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Hell is worse than you think, trust me. I know this sounds odd, I mean, the idea of an eternal hell being ripped apart over and over by demons sounds horrific, but that image is just stereotypical. Believe me, it can be a lot worse than simply dealing with a whole load of pain. Don’t get me wrong, that version of hell is horrific… but I’d gladly swap that eternity with mine. You see, hell is personalised to you, hell delves into your thoughts and unlocks your deepest and darkest fears, your flaws, and your nightmares. It turns these into reality, the most horrific and twisted kind of reality you could imagine. You relive this reality over and over and over. I’m going to describe my own version of hell to you, seen as though I cannot know for sure what others have experienced.
Throughout my life I was a criminal, I have robbed many banks in my time. I have even murdered a few people in the process, not that I wanted to – they simply got in the way. There was something about stealing that gave me a burst of adrenaline, this adrenaline felt good, it made me feel alive, unstoppable almost. Even as a child I have vague memories of stealing sweets from my local convenience store, pocketing them and quietly sneaking out, smiling to myself. Back then I was never detected, in my adulthood as well I managed to slip away from the police many times.
My luck ran out at the age of 45. I was caught and arrested, imprisoned for 20 years, not only for robbing banks, but for the murders as well. I was just glad it wasn’t a life sentence, 20 years is bad but… at this point I had known something was going to catch me eventually. The stealing was an addiction, even with the knowledge that I would be caught sooner or later, I simply couldn’t bring myself to stop. It was as if I had already accepted the fact that I had used up my life in this way, there was nothing I could do now to change it.
Prison was a horrible experience, I aged into an old man. My outlook on the world seemed to change as I watched the sun set every day through those dull grey bars. Stealing slowly became pointless to me, the idea of robbing now didn’t appeal to me at all. Even though I had now, in a way, changed as a person – the damage had already been done. A lifetime of stealing and killing could not go unnoticed, somewhere down south a special someone had made a note of my name, had smiled an evil smile and doomed me to an eternity of torture.
Back in real life however the thought of ‘hell’ was never on my mind. The principle reason for this of course would be that I was an atheist, why would I have been afraid of something I didn’t believe in? That was ludicrous. Anyway, the story continues when I was finally released from prison. I had never attained a wife during my life, I had had a couple of girlfriends as a young man but… I suppose a criminal lifestyle didn’t appeal to many women. I died as an old man in a rocking chair, alone by the fire.
So that was my life, my quick, pointless life. After being here for an eternity any life becomes meaningless eventually, I’ve been here so long I’m surprised I can still remember it, perhaps I am being forced to recall it every day, an extra little torment on top of the torture, knowing that I am now powerless to change my mistakes. Now however my life has become almost non-existent, a brief flash in my memories. I’ll always feel the regret through, the overwhelming feeling of regret that consumes my mind, wishing, wishing with all my being that I could have been a better man… but there’s no going back now…
Something I haven’t mentioned yet is I am a vegetarian. A vegetarian, it sounds odd, doesn’t it? When you think about it. This hard, murdering back robber disliked eating meat, disliked hurting animals. This is what my personalised hell endorsed, this is the weakness that it plucked out of my head when I entered hell. It used my vegetarian nature as my personal torture device, something to torment me with for an eternity. So… I will now describe exactly what happened when I closed my eyes for that final time, exactly what happened when I lay back in my rocking chair by the fire and as a used up old man closed my eyes forever…
I awoke. Opened my eyes, breathed in the air. The first thing I noticed was that I felt healthier than I had been in years. I felt like a young man again, with new vigour and energy. Sure enough, as I had looked down and examined my hands I noticed that my wrinkles, arthritis, everything… had simply gone. At first I had been overjoyed, yelping with happiness, punching the air. I believed that I was in heaven, I’d felt better than I had in years, overwhelmed with a feeling of happiness.
This temporary feeling subsided slightly when I realised where I was standing. I was in a room, a dark room with bluish walls. The floor and ceiling bore the same characteristics, dark cracked brick which lacked windows, doors, anything. There weren’t any lights either, which caught me as odd seen as though I could see quite easily, despite being confined in such a sheltered room.
‘Hello?’ I asked out loud. It was then that I noticed the deafening silence, a concrete quiet that made my ears ring. After a while I began to feel ill, started contemplating all the possible places I could be. Was this heaven? Was this a temporary holding place? Was this… hell? I tried to keep myself occupied by feeling along the walls, looking for any sign of a way out, doing nothing in an empty room would have soon driven to me to insanity.
‘Meal one.’ A voice rang out, making me jump. It was a low, monotonous voice of a man, it echoed around the empty room.
‘Hello?’ I said in response, hoping that perhaps someone had come to collect me. Hoping that someone had perhaps arrived to take me away from this claustrophobic place. I was wrong however, for no one appeared, a door didn’t open, no angel came in with a smile to greet me. Instead, a metal platter appeared in the middle of the room – on it, a piece of cooked meat.
A sickness settled in my stomach as I crept over to the plate, it looked like lamb. It was at this point that I hoped I was dreaming, I hoped that I was still an old man in my rocking chair. That I had perhaps simply drifted off to sleep by the fire and was having some sort of vivid nightmare. A very, very vivid nightmare…
‘I don’t eat meat.’ I whimpered. I was a vegetarian, after all. The idea of eating meat was disgusting. Not only the fact that it came from an animal, but… also the taste. There was something about it that had just never appealed to me. Something about the idea that an animal was killed to provide me with the meal, that I was chewing on its insides, its muscle. Muscle that was perhaps used by the animal several weeks earlier to potter around a field chewing on grass.
Without warning I suddenly fell to my hands and knees in front of the plate, this shocked me, it felt like I had lost all control of my body, as if something was driving me. So, unable to stop, my hands reached forwards and plucked the lamb off the plate. I tried desperately to resist but my hands stuffed the meat into my mouth, my mouth then started chewing as if by itself. I choked several times, reeling from the taste I had always been disgusted by. My throat swallowed the dry lamb and I coughed several times, choking on its dry texture. After it was one my body was released from control and I fell backwards onto the cold ground. The platter that had held the meat seemed to melt away into the deep cracks of the floor, trickling away like water.
‘What is this?’ I shouted. My protest was met with two words from the deep voiced man.
‘Meal two.’
I watched the ground in front of me with hushed trepidation… what would appear there? More meat? No, it was worse. After several moments a small bird appeared, a small Robin with closer inspection. It flapped it wings but remained standing, looking at me with its black beady eyes.
‘No!’ I screamed. I stood up and ran to one wall, pressing my back against it, ‘no! This can’t be happening!’ The small Robin simply stared at me, making no effort to fly away, for a fleeting moment the little bird seemed to look malicious – evil almost. As if the bird was in on all of this, this nightmare, knowing what was happening to me. It took me a while to realise that my body was moving on its own again, I had pulled myself away from the wall and was now taking footsteps towards the bird. I squinted my eyes shut, hoping to somehow wake up, hoping that this was indeed just a horrifically vivid dream. My eyes however were suddenly wrenched open again by some invisible force, I had no control, and I couldn’t do anything to stop what happened next.
My hand reached forward and picked the Robin up, it struggled in my hand, flapped its wings frantically. Unable to stop, my hand slowly moved towards my mouth. The head of the Robin slid between my teeth, I could feel its beak tapping against them, pecking my gums. Without warning my jaw clenched shut with supernatural force and the little bird was killed instantly – its neck broken. The blood from its neck oozed into my mouth, the copper taste covering my tongue. I gagged several times and then my hand proceeded to force the rest of the bird into my mouth, causing me to choke. I began chewing, the bird crunched as I did. Blood oozed from my lips and trickled down my chin, soaking into the top of my shirt. Chewing through the feathers was tough, they became stuck between my teeth. When my throat had swallowed the Robin the control was released from me yet again, I collapsed to the ground moaning.
It was at this point that I began crying, sobbing loudly, a grown man reduced to tears. I retched a couple of times and vomited on the ground, coughed, choked. I was a mess… and it was only meal two.
‘Meal three.’ The man’s voice rang out once again.
‘SHUT UP!’ I screamed at the top of my voice, ‘SHUT UP!’ I knew it was pointless yelling, but did so anyway. I refused to look at what had appeared in the middle of the room, I closed my eyes. By now I realised I was in hell, or something similar. At this point I didn’t want to be conscious, I didn’t want to be here, I desired to simply cease to exist. An eternity of nothingness was heaven in comparison to this. Desperate, I covered my eyes with my hands and adopted a foetal position… hoping that somehow I’d be taken away from here, hoping that I’d simply lose consciousness.
It was then that I heard it. A bleating noise, I knew without looking that there was a lamb standing in the middle of the room. I screamed, I screamed wordlessly, mindlessly, crazily. I had been in this place for what… ten minutes? I was already bordering on delirium… but there was something… there was something inside me that kept me awake. Kept me from feeling tired, passing out, dying, going insane. This was the same force that was now making me walk towards the lamb, it was keeping me grounded in the room, and it didn’t want me to escape, physically or mentally.
I dropped to my knees in front of the animal, my hands slowly reached out and grabbed it around the middle. I brought it up to my face and my teeth plunged into its neck, I must have severed an artery because blood began pumping into my mouth. The lamb bleated frantically, kicking its legs. My arms kept it in place however, and I drank its blood like a carnivore, being forced to guzzle it. I kept wanting to lose myself to insanity, to get away from this, but something kept bringing me back, bring me back again and again. Every time I teetered on the brink of fainting something suddenly snapped me back to my sense, back into the room where I was forced to experience the torture. My teeth began chewing through its neck, the lamb quietened down, it was dead. My body forced me to eat the lamb whole, crunching through its bones. My teeth were chipped and splintered in the process, my gums began bleeding. Throughout all of this I kept throwing up, vomiting all over the half eaten lamb. I was still unable to stop however, I simply began eating the vomit drenched carcass, and this in turn made me vomit even more. Throughout this ordeal I had been crying the entire time, sobbing.
By the time I was finished and released from the control, I slumped backwards onto the floor, moaning like an animal. Moaning in pain, in pure misery. I was covered in blood, and bits of bone. Some entrails covered the ground, the stench was horrible, making me gag. I dragged myself away from the pool of blood to one side of the room and leaned my back against a wall.
‘I’m sorry.’ I cried, ‘I’m sorry.’ I hoped that somehow my sins would be forgiven due to my sudden apology, that somehow whatever was holding me would become compassionate and free me from this nightmare. In all my time here however nothing I have ever uttered has ever been met with any sort of sympathy, the response to my pleas always consists of two words… two words that have now consumed my life, my thoughts, my existence.
‘Meal four.’ The voice sounded once again. I moved my eyes over to the centre of the room reluctantly. By now I was a mess, a mess of blood, vomit, tears, and saliva. My teeth were broken and cracked, my gums were torn apart and bleeding. I glanced at what now occupied the centre of the room, what I saw made me burst into sobs, into misery filled sobs. Then I started screaming again, screaming insanely, for what now occupied the centre of the room was a human being – an adult man, but not any adult man, it was an exact copy of myself, grinning evilly in my direction.
And as I pulled myself up from the wall and slowly approached him for my next meal. As my teeth plunged into his shoulder, the man let out a deep, long laugh.
Hell is worse than you think, trust me.
Credit To – Meek
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1
Guy Thompson was the model for your ‘normal’ twenty something person: Five feet eleven inches tall, twelve and a half stone and a simple haircut. Not to mention a lack of any real fashion sense. He held a nine to five job with a twenty five grand salary; had a girlfriend, plain and unspectacular much like Guy himself and took his dog Milo for walks twice a day.
Guy was a typical person until 17:11 on Monday 29th August 2012. At 17:09 two men had broken in the door of his everyday normal house; by 17:10 they had stabbed and killed his everyday normal girlfriend and by 17:11, they had hit him on the head with a crowbar and destroyed his everyday normal life.
By some miracle Guy had survived the blow which doctors expected to end his life, but at a price. Guy’s memory had been affected. Not his long term memory, he could still remember the attack, he could still remember his dog, he could still remember his life; but that just made it worse.
He couldn’t make any new memories. Every day he would wake up as if he had just regained consciousness after his attack. Leaving himself notes to remind him of what had happened and an explanation of his condition allowed him to make it through the day. A digital clock and calendar was left next to these notes so he had some idea of time, and extra notes would be created for crucial events in his excuse for a life. Then every night he would go to sleep and wake up with no memory of what had just happened that previous day. The vicious cycle would begin again.
2
The attacker ran towards our unspectacular protagonist screaming. Guy reacted by tackling this assailant to the ground and beating him senseless for killing his girlfriend. The second criminal swung at Guy. There was a sickening thud as his crowbar struck the side of Guy’s head causing him to black out.
Our now spectacular protagonist awoke. The light was on revealing his room, which today was a little unusual. All things were in their normal places, the same places Guy had left them on 29/08/12, except there were four things amiss. Two pieces of paper accompanied by an electronic calendar and clock were left next to his bed. Most unusually the calendar said that it was 05/06/13. Also, there was a lock on the door of his room. One of the notes had the title ‘Important Must Read’, the other ‘New’. He began by reading the piece labelled as important. Written in his own handwriting it said:
Guy it’s me. Well you. As you can see from the calendar, it is not the 30th of August as you might expect. The last memory you had is the last you will ever have. Since the attack you have developed a form of short term memory loss. It’s not amnesia, as I’m sure you are aware, you can still remember just everything from before the attack but I’m afraid that you will not remember what you did yesterday. I suggest that you make notes on anything you may find important, and don’t trust anyone you don’t know.
Guy didn’t want to believe this, but he had no choice. The writing was unmistakably his; a single tear rolled down his cheek. Then he began to read the piece named ‘New’, this piece was not written, instead it was typed; this did not sit right with Guy, but the reason for its typing soon became evident.
Heeeeyyy r-r-r-retard, betcha can’t remember how you ended up here can ya. Well it doesn’t matter, just as long as you can remember how to get out. Ooops, doubt you can remember that either. Ah well, it’ll be fun to watch you squirm anyhow. See that door, yeah that’s right it’s locked and there’s a key somewhere, but you’ve got to find it. It should be pretty easy right; after all you saw where I put it. Ooops haha not again, I forgot, well I suppose you did really :P. Because I’m so nice I’ve left you a little water in the bottom drawer of your bed. Trust me it’s safe to drink; it wouldn’t do me much good just to poison you. In fact that demise would be too good for you. Anyway, tata, happy hunting.
A scream rose from Guy’s throat as he yanked at the door handle. Sure enough it was locked. The door was sturdy as well, it did not collapse under the barrage of strikes it received; in fact it barely even scratched. That made Guy furious, he began ripping out drawers and smashing cupboards. But there was no key. Then it occurred to him, what about the window? He slept on the first floor; he could quite easily jump out and walk away with minor injury. The key for the window was still in its lock, but it was what was behind the window which filled his heart once more with dismay. The window could quite easily be opened but it would do little good. Behind the glass resided a solid wooden barricade. Guy understood that he would have no way of breaking it. He really had to unlock that door. It was funny really, after he had got over the fact that he was trapped, his next thought was Shit, there’s no bathroom in here. Unfortunately, that was the truth. Looks like it’s the cupboard for me.
3
An hour had passed and Guy was no closer to finding the key than when he had awoken. He had found his fair share of notes, again typed, saying such things as: ‘keep looking’ and ‘oooohhh not quite’. They bled arrogance. Now laid on his back, Guy was probing the deep chasm of his mind in search for answers. Much like the physical situation, within his mind there was a locked door and the key nowhere to be found. But it was there, wasn’t it? He thought to himself. What if there is no key, what if my captor just wants me to go crazy, what if this is how I will die? What if I’m already dead and this is some strange version of hell? And most of all. What is on the other side of the door? Or who is on the other side? Then it struck him.
Walking towards the door on his tiptoes so as not to alert any potential jailer, Guy placed his ear on the door in a vain attempt to decipher what may be going on behind it. He expected it to be quiet, but hoped for a stir. Maybe he could hear someone breathing or possibly even the shuffle of feet. Instead he was greeted by eerie silence… Nothing.
“Hey, anybody there?” he bellowed. “I’m fucking sick of this shit. I don’t know why you are doing this, but if it’s for money I can give you more than what you’re already being paid.” In truth he didn’t know if this was the case. He had surprisingly made quite a saving from his rather average job but he doubted it would still be there. After all he had lost seven months of his life overnight, sort of. “Not answering eh, well fuck you, you, you… fucking shit!” Still silence. Nothing, no stir no breath, the only heartbeat his own.
The façade of screaming at nothing went on a little longer then, tired and breathless, Guy relented and sat on his bed. The mattress tattered from the frantic search for a key. The floor was also a mess, clothes and their cupboard shelves strewn everywhere. Shit I could sell this as ‘art’ and make a killing. Scanning the floor, Guy found the water. Until now it had been untouched. He hadn’t trusted the note; he had decided that it would be safer not to drink the water. After all he would be out of here in no time. What false hope. He cracked open the top of the plastic ‘Highland Spring Water’ and began to drink. The water was warm but not unpleasant, he believed that it really must be safe and if not, did he really care anymore? Still, only a mouthful was drunk, he was rationing. Hope wasn’t lost yet you see. Once again he lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He made a conscious attempt to stay awake, after all, it would make matters even worse if he fell asleep as when he awoke, he would remember nothing. He was about to take another look around the room to see if he could find the key, when he heard a noise from outside the room.
4
Before Guy realised exactly what was happening, his instincts had kicked in and his ear pressed against the wall. Though faint, Guy could make out what the sound was… music. More specifically, Stone Sour’s Through Glass.
“I’m looking at you through the glass; don’t know how much time has passed…”
“Hey, I can hear you motherfucker, don’t think I can’t hear!” Guy’s voice rasped as the anger filled his veins. He was sure someone was there now, they must be. “I know you there you son of a bitch, I can hear your music! Stop playing with me! Fuck!”
No voice, no motion, just the music. As the chorus faded into silence, there was a brief pause, and then a click and the song began again. Guy figured that whoever was on the other side of the door had it in mind to drive him insane through repetition, irritation and claustrophobia. The worst thing was, he knew that this noise was going to drive him to further frustration.
“Ha, well I like this song anyway.” Pathetic.
Guy had nothing else to say and it didn’t matter. His captor, if there even was one, wasn’t going to reply, no matter what he said. He could scream, laugh or cry and still his reply would be that of deadly silence. That is except the repetitive acoustic strum of Jim Root’s guitar, and the warm yet powerful voice of Cory Taylor.
At least with this song playing I won’t likely fall asleep he thought. Thank god for small mercies. Guy didn’t really believe that this was much of a relief, but it at least convinced him to have another look for the key. After all, what else was he going to do? The search went at a slower pace once again, spending a lot of time analysing every nook and cranny of each part of his room Guy amassed a total of two hours searching. The song, though still playing just as loud, had faded into the back of his mind. Finally, after hours of this enormous psychological strain, Guy’s mind finally relented. He gave up and went to sleep.
Based on past experience, this should have been the worst thing our unfortunate victim could have done. You and I may have thought that this incident may have made Guy forget all of what had just happened, and we would be right. When Guy awoke he had no memory of what had just happened. But his dream had been more than fruitful.
5
Apparently, you only consciously remember dreams if you wake up during them. If you let the dream finish and then wake up, only fragments will remain in your consciousness, the rest will reside in your subconscious. Neither would be any use for Guy. If he woke up after the dream had finished like everybody else he would not remember it. If he woke up during it his condition wouldn’t allow him to remember it anyway. But what if he didn’t properly wake up? What if he awoke into semi-consciousness? Still dreaming, but capable of interacting with the real world.
The dream itself was oddly affected by the song still playing in the other room. But now Guy realised that its purpose was not to drive him to insanity. It was in fact there to help him; a cryptic clue.
“Looking at you through the glass.”
In Guy’s mind he was looking through the window of his room, but from the outside looking in. Inside the room he saw a man. At least he thought it was a man for he couldn’t see his face. The figure wore a long dark coat and a ten gallon hat, immersing his face in shadow. Watching, he saw this mysterious figure leaving notes around his room. Underneath the bed, inside the cupboards and then he walked towards the window. Guy wanted to move, he didn’t want this eerie spectre to see him. Instead he froze. He wanted to hide but the dream wouldn’t let him. Guy tried to wake himself but to no avail. The dark man lifted his final piece of paper and placed it on the window, yet he did not see Guy. Even more peculiarly, as soon as the paper hit the window, the glass was replaced by the wooden board which covered his window within his real physical world.
Rising from his bed, the zombie once known as Guy, stumbled towards his bedroom window. Turning the key slowly in the lock, there was a quiet click and then the door swung open. He reached forward and scratched the wooden board. But it wasn’t wood, not all of it anyway. There was also a piece of paper, painted the same colour as the wood, stuck face down onto it. Guy peeled of the note and as he did, returned to consciousness. It read:
Well done Guy. It was quite simple really; all you had to do was… look through the glass. But this isn’t the end of course, you still haven’t found the key yet, well you have I suppose, you just don’t realise it yet. The answer is right in front to you. Tata ;).
The note enigmatic as always, but now Guy was faced with another problem. He couldn’t remember why he was reading a note; he didn’t even know what the note was. He turned around and saw his original memos along the floor of his tattered room, the smell of piss thick in the air. What the hell is going on? What does that paper say?
6
In spite of his condition, it didn’t take long for Guy to work out what was happening (in essence leastways). In truth Guy had only been trapped for eleven hours, his sleep had not been long, but he believed that he had been trapped at least a full day. It was his only explanation of why he had fallen asleep during his search. He was soon to re-realise that the mix of being in a confined space along with the constant music soon drives a man to exhaustion.
The answer is right in front of you. The irritating thing was, the answer really was in front of him and Guy knew it. But he didn’t know exactly what that answer was. I’m thinking too deep, Guy thought. Maybe it’s not cryptic, maybe it’s literal. Maybe the answer really is in front of me… or was.
Guy rushed back towards the window and slid his hand over the wooden board; nothing. He then opened the other window, looking behind wooden edges; still nothing.
What could it be, what could it be? Damn. Think goddamn you. The answer is in front of me. Then he stopped dead still. A ridiculous smile grew on his face, he had truly been elated. No shit Sherlock. Guy thought as he reached towards the window and pulled out the very key he used to open it. It had been there all along, so obvious now, but it really was in the last place he would think to look; right in front of him the whole time. He wasn’t totally sure yet that it would work but neither did he want to think of what would happen if it didn’t work.
Rushing towards the door he slotted the key into the aperture. It fits! Slowly he turned the key. At first it stuck and Guy’s heart sank, but with a little more effort it moved. There was a delightful click and Guy’s heart rose once again. The door swung open.
7
Guy was now standing on the landing of his house, in front of him was an MP3 player and docking station, out of it came ‘Through Glass’. Deliberately he walked over and turned it off. Before he had enjoyed that song; now he believed he would never want to hear it again. How wrong he was.
Behind him was a clock, on which the numbers 12:47:19 were presented. Looking to the left Guy saw a T.V and a DVD player. The tray was open and a DVD with ‘Play me’ written upon it. Sure enough he played it. There was the signature clunk of a disc spinning and then the video played.
Surprised was not a strong enough word. Astonished, astounded, amazed; stunned, shocked, startled. No words can truly describe how Guy felt when the man who appeared on the screen was none other than himself.
“The date is the first of January twenty thirteen” Said the Guy on screen. “And my new year’s resolution is to… get my memory back. These last few of months have been hell. My physical recovery has been quick but, my mental state is no better. I’m sick of waking up every day not understanding why a week; or a month has passed. I’ve been researching and found out about this thing called conditioning. It basically means that if I repeat the same actions over and over again, I can essentially create new memories, through habit. I don’t really know the science behind it but physically, the part of the brain which controls my short term memory is completely different to the part which controls my instincts. In essence I’m trying to live by habit.” This television Guy was now welling up with tears. “The only problem is, the way I’m going to condition myself to remember. I’ve made my room into – a prison – sort of. I’m going to lock myself in, with a key, and make myself remember where I put it. I’ve written some notes which I have been read repeatedly which I will leave around the room. Also I have constantly played the song ‘Through Glass’ whilst opening and closing the lock. I don’t know if this will make any difference, like I said I don’t really know what I’m doing. This may kill me. But I figure it’s better to die than live like this. If you – well I – am watching this it means it is working. Or it could mean I just got lucky. Either way I figure the only way to get myself sorted is through doing this over and over again. So if you… I got out, keep this up. It may be helpful. Oh and I have left paper below the player for me, you, whatever, to jot down times and details; Just in case this plan works.”
Guy stood with a slack jawed gaze upon his face speechless. People often say “I’m speechless!” but they are clearly not. After all, they had just spoken. Guy really was speechless. There was a short lapse of time and then another video started playing. Once again, Guy was on screen but this time he was smiling.
“The date is the 14th of April 2013 and I’m feeling much better, thank you for asking. My plan, though not perfect has certainly taken effect. As you can probably see from the papers, I have improved my time of escaping every single time I tried it. I’ve been putting everything in the same place and my time has improved by at least ten minutes every time I have completed my… course I suppose. Anyways I’ll keep this short. Detailed plans are where they always are, under the player, as well as a list of accomplished times. Anyway I better keep it up eh?” Then the DVD stopped for good.
8
It had been two days since Guy had escaped the room. In those two days he had studied, and made further notes on his escape. Each day he would have to re-watch the DVD, but he still made progress. Much as the T.V version of him had said; each time he entered the room he had escaped in progressively shorter times. His final time: twelve hours, forty seven minutes and nineteen seconds (from when he had awoken). Looking back on his records he realised that his original time had been just shy of twenty four hours. Sometimes he had improved by as much as an hour, at other times as little as ten minutes. Yet at all times he had improved.
On the third day after his escape, Guy cleaned his room and replaced the notes. He set the clock to begin its count after motion had been detected in the room and had set the music to play after the clock reached four hours. Next, he repainted the final clue onto the wooden boards behind the window and locked it, keeping the key inside the lock. Finally he shut the door behind him, letting it lock, and began his journey to revival once again.
–
from my eyes I see your lies
from my ears I hear your screams
from my chest I feel your pain
as you’re trapped within the flames
my eyes they tell no lies
and my ears they miss no screams
you can never hide your pain
if you’re trapped within the flames
now I have seen through your lies
I choose to ignore your screams
you are left alone with pain
find your own way out the flames
I could not see my own lies
I chose not to hear myself
now all I have is my pain
I am lost inside my flames
Credit To – James Turner
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I can’t sleep. I have to share because maybe I won’t feel if I share. Dr. Kirsch says to write and get it off my chest. Writing about it might release me from it. What should I title this? “Therapy”?
I’m currently seated at a computer terminal in a little, white, sterile room. There’s about a half dozen other computer terminals here, all facin the same way like a classroom. There’s posters on the walls with medical information. Everyone in em looks happy and complacent. Zombies. This place is called Sleep HealthCenters, just outside of Boston. It’s a clinic for people with sleepin disorders.
I’m feelin a little loopy from the eszopiclone, so if my writing gets all garbled just deal with it and I can edit it when I’m clear-headed.
The doc wants me to do a little writing. He said that repetition can help with insomnia, and I gotta admit, if things were normal, this room and the clack of these keystrokes would probably make me pass right the fuck out.
Things ain’t normal though.
