never existed before. It was like someone’s sick Photoshop joke; a skeletonized version of her former self. She sighed, immediately regretting the decision to look but in no way letting kill her amazing mood.
“Oh well,” she said before spinning on her socked heels and heading back to the couch. “I was wanting to lose a few pounds anyway.” Giggling to herself, Mena pulled the dingy blanket from the back of the couch over her shoulders and, using her arm as a pillow, proceeded to drift away into a very well-deserved sleep. Her last thought before REM took her completely being, maybe I should call someone first.
She was awoken some time later by a banging from downstairs. Mena cursed that it woke her and, sitting upright and stretching, tried to figure out just how long she might have been asleep. There were many, many windows in the old estate but they did her no good as they were all boarded shut with hammer and nails, not even allowing the thinnest streams of sunlight to enter; if it were daytime. Was it daytime? Another series of bangs from the basement caused Mena to pick up a shovel from next to the couch and smash it against the floor several times.
“I SAID SHUT UP!” She screamed with all her lungs would offer. Well…she was awake now, and she was getting hungry again. There was no way round two in that kitchen would be as appealing as it was the first time. It was getting to be about time to get the hell out of here and get some real food…tacos…oh yea, tacos. Her stomach began to roil from the thought.
The front door was sealed with no less than eight key-entry locks…on both sides. Cursing to herself, Mena tried to remember where she had seen the keys. She had become so conditioned to hate and fear the jingling of that damn key-ring it was genuinely surprising that she couldn’t remember where it was. She would have liked to been able to pace while she thought…she was a pacer…but the house didn’t really offer a great area to do so, so instead she carefully hiked around the first floor searching for it and trying to avoid the debris and scurrying rats. There were rats everywhere. When the next series of banging came it hit her: of course, they were in the basement…with him.
Just as well, she needed to end this anyway and say her goodbyes; kill two birds with one stone. Stopping in the bathroom first to pee and grab the fire axe from the bathtub, Mena made her way down the rickety steps to the stone-walled basement. In a striking dichotomy to the upstairs, the basement was free of clutter and trash; exactly opposite what one would expect. The torture chamber Edward, whom the media had dubbed “The High-School Killer”, had built down there was one of precision. Everything had a place and everything had a purpose.
Tools and blades hung from one wall which could, at first glance, look like any man’s workshop…until you starting taking a good look at what he liked to work with. The opposite wall, lined with shelves, held jar after jar of body parts in formaldehyde and even then one could be forgiven for thinking it might just be a mortuary. However, when the mounted hand-cuffs, leather strapped beds and variety of harnesses and hooks come into view it becomes painfully clear that one is in the belly of the beast. Mena still couldn’t bring herself to look at the butcher’s corner of the room despite her lengthy stay in it.
“How in the hell are you making that much noise?” She was genuinely curious since he was chained to a stone wall. Of course, he couldn’t answer with ball-gag in his mouth, but he certainly tried; spittle and snot flying off to the side. “Hold on…hold on,” she made her way over to him, “that’s disgusting. Just stop.” Mena didn’t want to touch the ball-gag at all; it was gross, but they needed to talk and it wasn’t going to work this way. She reached around to the back of his head and unsnapped the S&M device.
“I have to pee!” he screamed at her.
“So pee.” She replied.
“You bitch,” he hissed at her and lunged forward as far as he could, snapping his teeth together. Mena did not flinch and he seemed to change his tune quickly. “Pleeeaase? I have to pee.” Mena smiled.
“Maybe I can help.” With the dull end of the fire axe still in her hand, she lunged it forward into his gut; a flood of wetness soaking his pants and spilling down into a puddle around his feet. After several long seconds of struggling to get his breath back, Edward began to release a string of creative profanities directed her way, many describing the violent ways he was going to desecrate her. Mena just listened and smiled.
She remembered a day when she was ten. Her parents had taken her to Disney World on the premise that they were visiting relatives. When they woke her up in the car, just in time to see the massive “Welcome to Disney World” sign, it was, quite possibly, the happiest moment in her life. Sure there had been all kinds of great moments of happiness in her life, but that one had always stood out as the best. Until now. Damned if she wasn’t just giddy.
“Daddy?” she said in a baby voice, interrupting his tirade. “Daaaaddy…daddy?” He finally stopped and stared at her, eyes wide…lips trembling. “What’s wong?” she stayed in her baby voice, “You don’t wike it when I call you ‘Daddy’ anymoe?” Silently, he shook his head ‘no’. “How come, daddy? It’s what you always wanted befow. Am I not s’posed to be your wittle baby any moe?”
“Please stop.” There was something in his voice she had never heard before; something she loved hearing: fear. If it hadn’t made her physically ill to do the voice she wouldn’t have quit, but it had made her point well. “Please let me go. I won’t say anything.” Mena fell over with laughter, using the axe to keep her upright. This was almost better than a comedy show.
“You won’t say anything…you?” She shook her head. “Wow Eddie, you really are a messed up dude. Aren’t you worried that I would say something? Let’s suppose I let you go, Edward, what would you do then?” He shook his head. The conversation was going in a direction he wasn’t prepared for but needed for it to go, regardless.
“I…I don’t…I’ll move. I’ll leave. You’ll never see or hear from me again. And money…I’ve got some money. I can pay you. Please?” He was pleading. It was pathetic. It was wonderful.
“Eddie,” she sighed, “you didn’t say the one thing you should have said.”
“What? What? Anything…what? Just tell me.”
“What you should have said is, ‘I won’t kill and eat people anymore’. That’s what you should have said.”
“I won’t…I won’t” he was frantic. “I swear I won’t…never again. I’ve learned my lesson.” His cadence slowed as he tried to express sincerity. “I know I’m sick, Mena. I want to get help. I want to get better.” Mena nodded in agreement.
“Well…you’re right about one thing. You are sick. I tell you what Eddie, I’ll think about it.” Mena eyed the key-ring on a metal shelf and went to retrieve it. “In the meantime, you just hang out.” She giggled again and headed back to the stairs.
“Wha…What? You’re just going to leave me here?” He seemed outraged. “Fine bitch…just call the cops then!” This stopped Mena in her tracks and she turned back around.
“Edward…do you know how long a person can go without food and water?” He said nothing and after a pause she continued. “I mean, you should know…right? You’re kind of an expert on keeping people alive on the smallest amount of each as possible. So…do you know?” He hung his head down, still silent. “Okay…it’s fine, I’ll just Google it when I get home; I know it can be difficult to remember in stressful situations.”
Dropping the axe on the floor with a clank, Mena went to the wall of tools and selected a small, sharp utility knife before going back to Edward and quickly lashing out at his chest, slicing it nearly five inches across. It wasn’t deep at all; hardly life-threatening, but he blood began to flow down his chest, soaking in to his pants. Edward didn’t give her the satisfaction of a scream and she tossed the knife aside and began to head back to the stairs again.
“Two things Edward. First: you have a real rat problem here; and second,” she said as she reached the first step. “Why would I call the cops?”
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Darkness fell in the forest, through the trees; along the paths. I had been running for around an hour and was ready to head toward home. The nights were coming so much earlier as fall was fast approaching.
I loved running, and this time of year was my favorite since all the leaves were bright and splashed with color. Plus, the weather wasn’t too extreme in any direction; it wasn’t too hot, and it wasn’t too cold. It’s a nice mixture of the two that allowed me to run without fear of overheating or catching myself out too late and freezing.
I like to run through a not so used path in the forest behind my house. This area cuts off through the deepest portion of a heavily wooded zone for about a half an hour. This has always been my favorite place to run because I know it isn’t likely I will run into another person, it is always mine; calming and serene.
I had been out longer than I should have been considering how quickly the dark was enveloping everything. Still, I was reluctant to turn back.
A pleasant breeze blew through the trees carrying the sweet aroma of the dried leaves, bark, moss; all the smells of the forest. It is easy to lose track of time by paying less attention to it and more attention to your surroundings. I seem to have this problem often. No more now though. I wouldn’t step foot back into those woods, or any other woods, for anything.
I had been distracted by running through the sea of swimming, vibrant colors; often slowing my pace while I took in all the surrounding beauty. I even made a mental note to come back the next morning with my camera. I was enjoying myself.
I am not a photographer and I don’t sell or gift out my photos. I do however find an odd enjoyment taking pictures of things I find beautiful or interesting. My husband has joked on more than one occasion that I have more pictures of leaves and rocks than I do of him or myself.
He surprised me last Christmas by taking a few of my nature shots; one of a shocking red leafed tree, an ancient well, a few orange and yellow leaves, and some rather unique looking rocks, blowing them up and framing them for me. They are hanging neatly in the hallway even now.
By the time I reached the end of the woods and turned to head home it was almost completely dark. I leaned over, my hands on my knees, readying my body for the trip back.
I popped out my ear buds and took in the sounds of the forest; the crickets and frogs were already playing their familiar nighttime songs. No sooner had I caught my breath and moved that I heard a strange, unnatural, rustling in the near distance. It sounding like it was coming from off the path, but not quite within my view.
Though I love the sounds of the night, it is also a little unnerving to hear something odd when you are so far away from anyone and anything. Those sounds let you know just how late it is and how alone you really are.
I decided not to replace my music and to just listen. I figured it was a squirrel, but something told me I should pay attention and be safe, anyway. A small way down the path the rustling started again. I slowed my pace and listened again for a second.
I wondered if there could be someone else in the woods with me. I walked for a moment and listened, realizing I was holding my breath, as the rustling continued. I breathed deeply and picked my running back up when a new sound struck me.
It almost sounded like painful moaning, but I couldn’t tell if it was human or animal. I was paralyzed with fear for a second, but I found my footing and ran faster. Unfortunately, it seemed the rustling and moaning only became louder; closer. I looked around as I ran, to see if someone or something was there, but there was nothing.
The moaning drowned out the sounds of the forest until all I could hear was it and the rustling. I ran through the dark until my foot caught on a small tree root along the path. I fell hard on my hands and chest, hitting my head along the way and scraping my face across the cold ground.
It took a moment to gather my senses as my head reeled from the blow. Everything flooded back in red overcast as the distressed moaning picked back up. As my sense of sight returned to normal, I wished that I had brought a light with me.
I wasn’t generally out this late; I had been so distracted, even more so than I realized. It was now full on dark and seeing very far ahead of me in any direction was difficult. There was a sliver of a moon. I could see, but the dense forest kept the light from penetrating too far in.
Even just the light of a cellphone would have been comforting, but all I had was my MP3 player and it had no lights. Another wispy sound caught my ear and this time I turned around to see if I could find what made that terrible noise.
I regretted looking. On the ground moving hastily toward me; much quicker than it had any right to do so, was what appeared to a beaten and bloody woman. At first, I felt a twinge of concern and worry for her, as it appeared she had been through something horrific. I felt she needed my help, but that feeling was swiftly replaced with intense dread and fear. As she moved closer and her features came more into focus, I could see that she wasn’t all there. There was only a head with nappy black hair, thin muscular arms, and a torso.
She was dragging her browned and dirty entrails along behind her, making her way along with her hands. For a brief second, we made eye contact, but there was more malice in her milky eyes than pain. She screamed out in, what might have been agony or desperation, and barreled toward me.
I couldn’t believe she could move that fast with just her arms, but as I backed away from her in a childlike crab walk, she flew toward me. I blubbered and begging her to stop; I asked her if she needed help, then I screamed for help of my own.
I don’t know how long it took before I was back on my feet and running. I turned to see if she was still following me, and realized, much to my dismay and absolute horror that not only was she still following me, she was nearly on me. Her hands were making an awful squishing sound as they hit the forest floor, like nothing I have ever heard before or could ever explain.
The cold evening air now burned my raw lungs as I breathed in between screams. I knew there was no-one around to hear me, but I couldn’t have held it in if I had tried. I have never run so fast or hard in all my life. My lungs felt as if they would burst. My heart pounded in my throat. My legs threatened to give out on me at any second, and I knew if they did the thing chasing me would get me before I ever got back to my feet.
At last, I saw a break in the woods where dull light from the outside broke in slightly. I screamed for my husband; if he was home yet, he should hear me. It was a longshot, but gripping that tiny piece of hope was all that was holding my mind together.
I broke through the small opening like a marathon runner, screaming the whole way. I had nearly reached my back door when my left knee gave out. There was an old injury there from my athletic days in high school and pushing it too hard always leaves me in a lot of pain.
I fell to the ground once again, screaming in terror and pain; quickly turning, fully expecting to see that horrible figure sloshing toward me, but was shocked and relieved to realize that I was alone.
My husband came running out and tried to calm me down, asking what was wrong, but couldn’t understand all that I was saying. I knew it was coming out in inaudible waves, but I couldn’t seem to control any portion of what was flowing from my mouth.
He scanned the area well, looking to see if he could spot someone chasing or following me. Feeling satisfied that no-one was he scooped me up as gently as possible and carried me into the house.
My husband, John, is a paramedic, so he made quick work of caring for my leg, massaging the swelling knee until he felt it was ready to be left alone. He then wrapped it several times over with a well-used beige bandage and helped calm me down with some extra strength pain relievers and a cup of hot chamomile tea.
Finally, he sat and listened to my story; a look of disbelief on his unshaven face. Of course, he didn’t believe me; he figured I got spooked in the dark and my mind played tricks on me. He believed perhaps I had seen an injured animal or something else completely rational and my mind had made it irrational in the dark. It made sense. It wasn’t true, but it made sense. I know what I saw, and I know how this sounds.
John iced my leg with a large blue ice pack we kept just for this type of thing and cleaned me up. There were a lot more injuries than I realized. I had a knot on my head; my hands were cut up, my face, arms, and back had bruises and scrapes from both falling in the woods and when my knee gave out. I was bleeding in several places and could already feel a massive headache coming on.
After patching me up, John went outside to take a good hearty look around. I knew it was only to appease me. He hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual and chocked it up to it being late and me being tired and scared. That was the end of it; John was convinced that he had solved the mystery of what I had seen and there was nothing more that could be said to convince him otherwise.
I’m writing this now so that whoever reads it knows I’m not crazy. I know what I saw in those woods, then in my yard and now what I see inside my home. She is with me now, everywhere I go. She constantly stalks me, teases that she is coming for me. I see her matted hair full of twigs and dead leaves, lingering in the distance and darkness of every room I enter.
The fear I feel from her still brings a tear to my eyes. I don’t know what she waits for, why she hasn’t taken me yet, but she taunts me in her own way. Perhaps it is because I saw her, or maybe there is another reason, but the waiting is an unbearable torture.
John hasn’t seen her, but he has admitted that the house feels different somehow. What is she? Each day she seems closer, and through the night I can hear her dragging herself along throughout my house then breathing heavy from the dark corner of my bedroom as I try to sleep; her grotesque form showing vaguely in the dim light.
I will finish this here, as I can hear that horrid sound she makes as she drags herself along, slowly moving down the hallway. She is by the bathroom now, only two doors from my room, the guest room, only one room left.
She has stopped, just outside my door, but I can hear her raspy breathing, can smell the stench of rotting leaves and dirt and flesh. I can see a filthy hand with long, dirty fingernails twisting its way into my bedroom. I believe it is time…
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My dad built his dream cabin in the southern Ozarks back in 1991, a reward to himself for achieving early retirement. The damn thing took nearly a year to build, what with the county having to actually build the road to my family’s property at the top of a small mountain. I was 14 at the time, and yes, we were wealthy, but the cabin didn’t reflect that. It was simple, unlike most of the monstrosities you see in places like Aspen these days, and at that age I was ruined into thinking that I’d rather live in a city, where I’d have an easier time being spoiled rotten. I despised being there, to say the least.
We moved into the cabin in midwinter, a couple of weeks before Christmas. Everyone was excited, except me, to be moving in to enjoy Christmas morning in front of the big-ass fireplace my dad gloated over. Amelia, my little sister, was six at the time, and she was elated that Santa would have such an easy entry point- our old house didn’t even have a chimney. Looking back, the first day was an omen. But there was no way we could have known.
We pulled up to the cabin around noon on December 12th, my sister playing Kirby’s Dreamland on her Gameboy and me listening to Nirvana on my Walkman. Again, I was not excited. Mom and Dad were chipper, as usual, and it was grating on my nerves. My dad wouldn’t shut up about how he’d had the fireplace hooked into the central system so that all the heat would be distributed evenly throughout the house. We all began unloading what we had in the back of the Bronco, everything else having been moved in (at great expense) a few days before. My father’s annoyingly happy face drooped into a mild frown when he shouldered open the front door.
“Looks like the movers didn’t care too much about the new carpet.” He said sarcastically.
There in the living room, starting where the wood floors ended from the foyer, was a trail of footprints in the carpet, apparently made with soot, leading from just in front of the entry, to the fireplace, to the back door. I snorted at my father’s comment, which earned me a side-eye for the ages from my mom. We sat down what we were carrying in our respective rooms, and of course, I was tasked with cleaning up the mess while my dad called the moving company to complain.
Whilst I was scrubbing (and fuming), it occurred to me that if the footprints were in fact soot, that it would be hard to explain why the fireplace had already been used in a brand new cabin. At the time, I assumed that there had to have been a test run by the builder to ensure everything was in working order. It took me about an hour to bring the carpet to my parent’s satisfaction, and then I promptly went to my new room to continue wallowing in my teenage angst.
That night, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched in the shower, that someone was standing just on the other side of the curtain. I tried to ignore it, but the feeling worsened when I closed my eyes to wash my hair and face. Finally, I pulled back the curtain, feeling foolish for being such a wimp. Of course, I found nothing unusual.
I wrote my paranoia off as just being pissed off from the move and didn’t think much of it. I didn’t have another strange encounter for several days, but about a week after I got the shower stalker vibe, Amelia let my mom and I know about her new friend at the breakfast table.
“How did everyone sleep last night?” my mother asked, trying to get through my solemn disdain.
“Fine.” I replied, through a mouthful of scrambled eggs.
“I played with the man behind the curtains!” Amelia exclaimed, “I told him that he would be in big trouble if he kept getting the rug dirty.”
“Oh that’s wonderful, honey,” my mom said, “I’m glad you’ve made a friend. Tell them I said thank you for not getting any more stains on the carpet.”
It made me bitter, listening to my mom placate my sister while I was in social isolation. Mom just kept sipping her coffee, and reading the newspaper that Dad paid extra to have delivered out that far in the wilderness. There was no fear in my sister’s voice, and neither of us even remotely considered the possibility that her new friend was anything more than imaginary.
Later that day, I was taking some folded laundry to my sister’s room. I put it in her drawer, turned to walk out, and I saw them- two charcoal shoeprints under the window curtain, as if someone had been hiding there. Initially, I disregarded them as leftover from the moving crew, just like the others. I ignored them- “Let Mom clean them up.” I thought to myself. But it kept nagging at me- I’d helped Amelia get settled into her room, and I would have noticed them. They weren’t there before.
I still don’t know why, but I never told my parents about them. I ultimately did go back to clean them up, and carried on. Amelia surely had made them somehow as part of her “relationship” with her new friend.
That night, December 23rd, I had trouble sleeping. The feeling that I was being watched had returned shortly after the discovery in Amelia’s room, and I hadn’t been able to shake it. I hadn’t admitted it to myself yet, but a microscopic part of my imagination had begun to suspect something amiss. At 14, I still hadn’t quite squashed my fear of ghosts.
I kept looking across the room, into the back of my open closet, half expecting someone to be standing there, their shoes covered in black dust. I felt shame for being scared. But finally, I drifted off sometime around midnight.
I still can’t remember what woke me, I just know that my sheets were damp with sweat when I came to. I felt again that I was being watched, and I began scanning the dark room through my blurry, just-waking-up vision. I followed my curtains down to the floor, and saw them- soiled, black feet poking out from beneath them.
I jumped a bit, then rubbed my eyes and looked back. There were no shoes, but the curtain was moving ever so slightly. I looked at my closet door, which had been shut without a sound. Cowering, I pulled my blankets over my head, knowing that if I pulled them down, something would be there, sitting at the end of my bed. After a while, I tried to sleep, but couldn’t.
Of course, I was blamed the next day for the dirty tracks to and from my room. They began and ended in front of our fireplace, just like the first time, but they clearly led to my bedroom closet and back. My parents gave me a big speech about how I needed to accept my new circumstances and start treating everyone and everything with a lot more respect. I didn’t have the energy to fight with them. All I could think about were the footprints and the thing that had spent the night with me. I just rolled my eyes, and accepted my punishment- clean up the prints and then no Walkman until I straightened up. It wasn’t like they’d believe me, so why say anything?
I scrubbed the carpets that day in a daze, remembering what Amelia had said a few days before at breakfast. My thoughts raced for rational explanations, but I kept arriving at this strange amalgamation of ghosts and Santa Claus. Despite everything going on, I still had Christmas morning on my mind, just like anyone that age. Yet, by the time I had finished cleaning, I had resigned myself to try and sort out what was going on. I would start with my sister.
That night, after an almost silent dinner, I went to Amelia’s room to do some gentle prying. As I rounded the doorframe, I found her staring up at the ceiling vent. The floor around her bed was covered in that morning’s newspaper.
“What’s all this for?” I asked, trying to remain calm despite already knowing the answer.
“For the man that likes to hide in the curtains.” she almost whispered, “I told him I would keep the floor clean…he doesn’t like leaving tracks because he’s afraid I’ll have to leave if Mommy and Daddy find out about him. He said that if I did that for him, he’d take me to visit his house- he says that there are lots of other kids there I could play with!”
All of this she said as a matter of fact, as if she and the “man” had been friends for years and I should know these things. I almost lost what little cool I had left, my eyes widening and my mouth opening to scorn her for being so naive, but I caught myself, resolving to try and solve the mystery on my own, without shaming a six year old. As appalling as it was, I decided to use my sister as bait, to catch whoever (whatever?) was leaving the damned footprints in the carpet, and possibly planning a kidnapping.
“Okay,”, I began, “just make sure you tell Mom and Dad that all the newspaper is for watercolors or something, that way they don’t get suspicious.”
“I will!” she replied, enthusiastically.
Thank God Amelia was six and didn’t need a lot of explanation. I left her room with terrified curiosity, wondering what Christmas Eve would have in store.
For what seemed to be the hundredth time, I lay in bed, unable to fall asleep. I watched my clock tick for seconds, minutes, hours. I knew that should anything actually arrive in Amelia’s room, I’d hear the crumpling of paper. I also knew that Amelia would be awake, desperate not only for her new friend to come out but also for the sound of sleigh bells. Just as I began to drift, sometime around one in the morning, I heard it- the sound of rustling newspaper.
I hoisted myself out of the sleeping-awake twilight I was in and ejected myself from bed, too stricken with urgency to consider being quiet. I landed on my floor with a thud, and immediately I heard my sister whine from across the hall.
“Please, don’t go! No! Come back!” she cried.
I raced out of my bedroom, older sibling protective instincts at full tilt, and into the hallway just in time to be stopped in my tracks.
A tall, willowy silhouette stood at the living room end of the hallway. The thing (man?) stood so tall that it stooped, bending at the ceiling, using its long, spindly arms to brace against the walls. The lunar glow coming in through the skylight was just enough to show me that it was uniformly pale, almost paper white, and without clothes. I stared up at what I though should be its face, its lack of features slightly disorienting. It had two indentations where there should have been eyes, as if there once were sockets but skin had been stretched over them. I thought I saw a small slit that must have been a mouth. I began to notice that its body seemed thin, almost two dimensional, and then it moved.
I gasped, as it moved with unnatural motion, as if its joints were the result of being creased and folded into a box, using its abnormally gangly arms to balance on the floor and lurch to the living room. For a moment, I considered just going back to my room, but I’d come too far. I summoned what little courage I had and edged towards the living room, peaking around the corner of the hallway’s end.
In the moonlight, I followed the trail of greyish footprints with my eyes up to the fireplace, where the twin doors into the hearth stood open. I caught a glimpse of a limb being retracted into the chimney. I just stared, not daring to move, not daring to breathe too loudly or deeply, lest it come back for me. Amelia broke me from the trance.
“Don’t hurt him.” She whispered meekly from behind me.
I spun around, startled, my heart thumping in my chest. We locked eyes for a moment, me not believing what I’d seen, Amelia not comprehending why I seemed so disheveled. Finally, I found words.
“Go back to bed, Amelia.” I stammered.
“No! He won’t hurt you! He won’t!” she started to tear up.
I kept finding myself unable to speak, as if this thing in our fireplace had stolen my vocabulary. I just kept standing there, watching Amelia weep as if I was taking way a new puppy. In my head, I was sprinting, trying to weigh out the options.
I took Amelia by the hand and went to the hallway closet for my dad’s Mag-light. I crept back to the fireplace, Amelia mercifully not fighting my grip. I sat for a moment.
“Amelia, if anything happens when I look up the chimney, you run and wake up Mom and Dad, do you understand?”
Amelia nodded.
I took a deep breath and I leaned back into the fireplace as I turned on the flashlight and looked up.
A sheet white face met mine, the creature hanging upside down and craning its neck to face me. There were no eyes, but a round black hole for a mouth, gaping to reveal a seemingly bottomless oblivion.
I scrambled out of the hearth, and collapsed there in the floor, waiting for it to come out after me as my chest heaved, but it never did. At some point, I got up, ignoring my sister’s questions and pleading, as a numb, thoughtless state came over me. I took the fireplace matches, doused the carpet in lighter fluid from a kitchen cabinet, and set the carpet ablaze. That place be damned.