It’s not that I can’t sleep, it’s that I don’t want to sleep. I actually doze off pretty frequently, but then I realize I’m falling asleep and I snap myself out of it. When I don’t, when I drift off and can’t stop myself, I dream, and that’s what I want to avoid. If I could control what I dream about, I would sleep right now and not wake up til fuckin October. But I can’t control it. And ever since May, ever since
Tom
That house on Black Pond Road
Fuck, just thinkin about it makes my skin crawl. And writin that makes me see it all again in my head. I don’t wanna relive it. But Dr. Kirsch– he’s my doc. Nice guy, smiles a lot, practically whispers when he talks– Dr. Kirsch said that if I write about the experience, it might “release me” from it. Like there’s some sorta mental hold on me, torturin me. Guilt? I was as much a victim as Tom was.
Tom.
Tom was my friend from college. We both attended BU. Freshman year, his room was right across the hall from mine. I remember runnin into him on a bench late one night when my roommate was spending too long talkin on the phone to his girlfriend from home. Tom bummed me a smoke and we just sat and talked about our roommates’ idosyncracies for a couple hours. After that, we just hung out all the time. Even after college we stuck together. Both got jobs in the city, lived near each other in Somerville.
When was it? It was May. Right. Friday the fucking 13th of all days. And Tom called me up after work and said
“Whatcha got goin on this weekend?” and I said, “Nothing.” and he said, “Any chance you can help me clean out a house?” and I said, “Who we robbin?” and he said, “My dead aunt.” and I said, “Friends help you move, good friends help you move bodies.” and he said, “Unfortunately somebody already moved the body, but she’s got a lot of other shit in her place and I need to clean it out so it can get sold.”
So he picked me up that night and we drove and listened to tunes on the radio, stopped and ate and chilled and just drove and drove. And I asked him as we were goin,
“How’d she die?”
“She hung herself.”
“Well I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Don’t be, she was batshit insane.”
“I’m sure she loved you, too.”
“Hardly. But she loved her brother, and he just happened to be my father. He needs to get the house sold but they live out in Washington now, so I agreed to clean the house.”
“What a good son.”
“Well, I’m gettin paid for it.”
“Oh, I see. I help do the work and you get all the reward.”
“You get the reward of my company for a weekend in some rat hole.”
“I guess that’s better than what I had planned.”
Black Pond Road. That’s a hell of a name. Her house looked like it was going to collapse. It was one floor, one large living room connected to a tiny kitchen and two tiny bedrooms. The bathroom was practically a closet. There was a screened porch off the side lookin out into woods.
It was after 1 in the morning when we got there. I remember suggestin we sleep in the car just in case the house collapsed. Tom pulled out a flashlight, we gathered our bedrolls and backpacks and went inside. I was
the floor moved
It was dark, but when Tom shone his light in, I swore it looked for a moment like the floor… moved. Fuck that floor. It was the kitchen. Greasy, stained white tiles. Everything in that room was greasy and stained. Even the windows. They were so gross, the reflected light from Tom’s flashlight came back like a mustardy puke yellow.
Was it clicking? Tapping. I can’t describe it, but the feeling when we walked in was like a couple crashers walking into a chatty party and everyone stopping what they were saying and lookin at us. Almost the faintest echo of a final sound, like a hundred fingernails tapping on a tabletop and then quiet.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“No.”
We shoulda slept in the car.
My room was like a prison cell attached to the living room. Tom’s room was only accessible from the screened porch. I took a look in and told him we should switch.
“If I’m not getting paid, at least give me the nicer room.”
“You don’t want this room, this is the room she hung herself in.” We just stood there for a bit.
“The only thing missing from my room are bars on the window.”
“That’s so you can escape when her ghost comes for us.”
“A ghost wouldn’t be caught dead here.”
I went and unrolled my sleeping bag on the tiny bed in my room, then climbed in and lay there in the dark. After a while of everything bein quiet, I started hearin this sound. It was like chittering. And buzzing. Fucking mosquitoes, that’s what I thought. I pulled the sleeping bag over my head and tucked it under me to keep anything out.
God
If I hadn’t been so tired.
Somethin bit me. On the web of skin between my fingers. I woke up and was instantly in pain all over my legs, like a hundred needle pricks. And my feet felt like I was standing in the sand at the beach with the water coming in and the mud squishing between my toes. I jerked out of the sleeping bag and fell on the floor. I hurt my chin on somethin, I don’t know what. I got up yelling and checking my hand. There was a tiny red dot of a bug bite between my index and middle finger. And then I looked at my legs and they were dotted like a bad case of chicken pox. Hundreds of little bite marks. And I looked at my sleeping bag and
bugs
just skitterin out of the bag like
It was a stream of them, crawlin over each other. Earwigs. Hundreds of earwigs slithering out of the bag I’d been sleeping in. And house centipedes with them, wiggling along. This just tide of glistening bodies crawling out of the bag with me. I felt like I was going to puke and I ran from the room, slamming the door shut.
It was morning. I went out through the porch and into Tom’s room and shook him til he made a sound.
“Get out. You gotta get out of your bag.”
“Dude, what time is it?”
“It’s morning time and you need to get out of the fucking sleeping bag, dude. My bag was full of bugs. I’m covered in fucking bug bites. Get the fuck out of the fucking fuck bag!”
“My stomach hurts, just give me a second.”
He didn’t have any bugs in his fucking bag. I almost hated him for it. But then he complained again about his stomach hurting and pulled up his shirt and I saw these swollen marks all along the waistline of his pants.
“What the fuck, dude?”
“We’re not sleeping in this fucking house, man. Look at my legs.”
My bites weren’t swollen but they itched so bad. I wasn’t taking my bedroll home. No way in hell I was keeping it after seeing all those bugs crawl out of it. Burn it. Burn the whole house.
Burn it
That’s my dream. When I fall asleep, I’m back in that fucking bag, only I can’t get out, and the earwigs and the centipedes are covering my feet and my legs and crawling up into my underwear and all over my chest and then they’re on my neck, on my arms, in my ears and wigglin toward my nose and I can’t scream because they’ll be in my mouth and no matter how much I thrash the bag won’t open and they just keep crawling back over me. I can’t dream that anymore. I spent a week telling myself it was just a dream but I know they did crawl over me. They had to have been all over me as they slithered into the warm, dark comfort of my bag.
Maybe I wouldn’t dream it if Tom hadn’t
I’m getting off track.
We didn’t find any bugs in Tom’s room. He gave me his car keys and I went into town and bought some Cortisone for him to put on the bites. When I got back, Tom was outside. He had his flashlight and was looking under the porch.
“Come here.” So I went. I looked under the porch at what he was pointing at. The porch was raised on these concrete blocks because of the tilt of the ground, and we could see all the way under the house. On the far side, there was this gray shit. It looked like crusted, packed mud.
“That’s a hive.” Tom said. I remember it felt like I just hit the peak on a rollercoaster and now the world was flying down at me.
“It’s huge.” There’s no way I can do the enormity of this thing justice. It was spread across the underside of the house from the edge of the base on deep into the darkness. Nothing was moving on it, but I looked at it a long time and I could see the little passage holes in it. Hundreds of holes.
“We’re leaving.”
No shit we were leaving. I wanted to be home already. I waited while Tom used the cream I’d bought on his bites which I knew now were stings. It was unnatural, I swear, the aggressiveness of the insect life in that house.
I ended up driving us back. Tom got awful cramps
awful cramps
He eventually had to lie down in the backseat, doubled over in pain. I pulled over at a rest stop and made him let me check the spots out, but the swelling had gone down. He had these stabbing pains in his gut though. I told him we needed to take him to a doctor. I wanted to see one myself. Fucking bites all over my legs.
“You gotta tell your parents to burn that fucking house to the ground.”
“Believe me, I will.”
I went and had the bites checked on Sunday. I was fine. I had my first nightmare that night. Back in that bag, being consumed by earwigs and centipedes.
I called Tom to see if he had gotten checked but he didn’t answer. I called him again on Monday. When I talked to him, he sounded … he sounded distant. Like he was thinkin about somethin else. I asked if he’d told his folks about the house and he said he hadn’t.
I took the day off and went to see him on Wednesday. I buzzed him, but he didn’t answer. I got into the building when someone else came out, and found his door was unlocked. He was sittin on his couch, staring at the far wall. He looked gray. His skin, it wasn’t pale or rotting or anything, but he did not look healthy. He hadn’t cleaned up in a couple days, the place stunk. He just sat there.
“Tom, we gotta get you to a doctor, dude.”
“I’m fine now, thanks.” he still sounded distant. I don’t think he even saw me.
“You’re not fine, dude. This isn’t fine. I’m getting you some clothes and we’re going to the hospital.”
Oh god, I let him out of my sight. This is my fault.
I’m so sorry, Tom.
I– when I came back, he was gone. His door was open. I went outside and looked for him, but he wasn’t anywhere. I waited for hours on the step to his building. Finally I went home.
I went back after work on Thursday, but his door was shut and locked. I buzzed him but got no answer. I called his cell and was directed straight to voice mail. I didn’t know what to do. I was strugglin to think. I’d been havin the nightmare for days and had started refusing to sleep. I couldn’t think straight. I shoulda called the police, but when I got home I fell asleep on the couch and dreamed of being trapped in the bag again. I swear, when I woke up it felt like the bites on my legs had returned.
Friday. It was a week after that awful day. I was a zombie the whole day. My supervisor told me to go home. I was so tired I missed the stop for Davis Square and found myself wandering out of Alewife, not even thinking about where I was going. The walk helped me think though, and when I got home I called Tom’s folks. I told them Tom was sick and I was worried about him.
“He did sound odd when he called last night.”
“He called you? Did he tell you about the house?”
“Well I assume that was a joke.”
“No, Sir, you need to have that place razed.”
“Razed? No, he didn’t say anything about that. He joked about going to live there.”
I honestly don’t think that was Tom. I don’t think he was in control at that point, and whatever was in control intended to take him back to the house to live there. Poor Tom.
Poor Tom.
I went back to his place that afternoon and got in again. His door was unlocked, but he wasn’t there. He had left a note on his fridge. You could tell he was fucked up, it was so hard to read. It said
i can feel them moving
inside me
i can’t stop it
i don’t want to
go
bye
My friend Tom shot himself that weekend. They found his body in Cambridge with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Just a body in an alley with a hole in its head. I didn’t even know he owned a gun. The police didn’t suspect foul play, but they did an autopsy because he looked like he’d been on drugs. When I called his folks to give them my condolences, I asked them if they’d found drugs. They told me that the coroner had found dozens of large wasp larva living inside him.
Oh God.
They had been feeding on him from the inside, burrowing through his body.
I told his parents to get that house burned to the ground. I wanted to add that they should piss on the ashes. I wanted to piss on the ashes. I don’t know what they did about it. It may still be there. Buzzing with life.
the floor moved
The house took Tom’s life. The bugs. And I can’t sleep. I’m trapped in a bag and they’re getting in my mouth and my nose and my ears. They’re moving across my skin, consuming me.
I don’t feel better. I just want to forget. How do I post this thing I can’t stand this room anymore.
|
“It’s last call.”
“Hey, like in that poem you know? ‘Hurry up please, it’s time!’ …sorry, I’ve had a lot to drink.”
“We all have. And I, for one, don’t really feel safe going home after everything we’ve heard tonight.”
“But all those stories can’t be true. Even if you believe in that kind of thing, there can’t be one city with so many secrets.”
“Maybe it’s not the city that’s really the problem. Listen closely: What do you hear?”
“My pounding head.”
“The bartender throwing us out.”
“My boyfriend leaving impatient text messages wondering where I am.”
“Underneath all of that, I mean. Do you hear it? The ocean.”
“But that’s miles away?”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ve got the ocean on one side, the bay on the other, and the straits connecting them. We’re surrounded by the sea; you can’t get away.”
“So what?”
“Maybe the ocean is the reason so many strange things happen here. Maybe there’s something in the water. Here, we have a little more time before this place is really closed; let me tell you about it…”
***
“My mother told me he went off to become a frogman.”
The stringer stopped writing, certain that she had misheard the old woman. They sat in a small, pretty house just a few blocks from the Ruins, a house that smelled persistently of cat despite no cat being evident. The old woman (her name was Marie Wayland; she was in her sixties but looked much, much older) had a voice only slightly more pronounced than silence and the stringer could never be completely sure that what she had written down was anything close to what the old woman had actually said.
“A frogman?” the stringer asked.
“That’s what they used to call a deep-sea diver in the old days, on account of the flippers and the wetsuit. And the goggles.” She mimed goggles over her eyes. “He always said that’s what he’d wanted to be when he grew up, so when he ran off that’s what mother told me he was doing.”
The stringer nodded and continued writing, without comment. The conversation was going on forty-five minutes and the frogman thing was the most coherent comment she’d gotten so far. She checked the time and found that the light would waning outside. She would have to hurry if she wanted to shoot the Ruins today. She skipped to her last question:
“I understand that he was an artist, but no one ever exhibited his work?”
“That’s right,” Marie said. “In fact, here.” The old woman stood; she was not a little old woman, despite her tiny voice. She was tall and thick-limbed. She reminded the stringer of a huge bird, a crane or a stork. The old woman brought out a flat package a little over a foot on each side, wrapped in brown paper.
“You mentioned that on the phone and I thought your magazine might like to use this in the article. It’s a charcoal sketch he did. Go ahead and keep it, I’ve got plenty more just like it. Hundreds, maybe. Mother kept them all, after he left.”
The stringer accepted the package, feeling as if she were receiving an unwanted Christmas gift from a relative she barely knew. She left with the package under her arm and her camera around her neck, glad to be free of that clinging cat odor. Forty plus minutes of conversation had yielded less than a page of notes, but with the sun at just the right angle on the horizon it was not too late to get some good shots of the Ruins; the day needn’t be completely wasted.
The smell of the salt breeze coming from the beach stung her nostrils. The stringer had never particularly liked the ocean. She’d rather have lived anywhere but a coastal city, but the city was where the work was. She’d had a regular position as a staff photographer at a decent magazine for a while, but now she was back to being a stringer, living off of freelance work and making it by job to job. The assignment about the Ruins had been a lucky break, but breaks were fewer and further between all the time. She crested the hill and started down the hiking trail, toward her destination.
The beach that served as the fringe to the city’s westernmost side terminated on the north in a series of rocky pools particularly hazardous to anyone traversing the coast, by land or by sea. But the spectacular views of the waves crashing against the shore had always encouraged developers to build on the bluffs overlooking the area, which is why, a hundred years ago, the old mayor built his theater palace here. People in the city would come all the way out to the beach complex for circus acts and dancing shows and the indoor pool and whatever else the wizards who owned the place cooked up. They’d even had a museum of ancient Egyptian artifacts. But in the ’50s it fell on hard times and the family sold it to an outsider, George Wayland, who closed it ten years later and then skipped town. No sooner was he gone than the whole thing burnt to the ground.
Wayland himself disappeared, apparently never disembarking from the ship that carried him away from the city. He left behind a wife, a daughter (now an old woman who lived just a few blocks away in her cat-smelling ho use), and a legacy of unanswered questions. And the place where the pool and circus and the museum once was sat untouched for decades, slowly falling apart, filling in with water and silt and wild plants until it resembled an ancient ruin. And that was what people called it: the Ruins. It was never fully torn down; folks decided they liked the look of it. The crumbling stone walls and enormous, water-filled pits alongside the beach and the coastline looked more like the remains of a Roman village than anything a turn of the century showman built. The city decided they were beautiful. Although, the stringer reflected, as she set her tripod on a hill, to her the place had always looked creepy as hell. Even when she and Randy played down here as kids, she’d never liked it.
But she couldn’t afford to only take the jobs she liked. It was fifty years since the fire and since George Wayland disappeared, and his legend had only grown, so the magazine editors decided to run a big piece: “George Wayland, Man and Myth.” It didn’t matter that there was nothing new to write about it or that the stringer’s photos would be just like any others that anyone had taken in five decades; people liked the mystery, and the mystery would sell magazines, which meant the stringer could sell photos.
She spent an hour shooting. She caught the Ruins at sunset and the Ruins at twilight and even the Ruins at night, when it was really too dark to still be shooting but she kept shooting anyway. By the time she put her camera away the only light, besides the moon, came from the hotel on the cliffs to the south. It was just enough light to see Seal Rock by, although the stringer decided that at this time of night it didn’t really look like a rock at all. It looked like some giant whale just offshore was sticking its head up to get a good look at the city. A whale, or something else.
She went home. There was a note on the door; Sam had stopped by. She’d forgotten they had plans. That explained the flashing voice mail indicator on her phone as well. She ignored both, going inside and uploading the new photos. She missed the days of her old film camera; digital just wasn’t the same, but it was cheaper and faster. Another compromise she’d made with the world. She studied the twilight photos most closely, scanning every square inch of the image. Nothing unusual was there, but she kept looking anyway. After two hours, she gave up. Another wasted day. She flopped onto the couch, picking up the magazine off the table. She turned to the most well-worn page, and there was a smiling picture of George Wayland and the headline: “George Wayland, Man or Myth?”
The magazine had gone to stands two weeks ago. She’d turned in the photos for it a week before that. The money from it had already been spent. She should have been chasing other leads, should have been getting after editors for more assignments, should have been paying her bills, but instead she kept going back to the Ruins day after day, taking more worthless photos. Hitting up the old woman had been a desperation move, and she’d felt bad about lying and saying she was there on assignment (the old bat was so senile she didn’t even remember reading the finished article when it came out), but it was the only lead she’d had. Now it was a dud too. She should give up on it. But she couldn’t. There was something about the Ruins only she knew. Something she couldn’t let go of.
Thinking about the old woman reminded her of the sketch. She’d left it by the door, still wrapped in brown paper. She retrieved it. When the package was open she flinched; it was, as promised, a charcoal sketch. It depicted a mirror-flat expanse of ocean disturbed by an anomalous sea creature breaching the surface, foam spraying from its jaws and water streaming down its huge body. It was impossible to tell what the animal was actually supposed to be, but it made her think of some kind of dragon, bristling with flippers and fins. It was impossibly ugly. A few human swimmers were added for scale; they were tiny next to the monster, so small they were practically stick figures.
The stringer frowned; why the hell would Marie Wayland give her this? Then she chided herself; the old bird was nuts, what did she expect? And what had she said? That her father had done hundreds like this? She suddenly wished she’d had it before the story went to print. The editor probably would have loved it. It would have gone great with that one ‘graph toward the end, how did it go? She picked the magazine up and read:
“Urban legend persists that Wayland himself set the fire that destroyed the pool complex. Not as an insurance scam, but to destroy the evidence of the secret, ritual murders he supposedly committed there. No serious historical evidence suggests any truth to these rumors, but local kids still sneak down to the Ruins late at night in hopes of hearing the ghostly screams of those said to have died there.”
The stringer snorted. All bullshit, of course. But people in this city loved their ghost stories. Randy had, too.
She went back to the sketch. Something about it was bothering her. On a hunch, she opened the back of the frame and removed the delicate paper. In the lower right hand corner something was written. She thought at first it was Wayland’s name or initials, but now she saw it was a word she didn’t recognize. The closest she could decipher it was:
“Aspidochelone.”
Curious, she went the computer to look it up:
“Aspidochelone is a fabled sea monster, variously described as a large whale or vast sea turtle. It was supposedly so large as to be mistaken for an island, its great shell appearing like a rocky outcropping. In some traditions, Aspidochelone is believed to be the Bible’s ‘great fish’ that swallowed the prophet Jonah. Other myth cycles persist that it was an avatar of the devil.”
The stringer frowned. She held the sketch up to one of her photos of seal rock by night: the sea monster’s humped back was in the exact shape of the stony island. Then she looked more closely at the swimming figures Wayland drew; at first she’d thought they must be fleeing the creature, but now it seemed they were actually swimming toward it. And they did not appear entirely human; they were bulky and shapeless things, though the tiny scale made it hard to determine their exact form. Even so, a little thrill went through her. She turned to the computer and clicked the file right in the middle of her desktop. A picture of the Ruins popped up; not any of the pictures she’d taken today and not any of the pictures she’d sold to the magazine. This was a picture only she had seen, a picture taken three weeks ago, just at dusk.
Everything was there as it should be: the crumbling walls, the deep pools, the shore, the surf, the rocks. Nothing seemed out of place at first glance; she’d almost missed it herself the when she’d uploaded the photos. But there, in the deepest pool right in the center of the Ruins, just beneath the surface, there was a shape. The water was dark and the light was poor, so it was hard to tell, but it looked remarkably like a person swimming to the surface. No, not a person; not quite. Just something a little like a person. Something that might live in the water and stay out of sight of normal people, until night came, when it could come to the surface without anyone seeing…
This picture was the reason she kept coming to the Ruins. This picture was the reason she’d interviewed the old woman, and the reason she kept reading and researching about George Wayland. This was the reason she hadn’t worked or seen Sam or any of her friends in weeks. This picture, and the memory of something splashing in the water behind her as she folded up her tripod and left that day, and an older memory, one of Randy, and his frightened voice in the dark.
She held the Wayland sketch next to her monitor. The shape in the photo was ill-defined, and the figures in the sketch were tiny, but they looked alike. Didn’t they? She flipped back and forth between her photos: The rock, and the back of Aspidochelone; the swimmers, and the shape in the pool. Yes, they all matched. And that meant…
What did it mean? The stringer wasn’t sure. She rubbed her forehead; it was late, and she hadn’t slept enough all week. She turned the computer off and flopped into bed, not even bothering to take off her shoes. Outside, the wind was blowing. The branches of the trees scraped her windows. Her water bill was due tomorrow. Her rent was due a week later. She didn’t know where the money would come from. She told herself she should not spend tomorrow afternoon at the Ruins again and should not spend tomorrow morning at the library or the historical society, looking for any new information about George Wayland. She should look for work instead. But she knew that she wouldn’t. She couldn’t let this thing go. She felt like she owed it to Randy. Poor Randy. After all these years…
As she slept, she thought she heard rain splashing on her window. But she couldn’t be sure.
***
In her dream, she was six years old again. In her dream, her older brother was waking her up in the middle of the night. In her dream, she rolled over and said, “What is it, Randy?” And her brother sounded frightened as he said:
“It’s the man. The man from the beach.”
She sat up under the covers. She could not see Randy in the dark, but she knew he was right by her bedside. “What man?”
“The one from last night, when we snuck down to the Ruins. Remember, I told you I saw him in the water?”
In her dream she was frightened, but she didn’t show it. She knew Randy was only trying to scare her. “I remember calling you a liar. You didn’t see any man in the water.”
“I did. But he wasn’t really a man; he was all scaly, like a fish, and he had a horrible face.”
“You didn’t see any man,” she said. But her voice cracked. “Go back to bed.”
Randy was quiet for a second. She said again, a little louder:
“Randy? What’s the matter?”
In the dark, Randy shivered.
“What’s the matter is…he’s outside our window…”
The stringer was screaming. No, someone else was screaming. No, that wasn’t a scream, it was…the phone?
She sat up in bed (her feet ached; really should have taken off her shoes before she fell asleep…) and groped for her cell phone on the bedside table. The tiny, shrieking ring cut off as she pushed the button. “Hello?” she said.
“He came and talked to me,” said a tiny voice on the other end.
The stringer blinked and sat up. She checked the clock: four in the morning. Then she looked at the call number: it was Marie, George Wayland’s crazy old daughter. Never should have given the old bat my phone number, the stringer thought. “Who talked to you?” she said.
“My father.”
The stringer jolted awake. She almost dropped the phone, but stopped herself. After swallowing the lump in her throat she said: “Your father?”
“Yes,” said Marie. Her voice was even softer than usual, but it was brimming with enthusiasm. “We had such a nice talk. And he gave me a message for you. He told me to call you right away.”
“Marie, your father would be…” She did the math. “A hundred and four years old, and missing since 1966?”
“I know. He looked really good for his age.”
The stringer laughed; she couldn’t help it. Kicking her shoes off, she rubbed her sore feet. “So what did he tell you that couldn’t wait until morning?”
“He said to tell you that the fire was the important thing.”
“What does that mean?”
Marie sounded confused. “He said you would know.”
“Not a clue.” Now that she was fully awake and the residue of her dream was fading the conversation seemed a bit more real. She wondered if Marie had been dreaming too; or maybe there wasn’t much difference between waking and dreaming once you went that nuts?
Then Marie said: “Randy was here too.”
The stringer almost dropped the phone.
“Oh, he had a message for you also,” Marie said. “He said for you to remember what he told you about Obie.”
This time the stringer did drop the phone. When she picked it up again Marie was saying goodbye. “Wait!” the stringer said, but the call ended.
She considered calling back, but instead she set the phone aside and stared at the window, stunned. “Remember what he told you about Obie?” Impossible. The old woman couldn’t possibly know about that. The stringer racked her brain trying to remember if she had ever mentioned her brother’s name during the interview. Of course, she hadn’t; why the hell would she? She wanted to call back right that second and demand an explanation. It took her a moment to realize why she wasn’t: She was afraid.
She went to her computer. The fire was the important thing, huh? She pulled up all the notes she’d gathered about the fire at the Ruins. She read it all again. She even watched the old newsreel footage of it the fire as it happened. She gathered no particular insights from it. She sat at her desk for another hour, lost in thought. When it was late enough in the morning, she picked up the phone and dialed a number she knew by heart by now. A voice on the other end said: “Western Neighborhoods Project.” She asked for the director by name. They were one of the oldest and busybodiest historical groups in the city. If they couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know, nobody could.
She was afraid she might go to voicemail, but eventually the woman she wanted answered. “Hello Dr. Olmstead,” the stringer said. “I had another research question for you.”
“About the Ruins?” Olmstead said. “I thought your magazine already ran that story?”
“They did, but I’m doing a little follow up.” She paged through her email as she talked; no paying offers, although there were plenty of blogs who wanted permission to run her photos. None were offering any money. “I was just wondering, about the fire…” She hesitated.
“Yes?” Olmstead said.
Not entirely sure why she was asking, the stringer said, “I was wondering…is there any truth to the rumors that human remains were found in the wreckage?”
“None at all,” Olmstead said. But she said it too fast. As if she’d been expecting it and had that answer prepared.
“I see,” the stringer said. “I thought that…well, it’s just, I have a lead that there was something unusual or…important about the fire itself, and I was just wondering if there was anything that wasn’t already common knowledge?”
“I don’t think so. I’m afraid I really have to go, Miss—”
“What about the name Aspidochelone, do you know anything about that?” It was a shot in the dark, but as soon as she said it the stringer knew she’d hit the mark: Olmstead gasped. She covered the phone so that the stringer wouldn’t hear, but she was too slow. The stringer’s scalp tingled with the excitement of a new lead. “Doctor?” she said. “Are you still there?”
“Yes, but I…let me call you back.” Before the stringer could say anything the line went dead. She set the phone down, deciding to give it twenty minutes before she called back. After eighteen, the phone rang.
“I’m going to give you a name and a phone number, and then that’s the last thing I want to hear about this,” Olmstead said. The stringer didn’t argue, grabbing her notepad and a pencil. “The man you want is named Allen. I’ve already spoken with him and he has time for an appointment today. He lives here in the city.” The stringer wrote down the name and the number when Olmstead gave it.
“Thank you, Dr. Olmstead,” the stringer said. “I really appreciate—” But by then Olmstead had hung up again.
The stringer stopped to lock the door on her way out. As she did, her eyes fell across something on the floor, a wet spot on the hallway carpet. She frowned; the stain hadn’t been there the night before. Whatever someone has spilled, it smelled back, gray and briny. It reminded her of the ocean. If she turned her head, it almost looked like a footprint, although not a print that would be left by any normal foot…
She hurried down to the elevator and out into the street. Her appointment was in an hour. She could just barely make it.
***
The door said: “Z. Allen,” nothing else. It was the kind of nameplate you usually saw on a college professor’s door, but it was fixed to the front of an ugly little house on Laguna Street. It was so out of place that it made the stringer hesitate before knocking, and before she could work her nerve up again the door opened on its own. She was greeted by a bald, pop-eyed man, probably the same age as Marie Wayland. He smiled and greeted her by name. “Dr. Olmstead said you’d be stopping by. Let’s talk in the library.”
The library turned out to be a spare bedroom converted into ad hoc office, though there were a great many shelves full of aged books. There were two pictures on the wall, one of a young woman holding a baby and one that seemed to be a much younger Z. Allen, surprisingly wearing a fireman’s uniform. The stringer sat in the spare chair, notebook at the ready, and then she realized she actually had no idea what she wanted to ask. Allen came to her rescue:
“I suppose you want to know about the Dagonites?”
“I do? I mean, yes, I do.”
“Old Olmstead sounded annoyed when she called. She hates people pestering her about the Dagon thing, but I love to talk turkey about it. Or tuna, as the case may be.” The stringer could tell she was supposed to laugh at this, so she did.
“Are you on the board of the Western Neighborhoods Project?”
“No, I’m just someone they keep on call. Amateur historian. With my own peculiar specialties. In this case, the Esoteric Order of Dagon. What do you know about it so far?”
“Um, not much.” She scribbled the words “Esoteric order dgn” on her pad, the unfamiliar “Esoteric” spelled in full so she would not mistake it later.
” I guess you’re too young to remember the Summer of Love?”
“I’m more of a winter person.”
“Yes, there’s not too many of us original flower children left. What people don’t realize is that the counterculture wasn’t just free love and walking barefoot down Haight Street. There were all sorts of…well, I hesitate to call them cults, but let’s say, new and alternate religions and belief systems that were popping up around that time. Especially here in the city. Krishnas, the People’s Temple, Scientologists, hell, even the Church of Satan.” He made a vague gesture.
“And the Order of Dagon?”
“Indeed, the Order of Dagon. Although according to them, they weren’t exactly new. They said they were thousands of years old, maybe tens of thousands. The Dagonites were something else. A special case even in a time of special cases.”
“What did they believe?”
“Hard to say. They were very secretive. And there weren’t very many of them, maybe a dozen in the city altogether. The came from back east somewhere.”
“Why’d they come here?”
“Religious pilgrimage. They said this was a sacred site. They worshiped the ocean, you see. No, not the ocean exactly; an ocean god. They called it Dagon, but sometimes other names: Cetus or Tiamat or—”
“Aspidochelone?”
“Yes, that was one.” He looked at her strangely for a moment. “They said that it was an ancient sea creature older than the world and they took just about any myth about a sea monster to be a story about their ‘god’ by some name or another. They were all completely nuts, of course; even back then we could tell.”
The stringer pondered for a moment. “What does this have to do with the Ruins?”
“Haven’t you guessed? Before he disappeared, George Wayland was rumored to be a convert to the Esoteric Order of Dagon.”
“So the urban legends about human sacrifice…?”
“Related. The Dagonites didn’t practice human sacrifice, of course. But they did have a peculiar ritual that made people ask lots of questions after Wayland disappeared.”
The words scribbled in her notebook jumped out at the stringer: “The fire is the important thing.” She bit her lip.
“They gave burnt offerings to their god, didn’t they?”
“That they did. Sea creatures were best, but apparently anything would do: a dog, a chicken. The bigger the better, as long as it was dead already. You could burn objects, too, if they were important enough to you.”
“The bigger the better? Say, an entire building?”
“Now you’re getting it. And with Wayland believed to be associating with Dagonites, and all of them disappearing around the same time he did, and then his complex burns down…well, you can guess what people thought.”
The stringer was writing faster than she could keep up with. “And this was an important ritual for them?”
“The most important of all. A burnt offering at the right holy site was supposed to awaken Dagon, or Aspidochelone, or whatever you want to call it. And then…”
The stringer sat forward. “Then what?”
“Well, no one else ever really could figure that part out.” Allen sat sideways in his chair a bit, looking at her in his peripheral vision. “All they would ever say is that after that you became ‘One with Dagon.’ But they’d never say exactly what that meant.”
The stringer put her notes down. “And they all disappeared?”
“In 1966, virtually the same day as the fire.” Allen folded his hands and arched his eyebrows, seemingly inviting her to draw her own conclusions.
“‘One with Dagon,'” the stringer repeated. “Is there anything else?”
“Not much. Here,” He handed her a thumb drive. “I have a special file on it, for when people come asking.”
The stringer blinked. “Do people ask about this a lot?”
“Not a lot. But often enough.”
“I’ve never heard anything about it.”
“Well, they don’t usually share what they learn.”
“Why not?”
“You’d have to ask them. Although truth be known I understand that most of them usually leave town for one reason or another. I’ve never talked to the same person twice about it, except for Dr. Olmstead.”
“But why—?”
Now Allen’s face told her she shouldn’t ask anything else. Taking the thumb drive, she thanked him and left.
***
Sam had left another note on the door: “We have to talk.” The stringer ignored it. She stepped over a pile of bills overflowing the mail slot, going straight to her computer, plugging in the thumb drive and not even bothering to check her email for the job offers that wouldn’t be there. This was more important. She poured over Allen’s notes, but in truth she didn’t really need them. She’d figured it all out. They’d given her all the answers that morning: “The fire was the important thing,” and “Remember what he said about Obie.”
In her mind, the stringer was six again, and her brother was waking her up, scared, in the middle of the night, and pointing to the window. “It’s the man in the water,” he said. “He says I have to go with him.”
She looked at the window for a split second, but then looked away. Was there really something there? She didn’t want to know. Instead she hugged the covers tighter and said, “You’re fibbing. If there’s really someone there then go get Dad.”
Randy shook his head. “I can’t. I don’t’ want him to know…” His voice faltered for a second. “I did a bad thing,” he said. “I…I dug up Obie.”
“What?” she’d sat all the way up then, too angry to still be afraid.
“I’m sorry!” Randy said. She could tell he was crying.
“He was my cat, mine!”
“I know, I know! But I’d heard, I mean, they say that if you take something, you know, something dead, and you burn it at the right spot—:”
“Burn it? You mean you…?”
“I’m sorry! I just wanted to see what would happen. I wanted to have something to show you when we snuck out. And now…now he says I have to go with him.” And Randy pointed to the window again. And she had looked. And as much as she’d tried to, she never really forgot the face she saw there…
She’d run then, screaming, into Dad’s room, and he said that it was just a nightmare. But when they got back to the bedroom, Randy was gone. The window was open, and there was water on the floor. And nothing was ever the same again.
She never told anyone what Randy said about Obie. And she never told about the face at the window, though for a long time she’d only ever remembered it in dreams. The photo made her really remember again. That shape in the water, just a little too familiar, just a little too human…
Her phone beeped; she started. Hours had passed, and it was dark out now. She assumed the message was from Sam and she was about to turn the phone off, but then she saw that it was an unfamiliar number. The message said:
COME 2 MARIES. HURRY.
And beneath that:
RMBR OB
That was all she needed. She was out the door in a flash. She barely had the presence of mind to bring her camera. She ran two red lights crossing town. What would the tickets matter? They could pile up, unopened, with the rest of the bills. She came to Marie Wayland’s house. The door was open, so she let herself in. That strange cat odor was gone. It had been replaced by something else.
She found Marie at the foot of the stairs. She must have taken a nasty fall. Or perhaps, the stringer couldn’t help but think as she observed the wet and misshapen footprints still visible on the carpet, a nasty push? It didn’t matter. The stringer wrapped the body in a blanket and then lifted the ungainly, long-limbed corpse and hauled it outside. Dear God, she thought, what if the neighbors see me? She hastened to get the body in her backseat as fast as she could. She searched the garage and came up with a gas can that had a slosh of liquid in the bottom, and she took that too. And then she was driving to the Ruins.
There were no tourists, no joggers, and no kids around this time. That was lucky. The trail leading down was steep and she had a hard time with her arms full of the old woman’s body, and dragging the gas can along too. She wondered, briefly, if she really had to go this far with it, but the text message had made it perfectly clear for her George Wayland had needed to burn this whole place down to do the trick for himself and a dozen other Dagonites. Randy had only needed a cat, but he’d been eight years old. The bigger the better, Allen had said, so the stringer wasn’t going to take any chances. She suspected you only got one shot at this.
The ocean wind was particularly cold that night. There was no moon, but she could see the great rock off the coast anyway. Was this the right spot? It had to be. Where else was there? She set the corpse down in the rolled up blanket and doused it with gas. She hoped no one from the hotel was watching. She only needed a minute without anyone interrupting to do this right. The box of matches rattled in her trembling fingers; it took four tries to get a match that stayed lit even with the wind. She held her breath, looking at the bundle on the wet sand. Was she really going through with this? But then the match dropped from her fingers and a WHUMP! of heat and black acrid smoke hit her square in the face, and the decision was out of her hands.
The fire burned out fast, but the heat was intense. Sickening fumes from the blanket’s synthetic fibers mingled with even less pleasant odors. She held her breath as long as she could, and retched when she couldn’t. Nearby, the waves crashed against the rocks over and over again. She watched as the body burnt down to bones and the bones burnt down to ashes. She expected at any moment for someone to come along, for her to see flashing lights and hear sirens, but it didn’t happen. Nothing else happened either. When the embers were out, there was just a black spot on the sand and a lingering stench. The stringer wiped at her eyes; was that it? Had she not done it right? Or was it that she’d been wrong? That there was nothing to the stories? That she was going—
Movement. Out there, somewhere? It was dark, but she could still swear that the huge rock, the small island just offshore, was moving? But that’s impossible, she told herself, the water here isn’t deep enough for anything that big. Unless most of it is buried? Buried
|
Formalities first: If you’re just joining my diary of horror, please read part one, part two, part three, and part four.
I have become almost indifferent to what’s going on to me. Since my first story, so much shit happened/was discovered that I became dulled down to the point of almost not giving a fuck. Put that attitude together with the fact that nothing happened (until yesterday) to us since Rose’s break-in, and you have one dude who doesn’t give a shit anymore. I suppose everyone reaches that point at some time. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism.
Anyways, yesterday (Wednesday), I had a day off from work. My girlfriend decided that she wanted to get away from everything for a little while. She went to her friend’s house in our town for few days. I like to alleviate my stress by working out. I had a day off and wanted to do a bit more than just lift weights, so I decided to go on a long bike ride. 50 miles to the next city. It was really cloudy in the morning, so I decided to take nothing with me but a couple of bucks for the bus ride back. (also, ATT&T sent me iPhone 5, and I definitely didn’t wanna take that if it was going to rain). So I went on the bike trip with nothing but my Trek and few dollars.
About 30 miles into the trip, I got on this bike trail that led almost to the end of my destination. It is a 22 mile trail. I did this trip once in July and the place was packed. Hundreds of fucking cyclist everywhere, could barely move. This time, the trail looked deserted. Nobody on it. And weather became shittier and shittier. Heavy fog set in. I almost felt as if I were in a cloud, it was so moist, but without the actual rain. My shirt was dripping with water, and visibility was shit, but I decided to keep going. Few miles into the trail, I started noticing benches on the side, something I haven’t noticed before. Cool idea since the road is so long, I guess you need a break sometimes. I kept riding though. Visibility was 15 feet at best. About 7 miles into the track, I thought I heard laughing. I squeezed my breaks and slid for few feet. I listened. Nothing. Well, I know what you think, and you’re right. I’m a fucking idiot. Going for a long trip on a secluded track when I have some crazy cunt following me. Plot of a cliché horror movie. I know. And I regret doing what I did. But my reasoning was that nobody ever physically attacked me, so the worst-case scenario would be I am offered another fucking orange.
I got back on the bike, did few pedal strokes, and heard the laughing again. It was coming from ahead. Fuck it, I’m biking through. Fog decided to have mercy on me and increase the area visibility to about 25 feet. That’s when I saw someone sitting on the bench ahead. I lied to myself saying that its normal for a biker to sit on the side and rest. That’s what it is probably, right? You and I both know that no, it wasn’t a biker sitting there. It was a man. He wore a black suit. No hat or cane though, so I felt a little better. I switched my shit into the highest gear and started pedaling Armstrong style. As I was passing him, he started laughing again. There was nothing around him. No newspapers, no phone, no bike. Just sitting, hands on his knees, not even looking at me. Just looking ahead. And just as I am passing, this fucker starts laughing hysterically. I got fucking scared. It was then that I noticed an orange right next to him on the bench. Then he looked straight at me. Rose encounters were scary as hell, but this man, this man was on a whole new level. I just kept pedaling. I heard the laugh one more time as I was riding away from him. Next 12 miles or so took me about 45 minutes, in other words, I wasn’t slowing down. I got to the town where I wanted to catch a bus and another shock was waiting for me. I arrived at the bus station at 4:10 pm. Last bus was leaving at 4:30. The way these schedules work, this bus would take me to a small town at the beginning of that trail, where I’d catch another bus to home. Well, I come at the bus station and I see that bus only has two bike racks and they’re both taken. Yup, let’s cut the artistic description shit and jump to the point: driver said it was against the rules to put a bike inside the bus. It was the last bus and if I wanted to go back home that night, I’d have to bike to the other town and arrive before 7:00pm, when the last bus for my place leaves. I had 2 and half hours to do 20 miles. Either that or spend the night there. I only had $10 on me so…yea. Bike back you stupid shit. And good luck with that laughing man on the trail.
I wish I could tell you that I persuaded the driver to let me in. I wish I stayed there that night. Could have maybe tried to pay for the hotel by giving them my credit card number? Could’ve tried. No, I decided to bike, and I got what I deserved.
Two miles into the trail, I saw something on the ground about 20 feet ahead. I remember thinking how clean they kept this track, so it was strange that the trash would be just obviously laying around. I slowed down. It was a GI Joe action soldier toy. Looked pretty new. Oh well, some kid dropped it while biking with his family. Keep pedaling son. A mile later, another object ahead. Basketball. I stop. Pick it up. Drop it. Eyes full of tears. When I was in about eight grade, there was a basketball 3 on 3 tournament in my school. I was so fucking excited for that shit, man. I gathered the best team I could find. If we’d win, we’d go to an even bigger tournament and maybe win some money. We arrived at the court and realized that only two teams signed up in our age category. We were full of joy because that meant that even if we lost, we’d win some kind of award. We lost, well actually got destroyed by the other kids. But, since we ended in second place, we got a $50 gift card each for a store equivalent to a Foot Locker here. We all ran to that place. My friends all picked shoes and jerseys, but I picked this basketball. It was so unique: it was painted like a chess board-64 squares, 32 black and 32 white. They called me crazy for spending my gift card on it but I loved it. At least for few days until I realized that the colors on it give me headache when it spun and that designers of this ball were stupid assholes. So I threw it in the river when I crossed one of the bridges near my house. And now, now I was holding that same ball, 5000 miles away from home, in the middle of the woods on some bike trail that only I knew I’d be crossing that day. I froze, dropped the ball, and just wanted to yell. You get mad at some point, you know, you get mad that your life isn’t as normal as other people’s. Why cant I worry about shit like whether my NFL team is gonna go to playoffs or whether I’m gonna get a raise? Why do I have to go through this? What did I do? Well I could contemplate about life or I could get the fuck out of these woods and try to catch that bus. I chose the latter. So I kept biking, carefully. After few miles, another thing. A page out of newspaper. It got wet from a light drizzle. I picked it up. It was an article about me. When I just came to the US, the school I played ball for published an article about my life in their paper. There it was, in my hands. I dropped that shit and decided not to stop anymore. I biked by a bike I owned when I was living in Bosnia, I biked by my old Iron Maiden shirt, and by a picture of my family in a broken frame. I biked by a dead cat that was identical to the cat I had when I was 15. The faster I biked, the items from my life became more and more common on the road.
At this point, my story is becoming more unbelievable than any cheesy movie you’ve seen. Feel free to express all your disbelief, call me a liar. I would. I would call bullshit 3 stories ago. I wish I was fucking with ya’ll. I wish I was doing this for entertainment. I am doing this to get help, advice, to set my mind at ease, at least for a minute.
So I am flying down the trail. About two more miles and I am out of these woods of hell. It’s getting dark. Dark and more foggy. And then, and fucking then, I hear the laugh. Only this time, it is a child. Or not. I slow down, scared of what’s coming. I see a silhouette sitting on the bench ahead. The same bench where that man was. Laughing again. Not the kind where some criminal mastermind laughs at the evilness of his plan. Playful laugh. I guess you can call it giggle. Only it is not a child. It is a woman sitting there. She is dressed in white. It is Rose.
I pressed my breaks so hard I was surprised I didn’t fly over the wheel. She was sitting there, legs crossed, looking straight ahead of her, not at me, and laughing. Then she turned towards me, tilted her head, smiled with the many-times-described grin, and said: “Sit.” This was the first time I got scared to the point that my extremities gave up for a second. Other encounters with her, I was in my home, or at least in somewhat of a safe place. This…This was in the woods. And as I type this, I realize even more how fucking stupid it was of me to embark on this trip at a time like this. Maybe subconsciously, I wanted to meet her again. Meet her and bring an end to it. I regained some courage, and got off the bike. I put the bike down slowly and noticed a photo of me and my first girlfriend laying on the road. It was wet and looked burnt. Fuck if I’m stopping now. I’m gonna talk to her. I walked over. She was still smiling, not moving at all.
“Sit.” In my language. In child’s voice.
“No.”
“ You’ve been a very stubborn boy, Milos”
“I am not a boy. I don’t want to have anything with you people. Why cant you leave me the fuck alone? What do you want from me?” It felt liberating to be able to express all of the frustration and scream at the cunt that caused my girlfriend and me so much pain.
“No need to yell Milos.”
“No, there IS a need to yell. You’re fucking with my life!”
“I only want you to come with me.”
“First tell me what you want. And then I’ll decide.”
She took an orange sitting next to her, and offered it to me.
“It is not your decision to make.” Her voice changed to a more adult one, but still not appropriate for a woman her age.
“It is my life you fucking bitch!”
She lost her smile.
“You know Milos, all this goes far back. You have no power over this. You WILL come.” She yelled that word, “will”. Like yelled it at me. I stepped back, ready to knock her the fuck out. She got up.
“I will fight you people. I’ll call police, I will…”
“You can’t do anything.” She cut me off. “Who do you think I am? You think the police can help you? You think your friends can help?”
“What the fuck are you? A cult? You want me as a sacrifice?”
She started laughing. She laughed while never closing her eyes, never taking them off of me.
“You silly boy.” Her voice switched to a child’s version again. “You have so much to learn about us.” She stepped towards me.
At that point, I honestly believed I was dealing with something other than a human being. I will admit, after I got home and cooled down and thought logically, I went back to my theory of it being a cult. But at that moment, right then, I believed I was encountering something else.
“I will ask for help from others then.” I said, not knowing what I even meant.
“Church maybe?” She said it in a way like when I child is imitating your voice just to irritate you. ”You think your gods will save you? Ask your priest about me. Ask and then decide.”
I had no idea what the fuck she was talking about, but I decided I had enough. It was time to run. At the same moment, she stepped back, sat back down, and started looking at the orange. I ran back to the bike, got on it and started pedaling like the devil himself was behind me. As I passed her, she started laughing uncontrollably, still looking at the orange.
I got on the bus at the last moment. I was a wreck during the ride and when I got home. I called the guy from the police station, told him what happened, and he said he’d contact the local police and ask them to go check the trail out. I expect nothing. I spent the whole day thinking about what happened. How could she/them get all my stuff that I am sure didn’t exist anymore? Was that really the same cat I had 12 years ago? How? And what did she mean by “ask my priest”? So many questions and exactly zero fucking answers. I am mentally drained. I didn’t tell my girlfriend about this, because this would probably cause her to have a nervous breakdown. I might have one myself. I am a broken man tormented by something I am not familiar with. I am lost.
Credit To – Milos Bogetic
NOTE: This is the fifth 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!
|
My name is often whispered, my memory abhorred,
My touch brings out the blisters, my skin is cracked and torn.
My eyes are small and heartless, just circles black as soot.
They blend into the darkness, for fear I’d wake you up.
I lurk beneath the shadows, forever out of sight – Am I a distant memory, or will you sleep tonight?
I can’t keep in the giggles, I gently stroke your cheek.
Your mind blocks out my presence,
above you while you sleep.
There’s nothing left between us,
I feel your beating heart.
Beside myself with bloodlust,
Where will I leave my mark?
I know you won’t forget me, but try hard as you might – Am I a distant memory, or will you sleep tonight?
And now I’m in no hurry, my fingers pierce your flesh.
Your screams cut through the silence,
but you have no time left.
You soon cry out for mercy, then death as relief.
I cackle til’ I leave you, a pile of broken meat.
There’s nothing left to save you, all love will fall to spite – Am I a distant memory, or will you sleep tonight?
My tongue mops up your fluids, I slowly lick my fangs.
My specter borne of hellflame, of which the angels sang.
I count them in their thousands, the years to empty years.
I’ll burn your soul to ashes- It’s pointless to feel fear.
Now if you plan to sleep my friend, at least leave on the light – Beware of distant memories, I Always Work At Night…
Credit To: Beefnuts
|
I don’t even know why I’m writing this. I can post this in a million different places, it won’t matter. There’s still nobody there to read it. Nobody left to hear my story. Yet this might be my last chance to do this, so I will. The feeling won’t go away. They’re watching. They’re watching and getting closer every second. They can feel my terror. And I know they’re enjoying it.
It has been about four months since everyone disappeared. And I mean everyone. I woke up one morning for school. I immediately noticed the time. School started three hours ago. Must have just hit the alarm clock still half-asleep, and fallen right back to sleep. It happens to me sometimes. Why hadn’t my parents woken me up? Probably just went to work early.
The first time I started to notice was at the station. I usually take a train to school, since it’s the fastest way to get there. I hadn’t seen anyone on my way to the station, but I lived in a rather quiet area of the town, so going was slow at this time of the day. It happened, so I didn’t think much of it. When I arrived at the station, I noticed there was nobody there. It was odd. There should have been at least a few people waiting for the train, even at this time of the day. I shrugged it off as an exceptionally slow day. It happened sometimes, too.
I waited for a good while, but the train didn’t come. I don’t remember how long I stood there, but I grew increasingly frustrated. I decided to walk to school. After all, it was only a twenty-minute walk if I did it fast enough, and I was late for the next lesson anyways.
I didn’t see anyone on my way to school. Nor was there anyone in school. The school building was open, and lit. I still didn’t think much of it, the lessons were on anyways. But the classrooms were empty. Every single classroom in the whole building. Some doors were open, some closed. But there was nobody there. I tried the teacher’s lounge, and it was empty. I even recall the smell of fresh coffee in the room. I tried calling one of my friends to ask what was going on. No answer. The phone rang, but there just wasn’t any answer. I tried another. Same thing. I ended up going through every single person I know from school. No answer.
I rushed to the shopping mall nearby. It was empty. The entire building, normally bustling with life, totally empty. The shops were open, the lights were on, the music was playing, the info screens were on. There just wasn’t anyone strolling around the mall, searching through the stores, manning the counters.
It was like everyone had vanished entirely.
I tried calling my parents. No answer. The whole day, I did not see a single living person. The only cars I saw were parked ones. There were no animals either. Everything was just dead quiet. But everything still worked. The shops were open, the lights were on, the TVs worked, there just wasn’t any program. Even the internet was there. Every site worked, every chatroom was open, there just wasn’t anyone there.
I went nuts. I don’t remember much of the first days, what it was like. Just the feeling of unimaginable terror, loneliness. I didn’t sleep much, I didn’t eat at all. I just sat around my house, waiting for someone to come home, for someone to call me, to hear a car drive past, waiting for the dream to end. It never did.
I eventually gathered myself. I told myself nobody was coming, and I had to get up and at least eat. And eat I did. I ate everything I could find, had the date expired or not. I ate and ate. And cried. I was alone. There was no sign, anywhere, that there’d be a single living person anywhere else in the world. No TV-channels showed any program. Some just showed the same news screens over and over. Nothing in the internet updated. Nobody ever logged in anywhere. Nobody answered the phone. Yet, everything just kept working. The power never went out. The lights were always on. The traffic lights worked. The stores were open. Music played where it had always played.
But everything was still empty.
I eventually grew accustomed to it. It took a while, but I started going out. At first I tried visiting friends, look for people, anyone. I soon gave it up. Before long, I realized that I need more food than what we have at home. I started looting grocery stores. Just what I needed at first, then went to home, and ate it. Before long, I started looting other goodies. Candy. Drinks.
Maybe a month was gone, and I had come to terms with my life, and the fact that there was nobody else in the world. So I made the most of my life. I started having fun, the kind of fun you’d imagine doing if you had the whole world for yourself for one day. I pillaged through every store I could think of, stole everything I could get my hands on. I slept at beds in furniture stores, I played games with the biggest screens electronic stores had. I broke every fine piece of china I came across. I rampaged through malls, leaving behind a trail of destruction. I missed my old life, but made the best of this one.
It was maybe a month ago that he appeared.
I was relaxing back home, listening through some albums I had brought home with me, when I suddenly heard a strange noise from outside. I can’t really describe it well. It was like something called for me. I’m not even sure I really heard it. I just felt it. What I saw outside scared the life out of me. Someone- something. It was the shape of a man, yet it was somehow… wrong. It was entirely black. No, not just black. It seemed to suck the very light from the air around it. There were no features to be seen. No clothing, no hair, no facial features. It was just a black mass I somehow knew was something like a man. I couldn’t stare directly at it, yet I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Every second I stared at it, it came closer, yet it didn’t move. Every second I felt I got dragged closer to it, yet I stayed where I was. The only feature I could recognize was it’s eyes. Two green, shiny dots I knew were it’s eyes. I knew it, because no stare has ever been so piercing, so paralyzing, so dreadful. It felt like the stare itself sucked the very life out of me.
It spoke to me. Not with words. Not with signs or gestures. I just looked at it and I knew what it said.
“YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE.”
I woke up. A day had passed, maybe two. I can’t remember for certain. I woke up, screaming, sweating, from my own bed. It was a dream. It had to be. I was alone. There was nobody else in the world, how could it have been anything other than a dream?
I went on. At first, the dream kept bothering me. It felt so real. Was it? No, it couldn’t have been. With the days, the memory started to fade. The moment started feeling more and more dreamlike, so I thought nothing of it. I even laughed at myself for thinking it was anything else.
Yet, there was a constant feeling of pressure in the air. It was like a coming storm that never came. Sometimes I barely noticed it, sometimes I couldn’t even think properly because of it. Yet, I went on living.
Today it happened again. The feeling. It called to me, while I was drifting to sleep. It called to me, told me to come to the window. I was too afraid to move. Yet still, my legs slowly took me there. An unimaginable feeling of dread and despair came over me. Tears flowed from my eyes as my feet unwillingly took me to the window. There was nobody there. The street was as empty as always. Yet the feeling did not go away. I felt like there were a million eyes focused on me alone. They were there. They were staring.
They spoke.
“WE HAVE COME FOR YOU.”
That was two hours ago. The calling stopped. The staring didn’t. I’m writing this now, because I know it’s the last time I can. They’re drawing closer by the second.