Amelia and I never told our parents what happened, and I can’t remember much of what happened in the immediate aftermath. After hundreds of hours of therapy, the only solid thing I can retrieve after looking up the chimney that horrifying Christmas morning is sitting out in the snow with my family, pulling my knees to my chest as we waited for the fire department from a distant town, Amelia wailing about her friend burning alive. By the time the fire trucks got there, the cabin had burned to the ground. None of the firemen even bothered turning on their hoses.
The therapists tell my parents that I’ve got repressed memories as a result of being so miserably sequestered from society at time when social development is paramount. What a bunch of bullshit.
Amelia wouldn’t talk to me for a long time because from her perspective, I’d murdered her friend. A few years later, she began to comprehend. We talked, we reconciled, and we agreed never to speak of it.
The fire was attributed to a likely electrical problem within the system that distributed the heat from the fireplace. I guess small town forensic scientists don’t know what accelerants look like. My parents never quite understood why Amelia was convinced that I had caused the fire when the fire department said otherwise. It strained us for a while but eventually I guess they just let it go as Amelia’s vivid imagination.
The day after, we were allowed to sift through the smoldering rubble to try and salvage anything we could. All that we found were a set of footprints that led into the woods and didn’t return to the house. We followed them but eventually they disappeared abruptly. My parents don’t know who they could have possibly belonged to, but…
Amelia and I do.
|
There is an ancient story which tells of how a spider creature named Iktomi created a web which filtered good dreams from the bad dreams. He shared the secrets of this web with a brave leader, who in turn told the world of the web to ensure his people were not haunted by nightmares. This lead to the creation of the special object known as a dream catcher; a circular wooden hoop containing a beautifully handcrafted web design with many different coloured feathers tied to thread, suspended from the hoop. The feathers would store the good dreams, whilst the web of thread would trap the bad dreams.
In the small city of Chester, located in England, this tale was being recounted one spring afternoon, inside one of the city’s libraries. The audience it was addressed to though, a group of children aged between seven and ten, were a little preoccupied in order to be paying full attention. They were all sitting around a large table, scattered with scraps of wool, feathers, beads; some children were arguing over scissors and glue, with the library assistants having to remind them to share properly. They were all making their own dream catchers.
The storyteller reciting the story of Iktomi called himself Dr. Lucid. A hired entertainer, some parents concluded, as his appearance represented someone such as the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. He wore a dark purple frock coat with lighter purple patterns of leaves and vines printed upon it. He had a matching waistcoat and pants to go with it, along with black shiny shoes and a black high collared shirt with a wine-red bowtie fastened around his neck. Upon his head he donned a large purple top hat with a single black ribbon tied around it. In his hand he held a red swirly walking stick, although it was clear that this man was not crippled in any way. He was not even of great age, he only looked to be in his mid-40’s, with dirty blonde hair showing under his hat and a short stubbly beard on the lower half of his face. His manner of speaking was very formal, but he possessed a cheerful demeanour which kept the children in a happy and comfortable mood, even if they weren’t paying attention to the actual story. Dr. Lucid was aware he didn’t have full attention, but none-the-less, he continued to recite the tale whilst circling the table, observing the children and the many different results of their dream catchers. This initially made him unaware of the person sat in the corner of the room, who was staring intently at him. This person looked to be an average teenage girl, with long chocolate-brown hair scraped back in a ponytail and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and rosy cheeks. Her light blue eyes were looking towards the doctor and it was evident that she was taking in every word she said, as opposed to a few minutes ago where her ears were blocked up by earphones connected to her iPod.
This was Ruby Bentley-Smith; a 16 year old girl who had only turned up to this craft fair as her mother had insisted that Ruby should take Eddie, her 7 year old brother, up there, as both of their parents were working that day. She had reluctantly agreed, not wanting to cause a fuss with her mother. So here she was, sitting in the corner whilst Eddie was struggling to thread beads onto the wool. Initially uninterested by the children’s activities, the words of Dr. Lucid had suddenly attracted her attention. As a psychology student, the subject of dreams was one that interested her. She’d grown past the age of making little trinkets like this, but the idea of dreams flying through the air and the possibility of a special web capturing these dreams; now that was interesting.
Dr. Lucid soon took notice of this girl when he eventually lifted his head and caught her gaze. Ruby was quick to look back down to her iPod, but the doctor wasn’t stupid, far from it actually, he’d noticed her stare and knew that she’d been listening the whole time.
“You there!” he called to her in his posh London accent. Ruby looked up to find him pointing his walking stick straight at her.
“Yes you, child! Come here at once!” He beckoned her over. Ruby pocketed her iPod, stood up, and followed him to a table he was walking to.
“Now then,” he said. “I notice you seemed to take interest in the tale of Iktomi and his web. Tell me, do dreams fascinate you?”
She wasn’t sure how to reply. She eventually muttered, “I…umm…I suppose so.”
The doctor’s face took on a satisfied smile.
“Splendid…I think I have the perfect thing for you, child.”
His hand reached under his coat. After a few seconds he pulled out something. A dream catcher, but a very unique one Ruby noticed.
“Now, this dream catcher,” Dr. Lucid continued. “Is one that I crafted with my own hands. Its difference to the average dream catcher should be apparent to your eyes.”
He was correct, for Ruby was quick to notice this difference. The dream catcher looked normal to begin with; the circle being made out of normal wood and the web being made out of purple thread. But there were no feathers. Hanging down from seven different threads were seven miniature dolls, each one smaller than the size of an average thumb. Ruby looked closely at them. They all differed to one another: three were boy dolls, four were girl dolls, several had different coloured hair and the small eyes stitched onto the dolls were of different colours as well, one of the girl dolls even had spectacles stitched onto her small face. They were all sewn into black and purple outfits.
“The children suspended from this dream catcher are not just your typical dolls you must understand. Nor do they capture the pure dreams of the night sky, like the typical feathers.”
“Then what are they supposed to do?” asked Ruby.
“Ah,” the doctor tapped the side of his nose with his finger. “All will become clear when you begin your slumber tonight.”
“Oh, well you see,” Ruby shook her head slightly. “It’s awfully nice of you to offer it, but I don’t have any money on me.”
Dr. Lucid let out a hearty laugh.
“Who said anything about money? My dear, this is a gift!”
“A…a gift? Are you sure that’s okay?”
“I am absolutely certain,” the doctor responded, not letting his smile drop for a second. “As long as you promise to keep it safe. Do you have any siblings?”
“Yeah, I have my brother here,” she said, signalling to the little brown-haired boy sat at the edge of the table.
“I see,” said the doctor. “Well please refrain from ‘sharing’ it with him. This is solely for you. Do you understand?”
Ruby looked at Dr. Lucid, then back to the dream catcher. After some thought, she lifted her hand to take the dream catcher, and he passed it to her.
“I understand. Thank you, sir,” she said, smiling politely.
“Splendid!” he exclaimed. “Now, hang it on the wall beside your bed tonight. No doubt you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you experience.”
Ruby was tempted to ask more, but Dr. Lucid was quick to turn back to the table to see how all the children were getting along. Shrugging her shoulders, she returned to her spot in the corner, handling the dream catcher with care.
When the two siblings got home, Ruby rushed up to her room, setting about to hanging the dream catcher up. After she attached it to her bedroom wall with Blu-Tack, the day continued as normal. Ruby did her homework, went on the Internet for a while, had dinner when her parents returned home, took some Metformin pills for her diabetes soon after, red Eddie a bedtime story, and soon went to bed herself. Lying down, she looked up to the dream catcher beside her on the wall. Hoping that it would give her a good dream, she fell fast asleep.
Morning, and Ruby found herself teetering on the rim of consciousness. She pushed herself up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. When the sleep was clear, she opened them…and gasped. She was no longer in her room. She was still in her bed and still wearing her Sesame Street pyjamas, but her entire room was just…gone. What surrounded her in its place was a void of black and purple swirls of fog. The colours appeared to be moving, as if they were mixing together. It clearly wasn’t morning now…but then Ruby realised she couldn’t be sure, as there were no windows to show if it was dark or light outside, and there was no clock to tell the time.
“Aah, I see you’re asleep!”
The sudden voice made her jump out of her skin. Her head quickly darted to her right in the direction of the voice. There stood a very familiar man, clad in a purple frock coat, wearing a top hat, carrying a swirly walking stick…
“Y-you!” she stammered. “You’re the guy! The guy from earlier, aren’t you?”
“Yes, dear Ruby, it is I, Dr. Lucid at your service!”
Dr. Lucid, having not changed at all since their encounter earlier that day bowed to her gracefully. Ruby just stared, open-mouthed. But the doctor spoke before she could.
“I predict you had many questions,” the doctor chuckled. “Allow me to answer them for you. You are in the land of Paradise!”
He threw his arms out to his sides as he exclaimed this proudly.
You could say a dream FAR beyond your wildest imagination,” he continued. “I am here because I am the creator of this land. And as for me knowing your name, well I don’t mean to boast, but I am well practised in magic and it wasn’t too hard to achieve it. After all, what effort is needed to find out a simple name compared to creating my beautiful Paradise?” His laugh echoed throughout the void of a room.
“Wait,” said Ruby, interrupting his laugh. “Since when has magic ever existed? That’s just a load of story legend, right?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, girl!” Dr. Lucid declared. “Magic has most definitely been around since the dawn of time! Such a shame you lesser mortals are too ignorant to believe fully in it.”
“But how did I get here?” Ruby finally asked the obvious question.
“Simple, because I brought you here!” he replied. Ruby’s eyes widened. “Oh Ruby, don’t look so alarmed! It wasn’t as if I climbed into your room and stole you in the dead of night. On the contrary, I think you’ll find that I was already in your room.”
“What?! But how?!” Ruby demanded to know, feeling slightly violated.
“Well voodoo magic has its perks, dear Ruby. I may walk abroad among you mortals, as you observed before, but long ago I split my soul and deposited it in the very dream catcher I gave to you today. In short, Paradise is located inside the dream catcher.
“Now that all of that explaining is over, I think it’s time for you to meet my friends.”
“Your friends?” Ruby asked. “Who are they?”
In response, the doctor reached into his coat pocket and brought out a handful of miniature dolls. Ruby recognised them as the dolls that hung from the dream catcher. Holding the dolls in his right hand, he clenched his fist tightly and recited these words:
“Dolls and figures, up you tot,
And show some smiles you miserable lot,
It’s time for some fun, so off you pop,
So dust off those shoes and give ‘em a flop!”
With that said, he casted the dolls behind him and as they hit the floor, smoke suddenly erupted out of nowhere. The smoke soon cleared, and Ruby was met with a surprising sight. There, in a straight line, stood the seven dolls, but they were life-sized! In fact, they looked like normal humans. Four of them, two girl and two boys, looked to be no more than ten years old. The other two girls looked younger than Ruby, maybe about twelve or thirteen. A boy of about Ruby’s age, with ebony hair, stood in the centre of the line, towering over the others in height. All seven of them wore black unitards; the girls had an additional dark purple tutu around their waist whilst the boys had a purple ribbon instead. And they all shared the exact same qualities as their dolls, from the colour of their hair to the colour of their eyes, even the doll with the spectacles stood there with the others. They stood straight with their arms in a preparatory position, both arms down and rounded with both hands just in front of the hips, as if they were a troupe of ballerinas; ballerinas with smiles, but with no emotion in their eyes whatsoever. They just stared blankly ahead.
“Well don’t just stand there!” the doctor snapped. “You must greet our new guest. This is Ruby Bentley-Smith.”
He slammed his walking stick down on the void floor, its sound echoing loudly just as his laugh had done before. In an instant, all seven dolls had lifted their arms up and spread them out wide, all in perfect unison.
“Welcome to Paradise!” they all said, smiles fixed rigidly on their face.
“Do they have names?” Ruby asked the doctor.
He shook his head. “No, my dear, these are merely dolls. They are not people like you and me, so I saw no reason to name them. Now watch closely, because with a slam of my stick, these dolls will do my bidding. Allow me to demonstrate!”
Dr. Lucid slammed his stick down again, and the dolls were quick to reassemble themselves into a triangle formation: the four younger children in a line at the front, then the two girls, then the boy right at the back. Another slam, and their arms lifted in front of them in first position. Every time the stick’s sound echoed, the dolls moved accordingly.
Right arm out, right arm in, left arm out, left arm in, right arm up, left arm up, turn one-hundred-and-eighty degrees to the right, right arm down, left arm down.
“That’s…that’s…” Ruby was trying to find the correct word. “…that’s incredible!”
“Isn’t it just?!” said the doctor happily.
“Is it…is it possible for me to come back here when I wake up?” she asked.
“Yes of course! As long as the dream catcher hangs on your wall, you shall return here every night from now on.”
“Oh that would be wonderful!” she said, then suddenly yawned. “Geez, I feel tired all of a sudden.”
“Aah, you’re waking up, my dear,” said Dr. Lucid. “You need to return to your bed.”
“But I just got here,” she said sleepily.
“I know, but time works differently in Paradise. These few minutes you have stayed here have counted for hours in the real world. Do not be down-hearted. I guarantee you’ll return here tomorrow night.”
He slammed his stick and the dolls waved their right hands at her and said, “We’ll see you then!”
Ruby waved back, returned to her bed and closed her eyes.
“Good day, dear Ruby,” she heard Dr. Lucid say before she drifted asleep again.
When Ruby awoke the next morning, she spent a long time wondering if her dream had been real or not. It had all felt real, but surely all the talk about magic and the doctor controlling the dolls couldn’t have been true, could it? Eventually she just shrugged and resolved to waiting until she went to sleep again to see if she’d return to Paradise once more.
Her day was normal, with nothing unusual or supernatural happening. It was Monday, so she had to go to school, but she couldn’t fully concentrate. She found that her mind kept wandering to her memories of Paradise. Whenever she snapped back to reality, she found it irritating how she was still stuck in her lessons. The next six hours dragged so much, that Ruby felt very relieved when the bell rang and they were allowed to go home. She still had to go through dinner and diabetic pills and Eddie’s bedtime story, but finally she collapsed into bed and fell fast asleep.
“Aah, I see you’re asleep!” she heard Dr. Lucid say.
Ruby opened her eyes and smiled at the sight of him, as she realised she was back in Paradise.
“Good evening,” she said, but then looked around. “Umm…where are the dolls?”
“Aah, they are with me, my dear,” he said, pulling the miniature forms of the dolls out of his pocket again. “Tonight we shall have some playtime. Let me take you back to the wonders and fun of your childhood, Ruby.”
Ruby looked confused, but let him get along with summoning the dolls.
“Dolls! Let us play some classic games with our guest!” he commanded. Slamming his stick down, the dolls all joined hands in a circle. Another slam, and twinkling music began to play from nowhere, sort of like the sound you would hear from a jack-in-the-box. The dolls suddenly started leaping around in a clockwise movement, all still holding hands. They all chanted:
“Ring a round the roses,
a pocket full of poses,
atichoo, atichoo,
we all fall down!”
On the last line, they all collapsed to the floor, seemingly lifeless.
“Wow,” said Ruby. “I haven’t heard that chant in years.”
“What about any of these?” said the doctor.
In minutes, he had the dolls performing all sorts of little nursery rhymes and childish chants: The Farmer’s in his Den, Oranges and Lemons, Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky…by the time they got to Miss Lucy had a Baby, Ruby had come forward to join in, without any objections by Dr. Lucid. The dolls didn’t seem to object either, so they all made their way through circle songs and clapping games, making Ruby happy with nostalgic memories of her early childhood. When Ruby eventually felt sleepy, the doctor asked her if she had enjoyed herself. She happily said she had.
And every night after that, Ruby found herself in Paradise, enjoying herself in many different ways with the dolls. They sung songs together, they danced together, they played games together despite the dolls lack of natural joy, but what Ruby enjoyed most was re-enactments. Some nights Ruby would choose a story, and Dr. Lucid would make the dolls take upon the actions of each of the characters, with Ruby happily joining in. She played Little Red Riding Hood, where the ebony haired boy saved her from the little kids who all made up the wolf. She played Cinderella, dancing with the boy, losing her glass slipper and being saved from the two twelve year old girls who played her ugly step-sisters. She played Alice, falling into Wonderland while the dolls muddled her mind with all of the different characters. With her long hair, she even found joy in playing Rapunzel. Obviously her hair wasn’t long enough for her “prince” to climb up, but she enjoyed the story none-the-less.
Then one night in the summer holidays, after they finished the Six Swans, where Ruby saved her “siblings” from being turned into swans by staying mute, she started murmuring sleepily, “No…no, I don’t want to wake up.”
“Why not?” asked the doctor. “You’re going to return here tomorrow night, aren’t you?”
“I-I know,” she replied. “But I just don’t want to go back to the real world. I like this world…a lot…I wish I could stay here forever.”
Without warning the doctor slammed his stick down with such force, that Ruby snapped out of her sleepy trance. All of the dolls and Dr. Lucid has their eyes fixed on her.
“Repeat what you just said,” the doctor commanded.
“I…I wish I could stay here forever,” she said, worried that she had done wrong by saying it.
Dr. Lucid glared at her for a while, before saying, “Do you truly wish that?”
Ruby thought for a bit, and then nodded.
A smile started to creep onto the doctor’s lips.
“If that is what you truly wish, then I would be more than happy to allow you to stay. What do you say to this, everyone?”
With a slam of his stick, the dolls opened their arms out, smiled firmly and said, “We would love for you to stay.”
But as Ruby’s eyes lit up in happiness, the doctor suddenly said, “But you will have to perform a difficult task in order for you to remain here permanently.”
“Oh I’ll do anything!” said Ruby. “What must I do?”
“Well, I have estimated,” the doctor said. “That every night you sleep for roughly ten hours. To stay here, I need proof that you can possess the ability to stay here for much longer. So I need you to slumber for twenty-four hours straight. If you can do that, then I will allow you to stay.”
“Twenty-four hours?!” Ruby exclaimed. “But that’s a whole day! Is that even possible?!”
“Anything, I believe, is possible. It was possible for me to create this world; it’s possible for me to manipulate these dolls to do my bidding; sleeping for twenty-four hours is child’s play compared to those things. So you should be able to do it. And after all, you did just say you would do anything, did you not?”
“Well yes…alright, I’ll do it!”
Dr. Lucid held out his hand, and Ruby shook it.
“Then the deal is made!” he declared. “You will continue to return to this world every night, and each night I will time you to see how many hours you have managed to slumber for. If you hear the sounds of large bells ringing, then you will know that twenty-four hours have passed and your wish will be granted.”
Ruby nodded, and then began to feel sleepy again.
“Good day, Ruby, and good luck,” was what she heard the doctor say as she returned to her bed.
And so began the weeks of Ruby trying to complete her task. On the first few nights, she simply tried to stay awake longer to tire herself out more. But she only managed to add a couple of hours to her sleep pattern. She quickly realised that this method wouldn’t work so she tried a new technique. She started to exercise a lot, going way over the recommended time of one hour a day. Her parents paid no heed to it at first, but soon became a little concerned. They were used to her staying in her room a lot whilst she was on the internet, but it seemed really out of place for her to be jogging around for five hours a day.
Overtime, Ruby’s methods became more disturbing. She started to skip meals, only regularly having small snacks and drinks to keep her blood sugar level stable. Her weight dropped, her skin turned pale, but the longest time she managed to sleep for was sixteen hours. Even in Paradise, whenever she felt sleepy she refused to return to her bed, trying to stay awake and play with the dolls, only to collapse where she stood and wake up in her bed in the real world. At one point she sneaked into her parents’ room and stole a bottle of her father’s sleeping pills. When the recommended doses didn’t acquire the results she had been hoping for, she started taking more than was required, but this only gave her headaches and made her groggy during the day.
Oh how she cursed the real world. She became angry with it, she became sick of the sight of it, preferring the sight of the misty and dark Paradise. She became sick of seeing her friends, ignoring their texts and emails, completely shutting them out of her life. And most heartbreaking of them all, she eventually became sick of her own family. She wouldn’t say a word to her parents anymore and she refused to read Eddie a bedtime story at night. The only communication they would usually share was Ruby screaming at them to leave her alone. All she wanted to do was go to sleep and see Dr. Lucid and the dolls. They were all she loved now.
But finally, she found the solution. A horrible solution. As she was about to take her diabetic pills one night, she was reminded of words that her doctor had told her when she was little, soon after she found out she had diabetes. He had told her, “Never ever take more than two pills after meals. If you take more than two, then you’ll fall into a really deep sleep, and you might never wake up. And that will make your parents and baby brother very sad.”
A deep sleep…she might never wake up…
Without another thought, she rushed to the bathroom, tipped the whole bottle of her Metformin pills into her hand and set to work on consuming them all. All that she could think of were the words “deep sleep”. These pills could give her the twenty-four hours she needed. She didn’t even stop for a second to consider the fact that there would be no turning back. The desperation of wanting to stay in Paradise had taken over her completely. When all the pills had gone, she rushed back to her room, snatched up the small number of sleeping pills remaining and swallowed them as well, just to make sure she’d definitely fall asleep. Almost instantly, she began to feel dizzy and unstable. She stumbled back onto her bed. Her mind was starting to haze over, but she managed to make herself lie down. As her vision faded, the last thing she saw was the dream catcher hanging on her wall…
“I see you’re asleep.”
Dr. Lucid’s voice didn’t sound happy and cheerful today. It sounded plain and firm. When Ruby opened her eyes and looked to him, she saw that his face was also plain and firm. She guessed that he’d witnessed her actions in the real world. But it was okay, she thought. If nothing in the real world interrupted, she’d finally be allowed to stay in Paradise forever.
“I would like to re-enact a story of my own creation today,” he said. “It is called ‘The Lonely Prince’. Would you like to witness this story?”
Ruby smiled and nodded.
The doctor made haste in summoning the dolls and making them run off to hide until they were called for.
“Once upon a time,” the doctor started to tell the story as a happy melody began to sound throughout Paradise. “There was a land ruled over by a king and queen. The land was a happy, where children and adults would smile and laugh every day.”
He slammed his stick down and the four younger dolls appeared, running around the doctor in a circle, making giggling noises. The doctor made them perform a fun little ballet act. Such skills in ones that had no life. Ruby admired the doctor’s magic; it was incredible.
“Even the servants of the king and queen’s palace shared the joys of the land, performing their chores with glee and happiness.”
The two girls were summoned. They performed a ballet act too, making motions with their hands as if they were sweeping floors or polishing windows. It was all done in such grace that After a while, the younger dolls joined in and they all danced together. It went on for so long that Ruby soon found herself sitting on the floor whilst she watched it, but not once did she get bored, for the dance was so skilled, so happy and so enthralling, that the possibility of getting bored was absolutely zero.
“But alas,” the doctor continued after what seemed like an hour. “There was one individual who did not bask in the joys of the land.”
Another slam of the stick, and a white staircase materialised behind the dolls. The dolls parted to each side of the staircase and all turned their heads up to the top of it, where a large platform was connected to it. The music suddenly turned quiet and solemn.
“Observe the summit of that staircase and tell me what you see!” the doctor exclaimed.
“That’s the eldest doll!” Ruby said, recognising him instantly.
“Correct, but in this story he is much more than the simple ebony-haired doll. What you see here is what the people of the land call: the Lonely Prince.”
“The Lonely Prince!” the other dolls declared in unison as they looked to the sad doll.
“This poor soul has been eternally locked in the palace,” said the doctor. “His parents have forbade him to make friends or have fun, lest they distract him from his duties as a prince. But this deprivation of the joy of the land has made the prince sink into a deep depression.”
The boy went on to do a solo dance. The dance was beautiful but no joy emanated from it. He had his eyes closed the entire time, but towards the end of the dance, they suddenly snapped open wide. His arms started to reach out, his head turned this way and that, as if he was searching for something.
“Observe!” Dr. Lucid suddenly shouted from behind Ruby. “He seeks companionship!”
The “prince” looked towards all of the other dolls, but Dr. Lucid’s stick was quick to make them turn away from him.
“His isolation has caused the people to believe that he wants to be alone. But that is falsehood. He needs a friend. Who will be his friend?!”
And then the prince’s eyes rested on Ruby. He stretched his arms out to her. And Ruby suddenly found herself standing up and rushing up the staircase. Her heart reached out to him, as she could no longer stand to see this poor doll alone in despair.
“I’ll be his friend!” she shouted, and threw her arms around him as soon as she reached him. He returned the embrace, although it felt stiff and unnatural.
“Finally!” the doctor called from below. “A person has come forth to free the prince from his solitude!”
The two of them pulled away to look at each other and, to the now once again happy music, they begun to dance. Ruby wasn’t much of a dancer in the real world, but somehow she knew how to perform this dance. She pointed, she twirled, she moved her arms lightly as the prince lifted her into the air. And as the dance came to an end, the two embraced once again.
“I’ll never leave you, my prince,” she whispered into his ear as she smiled to herself.
But then she heard something. Something close to her ear. It sounded like…a breath. But a shaky breath. Coming from…the boy? She quickly pulled away to look at him…
And saw a tear fall down his cheek.
Before she could say anything, a loud sound interrupted her thoughts. The sound of bells; large bells you would find in a clock tower. She looked down to see the doctor looking up at her and applauding her with a happy grin on his face.
“You’ve done it!” he called out. “Twenty-four hours have passed!”
Ruby slowly walked down the staircase with the boy. As they walked down, the steps behind them vanished until they reached the bottom, and the staircase was no more.
“Well done, my dear! You’ve completed the required task. Now I shall grant your wish!”