I’m not even sure why I’m writing this. Maybe there’s someone else like me in some corner of the world. Maybe someone can read this. I don’t care. I have to tell someone.
They’re here.
—
Credited to Shinra.
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This story is part of the author’s Heavensville series of interrelated stories. If you enjoy it, the author invites you to click here to read the other tales in the series.
The first thing I noticed about him was his shaggy, champagne-colored hair that reached down to his shoulders and how it contrasted against his dark, brown skin. He smiled, looking at me with his sleepy eyes.
“I’m Chus Dominguez,” he said, extending his soft hand towards me.
According to his file, the kid had lived a life filled to the brim with the worst of luck. Still, his sleepy eyes were cheerful and tender as he introduced himself. I already liked him.
“I’m Mio,” I replied enthusiastically, “Your new foster dad.” I smiled wide, hoping to look welcoming.
In our first month together, I learned that Chus loved wearing tie-dye t-shirts, ripped pair of jeans and John Lennon inspired sunglasses. He was a huge fan of all things Michael Jackson. And each time he spoke, it was like a song, always ending on a pleasing note. His charming demeanor and whimsical charisma won over every person he met. I truly believed I had lucked out because I had been told teenagers were the hardest to foster; but my Chus, he was grand.
Chus impressed his teachers at school with his encyclopedia-like knowledge, acing his first science project when he used a chemical reaction to turn water into wine. Since his grades were good, I allowed him to take an after-school job. He managed to get a job as a carpenter’s helper and with his salary, he made donations to the local homeless shelter. On weekends, he volunteered at the Humane Society. I mean, I really couldn’t complain. The kid was pretty spectacular.
One evening, as I passed by his room, I heard him and his best friend, Tia Chrinst, giggling. I thought nothing of it until I smelled something familiar in the air. Slightly worried, I popped my head in the door.
“Guys? Everything alright?” I asked.
I saw Chus hiding something inside his mouth, not able to reply. Tia, also holding something in her mouth, turned a pallid white. I knew what it was.
“Guys, relax,” I said, sighing and chuckling, “It’s okay. It’s legal in this state, but, technically, not for you guys. So just do it at home. No driving or going outside, okay?”
Chus and Tia immediately burst into laughter, releasing all the smoke from their mouths into the air. I laughed all the way to my room, where I reminisced about the days I used to get high with my friends back in high school myself. What a wonderful time the 60s had been.
I was dozing off to sleep, when I heard them again, this time in the kitchen. I assumed it was a classic case of the munchies, so I walked down the stairs to show them where all the goods were. As I walked towards the kitchen, I inadvertently overheard their conversation.
“But have you actually spoken to him lately?” Tia asked Chus.
Chus gloomily replied, “It’s been at least a century since I last spoke to him. But I think he knows where I am. Or if he doesn’t yet, he’ll figure it out soon enough.”
I assumed they were reenacting a scene from a movie.
Tia continued, “Well, if our plan goes through, you’ll only have to speak to him once more. And then you can live happily ever after. For eternity. Imagine that!”
“I just feel bad,” Chus replied, “About using Mio. This is the first time in my entire, long life that I’ll be using a human for my own selfish need.”
‘Use me? For what?’ I thought to myself, quietly standing behind the wall of the kitchen.
“Oh, stop it,” Tia replied, annoyed, “You’re literally the most selfless soul in this universe. It’s okay to take care of your own needs once in a lifetime.”
Feeling disappointed and slightly frightened, I silently walked back to my room. I tried not to think about the conversation I had overheard between Tia and Chus. But, soon enough, things started to crumble down for me.
First, my car was vandalized. Then, my identity was stolen. But things got worse. By the end of the month, I had lost my job and had an awful case of pneumonia. At this point, I was starting to get worried as I had to take care of Chus’ needs, not just mine. I searched and searched for a new job online but received no replies. Worse, I could barely breathe as my pneumonia grew scarier and scarier in spite of all the medication and medical visits.
“It’s all my fault,” Chus sheepishly said to me one evening.
I coughed into a napkin, some blood staying behind on it. “What do you mean? Of course it’s not.”
“No. It is. It’s my fault. I know who is doing all of this. It’s my father. He’s doing it to punish me,” he replied, tightening his shoulders.
“Okay?” I said, puzzled.
“Christmas is right around the corner, and on Christmas, we tell the truth,” he began, “I picked you, Mio. I chose you because I knew what a good guy you’ve been your whole life. Attempting to foster a child is a clear example of your altruism. You’re selfless. And I love that about you.”
I continued to listen.
“You don’t deserve all the misery that was befallen onto you. This is happening to you because he knows I’m here with you. And I’ve tried to stop it, I’ve tried to help you, but he’s stronger than I am. And I’m sorry, but… I needed your help. You see, my father, he’s a very controlling man,” Chus said looking down at his hands.
I was completely lost thinking the pneumonia was blocking me from making sense of everything he was telling me.
Chus continued,“I don’t think you’ll believe me until you see it for yourself. I’m going to need you to come with me. Would you come with me, Mio?”
I noticed his eyes glistening as they filled with tears.
“Where?” I asked.
“To see my father. The one who created me,” he replied.
Chus drove us out an hour away to a secluded beach where he walked me to the edge of the water. I assumed that he had set up a meeting at the beach with his father behind my back. At the point, the pneumonia was so severe that all I could say was ‘yes’ to everything.
“Chus, do you think on the way back we could stop at the pharmacy for-“ Before I could finish my sentence, I noticed a man approaching us.
This wasn’t just any man. He was a giant. He was a brawny man, strong and powerful, with muscles protruding from his body like mountains on a valley. He wore a pair of unreasonably tight, black swim trunks that highlighted everything. His massive legs looked like they could crush any living creature with a single misstep. His thick skin was evenly bronzed and looked recently oiled. His hair, slightly wet from the ocean, shined and moved in the wind, like in a Pantene commercial.
“Hello, father,” I heard Chus say. I couldn’t believe that Chus, the shaggy-haired, scrawny kid had come from this colossal giant whose shadow in the sand was three times the size of me.
“Hello,” he answered in a husky voice, “It’s been a while. And I see you’ve brought a friend.”
Feeling completely inadequate I managed a wimpy “Uh, hi,” before bending over as I coughed up a storm. His father barely acknowledged me.
“So, you’re going to pretend that you don’t know Mio? After everything you’ve put him through?” Chus asked him.
His father broke out into a loud and intimidating laughter, revealing perfect teeth. “So, you’ve gone looking for a new father. You don’t remember what happened the last time you had a human father?” He laughed some more.
I was a bit confused by his choice of words.
“Mio, how long have you been his father?” His father suddenly asked me.
“About 6 months,” I said, trying to hold some more coughs I could feel building up inside me.
“Oh? Six months. Wow. Because I’ve been doing this for thousands of years and he’s still a giant puzzle to me,” his father replied, dismissing me with his hands.
“Okay,” I answered, feigning laughter, “Let’s not get sarcastic, now. I’ve been with him for a little over 6 months and it’s been going great. Now, I don’t know how he ended up in foster care, and I’m not here to judge you but-“
“Judge me?” His father suddenly asked, sounding scorned. “Of course you’re not here to judge me. I’m the one who does all the judging.”
“Wow, okay” I replied, getting annoyed, “Listen, I think you need to drop it down a notch with your condescending attitude, sir. Once again, I don’t know what issues you have-“
“What issues I have?” His father asked me, sarcastically. “You don’t know the half of it. And I mean that literally. This son of mine created half-a-book worth of lies in my name.”
“I- I don’t follow?” I replied.
I looked over at Chus who was now rapidly blinking and forming beads of sweat over his forehead.
“There’s a book. About me. It’s the highest selling book worldwide. You should read it sometime, but only the first part,” his father added sarcastically. Noticing I still had no idea what he was talking about, he sucked his teeth and said, “You people are truly clueless. You don’t get it? I made men. And women. And the skies, the oceans, the animals, the stars in this universe and, I even made your mom. I made everything. And all I’ve ever asked for in return was for you, smarty-pant creations, to use your God-given brains to worship and adore your creator.”
He paused, closing in on me, “I am your father. I am everyone’s father. Because I am God.”
‘Okay, this guy is completely nuts,’ I thought to myself, laughing out loud, causing me to have another coughing fit.
His father stared at me as I struggled to regain my composure, but before I could, he tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Watch this.”
He placed his hands over my chest and shoved me down to the ground.
“Hey! Hey!” I said, slowly getting back up, “There’s no need to get violent. Violence only-“ I stopped in the middle of my sentence, noticing the immediate change that had occurred inside me. The pain in my chest was gone. The scratchy feeling inside me throat? Gone. The chills? Gone. The pounding headache? Gone. The pneumonia had disappeared.
“How did you-? What did you-? How is that-?” I asked, pointing at him and then back at me and then back at him again.
“I’m God, remember?” He repeated.
I looked over at Chus, who simply shrugged his shoulders and nodded.
“Now listen, here’s what we’re gonna do,” God said, “My son here, will be coming with me. And I will spare your life and give you back your health, your car, your job and whatever else I took because, quite frankly, I did get a little jealous watching you two canoodling.”
“I’m not coming with you,” Chus finally said, breaking his silence.
“Wait, if he’s God, and you’re his son, does that make you-?” I asked, doing the math in my head.
Chus nodded.”Yeah, about that. My name is Chus. Which, in spanish, is short for Jesus.”
I stood there in shock, remembering all his quirks I had noticed; his kindness, his empathy, his intelligence, his carpentry skills, his ability to turn water into wine. How did I not see it before?
Noticing my confusion, Chus added “Of Nazareth?” For clarification.
Still, I stood frozen, going through some sort of existential crisis.
“Oh come on!” God suddenly exclaimed. “Are you serious? Now you’re impressed? Now you’re speechless? I literally just told you I am God and then cured you from pneumonia, but it’s this guy being Jesus what impresses you?”
“I-uh-no… I’m sorry. I just,” I couldn’t figure out a way to explain my natural reaction.
God slammed his enormous fists on the ground, making the sand vibrate beneath us.
“This is why I detest humans! They worship anything that slightly impresses them. Elvis, the Internet, the Kardashians. I mean, I sent my son Jesus to spread my word, and then what do they do? They make up an entire new religion based off from him, complete with the biggest holiday on earth included. Paganism! Paganism everywhere!”
“I was only trying to help,” Jesus replied, indignantly. I felt bad for Jesus. His father was clearly jealous of him.
“Oh! You were only trying to help?” God repeated mockingly. “Do you think it helped me when you claimed that all sins would be forgiven and absolved by me if humans simply repented? Do you think you helped me when you claimed that anyone could make it into the Heavens as long as they claimed my name at their deathbed? NO! You didn’t help. You made all of that stuff up and made a mockery out of my regime! You and your incompetent forgiving ways have gotten us nowhere!”
Jesus quickly replied, “What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to allow you to continuously punish human souls for every tiny, small action that you consider a sin?”
“This is MY universe and I am its God! Therefore, only I can decide what is a sin or not. Only I get to decide the difference between good and evil!”
Jesus looked over at me. “You know, you shouldn’t worship God. Not if you want to end up living inside a marble.” He paused. “That’s what he does. He keeps all the souls inside little marbles so that he can easily count them and know exactly how many souls he owns. And inside the marbles, gives them the illusion of what he considers to be eternal bliss, which is really just stale Boston cream donuts and room-temperature soda, along with reruns of Gilligan’s Island. That’s Heaven, according to him.”
“Oh my god,” I answered, petrified.
“Don’t use my name in vain,” God prettily replied, ignoring Jesus’ accusations.
“I’m so sorry,” I immediately replied.
“Don’t say sorry to a murderer,” Jesus provocatively said, ”He had me tortured. Men tore through my tendons, nerves and wrists, nailing me to a wooden cross I had to carry myself. Do you know what it feels like to carry on your back, for miles, the device that will be ultimately used to murder you? The physical agony I endured was unforgivable. But worse than that, he made me carry the weight of all human sins on my back for hundreds of years. There is no bigger weight than that. You guys do sin a lot. The suffering I went through during that period in my life has left with with traumas that I still struggle with today.”
God laughed. “I don’t care. The truth is, I stopped caring about you 2000 years ago when you began spreading false sermons and false messages about who I am and what they must do. Let me be clear with you, I do not forgive. Ever. I do not care. Ever. And I’ll be honest, I feel no guilt about anything I’ve done because I. AM. GOD. I have no remorse from the time I convinced Abraham to kill his children, I have no remorse for ordering the death of children in Egypt, I have no remorse for the time I suffocated and drowned all humans on earth, leaving only Noah and his family behind. So to be completely clear, I have no remorse for what I had done to you. And do you know why?”
Jesus’ eyes filled with tears again.
“Because I created it all. I am the almighty. There is nothing greater than me. And whether you like it or not, I am still your father,” God replied, his eyes bigger than ever.
“Oh my God,” I said, scared shitless.
“You’ve used my name in vain again, Mio,” God said, turning to me.
“I’m so sorry, God, I really am. It’s a habit of mine,” I quickly replied, realizing what type of god I was facing.
“Oh for God’s sake!” Jesus suddenly screamed. “Do you really care to insult this God? The reason he is collecting souls is because there are other gods! In other universes! And they have this ridiculous competition going about who can collect the most souls in 1.3 billion years. There is no eternal bliss. It’ll all be over in 1.3 billion years, earth, humans, this universe, it’ll all disappear and then he’ll move on to something else. He always does.”
“Oh my God,” I said again, idiotically not realizing I had used his name in vain again.
“That’s it! You quit using my name in vain for stupid human expressions!” God suddenly screamed at me.
“Yes! I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed, falling down to my knees, begging for mercy.
God seemed pleased, seeing me on my knees.
“No! Get up!” Jesus suddenly ran over to me, picking me up from the ground. “I will not allow this any longer! God, I denounce you as my father. That’s why I came here in the first place. I came to tell you that you are no longer my father. Mio, here, he is my real father. I no longer love you. I no longer adore you. I no longer worship you. I love Mio, a true good soul. And I’m here to say goodbye.”
I had heard about God’s fury before, but had never seen its true powers. Jesus’ words to his father clearly broke something inside him. The last thing I remember was God exploding into a burning, bright light. After that, the world around me disappeared as darkness set in. I felt an avalanche of fear installed inside me, as if I had downloaded it directly into my soul. I felt helpless, lonely, pain, heartbreak, tremendous suffering. I can’t explain with words what it felt like, but I just wanted to disappear into the darkness and to never exist again. I cried out in agony, only to be surrounded by my echoing screams. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I dozed off.
When I woke up, a man sat by my bedside, holding my hand. I didn’t recognize him at first. He was slim with shaggy, champagne-colored hair that reached down to his elbows.
“Remember me? Jesus. Of Nazareth?” He broke into that infectious smile of his.
I felt safe again.
“Where are we?” I asked him, noticing all the red furniture and red walls in the room.
“Don’t be scared,” he said, pausing, “We are in a place called Heavensville. But don’t be fooled by its name. It’s not Heaven. It’s actually the headquarters for Hells Inc. on earth. We are in the home of Lucifer.”
“What?” I said, a rush of fear suddenly running through my body.
“No,” Jesus replied, noticing my reaction, “You can relax. It was on purpose. Let me explain. I’ve been trying to get here for thousands of years, even before my first arrival to earth. But, you can’t just enter Hell. You have to be cast into it by God. Only he decides who comes here. So I had to figure out a way to get here. And my friend, Tia, helped me come up with the plan of making my father jealous enough so that he would finally cast me into Hell.”
“Tia? As in, Tia Chrinst, your best friend from school?” I asked, remembering the young teenaged girl with the heavy black eyeliner.
Jesus nodded. “Yes, Tia Chrinst. You might know her better as her anagram name. She is the daughter of Lucifer. She’s the Antichrist.”
I was feeling even worse by then.
“Look, you have to understand, God has only used me. I only realized it after getting back from earth the first time. And Tia was there for me. And… we fell in love. But as much as I tried to convince my father to accept our relationship, he opposed it because he’s a jealous God. And he has always been jealous of his greatest creation… Lucifer. So, of course I was not allowed to date his daughter. And of course, he gave her the title of the antichrist.”
“I- I guess I can’t judge you,” I replied, sitting up, “God is very… unpleasant.”
“Yes,” Jesus replied, “I hope you can understand my choices. And as for you, there’s no need to worry about getting back home. There’s a portal here to earth in the Town Hall. It’s going through some technical difficulties right now, but they should have it up and running soon and you’ll get to go home.”
“What about you? Where will you go?”
“Oh, well, Lucifer has been kind enough to give me an office and a home here in Heavensville. And as it turns out, I have a lot of angel buddies of mine living here. God casts millions of angels to Hell per year due to their insubordination. So, we have a “Little Heaven” neighborhood within Hell filled with fallen angels. And I don’t know, I feel like I can change some things around here. Some of the demons seem incorrigible, but others seem open-minded. Even Lucifer himself, he’s not such a bad guy. I think there’s a ton of room for improvement. And I think I’m just the guy for the job.”
“Wow,” I replied, “That’s a complete change of dynamic.” I laughed. “Jesus of Nazareth, Demon of Bethlehem.”
Jesus laughed hysterically. “I love that. I think I’m going to use it!”
Someone knocked on the door, slowly cracking it open.
“The portal is ready,” said a figure with a human’s body and a goat’s head, “Time for him to go home.”
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A few years back, I worked as a nurse in the geriatric unit of the hospital in my hometown. There was one old woman there with pale blue eyes whose mind was still fantastically sharp, and her desire to socialize and make new friends set her apart from most others living in that wing of the facility. That woman and I soon became close for this reason. Her name was Yana, and I still miss her every day since she passed.
The strangest thing about Yana was not her accent (which I could only place vaguely as Eastern European), nor her disinclination to talk about her past (which means I never learned exactly where she had grown up.) No, what fascinated me the most was that a strange young man, badly mutilated and plainly blind and mute, would visit her every single day. His hands appeared deformed, seemingly eroded at each digit down to the first knuckle. But each evening, a little after dinnertime, he would visit and they would sit together. She would read to him, or sometimes sing in her frail, old voice. Sometimes they would just hold hands in silence. Finally, I gathered the courage to ask her about this man, and in a strange moment of openness, she agreed to tell me the story:
“My sister and I were the only surviving members of our family after our father passed away in 1964. These were very hard times for my old country, and Father had grown so sick that we were eventually forced to allow him to starve, rather than waste food to comfort him as he inevitably died. Sister had been losing her mind little-by-little before all this happened, but I could see in her eyes, as we buried Father, that she had finally gone somewhere far away inside herself. I remember the crows, perched in thick groups like clots of preening black movement, watching us in the cemetery from all of the rooftops. We moved to bury Father quickly, because the crows were as hungry as we were…
Sister took to begging in the streets, sometimes trading sex for rides into the city nearby in the hopes that her begging would be more profitable there. It was during these terrible times that she conceived a son – a bastard whose father was not known to her but who was certainly some manner of predatory monster. This was the only kind of man my sister knew in those days of her life. The child was delivered healthy, happy, and with a glowing spirit that broke my heart, because I knew that soon the young boy’s eyes would look like mine, and like my sister’s. Even on the day he was born, I knew his beautiful, joyous innocence could not last.
Sister did not care for her son as she should have – as God and goodness alike demand that a mother should care for her child. She would not change the boy’s soiled diapers, leaving this to me instead, and would ‘forget’ to feed him even when his hungry wailing was ringing shrill and miserable through the whole house. Eventually she began to take him out begging, using the child as a prop with which to elicit the sympathy of strangers. She was most pleased when he looked his worst, and even complained to me once or twice that she could raise no money at all on days that he looked ‘too healthy.’
I can never forget her final act of cruelty against Vasily (I named him myself after Sister could not be bothered). It was morning, and I had walked outside into our yard to smell the air. The child was lying motionless on the ground there, and seemed quite dead – smeared as he was with his own blood. His little fingers and toes were black with frostbite; Sister had not even bundled him in anything when she laid him down hours ago in the dark of night. The crows, which were as hungry as we were, had plucked his beautiful eyes and tongue from his still-living body. I grabbed him up with tears already pouring down my cheeks, thinking that I had claimed a corpse. It was only when he stirred against my breast that I realized he might be saved.
I swaddled him as warmly as I could, and fed him something before rushing him down to the home of the town’s only doctor. I nearly beat down the front door with my fist, and he answered with sleep still in his eyes because it was so early. I paid him with all of the heirloom jewelry from Mother that I had been able to hide from Sister over the years. An hour or so later, the doctor told me Vasily would live, but asked that he be allowed to monitor the child for the rest of the day. I told him that this would be fine, as today would be a busy day for me. And indeed it was. By evening I had smashed Sister’s head to a flattened pulp with the cast-iron skillet from our stove, obtained a train ticket for passage out of our home country, and made plans to give Vasily the best life that he could still yet have.
Vasily – my son now – knows nothing about any of this, of course. I told him only that he was adopted away from a situation which he was likely not to survive. The mirthful optimism I saw on his face when he was born survives to this day inside his heart. Sister, in all her malice, had only managed to suppress it for a while. And now, almost 50 years later, he still visits his elderly mother every single day.”
She beamed with pride as she finished her story, and would say no more. And she was right, Vasily loved her so much, and wore no resentment on his face for his injuries. He always seemed to be smiling pleasantly, even though (in his blindness) he often didn’t know anyone was looking. He visited her every day until she died, and he was holding her hand when she passed. I knew from his interactions with hospital staff that he understood spoken English, and so at Yana’s funeral I told him that I had been a friend of his mother’s. I told him that she was the most amazing, wonderful woman I had ever met. His sad, grateful smile grew deeper, and he nodded his head. His response came in sign language.
“She was.”
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Wednesday, July 12th, 2017
The dynamic of memory has confounded me for my entire life. Memory is itself a living being, eternally aging until it decays and fades away. Each memory lives through its life cycle. Full of vitality in birth and hollow and weak in death. Like the people in our lives, the existence of our past bases entirely on our acknowledgment of its significance. The strongest memories are those that we regularly return to our minds; those that we cherish. Those which we choose to ignore—to forget—fade away into an obsolete presence in the back of our mind. Lost memories are silenced and forgotten until an unsuspecting explorer uncovers them. At the discovery of these ancient memories, we unearth a forgotten view of the world. It is the intellectual’s hunger to learn that resembles our yearning to remember what we have forgotten. Like an over-protective mother, we grasp onto the recovered Forgotten, imbuing their existence in newer memories. Like an obsession, the Forgotten enter our daily thoughts, forcing their significance upon us. We are the historians that give the Forgotten their permanence, writing lost memories into stories that transcend our own existence. It’s why we write down our thoughts onto notebooks; why we keep entire days in journals. This obsession lives inside everyone, for our memory, like ourselves fears death. Memory selfishly pursues revival and immortality; it craves attention. In that way, we are all slaves to our past.
I am a slave to my past. I spent months searching for the lost episode in my life. I was an archaeologist on the hunt to uncover a veiled truth that lay a thick fog over my adolescent memories. My curiosity became my obsession; it became my unhealthy addiction. Some untold grief possessed me in those months. My life centered on finding closure to silence the deafening questions which filled my mind. On the verge of madness, I’d spend days alone in an empty room, mining for answers. I had even taken to long sessions of meditation and dream therapy, but nothing came of it at the start. That was until last month when everything came rushing back in vivid detail.
What ensues is a collection of journal entries written following this resurgence.
Tuesday, June 13th, 2017
Today I remembered. For the first time in twelve years, I remember the summer of 2005. I remember the torment and terror that quaked my very soul. I remember the horror that my fifteen-year-old-self suffered within that year. It’s almost as if I’m still there. It’s like my life has split into two parts: the past and the present, and they’re fighting for control over my mind. Every time I close my eyes, or my mind wanders, I’m sent back in time, and forced to relive it all again. There’s no escaping it. But I guess this is what I asked for, isn’t it? I got my truth, even if it’s sharper than I could have ever imagined.
It was early in June of that year. School had let out just weeks before. My friends and I were so eager to go out and explore. We had our own little group of adventurers. God, we were a lively bunch of teens. Tommy and Ben would always want to explore the woods and search for lost treasure. But Anna and I would’ve rather preferred to search ravines for caves and waterfalls. In as much of an orderly fashion as a group of four can manage, we compromised. We decided that we would dedicate that summer to exploring the unofficially named Smuggler’s Creek, a local forest in the Appalachians. An ocean of thick forest and steep ravines, it offered an endless supply of excitement. Oddly enough, the area of Smuggler’s Creek had never held the presence of any smugglers. Instead, the creek was known for being the site of a few iron and coal mines. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Creek had an actual name. If it did, it didn’t matter to us. We liked Smuggler’s Creek and the adventures the name promised. If we were feeling adventurous, we would endeavor into the depths of the ravines in search of a cave to explore. But if we were lazy, we’d traverse the forest or walk down a creek. Our focus was never solely on the exploration itself. Whatever it was that we were doing, it was a background activity to fill the rare silence in our conversation. Even in the few weeks since school ended, I had learned more about those three than I had in the years before. We each told our deepest secrets: who we liked, what trouble we caused—gossipy stuff that any teen enjoys discussing. The four of us were as thick as thieves. Hell, we spent so much time together that we referred to the group as our second family. But still, even in our family, there was a division. Not a rivalry per say, but a separation. All of us got along fine, but when it came to a group decision, we split in two. It was a separation caused by differing character and belief.
It was Anna and me on one side, and Ben and Tommy on the other. Ben always poked fun of how I would spend more time with Anna than Tommy and him. It made me blush at first; sometimes Anna would too. I would say that it didn’t mean anything or that it was because we were better friends. But still, I could tell he knew why—shit, I’m sure they all knew why.
You see, Anna and I were neighbors. That meant we went to the same school, the same church (well at least until my family stopped going), the same pool and the same library. When we started school, we ended up sticking together; half because we already knew each other and half because it was easier that way. We were childhood best friends. However, by the end of middle school, we had drifted apart. It was in seventh grade that Ben and Tommy became my best friends. And I was brought into their group of friends while Anna found her own. However, that changed at the start of high school in late 2004. I had almost every class with Anna (except for foreign language since I took Spanish and she took French). We even took the same electives. Being the only person either of us knew on the first day, we became best friends once again. But it was different than before. In the two years that we had spent apart, I had failed to notice how much she had changed. She was quieter now—or perhaps more reserved, unlike the sassy cheerleader I grew up to know. She often wore hoodies and her once notoriously ponytailed brown hair draped down past her shoulders, sometimes even in braids. The change gave her a serious look but not in a bad way. During one of the many talks we had, while we walked home from school, I asked her about it.
“I grew up,” she replied with an embarrassed grin. I figure she had hoped that I hadn’t noticed it.
When I voiced my curiosity’s dissatisfaction with the answer, she frowned and, after a thoughtful pause, told me the truth. She explained to me her friends in middle school and what type of people they were. In middle school, she was a cheerleader. Popular and pretty, she got plenty of attention from everyone. Being a popular cheerleader in middle school meant that you were at the forefront of being exposed to delinquency and debauchery. She told me about the type of parties she would go to and how her friends would get drunk and hook up with guys, just to forget everything the next day.
“I wasn’t that type of person,” she said, her light brown eyes glued to the ground in visible shame, “no matter how hard I tried to be.” After a few silent moments, her shoulders relaxed, and she smiled at me. “I just had to change things, you know.” And she did. She stopped cheerleading and started playing on the high school soccer team. That’s how she got to know Tommy and Ben, whom both had been playing on teams together since the fifth grade. She left her middle school friends behind and became a primary member of our group of friends at school.