Ruby did not return the doctor’s smile.
“What is wrong? This is a happy moment, your wish has come true!”
Ruby looked at him for a few more seconds. Then she pointed to the boy without looking at him and said: “He’s not a doll, is he?”
Dr. Lucid barely reacted. He merely stared at her too. After about a minute, he finally spoke.
“You mortals are far too slow to see the obvious,” he said coldly.
“So…is he…?” Ruby tried to speak.
“Yes. This boy is not a doll. He is a human. In fact, look around you.”
Ruby turned back to look at the other dolls. The realisation finally hit her.
They were all humans.
“But…but…how did this happen?” Ruby asked.
The doctor started to chuckle then: a deep chilling chuckle.
“These children were all like you, Ruby. They were captivated by Paradise, they also wanted to stay here forever. All seven of them managed to find a way to sleep for twenty-four hours. And I granted their wish.”
“But why are you controlling them like this?!” she shouted.
Dr. Lucid looked to the boy. The boy stared back at him with a tear stain on his cheek.
“This boy was the first to come to Paradise,” he explained. “He ended up throwing himself under a bus in order to sleep for long enough. But after a while, he grew bored of Paradise. He wanted to leave. But as he ran away, I stopped him.” The doctor held the stick up. “I used this to manipulate him. Now he cannot leave. None of these children can. I wouldn’t want their wishes wasted now, would I?”
“I…I-I change my mind,” Ruby suddenly said. “I don’t want to be here anymore. Please, let me go home!”
“Oh it’s too late for that now,” he said with an edge of evil in his voice. “You overdosed. You’re dead in the real world now. And besides, didn’t you just tell your “prince” here that you would never leave him, hmm?”
Ruby ignored him. Pushing past him, she rushed towards her bed. But in horror, she realised it was nowhere to be seen.
“I told you,” the doctor said. “You can’t return to the real world now that you’re dead.”
But she continued to run, desperately looking around for an exit. Right until she heard the doctor slam his stick down.
And then she froze.
Her body was as stiff as stone. She couldn’t move, even her eyes remained motionless. Another slam, and she found herself standing up straight, her arms in a preparatory position.
“Oh deary me, Ruby,” she heard Dr. Lucid say. “I thought you’d be more cooperative and stay free in Paradise. But it looks like I’ll have to force you to stay. Never mind though.”
Another slam and Ruby was made to turn around and walk towards the doctor. She had no control over her body; it was as if she was a puppet attached to strings. Dr. Lucid made her stand by the boy again along with the rest of the dolls.
“Oh give me a smile, you miserable lot!” he demanded. He slammed his stick down and all eight of them, including Ruby, soon found themselves with smiles fixed on their faces, despite their emotions being far from happy.
“Much better!” Dr. Lucid declared. “Paradise must always be a happy place. People would just KILL to stay!”
He laughed loudly, the haunting sound of it echoing throughout the dark void of land.
~~~
Ruby Bentley-Smith was declared dead at 7:43pm on the 30th August 2014, after overdosing on Metformin pills and Imovane sleeping pills and falling into a coma for approximately twenty-four hours. Her death was ruled as a suicide. To this day, her family have never managed to figure out what caused her change in behaviour and why she decided to end her life.
On the night after her funeral, her younger brother, Eddie, couldn’t sleep.
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Endless.
Dark.
That was the road in front of me, stretching out farther than the eye could see in this inky blackness. Not a star in the sky tonight, and the moon seemed to be hiding from view as well. That was okay because I actually preferred the dark stretch- I found it calming to drive the narrow strip alone in the night.
It wasn’t often I had the opportunity to drive it and visit my parents is the country, and I was excited to see them. It had been a long time…too long. Being an only child, my parents had been devastated when I informed them I was moving to the city. With that being said, they of course supported me and invited me to visit often, which is how I found myself driving out after work. It was a long weekend, so I could stay Friday and Saturday and head back to the city on Sunday to have some me time.
The road had been fun when I was a child- the hills and bumps always had me lifted off my seat, giggling and shouting “wheee!” Every time we hit a large hill, my stomach would drop. I smiled at the memory, speeding up a little, intending to replicate the experience. The radio blasted a pop song, up way too loud to be good for anyone’s ears, but let’s be honest- it wasn’t like the music was that good anyway.
I checked the speedometer. I pressed a little harder on the gas, confident that I could maneuver this particular road with little danger. My car loyally leapt over the hills, bouncing me off my seat time after time. I laughed as my stomach flipped and flipped. I saw a curve up ahead and I started to gently hit my brakes. Just as I was going through the curve, a flash of blue up ahead caught my eye.
“Stop!” Someone screamed. My reaction to seeing a person standing in the middle of the road was to stop immediately to avoid hitting them. When I saw it was a young girl, I felt a wave of guilt crash over me. I almost hit that girl! I admonished myself. Her dress was a pale blue, torn at the hem and at the shoulder. The tear in the shoulder neatly matched the scratch on her arm, so I guessed she must have been running and caught a branch. Her hair was wet, matted down on one side, and she looked panicked. I felt sorry for her, but I was also scared. Did I help this girl? What was she doing in the middle of the road at this time of night? She stared at the car for a second, and then began screaming again.
“Help me! You have to help me! He’s going to kill me!” she cried, running toward the car. I had the doors locked, but her sudden movement had me reaching for the lock button. I glanced around but I didn’t see anyone else. Suddenly, I saw a man break through the bushes on the left. He was tall, with dark hair and a thick beard. Most importantly though, he was covered in blood and holding a knife. He seemed to look around for a minute, taking in the car’s bright lights, and then noticed the girl. He started in the direction of the car, obviously going after the young girl who was frantically pulling at the door handle.
“Please!” she cried, tears pouring down her face. More afraid of the bloody bearded man than the child, I pressed the unlock button hurriedly.
“Get in! Get in!!” I practically screamed, my heart racing. The man was so close to the car now, any second he was going to reach it and kill us both. The girl slammed the door shut and locked it just as the man reached the front of the car.
“Get out of the car!” he screamed, banging his fists against the hood. The girl cowered in the seat, taking in the environment of the car and stealing a glance at me. She didn’t respond to him.
“Get out of the car right now! It’s for your own good.” He said emphatically, banging his fists on the hood again, knife gleaming in the headlights and the glare momentarily blinding me. Suddenly, he began to move from the front of the car to the driver’s side window.
“Please get out of the car.” He pleaded, his voice a little different this time, almost begging for her to get out of the car. I looked at him and noticed for the first time that he was looking at me.
“Please get out. You’ve made a mistake. You don’t know what-“
I felt something hard and cold slide through my lower ribs. I cried out in pain and looked at the girl incredulously. With a malicious smile, she slowly began to twist the knife.
Me.
He had been warning me.
Credit To – K.R. Shann
Credit Link – K.R. Shann on Facebook
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A shiver of terror runs through me, and I’m awake, gasping. I lay still, fists clenched in my sweat soaked sheets, shaking from the nightmare. Forcing my eyes open, I confront the darkness. My breath hitches in my chest as my eyes desperately search for something to focus on, but there’s nothing. This is what they call “cave-darkness” my mind tells me. An absence of light so profound your brain goes a little haywire. I don’t know how long I’ve been down here, minutes, months or years. I sleep, I dream, I awaken, I relieve myself, I scrape moss from the floor for nourishment and water from the walls for hydration. Then it’s back to sleep. My bones are sharp, and my skin hangs from my wasted body, like an ill-fitting wet-suit.
Nightmares fill my every sleeping hour, and most of the waking ones as well. My hallucinations have reached the point where I can feel the demons hot breath on my cheek, smell the rotting of the flayed and tortured creatures that hunger for flesh in the dark corners of my cell. I don’t know how I got here. I just awoke one day, still in my bed, in utter black. Normally, I had my fear of the dark under control, but this darkness was different. Not just the absence of light, but the presence of something else, an inky black terror that seeped into my very bones. I wonder if this is Hell, if maybe I was a bad person, or if there had been some kind of twisted mistake. I hoped for so long it was a dream, but can a dream stretch for eternity?
Delirious, I stumble from the damp, reeking bed and crouch beside it, my hand still on it. I had gotten lost once, stumbling around my tiny prison, smashing into the jagged rock of the walls in panic. When I finally fell to the floor I could feel the pain, and the hot, sticky blood that came with each fresh wave of agony. I let unconsciousness take me, falling straight into the night terror’s claws, and when I awoke, I crawled across the floor, groping with my hands until I found the cold metal of the bed-frame. The dream. It’s always the same, and always different, composed of my deepest fears and the darkest of sins. Every situation is new, a fresh horror born of my imagination, but the feeling is the same. The same terror, unnatural, freezing me in place, an unwilling subject of the acts of horror and atrocity committed.
A wall of metal gears, ripping through a town in a spray of gore and rock, killing all before it, then coming for me. A spider, inflated, huge, wrapping me up, when she stops and explodes, showering down smaller spiders, with needle sharp fangs. A child, viciously torn from my body by a madman wielding modified surgical tools. Animals, abused and killed, then revived, eager to visit the sins of those who killed them upon me, not caring where their “pound of flesh” came from. My family, set ablaze, screams tearing through the crackle of fire. Dolls, come to life, with jagged porcelain hands, slicing and tearing, clowns with jagged red mouths and empty eye sockets armed with acid-filled water balloons and garrotes. A parade of fears, and always the helplessness. I wish for oblivion, for this torture to end.
I wonder how I’m not dead already, from starvation, or infection. Sometimes my hallucinations aren’t as bad as dreams, but I can’t shake the feeling that they’re only there to disorient me. To give me false hope, my mother’s voice, telling me to hang on. My father, weeping. My husband telling me to come back to him, and worst of all, my children, calling out for me. At first I tried to search for them, but I was surrounded by rock, a silent crushing tomb. I lay in the bed, fighting sleep, then succumb.
The dream is different, of course. I’m sitting on a hill, lazily flying a kite. My lucid mind is wary, searching for danger, and finding none. I turn me eyes back to the sky and assess the dark clouds. A drop of rain strikes my face, and I flinch, but it is only rain. No acid, no pain where the water struck. Thunder rumbles, and my mind clicks. I turn back to the sky, and try frantically to pull the kite in. The rain makes the kite string strangely slippery, and as I examine it more closely, I realize it is thin copper wire. As I’m staring in horror, the wind abruptly tears the wire I had managed to gather from my hands, and I attempt to let go of the kite completely. Nothing. My fist remains tightly clenched around the wire. A flash, and I tense, but there is no jolt. I stare upward, frozen in place, bracing for the pain. And it hits. A white-hot flare runs through my nerves, searing me from the inside out. Again, and I close my eyes, wishing for death. The last time, I suck in my breath as my body is flooded with the agony, and open my eyes.
A blinding light hovers over my head, and as I try to turn to the side, something stops me and triggers my gag reflex. I retch and spasm as voices around me bark concerned orders at me, and each other. “Stop moving Miss. You’re OK, but you have a tube in. There’s been an accident”. An accident? My mind reels, and I have so many questions, I try to talk around the tube, and gesture frantically with my hands. The heart monitor beeps erratically, and the nurse comes around to my side. “Here sweetie, this will help you sleep. You need rest now.” I struggle harder, my blind panic back. I don’t want to sleep. I can’t bear to dream. What if I open my eyes and I’m back in that cave? Darkness claims me, and for the first time in an eternity, I have a dreamless sleep.
When I open my eyes, the tube is gone. Light is streaming in the window, and despite my aches and pains, I feel great. My husband is sitting next to me, and jumps from his chair upon seeing my open eyes. “I knew you’d come back to us”, he says, wiping tears from his face. The door swings open, and in the doorway stand my parents, grandchildren in tow. I look at my kids, and begin to cry. I never thought I’d see them again. They rush into the room, and jump onto the bed. I feel no pain as I hold them, and my son tells me he loves me, and missed me. My daughter admonishes that if I ever go away again, she’ll run away from home. I laugh, and promise them I’ll always stay with them. My parents smother me with hugs and kisses, then shoo the children out of the room ahead of them, so my husband and I can speak.
I ask him how long I was out, and he tells me “two days”. My mouth opens in shock. I can’t believe that eternity was only 48 hours.He looks me dead in the eyes and tells me “You died. Your hear stopped for a full 3 minutes, and when you were brought back, you were comatose. Then, yesterday, your heart failed again, so the staff resuscitated you again. But this time you woke up!” The horror that fills me is profound. Was it hell? Was it an elaborate dream? I resolve to never tell anyone of that dark, rancid cave where my subconscious was held prisoner.
Life goes on, and I recover almost completely. Physically, it’s like nothing ever happened. The nightmares still occur, but less. It may be that this place exists only in my head, a hell perfectly suited to me, and now that the pathways have opened, I’ll always carry that darkness inside of me.
CREDIT: Danielle Elizabeth
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If you haven’t read my previous posts, please read stories one, two and three.
Hey guys, after many PMs asking for an update, I decided to bring you up to speed on whats going on. But first, here is the screenshot of the desktop picture that Rose/her cult put on my laptop. I haven’t been able to find the original photo or any kind of a hidden file. Woman on the left is my mother holding me, and woman on the right is her friend holding my childhood friend. We do not know who the child on the left or woman way in the back are. None of them remember this picture ever being taken.
So after I told my mom what was going on, she talked to y grandma. Grandma didn’t tell her much but my mom had a feeling that she got upset after hearing what was happening. I decided to call my grandma and after much begging, I got this story out of her.
My grandma was born in Croatia but grew up in Bosnia. She was the kind of a child who’d spend every waking our outside playing, exploring, etc. Her favorite play spot was down by the river not too far from where she lived. She’d often go there with her friends, but on this particular day, none of her friends came along. She went there anyways. She was doing her traditional build-a-fortress-in-the-sand thing, when she heard someone calling. She looked to the road nearby (the only place where anyone could come from, there was only one path to the beach) but nobody was there. She shrugged it off and kept playing. She heard the call again. “Dana.” She looked around. Nothing. “DANA!” She jumped, terrified, and ran to the road to see what in the fuck was going on, but nobody was there. She thought one of her friends was fucking with her and decided to turn around and go back to the fortress. Then she saw him. It was a man, of above average height, maybe 6’4”, dressed in the suit and one of those hats that gentlemen wore in thirties. He had a dark, dark black suit on with white dress shirt underneath and a black tie. Holding a cane. Thing is, he was standing in the water knee deep. In a suit that probably cost arm and a leg at that time. She was taken aback, but as any curious kid, she decided to check what was going on. She walked up to the border where waves were ending. He was still standing in the water. “Yes, mister?” she asked politely.
“I got something for you.”
“Yea? What’s that?”
Well, as predictable as the story may be getting, it is unfortunately fucking true. It was an orange. My grandma grew up in wealthy-ish family and even in the tough economic times, she had an abundance of fruit, so the orange wasn’t causing a “wow” factor in her.
“Uh… Thanks mister, but I just had lunch. You can give it to someone else.”
“No, no Dana, this one is specially for you.” He tilted his head to the side and for a second she thought his hat would fall into the river. It didn’t. He still held an orange in his other hand, offering it.
“But I don’t want it.”
“You take it, and you take it now.” My grandma’s been through a lot of shit. World war II and Bosnian war. She’s seen shit man. But she said she’s never seen something as scary as that man’s face that day. She was a child and therefore very impressionable with vivid imagination, but she swears that when he said that, his eyes (the white part not the pupils) got much darker and she could see the anger on his face, although he had somewhat of a grin on.
She started running away. She stopped and turned around to look if he was chasing her. He was just standing there, looking after her. She said she could see the darkness going away from his eyes. He put the orange back into his pocket, turned to the side, and started walking away. Through the fucking river. Like step by step, with his cane, just walking like he was on the street.
My grandma was scared for a while, but after few years, he was just a memory that was rarely recalled.
My grandma gave birth to my mom in ’52. It was a happy day because my mom was her first child. Birth went fairly easily, but she was kept in the hospital for few days. Last night before she was released, the man in the black suit came back. Almost 20 years later. She was sleeping (she had a room to herself). She woke up because light came on in her room. In scary movies, you hear the noise but there is nobody there, then suddenly they jump you from behind. Yea, that didn’t happen. She opened her eyes, and he was just standing there in the middle of the room. The same man, same suit, same hat. Not a day older than how he looked 20 years ago.
Orange in his hand.
“You did good.”
“What…what do you want from me?”
“You brought her.”
“Who? What do you want?”
“You only now have to take this, and it will all be over.” He was showing an orange, smiling. It wasn’t a crazy grin, just an almost friendly smile.
“I don’t want anything from you. Leave or I’ll scream.”
Well, that’s when he pulled the Rose shit. He tilted his head to the side, put the scariest grin on his face revealing the whitest teeth you’ll ever see. He started speaking in the voice of a 10-12 year old child.
“But Dana, you don’t know.”
“GET OUT!”
“He will take it.” As he said that with his child voice, he lost the grin, put his head back in normal position, turned around and walked away. Before he got out of the room, he turned the light off. She never told anyone about this man until I pulled it out of her.
It’s been little more than 30 years since then until she saw him one last time. It was war in Bosnia. Country demolished by politician assholes who just wanted money. You know how wars work. Anyways, times were tough. Food supply was extremely limited. My grandma and grandpa would go days without eating. They’d hunt pigeons on the balcony and shit. That bad. But then, an orange started appearing on their doorstep every day. One orange, in the center of the welcome rug. She remembers how bright it was compared to the grayness surrounding them. She’d throw every single one of those fuckers out. My grandpa was confused as to why she’d throw away perfectly good food in times like these, but she wouldn’t tell him. Until they showed up. Yes, they. The man in black and…well, Rose. It was ’93. They were bombing the shit out of their town that day and nobody would even so much as stick their head through the window, let alone walk out. But my grandparents heard knocking. They thought someone had finally come to take care of them. Knowing that intruder would enter anyways if they really wanted to, they opened. On their left, the same man was standing. Same black suit, same hat, same cane. Same age. More than 50 years later. Next to him was a woman in red shoes, white dress, long black hair, extremely pale skin color, and a lipstick so bright it would make you nostalgic for the grayness of wartime. She had her head tilted too, smiling ear to ear.
“Hello Dana.” She spoke in a voice my grandma says could only belong to a very, very young girl.
“What the fuck is this?” My grandpa asked. Immediately, both of these people’s (I still call them people) faces lost grins and looked at my grandpa.
“You may want to be silent.” Rose spoke in her original, adult voice (or what my grandma assumes would be her natural voice.)
My grandpa had been shot at, tortured, starved, but he never felt the fear like that. He lost his voice and shut the hell up.
Their grins returned, head tilted, teeth popped out shiny as ever.
“Where is he?” Rose asked her in her childish version of a voice.
“Who? What do you want from us? We have nothing!”
“Don’t do this. Just tell us where.” Seemed like Rose was losing patience.
“But who?”
“Your grandson.” Her eyes pierced my grandma’s soul. She felt blood freeze in her veins.
“He…he is not here. He is in Montenegro.” She though that whoever these people are, they’d give up once they found that her grandson (presumably me) has moved away hundreds of miles away.
They produced even wider smiles, if that was actually possible. They turned around almost synchronized, and walked away. My grandparent watched them leave over the balcony. Bullets were flying around, bombs falling everywhere, and they were just walking down the street with no fucks given. Heads still tilted. They could see them smiling.
So, I’ll be the first to call it. Bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. This is becoming a fairy tale. This ain’t happening man. Yea. I’m with you. Had I read it here or anywhere else, I’d enjoy the story then tell OP to go fuck himself for trying to convince me this shit is real.
But, this shit is real.
I have no logical explanation for it. Are they a cult? Maybe. Why don’t they age? Why are they everywhere? Why are they following everyone I know? Fuck me if I know.
Credit To – Milos Bogetic
NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of several popular Reddit posts documenting some seriously creepy experiences. We are publishing them here with express permission of Milos Bogetic aka inaaace, the original poster. The story is in multiple parts, and will be published completely over the next few days – much like what I did with the ‘Bedtime’ series earlier this year. After the stories have all gone up, I’ll edit each post with links to the other parts.
The OP has finished the book that he promised during his successful kickstarter project.
You can find the paperback and Kindle e-book versions here: The Story of Her Holding an Orange by Milos Bogetic – full disclosure: our referral link is included.
I know that this will not be new material for all of you, but for those of you who – like myself – don’t use Reddit, I wanted to post it so that you guys could enjoy it as much as I did after having it brought to my attention. Thanks again to Milos for letting me post it, and enjoy!
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When I was a young child, I had a playroom filled with toys which had accumulated over the many holidays and birthdays. I remembered sitting in the middle of that room playing with my toys each day. My mother and I were reminiscing one morning as I was packing my things to move into my new apartment when she brought up that playroom. She said that she always thought it was odd that I would sit in that room for hours playing with one single toy telephone. She said that it was a toy I had gotten for my first birthday, and she was surprised that I hadn’t lost interest by my sixth birthday. This brought back memories of my playroom and that telephone. I remembered exactly why I had begun playing with it and why I had stopped.
I was four and it was the week after Christmas. We had just relocated all of my new toys from the living room up to the playroom, and I was eager to nestle into my usual spot in the center of the room. I had only just sat down and picked up a toy horse when I heard a strange sound. It was similar to the haunting sound of a music box that was nearing the end of its tune. I looked around me and saw nothing that should be making that sound, so I continued galloping my toy horse around the carpet. The noise grew louder and more persistent, so I began scooting toys away from the direction the sound originated. I finally traced the melody to a small plastic phone resting against the wall. It was a simple phone in appearance. It was white with a spinning dial, and a red plastic ear piece. The only thing that I had ever found unsettling about this particular toy was the set of eyes that flipped back and forth as you pulled the string attached to it. Being a somewhat lazy child, I didn’t feel the need to stand up to retrieve the phone. I reached over, grabbed the string, and pulled the toy to me. As the eyes flicked back and forth, the haunting melody grew louder and faster. I assumed this was normal for this toy. I thought maybe it had batteries and they were beginning to die. I picked up the handset and held it to my ear.
“Hello? This is Charlotte.” I said, imitating my mother when she answered the telephone.
Oddly, I heard static coming from the smooth plastic handset.
“Hello?” I said again slowly.
There was a clicking sound and the phone’s tune stopped. This routine went on for about a week until finally someone began talking to me through that phone. It said its name was Mordrid and that it was my imaginary friend. I remembered hearing the children at daycare talking about their imaginary friends and I was ecstatic to finally get mine. It felt almost like a rite of passage.
Our conversations started out fairly normal. We would talk about daycare and the latest episodes of Powerpuff Girls and Spongebob. Mordrid’s favorite characters were Him and Plankton. I always asked him why he liked the bad guys so much, and he told me that they were simply misunderstood good people. I believed him, and I began to like them too.
As I got older, our conversations became more intense. My first day of school I got made fun of and I came home in tears. The first thing I did was run up to my playroom and talk to Mordrid. I asked him if the mean children were misunderstood good people, and he said no. He said that they were monsters and that I should stay away from other children lest I be corrupted also. I didn’t understand, but I obeyed him. He would never teach me wrong because he understood everything.
One day I came home and my mother told me that we were storing the toys that I wanted to keep, and having a yard sale for the ones that were collecting dust. I ran up the stairs into the playroom, grabbed the phone, and hid it in my room. That day, I didn’t talk to Mordrid because I was so busy packing and getting things ready to sell. When I talked to him the next morning he was furious. He said that nothing should ever come between us and that we were best friends.
“How am I supposed to protect you if you don’t talk to me every day?” He snapped in his overly deep, angry voice. His voice always got very deep when he was angry.
I apologized and told him that it wouldn’t happen again.
My first day of high school was a nightmare. I wanted so badly to go home and call Mordrid and tell him about the awful things my classmates would say about me. They would whisper to their friends that I was a freak. They said it was no wonder that I didn’t have any friends because I was crazy. Maybe I was crazy, but the only friend I needed was Mordrid. This fact, however, didn’t make their cruel words hurt any less. I came home in tears once again. Ignoring my mother’s questions, I rushed upstairs to my room and shut the door. I rummaged around the bottom of my closet for my phone which was emitting its familiar haunting melody.
“Mordrid?..It’s Charlotte..” I sobbed.
“What’s the matter, Charlotte? Did the bad people hurt you again?” He said slowly.
“They whisper things..they say I’m a freak. Am I a freak, Mordrid?”
“Oh no, Charlotte! You’re not a freak. You’re special and they don’t understand.”
“You really think so?” I sniffed.
“Yes. I’m tired of those bad people hurting you, Charlotte. They won’t hurt you anymore. I promise.” *CLICK*
I looked at the handset and placed it slowly back onto the top of the phone. He had never hung up on me before. I shrugged it off as him being overemotional and I went downstairs for dinner. My mother waited at the bottom of the stairs.
“Honey, what is wrong? You seemed so upset.”
“Nothing’s wrong, Mom. I’m fine. I just had a rough day.” I muttered. “What’s for dinner?”
Mother wore a worried look upon her face, and she quietly replied, “Pasta..”
I smiled and walked happily into the kitchen to make a plate.
I went to school the next day and it was relatively uneventful. The bad people weren’t at school that day. I figured they were all skipping school together, but I was very wrong. When I got home, my mother was sitting on the couch staring at the television with a terrified look on her face. I glanced at the tv as I was placing my bookbag on the floor behind the couch. I saw the pictures of all the bad people on the news. They were all missing except for the worst one named Jessica. She had been found brutally murdered behind her home. My jaw dropped and my heart jumped into my throat. I dashed up to my room where my phone was chiming eerily.