“Well shit, that’s deep,” I joked stupidly, trying to break the tension. She grinned at me with rosy cheeks. “I’m glad you did,” I confessed mellowly, “I like the new you more.”
That was the day I told Anna about the summer plans that Tommy, Ben, and I had created. Perhaps it was my way of asking her out. Whether she knew it or not, I… I can’t remember. Going back there… it’s painful enough for me to relive it… such explicit detail. I don’t even know if any of this actually happened. It’s all so… unreal.
Thursday, June 15th, 2017
I still remember. The memory is as clear as day. And I keep going back… I can’t help it. It’s almost like I forget how painful it is every time I start. But I know it’s real now. I called my Dad yesterday. I don’t know; I guess I hoped he would tell me it was all just some fucked up dream. But he didn’t. He went deathly silent when I asked him about Anna. And then he told me what he knew.
On Sunday, July 3rd, 2005, I was temporarily admitted into a post-traumatic rehabilitation center. I stayed there until Tuesday, August 9th, 2005 when I was sent home. I was diagnosed with “minor amnesia” and declared functional enough to return to society. A week later I was sent to a boarding school near Philadelphia nicknamed “The Hill” and stayed there until I graduated in 2008. By early 2006 my parents had sold our house and moved to Ardmore, Pennsylvania. I vaguely remember waking up in a hospital following… everything, I guess. Anything since moving to “The Hill” is normal. In fact, it was there when I was a senior that I realized something was missing in my memory.
I’ve booked a flight to Pittsburgh this Saturday. I need to see it; I need to go back to Smuggler’s Creek. I need to see Anna.
Until then, I must continue writing what I remember. No matter how much it hurts. It seems like the only way I can truly deal with this is by writing it down. It makes it real, but… I suppose it’s one step towards Acceptance.
The initial couple weeks of that summer were simple. Shit, I’d say they were great. I’d wake up every day at 8 AM, just as the morning dew settled. I’d eat breakfast, usually a bowl of Cheerios or something, and then, with Anna, would bike to the local gas station outside of Smuggler’s Creek. Once Ben and Tommy arrived, we’d all lock up our bikes and head into the forest. The gas station owner was friends with my dad so, as is common in small towns like ours, he didn’t mind us leaving them there. The fastest way to get to the heart of the forest is to take Delaware Path; a long winding trail that splits the whole forest in half. About three-quarters of a mile into the woods, the path breaks into two smaller lanes. One branch stays straight and continues deeper into the woods. The other, named Foothold Pass, stems down a rocky hillside and into a mile-wide, three-mile-long valley scattered with creeks and crevices. This valley, on our fictitious treasure maps, was the legendary Smuggler’s Creek. We often stopped at this fork in the path to determine what we wanted to do that day.
On that day, Anna plainly wanted to head down Foothold. Feeling adventurous as always, I happily sided with her, leaving the decision to Tommy and Ben. If they both decided that they’d rather continue into the forest, we’d have to settle the tie the old-fashioned way with a game of Rock Paper Scissors. However, before Tommy could utter a single word, Ben agreed to go down. Excitedly, Anna thanked Ben and began tumbling down the trail. I traced behind, trying to ignore Ben, who was staring at me with his unforgettable mischievous grin. When I finally caught up to her, she grabbed my hand and began murmuring her excitement.
“Let’s go into a cave!” she beamed at me radiantly.
There was something different in the way she was acting. It was as if she wasn’t even thinking about the cave itself. The way she held her body closer to mine. The way her eyes peered into my soul, and the way she smiled in satisfaction with what she saw. For that moment, she was the only thing that mattered to me. And for once, I felt like I was the only thing that mattered to her. Even now, I can’t help but wonder what had caused such a change in her attitude. I… I can’t find any reason why… unless…
I realize now that I haven’t made something clear. This pain I’ve uncovered… it’s not just from remembering what happened; it’s from knowing that I forgot. Before this week, I had no recollection of any Ben, Tommy, or Anna from my childhood. You understand? I forgot my two best friends… I forgot my first love. Something so clearly valuable in one’s life and I forgot it. And it’s not just that which hurts so much; it’s the fact that I still don’t remember. I can’t remember what happened to Ben and Tommy. And that terrifies me. Because I know that if I still can’t remember what happened to them, then whatever did happen is far worse than anything I can comprehend. And Anna… my memory of her is so delicate. It’s like I’m reading a horror story, except I only know the beginning and a fragment of the end. I know what happened to me, but I’m still learning about what happened to my friends. So, I must struggle through writing this all. It’s not about me anymore. It’s about them. Their memory…
I followed Anna into the deep ravine. Nearly twenty feet deep and more than six feet wide, the gorge Anna chose was the largest. A fissure of rough stone painted with moss; it was a narrow crack in the hillside. Deep cavities dug into the walls, carving small alcoves, caves, and even a mine into the rock. We’d never gone inside any caves before, but we’d always wanted to. Tommy was claustrophobic, and Ben just didn’t like caves, so we rarely got to chance the idea of going in one. It had always come to a tie that we would always lose. Whether it was a waterfall or a cavity-ridden rock-wall, Ben always found an acceptable alternative. I smiled. Today is the day.
Suddenly, Anna stopped in her tracks. She fell completely silent, peering apprehensively into the darkness of a mine’s portal. I attempted to ask her what was wrong, as we had passed this mine several times before without having gone in once. But at the first word, she shot me a look of creeping fear that sent me into silence.
“Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Ben asked loudly with heavy breath, having just caught up. “Are we going in—”
“Be quiet for a second,” she whispered with audible fascination.
We all went silent, listening to the forest sing. I half expected Anna to yell out at any moment and smile at me with a giddy grin. But her face was far too sullen for this to be a joke. I waited, searching the silence for sound. Then, under the whistles of the wind in the trees and the chirps of birds, I heard it. From within the mine came what sounded like a… a little boy crying. They were trembling tears, like those of a kid who is scared for his life but knows that nobody’s around to hear his cries. Our faces went white as we all realized what it was that Anna had discovered.
“What is that?” Tommy whispered nervously, evidently spooked by the sobbing. He swayed anxiously as the weeping continued, waiting for someone to respond.
“It’s a kid, you idiot,” Ben quipped uneasily.
“No shit,” Tommy replied, unamused, “I mean who is he? Why is he here? And why is he crying?”
“Well, we’re not in your head, are we Timmy?”
“Shut up,” Tommy huffed, turning his attention to me. “What do you think, Ollie?”
“…The police never found Max Carter, right?”
Max Carter was a fourth-grader that went missing a few weeks before school let out. The entire county police force spent a week searching through the town and local forests for the kid. But they never found him, nor any evidence to suggest where he was. Max was last seen getting onto the yellow school bus for a field trip to some national park that day. But he wasn’t on the bus when it returned. He simply just disappeared.
“…Yeah,” Ben answered somberly, “what about it?”
“Wasn’t he a Cub Scout?” I asked Ben, who had been a scout all elementary and middle school. The scouts in our county had this buddy program, called the Scouts’ Alliance, where older scouts would pair up with younger scouts every month and do an assortment of activities together. When Max initially went missing, Ben took it hard. He’d been Max’s buddy a few times through middle school. A kid like that going missing takes its toll on anyone who knew him, especially those who knew him closely.
“Are you saying you think that’s Max?” Ben breathed, with hope in his voice.
“Whoever he is, we should talk to him regardless,” Anna murmured compassionately.
“Shouldn’t we just go back and tell the police?”
“This isn’t a decision, Tom,” I snapped quietly.
Tommy shut up, and we began discussing the plan. We knew he was already terrified, so we had to be careful not to scare him any further. We determined that it was the safest bet to go to him instead of hoping he would come to us. Anna figured she’d be the best one to go in first, with Ben following behind once she got to the kid. I agreed with her. Psychologically, the boy… Max, would be more comfortable with Anna’s female presence and Ben’s familiarity than with a pair of complete strangers like Tommy and me. They would try their best to comfort him and, once he was ready, help him out of the cave. After that, I would go back to the gas station with Tommy and call the police. Anna and Ben would bring Max, at his own pace, to the gas station, where the police would pick him up and notify his parents. I could tell that the whole group, even Tommy, who finally agreed to the plan, felt an aura of satisfaction that we could do something good together. We would be the heroes of the town after bringing back Max. Nobody admitted it, but we’d all thought he was dead by now. Barely anything more than freshmen, we all drooled at the idea of being a hero—arguably for our own reasons.
After everything had been decided, Anna made her way through the portal and into the mine. A few anxious moments later, she came back out, her face as pale as snow. Her eyes were stuck to me, her hands shaking, and her lips trembling. I went to her and grabbed her hands as comfortingly as I could. Her hands were melting ice cubes, so cold that they even made themselves shiver.
“What is it?” I asked her in a low voice.
“H-h-h-he’s not… not there.” Her words confused me, as the crying had not stopped, but I could hear enough terror in her words to believe her. Her shaking hands tightened around mine, and without thinking, I pulled her into a hug.
“What do you mean he’s not there?” Ben asked.
“I-I…” she paused for a second and gazed back at the portal. “Let me show you.”
Still holding onto my hand, Anna led the three of us into the cold mine shaft. The tunnel wasn’t big, but it was spacious enough that I’d feel uneasy if I were alone. The ceiling was held up by a few sets of rusted steel timbering, which only added to the already prominent uneasiness I felt. Every ten feet or so, a light bulb hanged down a foot from the ceiling. None of them were broken, yet they were still out, and I didn’t see any switch nearby to turn them on. As soon as we entered the shaft, I instantly knew what Anna meant when she said Max wasn’t there. About twenty feet ahead of us, a television sat on a little wooden table, powered by two wires that ran parallel to the one used for the lights. On the screen was a small crying boy with shaggy brown hair, curled up into a ball in a dark chamber. The camera looked down on the kid from an angle, the dim light that made him visible somewhere behind it. From the video came the sound of Max’s crying.
“Oh God, Max,” Ben murmured in astonishment, “I can’t believe it’s you.”
“Do you think he’s deeper in the mine?” Tommy asked. “What if this is just a recording and not a live feed?”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” I muttered, continuing forward into the mine. Every dozen paces, I glanced up at the wires to make sure I was following them correctly. I knew the wires would lead me to the camera, or whatever was playing the video on the TV. I didn’t dare to wonder why a camera would be recording a little boy crying. I needed to keep myself calm. Otherwise, I’d start a panic and do something stupid. I’d never been in any situation like this before, but I’d seen enough horror movies to know that those who freak are weak. A few minutes of walking in near pitch-black darkness and we finally came to the end of the tunnel. The wires led to a rusty mine elevator and continued down the shaft beneath it. It was simply a semi-open metal cage large enough to fit a few men and a minecart. In the back-left corner of the elevator sat another television, smaller than the one previous. Instead of playing a video of Max, the TV just played quiet static that buzzed through the shaft. The static, accompanied by the occasional creaking of the elevator, only further decreased my confidence in the mine. Something was off. I… I can’t really express it. It’s like the feeling you’d get as a kid before a big storm. A barely noticeable, yet inescapable fear that things will somehow go wrong. I didn’t like the idea going any deeper into the mine, but I hated the idea of leaving Max alone even more. I stopped and waited for Ben and Tommy, who had stayed at the previous television longer than Anna and me.
“Ollie,” Anna started in a clearly unnerved whisper, “I don’t like this. I know I was the one who wanted to go in a cave… I… I just thought it’d be more private.”
“I know, I hate this just as much as you do. But… but now we have to stop thinking about ourselves and do what’s right.”
“So, what now?” Ben’s eyes were looking at me, but I could tell he was focused on the static TV behind me; his face staring with indifference. I recognized that look on his face. The look of a scared teen whose too prideful to show weakness. It was the same look that I wore.
“Well, we’ve got a decision to make,” I huffed, blankly staring at the portal of the mine. “Either we leave now and tell the cops about this place, or we go into the mine and get Max. What do you guys think?”
“I don’t care what any of you guys say, I’m getting Max,” Ben muttered, anger lingering in his words. He continued forward into the elevator and leaned against the back wall, staring back at us. “You guys gonna help me?”
“But what if there’s someone down there?” Tommy started, “Look around, Ben. This shit has ‘crazy’ written all over it.”
“If someone’s down there,” Ben replied, pulling out his Ka-Bar from its belt sheath, “then I’ll deal with them.” I grinned at the sight of the knife. Ben had worn that knife every day since school let out. Ever since his dad got him it for his birthday that year, Ben treated the knife like it was his girlfriend (which probably made his real girlfriend a little jealous). He even once tried to cut down a three-inch-thick oak tree sapling with the knife. But, it didn’t work out.
“Wake the fuck up. You’re not Rambo. You can’t be a one-man-army.”
“Then be my army.”
“Listen,” Tommy pleaded, shifting his attention to Anna and me, “I think the best idea is for us to go back to the gas station and call the police. We’re only kids. We can’t just go down there and expect to save Max from an unknown number of kidnappers. The police will know what to do.”
“He’s not wrong,” Anna agreed. “I mean, we found Max, didn’t we? Maybe we should play it safe and go back to the gas station. Tommy’s right, the police will handle this much better than us.”
“I have an idea,” I started. “Tom, why don’t you run to the gas station and call the cops while the rest of us stay and make sure Max’s okay. Then we can let the police arrest whoever is in the mine without having to put ourselves in harm’s way.”
Tommy was silent for a few seconds, hesitantly cycling his gaze between Ben and me. “Okay,” he conceded, “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
I could see the relief on his face as he hastily made his way out of the tunnel. Once he was gone, I returned my gaze to the static television. Ben stared at me critically.
“So, what? Are we supposed to just sit around for a couple hours with nothing to do but listen to Max’s constant crying?”
“We’ll give him twenty minutes,” I retorted with a halfhearted grin. Ben sighed and began pacing up and down the tunnel, fidgeting with his knife in his hands. Anna walked up beside me and gave me a worried look. I hated how uneasy she looked, staring blankly at the ground while tapping her foot against the gravel. It weakened my confidence a little, but it was the amount of uncertainty in the look that got to me. Neither of us wanted to think about what was down there, but now it was the only thing we could do.
I had hoped that Ben would lose some his fire while we waited for Tommy, knowing that he’d need to be clear minded if we ever eventually went down. However, every time he seemed to calm down a little, Max’s sobs would get louder, and Ben’s pacing would speed up. Finally, he looked at me with an intense look of impatience.
“Are we gonna do this or what?”
I glanced at Anna, who in return gave me a hesitant nod. “I guess we are.” Slowly, I entered the mine elevator and stood in the corner next to the static television. Anna and Ben shuffled in after me while I began searching for the button to begin our descent. A few seconds later, I found a metal lever near the front of the elevator and, after making sure everyone was in, pulled it down. The elevator started moving immediately. Gradually, we began to pass below the tunnel at a slow speed until all we could see on all sides of the elevator was uneven walls of stone. The light from the entrance eventually faded from the elevator, the sound of Max’s crying fading with it, leaving only the light from the static television. In mere seconds, the elevator went from feeling spacious to confined like it was an actual cage. My ears began to ring as the abrasive sounds of the creaking elevator, and the static from the television intruded my hearing. Then, for some unknown reason, everything stopped. The elevator halted to a full stop, throwing all of us off balance, and the static television shut off. Suddenly, all my senses were flooded with emptiness. I felt as if I was about to be crushed by the darkness like it would somehow seep into my body and drown my soul in the blackness. My ears grasped for anything that made a sound, filling my head with the sounds of my heartbeat and the deafening reverb of the cave. I reached for Anna’s hand in the darkness and listened to her gasp once I found it.
“It’s alright,” I whispered.
She shuffled nearer to me, and the sound of her intermittent breathing warmed my ears. For a few moments, we sat in nervous silence, listening to the indiscernible mess of noises. Slowly, I discovered patterns in the sound. The elevator’s creaks when we shuffled, our breathing’s rhythm, and the silence’s constant ringing. Upon finding these patterns, I noticed another sound. It had been quiet before, but it was gradually getting louder like it was creeping closer. Finally, when the noise was so loud that I could identify it, I realized what it was. A shiver ran down my spine. It was Max. He sounded far away, but his cries were different now… they felt more real.
“Max?” Ben yelled down into the mine. We all silently listened for an answer as Ben’s voice echoed through the cavern. No response came. A few seconds later, the television flickered on. On the small screen was a shot of the face of a man, staring with a wide yellow-toothed smile straight at me. Oh god… I remember him… so well. He had clay-colored skin with long black hair that flowed into a long beard. His eyes were black coals hung from a heavy brow that gave the face a menacing look. He wore an orange bandana on his head topped with a crooked black pirate hat.
“Ahoy, matey,” the man smiled in excitement. He spoke in a gruff accent like something straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean. “I be Jolly th’ Pirate! Welcome t’ Smuggler’s Creek! Thar ne’er be any new scallywags these days. Alas, ye always be welcome here. Perhaps ye can be help t’ me… I hear ye be lookin’ fer ye mate, Maxie.” The man walked out of view for a few seconds, then came back and grabbed the camera. “Maxie bin wit’ me fer… errr… three weeks.” The man aimed the camera down at a small eight feet deep hole in the stone. Curled up in a ball against the back wall of the hole was Max. He was covered in dirt. To the right of him were two small pig-trough-looking containers, one filled with grain, and the other with murky water. “Say ahoy t’ yer mates, Maxie,” he gave a cheer that slowly became an unforgettably sinister giggle. It was an awful laugh. It was so comically jolly, but at the same time, so creepily sadistic. He returned his gaze back to me, his wicked grin even wider than before. “Ye see, this be my mine ye be boardin’. I reckon ye be tryin’ t’ plunder me gold, aren’t ye?” He paused, staring at me expectantly. After a moment, his smile faded to a look of dissatisfaction. “So be it. Come find me.” As soon as he finished, the TV went static, and elevator once again started its descent.
“What the fuck?” Ben muttered in astonishment.
I didn’t reply. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. I was so… disturbed by what I had just witnessed. I suddenly wasn’t so sure about what was going to happen once we finally entered the mine. From the bruises and tears I saw on Max’s face, I no longer felt heroically confident that we could save him. What were we gonna do? We were just kids. The pirate had laid a trap, and we had fallen for it. He was the one in control now.
When the elevator finally stopped, we were greeted by another long ten-foot-wide tunnel. Once again, lightbulbs hung from the ceiling every ten feet. However, unlike the previous lights, they all began to flicker on within a few seconds. I now saw that the tunnel, about a hundred feet in, split at a junction. There was no sign of Max or the man anywhere nearby. I stood, frozen still and staring into the maze of tunnels ahead of us.
“I think we should leave,” Anna said under her breath.
I silently agreed, and, without waiting for Ben’s response, pulled the lever up to return to the surface.
Nothing happened. “Shit.” I tried putting it back down and trying again, but still no result.
“What did you expect? The psycho obviously has control to the elevator’s power.”
“Ben, cool your shit,” Anna snapped. “There should be multiple entrances, right? Isn’t that a law or something?”
“I think so,” I muttered, struggling to think. I told them everything I could recall from all the history lessons about mines my dad gave me as a kid. If there were any other exits to the cavern, then, because of the shaft’s depth, there would most likely be elevators as well. Which meant the man could easily keep us from leaving by cutting off all power to the elevators. The only way out of the mine was to gain control of the power and turn the elevators back on. After a brief discussion, we came up with a plan. The only action to take was to do what “Jolly the Pirate” said and find him. We started by following the cables that powered the elevator and lights, which we decided probably led to where he was held up. Ben chose to take the lead, walking a few feet ahead of us with his Ka-Bar in hand. It wasn’t hard to notice his rage. He’d gone completely silent when we began following the cables, only occasionally grumbling every time we came across a sign of the pirate’s presence. They ranged from incoherent sentences about gold written on the walls with chalk to various bottles of alcoholic beverages left either empty or shattered on the stone floor. The more signs of insanity we saw, the more disturbed I felt. We came upon several piles of bones, most were small and had many features to identify them as an animal. But it was the larger ones that seemed less animal and more human that truly shook me. I had never felt so horrified in my life. With every step, I felt the weight of fear drag my feet as if I was walking through mud. I just wanted to go home. This was supposed to be about Anna and me. It was all meant to be silly and inconsequential; to be fun… not this. This wasn’t fun.
This was cruel and grotesque…
After a while of following the wires, we came upon another junction. This time the wires led towards what must’ve been a workshop. It was a small chamber with a few work benches and shelves pushed up against the walls. A bunch of miscellaneous parts and metal bits were scattered atop each bench. I remember my dad telling me that the county officials made it mandatory for mines to have workshops built in the pit so the miners could mine themselves out in the case of a cave-in. It made me wonder what an insane man with a lot of time could manage to invent. At the back-left corner of the workshop, the cables passed through a narrow man-sized wood door to another chamber. I stopped in my tracks.
“Stand thar, Maxi
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Every family has its stories, those events that have passed on into almost legend, and my extended family is no different. Some families have stories which they laugh about, which are brought up with regularity at gatherings, stories that they share with others.
Ours is not one of these stories. If it’s discussed at all, it’s spoken about in hushed tones, with sideways glances at me in particular. I never bring it up myself unless directly asked, and I’m lucky enough that I can get away with telling people that I was too young, that I don’t remember any details, that it’s just a blur in a distant memory from my youth.
But that’s a lie.
I remember almost everything. I remember every time I have to look at myself in the mirror; and the nightmares still make me sit bolt upright in bed at night, gasping for breath and terrified. The event that became family legend took place two decades ago now, when I was about eight years old. We were heading for a short family getaway to our family’s cabin. To be honest, it was more of a holiday home than a ‘cabin’, my grandparents had bought it when my father was still young and it had been in the family for years. My brother and I called it the ‘cabin by the woods’; it made it sound more exotic. My grandfather used to take my Dad and his siblings up there when they were young, hiking through the woods, fishing & swimming in the nearby lake – and my Dad & his brothers & sisters now did the same with their own families.
We started the trips when I was about six – Mum, Dad, me and my little brother Peter heading up to the cabin for the odd weekend getaway. I vaguely remember a few of those earlier trips, I recall swimming in the lake with Pete one time and both of us being scared to go too far out because that was where the lake-weed started growing and you couldn’t see the bottom.
The cabin was right on the edge of the woods, right along the boundary of the treeline; fields and farmland on one side and heavy woodland on the other. The farm next to the site was owned by the Johnson family, old friends of my grandparents. We’d always stop in and say hi to Mr & Mrs Johnson on the way up to stay, occasionally we’d have dinner there. My Dad and his siblings had played with the Johnson kids when they were younger, but their children had grown up and moved away and it was just the parents left at the time. Mr. Johnson kept an eye on the cabin when our family wasn’t using it.
Dad had pulled us out of school a few days before the weekend; we packed up the car and left early on Thursday morning. It was late summer, the leaves were just starting to change color and the air was becoming crisp and cool in the evenings. I remember being excited for the trip, I was looking forward to adventuring in the woods and Pete wanted to go swimming. Mom had warned us that it might still be too cold to get in the lake but we insisted on packing our swimsuits anyway, just in case.
“Marty! Pete!” My Mom was calling to us to head out, but Pete and I were in the car and ready early, eager to set off. Pete had decided he was going to put on his swimming trunks underneath his pants so that he’d be ready to go at a moment’s notice once we were there. The drive was uneventful; we napped in the back of the car. I remember waking up as we pulled up the gravel driveway to the cabin. Dad must have picked up the keys from the Johnsons on the drive in while I was still asleep. We bumped our way up the long, twisting driveway that ran along the treeline. We slowed to a halt outside the cabin, Pete and I looking excitedly out of the car windows. It looked just like I remembered it, framed by big trees, with a clear area in front of it which attached to the field that bordered the woods. The Johnsons’ fenceline ran along the edge of the woods, and normally there would be stock roaming around in in the field, (They had sheep and some cattle) but today it was empty.
Pete was bouncing excitedly in his seat. “I wanna go swimming!” he yelled.
“We need to unpack the car and set everything up first, bud,” Dad replied, opening his door and getting out.
“Pleeeeeeeeeeease?”
Mom got out as well and unbuckled Pete. I got out on my own and looked around. Everything was as I remembered it. Looking off to the side of the cabin, I could see the gaps in the trees where twin paths forked off, one leading into the woods and one leading the other way, down towards the lake. There was a white blaze painted on one of the trees, marking the start of the path.
“You know, I could take them,” Mom said to Dad. “We can always unpack later, we’ve got plenty of time.”
Dad opened the trunk and grabbed his and Mom’s bags out. “Ok. Let’s just quickly dump our bags inside, and we’ll get changed and go down to the lake.”
“Yaaaaay!” Pete deafened us all, and began to run around the car until Mom snagged him in a hug. Dad grinned, and hefted the bags across the covered porch to the cabin’s door. Dropping them to one side, he fumbled with his keys and opened the door, then froze in the doorway.
“Dad?” I asked, unable to see past him into the shadowy inside
“Get your brother and get back in the car,” Dad said, without looking at me.
“But…”
“Right now, Marty.” Dad cut me off, using his ‘serious voice.’
“Dear…?” Mom sounded concerned as I grabbed Pete and pulled him towards the car while he protested loudly.
“Where’s the axe kept? Where did we find it last time?”
“Oh, God, what’s wrong?” my Mom’s voice rose slightly, as Dad came back towards the car and hefted the tire iron out of the trunk, striding quickly back towards the open door.
“The place is all messed up. I think there might have been a break-in”
“The axe was in the laundry last time I think… Be careful…” she trailed off, sounding worried.
“I’ll be fine. Stay here.” Dad quickly kissed her on the cheek before stepping through the open door, tire iron half-raised in his right hand. Mom paced back and forth by the car, clearly concerned, and we sat in the back looking towards the cabin. We sat there for what seemed like an age, becoming more and more worried as the seconds went on.
“What’s happening, Marty? Is Dad okay?”
I tried to reassure Pete. “Everything’s fine. Dad’s tough, there’s nothing that he can’t deal with.”
I remember Dad once telling me that I had an over-active imagination, and this was one of those situations where it was free to run wild. Even as I spoke, I found myself imagining all of the horrific things that surely lurked inside the cabin just waiting for Dad to stumble upon them, and I could feel my fear levels rising. In my mind I saw dark shapes moving about in the gloom, silently stalking my father – and how they would come for us once they’d gotten him. I looked back towards the cabin, and suddenly the curtains in the front window were flung open, Dad looking out the window. We saw him walk around to the door and come back outside holding an axe, which he propped up against the front of the cabin.
“Looks like everything’s fine, guys; you can come out of the car now.” He went and talked to Mom. “How about you take the kids down to the lake while I get everything straightened up?” He explained to Mom that the place was a bit messed up, but not too badly. A fallen branch had smashed in a window at the back of the place, and he thought that a raccoon or something had gotten in and turned over some things while hunting for food. He’d found the axe in the laundry, where it was meant to be. Dad thought that it must have happened in the last day or so, after Mr Johnson had come to turn the power & water on. The scary things I’d imagined quickly receded in my thoughts, but I remember still feeling vaguely uneasy. Pete was still excited to go swimming, so Mom got our swimming stuff and the three of us headed down to the lake while Dad went back inside.
“We’ll be about a half-hour, dear!” Mom shouted to Dad as we headed around the cabin and down towards the woodland path that would take us to the lake.