“Hello….? It’s… Charlotte…”
“You seem afraid. Are you afraid of me, Charlotte?”
I didn’t know what to say. I was terrified. I knew now that Mordrid was something to fear rather than befriend.
“What did you do to the others, Mordrid?”
“I can’t tell you. You will tell other bad people and they will lock you up. I must protect you.”
I was silent, but I remained on the line.
“Charlotte, you don’t seem very grateful. They are gone. They will never bother you again.”
I remained silent as I set the handset gently back on the top of the phone.
Like clockwork, the creepy music box tune began playing and the eyes on the phone began flipping back and forth. I immediately grabbed the phone, flew down the stairs, and ran out of the house towards the shed. I locked the phone up and ran into the house. I didn’t hear any more from Mordrid. Sometimes when I would be outside, I would hear that creepy tune wafting from the cracks in the storage shed. I would always quickly make my way back into the house.
I looked down at my watch and noticed how late it had gotten.
“I really need to head out, Mom. It’s going to get dark.”
She nodded and gave me a hug and a kiss.
“Oh, Charlotte! Take that box with you too. I packed it up forever ago and it’s taking up space.” She pointed to a box nestled behind the couch. I walked over to it, picked it up, and hoisted it up onto my shoulder. Mother kissed me again on the forehead and told me to be safe as I walked out the door towards my car. It was a tight fit, but I managed to fit the box into my back seat and I began to drive away to my apartment. I stopped at a red light and adjusted my mirror. Right as soon as I was easing my foot on the gas, I heard it. I heard that creepy music in the back seat of my car.
I took a deep breath and pulled over before reaching into the box to grab the telephone.
“Hello? This is Charlotte..”
Credit To – TheRadHatter
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It’s a small memory. A fragment almost entirely hidden in your hazy recollection of past years, of oddly dream-like days where the imagination ran wild and free, blurring the lines of the so-called “reality” that you now have as an adult, and your innocence and carefree youth kept you for the most part very happy. You were young, in 1st grade. Late at night you stumbled from the bathroom, and bleary-eyed walked through the familiar dark of your room that still scared you quite often. You were too tired to be afraid, so you didn’t rush as you normally did into the sheets. You walked past the slightly dirty window with a view of a dimly lit street below, and you thought you saw somebody in what was maybe a yellow raincoat walking up the street.
This began to happen often. You would wake up with the urge to look out the window, and sometimes you would see him.
He indeed wore a yellow jacket, even on the driest of nights. You’d see the strange man walking up the street in the deadest hour of the night, and even in your young age you knew that was weird. You’d watch him for a few seconds, and every time he stopped and looked around, then turned towards your house, and you’d quickly duck under the covers and not come out until morning. Eventually, though, Mom put up blinds and you stopped looking for the weird man.
Days, weeks, months passed. Years went by, rolling like an endless and unstoppable tide. School, friends, hobbies, girls, they all pushed the strange set of memories from your conscious mind.
One night, in your senior year of college, you were studying late at the library. When you finally packed it in, you headed out and started to walk home to your apartment a few blocks down, since gas is expensive.
On a drearily lit street, you got the creepy feeling that someone was watching you. A few times you turned around but nobody was behind you. Then you felt like it was coming from higher up, and you looked at a slightly dirty window in a strangely familiar house. But there was nobody.
You shrugged it off and, as a loud crack of thunder pealed overhead, you gladly threw on your yellow raincoat and continued up the silent street.
Credit To: Zach
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It started with the usual. Waking up in different places on smaller scales. Fall asleep on the couch, wake up in my bed.
“Oh Randy, I was the same way at your age,” My mother used to say, with smiles and turn-aways that marked the end of discussion.
Sometimes I thought it was my parents, but to what motivation would they do this? When I’m soundly in my bed, pick me up and lay me gently on the kitchen floor? No. This was me. It was around when I was sixteen that they started to see it.
My older sister Anne, eighteen at the time, would be dozing by the TV when I’d saunter in and so very purposely sit beside her. Sometimes she thought I was awake, only to have me not recall it the next day.
Then the talking started. I’d walk into her room one late summer night, while she’s up on her computer and stare blankly at her. She’d question me, and I’d answer yes to every question. Open-ended and all.
“Ran’, you okay?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going on?”
“Yes.”
Sometimes she’d find me in places, usually asleep. On several occasions her walk-in closet. She’d yell at me and throw me out saying,
“Even with your fucking narcolepsy or whatever, that’s private!” She was a very reserved person, and I always respected that in my waking life, even after she moved out. But it was all different asleep. Nothing was relevant, and none of it mattered.
I’d tried everything. For a while I’d slept in a sleeping bag, zipped to the neck, with mittens. It never really worked. And I was beginning to wake up in stranger and stranger places. Granted, I never went too far from home, but it was becoming a regular thing that I’d wake up outside. Forests, streets. I was sleepless for days at a time and it made me delusional, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to be normal.
My best friend, Daryn was very supportive, always calming me down when I was so sleep deprived I felt like my mind would implode. He’d coax me to sleep and promise to watch me, and for the most part, he did. Sometimes I’d wake up to little notes from him. Little affirmations, like,
“Everything will be okay- Daryn.”
I’d find these notes in the cracks and rifts of my home, folded neatly and creased tight. Telling me it’s okay.
Daryn and I didn’t always get along, though. Sometimes we’d fight, and he’d leave. The guy had a lot of problems, maybe some form of manic depression. That’s when I’d find the malicious notes. The notes that told me to “fuck off” and “get over myself,” Which eventually progressed into darker territory. I’d find them around and it was as if they’d interact with me.
“Nobody loves you, all you do is destroy- Daryn.”
“But I try so hard to be good!” I’d think to myself.
“And every time you try, you fail.- Daryn”
“I’m so sorry…” I’d whisper faintly.
“Kill yourself. -Daryn.”
I should’ve just stopped hanging out with him, but he was all I had, then he’d leave me cold. I’d wake up in the dirt under cold sweat, with blood on my hands that I stole from myself in my slumber.
“This is why you’re worthless – Daryn.”
Annie was leaving soon. Going off to college. Over the course of a week her room faded to emptiness as she took all her things to her dorm, and then only she was left. She said she’d be out in a week. It’d been months since I’d gotten a note from Daryn. He hadn’t been over to supply them.
I was happy. Alone, but happy. He couldn’t bother me anymore.
And the night before Annie left, I went to sleep happy. I dreamt of beautiful things. Waterfalls and meadows, places where everything was in its right place.
That time I woke up midday. No cars in the driveway, nothing too unusual, but my room was distraught. Dents in my wardrobe and a door off its hinges. Must’ve been a crazy night, but at least I was still in my bed.
I went down the hall to check if Annie was still there, she never said when she was leaving. Her room was empty as usual, but something was off this time. Her closet was open a crack. She never left her closet open, not even the slightest bit. It was her private zone, her sanctuary.
That’s when I saw the little drops on the floor. Smeared like crimson pastels, like someone had gone over to spread them. I followed them to the closet. looking down the whole way. I reached the door and wrapped my fingers around the edge. Slowly pushing forward.
And there she was.
Mangled and beaten. The veins in her neck torn out. The carpet was no longer off-white and dry, but moist and crimson. It was as if she were mauled by an animal.
And I saw it.
A little note on her chest, folded with the care and precision Daryn had always prided himself on.
But the signature was different.
And then it hit me, clear as day. Like waves of clarity but still somehow topped with disbelief.
It wasn’t Daryn. It was never Daryn. I squeezed my eyes shut as I declared it to myself.
I opened my lids as I read the note one last time, glazed eyes and trembling fingers.
“Everything will be okay.” – Randy
Credit To: Anna Elise Groves
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January 19, 2003 —
Indian officials ventured into a deep jungle, investigating several missing persons reports from a nearby city. What they found was a “Tower of Silence,” or dakhma. Zoroastrians use these sites to dispose of bodies in the open air.
While sites like these are not uncommon in certain parts of india, several peculiarities hint at something more unusual…
None of the bodies depicted in the photograph were identified. Villagers from nearby, though initially surprised at the sheer number of corpses in the dakhma, proved unable to recognize the bodies. The corpses also do not match the descriptions of the missing people.
There were no animals around except for maggots and flies. Zoroastrians rely on birds (i.e. buzzards) to dispose of the bodies, in the belief they are contributing back to the Earth. Officials found the corpses relatively untouched by any sort of animal.
There is no official count of the bodies. In fact, little work was actually accomplished at the site and, perhaps, this is why only one photograph has emerged. Officials avoided the spot – not only because they felt uneasy looking at it, but for the following, as well:
The deep pit in the center of the photograph was filled with several feet of festering blood – far more than the bodies on the outside could ever supply. The stench was so unbearable that many of the officials began to get nauseous when they first approached the dakhma.
The expedition was ended when a villager accidentally kicked a small bone into the pit, penetrating the coagulated surface of the pool. A massive burst of gas from the decomposing blood erupted from the pit, splashing those looking into it, along with the photographer.
Those caught in the explosion were immediately sent to the hospital, where they were quarrantined for possible infection. They became delirious with fever, shouting about “being tainted with the blood of Ahriman” (the personification of evil in Zoroastrianism), despite never having admitted having any familiarity with the religion.
In fact, many of them had no idea what the dakhma was when they had found it. Delirium turned to insanity as many began to attack hospital staff until they were sedated. The fever eventually killed all of them.
When officials returned with HAZMAT gear the following day, the site was empty. All the bodies had been removed and, astonishingly, the pool of blood in the pit had been drained. All that remained of the incident was this photograph.
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Every child fears under their bed. If they don’t, they fear the closet, or maybe that little crack in the almost closed door.
Scientists know that children are more perceptive, they see things adults don’t. They aren’t yet tethered into only accepting what society wants them to accept. They see what is truly there.
They see the monsters.
If you were to borrow a child’s eyes and see through them for a night, you would go insane. To be able to see what you only dimly remember, burrowing into your covers while wearing those train pajamas, hoping to a God you can barely comprehend that “it” doesn’t see you back…would drive an adult crazy. Because Adults forget the rules.
1) Cover yourself. If you can’t see it, it can’t see you. Even if it makes it harder to breathe.
2) Don’t make a noise. Every whimper can lead to destruction.
3) Don’t move. It attracts their attention.
4) Only light can make them go away. Bright light. Flashlights make it worse.
Teens are caught in the middle. They still feel what’s there, but they cannot see… and they forget the rules….
Why do you think there are so many insomniacs typing at their computers, subconsciously praying the light from their monitor will be enough to keep them away?
It’s not. Now look behind you with a child’s eyes and try not to scream.
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When you are admitted to a hospital, they place on your wrist a white wristband with your name on it. But there are other different colored wristbands which symbolizes other things. The red wristbands are placed on dead people.
There was one surgeon who worked on night shift in a school hospital. He had just finished an operation and was on his way down to the basement. He entered the elevator and there was just one other person there. He casually chatted with the woman while the elevator descended. When the elevator door opened another woman was about to enter when the doctor slammed the close button and punched the button to the highest floor. Surprised, the woman reprimanded the doctor for being rude and asked why he did not let the other woman in.
The doctor said “that was the woman i just operated on. She died while I was doing the operation. Didn’t you see the red wristband she was wearing?”
The woman smiled and raised her arm “something like this?”
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I was raised Evangelical. Miraculous healing, speaking in tongues, God’s voice speaking through people, Jesus Camps, and Christian School. Yep. Christian School. My. Whole. Life. These were all realities to me- and my faith never wavered. You know what? That is a lie, and I cannot write that in good faith… no pun intended. My beliefs were always called into question. Even from my early days in Sunday School learning about how Moses parted the Red Sea and then let it crash down on his former captors, or Noah watched as everyone except his own children died by drowning.
A lot of things didn’t make sense to me. A lot. Why was God so mean and vindictive? Why would he send plague after plague to the followers of a man who was being contradictory? Why would he kill an entire city, and turn a woman into a pillar of salt just for looking back? Why should I be scared of him now? I have never seen him, or heard him. Angels never moved a stone aside for me so I could inspect an empty grave, so to speak. I never got to inspect the hands and feet of Christ after the crucifixion on Golgotha. To me, he sounded more like the boogeyman than a friend.
So my faith wavered. And it did so continually from before I can remember, until 9th grade “Jesus Camp”.
Camp was set up in the Mountains surrounding Chico, California. It is rocky, and densely packed with trees of all kinds. The first thing you see when the bus pulls in, is this very old, Victorian-style hotel. I knew this hotel well, because I had been sent to both years of Jr. High summer camp, and it was held in the same place.
When you first walk into the hotel, there is a giant lobby made of all oak. Everything is polished and looking brand new. Much more like a modern hotel or cabin. Off to the left, there is a bookstore. You could buy anything Christian-niche there. The year before last my best friend Matt had bought me a little pin that said “My best friend is a carpenter”, which was meant as a play on words by him… because Christ is a carpenter, and my Father was as well.
There was also a large fireplace, with many couches around it, and off to the right was entry into the cafeteria and music rooms. Right in the middle of all of it was a giant staircase that led up to the dorms. Boys took the left tier to their rooms, and girls took the right tier. Matt and I always wanted to be able to stay in the same room, but never even bothered asking. It was a Christian Bible camp. Even if our own parents had been letting us have sleepovers since we were in diapers, that didn’t mean a Christian Bible Camp would let a boy and girl bunk together. Something unheard of and sinful could happen, like cuddling. Or worse- kissing. Big time sin.
I remember my 9th-grade summer camp year, I was at this particular phase in my continual rebellion where I had decided to completely mimic Cyndi Lauper, who hadn’t been popular for almost 15 years. I had short spiky pink and purple and blue hair, wore ripped up fishnets over multi-colored stockings, combat boots, and chic old lady dresses from the thrift store. Matt had similar tastes, save the dresses. With blue hair, buddy holly glasses, and always in a black hoodie, people did tend to think we were a couple. We always laughed at that. We shared hair dye, not bodily fluids.
Every year to date I had been stuck in the same dorm room with Christina Bean. I theorize that this is because we were both loners among the other girls. My best friend was a boy and I dressed like the ‘80s, and she was really, really fucking strange. But I sorta dug strange, and despite the customary eye roll when I found out whom my bunkmate would be for the month of Jesus fun- I still looked forward to finding out her strange habits and talking with her some.
Camp was comprised of many Churches sending their youth together- so literally there would be hundreds of kids there. Christina came from a small Church somewhere in Arizona, and she was the only one in her youth group that they ever sent. I don’t know if it was because she was the only one who could come, or because she was the only young person at her church. I never bothered to ask. My group always brought about 60 kids, and everyone knew each other- so Christina would cling to me every year. Like white on ri… you get the picture. I hate that saying.
So usually as a group, Matt, Christina and I would make our way to morning worship, at the Chapel, down a little path, past the rec center, and a little set back among the trees. It was together we would take our place in the lunch line, and together we would sign up for hikes. Matt did not care for Christina in the least, but he was a good little Christian guy, and put up with her for my sake.
After several days of camp, we had all set into our rituals, and were ready for the coming month. Matt and Christina and I had signed up for a hike that went to Mushroom Rock. I don’t think it was actually called that, it’s just, everyone else called it that because from a distance, it looked just like the fungi. I had never been up there before, because I much preferred swimming or playing ping pong to trudging up the side of a rocky mountain to sit at the base of “the Mushroom”. But Christina really wanted to do it, so Matt and I tagged along.
I questioned her motive for wanting to go… it was an overcast and drearily foggy day, and we would not even be able to see the valley or the ridge of the Mountains across the way. But, Christina said it would be an adventure, and she was weird so I went with it.
Our Counselor Amanda chaperoned the walk. I could tell she wanted to stay and look at the Counselor dudes swim, but she was performing her duties none the less. She quietly and quickly led the hike.
To be honest, the hike was nice. It was about 30 minutes up, with lots of interesting flowers and bugs to inspect. I tend to nope away from all things spider, but at the same time, am completely morbidly fascinated by them. Everything was pretty dreary, but in a really beautiful way. The state flower had a way of shining its brightest orange despite the grey. I would have picked one to go with my pink spiky motif if it weren’t illegal to free the state flower. (Who made that crap up anyway?) It was brisk, and foggy yes- but warm enough to break a sweat- and with the light breeze, the sweating didn’t suck so bad. It cooled the skin perfectly.
Finally, we got to our destination, the bottom of the Mushroom. Matt and I plopped down, and stared up at the rock formation above our heads- the cap of the Mushroom. We started talking about different Christian Ska and Punk bands. Was MxPx better than Five Iron Frenzy? What about The W’s?
Christina was speaking with Amanda a short ways away in a hushed tone. Amanda looked sick, and after a few minutes, she turned and jogged down the pathway that led back to camp. This would never fly- we were not supposed to be alone up here. We could get into trouble- and so could Amanda. But like holy hell- I was not going to go jogging down to get her after the hike up here wore me out so bad.
When Christina came and sat down, Matt asked her what had happened.
“I told Amanda that I saw some counselor that she’s into making out with another girl behind the chapel. And that I thought the other girl might be a camper, not a counselor.” She giggled.
Matt sat up with a bolt- and I could tell he was bothered, because he never cussed. “Why would you do that, Christina?”
She smirked. She… liked that he didn’t like her. “I wanted to be alone with you two. I need your help with something.” She pulled her backpack around to the front of her, and began taking out weird objects. Something furry, something dark red, something that looked like a misshapen stick, a cross…
When she pulled out the star inside of a circle- Matt went white as a sheet. I’m willing to wager I did too.
“Christina, why did you bring this stuff… and a pentagram up here?” I asked her.
She explained that the Pentagram is misunderstood. It is not a sign of Satanism, she said. Rather, in her estimation, it was a sign of Heaven on Earth, and the flow of knowledge and power from Heaven to Earth. She told us that it was okay to be skeptical, but not okay to be scared. She was going to free all three of us from our bonds. She put all her weird things in some sort of order, and started reading from a book in Latin. Matt and I… just sat there and stared at her. What could we do? I mean, we could just leave her there, but then we would get in more trouble. We weren’t allowed to split up and leave someone behind. Plus, I mean… have you ever heard the saying “like watching a train wreck”? It was sort of like that. We couldn’t look away. Something held us there.
Eventually she finished her little chant, closed the book, and packed away all her things. Without even looking at us, she got up, and began her descent down the hill. Matt and I exchanged a scared look and followed her back down. At some point he took my hand. My first time holding hands with a boy should have been sweet and romantic, but we were doing it for other reasons. We were both really scared. Later we would share with one another that we each could feel something behind us, following us down that hill. But we were too scared, or proud, or whatever to look. We just held hands and followed Christina back to Camp.
I had a very hard time falling asleep that night. One, I kept thinking of Matt, and the hand-holding. Did I like him? I mean, no. No way. Weird. Ew. I had literally never thought of him like that- except somewhere between 5-6 when I would make him play house – and ironically, he was always the woman, and I was the breadwinner. He didn’t seem to mind playing wife, and quite frankly, I thought he might be gay. Even though it was a sin. But he was cute, and he did have those piercing blue eyes…
Then there was that other stuff. What the hell was this girl’s problem? Why would she lie to Amanda like that? Why would she make us sit there while she pulled out all her weird Satanic artifacts? I mean… okay, do that kind of thing at home. But at a Christian camp? Just this morning we were hand-in-hand praying for that crippled kid to stand up and walk, in Jesus name and all that. Eventually, I dozed, feeling both a little excited for what lay around the corner with Matt, and a little scared, for what lay in the bed across from mine.
Around 3:30, I heard a loud bang. No. I didn’t just hear it, I felt it. Like it was coming from inside of me, or from all around me. I must have shook, but I didn’t open my eyes just yet. I was trembling in fear, instantly. After what seemed like forever, I could hear heavy panting coming from Christina’s side of the room. I willed myself to open my eyes, but wished I hadn’t immediately.
Christina had gotten out of bed, and was on the floor. Only, it was a handstand. She was doing a handstand, without falling. She was perfectly still. There was no swaying, or lack of balance. She was stiff as a pole. As if she was standing. As if she was just meant to be this way. I flicked on the lamp light, next to the bed.
Right as I did, she started to piss herself. And, it was weird, because I could hear it, as well as see it. It sounded like a squirt gun. Since she was upside down, it started to run up her crotch, up her stomach, and to her face. I watched its descent. She… she was smiling. At. Me.
My legs felt like Jell-O. For a moment I almost relaxed because I thought, “Okay, I can’t run and I can’t scream. It’s a dream”. But usually, when I have that thought in a dream, I start floating instantly, so I knew it was real. (Yes, my mind really does work that way.)
As she continued to piss herself, smiling at me all the while, the urine began to run into her mouth, nose, eyes and hair. It began to pool around her head on the floorboards. I willed each step to happen. I forced myself to peel my eyes away from that horrible, piss-soaked smile. When I reached the door, she gurgled my name. It sounded like two people speaking from a mile away, but also inside of my head.
“Rachel.”
I ran. I didn’t know where to go. I was more disoriented from sleep than I thought I was. I thought for a moment about running to Matt’s room… and while I knew where the window was, I wasn’t sure which room belonged to him because I wasn’t allowed over there. So I made do with the floor supervisor, which happened to be Amanda.
I knocked on the door. I could hear the scuffle of sheets, some quiet mumbling, and not soon enough, the shuffle of slippered feet to the door. Ugh, she looked stunning even when she was mostly asleep.
Her eyes immediately narrowed at the sight of me. “Nice prank today, kiddo. What is this about?”
She seemed angry, but I think the look of terror on my face might have helped my case slightly, because she seemed to soften up as I started talking. “Um, Manda, I’m sorry… that wasn’t me… I um, I’m pretty scared. Christina is acting really weird… and she peed herself.”
“What do you mean, ‘weird’?”
“Can you just come with me and look? I… I don’t… please? Just come over and see?”
Without another word, she shut the door behind herself, and I followed her back to my dorm. The light was off- which was strange, because I had left it on. Amanda flicked on the overhead lights.
Christina was in bed, clearly asleep. She sat up squinting, and rubbing sleep from her eyes. She was dry. Her hair was dry. Her pajamas were dry. What was going on?!
Amanda asked Christina bluntly if she had peed the bed. Christina responded saying that this was a stupid way to repay her for her little joke on the hill and laid back down. Amanda shot me a look of sincere contempt and ordered me back into bed. I put forth little protest- I didn’t want to explain what happened in front of Christina. Quite frankly, I didn’t want to explain it at all. It must have just been a dream. It had to be. Only, I don’t remember waking up after the piss-in-mouth-handstand, I remembered waking up before it. But I brushed it aside. It was a dream.
As I dosed off, I could hear that strange giggle I heard earlier at Mushroom Rock after Christina’s little “prank”. I willed myself to sleep despite my racing mind, for the second time that night.
The next day at breakfast, Matt was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t at Chapel or games either. I didn’t see him until lunch. Christina on the other hand, was more attached than ever. Talking up a storm as though nothing had changed. Her blow dryer wasn’t working. Jesus was really amazing wasn’t he? Isn’t it great to be out in nature with God and his creations? She’s been thinking of taking on aspects of my style. She likes the ripped tights look. Maybe with Chucks instead of boots.
When I saw Matt sitting alone at lunch, I looked over at Christina and told her I wanted to talk to Matt. She said that was a good idea, because we hadn’t seen him all day.
“No, I mean, I think he and I should talk… alone.”
The briefest look of hatred crossed her face, but then she smiled. “Ah, yes, the hand-holding incident on the hike. Tsk-tsk. Remember – this is camp, not a porno, but I’ll leave you to it.” She set down her lunch uneaten, and sauntered away.
I looked at her for a full minute as she walked off. I realized my mouth was hanging open, so I shut it. What would possess her to say something like that? Firstly, Matt was my best friend, and it should be perfectly acceptable if I wanted to have a private conversation with him. Secondly, while I was quite prudish at fourteen, and still a virgin, I was certainly not an idiot, and I knew that holding someone’s hand was significantly different than videotaping someone getting slammed. I suppressed my growing anger as I turned and walked over to Matt and took my seat.
He looked sullen, and sounded down-right depressed. “What was that all about?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know. And, even if you did, I wouldn’t know what to tell you.”
He shook his head like that was a perfectly reasonable response. He was a very perceptive kid. “I had a really bad nightmare last night. Like, really bad.”
I must have startled him, because I looked up quickly, and he spilled some of his drink. “Me too, Matt. I had some weird, creepy dreams. What was yours about?”
“I was hiking alone at night, and I went down behind the chapel. I started walking down the path, headed toward the exit to the clearing, and when I got there, you were there, and… uh…” He turned bright red.
I shifted. I felt uncomfortable, and a little excited. He dreamed of me. “It’s okay, just tell me.”
“Okay, well, I don’t want you to think it was my fault because it wasn’t. I mean, it was, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t, like, perverted… I mean, on my part… I didn’t… Ugh. Okay, the thing is, in the dream, you were naked.”
My eyes went wide. I didn’t expect to hear that. “Oh.”
“No, Rach, listen. It wasn’t like… Ugh, you were laying on this wooden table, and you were strapped down, and Christina was standing at the head of the table, looking at me. Like, summoning me.”
I guess I must have been beet red, too, because that is where he stopped explaining the dream. When I finally looked up at him, he just looked so beaten. The poor guy had a nightmare, and I was making him feel badly because of it. I reached out to him, and he took my hand instantly. It was cold and clammy, but it felt safe.
“It’s okay, Matt, everyone has those sorts of dreams. I mean, I have had, like at least 18 dreams where you’re naked.”
He looked startled. “Is that true?”
“Not at all.” We both burst out into laughter. It felt good to laugh, like it was foreign… it must have been forever since I had last laughed. But that couldn’t be true. I tried to think- but it was useless. I had no idea. When we were both able to get our bearings, he asked the next question.
“What was your dream about?”
“Well, it was about Christina. I dreamed she was doing a handstand, and peeing all over her face.” We both burst out laughing again. And again, it felt good, and foreign. Once our laughter subsided, I continued.
“What was weird, though, was I could swear it really happened. I ran to Manda, and woke her up. But when we got back to the room, Christina was dry. Like it had never happened. So I thought it must have been a dream.”
All of the red in Matt’s face gave way to the pale white of fear. “That’s the part I didn’t tell you, Rach. When I woke up, I was behind the chapel. In the clearing. I guess I… sleep-walked.”
After lunch, Matt and I decided to go sit by the fireplace, to listen to a counselor everyone nicknamed Topher play the guitar. We thought it would be a good way to unwind. Matt asked me if we could take a break from Christina. It used to be that he just thought she was annoying. Now he was a little freaked out by her. I reluctantly agreed. I didn’t much like her anymore either, but it would be hard for me to avoid her since I was rooming with her. It would be awkward, yes. But camp would be over in three weeks, and we would go home, and never have to deal with it again. Next year I could just put in a request not to room with her. No prob.
That night, I decided to bite the bullet and just tell Christina that what she did up at Mushroom rock wasn’t cool. Telling Amanda that lie about the guy she was digging wasn’t cool, and the comment about Matt and I being in a porno together- way not cool. I felt I handled it pretty well, and was as nice and tactful as anyone could be given the situation. Actually… you know what? That isn’t entirely true. I was pretty upset. So, I guess I could have been a little nicer. But I wouldn’t say I was mean about it. I would say I was matter-of-fact.
At the end of the conversation, I told Christina that I didn’t think the three of us should hang out anymore. I told her I didn’t mind being around her in the dorm, and I wouldn’t ask for a room transfer, but during activities and stuff, from now on it would just be Matt and I. To be honest, after her display in the cafeteria, I was scared that she was going to be super mad. But, she seemed to take it pretty well. She didn’t try to argue her way out of it, and she said she understood. That was that.
* * * * * *
That night I dreamed that I was strapped to a table in the clearing behind the chapel. Leather bound my arms above my head, and held my legs in a spread-eagle position. Christina stood above me, and she was also naked. She and I were both aroused. It turned me on, the way she looked down at me, and then up to the sky. I was scared, but I wanted whatever this was. Whatever was going to happen. I needed it. I could tell Matt was coming, because Christina kept chanting his and my name. The thought of him made me tingle. I looked up at Christina again, and her face had turned into that of a skeleton. It was black, and crackled. Her beady little eyes had sunken in even further. She opened her mouth a little too wide, and a thin, blood-red tongue shot out, dancing its way towards my face. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t even float away like in other dreams. I awoke as Matt approached the table, also obviously aroused.
This moment was a huge turning point in my life in so many ways. I had never been open to the idea of premarital sex prior to this. My thoughts about the opposite sex were fairly pure – it was just how I was raised. And, I can assure you that I most certainly never thought about the opposite sex romantically. There was so much shame associated with the dream.
I woke up, embarrassed, feeling as if I had legitimately sinned, to Amanda and Christina standing over me. Words couldn’t express how awful the dream had been for me. I felt shattered. To make matters worse, I had peed myself. I glanced at the clock. It was 3:30 in the morning.
“Get up and get in the shower right now!” Amanda cried. “I can’t believe you two! I can’t deal with this!”
She was apparently also ‘pissed’ at having to be woken up again in the middle of the night. I dejectedly got up without saying a word, went into the bathroom, stripped down, and got in the shower.
As I cleaned myself in the shower, I could hear bits and pieces of what Christina was saying to Amanda. “Touching herself… actually, like, moaning… turned on the… tried to wake her…” I was too ashamed to protest. Maybe I was doing those things. I didn’t know. This wasn’t even fair, because I had never touched myself in that way. I was devastated… maybe there are words for how I felt after all.
When I was done showering, Amanda was gone, and Christina was just sitting in bed with a smug smirk on her face. She watched my walk of shame to the bed, and turned off the lamp as I laid down. I cried myself to sleep.
The next day when I saw Matt in the breakfast line, I was too ashamed to talk to him. I grabbed a banana, and decided to walk out to the clearing behind the chapel, just to check it out and sort of psyche myself back into reality. I hadn’t been out here since the summer of 7th grade. It just held no appeal to me. It was a little opening, with a ring of redwood trees, with a fire pit in the middle and a ring of stumps. Lots of dirt, not much to look at.
I plopped down on one of the stumps facing back towards camp. I peeled the banana, and took a bite. Then, for the first of many times, I realized that this was a somewhat phallic object, and I was eating it. In the place where my dream had happened, no less. I lost my appetite, and was tossing the banana in the fireplace when something caught my eye. I got up and walked over to the fire pit. Inside, the burnt remains of the wood were in the shape of a pentagram. I knew Christina had been there, which made me want to leave. I ran. No, I sprinted. My plan was to go all the way back to the dorm and lie down.
Halfway there I was running around the corner of the rec room, and plowed into Matt. We got up without looking at one another, or helping each other, which was strange for us. It was obvious we were both feeling embarrassed. As he clambered to his feet he said, “Uh, I think we need to talk.”
We went to the playground. Offset behind the hotel, it was a total 70’s throwback, complete with a carousel. We sat on it, side-by-side, and spun ourselves with our feet. We sat like that quietly for about fifteen minutes before one of us had the courage to say anything. It was Matt.
“I had the dream again.”
“Me too. I had the same dream as you. I was on a table.”
This didn’t seem off to him. We sat quietly for another couple minutes.
“I really like you a lot, and I don’t want whatever weirdness is happening to ruin our friendship, or whatever else.” He stopped the carousel with his feet and looked at me. I couldn’t look back.
“Yeah, I don’t want anything to pull us apart either. I love you.”
You might think this is a big thing to say to your best friend (and possible crush), but we had been expressing love to each other since we were little.
“I love you, too.” He started moving his feet again. And we just sat like that, going round and round.
During the course of the next week, not a lot happened that needs too much dragging out. You should know that the nightmares continued for both Matt and I, and continued to heighten in extremity, culminating in consummation. I never peed myself again, but I woke up in a cold sweat every morning, scared to death. I became scared of sleeping because I didn’t want to have any more of those dirty, horrible dreams.
Matt and I remained inseparable, and did our best to steer clear of Christina. However, it seemed futile; everywhere we went, there she seemed to be. Always looking directly at us. When we were in the dining hall eating, she was somewhere across the way, staring. When we went to the chapel for service, she was in the vicinity… staring. If we were walking, or going to the rec room for a game of ping pong, she watched our every move from wherever she was. It became really eerie.
Also, a few days after the incident in which I had wet myself, I was forced to have a “heart-to-heart” with a pastor about self-pleasure, and why it was a sin. He asked me if I was sexually active, and if I liked the way it felt. At first I thought he was just concerned for me, and about my sins, but now I know better. I didn’t tell him about the dreams.
At night, as I fell asleep, I could hear Christina’s chanting. I wanted to tell her off, but I was scared. After the last time I confronted her, I didn’t dare do it again. Who knows? Maybe this time, I would wake up to something even worse. I wasn’t going to risk it.
Then one morning, I woke up at 3:30 am, to Christina’s horrible giggles. I had had it. I flicked on the lamp… but the room was empty. The giggles dissipated as the light filled the room. I walked into the bathroom to get some water, and glanced up into the mirror. She had drawn a pentagram onto my forehead! I flipped out. I tried to wash it off, but she must have done it in sharpie. The best I could do was to minimize its appearance, but it was still clear what it was. If I went anywhere in camp with this on my head they would send me straight home without a second thought.
I changed my mind about confronting Christina, and decided I would face her, no matter the consequence. But she never came back to the room. In the morning I donned a beanie, and set out to look for her where I thought she would be. The clearing behind the chapel. When I got there, Matt was already in the clearing, staring into the woods.
He too was wearing a beanie… and I didn’t even have to ask. Somehow she had gotten to him and put the pentagram on him as well. That’s why he was here looking for her. Well, even better. We could confront her together. But she wasn’t there.
What was there instead were several dead animals – foxes, squirrels, and dogs, even a pair of young deer – surrounding a five-pointed star on the forest floor. All of them had been placed in lewd positions too grotesque to describe.
Matt turned his head, bent over and started to heave. Hearing him puke turned my stomach, and I followed suit. While I was lurching the leftovers of the previous night’s dinner, I heard a familiar gurgly voice again. The one that called my came as I ran from the room when Christina was pissing into her mouth. It was then I realized that it hadn’t been a dream at all.
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. I heard it in my head, and from all around me. It was as though the voice occupied the same space as every particle of air. I could breathe it in. I could taste it.
“Step into the circle.”
Matt snapped up. He heard it too, thank God. Christina came out of the forest, completely nude. And… I know this seems impossible – and if you were with me to this point, I might lose you here – but I swear to God. No, I swear on my own life. On Matt’s life. She… had changed. Her arms were longer and thinner. Her fingers were longer. Claw-like. She was very, very thin. I could see every bone. Her clavicles looked like diving boards sticking out of her neck and shoulders. She was covered in black dirt and dried blood. Her face was sallow and sunken. Her eyes, far too large to be natural, bulged out of their sockets.
I could smell her from where I was. The scent a mixture sulfur and rotten meat, simultaneously disgusting and sweet. The smell combined with the already putrid taste in my mouth, and made me start to heave again.
Christina raised her line of vision skyward, and opened her mouth. Too wide. Easily three times as wide as any human should be able to open their mouth. A long, snake-like tongue emerged and slithered around. With her blood-encrusted, needle-like fingers, she began… touching herself. Her head snapped back towards us.
Matt grabbed my hand and pulled me one step backwards. Then another. He was saving me. Every step we put between ourselves and this creature felt a little better… but as long as it was looking at us like that, hypnotically massaging itself, I was paralyzed. So Matt was doing it for me.
Suddenly, the creature got on all fours, like it was going to spring at us.
“RACHEL!” Matt screamed. “RUN!” Though he could have easily let go of my hand, he never did. He could have escaped faster without me, but he never left me behind.
He dragged me along. All the while, I was sobbing and stumbling as fast as I could. I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to be the one saving him. I could feel the thing behind us. I was reminded of that walk up to Mushroom Rock. Closer. We couldn’t outrun it. We would never make it back to camp in time. I could feel it. Breathing on my neck. Right behind me. I felt it’s tongue tickle my ear.
Most shockingly, I could hear all the evil things it wanted me to do. It whispered of ecstasy, and knowledge greater than my own. It told a story of immediate gratification. I didn’t know if Matt could hear… but neither of us wanted those things. We wanted our innocence. We wanted to choose.
As a claw swiped at my back and tore my dress, we made it to the clearing. We were panting, and kids in the quad area stopped what they were doing and stared. We must have been quite a spectacle. Matt and I spun around, just in time to see the bony black figure disappear into the shadowy cover of the woods. Bawling, we held each other closely. We sat there in that embrace for what seemed like forever. It felt so good to be held after all of it.
Eventually the counselors came over and asked us to explain what was going on. When we couldn’t, we were led into the head Pastor’s office.
Now usually, in stories, or movies- the people try to keep everything to themselves because they know that people won’t believe them. But, this was Jesus camp. We spilled our guts. We told him everything… except about what had happened in our dreams. That was too embarrassing for both of us.
Eventually, the Pastor assembled a group of counselors and assistant Pastors to go out into the woods in search of Christina. They found her about two hours later, hanging from a tree. She had killed herself.
I don’t know the details of what she looked like, but if her appearance had been demonic, I imagine we would have heard about it.
The camp was abuzz. There were cops and ambulances everywhere. Special therapists came as well, to make sure we weren’t traumatized, and maybe because there were some cult things involved.
I was questioned by two unsympathetic police officers for hours. They insinuated that it was my refusal to hang out with Christina that drove her to suicide. They insisted she was just a confused kid, mixed up in some dark things, not all that different from what I had been involved with. After I’d been driven to tears, the Pastor who was supervising my interview interjected, and told them that was enough. And I was excused.
They placed Christina’s time of death sometime a
|
It was the last week of school before Christmas break. That meant that the students and teachers of Ridgecrest Christian Preparatory Academy had little intention of actually working. Most classes had become a social hour but Mr. Winthrop had decided to take this opportunity to give his senior English class a writing assignment. He requested that each student write a two-page essay detailing their holiday traditions. The class groaned in their displeasure. All of them except the golden boy, Jeremy Bascom.
Jeremy Bascom was perfect. Perfect blond hair, blue eyes, and a pearly-white smile. The kind of boy you wanted your daughter to date. Jeremy would credit this to being perfectly made by his Lord and Savior. His one annoying quality was the need to remind everyone of his faith and the pitfalls of anyone who did not believe in it. Jeremy and his small group of like-minded friends were quick to correct anyone who thought different and enjoyed any opportunity to spread the message of their faith. He was a walking and talking reminder of what it meant to be Christian. Everything about him showed it, all the way down to the golden cross that was permanently pinned to his Polo shirts. So, when given the task of writing about the reason for the season, Jeremy was more than enthused. He did have one question, however.
“What should those of us write about who do not celebrate Christmas?” Jeremy remarked while glaring across the room toward the pale and dark-haired girl in the corner of the room.
Emma Campbell responded with a sneer and a raised middle finger. It was no secret that Emma did not believe in God but teenage rumors had spread that she practiced the dark arts of witchcraft. The truth was, the only thing Emma knew of spells and magic were the stories her grandmother had told her of the old days in Scotland. As a child she would sit, her green eyes wide as her ancestor told of the druids performing rituals to summon the power of their gods. Her favorite was one of justice. A humble servant saved from torture by the power of the gods, having turned their assailant into a simple birch tree. She would beg her grandmother to tell the story and each time her grandmother would assure her that the place full of birches was real.
Emma had never actually witnessed magic though. It was only day-to-day rituals that her mother still performed out of habit. There was always incense burning and a blessing before the day would begin. The type of thing that was hardly any different than lighting a candle or saying a prayer. The only reason Emma even attended a Christian school was the academic benefit it afforded. She contemplated her grandmother’s many stories and began writing. If Mr. W wanted to know about tradition, she would write about the winter solstice as she had been taught.
Mr. Winthrop had to calm the chuckles of his class before answering, “Everyone has traditions, not just Christians and I am interested in reading about all of them. So, please give me your best work.”
When the bell rang to signal the end of the period the room went from silent scribbling noise to a clamor of shuffling seats. Mr. Winthrop raised his voice in an attempt to remind them all that the assignment would be due before each of them left for the holidays. Few of them were paying any attention, however. Emma was the last to exit the room, much like always, and quietly navigated between the hordes of teenagers within the hall. When she approached her locker Jeremy Bascom and his goons had congregated around it. She sighed, knowing that she would have to endure a lecture to gain access to her belongings. Jeremy’s smirk made her sick, despite how perfect his teeth were.
“Please just let me get to my locker,” Emma begged.
Jeremy leaned forward, “First, let me see what you are writing for Mr. W’s class.”
Emma’s eyes rolled as she felt her notebook pull free from her hands. She yelled for it to be returned but the group had quickly surrounded Jeremy. They hovered over the pages and read about a celebration of the Winter Solstice. A joyous time of giving, decoration, and feast. Emma had been taught long ago that many of the Christian traditions had been borrowed from Pagan ones and adapted to form what we know as Christmas. She watched as Jeremy’s face changed from amusement to anger with each passing word. Emma knew that within Jeremy’s mind she was a sinner, a blasphemer, and doomed to the pits of Hell. She could even see it in his eyes when he finally looked at her.
“God does not like it when we spread lies, especially about him,” Jeremy said as he began tearing the pages from Emma’s notebook.
Emma’s voice roared, “They aren’t lies! They are stories my grandmother use to tell me.”
The girl refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She held strong to the tears that wished to flow from her eyes as her notebook was shoved back into her hands. This was something Emma had become accustomed to. The group dispersed as the next bell rang and though she should have made her way to class, her heart was no longer in it. Instead, she made her way to the restroom and sat within a stall to release her sorrow drop by drop into her palms. In that tiny space, she found herself beseeching the gods of her grandmother to save her from his pain. Emma hoped that the god of revenge Arawn could come swooping in and teach Jeremy Bascom a lesson.
That night Emma’s sleep was restless. Her mind was still filled with the tortures of the day and wishes of a solution. It took her hours to find peace but once she had, she also found dreams. She found herself walking among stark white birch trees. A pale blue gown of cotton and lace draped over her thin frame and lilies sat like a crown upon her head. The air was warm and sweet, the birds chirped overhead, and the wind played a tune that reminded her of the music her grandmother use to play. Soon, she found herself amidst a clearing and within the center sat two ghostly looking hounds with bright red ears. They sat intent, watching as she approached them and made no movement toward her.
From beyond the trees, a figure appeared in black. A hood covered scattered strands of gray as the person hobbled upon a cane toward the clearing. As the person stopped beside the dogs a frail and withered hand pushed back the hood to reveal the wrinkled and worn face of an old crone. Her eyes were glassy, much like that of the sightless but she stared intently at Emma as if she were peering into her very soul. The woman gave a gentle smile and reached out her hand to brush at Emma’s cheek. The woman’s smell was of fresh grass and the sensation was calming. She felt like a child again, being soothed by her grandmother when she was in pain.
“Young one, do not despair. We see you,” the woman spoke softly.
A tear rolled from one of Emma’s eyes as she spoke, “Who are you?”
“A friend of your family, dearie,” the woman replied. “You may call me Matilda.”
“Is this the place my grandmother told me about?” Emma whispered.
Matilda nodded, “This place is full of magic and if you believe you will witness it.”
And with those words, small specks of light erupted from the flowers beneath Emma’s feet. They danced within the air around her body and a sound like tiny voices singing echoed in her ears. It was soft and soothing like a lullaby. Her eyes began to flutter and her knees became weak. Emma knelt within the soft grass and found herself laying down within the poppies. The sweet smell of the flowers, the calming song, and the comforting ground beneath her lulled her to sleep. Her body lay still while the old crone and her hounds disappeared into the birches beyond the clearing, humming a tune from a time long since passed. Emma did not stir the rest of the night and a smile rested on her lips.
The following day Emma felt rejuvenated. It was almost as if every weight of the world she lived in had been lifted from her shoulders. There was even a sparkle in those emerald eyes. A light that not even the heckling from Jeremy and his friends could dim. Their laughter faded into the distance as she thought about her dream. It left the group confused, especially Jeremy. A seed of curiosity was planted at that moment. Jeremy had to know why Emma seemed so at peace. Before he had completely thought about his actions his feet were moving. He picked up the pace until he was walking in stride with Emma.
“What’s got you in such a good mood?” he quizzed.
Emma smirked, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
She disappeared into her biology class and when Jeremy followed Mrs. Simmons stopped him and questioned if he might be lost. Jeremy did not share this class with Emma. As she took her seat she gave a slight giggle at the sight of the boy being escorted from the room. Even if Jeremy had not properly received his punishment for being so cruel, it was good enough to improve Emma’s mood. Her notebook was filled with doodles of dancing fairies, flowers, and rows of birch trees. She could not get the image of her dream out of her head and just thinking of Matilda made her smile and something about that upset Jeremy. He could not get Emma out of his head.
Emma’s smile was like an itch Jeremy could not scratch. He was distracted by it for the rest of the day and during his evening meal with his family. Normally, he was enthusiastic about sharing the events of school with his father and mother but tonight he asked to be excused early. Jeremy changed for bed, hoping that a good night’s rest would ease his inner turmoil but as soon as he shut his eyes Emma’s face awaited him. Her wavy brown hair, sparkling green eyes, and supple pink lips haunted him. He tossed and turned, adjusted his pillows, and fought with his own imagination for hours before finally finding sleep. His mind could not let go of the image and it slowly crept its way into his dreams.
Jeremy awoke laying in a bed of grass surrounded by poppies. The cool night air whipped through the birch trees that circled the clearing and the only light was that of the moon above. He brought his body up slightly, resting his weight on his elbows. From the forest beyond a form approached. As the thin figure stepped out into the moonlight he recognized Emma’s face. She slowly approached, grasping hold of the hem of her pale blue gown. She knelt beside him and whispered his name. He stared at her mouth, noticing how red and plump they seemed almost like an apple. She leaned down, pressing those very lips against his and he could not resist pressing back into her loving kiss. He could hear singing echo through the trees around him and specks of light danced around them, shining like tiny stars. It was magical.
He felt her hand trail down his body then come to rest between his legs. His eyes widened as her palm rubbed at the cloth that separated their skin. He knew what he was doing was wrong but it felt so good. His body reacted in kind, his manhood growing firm under her touch. She smiled at the sensation then leaned back, retracting her hand in order to pull gently at the bindings that held her gown in place. The cloth lowered to reveal her naked form beneath. Jeremy’s mouth hung agape as his eyes trailed her perky breasts and smooth skin. He had never witnessed the female body before and his excitement only grew. The beautiful young woman before him pulled down upon his pants, revealing his rigidness before taking him inside her. Her body rocked slowly atop his lap, gasping in pleasure. Jeremy laid back upon the soft grass and moaned with every motion. Within moments he could no longer hold in his ecstasy and released himself inside of her.
Emma came to an abrupt halt as she felt his fluids fill her. Her smile slowly crooked into a smirk as she lifted her pale form off of him. She pulled her gown back up over her shoulders and bound the strapping. She bent slightly, kissing Jeremy on his forehead before pressing her index finger to her lips as if telling him to keep this a secret. Then, just as quickly as she had arrived, she disappeared into the birches. Jeremy was left soaked in his own sweat and juices in the middle of the clearing. He jerked awake to find himself still in his bed. It had all been a dream. He spent the next few moments asking forgiveness for his lustful thoughts and prayed for the strength to ignore them if they were to return.
Emma’s smile failed to leave her as the rest of the week progressed and it tortured Jeremy to no end. Every time his eyes fell upon her, all he could think of was his dream and being inside her. He prayed more in the days that followed than he ever had before. He prayed for relief from the torment but it did not come. When he could stand it no longer, he found his way to Emma’s locker and waited. When she arrived to retrieve her things at the end of the day Jeremy stood tapping his foot impatiently. His hair was a mess, his eyes were dark, and almost resembled an addict that had not had his fix in a few days.
“Rough couple of days?” she quipped.
Jeremy tried to smile, “You could say that.”
“You mind if I get to my locker?” Emma questioned.
Jeremy quickly stepped to the side, “Yeah, sure… so um, the thing is… I was wondering if you might want to-um… you know…”
Emma giggled slightly listening to the stammering of the boy, “Spit it out, I gotta get going.”
Jeremy attempted to steel himself, his eyes getting more serious, “Will you go out with me?”
Emma could hardly contain her laughter, it erupted from her mouth and echoed through the hallway. She had no words to properly respond. Jeremy attempted to laugh as well but he could not find humor in his question. He needed her to say, “yes”. He asked again but she simply ignored the question and closed her locker. Emma made her way down the hall with Jeremy following close behind. Tears formed in his eyes as he began to beg and at one point he even got down on his knees. The sight was truly pathetic and when it only offered another laugh from Emma’s lips he became angry. He stood abruptly and grabbed her by the arm and demanded she go out on a date with him.
“Take your hands off of her right now!” Mr. Winthrop’s voice boomed from down the hall.
Jeremy’s fingers shot open, releasing his hold on her arm in a second. Emma was shocked at Jeremy’s actions but even more frightened of the look in his eyes. She could see madness behind those eyes. She did not hesitate to step back and head toward the door. Within moments she was out the door and on her bus. Jeremy was left defeated in the hallway, wondering how he could have been led to this madness. He only had one answer. Emma must have cast a spell on him and he would have to break it. That was the only way for him to return to sanity and possibly save his soul from damnation. The plot began to form in his head as he exited the building and sat in his car. His tires poured smoke as he peeled out of the parking lot and down the road for home.
The next day Emma had made it a point to avoid Jeremy, which she found to be easy because he had not attended classes that day. She just had to make it until the end of school and they would be out for the holidays. She could not help but wonder what had possessed Jeremy to act the way he had and the thought clouded her mind most of that day. She stared at his empty seat in Mr. Winthrop’s class, which the teacher noticed. When the bell rang, he asked Emma to stay behind to question her about the incident but she had fewer answers than even her teacher. Emma had wanted Jeremy punished for how cruel he had been to her all these years but now she felt as though it had gone too far. Even as much as she had wanted to see him suffer, she still felt pity for Jeremy.
When Emma arrived home her mother was descending the stairs from the attic. Emma flashed her normal smile and asked what her mother had been doing. Normally, cleaning out the house was saved for springtime but something had possessed her to bring down some items that had been stored away. Dust filled the air as Emma’s mother opened a trunk that held the only remaining items that her grandmother had owned. Several of the books that held those stories Emma remembered from her childhood were piled to one side. The rest were tattered garments and tucked beneath them was an old white jewelry box. Emma knelt by the trunk and pulled things from it with her mother. Her eyes widened as she revealed a light blue gown that resembled the one from her dream.
“Your grandmother loved that dress,” Emma’s mother beamed.