Swimming was fun; I remember splashing around in the water with Pete while the sun shone brightly down on us. We were lucky that it wasn’t starting to get really cold yet, since we were just getting into the start of autumn. Mom read her book on the shore while Pete and I swam around in the shallows, once again avoiding the lake-weed. Eventually, Mom called us back in and we got dried off and headed back up the track to the cabin. Dad had cleaned the place up, and nailed an old board over the broken window at the back. He told us to grab our bags and go set up in our bedroom.
We grabbed our gear and ran through the lounge area down the hall to the bedroom. Pete immediately claimed the top bunk, struggled up the ladder, decided it was too high and that he’d fall out in the night, and then claimed the bottom bunk. We unpacked our sleeping bags and then ran back down the hallway into the lounge. Mom and Dad had finished unpacking the rest of the car, they’d stowed the food in the kitchen and Dad was setting up the portable grill out on the porch.
“Can we go exploring!?” I asked excitedly. I liked the woods; I remembered playing games in them last time with Pete, pretending we were mighty heroes defending a fortress from an invading barbarian horde. There was a spot I had in mind where the narrow, winding path opened up, leading into an area where the trees widened out and there was space to run around and play. I recalled a bank on one side of the clearing, which we’d climbed to make our ‘fortress’.
“Sure,” Dad smiled. “But…” He was using his serious voice again. “I want you to look after your brother. Don’t let him out of your sight. Don’t be away too long, stay on the path, and don’t go any deeper than that clearing we went to last time.”
“Don’t worry, Dad!” I yelled, grabbing Pete and running off together while Dad was still talking.
We sprinted towards the path that would take us into the woods, and were suddenly plunged into darkness when we hit the treeline. I realized that we’d been standing out in the bright sun and it was just taking our eyes a second to adjust. Pete stooped to pick up a hefty stick.
“This is my sword!” he yelled. To be honest, it was much more of a mace than a sword, the ‘pointy’ end was a bit bigger than the end he was holding, and quite knobbly. He had to hold it with both hands to easily control it.
“Nice,” I said, grinning. “I’ll find one of my own.”
We headed down the path together, going deeper into the woods. The path snaked around between trees, over rises and down through small gullies, and the occasional tree had a white blaze painted on it as a path marker. It was cool, with the bright sun being blocked above by the tree canopy. A few minutes later, the path opened up and we stepped into the clearing. The tree canopy still blocked out most of the sky, but was thin enough so that the clearing was fairly well-lit.
We ran around and played for a while, taking turns to guard and assault the ‘fortress’ and then both guarding it while we repelled the invading forces. After a while, we were breathing heavily from all the running around, and we sat down for a break.
“Where does that path go?” Pete was looking around, pointing towards the far side of the clearing.
I looked in the direction he was pointing, and spotted a tree with another white blaze painted on it on the far side of the clearing. The path was hard to spot next to the tree, it seemed to be quite overgrown and the tree that was marked was gnarled and twisted, with only a few leaves still attached. It was covered in moss or lichen, which made the blaze a lot harder to see than normal.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Let’s find out!” I stood, picking up my ‘sword’ stick, and Pete picked his up, too.
“Didn’t Dad say not to go any further?” Pete sounded worried that we’d get in trouble.
“Come on, we’ll be fine…” I was using my ‘big brother’ powers of persuasion, knowing that Pete would cave in and come with me if I headed that way. I was soon proven right, as we headed towards the path together.
We were less than a minute past the gnarled marker tree when a sense of unease settled in. The woods felt different, there was less light and the trees were closer together – they seemed to be fighting each other, clawing their way up towards the light. I no longer felt the confidence that I had before, and I gripped my stick a little tighter, taking some comfort from its weight.
“Marty, did you hear that?” Pete asked, clutching at my arm.
“Hear what?”
“I… I don’t know. Like, something moving around? Something big, I think…” He trailed off as we slowed our pace to a near-crawl, and I listened hard. I hadn’t heard anything, but at that moment I realized I couldn’t hear much of anything at all. The woods were normally full of sounds, the rustling of wind through the trees, birdsong and the like; but it seemed eerily quiet all of a sudden. We heard the snap of a twig behind us and froze in place; the hair on the back of my neck prickling and standing on end.
Pete slowly turned his head to look at me, and I slowly turned to look at him. His eyes were wide and I could see he was breathing fast, and I realized that my own heart rate had risen as well. The woods seemed even darker than they had been moments ago, the shadows deepening and pressing in almost menacingly. We turned fully around at the same time; and were confronted suddenly by a tall figure looming over us.
“BLARGH, BLARGH, BLARGH!” It was Dad. We both screamed as Dad yelled and waved his arms in the air, and then he started to laugh at us.
“Heh, heh, heh,” he chuckled to himself. “You should have seen the looks on your faces!”
“Daaaaaaaaad!” we exclaimed, breathing hard in fright.
“I thought I told you not to go any further than the clearing?” He didn’t sound too impressed. “Come on, your mother’s got lunch ready. Let’s not tell her how far into the woods we’ve come, okay?”
Pete and I nodded our agreement, and we followed Dad as he turned to head back down the path. As we walked back towards the clearing, I heard rustling behind us. It was like Pete had described, something big moving through the brush. Pete and Dad were laughing about Dad scaring us; I don’t think they heard anything. I kept walking, looking back over my shoulder as I went; but couldn’t see anything in the shadowy undergrowth. I quickened my pace to catch up.
The rest of the day was fun. We headed back to the cabin, had a late lunch, and then spent the rest of the afternoon down by the lake. Later that night Pete & I had been sent to bed, and as we lay in our sleeping bags, I heard something outside.
“Pete, can you hear that?” I asked. I got a snore in response, he was already asleep. I slid down from the top bunk and rummaged around in my backpack, grabbing my flashlight from the bottom of it. I flicked the switch and nothing happened, so I shook it around and the light flickered on, casting a weak cone of light across the room. I opened the curtains and looked out of the window.
The woods loomed out of the darkness, the beam of the torch just making across the clear area to the first trunks of the treeline. I shone the light back and forth, playing the light across the treeline, and something flashed in the darkness. It was only for a second, but in that instant, there were twin red spots pointing straight at me out of the darkness, like cats-eye reflectors on the road. They would have been a couple of feet off of the ground level, and then as soon as they appeared they were gone. I heard rustling, which rapidly faded away. Whatever it was had gone, heading away from the cabin and into the woods. I turned off the flashlight; slowly closed the curtains and backed away, climbing back up onto my bunk and into my sleeping bag. I stared at the ceiling in the dark, clutching the flashlight and listening hard, trying to hear anything outside over the noise of Pete snoring softly.
“Just the raccoon, looking for more food…” I whispered to myself. It was a long time before I fell asleep.
I woke up during the night. I lay in bed, trying to decide if I could go back to sleep or if I needed to pee, and decided on the latter. I slid down out of my bunk, being careful not to wake Pete. Still slightly groggy from sleep, I stumbled down the hallway and into the bathroom, where I relieved myself. I was heading back down the hall to the bedroom, when I heard something from the lounge, further down the hall. I froze in place, listening hard. There was something in there! I crept ever so slowly down the hallway, passing the door to our bedroom, and peered through the doorway into the lounge. I relaxed when I realized what the noise must have been.
The front door was open, creaking slowly back and forth in the cool night breeze. It must have not shut it properly and it had opened in the wind. There were no lights on, but the lounge was half-illuminated by moonlight coming through the windows and through the cracked-open doorway. I stepped into the room, intent on heading to the door to shut it, and then once again froze a few steps in when I perceived I wasn’t alone.
Parts of the room were lit from outside, and this made it hard to see into the gloom of the other parts that the light didn’t hit, but there was something in one corner of the room. I couldn’t make out anything as I peered towards the shadows, but as the door creaked slightly more ajar once more in the wind, I saw the red lights staring out at me from the dark. With a thrill of horror that sent the hair on my neck standing on end, I realized that they weren’t lights at all, they were eyes! I took a step backwards, and as I did, the red-eyed creature in the shadows glared out at me. I could see a faint outline, a shape in the darkness, but nothing clear. Whatever it was, it was a lot bigger than a raccoon.
I opened my mouth to yell, but all that came out was a whimper. The breeze stopped and the door creaked once more, slowly closing this time. As the door closed, the beam of light that was coming through the gap slowly narrowed, and then disappeared as the door came to rest against the jamb, just short of clicking completely shut. As the light disappeared, the red reflection in the creature’s eyes faded from view, and I realized to my horror that I could no longer make out its shape in the darkness! I took another step backwards, and the thing growled at me from the shadows; a low, throaty rumble that filled me with dread. I heard the clack of nails or claws on the hardwood floor as it took a step towards me, and I finally found my voice, screaming at the top of my lungs as I closed my eyes and covered my head with my arms, turning away from whatever the thing was and trying to cover up, to protect myself.
As I screamed my lungs out, I heard my parents yelling in alarm from the bedroom down the hall, and scrambling sounds of them trying to get up quickly to come and see what was wrong. I heard the door open again in the wind, and opened my eyes to see the end of whatever the thing was disappearing outside. It was big, at least dog-sized, but apart from a split-second glimpse of dark fur or hair, I couldn’t see anything that would tell me for sure what it had been. My parents burst into the room, Dad running to grab me and Mom turning on the lights. They held me close, asking what was wrong, Dad was saying something about how I must have been sleepwalking and had a nightmare. Pete came in as well, and as the family gathered in the lounge, everything seemed much less scary in the light. Maybe it had just been my imagination?
Despite my protests, my parents eventually decided I’d just had a nightmare, and everyone eventually went back to bed. Mom stood by my bunk and whispered soothing things to me as I dropped back into slumber. I awoke the next morning to sun streaming through the windows, immediately feeling much better in the daylight. The events of the previous night seemed far away, like they had been a dream, and I wondered if that’s all that it had been. Everyone else seemed to already be up and about; it was just me in the room. I got up and got dressed; and headed out into the lounge, where everyone was gathered having breakfast.
“Good morning, honey,” my Mom called to me. “Did you sleep all right?” I replied that I was fine, and set about getting some breakfast.
The rest of the day (and the next couple of days as well) were fairly uneventful. We swam in the lake while our parents read their books, and then Dad came in to throw us around in the water. We walked through the woods several times, taking different trails. Pete and I ran around like madmen out front of the cabin, playing tag and every other game we could come up with while Mom & Dad relaxed on the front porch. The nights, though… I had bad dreams, dreams about a dark shape scrabbling around outside. I’d wake up and listen hard in the gloom, trying to figure out if the noise was just the trees or something else.
Saturday came, which would be our last night at the cabin. We’d be packing up and leaving in the morning. In the afternoon, Pete & I had gone back to the clearing in the woods, playing Star Wars this time – we were taking turns using the torch as a lightsaber. We must have played for hours, as I noticed the daylight was just beginning to turn to dusk, the woods growing dimmer as the light fled. For the life of me, I’ve never been able to explain what came next. I wish that we had just walked out of those woods, back to the cabin. But we didn’t.
You see after that first night, I’d been afraid. Whatever the thing had been, it had shaken me badly; but I was one of those kids who had to know everything. And I had an idea about where I’d find out for sure – deeper into the woods, where I’d heard something that first day.
I stared across the clearing at the gnarled tree with the faded white blaze, and decided that I was going to look before Mom & Dad came for us. Pete had piped up, saying it was getting dark and we should start heading back, dinner would be ready soon. I told him my plan and he shook his head vigorously. He didn’t want to go deeper into the woods. Once again, using my big brother powers of persuasion, I convinced Pete that he’d get in trouble if he headed back alone, as our parents had told him that he had to stay with me at all times.
I turned on the torch again, Pete hefted his ‘sword’ stick and we set off together, heading past the gnarled, twisted tree that marked the path deeper into the woods. We walked in silence, carefully picking our way along the path in the dark, my crappy torch lighting the way for us. Every now and again it would flicker, so I’d give it a whack and the light would come back. I found myself wishing I’d packed spare batteries for the trip; we must have drained the power while we were playing with it. The evening was getting rapidly darker, the moon coming out and casting some dim light through the gaps in the trees.
“Marty, I don’t like this,” Pete said apprehensively after about a minute on the path less traveled.
“Neither do I, but we can’t turn back now,” I replied. Looking back, I just can’t understand why it meant so much to the 8-year old me. By this point, I was starting to doubt the intelligence of the plan, but I was too headstrong to admit it and turn back.
We continued along the path, my torch’s light picking out the roots and branches that we needed to avoid. I felt apprehensive, and I’m sure Pete felt the same. This part of the woods had been bad enough in the daylight for the brief period we’d spent in it, but it was a hundred times worse at dusk. I was jumping slightly at every shadow, every branch that reached out of the darkness at us. Eventually, the path turned sharply and I lit up a gap between two trees that opened up into a second clearing. We stepped into it, and I noted with some relief that there didn’t seem to be a path out the other side – I couldn’t see a white trail blaze on any of them. I breathed a sigh of relief, deciding that we’d gone far enough and we could turn back now. I started to turn, and Pete grabbed my arm.
“What?” I looked down at him. “Don’t be scared! We’re leaving now.”
“Th-th-th-there’s something over there.”
He raised a shaky hand, pointing across the clearing. I looked across to where he was pointing, freezing in place when I realized he was right. There was something over there, lurking in the shadows. There was a little bit of light from the rising moon, but it wasn’t a full moon yet and the trees were a lot thicker here than in the other clearing, so it wasn’t much help. The thing growled, sending the hair on my neck standing on end. As Pete & I both took an involuntary step backwards, I managed to lift my arm to shine the torch in the direction of the growl. Red eyes reflected the light brightly back at me.
“Oh, shit…” I whispered to myself, as the full nature of my stupidity hit me. In my efforts to prove to myself that I was brave, I’d taken myself straight into harm’s way. And what was worse was that I’d taken my little brother; who I was meant to protect, along for the ride.
The thing stayed just out of the weak range of the torchlight, the dim cone of light just enough to make out its outline against the trees behind it as it padded back and forth, a low warning growl rumbling continuously in its throat. I could see it only a little better than I had been able to in the house, just an outline, and the red reflection of the light in its eyes. It was powerfully built through the shoulders and forelegs, a small head on a large frame that tapered down towards its back legs. Maybe it had a tail? I couldn’t tell in the dark, all I could really see was those damn eyes. It just seemed… wrong somehow, twisted like the tree that marked the entrance to the part of the woods it seemed to live in. Pete was beginning to hyperventilate and my heart was hammering at a million miles an hour, but I knew I needed to try and stay calm to try and get us out of this mess.
“Pete?” I asked, not taking my eyes off of the red eyes being reflected in front of me.
“What?” he stammered.
“We’re going to back away slowly, okay? Just stick with me, we’ll be fine. It doesn’t like the light”. I was praying that I was right; the thing seemed reluctant to come into the torchlight.
We backed slowly out of the clearing and back down the path that we’d come in on. We rounded the first corner and kept backing away, I kept the torch pointed in front of us as we slowly edged down the path, hoping that maybe the thing wouldn’t follow us. My hopes were dashed when a shape appeared, and the reflection bounced red off its eyes again. It was following us, stalking along the path after us, staying just out of the reach of my torch and making its way around the odd patch of moonlight that made it through the tree canopy above. And of course, it was at that moment that the torch started to flicker and die again.
“Shit. Shit shit shit,” I cursed, whacking the side of the torch to try and hit the light back into existence, but it continued to flicker, and then it died completely as the batteries finally gave up.
“Marty…?” Pete sounded as terrified as I felt, suddenly enveloped in the dark. I heard the thing growl again, so I flung the torch in its direction and screamed at Pete to run, as I turned to do the same.
Whatever the thing was, it was now chasing us and I could hear it gaining, getting a little closer with every step. Outstretched branches tore at our clothes, one whipping into my face and cutting my cheek. I barely felt the sting, the fear I was feeling at that moment was almost immeasurable. Pete was sprinting as fast as he could, but with my longer legs, I was beginning to outstrip him.
“Come on!” I urged, reaching for and grabbing his hand to pull him alongside me. “You can do it! Just! Keep! Running!” I spat the words out between frantic breaths.
I realized that Pete was still carrying his ‘sword’ stick, and without breaking stride I stretched over and tore it from his grip, flinging it behind us as we ran. I heard a meaty thud as it landed, and then growls that sounded of pain and anger. I must have hit the thing, I just hoped that it would slow or distract it enough for us to get away.
We kept sprinting down the track in the now near-dark forest, which had been difficult enough when my torch was working. As we ran, I silently prayed that we wouldn’t snag on a branch or trip on a root, as that would surely be the end of us. I silently wished I still had my torch; it would have made our flight easier. There! I saw the twisted tree, the outline just able to be made out against the dark sky thanks to the dim moonlight. By this point we were both nearly out of our minds with fear, all that was keeping me going was the adrenaline, and I knew Pete would be much the same. We were both sobbing as we ran, taking in deep, ragged breaths as we ran.
We burst into the clearing, and were about halfway across it when Pete fell, tripping over a branch laying on the ground. He landed heavily, and my momentum from running carried me well past where he lay. I skidded to a halt, turning to head back to get him; and as the thing bounded out from the path behind us I caught my first real glimpse of it, eyes widening in horror as it came into view. It was a twisted thing, like a huge dog or a wolf but… wrong, somehow. Its proportions were all off; forelegs were much longer and muscular than the hind. It didn’t run like a canine either, moving more like a gorilla charging on all fours, its long dark fur shaking back and forth as it lolloped forward towards my brother – long tongue spilling out from behind jagged white teeth in a snapping, slavering maw; and those horrible red eyes, glowing brightly with hunger in the dim moonlight.
Pete was struggling to get up; he saw the thing come from the path and then turned his head to look at me; pleading, petrified eyes locking with my own. I’ll never forget that glance. In that second I saw exhaustion, confusion and an all-encompassing fear, bordering on the brink of madness. But worst of all was the unbelieving, horrified betrayal that came into his eyes as I did the only thing that my terrified eight-year-old brain could think of – I turned away and fled, Pete’s screams echoing after me as I went, rising in pitch and seeming to go on forever, then cutting off suddenly.
I charged down the path, sobbing and shrieking as I fled, in disbelief at what I’d done and sure that the thing would come for me next. Suddenly, two tall figures burst out of the dark in front of me and grabbed me – I thrashed about and screamed, before realizing it was my parents! I could see Dad had the axe, they must have heard our screams. They frantically asked me where Pete was, but I was well past the point of being able to speak, and just flailed my arms back down the path, pointing desperately back the way I’d come. Dad sprinted past us, raising the axe as he went and Mom held me close before scooping me up into her arms and following him.
As Mom & I rounded the corner into the clearing, I could see my Dad kneeling in the center of it. I’ll never forget the way that the moonlight glinted off the axe head as it lay on the ground next to him. I’ll never forget my mother’s screams as she saw what was left of her son. I’ll never forget my father crying on his knees; great, deep sobs wracking his heaving chest as he tried to shield us from seeing the worst of it. I’ll never forget seeing past my father and spotting Pete’s hand, skin stark white in the rising moonlight, but spattered with dark red gore. I think I passed out then.
From what I was able to gather later on, Dad stayed with Pete while Mom took me in the car to the Johnson house to call the police, and left me there as she returned with the State Troopers and the ambulance. I’d gone into shock by that point.
I never told my parents what really happened, that we’d gone past the first clearing and deeper into the woods. I’d spent weeks in a near-catatonic state of fear and guilt by the time I was actually able to talk about what had happened. I told them that we’d lost track of time and were about to head back to the cabin, when the thing had come from the path and gotten Pete before I could do anything. I already hated myself enough; I couldn’t have dealt with them knowing it was all my fault. I told them that I didn’t get a good look at it. My Dad had seen a dark shape looming above the fallen figure of his son, but it had turned and ran as he came at it, and he hadn’t seen more than a flash of indistinct fur and red eyes. The police decided it had been a wolf or a feral dog, but despite a search of the woods they couldn’t catch it.
We never went back to the Cabin, and neither did
|
Witch
Based on True Events
I guess I don’t know where to start. The beginning would be the obvious place, but I don’t know what the beginning was. The whispers? The shadows? Objects moving by themselves? Electronics going haywire? Or was it the first time I actually saw it? Soulless pits for eyes and a featureless, paper-white face… I’m sure jumping right into “There’s a monster in my closet” would be a bit cliché. I always knew it was there, before it ever showed itself to me. The first time I knew, really knew, was Christmas Eve of 2010. I was with my ex-boyfriend at the time. He had taken me home early from dinner at a friends house because I was feeling ill. Naturally I went straight to bed and he stayed up, deciding to play his video games.
I don’t remember when I fell asleep, or how long I had been out before I woke up. All I remember was how I woke up. My memory of waking up is crystal clear, even now. While regaining consciousness I remember an unnatural cold in the room. Yes, I realize it was December, but Arizona never gets that cold. I remember feeling freezing cold hands brush against my bare arms before the duvet on my bed was pulled up over my body. I hadn’t opened my eyes until then, and I thought I saw my ex boyfriend standing at the edge of my bed. My vision was still blurry, so I called out his name with a yawn, blinking to clear my eyes of sleep.
In a fraction of a second, the shadow I thought I saw was gone. I was ready to forget the whole thing and go back to sleep so I turned over onto my side, now facing the opposite side of my room. If I had already closed my eyes I wouldn’t have noticed the face sharing my pillow. It was so close to me; the pale white and almost glowing face with empty coal-black sockets for eyes, that my nose almost touched it. With an immediate jerk back I nearly flung myself over the side of my bed. I would have screamed if my dinner hadn’t beaten my voice out of my mouth.
Regardless, my ex had burst into my room moments later to witness me vomiting allover myself and my bed. Needless to say he was pretty mad at me, since he was staying over for the holidays at my mom’s house and he had to sleep in that very same bed with me.
I didn’t know how to explain what just happened or what I had seen, so I stayed quiet. There was no further trace of the ghastly face in my room that night. I didn’t see anything for a while after that either, not even the shadows or subtle movements in the corner of my eyes.
It must have been Spring the next time it appeared. It was after high school one day and my ex and I were arguing (about what I can’t remember). The only reason I remember the the fight was because it was the first time he had ever hit me. It’s funny that I don’t remember the exact context but I remember locking myself in my bathroom and crying in the dark. I also remember a sharp, distinct tapping. Thinking it was my boyfriend trying to apologize, I yelled for him to go away.
I didn’t get an answer, just more intervaled tapping, like a sharp fingernail on the thin wood of my bathroom door. I could see the shadow of someone standing on the other side breaking the only light that was flowing into the bathroom from under the door.
I called his name, no longer angry, no longer crying. Now I felt wrong, sick almost, and very nervous. When the taping stopped I stared at the shadow underneath the door, watching it stay still. Feeling anxious now, I slowly laid myself on the floor. I moved to look underneath the door, expecting to see the toes of my boyfriend’s boots. Instead I was met with a large, impossibly deep eye socket and a smooth, white, and featureless face. The same face from Christmas, just staring at me with phantom eyes.
This time I was able to scream, and I screamed as loud as I could. My ex boyfriend’s name broke as it flew from my throat with a shrillness that was comparable only to nails on a chalkboard. The bathroom instantly began to shake with loud bangs instead of the quiet tapping. I was afraid that the door would bust off it’s hinges so I wedged myself between the bathroom sink and toilet with my hands over my ears and my eyes shut tight.
It felt like an eternity before my ex boyfriend finally came to get me. This time I couldn’t hide what happened, how do you explain screaming at the top of your lungs for no reason? So I told him. I even told him about Christmas. I was surprised when he believed me, no questions asked, and even more shocked when he seemed to recognize my description of that awful face. His younger sister, who was my age, would apparently wake up to a white face floating under her covers, wearing her bed sheets like a cloak.
He also told me their late mother was “gifted”, as he called it, and it was passed onto them. He believed it may have followed him to my house. So I had my ex to thank for that… thing. And then he gave me what I thought was some pretty psycho advise at the time: talk to it. He wanted me to speak to that thing, that horrible face.
It was almost a week before I saw it again. It was a school night and I had gotten home late from my job at a restaurant. All I wanted to do was kick off my shoes and fall asleep. The second I laid down my eyes were drawn to it like magnets. It was hovering in the top corner of my open closet, the face nearly glowing to distinguish itself from the dark in my room. I was frozen in fear, clutching the covers of my bed tightly to my chest as my wide eyes stared straight into the cavernous pits of the ghastly face.
I didn’t know what to do. There was no way I was going to try to talk to this thing, so all I could do was stare back, frightened and half hiding underneath the covers of my bed. After an eternity and a half the white face faded as it sunk back into my closet and I no longer had a clear sight of it.
The next day at school was one of the worst I ever had. I felt even worse than I looked, and I looked dead. I couldn’t focus in my classes. I felt amazed by the time my last class ended that I had made it through the day. I remember that the second I was out of my classroom my phone was up to my ear, calling my ex boyfriend. I had wanted him to pick me up so I didn’t have to walk home. I never wanted to go back there. However he was out getting high with his friends, who disliked me for being a “prude”, and they convinced him not to come and get me. I tried convincing him in my favor but he still refused, even after I told him about what happened last night. He just told me the same thing he did before and said ,“Talk to it. Ask what it wants.”
He told me to have a damned conversation with the thing in my closet. That was all the advice I had however. I didn’t think to ask or trust telling anybody else. Asking for help was out of the question.
That night when I finally mustered up the courage to go to bed, I was relieved to apparently be alone in the room. I couldn’t quite bring myself to close my closet door either. I’m not sure if I actually fell asleep or if I just blinked, but I couldn’t take my eyes off my open closet the entire night. With that brief closing of my eyes it appeared. In an instant I was wide awake, and very frightened. With our staring match, my eyes getting lost in it’s soulless pits, I did the only thing I knew to do. “Hi,” I was able to squeak, half of my face covered by my blankets. For the next few terrifying moments I was afraid the face would respond to me. The response, thankfully never came, and the room stayed silent say for my quickened breath. The question I had for it came out a bit louder, “What do you want?”
I never got an answer. The face would never stay long and it would do nothing but stare at me. I don’t want to say that I actually got used to seeing the face, but it stopped startling me. It even got to the point of me telling it goodnight before I turned my back to my closet so I could fall asleep. Back then it never appeared outside of the closet, and it would only show up at night while I was falling asleep. To this day I’m not sure if the face even had a body. It had to have had hands in the least, and I say this because of what it would do to my ex.
The first time anyone besides myself had noticed it was when my ex had spent the night with me. As usual it appeared in my closet as we were falling asleep. He noticed it first and naturally he reacted as I would have expected; He sat bolt upright while grabbing ahold of me, asking what the hell was in my closet. He eventually remembered about the face when I told him, and then I told him to just turn over and ignore it, as I had been doing for the past couple months.
“No, you need to tell it to leave,” I remember him telling me.
I stared back at him in the dark of my room, feeling surprised at him and his words. This face never did anything other than stare. Rather than argue, however, I turned back to the closet. It was already gone before I could ask it to leave us alone. I pointed that fact out, actually sounding angry as I said he scared the face off. I left it at that and turned over, nuzzling into my pillows and feeling ready to just pass out.
My ex, however, got out of bed and slammed my closet door shut. I wish he hadn’t, I really wish he hadn’t. A few hours later, at a time that belonged neither to night nor dawn, I heard a voice. It was barely a whisper but it opened my eyes none the less. I stayed still, just listening before I heard it again. It was louder this time and it made my flesh erupt in goosebumps. It was my voice I was hearing, and it was saying one thing, my ex boyfriend’s name.