Emma held the garment to her body and noticed it was her size, “Do you think I could keep this?”
“I don’t see why not, there is no way I’m fitting into that thing,” her mother laughed as she opened the jewelry box.
Emma went upstairs to try on the dress. She slipped out of the ratty jeans and t-shirt she had become accustomed to wearing to school and slid the soft fabric over her shoulders. She reached behind her and tied the straps in place before stepping over to the full-length mirror by her window. She smiled at the sight, feeling more beautiful than she ever had. At that moment her mother stepped into the doorway and leaned against the doorframe to admire the lovely young woman her daughter had become.
When Emma noticed her mother watching she gave a laugh and twirled in the gown. Her mother wiped a tear from her eye and revealed what she had found within the jewelry box. It was a silver necklace with a star-shaped pendant. Within the center of the star was what her grandmother use to call a “rune”. Her mother told her that it was the one piece of jewelry that her grandmother always wore. She thought it protected her and as Emma’s mother placed it around her neck she hoped it would protect her daughter just the same. The girl took the trinket between her index and thumb, rubbing it gently and thinking of her grandmother’s smiling face.
A car sat idle across the street. Jeremy Bascom stared from the driver’s seat, his eyes intent on the open window of Emma’s bedroom. He had watched as she changed into the dress and it only served to make him angrier. It felt as though he was being tortured little-by-little and he was unsure of how much more he could take. He watched and waited as the light of the moon illuminated the night. His eyes were intent on that window until the light went out and he was sure everyone inside would be asleep. He stepped from his car and quietly approached the front yard. Gathering small pebbles in his hand he prepared to hurl them to Emma’s window to get her attention.
The sound of tapping caused Emma to stir. She had fallen asleep in her grandmother’s gown and felt foolish for still having it on. The tapping came again and caused her to turn to the window. She watched as another small fragment collided with the window pane. She eased from her bed and slowly made her way to the wall. Jeremy was readying another rock when he noticed her face. He smiled and waved from the ground. Emma unlatched the window and eased it open in order to lean out.
“Jeremy, what in the heck are you doing here?” she whispered in an annoyed tone.
“Sorry for coming over so late but I wanted to apologize for the other day,” Jeremy responded, trying to remain quiet as well.
Emma rolled her eyes, “Yeah, well apologize and get out of here.”
“Come on,” Jeremy begged, “at least let me say it face-to-face.”
“You keep it up and my parents are going to wake up,” she scolded, “and trust me you do not want my dad to catch you out here.”
“Just come down and let me say what I need to say and you won’t see me again,” Jeremy pleaded.
“Fine,” Emma huffed, “go around back though, they will hear me open the front door.”
Jeremy almost leaped with excitement as he rounded the house and headed toward the back porch. Emma leaned back in and shut the window. As she headed to her door she looked at herself in the mirror one more time. She grasped her grandmother’s pendant and said a little prayer for protection. She hoped that whatever had been watching out for her would continue to do so. She then crept down the stairs and through the kitchen toward her back door. Her eyes scanned the porch but could not see Jeremy. Her fingers slowly disengaged the lock and turned the knob while easing the door open. She called out quietly into the night but received no response.
“Jeremy,” she hissed, “this isn’t funny!”
As she stepped out onto the porch she noticed how bright the moon was. “If you don’t cut it out I am going back insi-,” her words were cut short as a cloth-covered hand clamped down across her mouth. A scent of strong chemical engulfed her nose and her head began to spin. Her limbs suddenly felt weak as she fell back into Jeremy’s arms. He was speaking to her but the words were distant and muffled. It was followed by a maddening grin just before everything went black. While unconscious her grandmother came to her in a vision, whispering softly for her to be strong and remember the birches.
When Emma came to she found her mouth bound shut with part of her gown. It had been ripped into pieces and tied firmly across her lips. She tried to scream for help but the trees around her were unfamiliar. Jeremy had apparently transported her deep into the wooded area behind her house and at this time of night, no one would hear her. It did not take long for salty specks to stain her cheeks. She had no idea what Jeremy had in store for her but she knew it could not be good. Jeremy let out a flurry of curses as he stopped dead in his tracks. Emma’s eyes scanned the area, hoping that maybe he had seen someone else in the woods. That was when she noticed the stark white rows of birches.
Jeremy walked forward, avoiding the ghostly trees around him. Within moments he found himself in the middle of a clearing that was only lit by that full moon above. Poppies scattered across the ground in front of him and it did not take long for either of them to recognize their location. Emma had never known there to be a place like this in the woods behind her home but she had not ventured far before. She wondered if the old woman would appear again to save her but that thought was dashed when Jeremy slung her body to the ground. She tried to yell for help again but the back of Jeremy’s hand silenced her quickly. He searched the area frantically as if looking for something.
When he did not find what he was looking for he turned back to Emma, “What did you do to me?”
She tried to respond but the gag prevented it. At this point, her eyes were swollen from her constant sobbing. Within her head, she was begging for help from anyone or anything that could save her. Jeremy approached, wild-eyed as he tugged at his belt buckle. It did not take long for Emma to realize his intention. Jeremy pulled down his pants as she tried to crawl away. In moments his body was on top of her and he was pulling at her underwear. She could smell the warm breath bursting from his mouth. Jeremy had been drinking. She wriggled, squirmed, and grasped at Jeremy’s face in an attempt to fight him off but he was simply too strong. She begged for him to stop behind through the gag.
“You have warped my mind and perverted it. You have torn me away from God’s grace,” Jeremy’s saliva scattered across her face as he yelled.
“You are an evil and spiteful witch and it is time you were punished for cursing me with this. You do not deserve to be saved,” his voice growled mere inches from Emma’s nose.
Emma knew that if she did not do something Jeremy would have his way with her and there was no telling what he would do after that. She clawed at his face but received his knuckles in her mouth in return. Her gums spilled crimson liquid across her once pink lips and she screamed in agony. She tried to hold onto her grandmother’s gown as Jeremy began to claw at her breasts. She could feel his hardness press against her and there was little time left. That was when she felt the pendant around her neck. She grasped it tightly in her hand and shoved it forward. The hard edge of the silver cut a gash above Jeremy’s eye. Blood poured from the wound while he cried out in pain.
Jeremy stumbled back, holding his head and cursing Emma’s name. She crawled backward on her elbows a few feet before removing the gag finally and attempted to get to her feet. She stumbled and watched Jeremy fall back against one of the birch trees. He propped himself up with one hand, the blood from his forehead staining the white bark. The look in his eyes had not left him. His intent was still true. In his mind, he would have Emma and there was nothing and no one that would stop him. He lurched forward but was drawn back by the hand that rested on the tree. It was stuck, almost as if glued to the wood.
Small specks of light rose from the grass and began to dance around the clearing. A song drifted through the wind and suddenly Emma felt safe. Jeremy’s blood continued to flow from his cut, across his neck, and down his arm. It almost melded with the bark and began to fade into it. The blood became white and rigid along with his fingers. They both watched as inch by inch his skin turned into wood. When the truth of the situation became clear to Jeremy he looked back toward Emma, his face no longer full of anger but instead replaced with fear. Emma’s mouth opened and her voice emitted words of which she had never spoken and yet she seemed to understand them. It was a dialect that her grandmother would sometimes use when telling her stories, “Le cumhachd Arwyn, cuiridh mi do dhroch fhìtheadh an seo leis na craobhan beithe sin.”
“HELP ME!” he yelled as his arm became one with the tree. Emma simply turned away from the horrible sight and looked toward the path they had taken to enter. The old crone stood at the edge of the birches with her two pale hounds. Her index finger was pressed to her lips as if telling the girl to keep their secret. When Emma looked back all that remained of Jeremy was his other hand. The fingers were still reaching out for help as the white bark engulfed them. Each digit became small branches of the newly formed tree. It leaned outward from the tree beside it, still trying to flee but it was no use. The deed was done.
The tree was unrecognizable from the other split formed birches in the area. Emma turned and witnessed just how many similar birches encircled the area. She wondered if each one had been someone to cross her family. She looked back in hopes of thanking the old woman for her help but she and her pets were gone. The fair-skinned girl who had escaped a fate worse than death slowly made her way back home as the first snowflakes of winter began to coat the ground.
As the months passed the mystery of Jeremy’s disappearance had faded from popular conversation. The authorities assumed he simply ran away. Emma was the only one who knew different. So, when the green sprouts pushed through dead leaves she made her way to the woods. She hummed a tune from long ago, twirling in the repaired fabric of her grandmother’s gown. Fat yellow jackets floated in the warm breeze and the air smelled of poppies while she skipped through the brush. Her bare feet were cushioned by the soft grass and her skin was warmed by the springtime air as she found the clearing. Her lips curled into a smile as she found where the birches lean. She knelt beside the tree and thanked the gods once again.
|
Back in 2012, I went to Las Vegas for a couple of weeks to blow off some steam, along with my severance package after I was laid off.
It wasn’t an absurd amount of money, but it was enough to have fun for a few days which was all I wanted.
I was staying at a casino hotel, and one morning I woke up with what I initially assumed was just another hangover. I felt nauseous and slightly dazed, and it took a couple of minutes for my legs and arms to regain their normal levels of sensation.
It’s almost as if my body had slept for a really long time.
Didn’t take long before I realized I was missing a finger.
My left index finger, to be more precise.
I started freaking out and panicking as my vision gradually turned to black, threatening to make me pass out at any given second.
I didn’t lose consciousness, but I still struggled as I looked all over the room for my missing finger.
Something I was quick to notice was that there wasn’t any blood at all. None that I could see, at least.
Of course it could’ve just been my drunken, drugged up and panicked self that couldn’t see or think straight, but the investigation confirmed it later on: no traces of blood were found, and the weapon/object responsible for the deed was also missing.
It appeared to be a clean cut, and the wound had somehow been cauterized.
To me it looked like the finger had simply fallen off.
I know this makes no sense at all, but that was my train of thought. I mean, if you woke up one day missing a finger, you’d certainly look around first, right? So that’s what I did.
I mean it’s a part of you, part of your body, something that’s just not supposed to disappear like that.
I eventually called for help, and to say it was a total shit show doesn’t even come close.
So many cops, casino security and nosy patrons trying to understand what the hell was going on.
I didn’t know what to say, or even what to think.
I was missing a fucking finger and had no idea how or why that happened.
The cops didn’t seem to care all that much. One of them implied something along the lines of me borrowing money from a loan shark or the mob or something like that.
Another one said “it’s just a finger, you should be grateful.”
I was disgusted beyond words, but before I got to defend myself from those accusations, everyone seemed to accept it as the truth.
“When in Vegas,” someone said.
I still filled a ton of paperwork but it was worthless in the end. No clues came up and I could tell it was pointless to bother them about it.
It was fucking Vegas after all, right?
“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” and my finger sure as hell stayed there for all I know.
I threatened to sue the hotel, and the guys in charge ended up giving me some hush money.
I guess having your patrons lose body parts without a good enough reason would be bad for business.
Who would’ve thought?
I think this goes without saying, but the whole ordeal and its aftermath fucking sucked.
Of course things are much different now in hindsight, with me not knowing at the time that it would become a regular thing, but even then it was enough to nearly ruin my life.
I know it was “just” one finger, but how do you come to terms with something like that?
It’s one thing to be involved in a freak accident or even a fight.
But not only did I not know how I had lost it, I also didn’t know why, or even who would want to do something like that to me.
How do you explain that to friends and family?
How do you even begin to wrap your head around something like that?
Imagine waking up every single morning and being reminded almost instantly that a part of your body has gone missing.
If you think you could’ve easily moved past it, then good for you. You’re a better, stronger person than I could ever hope to be, but in my case?
It nearly destroyed me.
I didn’t leave my apartment for months.
I couldn’t think or function normally because the thought of my lost finger was always on my mind. I mean, it USED to be attached to me, and then it disappeared overnight, so it was only natural to be reminded of its absence constantly.
Whenever I reached to grab something, whenever I used or looked at my hands… it would mess me up for the rest of the day.
I hadn’t become fully used to it yet, but thanks to therapy I was on the verge of making peace with it and finally moving on with my life.
And then I lost something else, exactly one year later.
* * * * * *
2013.
I woke up with a very familiar sensation, one that had plagued my nightmares as well as my sleep paralysis incidents for the past year.
I felt sick and numb, my whole body struggling to move and wake up.
Sensation slowly came back to me, followed by pain.
I screamed for my life, as I had done hundreds of times right before waking up in a puddle of sweat, but it was no nightmare.
My right ear had gone missing, in the exact same circumstances as my finger.
No blood, no tools, nothing left behind.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that both incidents had happened on the exact same day of the exact same month.
There was a pattern.
There was, in all likelihood, a reason for this madness, and someone had to be behind it.
And yet absolutely nothing came from it once again.
“Absolutely nothing”… that’s what the cops had to work with, and I was left exactly the same as the year before, except that now I was missing an ear as well.
The cops suspected my then girlfriend at the time. She was a nurse – I think you can guess in under which circumstances we first met – but everything checked out; she had been working all night and dozens of hospital staff accounted for her, as did video surveillance.
While she provided some emotional support at first, she bailed after a few days.
I couldn’t blame her.
Not only was there still no logical explanation to the who, how or why, but someone had managed to make their way into our home, hack a piece of me and leave without seemingly breaking in or even leaving any evidence behind.
That would just about scare anyone into moving away to another state, maybe even another country – which I actually attempted to do at some point, but more on that in a bit – and not only that, but this wasn’t the first time that it had happened, and now all the signs pointed to this becoming an annual event.
And it sure did.
* * * * * *
2014.
Probably the hardest year I had to live through, knowing that someone was actively trying to ruin my life by slowly amputating my body, piece by piece.
I invested a lot in security and would change the locks every other week, but I was never satisfied.
It wasn’t enough.
I barely slept, knowing that each passing day brought me closer to that terrible date.
But what if it didn’t?
What if they decided to come that very night, or the next? Maybe next week, or two months later?
They had done with me as they pleased twice on the exact same day of the year, and the message was clear: they could do what they wanted with me, whenever they wanted, and get away with it.
It probably would’ve been smart to just move to a different place, but my anxiety dictated most of my decisions.
I nearly didn’t talk to anyone that whole year. That on top of my seclusion didn’t do me any good, although it did provide a bare-bones source of comfort.
I lived in constant fear for the first 2/3rds of 2014.
I thought it would get a lot worse as the inevitable date drew closer, but the opposite happened.
I became angrier, with a newfound bloodlust building up inside of me.
Someone was doing this to me, and if they wanted to keep on doing it, they would have to come for me again.
Only this time I would be ready.
I would be expecting them.
They couldn’t possibly get away a third time, and more importantly, I just couldn’t afford to lose anything else.
I couldn’t allow it, as I feared my mind and spirit would simply break apart.
I got myself a gun through some gangbangers, and made sure I’d know how to use it when the time came.
I was ready to take a life, and considering all that had happened to me, I knew I could probably get away with it.
In fact, if anyone had knocked on my door on that day, I would’ve likely unloaded a full clip through the door without thinking twice.
I just needed an excuse, the smallest hint of a threat… anything.
I know I took some pills to make sure that I’d remain awake and aware throughout the night, but my recollection of that evening just fizzles past a certain point.
I thought I’d taken enough steps to guarantee that I’d make it to the next day in one piece (or rather, without losing any more pieces) but I was wrong.
That year they took my right hand, but that’s not all they did.
The weapon I had bought for my protection?
It was left on my desk completely disassembled, with every single part and component neatly, perfectly arranged like it was something straight out of a fucking manual.
They had left a message, perhaps even a warning of things to come, the meaning of which I’m sure I don’t have to explain to you at this stage.
All I knew then is that it was all far from over.
* * * * * *
Living as a shut-in had done me no good, so I had to radically change my approach if I hoped to change anything.
I spent most of 2015 traveling the country, staying at motels and all kinds of sketchy places.
I never knew where I was headed next whenever I got on a cab or hitched a ride. Ditched my phone and made sure to never make reservations of any kind.
That sort of thing, you know, “not leaving a trail behind” and just get off the grid, or at least try to.
Figured that might be enough to lose whoever was after me, even though I had no idea what kind of resources they had available to them.
For a while, I think I really felt confident about it. I believed I could survive the year without losing any more pieces of me.
But as the dreaded date loomed closer, doubts and anxiety found a way to cripple me all over again. In doing so, it gave way for all that mental and physical fatigue to set in, accumulated from nearly a whole year’s worth of traveling around.
What if everything I had done wasn’t enough? Or what if it had all been pointless to begin with?
There was less than a week left at that point, and that’s when I decided to do something very stupid that probably undid all the “work” I’d done so far:
I bought a laptop and used the dark web to hire someone to protect me.
They took my money, but they never showed up.
I lost my tongue that year.
* * * * * *
I didn’t do much of anything in 2016. I moved into a new apartment every couple of months or so, but more out of necessity than anything else.
There was no point for me to move around as I had done the year before, considering how it turned out in the end.
Instead I tried my best to live a normal life as much as possible, despite everything I had lost and with my speech now severely impaired as well.
I kept mostly to myself. On the outside, I appeared to be coping and living with my disabilities as best as I could, but I hadn’t given up.
Every day I kept thinking of a way to stop something that, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be unavoidable no matter what I did.
I kept everything related to this issue bottled up inside my head. That was the only place I was sure they couldn’t look into to see what I was planning.
Even though I spent most of the year thinking of a way to keep it from happening again, I want to make it clear that I didn’t have a grand scheme going on.
I wish I had, but as you would surely understand, I wasn’t exactly in the best of places. Losing body part after body part every single year will do that to you.
All of this just to say that the best thing I came up with was getting on the longest flight available on that particular day. The destination didn’t matter to me.
I figured there was no way someone could get a piece of me while up in the air and with nowhere to run off to. It was impossible, no matter how many scenarios I tried to recreate in my mind.
And if I could spend enough hours up in the air, maybe I could make it, maybe for once I could go through one year without losing a part of me… and maybe the whole thing would finally stop.
I didn’t even make it inside the plane.
Airport security found me passed out in a bathroom, missing my left foot.
* * * * * *
I gave up entirely after that. How could I not?
When I asked for help, they took my tongue.
When I tried to fly away, they took my foot, as if to say that I wasn’t going anywhere.
I didn’t see the point to try and fight it any further, and even if I wanted to pursue some form of resistance, what could I ever attempt to achieve by myself?
What could I ever hope to accomplish in the condition I was in, which only worsened year after year?
Nothing.
There was nothing left for me to do but accept it.
Accept the fact that it was going to happen again, and that I couldn’t do anything about it.
So last year I didn’t do anything extraordinary.
Went to the movie theater in the afternoon, had dinner at the fanciest restaurant I could find without a reservation, and then went straight home.
I didn’t stay up pointing a gun at the door.
I didn’t bother with any last minute thinking that I knew wouldn’t get me anywhere.
I just went to bed and fell asleep, knowing that I’d wake up the following morning less of a man than I was the day before.
I didn’t do anything, except leaving a handwritten note by my bedside.
“Why?” was all it said.
“Why?” was all I needed to know.
I figured since I had accepted and stopped trying to fight it, that they would at least humor my request and just tell me why they were doing this to me.
Why me.
An answer was all I wanted, and it wasn’t much to ask for considering everything that had been taken from me already.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect even if they were to leave me an answer, since nothing could possibly justify what had been done to me.
I never did anything to anyone that could warrant this kind of vengeance. No crazy people in my life or insane ex-girlfriends, none at all. And if this had been a case of mistaken identity, or misdirected revenge? I could never get any of it back.
What’s done is done, but I still had to know.
I needed something to go on, no matter how fucking insane or deluded it might me.
I needed to know the reasoning behind this slow process that was progressively erasing my existence from this world.
I woke up missing an eye and all I got was the following response, left on the same sheet of paper:
“Why not?”
* * * * * *
That brings us to now.
I know that there might’ve been other things I could’ve done, other actions I could’ve taken.
Back when they left my gun completely disassembled, or even when they answered my note, I could’ve asked the cops to look for fingerprints or some kind of evidence, but did I think something would come from it?
No. They wouldn’t be so methodical and relentless unless they had no reason to believe they would be caught. I know it’s dumb to think like this, but I knew in my gut that it was pointless to dwell on it.
I understand that I likely committed some very dumb mistakes early on, but please try and see it from my perspective: I was alone through most of it all in these last 6 years, and every time it happened again, I started functioning less and less like a normal person.
I had no one to ask for help, and even if I did, my heightened paranoia would’ve made me believe otherwise.
I lived in constant fear and apprehension, afraid that whoever is responsible for this could literally be any person I come across if I were to step outside.
Please understand that things went down the only way they could because of the bad place I was put into, both physically as well as mentally, and please understand that I’m not here to ask for your help.
As I said, I’ve already made my peace with it, and I don’t mean to trouble any of you in trying to come up with a scheme or a plan to make this stop once and for all.
If you’ve read everything up until now, then that’s more than enough and I don’t wish to take any more of your time.
Thank you. Truly.
With this, I just want someone to know that I existed. I just want someone to remember that I, too, was someone at some point. I was complete.
I was a person.
I could share my name, even my mangled face, but even what’s left of it can be taken away if they want to.
But not these words.
You can’t take this away from me, and you won’t be able to erase me from people’s memories. I know it isn’t much, and I know I might not live on for long in this capacity, but for now it’s more than enough.
I know that whoever’s been collecting my body parts over the years will see this.
I know you’ll be reading this. Perhaps you’ll even leave a comment of sorts, wishing me luck or even offering your help and insight.
I know you will.
There’s only two days left until our next date.
Maybe you’ll finally show yourself to me?
Maybe you’ll put me out of my misery, once and for all? I considered doing it myself plenty of times, but since you’ve been through all this trouble already I figured I might as well wait for you to wrap it up.
Wouldn’t want to ruin your fun, and I, too, get some form of twisted satisfaction out of it by knowing that you will always have to come back for more.
You’re not done yet, are you?
And to tell you the truth, I’m actually quite excited for once. This is pretty much the only thing I have left to look forward to at this point.
And who knows, I might also have a surprise in store for you.
Or maybe I don’t.
See you soon.
|
The second Darryl’s keys were rattling in the lock Katie was off the couch and racing to the front door.
“Did you do it? Did you do it?” She was practically bouncing up and down with giddy anticipation and unwilling to give him a second to even breathe. “Did you kill her? Is it done?” Darryl couldn’t help but to smile and shake his head. She was such a bad influence on him. He tried to remember the first time they had met but for some reason was unable to. It just kind of seemed like she had always been there. Tim and Jerry had been his roommates for close to eight years and somewhere along the way she just kind of fell in with the twin brothers. Before Darryl knew what happened she was living in the little, two-bedroom house as well.
Remembering when the guys moved in was a little easier. He had like them both immensely the first time they had met and fell hard for their sob story of growing up as orphans with no real family other than each other. That wasn’t the real reason he extended the invitation, however. The truth was…they were fun. Age wise, they were technically adults, but their maturity level in no way reflected that. Neither of them ever bothered growing up and there was really no telling what they might be getting into at any point in time. Plus they really like to play up the identical twin aspect and enjoyed going with the same look as each other every day. Darryl could tell them apart…at the moment Tim’s hair was just a bit shorter than Jerry’s…but most people didn’t have a clue.
Tim had told him once, quite some time ago, the story of how they’d met Katie in the area but Darryl really didn’t retain it. Tim had verbal diarrhea and a different story or ten every day; it would have been impossible to try and keep them all in the memory banks. Tim’s condition was aided considerably by the fact that he always had a bag of green herbs nearby. Jerry wasn’t quite the stoner his brother was but he did partake from time to time.
Darryl hadn’t complained when Katie started hanging around. There was something about her that he found truly compelling. It wasn’t that he had the hots for her or anything like that…she was not at all his type; but she was sweet and funny and an absolute dynamo of highly contagious positive energy. He loved the way that she kept them all in line and yet on their toes at the same time. For all these reasons and others that he didn’t fully understand, she could talk him into practically anything. She had an innate ability to persuade him into activities that most people would consider irrational; and a way of making sense out of it in the process.
That’s the way it was with Julie, his soon to be deceased ex-girlfriend and Marcus, his recently deceased ex-best friend. As crushing a blow as discovering their secret liaison was, Darryl was originally going to just break off both relationships and count his blessings that he discovered the infidelity when he did and not further down the road when she might have been his wife and he might have been his best man. It had been Katie who finally got him to see the reasoning behind ending their lives. They were, after all, bad people. Who knows who else they would have ended up hurting in the long run?
It was the same thing with Yuri Melosh the Ukrainian guy who used to live down the street that swindled Darryl out of nearly three grand in his Ponzi scheme. How many little old ladies would he have cleaned out before someone finally stopped him? Then there was Pritchett Rickets the prick who kept pinching his clients by undercutting his offers on jobs. Darryl was one of the best small job carpenters in the area but somehow that damned Rickets was always on his tail.
It was Katie that pointed out that the unscrupulous man must have been following Darryl. It also stood to her reasoning that there was no possible way of just cutting leech out of his life…other than killing him of course. Father Michener was the only one Darryl tried putting up a significant argument against; and even now it weighed on his conscience.
Father Andrew Michener had been the pastor at the local Catholic Church for nearly forty years before he passed on. Darryl’s grandmother, who left the little house to him when she died, attended services there twice a week, every week, until she died and the priest had grown fondly attached to the long-time widow. When Darryl moved in nine years ago, Father Michener had made it a point to visit the home and check in on Doris’s grandson and Darryl quite liked the pleasant man…not enough to attend his church; but he did like him.
It was Tim and Jerry who initially didn’t care for him. The first time they met, the Father made a light-hearted joke about them being free-loaders who didn’t pay rent and, despite the lack of malicious intent, the guys, who never took offense at anything, had their feeling hurt. That was really no big deal but the priest continued to make weekly recruiting visits and eventually Katie was the one to see the demons in him. Absolutely terrified the first time she saw the man and the creatures possessing him from within, she later explained that the gift was called “discernment” and that she had always been able to see unclean spirits.
Darryl fought her for some time on the issue but her fear was real and Katie never lied to him…or anyone for that matter; she was truthful to a brutal fault and in the end: he believed. He believed in a world beyond the one he could, he believed that Katie had gifts that he didn’t and, above all, he believed her when she said they would be plagued by demonic attacks if the poor man wasn’t put out of his misery. It was, by her estimation, a mercy killing. Darryl had been hoping that moment of bestowed mercy would be the last time he would have to deal with such unpleasant things…but…here he was again.
“So…” she pressed, “Are you going to answer me or what?” Darryl chuckled again and pushed past her to the living room.
“Are you going to give me a chance to actually answer?”
Katie feigned offense behind him and said, “Well excuse me…by all means.” Tim and Jerry were wrestling with each other on the couch like a couple of teenage boys and didn’t bring it to an end until Darryl plopped down on the couch next to them, diverting their attention.
“Well?” Jerry asked what they were all thinking.
“He hasn’t said.” Katie had positioned herself on the lazy-boy across from them. “For some reason he’s trying to play it cool which…” she paused for effect, “is not cool”. The brothers began to fall all over each other with raucous laughter which brought Darryl’s attention to the empty baggie and green herbs strung about the coffee table. They were high as kites. Sometimes living with those two was like being in a frat house…or having children maybe. He definitely didn’t take them as seriously as he did his female roommate.
“Well…” Darryl finally spoke, “Not that you two yahoos will remember later.” He was looking at the twins and they fell into another round of side-splitting. “But…yea…I did it. I cut her brake line.” Katie’s jaw dropped.
“You cut her break line?” she repeated. Darryl proudly nodded ‘yes’ but the pride only lasted a moment before Katie made her displeasure known. “What the hell Darryl? That’s not what we talked about. You were supposed to poison her or stab her. Where the hell did you come up with cutting the brake line.” She sighed, exasperated. “How do you even know which one is the brake line?”
“YouTube,” Darryl replied sheepishly. “I looked it up.” The brothers couldn’t stop laughing, Jerry actually falling to the floor and holding his sides. Katie didn’t find it funny at all.
“You looked up a video on how to cut a brake line and then you went and cut someone’s brake line? Please tell me you at least used a guest account on a computer somewhere else.” She seemed like she couldn’t even believe she was having to ask and it was the complete opposite of the reaction he had been expecting. Especially when he could only mumble “I used my phone”. Katie jumped across to the couch and slapped him in the face, drawing blood with her nails.
“You fucking idiot!” she yelled in his face. “You’ve screwed us all.” Tim joined his brother, rolling on the floor as neither seemed to grasp why Katie was so upset. “What are we supposed to do when you get arrested?” Darryl was genuinely shocked. Why would he be arrested?
“I…I don’t understand.” Was all he could say and Katie shook her head with sick pity but was not given the opportunity to explain. The next few seconds passed in a blur. Broken glass filled the room from the windows and chunks of wood flew in from the hall where the front door had been smashed from its hinges. Suddenly the room was full of men in black armor from head to tail, flashing lights and screaming. Violently thrown to the floor and handcuffed, Darryl couldn’t see what condition his roommates were in. Much like him, they were probably overwhelmed by the sudden flurry of activity.
Jerked to his feet and hustled down the hall, he knew that he would probably be in some degree of trouble but he truly hoped that his friends wouldn’t be charged with anything. He didn’t see them being cuffed and his name was the only one they stated as being under arrest and Mirandized so hopefully they could be left out of whatever mess this turned into. As he was being pulled out the front door, Darryl called out over his shoulder, desperately hoping they could hear him. “Don’t say anything guys. Don’t say a word.” By that point, it was the best he could do. An hour later he was behind bars, barring the death penalty, for the rest of his life.
******
Toya Pearson couldn’t help but to curse when the call came in at one forty-five in the morning. Raising two girls as a single mom combined with a job that could call at any moment, as the current call proved, sleep was proving more and more elusive. The moment the ringtone woke her from deep sleep she knew she was done for the night…she didn’t even have to answer it.
It did, however, turn out to be a rather interesting call though. The department had arrested a rather notorious serial killer. Not that it wasn’t good news…one less sicko on the streets was good for everybody, but that wasn’t the part that particularly interested her. It was his pets. Normally, the rare personality that fell into his range didn’t keep pets…not living ones anyway; but this man had three cats which were currently in the kennel at headquarters.
Were it not such a high profile case the animals would have most likely been turned over to Animal Control or the Humane Society but given the uniqueness of the situation they thought to call her. Toya’s official title was that of a Detective Profiler but everyone knew that her true passion was her feline rescue group. No one had a problem turning Katie, Tim and Jerry over to her and, rather that put them through further trauma, she decided to keep them in the end. They won her over rather quickly with their infectious personalities and her girls fell in love immediately as well. The youngest, Sarah, even claims that they speak to her. It’s adorable.
|
I didn’t have a voice until you read this.
Let me explain — I was voiceless but I still existed. We all did.
We have been here ever since the first men peered fearfully out of their caves into the deep, still darkness beneath a moonless sky and thought: ‘What could be hiding out there?’
Us.
We were.
I’ve been with you since you were a child. Remember those times when you woke in the night, inconsolable, tears streaming down your face until the grown-ups came and reassured you?
‘There’s nothing there,’ they’d say. ‘There’s nothing to fear.’
They were wrong. It was me. Under the bed, in the wardrobe, under the stairs.
It was always me.
I’m with you now, constantly. Your fear has bonded us forever.
When you see that flicker of movement out of the corner of your eye as you walk home alone on a deserted street at night; when you hear that creaking floorboard just outside your bedroom door as you cower under your blankets; the prickling sensation on the back of your neck as if you’re being watched when you could have sworn you were by yourself.
It’s always me. It always was.
I’m not a demon, not a ghost. I’m not a monster or some creeping boogeyman — my kind are what we are. You may have heard of the Tibetan ‘tulpas’ — beings summoned into existence through sheer force of will and concentration. I suppose that is the closest that Man has ever come to finding a term that describes me and my kin. We come from belief too. That irrational fear of the dark; the terror of the unknown; the horrors that tiptoe through your nightmares and return suddenly, without warning during the waking hours, filling with you dread.
You know it’s silly to be scared. You chastise yourself, face flushed, tutting and sighing, chiding your rogue imagination for such fanciful and nonsensical behaviour, but you do it again and again and again. There’s a part of your brain that won’t be told otherwise. Maybe that’s what keeps us here — or maybe we’re the reason it won’t ever be quiet. Which do you think it is?
I know, just like I know that your mind is the world’s greatest gift to us.
Until you started to read this, I didn’t have a voice. Now, as your treacherous consciousness speaks these words aloud inside the confines of your mind, it’s my voice you’re hearing.
It seems strange to me, not the voice I would have chosen, but it’s the one with which your fear has bequeathed me. The voice that haunts you the most, the tone most likely to cause you to shiver and break into a cold, helpless sweat, has become mine because of what we share.
And we have shared a lot, you and I. A whole lifetime.
Every. Single. Day.
I’m watching you now, studying you as you stare nervously at your glowing screen, praying that its light will be enough to protect you from the things in the shadows, because I think I might be the first of my kind to realise something about the way things are between us.
I watch you all the time, even when you’re sleeping, stood at the foot of your bed, gazing down at you. I know when you’re thinking of me. I hear the whimpers and the gasps, I see the involuntary jolts and shudders, and I smile.
You’re picturing me doing it, aren’t you?
Go on, imagine me standing there in your room, my shadow looming over your prone, terrified body, my wide grin showing my glinting teeth in the moonlight.
Thank you.
Before you did that I never had a face. Now you’ve given me one — the face of your darkest phobias. I like it. It was the only face I could ever have worn.
In the short time it’s taken you to read my story, you’ve already given me a voice and a face. I wonder what gifts you’ll bestow upon me tomorrow?
Maybe, in time, I’ll be able to touch you.
Just imagine my hot breath against your ear. My icy fingers on the nape of your neck.
My teeth and claws sliding into your trembling, yielding flesh.
Thank you.
Oh what fun we’re going to have.
|
Part 1
When I left my office, I already had a premonition that something awful was going to happen that evening. I’m not psychic. I am quite perceptive, though, and the signs were easy to read. I had worked late – nine o’clock and already dark – and my ordinarily enjoyable walk to the parking lot struck me as a little bit menacing. I parked in a lot that was about a ten-minute walk from my office. In the early evening on a crisp autumn day, it’s a pleasure to stroll there and take in the sights of downtown Indianapolis. Occasionally I’d take a detour and walk along the canal, checking out the street art. This was past nightfall, though, and right in the middle of a hot and humid August. There were only two sorts of people in downtown Indy that night – those who had to be, and those who had no place else to go.
My walks always took me past the Wheeler Mission. There was a flashing neon sign reminding me that “Jesus Saves” every ten seconds. The mission was a magnet for the homeless. A lot of my sort of people ended up there, but some others as well. Addicts, mentals, criminals on the run and looking for a meal and a place to stay. According to the mission’s rules felons were usually turned in, so the police visited regularly. None of the city’s finest sitting outside that night; just a collection of bums waiting to scam some loose change off of whoever happened to be out on this humid night.
One of the panhandlers called out to me. “Hey! Can I talk to you sir? Can I ask you a question? Are you afraid of homeless people?” He was young, maybe pushing thirty. He was clean-shaven and had a number of tattoos running up his arms and neck and ending just shy of the bottom of his dirty red baseball hat. The design hinted at a former stay in prison.
Every one of them always has a story. It’s typically well practiced and smooth. A bum tells his story so many times that he begins to believe it himself. He gets into his character and will debate at length on the subject of why he needs money. The stories can get quite elaborate and sometimes amusing, if you have the time. But unless you want to be followed all the way back to your car or to the door of your office it’s best to just say “No” or “Sorry.” That night, I was feeling antsy and just wanted the conversation to end quickly, so I opted for “Fuck you.”
Red Hat responded in kind. At first he stopped in his tracks, looking sort of stunned. Then he started following me. “You think you’re better than me? Don’t you walk away from me.” Then he grabbed at the back of my shirt. That’s when I knew for sure that things were going to end badly.
I shrugged him off. I could have easily outrun him at that point, but I didn’t. I don’t know if it was pride or arrogance; or if it was due to the fact that I was tired, irritable and in an excessively bad mood. I did start walking faster, though. I hoped that he would tire of the game and go back to his roost outside the mission. I hoped that the situation wouldn’t go any further.
Then I saw a chance to end the game. There were two routes to my car – one being along a well lit, albeit virtually deserted street and the other a slightly shorter route through a small alley behind the Robertson Parks church. I aimed myself toward the alley. I could still hear Red Hat shouting behind me, but I was doing my best to ignore him. “Where you going man? Stop! I want to talk to you,” he said. I had a pretty good idea that when he saw me heading towards the alley, he thought that he had me beat. How stupid did he think I was? I knew that once we were alone, I’d have the upper hand. I could either disappear into the shadows or, if necessary, kick his ass. What I didn’t know, however, was that he had a couple of friends waiting for him.
They must have seen us head off and circled around the block. It’s like they were expecting me to walk through that alley. For them, it was the perfect place for an ambush. I’ll have to admit that I was startled when I first saw them. I had allowed myself to get too distracted. Not only by Red Hat, but by the anxiety that I’d been experiencing since leaving my office. The two buddies, dressed similarly and tattooed like Red Hat, stood at the far end of the alley. In addition to seeing their silhouettes I could smell them from where I stood. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw them. Red Hat closed the distance behind me and pushed me further into the alley. Then the other two approached and boxed me in.
One of them pushed me and laughed. “What now, Chris?”
“Now we teach this little shit how to respect people,” Red Hat replied.
I had backed up against the wall of the church. “Trust me guys. Bad idea,” I said.
The one who had previously been quiet came forward and shoved me – hard – back into the wall. I remember feeling the back of my head bounce off the brick. Then he punched me in the stomach. As he drew back his arm to get ready for another swing, my arm flew out and I grabbed his head, palming his face like a basketball. I pushed backward and twisted his head as he fell. That’s when I saw Red Hat’s knife.
Red Hat had drawn his arm back as if he were going to pitch a softball underhand. He had the point of the knife aimed at me. He lunged, but I managed to grab his wrist and deflect his thrust. At this point I could no longer see the first of his two buddies – the first to punch me – but the other one landed another blow directly to my nose. That diverted my attention long enough for Red Hat to bring his knife around for another attempt. A thousand thoughts were racing through my mind. How could I have let myself get drawn into that situation? Why did they pick me? Why that night? How was it going to end? How was I going to handle the cleanup after it was over?
Between all of the distractions and the surprise punch to the face, I must have missed seeing the knife until the last moment. It sunk deep into me. Low, directly below my ribs and angled upward into the place where a normal man would keep his liver. The guy had been in fights before. He was a pro. I felt pressure, but not any actual pain.
Then I felt myself becoming very hot and my vision faded to white.
When the numbness went away, I surveyed the scene in the alley. One of the guys – the one who managed to land a punch on my face – was running around the corner of the church screaming. Around me, there was blood all over the ground and even sprayed up onto the wall of the church. The guy whose face I had grabbed was lying prone nearby, his head cocked at an unnatural angle. His neck was clearly broken. It was Red Hat who surprised me most. He was lying at my feet eyes open, mouth frozen in a perverse smile, and throat ripped open. He looked like he’d had a date gone bad with a table saw.
And all I could think of was how long it had been since I’d last eaten.
Part 2
Dear R.,
I can no longer trust my own decisions. As you hear my story you will understand why. Right now, it will be enough to say that I can’t focus, my thoughts are racing, and my emotions are taking over. I’m in no condition to make the sort of decision that’s necessary, and so I’m asking for your help.
I’m putting my unconditional trust in you. In order for that to happen you have to trust me entirely – and the only way that can happen is if you know the truth.
At this point I have no doubt that you believe I’m insane and you might be right, to a point I believe that you’ll hear me out, though; if for no other reason than to find out how far gone I am. I sincerely believe that by the time I’ve said what I have to say, you’ll believe me – if not before then.
Since others are involved, I’m putting their lives in your hands, too. You must never repeat this to anyone. I’m laying a great burden on your shoulders; but you owe me. I don’t need to remind you why.
Just about every form of life begins in an embryonic stage. Interestingly, when we are in our embryonic stage we have two hearts. Two hearts! Can you believe that? This heart primordia, as it’s called, eventually fuses together into one heart with four chambers. Embryologists at the University of Indiana performed an experiment in the 1930s in which they kept the heart primordia from fusing in embryonic frogs. Amazingly, the frogs grew up with two hearts. They had extensive genetic damage, though, and didn’t live very long.
But imagine for a moment that the same thing happened in nature, with greater success. Imagine that the heart primordia never fused in the embryo of an otherwise ordinary man. He could theoretically develop two hearts. Not that farfetched – humans have many redundant organs: two lungs, two kidneys, two eyes.
Are you with me so far?
The body is a system and that system normally runs at full capacity, so the addition of a second heart alone wouldn’t make much of a difference. But there is an added potential. Suppose that this new creature (and I call it that because now we’ve taken a leap of faith and are no longer talking about your unremarkable homo sapiens) also develops a system that can exploit this additional power plant, much in the same way that an athlete can train his body to function at higher levels. It would require larger lungs, or perhaps even a third lung to provide additional oxygen. Other organs might be affected, altered, enhanced or even eliminated. The end result would be a creature possessing unimaginable strength, speed and endurance.
You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? Such creatures do exist. This is as much of a fact as the sky is blue. I not only believe it, but I can prove it – will prove it – to you, in due time.
I wish that I was there with you now, so that I can more accurately gauge your reaction. I’ll have to rely on your inquisitive nature and assume that you’ll continue reading. Since I’ve told you this much already, I may as well elaborate further.
God, in all his goodness, had gone so far as to create these beings. Then Mother Nature threw in her own cruel little trick. You see, that second heart needs a way to get vital oxygen and nutrients to cells; and that way is through blood. Plasma to carry nutrients and red cells to carry oxygen. Blood is produced in bone marrow and spleen. An average, healthy man is blessed with just enough blood-producing tissue to sustain him. These creatures, however, being approximately the same size don’t have the ability to produce any more blood cells than a normal man. Yet their two hearts continue to feed their bodies in overdrive. Left in that state they would literally starve or suffocate.
Nature is also forgiving. Taking advantage of their physical mutation, they have the ability to absorb plasma and red cells from the ingestion of the blood of other living creatures. The mechanism by which this works is too specific to go into. It wouldn’t interest you anyway. Not at this point.
And so these pseudo-men have evolved, exploiting their superhuman strength and abilities to become the perfect hunter – after all, other living creatures aren’t too keen on the idea of donating their own blood to sustain the lives of these things. I call them things because that’s what “normal” men consider them to be. Fiends. Monsters.
I’m certain that you know what these creatures are. This fabulous, complex, species; homo sanguineous; no less God’s children than their human brothers; hated; abhorred… have come to be called vampires.
But they are real. And I can prove it.
Part 3
There comes a time in every vampire’s seemingly endless life when he reaches an age at which he begins to question his choices, doubt his past actions, wonder what mistakes he will continue to make in his future. Call it a midlife crisis. At this point one of two things usually happens. A vampire can accept who and what he is, or he can go insane. The latter more often than not ends in some form of suicide.
Vampires are not truly immortal. I think that a more appropriate term would be un-mortal, if there were such a word. Immortal suggests that they live forever, and that’s just one of many myths about vampires. They are not graced – or perhaps I should say cursed – with eternal life. But they do live a very, very long time. And that leads to the especially worst aspect of being a vampire. They are almost guaranteed to outlive every one they love – the human ones anyway. Think about it: having to experience the death of all of your friends, making new friends, and seeing them die also over and over and over again.
It’s right around the time that they begin to lose their second generation of friends that they realize what’s happened, and worse, that it will happen again. Think about that for a moment, and take my word for it that no matter how many funerals you’ve been to it doesn’t ever get any easier. It helps to believe that there’s an afterlife.
Having your friends die off is only one of the things that a vampire will think of when he hits this age. He begins to think of all the things he’s missed out on. Sometimes he’ll choose to never enter a relationship with a human because he fears what will eventually happen. Then he’ll wonder if he made a mistake by deciding on following that path.
And then he thinks about what he is – what he truly is. What his base instinct and purpose in life is. He feels cheated that he’s had to hide his true self for all of the years he’s been alive and that he’ll have to continue hiding it. He feels resentful that he’ll never be able to do what he really craves, what he hungers after – to hunt – without restraint.
Fulfilling one’s purpose in life is of ultimate importance to every man: vampire and human alike. A person with no aspirations has no reason to go on living. So what is a vampire to do? His core desire, his meaning of life, is considered morally repulsive. Isn’t it? After living amongst humans for most of his life he takes on their values and most vampires agree with acceptable human opinion. How is it that older vampires can hunt so easily with no heaviness on their consciences? It’s during this midlife crisis that they begin to sort things out.
Most vampires, like most mortals, can eventually come to grips with whom and what they are. Some turn to religion. Sometimes it takes a good psychiatrist or regular sessions with a therapist to help them out. For most vampires, this means that they must abandon their empathy with mortals’ ideas of morality. (Not implying that vampires do not have their own set of moral standards.) This greatly increases the contentment with which they can live out the rest of their lives.
The bulk of the remainder can never come to terms with what they are and can never accept what they need to do to achieve peace of mind. All of the inner turmoil eventually takes a toll on them body and soul. It breaks them. There are a lucky few that can recover after a breakdown but the rest end up in institutions or commit suicide. Even among those who are institutionalized some eventually end up killing themselves when they grasp the fact that a natural death and end to the pain is going to come very slowly.
And so the world ends up with a whole bunch of vampires who are either happy or dead. It might sound callous, but the truth is that only elder vampires are happy ones; and while the idea of a bunch of happy vampires living amongst them might not make humans feel completely at ease, it’s a whole lot better than the alternative.
You see… every once in a while, one slips through the cracks. A vampire who goes mad but somehow ends up running loose like a kid in a candy shop. The most dangerous type of vampire that exists – perhaps even more feared than the Nosferatu – is a rogue.
So, how does one deal with a rogue? He must be disposed of. The question is “How do you go about hunting the most perfect hunter that nature has ever produced?”
“You’re certain it was a total blackout?”
“Yes. Completely. One minute I was walking through an alley and the next, I… I realized that I was somewhere else. And I don’t remember how I got there.” I said, appreciating the fact that I almost said something I’d regret. Dr. Shelton knows that I have problems, but as far as she’s concerned they’re related to a fairly common mental disorder – a diagnosis of rapid cycling bipolar disorder with mixed episodes. “This can be a dangerous combination,” she once said.
She shifted in her seat. “Have you had any other psychotic episodes?”
“Never.”
That topic has always been a favorite of mine. First, you should understand that the word “psychotic” isn’t really as bad as it sounds. Many people associate it with crazed killers and wild eyed maniacs. It means nothing of the sort. “Psychotic” thinking merely refers to episodes that consist of a break with reality. Hearing voices, having hallucinations, lost time. I say it’s a favorite topic but it’s actually more of a pet peeve, because the good doctor always starts her sessions with questions like “Have you been seeing or hearing things that aren’t really there?” It’s become cliché to reply with “Um, doc, if I’m seeing and hearing them how would I know if they’re not really there?”
“Now, you know that’s not true,” she said. “You’ve had plenty of blackouts and lost days preceding some of your hospitalizations. That’s why I ask. If there’s a psychotic break coming, we might be able to head it off.”
I had to choose my words carefully. “I meant, never like this one. It wasn’t just hazy, it was a total blackout. I… I did things that couldn’t remember.”
“You said that you were alone. How is it that you know what you did during your blackout? Friends? Witnesses?” Now she was writing. Writing is bad.
I gave up. “I… don’t know doctor. Don’t pay attention to anything I say. I don’t even trust myself lately. Maybe I’m just not getting enough sleep.” I took off my sunglasses. Even though I always wore them inside her office, she never questioned them. Probably chalked it up to an eccentricity. I’m sure many of her patients had quirky habits. Now she saw the dilated and irregularly shaped pupils that I’m always trying to hide.
She seemed startled. “Whoa… Sorry for being frank, but I’ve never seen anything like that before. What’s up with your eyes?” She leaned forward to get a better look.
“It’s a genetic condition. Makes my eyes really sensitive to light, that’s why I wear the glasses,” I explained. “What I’m trying to show you is the dark circles under my eyes. Lack of sleep, right?”
I could tell that she was still fascinated by my eyes, but she feigned interest in our previous subject matter. “Yes. Well, I’ll get you some samples of Seroquel. It’s an antipsychotic, so it may prevent further episodes as well as help you sleep.”
When she left the room to get the samples, I let out a sigh. What had I hoped to achieve by visiting my psychiatrist? After what had happened in the alley that night, the only thing that had any possibility of helping would be talking to someone I could be entirely honest with. Someone in the same boat as me – well, sort of. I decided that the best person to approach for advice was my friend Johnny. There’s a long history there, but suffice to say that he understands my plight in more ways than one. It looked like it was about time for a trip back to Ohio, where I’d grown up.
Dr. Shelton returned with the promised sample. I could tell from her sidelong glances that she was still questioning my attempt to divert attention from the appearance of my eyes. “Here are some packets of Seroquel. These are 100 mg tablets, but you can take two or three at a time if you feel it’s necessary. I’d start off with one until you know what effect they have on you.”
“Thanks doctor. Three months, right?”
“Sure. Unless something else like this comes up before then. If that happens, I want to hear about it pronto.”
I was halfway out of her office door when I heard her take a deep breath. I should have just kept on walking and pretend that I didn’t hear her, but I stopped and waited.
“Oh, hang on. I wanted to talk to you about something out of the ordinary in your last blood work…” she began.
Those are four words that I hate to hear: “Out of the ordinary.” There’s very little about me that is ordinary. Particularly to a human. Every time someone – especially doctors and police officers – utters those words I cringe, expecting to have to invent some wild rationalization of why whatever they think is “out of the ordinary” really has a simple explanation. Sometimes the explanations aren’t good enough. There have been times when my explanation was so pitiful that it required me to move on to another city or town earlier than I had planned.
This time, it wasn’t so bad. “Your liver enzymes look fine, but you have got one hell of a vitamin D deficiency, Christian. Don’t you ever get out in the sun?”
I found that so funny that I may have actually let out a little laugh. “No, not so much.”
“I’ll give you a scrip for a mega-dose, once a week for a couple of months. I suggest following up with your GP. Get a physical. It can’t hurt.”
Take a wild guess about what the number one leading cause of death in vampires is. It’s not a stake through the heart. It’s old age. Living in a culture so full of fictitious myths and legends, you might think of that as funny. It’s important to separate the myths from the truth, though. Probably one of the biggest fabrications is that vampires live forever. Vampires certainly live much longer than humans, but far from forever.