I even heard him mumble next to me in response. That was right before my closet door exploded open and we both sat up in shock. As soon as I turned to see the closet door wide open I lit the room with my bedside lamp. At this point my ex boyfriend was cursing loudly and I saw him holding his right cheek. On his cheek was a red mark that almost looked like he had been slapped. That’s how everything started going downhill.
Whenever my ex came over to sleep he insisted that my closet door should be shut, and even suggested replacing the handle with one that would lock. It wasn’t every night he stayed over that something would happen, but we rarely had a peaceful night together. I’ll say nothing “bad” ever happened to me, it was always directed towards him. In all honestly, the worse our relationship got, and the more abusive he was, the more things would happen to him and the worse it got for him.
The last time he had stayed over, before I called it quits on our relationship, he was actually choked in his sleep. I woke up to him wheezing and coughing. His eyes were wide and looked like they were popping out of his skull. His face was nearly purple with veins popping out of his forehead. His nose had even began to bleed. I never saw anything attacking him, just the aftermath.
I didn’t keep in contact with him after the breakup to know for sure, however I didn’t see the face again after that night, not for a while. Nothing happened, not so much as a shadow or a whisper. I had figured that the face had left with him and was gone for good. This is where I wish the story had ended for me.
A couple of months later, my older brother and his wife, had fallen on some financially tough times. Since it was just myself and my mom in a five bedroom house, she invited them and their two children to come live with us. The quiet house was suddenly crowded and packed full of moving boxes and furniture, not to mention the wild six and four year old.
By this point in time I had graduated high school and I was balancing babysitting my niece and nephew while my brother, his wife, and my mom were away at work with my part time job and new boyfriend. Everything was normal, at least as much as it could be.
Honestly I didn’t start paying attention to my brother and his wife’s growing concerns over my four year old niece’s nightmares until I witnessed it myself. I originally figured that it was normal for children to have nightmares, I still remember tons of twisted, demented, and frankly strange dreams from my childhood. Eventually I noticed her lack of energy and she seemed to have little interest in toys. Sometimes I could encourage her to nap on the couch with me while I had my nephew watch a movie or TV. Other than that I assumed that she had stopped sleeping at night because of the nightmares.
The nightmares my niece was having only worsened when her mom got a night job, and my brother was away for a few weeks at work for training and a promotion opportunity. My mom wouldn’t get home until around eleven at night so it was up to me to feed the kids dinner, bathe them, and put them to sleep. My nephew, even though he was only six at the time, liked boasting that he was too old for bed time stories (I figured he said that so he could play his DS in bed for an extra fifteen minutes) so it was usually just me reading to my niece in her room.
On this one night in particular, she asked me to tell her a story instead of picking out a book to read. Not thinking twice about her request, I asked , “What kind of story do you want me to tell?”
“Tell me about the witch,” she answered me and I immediately thought of stories like The Wizard of OZ or Hansel and Gretel. I didn’t get a sentence into the story before she stopped me.
“That’s not scary enough,” she said to me, “Tell me the scary story about the witch.”
With her statement, I started to realize that she wasn’t only asking for a scary story but a specific scary story about some specific witch. “I don’t know what witch you’re talking about, sweetie,” I admitted, feeling this dread slowly rising and filling up my body. In the back of my mind I knew what she was talking about but my rationality was fervently denying it.
“The witch that lives in your closet. Tell me the scary story where we die.”
I was floored. I sat there staring back at my four year old niece, her words running circles around my head as I tried to process how I even felt. I was scared, I was shocked, I was baffled, I was angry. It left me speechless with my eyes wide and my mouth agape. The face had never hurt me, but I had seen what it had done to my ex and I wholeheartedly believed that it could kill.
I wasn’t sure what else to do, so I calmly told her to go to sleep and left. When my mom got home later that night I was already waiting for her. I kept my composure and greeted her even though I wanted to cry and tell her what my niece had told me. Instead I held back and asked what the content of my niece’s nightmares were.
She initially told me that she had no idea and that she was just going through a phase. She seemed more agitated the more I pestered her about it so I finally flat out said, “She thinks we’re going to die. She told me someone was living in my closet.”
She was careful with how she replied, and I know now that she was hiding something from me. “She was having dreams about a person going into her bedroom at night, that’s it,” she sounded like my mom was already over the issue, like my niece was fine now. With her words I decided to finally quit pressing her about the issue.
Honestly, I was afraid to go to sleep that night, I knew I would see that face. I also knew what used to happen to my ex when he would close that closet door. I was finally in bed around two in the morning, but I couldn’t muster up the courage to close my damned closet door.
While I was falling asleep I couldn’t keep my eyes off of my open closet. I know I was dozing in and out of consciousness, my eyes would droop or close and then snap open once I realized what was happening. In what seemed like an instant the face was there, staring at me silently as always. I was fully awake in a second and I stared back at it, too afraid to even blink.
My fear slowly melted away into the anger I had felt previously, and I sat up in my bed, tightly gripping my sheets. “Go away.” I spoke to my room, but hated how shattered my voice sounded. I took in another breath and more sternly said “Go away.” The face didn’t move from where it was hovering at the top of my closet.
“Go away!” I kept repeating until I was nearly yelling. The face was suddenly gone and it took a few more “go away”’s for me to realize that. I sat in my bed now silent, still staring at the closet door before I finally turned on the light. I felt fear filling me up once more so before I was too scared to do anything I finally bolted over my bed, jumping off the bedpost and quickly slammed my closet door shut. I was still for a while after, with my heart pounding, half expecting the door to fling back open. I then looked from my closet to my dresser and moved so I could try and push it in front of the door. In the end it was too heavy so I had to rip out the drawers and slide it across my carpet that way.
My dresser stayed that way in front of my closet for the next few days. My peace of mind slowly began to return and my niece hadn’t had any further nightmares. I had managed to get into bed early this night and my mom wouldn’t be home for the next coupe hours from work. Of course the peace didn’t last long and just before I was able to doze I heard what sounded like a quiet but sharp tapping. I almost ignored it at first but the sound was persistent, and growing louder. I sat up in my bed and I knew, I just knew it was coming from my closet. I had heard that same tapping only months before.
I sat in the dark of my room, eyes wide and staring at the closet door with my heart pounding in my chest. I was almost certain that the door would bust open at any second, despite my heavy dresser keeping it sealed shut. I sat there for what felt like an eternity before the tapping, having grown to a piercing noise, suddenly stopped. I continued listening, eyes still wide and never leaving the closet door, while slowly reaching my hand out to turn on the lamp in my room.
My room, now lit, was still silent and my fear was slowly starting to subside, before I heard another door open in the dead quiet house. I looked away from the closet door and over to my closed bedroom door, still listening. Within seconds I heard another door open and the sound forced me out of bed. I opened my door to a dark hallway and noticed that my niece’s bedroom door was wide open. Taking in a deep breath I walked forward and switched on her bedroom light.
I somehow knew that she wasn’t in the room before I was able to visually confirm the thought. When I saw her empty bed I called out for her. I was only answered by my nephew’s bedroom door slamming shut. Dread was filling me up and I wanted to run back into my room and hide under the covers of my bed but I couldn’t. I had to be stronger than that. I slowly crept down the hall, calling out for my nephew now and still received no answer from either of the children. I could see the light flooding through the cracks around his door, but when I tried the handle it wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t locked, it felt like it was jammed. Like someone was holding the door closed from the other side.
Banging on the bedroom door I surprised myself with how loudly I shouted for each of the children by their full names. They still didn’t answer me, but when I pressed my ear to the door I could hear their voices, and a third. A young woman’s voice. It was too muffled to make out what anyone was saying but my mind went primal as I completely freaked out. It was such a blur that I can’t describe how hard I was trying to get into the room.
With the state of mind I was in I finally got the idea to take the door knob off the door all together. The handle itself didn’t have any sort of lock and there were screws on my side that I was able to undo after running to the the back yard to find a toolbox. After forcing the door knob apart, I was able to see partially into the room. I heard my niece speaking softly and I was able to see my nephew standing in the corner of his room in his onesie pajamas looking tired and confused.
Finally I was able to get his attention, while trying my hardest to not scream at him. He looked hesitant at first before scurrying over to try and help me un-jam the door. I could still hear my niece talking to the third voice and realization hit me like a train when I heard it speaking back to her. It was my own voice talking to her, encouraging her to do something. My voice was telling her that she had no other choice and that her brother needed to die.
I was still frantic, slamming into the door as hard as I could while my nephew pulled at the hole the door knob left from the other side. It felt like I was trying to move a solid wall but eventually the hinges gave way and the door frame cracked open enough for me to get into the room. I grabbed onto my nephew as I was finally able to see my niece in the room.
She was in her own onesie pajamas and she was clutching the handle of a fillet knife my mom kept in the kitchen with both of her hands. All of the knives were kept in a cabinet over the kitchen sink since the kids had moved in and I still have no idea how she had got it. I was going to ask her but the sight of the third person in the room almost immediately held all of my attention.
In an image that my ex boyfriend had described to me once before, I saw that white face in my nephew’s room. The blankets on his bed were wrapped tightly around the plain face, it’s eyes impossibly black and empty. It was positioned high near the ceiling of his room, just hovering above the bed with nothing but air between the mattress and the ends of the blanket.
I had never experienced a terror so great before in my life and I’m surprised that I hadn’t began to manically scream. I could still hear my own voice pouring out from the face, encouraging my niece to kill her brother and now myself. I was able to tear my eyes away from the soulless gaze of the white face so I could look back to my niece. She was slowly coming towards myself and her brother, the knife awkward in her small hands. I was able to bring myself to action once again and I reached out for her, spinning my niece around so she was facing away from me and I picked her up around her waist before fleeing the room. I had grabbed onto my nephew’s arm so hard that I ended up bruising it as I pulled him after me.
I only stopped to grab my purse before running with both of the kids out of the house. I shoved both of the children into the backseat of my car before backing out of the driveway and speeding away from the house. At this point in time my niece was screaming, my nephew was crying and angry. I remember the six year old yelling that they didn’t have car seats or shoes. I was in a full panic, crying and hyperventilating and I had no idea what to do. I would have been driving worse than any drunk person, I knew that, and I had to stop. I ended up in a parking lot to a twenty-four hour diner a few blocks from my house.
With my car stopped both my niece and nephew settled down quite a bit and let me sit in silence while I tried to compose myself and figure out what to do. The clock in my car told me that my mom would be getting off of work in the next twenty minutes, but I didn’t have my cellphone to call her.
I shut off my car, telling the children that we could go into the diner and I would buy them ice cream. My nephew complained again that he didn’t have any shoes, nor did I or his sister, and my niece was still silent. They still followed me inside none the less, all three of us in pajamas. I was glad when the staff of the nearly deserted diner didn’t protest us coming in and sitting at a booth before they could even speak to us. I told both my niece and nephew I was going to order their ice cream and wandered by myself up to the front counter where a waitress and a night manager were giving me puzzled looks.
I lied through my teeth to them, saying that I was babysitting the kids and someone had broke into the house. I told them that I was able to grab them and my purse before fleeing and that I didn’t bring my phone with to call my mom. The manager was nice enough to let me use a phone behind the counter while the waitress walked over to the booth where my niece and nephew were still sitting silently to watch them.
The rest of the night staff in the kitchen quickly caught on and I could see them whispering among themselves while I dialed my mom’s number. I managed to keep a calm, almost monotone voice, while talking to my mom. I told her that I had the children at the diner and asked her to come as soon as possible. I refrained from telling her the same story about a burglar, and instead told her that the children and I had gotten scared and left the house in a panic.
I didn’t end up going back to the house that night, instead my mom came and got the children, and had called my sister in law home early from work that night. I ended up spending the night at my then boyfriend’s house. I finally told him everything I’ve said here and needless to say he was skeptical, but wholeheartedly believed that something had scared me that night. He had also convinced me to move in with him, so I wouldn’t have to sleep in my room with that damned face in my closet any longer.
I called my mom and told her the next morning what I was planning to do. She didn’t fight much, and instead sounded worried still for my niece. When she and my sister in law got back home that night they found part of the chain link fence ran over from when I had backed out of the driveway so quickly. I hadn’t realized what I had done at the time, but the scrapes I found on the side of my car coincided with the description. They had also found the security door and front door both wide open, the toolbox I had grabbed from the back yard was tipped over in the hallway in front of my nephew’s mangled door. They had also found the fillet knife my niece had in her brother’s room. I had broke down in tears when she told me that my nephews blankets had been found dragged into the living room, stopping just before the threshold of the front door. I knew that the face had most likely followed us but the thought of it actually chasing us was too much for me to handle.
Over the next week my brother returned from his business trip and ended up receiving his promotion, so he would be able to move his family out of the house as well. My mom had eventually been convinced to sell the house, but not before my niece had another episode. She had gotten a hold of that same fillet knife in the middle of the night and had woken up her parents by stabbing her mother in the thigh while she was sleeping.
I met my family at the hospital that next morning. My sister in law was fine, and oddly enough my niece and nephew were acting as normal, like nothing hat happened. My brother was worried enough to call a Realtor that day to try and find somewhere to live besides my mom’s cursed house. That day my mom finally opened up to me about the nightmares my niece was having. The person who would go into her room at night apparently resembled myself, wrapped up in a bundle of blankets with just my face exposed. She would call herself a witch and tell my niece that her family was going to die and that she had to “save” them. My brother and sister in law also knew about this, and they even heard my voice when I wasn’t home or when I was sleeping in my room. Nobody had told me about this because I never said anything myself. My mom even went as far as telling me that she didn’t want to scare me when I was home alone watching the children at night.
I never told them about the face in my closet, or about what I had seen that night. I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else since as well. I buried everything that had happened deep in my mind, and thankfully nothing even slightly paranormal has happened since I had moved out. Still, over six years later, I cannot shake the feeling of someone watching me at night when I sleep from my closet.
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Author’s Note: “The Mind Game” is the sequel to “The Door Game“. The author recommends you read the first part of the story, which can be found here, before reading this continuation of the tale. Thank you, and happy reading!
“What is it that makes human beings so unique? No, really, what makes us so different from the other organisms roaming our planet? Some people think it’s our compassion and our wanting to help others, but even a dog can do those things. What about self actualization: the achievement of realizing one’s self worth? Well, not very many make it past the first psychological step on the hierarchy nowadays, making it nearly impossible for them to even realize there is a hierarchy at all! So we can scratch that one off the list… What do you think Airman,” he paused, briefly cocking his head to read the name of the soldier closest to him, “Roy? What is it that makes us humans so much better, no- the best living creature on earth?” He smirked from behind his face mask as his eyes scanned the cabin of the C-130, as if he knew something that his captors didn’t.
The belly of the aircraft was scarcely lit, with only three dim lights on the ceiling and lighting strips that barely lit up the walkways. It was hard to see anything that was more than a couple feet away. At the center of the cabin, surrounded by cargo and hovering over a make-shift poker table, were four military personnel. The man with the face mask was tied to a large shipping container several feet away.
Airman Roy turned to him, “Eat shit American Psycho,” he spat before returning to his poker game.
“Temper, temper,” he tsked. “I just asked a harmless question. Perhaps someone else who isn’t so dull and dimwitted can answer the question then?” he asked sarcastically, looking to the other three soldiers at the poker table.
Growling in frustration, Roy jumped to his feet, throwing a hard right hook and catching the uncovered part of the prisoner’s face.
“Anger, definitely not the answer I was looking for,” he chuckled, spitting blood through his mask. “’A’ for effort though.”
“That’s enough, Roy,” ordered the much larger man next to him. “Did you even read his file? Ajax Timothy Houston, otherwise known as Mr. Hysteria-…”
“Please,” Ajax interrupted, “no need to be so formal, Airman Kole, just call me Mr. Madness. Hysteria is too complex a word for the simpleton to understand,” he stated matter-of-factly, nodding at Roy. He grinned widely, showing off his bloodstained teeth from behind his mask as Roy glared back at him.
“Long story short, Roy,” Kole continued, as if uninterrupted, “this man somehow managed to convince four local cops to turn on, and kill each other. He likes to toy with people and their emotions, so the more you act up, the more you feed into his ego and his plans.”
“Don’t forget about the chunk of land they found that he used for some weird science experiment,” a woman chimed in.
“Oh stop it, you’re going to make me blush,” Ajax stated in mock flattery. “They did all the hard work, I just merely told them a few little white lies and some hard truths…” He trailed off as something briefly caught his attention toward the cockpit of the aircraft. Returning his gaze to the table, he quickly switched focus to the other two soldiers. One stifled a laugh, and the other stared worriedly at him. “Do you find how I killed four people amusing, Captain Howard? Judging by the terrified look on Dr. Fahrad’s ugly mug, she is a bit unsettled now by this mission of yours.”
“I just find it comical that you can maintain such an arrogant disposition after being strapped down and muzzled like a dog, all while you have the knowledge that once we land on American soil, you’re as good as dead.” Howard chuckled, followed by Roy and Kole.
“Look at you, seeing the comedic side of things… tell you what, if you can keep up that positive outlook of yours till the end of our flight, I will give you a gold star,” Ajax joked.
“If you don’t give me my gold star when we land, I’ll make sure your death is slow and painful,” Howard stated, matching Ajax’s tone.
“You can check my right pocket if you don’t believe me.” He grinned.
Shaking his head in amusement, Howard motioned to continue the card game.
“What’s got you so strung up Doc?” Roy asked bluntly, picking up and eyeing his cards.
“He knows something that we don’t,” she stated grimly as she leaned in to whisper to them. “Whatever it is…. it can’t be good.”
Dr. Fahrad and Ajax locked eyes as she contemplated on what to say next. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but she could have sworn he’d been staring at something only moments earlier, just before he began his lecture. He almost seemed worried about whatever it was.
“Quit stalling and tell us please!” Roy demanded, getting impatient as she held up a finger to stop him from talking.
“What’s your opinion on why humans are so unique?” she questioned Ajax curiously.
“The human mind has always fascinated me. It is what sets us apart from everything else, in my opinion. It provides a firm foundation of morals, yet even the slightest crack can make it all come crashing down. Our imagination creates unlimited possibilities for us to act upon… till it reaches a point where we no longer can tell what is real or fake. It is our greatest enemy and yet, our closest ally. Does that answer your question doctor?”
“Creep,” Howard grumbled.
“I-I thought he was going to try to escape but…” she hesitated briefly, before turning to Howard and continuing, “there’s a chance he’s trying to warn us about something.”
“You got that from his stupid rant? You may want to get your ears checked Doc,” Roy snickered.
“We’re twenty thousand feet in the air,” Kole pointed out. “I doubt, even if he wanted to, he could even come close to escaping. Not to mention that one of us, probably Roy, would put a bullet in em’ if he even so much as sneezed weird.”
“Don’t forget, we triple checked to make sure everything was up and running before takeoff. We would know if anything was wrong with the aircraft,” Howard stated, “so if I were to chose whether this guy had a heart or not, I’d take the latter.”
She sighed to herself, feeling a little less shaken. Reaching down to grab her cards, she froze, then twisted her head slowly to the right as she noticed a slight movement out of the corner of her eye. She was temporarily relieved when she saw a tarp atop a crate rustle slightly as the vents on the floor sent up silent gusts of air.
Seeing how uneasy she was getting, Kole tried to comfort her. “Don’t let Madness over there get to you, Doc-,”
Ajax cut him off, loudly whistling a tune that Dr. Farhad recognized instantly as a Christmas song they’d been discussing minutes earlier, ‘Do you hear what I hear?’.
“Please shut up before I curb stomp your testicles!” Roy growled.
Ignoring his outburst, Ajax whistled again, staring directly at the doctor… or so she thought at first, until she followed his gaze to her Kindle, which had been sitting on the table in front of her. She whispered the lyrics, “…do you see what I see…” from the old, creepy tune as it crept into her mind. She stared at her own reflection on the screen of the device. A split second later she let out a bone chilling screech and reached for her gun after realizing the reflection wasn’t her own. She snapped her head quickly toward the ceiling above them, and instantly, before anyone could react, the lights went out. As the other three shot up from their lawn chairs, the sound of plastic banging against metal rang out, but it was quickly drowned out by shouting and a sickening crunch noise. Immediately following the stomach churning sound, the doctor’s shouting ceased abruptly.
Seconds later the lights slowly returned, starting at a twinkle then growing in brightness, as if a curtain was being lifted to reveal the first act of a play. All three men stood back to back, pistols raised and scanning the room for the immediate threat. Sitting across from them in her chair was Dr. Farhad, her whole body seemingly sucked dry. She still remained in the seat gazing up, with her mouth ajar. Her eyes, looking like they had exploded in their sockets, began oozing blood that ran down her cheeks to the tips of her fingers, forming small pools of blood on the floor beneath her.
Roy quickly turned away from his fallen comrade, getting sick behind the closest cargo bin as Kole shook his head in horror. Howard fell to his knees in disbelief.
“What could do such a thing?” Howard muttered under his breath, trailing off into his own thoughts.
“She was right you know, well sort of,” Ajax stated smugly, raising his voice to get their attention. “For the record, I would like to state I did not have an escape plan, but I do now.”
Roy quickly wiped the puke from his mouth before howling in rage as he stormed over to Ajax, putting his gun to his forehead. “You killed her, you sick fuck,” he shouted in accusation, jabbing him with the muzzle of his gun. “How did you do it? Tell us!” he demanded.
“There is no physical way possible that he could have done something like this,” Kole stated pointedly.
“Yeah, just like there was no possible way anyone could have gotten by security…” Roy stated, trailing off as a new thought entered his mind. He quickly turned his gun onto Howard and Kole. “Unless one of you is in this with him!” he concluded, as Kole and Howard both pointed their own weapons at him.
“Don’t do this Roy,” Howard said, dipping his gun down slightly. “You’re playing right into this madman’s hands. He wants us to turn against each other! Remember what he did to get where he is now.” They stood like statues for a good minute before Roy lowered his weapon. Howard let out a long weary sigh.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to think right now, especially with what just happened,” Roy explained.
“It’s fine,” Howard responded understandingly. “Just don’t forget we’re the good guys next time.”
He nodded, clearly ashamed of what he had done. Roy turned to Ajax, “Why did you tell us you have an escape plan? Is that true or were you just trying to get our attention?”
“So he does have a brain,” Ajax smiled. “Allow me to answer your question with a question.”
“You get one question, and then you need to convince all of us that you don’t have a lackey stowed away in this aircraft. If you can’t, or if you so much as make one more lame-ass comment, I’m blowing your damn brains out all over this cabin. Maybe even make your skull into a mug. Got it?” Roy asked, his anger returning.
“Fine, you had me at blow my brains out.” He cackled briefly before clearing his throat, recomposing himself and continuing, “Assuming your captain is correct and I don’t have the ability to mummify a human being, can you guys think of anything that can? Do any of you work in Area 51 or some other crazy government facility everyone else should know about?” He finished with a pompous look that said he once again was three steps ahead of them.
“Way to waste your question,” Kole snickered. “Can we kill him now?”
“Wait a moment,” Howard ordered as he began to pace. “I think this crazy ass-hat might be onto something,” he admitted reluctantly.
“I feel kinda’ stupid for admitting this, but I don’t know what or where my home station is.” Roy said.
“Neither do I,” Kole stated. “Anyone remember what the weather was like yesterday?”
They all stood silent, furrowing their brows as they all tried to recall something that should have been easily remembered. Roy’s eyes widened as he finally comprehended the situation.
“I can’t believe it,” Roy panicked. “I-I can’t recall anything! Where I’m from, my parents, dinner last night… Let alone what base I was stationed at! No matter how much I try, I can’t remember a thing before coming onto the plane anymore.”
“Me neither,” Kole added, shaking his head in confusion. Howard nodded to confirm that he couldn’t remember either, before they all turned to Ajax.
“And you?” Howard asked.
“Sadly, I have no recollection of any atrocities I may or may not have committed in the past… what a shame. Does this mean you will cut me loose?”
“I’ll think about it,” Howard stated, rolling his eyes.
“Whatever just killed the doc and stole our memories is still here with us,” Kole pointed out, while tossing everyone a small flashlight from his go-bag, “and there’s nowhere for them to run. Let’s just find this thing and kill-.”
Before Kole could finish his sentence, the aircraft jolted, causing Howard to lose his footing and drop his flashlight. He watched helplessly as it skidded across the floor, just as the cabin lights went out again. Kole and Roy immediately turned on their lights and began scanning the room with their weapons raised.
“Your light is over here,” Ajax called from the darkness, “underneath my foot. Just follow the sound of my soothing voice, Captain Howard.”
“Guys give me some light please,” Howard ordered while feeling his away around the cabin.
“Sorry,” Roy apologized, shining the light in his direction, allowing Howard to catch a glimpse of the flashlight underneath Ajax’s shoe.
“Wow, I thought you were lying,” Howard said, jogging over to him. “If you keep that new positive attitude, I may just start calling you Mr. Nice.” He reached for the light.
“On a scale of one to ten, how much do you trust me, Captain?” Ajax asked in mock curiosity.
“I would say a strong three,” he answered sarcastically as he stood back up facing his captive, “but only because you’re tied up to a large crate.”
As Howard turned to leave, Ajax took advantage of the tiny amount of give in his ropes and pinned the captain’s foot to the floor with his own. Howard stumbled briefly, pulling his gun out of the holster instinctively and pointing it at the convict as he regained his balance. Roy and Kole both swore loudly as they too raised their weapons at Ajax, causing him to grunt and squint in pain as his face was blasted by their lights.
“Before you shoot me, I want to make a confession,” Ajax pleaded.
“Go on…” Howard motioned for the other two keep their eyes open, setting down his pistol while he listened to what Ajax had to say.
“I have an accomplice, and if you want to find him, tell the goon squad to check behind the large cargo bins stacked by the cockpit.”
Howard turned back to Roy and Kole, both of whom shared shocked expressions, and gave them the ok to search.
“Now, I’m going to ask again… How much do you trust me Howard?” he asked, losing all traces of sarcasm and staring at him sincerely.
“Um, not even a little…” he replied, thrown off by the change in his tone. “What else are you not telling us?”
“I will explain everything, but first you need to do as I say, got it?”
“Give me a reason why I should,” he demanded. “You play with your victims’ minds like its some sick twisted game! What makes this time any different?”
Ajax’s eyes darted to the other two soldiers as they slowly approached their destination. He let out a heavy sigh of defeat before speaking, “Honestly, I need you to survive this, Captain Howard, and in order for that to happen I need you to listen to me. When those two reach the corner it’s going to get really loud and really messy. No matter what you hear, or what you think you should do, do not turn around. And lastly, you may want to turn off your flash light.”
Howard snorted in disbelief, but as he started to turn around, his skepticism quickly twisted into understanding as he began piecing together the puzzle in his head. Howard hung his head in defeat and turned back to face his prisoner.
Not taking his eyes off the floor, he spoke softly to himself as the guilt for what he was about to do devoured him. “Forgive me…” he whispered as he flicked the switch on his light, allowing him and Ajax to once again be enveloped in darkness.
“Come out slowly,” Roy ordered, seeing what looked to be someone crouching behind stacked crates. “We have you surrounded!”