Even the finest and strongest machines eventually break down. Cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, cataract, osteoporosis, diabetes, hypertension and even Alzheimer’s – when a vampire is afflicted by these diseases, he can’t hunt. If he can’t hunt, then he can’t feed. And if he doesn’t feed, then he can’t survive for very long. You won’t find many nursing homes for aging vampires.
So it’s pretty important to take care of yourself. The vitamin D deficiency that my doctor mentioned isn’t something to be dismissed. Sunlight helps humans’ bodies create vitamin D naturally. It doesn’t work that way for vampires. Why not? Perhaps it was nature’s form of population control. Modern medicine has allowed us to subvert that. While we don’t burst into flames, like in the movies and stories, sunlight is very damaging to our bodies. Our skin and particularly our eyes are extremely sensitive to UV rays. We get sunburned easily and, despite our ability to recover from injuries quickly, skin damage is the most painful injury that I can think of. Aside from that being in the sun for too long makes us sick. Sick to our stomachs. Nauseous. Humans can experience the same thing and they call it sun poisoning, but with our sensitivity it hits harder and faster. It can cause fever, dizziness and electrolytic imbalance. It can be incapacitating, and that’s not good. Long story short: it’s better for us to get our vitamin D in pill form.
So how do you kill a vampire besides waiting for him to get old? Well… the same way that you would kill anything. We’re just a little more durable. I’m certainly not a biologist, but as I understand it our cells are rapidly reproducing. A deep cut that would require weeks to heal for a human may scar over within hours and completely disappear within a day. A punctured lung – perhaps impossible to repair in a mortal – may take a week.
What is usually the deciding factor in whether or not an animal – be it a vampire, a human or some lower life form – lives or dies is if it’s heart can withstand whatever trauma has been inflicted on it’s body and continue it’s job of pumping blood to nourish the body and brain. We have a slight advantage there. Even damage to one of our hearts, provided it’s not too severe, can heal fairly quickly. It’s nice to have a backup.
So I suppose that it’s pretty ironic that while arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, cancer, drowning or massive trauma are all things that can kill a vampire… a simple stake through the heart is one thing that will probably not.
Enough with the biology lesson. And so after a lengthy digression, Dr. Shelton’s comment about getting a physical exam struck me as funny in two ways. One being that I don’t ordinarily like people poking around inside me. (A human doctor would most definitely not find what he was expecting.) And I was treating myself for a host of diseases and maladies already. In addition to the psychotropic medications that Dr. Shelton had me on for treatment of bipolar disorder, I was taking another 13 different meds every day – including some for high blood pressure, stomach ulcers, other vitamin deficiencies, and a drug to halt the progression of rheumatoid arthritis: a potentially fatal disease for me.
When I was younger, years after discovering what I was, I was going through a difficult time. None of my friends knew that I was a vampire and I wasn’t about to tell them. The one thing that I knew for sure was that human friends should never be told the truth about what I was. I’d learned that the hard way on more than one occasion. Usually I was just written off as a joker or even a truly insane kid. But there was one time when some of the locals got wind of my bragging about being a vampire – early on, I though that it was cool. Turns out that one or two of them really believed me and tied my family to some strange affairs going on about the village. We were literally run out of town after receiving threats of physical harm. I think that people were looking for a scapegoat and we provided a convenient one, but I shudder to think what may have happened if things had progressed further.
During my adolescent years, I finally couldn’t keep it bottled up any longer. I wrote a long letter to one of my friends and pleaded for his secrecy. I told Johnny everything. I mean everything! I’d delivered the letter and waited. Days went by, giving me enough time to regret my rash decision. Just when I thought he’d written me off as a fool, Johnny called me.
“Are you stupid? Nuts? What the hell are you telling all of this to me for?” he said.
I held the receiver of the phone away from my face while I took a deep breath. “Listen… I was, uh… I was going through a rough time and I’d been a little drunk, and…”
“Cut the shit, dude. I know that what you said is true. But why are you telling me? Why are you telling anyone?”
“Um,” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Like I said, I was a little desperate and… the truth? You believed me?” I hadn’t been prepared for this situation.
“Of course I believed you. I could smell it on you.”
“No, wait… Are we talking about alcohol now?”
I could imagine Johnny raising his eyebrows right about then. “No, bud. You’re a vampire. I know it. I could smell it. Sunglasses or not, I could see it in your eyes. If that’s not enough, I could just feel it. It’s been obvious since day one.”
“So… Are you..?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“So why didn’t I know? Why can’t I smell it? Why can’t I feel it?”
I could picture him shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “’Cuz you’re so young kemosabe. You haven’t gone through the change yet. Once you go through the change your senses will quicken, your strength will grow… Hell, maybe your IQ will go up a few points.
“You guys are so funny. All of you think that you’re alone – one little lonely vampire surrounded by a sea of humans who just. Don’t. Understand.” He faked a pout.
I was getting a little pissed off at his patronizing, but then I did a double-take. “All of us? All of us who? Who else Johnny?”
“Rob, Debbi, Gale, Patrick, Paul (no surprise there), Mikey… Ooh, Mike doesn’t know yet, so keep that under your hat. I mean, he knows that he’s a vampire; he just doesn’t know that we know. Ya’ know?”
I was speechless.
“Yeah. Let that soak in, bud. Just know this. We seek each other out. Whether you realize it or not, you will be drawn to others like you – friend or foe. It’s instinct.” He paused, as if waiting for my response. “What? Didn’t our group strike you as ‘weird’ in any way?”
It was like a fog lifting. Just like that, everything I’d experienced the last fifteen years made sense.
So Johnny became pretty much my closest friend. He and I shared other problems, also. We are both bipolar. Johnny got saddled with a few other mental disorders too. I considered him a mentor also, because of his advanced age and experiences. He was the oldest in our group and – perhaps due to his unusual mind – had a special gift for seeing things that others couldn’t. He was better than any trained therapist I’d ever seen. That was the reason that I’d went to him with my latest problem. I didn’t think that Dr. Shelton or any therapist that she recommended could have been as helpful as Johnny. In addition to his unique insight, I could be completely honest with him. If I’d ever tried to explain the whole vampire thing to a doctor or therapist we’d never make it past “Tell me about your mother,” before I ended up in a psych ward. He or she would assume that I was delusional. It had happened before.
Despite Johnny’s consideration, I had some unease approaching him about this particular problem. I was sort of embarrassed to admit what was happening. Lord knows that I’ve done a lot of things that deserved more shame; nevertheless that was how I felt. All the same, I attempted to put that aside and dove into my story.
Johnny was short and compact, yet very muscular. He built himself up being a drummer for the last who-knows-how-many years. He wasn’t the troll he was made out to be by some, but he wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes either. On the day I visited, he was dressed in shorts and a tank top – pretty much standard uniform for him. At least he was wearing pants. Johnny is a legend in his own time for not wearing pants. We met in his one-room flat in Streetsboro. He reclined on a mattress on the floor, arms behind his head, trying unsuccessfully to refrain from smartass comments while I spilled my guts.
“So here’s how it is, bud. I’ve got this problem.”
“You got that right,” he laughed. I did say that he was trying unsuccessfully.
“Seriously, man. There’s been this ‘thing’ going on. More than one thing. I don’t know… It’s been driving me nuts and now it’s starting to scare me.”
He sat up and actually looked concerned. “Scare you? Scare you? What’s up?”
And so I went into it from the beginning – at least from the time I first noticed it. About six months prior, I remember sitting at home watching the news on television. I was in an especially sour mood that day. The talking heads were going on about some bonehead gangbanger who showed up at a wedding uninvited and started shooting into a crowd. He hit a four year old kid in the head – didn’t kill her, thank God. I hate to hear about kids getting hurt. It’s a real sore spot for me. I got so annoyed, angry, pissed off, that I began shaking. I remember thinking “Stupid animals! They all get what they deserve! They’re not anything like us. They’re nothing more than cattle!” That was really unlike me. I had collected a good sized set of morals in the decade of Catholic education that I’d been given. I was very sympathetic toward humans, unlike some vampires.
Vampires, like humans, are typically divided by region and race. The Vourdalak, for example, regard themselves as cultured and refined beyond what they consider to be their more animalistic brothers and sisters. They comprise most of the royal lineage in Romania. The Strigoiu of Moldavia are mostly gifted artists. The Liugat of Albania and Nachtzehrer of Bavaria go through life much the same as humans. All of these races generally respect the lives of humans and consider them equals. They rarely feed on unwilling humans and when they do it’s discreet and practical. I make a point of saying “unwilling humans” because there are those who are aware of the existence of vampires and – for one reason or another – choose to willingly provide blood.
There are others though, who have a complete disregard for humans. Vampires who consider the human race a lower life form – much like livestock, whose sole existence is meant to provide nourishment for them. The Krvopijac – or unholy – of Bulgaria are one such race. They are strictly nightbreed, never appearing in daylight. The Brukolak originating in Greece are a particularly nasty sort. They are considered excommunicate and shunned by most other vampires. They are emotionally and mentally unstable.
And then there’s the Nosferatu. The old ones. A true embodiment of some of the stereotypes attributed to vampires. They may be truly immortal. At least no one can think of a Nosferatu ever being born or ever dying. They are monsters; evil incarnate.
And yet even these spiteful creatures are very careful with their feeding habits. Letting humans become aware of their existenc
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I always have a torch in my pocket these days. I found a small LED one at an electronics store for a couple of bucks, and I keep it on me at all times. It’s actually really bright, despite the size. I bought five, the other four are placed in strategic locations around my house, so I can get to any of them quickly if need be. I won’t be caught in the dark again, you see. It’s bad enough that I see her every time I close my eyes, I don’t think I could handle seeing her again with my eyes open. But, I digress. Perhaps this would be better told from the start.
I used to work in an office building in town, for the public counter service of a Government Department that shall remain unnamed. The work was fine; it basically involved taking and checking applications, talking to the public about different services that our department provided, that sort of thing. Nothing out of the ordinary with the work, or my colleagues, who I got on very well with. The building, however…
To look at it from the outside, you wouldn’t think that it was any different from any of the surrounding office buildings. 12 stories tall, very square, flat sides etc. Nothing ostentatious, it was just a simple office building, like hundreds of others in my city. The building was slightly older than the surrounding ones, built in the 1980s (I think). There was the occasional draft, and the lights would flicker now and again, but no major problems. There were four elevators, one of which always seemed to be out of order. They’d fix one, and then another would inexplicably break. There was something with the electrics that would cause the doors to slam shut without warning sometimes, and they would occasionally drop slightly when you got in them. Nothing serious enough for the building owners to actually do anything about, but enough to be more than an annoyance.
The lifts used to give me the jibblies, even before all of this.
I used to take the stairs a lot. There were two stairwells, one on either side of the building. Both of them were fairly narrow, so if you were coming up and you met someone coming down, then you’d either need to wait in the stairwell bit by the doors into the different levels, or turn sideways and let them squeeze past. They tended to get a bit clogged if there was an evacuation for a fire alarm or something, but I was only on the 3rd floor, so it didn’t take too long for me to get from there to the ground, or vice versa. The stairwells were windowless, plain cement with pale yellow lights illuminating them, but fairly dimly. I think the building’s owners used crappy energy-saving bulbs to try and save some money.
There was a bathroom in each of the different stairwells, on every level. Men’s room in one stairwell, ladies’ in the other. The building managers installed combination locks on all of those doors after there was a peeping tom incident in the ladies’ one day, so only people who worked in the building could get in. There were different businesses and departments on each of the floors, and the locks all had different combinations, so you could only use the bathroom on your floor, you couldn’t go up or down a level to use another.
Because we were part of a Government Department, there was an emphasis on security. We all had swipe card access to get from the reception areas into the back office bit of my floor, and you also needed to remember your card if you were going to the bathroom. The doors to the stairwells had the same magnetic safety locks as the doors to the back area, and although you could get out by pushing a button to release the lock, you had to swipe your card to get into the floor from the stairwell. If you were in the bathroom there was a similar button to press to get back into the stairwell.
It’s hard to pinpoint when the trouble started. It’s not like somebody clicked their fingers and everything turned on like a light switch. I’m assuming you’ve heard the story about how a frog put in boiling water will jump straight out, but if you put the frog in cold water and bring it slowly to the boil it’ll stay in, happily boiling to death without realizing. Had the situation gone from normal to messed up in a hurry, then I probably would have got the hell out of there, and quickly. But like they say, hindsight has 20/20 vision.
There was an imbalance of girls to guys who worked at my office, so I quite often had the men’s room to myself. Nothing like being able to go in peace, you know? The earliest occasion of anything weird happening I can remember, I was going off to the bathroom, which involved walking through the reception area. I pressed the button to let me into the stairwell, and was in the stairwell, keying in the code to let me into the men’s, and the stairwell door shut behind me. There was nothing out of the ordinary in this; the door was on one of those hinges which makes it close automatically. What was weird was that the second that door shut, I got a shiver up my spine. Everything was suddenly quiet, almost oppressively silent. The noise of the radio and the people in the waiting room had been completely cut off when the door shut, when normally you could hear things even when in the bathroom.
I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but I didn’t take my time as I normally might have. I got in, did what I needed to and got out of there, quickly. The feeling of unease faded as I came back into the brighter lights of the waiting room. From there, everything was normal for days, possibly weeks. I’m a little fuzzy on the actual time-frame, as a lot of the stuff that happened took place over a long-ish period of time. A few smallish things happened here and there; the odd cold spot, the odd shiver, (like when you feel you’re being watched), but I just put it down to stress, and kept going with my job and my life.
Like I said earlier, I got on very well with my colleagues and my boss. Most of us were of a similar age (mid-20s) and every now and again we’d go out for a few post-work drinks on a Friday, let loose a little and de-stress from the week. One Friday, we’d closed up the public counter, and all the customers were gone, and we were packing up and getting ready to head out. I excused myself to use the men’s room before we went out, but when I opened the stairwell door I noticed that it seemed dimmer than normal in the stairwell – the light at the top of the flight of stairs to the floor above had blown.
As I turned to the right to key in the code to the bathroom door, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, in the gloom at the top of the stairs. Something – and I can’t be any more descriptive than that – something flashed across my vision, a dark shape going from right to left from the door by the bathroom at the top of the stairs, around the corner to the next flight, out of my line of sight. It was fast, impossibly fast, like watching a movie and fast-forwarding to 4 times the normal speed. I couldn’t see any details, it was just a black shape, but it seemed darker than the lack of light surrounding it somehow. The movement was the worst though. Despite the speed, it didn’t seem to blur or sway at all. It was a scuttle more than anything.
I swung around, away from the bathroom door, and stood frozen at the bottom of the flight of stairs, staring transfixed up into the gloom at the top. I don’t know how long I stood there for, but I was frozen in place, too scared to move. The next thing I can remember, a hand clapped down on my shoulder. “Daniel! What are you doing, man!?”
It was my boss, come to find out what was taking so long.
“There, there was… there was something” I stammered, trying to get the words out. My boss looked quizzically at me, one eyebrow raised.
“What was it?” he asked. I turned to look up the stairs again. Everything seemed less dim than it had been a moment ago.
“Nothing,” I replied, shaking my head. “Must have been a trick of the light. Been meaning to get my eyes tested.”
“Then let’s get the hell out of here, and off for some drinks!” my boss exclaimed.
Later, at the bar, surrounded by my colleagues laughing and joking about the week’s events, everything seemed fine with the world. It was warm and bright in the bar, and my sense of dread had completely gone. Had I known what was to come, however, then I probably would have been feeling very different indeed…
Things seemed fairly normal for a while after that. I came back to work after the weekend, got on with my job, tried to put what I’d seen (or thought I’d seen, anyway) out of my mind. My job had some perks, one of which is that the Department would pay for an eye test and new glasses if you needed them, so I got that done. The optometrist said that my eyes hadn’t deteriorated at all in the five years since my previous eye test, but it was probably time for a new pair of glasses anyway. About a month after the last incident, I was heading to the gym after work, so I headed to the bathroom to get changed so I could run there. We’d turned out most of the lights, but it wasn’t dark yet outside so the place was still well-enough lit to see in, although not nearly as bright as with the lights on. Because the public reception area was shut for the day due to the time, I used the public bathroom attached to the waiting area to put on my gym clothes. I put my earbuds in, and cranked up the volume on my MP3 player, getting myself in the mood for the run, when I heard screaming.
It’s hard to describe exactly how it sounded – It was definitely female, but it sounded raw, like it came from a throat full of razor blades, if that makes any sense. It sounded impossibly loud and close, but at the same time, like it was coming from miles away. I yanked out my earbuds, unlocked the door and sprinted out into the waiting room, fully expecting to see someone being murdered.
It was deserted. Completely empty, not a soul in sight. I looked around slowly, listening hard, trying to see or hear what had been screaming. I turned back towards the public bathroom from which I’d come, and I could see the mirror and myself in it – and I could see something dark looming over my shoulder.
I spun on the spot, bracing myself as I did so – but there was nothing there. I looked back to the mirror, but whatever had been there a second ago was gone. I scrambled for my swipe access cards, used them to open the door to the back part of the office, and ran in there, where my boss was sitting at his desk, packing up for the day. “Did you hear that!?” I half-shouted.
He looked confused. “Hear what?”
“I heard someone screaming,” I replied.
He got up quickly, and we walked into the waiting room, both listening hard. After a minute, he turned to me. “I didn’t hear anything, Dan,” he said. “Are you okay? You’ve seemed a little… off lately.”
To his credit, my boss looked genuinely concerned. He was easily the best manager we’d ever had, and really looked after all of his staff. “If you need some time off, just let me know. You have plenty of leave saved up…” He left the offer hanging.
“I… I don’t know,” I replied. “I’ll let you know.” I turned and headed for the lifts. The sense of unease and dread I had felt was back, and much harder to shake this time. What the hell was I seeing, or hearing? And what the hell could I do about it?
Like I said earlier, had this stuff happened all at the same time, I probably would have bailed on my job and tried to find somewhere else. For God-knows-what reason though, I decided to stick it out, see if things would get better. Benefits of hindsight, right?
Things started getting worse from there. I’d get chills walking through parts of the office, or while sitting at my desk. I put in requests to the property service to have the air-conditioning looked at, and everything came back as normal. The lights above my desk would flicker occasionally, no matter how many different bulbs I had maintenance swap out. I’d see shapes moving in dark corners on the edge of my vision, and they’d be gone when I turned to face them. My health started to deteriorate, I was jumpy and tired a lot, losing weight, and my workmates were noticing the change. I wasn’t sleeping well; my dreams were plagued by shapes moving in the darkness, just out of my line of sight. I had to leave the lights on at home when I tried to sleep. I was too scared of what would happen if I awoke in the dark.
As I mentally and physically grew weaker thanks to stress and worry about what was happening, whatever was chasing me seemed to get stronger, more real somehow. I started noticing details in the darkness – long, lank black hair, for example- nothing clear or corporeal enough for me to be able to give a real idea of an appearance, but enough to make me shudder, thinking about possibilities. More than once, I felt the brush of impossibly cold fingers across my shoulder, turning to find nobody there.
I almost quit several times, thinking back now I don’t know why the hell I didn’t just up and leave. I think I might have stayed out of a sense of misguided pride. I wanted to show I was tougher than whatever was tormenting me, or at least to find out why it was only targeting me. Nobody else had any issues at all, and they couldn’t understand my misgivings about being alone when I was at work now. I did try to look into the building’s history, but everything came up a blank. No skeletons in the closet, no suicides, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary at all. It made no sense, dammit!
Everything was about to come to a head, however, as we neared the Christmas season. One of the traditions of the workplace was a team photo every year. We would all get dressed up in our best to have the photo professionally taken, and then the photo would be blown up and hung out back. This year, though… they didn’t hang the photo. The day came and went as normal, we lined up together and had the photo taken, the photographer left, and we went about our day as normal. A week went by, and I came into work one morning, to find the team surrounding my boss’ desk, looking at something on it. As I entered, the team looked up from what was on the desk as one, and all looked towards me at the same time. Something was wrong, I could tell. Some of their faces showed puzzlement, some showed confusion, and more than a few showed some fear. Without a word, they filed away from the desk and went off to their own stations, with my Boss beckoning to me to come over.
On his desk was an A3 sized photo – the team photo. He gestured for me to take a look, and I did, naturally seeking myself out from the bunch. I had been sitting in a chair at the front row, so it was fairly easy to find myself. But, when I did… everything went cold.
“What the hell is with this, Dan?” my boss asked, his voice quavering slightly. Whereas everyone else in the photo was completely normal and smiling brightly, my face was almost indescribable. When the photo had been taken I was smiling like everyone else, but here, here it looked like you were looking at my face through a fishbowl. I was distorted, stretched out. I looked in pain, my mouth stretched much wider than it would naturally go, eyes slightly crazed. And that wasn’t even the worst part.
There was something standing behind me. Again, to the eye it was nothing more distinct than a dark shape; no details could be made out but the way it loomed over me, it was… menacing… malevolent, even. The hair on the back of my neck rose as I looked at the photo.
“I don’t have a clue, Norm. Something up with the camera lens maybe?”
I had considered telling him the truth, that there was something that seemed to be after me, but that’s a good way to end up as ‘the crazy guy’ in the office. As things were, I wasn’t even completely sure that I wasn’t already the crazy guy. The photo went in the bin.
The next day, I found myself posted to a different part of the office – the banking room. For security purposes, the banking room was completely internal & windowless, with swipe-card access in from the back area of the office. Once inside, the doors would lock magnetically, and you had to push a button on the wall in order to release the locks to get out. My boss thought some time away from the counter would do me some good, and he’d arranged for an appointment with work-provided counseling services for me. An hour or so into the day, I felt a chill settle into the room. I looked at the thermostat on the wall, and was surprised to see it unchanged. Then, the lights began to flicker. They flicked on and off, on and off again. I spun on my chair, looking for a cause, but finding none. I spun back towards the desk – and came face to face with a nightmare.
The dark shape was on the desk. I recoiled in horror, pushing my chair back to the opposite wall, trying to put some distance between myself and it, but the room was small, and I hit the shelves lining the wall behind me, tumbling to the floor as I did so. For the first time ever, I could clearly see detail in the darkness, which would seem to solidify for a split second after the lights flickered off, and then fade in the light when they came back on again. The figure was a girl. At least, it was the semblance of a girl, she could have been anywhere between 16 and 50. She was crouched in a squatting position on the desk, knees near her head, hands on the flat desktop, long hair hanging down over her features. She seemed to be looking past me, but then the head turned – slowly, ever so slowly – and her gaze met mine. Oh, god, those eyes! They were entirely black, but in different shades, so you could make out the different parts – where the white would normally be, the iris, the pupils. Those eyes were full of madness, of hatred; and of hunger – the perverse, unsettling hunger of a thing that desired something sitting just outside its grasp.
A single tear rolled down my quivering cheek as I looked up towards this horror. With every flicker of the light, she seemed to grow more solid, more real; as if feeding off the darkness and my fear in turn. Her grin crept slowly, hungrily across her face, impossibly wide, and the eyes grew more crazed and vicious and larger in turn. She opened her mouth, baring long, sharp teeth, and looked as if she was trying to say something, but all that came from her throat was a hungry, dangerous growl – like nails on a chalkboard. I tried to call out in turn, but nothing came from my throat – nothing except a pathetic, frightened whimper.
Without taking my gaze from that nightmarish face, I struggled to get my feet under me. I didn’t dare look away, for fear she would be upon me. I’d seen how fast this thing could move in the darkness. Staying as close to the wall as I could, I backed slowly, ever so slowly away, towards the door. Her gaze followed me, as she cocked her head slightly to the side, as if trying to figure out what I was doing. As I reached the door, I fumbled behind me for the button that would release the magnetic lock, and hopefully release me from the confines of the suddenly oppressively small room. I reached for it – and my hand hit the light switch.
The room plunged into darkness. I froze, all of a sudden feeling hot, wet, stinking breath on the back of my neck. It smelled like death and decay and corruption, and somehow of an aching, burning hunger. “Mine… now…” a voice rasped in my ear. I found the ability to scream, as pain shot through my body.
I don’t remember much of what happened next, for which I’m truly grateful. I think my brain has tried to block some of it out. My colleagues heard my screams and came running. They found me in the corner of the room, flailing my bleeding arms and gibbering madly. An ambulance was called, and I was sedated and taken to the hospital. I had deep scratches all over my arms and torso, and bite marks on my wrists. The doctors decided that I’d had some sort of psychotic break and done it myself, because after all – who else could have done it? There was nobody in the room with me when I was found. I tried to point out that the bites didn’t look like my teeth, and that there was no blood or skin under my nails, but they didn’t listen.
The wounds eventually healed and became scars. My boss – good guy that he is – arranged for me to work for a separate part of the department, one in the brand new, well-lit building. I remained in touch with some of my former workmates, although some of them now regarded me -perhaps not too wrongly of them – as a freak.
Since that day, I’ve never let myself be in the dark without at least some form of illumination. Most of the time I’ll stay in brightly-lit rooms, or outside in the sunshine. She can’t get to me in the light, and although she’s strong, she’s not yet strong enough to come out of the darkness. I think she wants to get me, and if she managed to catch me and finish me off, then maybe she’ll be strong enough to walk in the light.
So you see it’s not the dark that I’m afraid of. Not at all. It’s what lurks in the dark, watching, waiting; that’s what terrifies me. I think that she’s from somewhere beyond, somewhere behind the darkness, and was trying to get from there to here.
And I think that somehow, I let her in.
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