Roy glanced over to Kole, who gave him a reassuring nod as they crept cautiously forward. After taking only a few steps, their lights began to flicker as the mystery figure slowly rose from its crouched position. Roy hastily smacked his light against his thigh, bringing it back up only to illuminate an empty corner. He immediately began to panic, looking frantically around and in between cargo crates. A few seconds went by before he noticed Kole’s light was no longer visible around the corner. He swore at himself and the crew for being so careless in trusting Ajax. Pressing himself up against the nearest bin for cover, he cautiously made his way to the corner and contemplated his next move. Roy hadn’t noticed at first, but as he tried to control his breathing and listen for any signs of movement, he immediately became aware of the horrifying fact that he couldn’t hear anything at all. The hum of the engines, the rattling of containers, even his heartbeat failed to impinge the silence that had taken hold of him. Taking a nervous gulp, his pulse racing, he readied himself to peer around the corner. After a brief delay, he pivoted with his gun raised, ready to take down the assailant.
Before he could understand what was happening, an icy grip on his shoulder caused him to drop his light. He instinctively side-kicked his attacker, putting distance between them. Raising his pistol, he fired a single round into the darkness; right where he thought the attacker’s head should be and watched as their body went limp, crumbling to the floor. Letting out a weary sigh, he reached down and picked up his flash light, shinning it at the body.
“No, no, no,” Roy stammered, nearly in tears as he fell to his knees beside Kole. “How did I…why did you…” he trailed off as he inspected his fallen comrade and found two gaping holes where his eyes should have been. He fell back on his hands, dropping his light once again+ and scurried away from the body, till his back was pressed firmly against the nearest wall. Succumbing to his fear and the horrific scene before him, he began shaking uncontrollably as his hearing slowly returned and a female voice beckoned to him from the shadows.
“Roy…” it whispered.
“No,” he wailed desperately. “You’re already dead! Just leave, please!” he pleaded as it began to hum the same tune Ajax had whistled earlier. His forearm began to ache as he held up his gun in the direction of Dr Farhad’s voice. Sweat poured down his brow and his shaking grew more aggressive once he saw the figure approach the edge of his bubble of light. Stopping just far enough away so he couldn’t make out any distinct details, it loomed over Kole’s corpse as it kneeled and plunged what looked to be its hands into his skull with a sickening, wet crunch. Kole’s left hand, which had fallen into Roy’s line of sight, quivered violently as his skin began to shrivel and mummify. Once the individual was done leeching off of Kole’s body, it slowly rose to its feet as it began to hum the same song, turning ever so slowly in Roy’s direction.
“Move any closer and I w-will sh-shoot!” he threatened, barely able to control the tremors that spread rapidly through his body.
“Do you see… what I see…” it sang just louder than a whisper, but enough for him to hear as it drifted fully out of sight. Roy dropped his guard for no more than a second before the attacker came lunging out of the darkness.
Howard cringed as a second gunshot echoed through the aircraft, but this time followed by Roy’s muffled screams. Then, right on cue, the lights slowly crept back to life, putting the spotlight on the two remaining passengers as they both stood facing each other. Howard was the first to speak.
“How long have you known?” he demanded.
“I was never a hundred percent sure… until Dr. Farhad bit the dust.” Ajax smirked.
“You used her as bait.”
“Well I sure as hell wasn’t about to test my theory on myself.”
“But how did you come up with that ‘theory’ in the first place?”
“It was after your discussion about the different things that scared you as kids. I found it interesting that all of you had very similar childhoods, with parents who treated you like you were fragile. You were all homeschooled and had issues with blacking out-,”
“Skip the psycho babble please.”
Ajax let out an annoyed sigh. “Fine, I’ll spare you the monologue and explain. While you four each spoke of something that scared you, I thought of something that frightened me as well. It was immediately following that one thought that I noticed the change.”
“What change?”
“The thing that I thought would frighten me most… forgetting everything that had happened before the plane. It was at that moment I realized if what I had feared came to fruition, then it could happen for all of you as well. So I decided to test it out; I whistled the carol that ‘used’ to scare Dr. Farhad. I’m assuming that Roy was afraid of the dark, and Kole definitely seemed like he was terrified of being mummified—.”
“So what you’re saying is… we did this?”
“Yes, we were all tools used to create our own personal Frankenstein.” Ajax lowered his voice before continuing. “But before we take care of the monster, we need to take care of the one who is really responsible.”
“What do you mean? It’s only us two left…”
“That’s what they want us to think,” he pointed out; clearly amused by some game he was playing. “I sent your boys in the direction of the cockpit for a reason. I had to test another theory, and try to prove that there was someone possibly hiding out in the cockpit at the same time.”
Howard shook his head in disappointment for not realizing the possibility sooner.
“It’s alright Captain, we can’t all be as detail oriented as-,” he stopped as Howard pulled out his knife. Shaking nervously, he took two steps forward and silently began cutting at Ajax’s restraints.
As soon as the straps that held him hit the floor, Ajax pounced onto Howard, completely catching him off guard. Ajax wrestled the knife from his grip and thrust it into his side. Howard let out a weak grunt upon contact and stumbled back slightly as they both stared at each other with very different expressions: Ajax bore a huge triumphant grin, while Howard glared back in pain and betrayal.
“Sorry to let you down like that,” Ajax started, “but we can’t both survive this.”
“You told me… you needed me… to live,” he gasped between breaths as he held the knife in place and fell to one knee.
“I did, so you could cut me free.” He laughed madly, circling Howard like a vulture. “I didn’t actually need you for anything else. I can handle the rest from here on out.”
Growling loudly in anger and pain, Howard swiftly reached into his boot and pulled out a small safety pistol and fired it at Ajax. He yelled out in surprise as the bullet hit its mark. Sprawling into the makeshift table from the impact, Ajax collapsed it under his weight. He was showered in cards, chips and cardboard as he lay motionless on the floor. Howard tossed aside the empty pistol, then let out a weak chuckle before succumbing to his wound, falling onto his side and releasing a long raspy breath he too ceased moving.
Terry had remained hidden in a cramped compartment for three hours, coming out as soon as she knew the pilot, Captain Howard was gone. Shortly after leaving her hiding spot she realized she had no recollection of why she was even there. The need for revenge however, clawed at her insides the moment her gaze met Ajax’s through the computer screen. Twenty minutes had gone by since the final two survivors’ skirmish, and both had remained stock-still the entire time. She let out a long relieved sigh as she watched the computer screen. “It’s finally over.”
She stood up from the pilots chair and unlocked the door leading out to the cabin. She paused for a moment before turning the handle. It was one thing to see the aftermath on a monitor, but in person… She shuddered at the thought. She wiggled her limbs in an attempt to recompose herself and opened the door. She stood in the doorway for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room. To her left she saw two corpses that had seemingly been sucked dry, the one closest to her however had a bullet wound between his eyes. She cringed at the sight of the two soldiers as she debated on whether she should feel guilty or not. “I didn’t even know them,” she reasoned out loud before continuing to the center of the cabin. Her gaze shifted first to the woman who had been mummified before turning to the man who had been stabbed.
“You poor bastard,” she whispered shaking her head in remorse. “You got shafted pretty hard,” she trailed off as her eyes flicked over to where the prisoner should have been. Immediately she started to panic.
She whipped her revolver from its holster, turning on her heel as she heard a light tap from behind her. She probed the room with her pistol raised, not daring to leave from where she now stood. “He can’t reach me if I’m out in the open,” she thought to herself.
“Come on out!” she yelled at the stacks of cargo.
“Alright,” came a strained grunt as the prisoner shuffled around a crate clutching his arm. “You caught me RED handed.” He chuckled sarcastically at his cleverness as he raised his bloody hand up in surrender.
“Stay where you are!”
“Fine, but I have something very important to ask before this all goes down, err…” He trailed off, squinting at the woman’s stolen name tag. “Colonel Tracy, have we met before?”
“Well Seeing as I get sick just looking at you,” she reached into her pocket and pulled out a picture, holding it out so Ajax could see it, “and I have this photo of you, I find it safe to assume we have! My name’s Terry. That’s all I can remember before boarding this plane, other than my wanting to watch you burn!”
“You have a lot of balls for a woman,” he said, forcing a grin. “We must have been lovers then?”
“Now I see why they had you strapped up,” Terry spat. “You’re a real freak of nature, you know that?”
The prisoner wiped sweat from his brow as he leaned up against one of the crates. “Tell me something I don’t already know…For instance, do you like chess fake Colonel Tracey?”
“I do, why you ask?” she inquired, letting her curiosity get the better of her.
“Well I kind of figured as much… You see we have been playing our own game this entire time, and not one of these idiots caught on, well save for one.”
Confused, Terry stared at him with a blank expression before deciding to play along.
“Yeah, too little too late though. You gave me the upper hand, all because you wanted to kill off your only ally; not to mention getting hurt in the process. You outplayed yourself, and I’ll be the last one standing because of your arrogance.” She aimed the revolver at Ajax’s head and cocking back the hammer, “Check-,”
Without wavering, Ajax boasted, “It was quite the honor Terry, but I’m afraid it’s time for me to end our little game now.”
Terry hesitated, giving Howard enough of an opening to hop to his feet and ram his knife into the side of her head with a loud wet thump.
Ajax gave Howard an approving nod as the woman’s body fell to the floor. Howard rushed over to help Ajax into a lawn chair, patting his shoulder as he spoke.
“Nice job American Psycho.”
“I can’t believe that worked,” Ajax grunted as he sank further into the chair. “We make quite the couple, don’t you think?” He finished with a weak laugh while looking to Howard, who was deep in thought.
“Can I ask you a question?” Howard asked, losing all traces of humor.
“Shoot,” Ajax said, chuckling as Howard caught the pun and rolled his eyes.
Still standing, Howard crossed his arms and took a step toward the cockpit, putting his back to Ajax. “You lied about what you feared, didn’t you?”
“Yes I did. You’re a lot brighter than you let on,” he sighed as he opened up to Howard. “I am afraid of the unknown. Not knowing something terrifies me. So I do whatever I can to learn my surroundings and those in them-,” He stopped himself immediately after realizing he had made a huge mistake, but it was too late.
The lights began to pop one by one as Howard’s manic laugh echoed throughout the cabin, coating everything in darkness except for the area where Ajax now sat. The light above him flickered sporadically as he shot up from his chair, turning to the cockpit to see Howard’s silhouette facing him from the doorway.
“You know, I’m very surprised you didn’t catch on sooner,” Howard chimed over the whirr of the engines. “Not once did I share a bit of information about myself and nobody seemed to care! You pride yourself on knowing what makes people tick and reading your surroundings, yet you couldn’t even figure out who you were playing the game with! Bravo!” he finished, caking on the sarcasm as he clapped slow and loud.
Ajax gathered what energy he had and dove desperately for the woman’s revolver lying just a few feet away. Still prone on the floor, he swore loudly as he looked down the sights at a closed cockpit door. Groaning, he slowly sat up and covered his eyes as the light above him stopped flickering and slowly grew brighter. He closed his eyes trying to concentrate on what to do next, but a shuffling noise from the darkness pulled him from his thoughts. As he tried to peer past the veil of light to see what was lurking in the shadows, Howard’s voice came from the speakers mounted around the room.
“I have to admit, I kinda’ enjoyed our time together… you were a good adversary. To put it into your words though, ‘we can’t both survive this.’ Oh, and my ‘lackey’ will come for you shortly,” he added as he shut off the speakers. Ajax slowly clambered to his feet.
Ajax stood rigid trying to listen past the white noise of the engines. His eyes darted around as he tried hopelessly to catch a glimpse of the creature that he knew was watching him. Sweat poured down his face as his gunshot wound bombarded him with excruciating bursts of pain and ribbons of blood oozed out from between his fingers as he tried to control the bleeding. Tightening his grip on the revolver, he forced a half smile as Kole’s voice fell softly onto his ears from the darkness in front of him, just barely above a whisper.
“Twenty thousand feet in the air… nowhere… to run,”
“I guess I’m out of guinea pigs,” Ajax grumbled, coming up with one last ditch effort for survival. “Let’s hope the past few ‘theories’ weren’t just lucky guesses,” he finished with a heavy sigh as he slowly started backing out from under the ceiling light. He watched closely as the creature stepped out into the light, almost as if it were a marionette bound to his movements.
Humanoid in shape, the creature was easily over seven feet in height and jet black, with a few very noticeable inhuman differences. Its arms split at the wrist into three long appendages with pointed, straw-like nails protruding from their tips. Its skin seemed to constantly crawl, making it look as if thousands of ants scurried around aimlessly just beneath its surface. Its mouth was constantly parted, as if in mid sneeze, exposing two rows of jagged teeth. What Ajax found most disturbing were its eyes… it had three sets, and all of them were spread out haphazardly across the upper half of its face and each belonged to a different victim.
Its mouth didn’t move as it spoke again, this time in Roy’s voice, “Quit stalling…”
Once his eyes had adjusted, Ajax reluctantly tossed the revolver onto the fake Colonel’s corpse.
The creature released a loud, guttural growl as the remaining light went out.
“Check-mate,” he breathed to himself just before letting out a blood curdling scream.
* * * * *
Douglas’s eyelids fluttered as he slowly regained consciousness, and after hearing the steady rhythm of his heart monitor off to his right, he let out a heavy sigh of relief. In any normal situation this wouldn’t be considered a good thing, he thought to himself. Waking up in a dimly lit hospital room with tons of wires, nodes and needles covering nearly every inch of his body wasn’t exactly heaven, but it was definitely better than the alternative… He shuddered, recalling what happened to everyone else on the plane.
He pressed the call button on the little remote that lay next to him, not wanting to spend any more time alone in the dark than he needed. Thirty seconds later he heard someone enter the room. He flinched at the sudden loudness of the curtains being tugged open, and a doctor that he knew very well was revealed to him.
“Before we get started, can you tell me your name please?” the doctor asked, as two men and a woman in business attire trailed in after him. All four seemed to tense up in anticipation on how he would answer, each holding a pen to a clipboard as they waited.
“My name is Douglas Howard,” he stated. He watched as everyone seemed loosen up as they jotted down notes.
The doctor proceeded to ask him a
|
My name is Jim McGraw. I was the Command Module Pilot of Apollo 19. Contrary to popular belief, there were at least two more missions to the moon that were kept secret from the public. I flew to the moon in June of 1973 under the command of Commander Thomas Caird. Our friend, Steve Willis, was the flight’s Lunar Module Pilot.
The goal of our flight was to be the first manned landing on the lunar farside. You see, word has it that the Department of Defense received information that the Russians were going to land in the Fermi Crater, so we made up our minds to beat them by landing in the Tsiolkovsky Crater, directly to the east of Fermi.
Now, as the CMP, I have a boring yet crucial job in the mission. My purpose is to stay in orbit of the moon while Tom and Steve explore on the surface below. Whenever I swing back to the lunar nearside, I’ll report to earth on their progress, as we will be out of direct line of sight with mission control while on the other side.
Apollo 19 blasted off from Cape Canaveral on June 16, 1973, and made its Trans-Orbital Injection after orbiting the earth twice. Four days on the 20th, we entered lunar orbit. Tom and Steve flew down through the tunnel that connected the Command Module and the Lunar Module, sealed off both compartments, and separated.
After I checked the LM over through the triangular CM window, they began to make their descent. The procedure went rather smoothly, exactly as we predicted in the Sims. I watched eagerly as the LM slowly fell to the lunar surface. Soon, my friends were out of sight.
As they silently fell to the moon, I heard the excitement in their voices. The closer they got, the more tense they sounded. Eventually, I heard on the radio a loud Whuuuuuump!
“Touch!” Tom yelled.
“Engine shut-down,” Steve calmly announced.
For a brief moment, all was dead quiet. Then, when they realized what they had accomplished, I heard my two friends burst out laughing. They had successfully landed on the moon!
Within an hour, they had completed their EVA checklist and I gave Tom a ‘go’ for the first spacewalk of our mission. No time was wasted in opening the hatch. As Tom got closer to the surface while descending the ladder, he was silent. Soon, he reached the footpad of the LM, and stepped off onto the moon. Still, no sound was uttered. No poetic phrase, nothing.
Anxiously, I awaited his report. Honestly, anything would have been fine to hear, anything at all. Finally, Tom said my name. “Jim, do you copy?”
“Yeah Tom, what is it?”
“I’m down,” he said, not quite believing it himself.
Wide-eyed, I stared at the last bit of Tsiolkovsky as it disappeared over the horizon. I laughed and clapped my hands. “Bravo, Tom! How’s the weather down there?”
He chuckled a bit. “Clear skies, no clouds, bright sunlight everywhere.”
Within ten minutes, I passed back over to the nearside, out of communication with Steve and Tom. Last report I heard, Steve was coming down the ladder and was going to do some exploring with Tom in the Lunar Rover. After the planting of the flag, of course.
Within moments, I had reestablished communication with Houston Mission Control and reported the progress of our mission thus far. Over the radio, I heard the thunderous claps of the 50 men monitoring our flight. Gus, our mission’s designated CAPCOM, congratulated me.
“Be sure to tell us of what they find on your next swing around!” Gus said to me.
“That’s about all I can do up here,” I sighed.
Seconds later, I flew from the nearside night into the bright daytime of farside. “What’s the word, guys?” I asked eagerly.
There was nothing but silence for a few moments. Then, Steve said something. “Jim?”
“Yeah, Steve?”
“We’ve found something.”
“Well, what is it?”
There was a pause. “We’ve stumbled across Apollo 18.”
Apollo 18, reported to have crash-landed back in February in the Tycho Crater on the nearside of the moon, with the loss of its CMDR and LMP. The CMP attempted to return to earth, but the heat shield separated upon reentry. If the LM had crashed on the other side, what was it doing here in Tsiolkovsky?
“You guys sure it’s 18?”
“Pretty damn sure, we went inside to exam-”
“Inside?” I cried. “You mean it isn’t crashed, it came down intact?”
Perfectly fine, but the two pilots are missing. Their rover tracks lead somewhere deep into the crater. I think we’ll follow them,” Tom said.
It took me awhile to process this bombshell. When my craft returned to the nearside, I didn’t know how to explain this find to Houston.
“What’s the news from Tom and Steve?” Gus asked.
After contemplating what to say, I finally decided to be truthful. “They found 18.”
Silence greeted this. A while later he came back on. “You’re serious?”
“Oh c’mon, Gus, don’t play games with me! You must’ve known about this! How in hell is something that’s supposed to have crashed in Tycho located on the opposite side of the moon?”
Another pause. Then, “It’s probably just a failed satellite, Jim, that crashed. One of those early Canaveral jobs-”
I cut him off. “Don’t give me some bull excuse from the DOD, it was a LM! They are vastly different from any sort of satellite. Now talk!” I angrily demanded.
Radio cutoff was coming up in a few seconds. Right before I lost communication, Gus mumbled “I don’t know what to tell you, Jim.”
Daylight flooded the capsule as I drifted back to the farside. “Tom, Steve, what’s your status, over?” I said into the mic, obviously irritated.
“Listen,” was all Tom replied.
“What?”
“He’s right, Jim,” Steve intervened. “Listen to the radio.”
Deciding to play along, I stopped talking and pressed my ear to the circular speaker on the control panel.
That’s when I first heard it.
There was an absence of static, replaced by a nearly inaudible whisper, along with some sort of mixture of sounds, ranging from clicking to crushing to smacking. The whisper portion of the sound hybrid was indecipherable in what it was trying to say. “What on earth is that God-awful noise?” I cried, shaking with fear.
“We’re not too sure, but it started twenty minutes after you lost communication with us,” Tom explained.
Nothing much else had happened when I was on the nearside. Ten minutes after I became aware of the noise, Steve said “The rover tracks seem to be going over to that crater over there.”
As they neared the edge of the crater, the noise increased drastically in volume, almost to a high pitched shrill. I covered my ears and gritted my teeth. “What’s happening?” I screamed.
The noise died down. “It’s as if the nearer we go to that craterlet, the louder the noise gets,” Tom said.
“Where is it from though? There’s no sound in a vacuum so it must be on the frequency.”
They had no answer for me.
Soon, I was back on the nearside. When Gus asked me for an update, I decided not to tell him about the noises. I told them that Tom and Steve were following the tracks of the previous astronauts and that was that. Within 40 minutes, I was back on the farside. But something was different this time.
Tsiolkovsky was black. Only Tsiolkovsky was black. All other craters were dowsed with the blazing light of the sun. For some reason, this massive crater was jet black, darker than the night sky. It was supposed to be noon-day on the surface there.
“It started as soon as you swung around to the nearside,” Tom explained. “We’ve been navigating back with the lights on our helmets. We had to give up on the search for the crew of 18.”
The noise was still there.
I looked down at the foreboding crater of night. It looked like a pit that led all the way to the deepest recesses of Hell. I struggled to see the pinprick of light against the dark that would be my friends. Nothing could be seen. It was like the darkness itself swallowed the light. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, not until it swung out of view over the horizon.
“What’s your status, 19?” Gus asked.
“Tsiolkovsky is enshrouded in darkness,” I said matter-of-factly. “Why?”
The tell-tale pause was back, then the bull excuse. “Maybe it’s some sort of light phenomenon? Like how the poles on earth experience night for six months?”
I switched off the radio.
Not long later, I was back on the farside. As soon as I entered range of communication with the ground crew, I heard heavy panting, as if somebody was running frantically. Something was definitely not right. “Tom, Steve, what’s the matter?” I yelled into the mic.
“Tom is dead!” Steve cried between gasps. “They got him!”
“They?” I creamed in terror, “Who are they?”
“Things, beings, eight feet high! They’re blacker than the night enshrouding me. These things rise up from the dust. They flipped the rover and got Tom.”
“Rise up from the dust?”
“Ascending from the ground to kill us! I’m on my way to 18’s LM, I’m a quarter of a mile away, I may make it!”
“You’re not making any sense!” I was crying by this point from confusion and fear. “What are they?!”
Before Steve had a chance to answer, he was screaming. I heard him yelling, pleading, begging whatever had a hold of him to leave him be. I listened as the thing tore his suit to shreds. As oxygen escaped, I could discern some sort of sickening crack, as well as the sound of ripping flesh. The last thing that came in from Steve was his last convulsive sob, followed by a pop. Then it was over.
I suddenly heard the strange noise, louder than ever, blaring through the radio. Instantly I switched it off, but the noise continued. I covered my ears until I was back on the nearside where it ceased.
Switching the radio back on, I screamed at Gus “They’re dead! Tom and Steve have died! Steve said some sort of things rose up from the dust to kill them! What were they?!”
This time, Gus replied. All he said was “It’s happening again…” After that, there was static. Mission control ended contact with me.
Then I realized they were going to leave me in orbit to die. That’s probably what happened to 18’s CMP. Either that, or they gave him the wrong reentry coordinates, causing him to burn up on purpose. They didn’t want word to get out about what’s been happening on the moon. Well, I resolved to try.
When I swung back around to the farside, the noise was back to a quiet whisper. Soon, I reached the optimal time to make a burn to send the ship home. I switched on the rocket.
Nothing happened.
I began to laugh hysterically. I came to the conclusion that, anticipating this would take place and not wanting to risk us spreading word of what happened, the NASA supplied us with insufficient fuel to get home. There was no hope of my returning to the earth.
This transpired two days ago. Since then, I’ve just been sitting here, contemplating what to do. Meanwhile, the voice has continued to speak to me. I don’t like it. The words make more sense now. They tell me bad things. I don’t know what’d worse, the static from nearside or the whispering voices of farside.
Rather than prolong this torture, I’ve decided to open the hatch without my suit on as soon as I finish writing this down. Hopefully, one day, it will be found. Before I do so though, I would like to issue this one last warning to the earth: do not return to Tsiolkovsky. In fact, do not return to the far side of the moon. All that one will get from here is death.
This is Jim McGraw, Command Module Pilot of Apollo 19, signing off for the last time.
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This is a story from my childhood, one which I have not told anyone except for my wife; just thinking about it still sends shivers down my spine. I grew up in a small house with just my mother. It was a nice little house with two bedrooms upstairs, a small living room and kitchen on the main floor, and a basement where I kept all of my toys. The basement had a small storage room in the back, lit by a single light bulb. It wasn’t until I was seven years old that I started to get scared to go down there.
It was a dark, rainy night as I played with my Lego’s in the basement. Rain water slowly dripped through the window and down the cement wall. It was cold down there that night, more so than usual; I was wrapped up in my hoodie and a blanket as I played. While attempting to build an airplane out of my Lego’s, I suddenly got a chill down my spine followed by the overwhelming feeling of being watched. I turned and looked behind me toward the dark storage room. Something drew my attention to the room, but I couldn’t see what it was. It seemed darker than usual; I didn’t think a room could get that dark, especially with the lights on in the room adjacent to it. It almost seemed like there was something in there drawing away all of the light, sucking it in like a black hole. I stared into the darkness at seemingly nothing, until I saw something move. I didn’t know what it was, but it seemed even darker than the room. I saw it for just a second before it disappeared; as it did, I could see light slowly start to trickle into the room. This terrified me, so I ran upstairs to the living room to seek comfort from my mother. When I told her what I had seen, she just told me that it was my mind playing tricks on me because of the heavy rain outside.
I went to bed that night not thinking much about what had happened in the basement. I lay back in my bed and closed my eyes just like on any other night, and I fell asleep rather quickly. Although I fell asleep like it was a normal night, the night was less than normal; I woke up that night with the feeling of being watched. I opened my eyes to see nothing but darkness; I couldn’t even see the light from the street light outside of my window. Thinking that maybe my blinds were closed, I looked across my room for the soft, green glow of my alarm clock, but it wasn’t there. At that moment, I realized that this was a lot like the darkness I had seen in the basement and that scared me. My fear doubled in an instant when I thought I saw movement in the darkness. In my terror from seeing that there was something in my room, I pulled my blankets over my head and screamed. In the midst of my screams I heard my door open, and the soft call from my mother. As she sat down on my bed, I slowly pulled my blankets off from over my head and looked around my room. The light had returned to my room and I could now see the soft glow of my clock blinking at 2:17am, and the light from the street light outside my window with my blinds fully open. My mother asked me what was wrong, and I told her what had happened; reassuringly, she told me that it was just a nightmare and to go back to sleep. She gently kissed my forehead and left my room, closing the door behind her. It was hard for me to fall asleep after that, so I just watched my clock slowly tick away the minutes.
This went on for about two or three months, staying at this level of activity; nothing more than the feeling of being watched in the darkness, however, that all changed on Halloween night. It was a typical Ontario Halloween night; cold, windy and rainy. I had returned home that night from trick-or-treating with my mom at about eight o’clock and went down to the basement to play with my toys for a bit before bed. I could hear the rain tap against the basement window, and the wind whistling as it blew between my house and my neighbour’s house. Something was unsettling in the basement that night, more so than usual. As I played I thought I heard sounds coming from the storage room, but every time I looked there was nothing; this was nothing strange to me as it’s been happening for the last few months, so I continued to play. I played for about ten minutes when the power suddenly went out, and that’s when everything changed. As soon as the power went out, I heard more movement from the storage room behind me. I immediately looked behind me to see a quick flash of red light, and then darkness. As I stared, I could hear footsteps from the dark room, but I could see nothing. The footsteps slowly made their way toward me, the darkness somehow getting darker as they approached, until they suddenly stopped. I moved my eyes around the room, careful not to move any other part of my body in fear that whatever this was would see me. I looked around the room, trying to see what this thing was, but I could see nothing; it was so dark I couldn’t even see my feet. I wanted to run upstairs to the safety of my mother, but I was frozen in fear so I didn’t move a muscle or even breathe.
I sat in silence, listening for whatever was in the room with me. I couldn’t hear a sound, not even the rain on the window or the wind between the houses. As I listened, the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up on edge, and I got chills down my spine, and that’s when I heard it; a deep voice whispered into my right ear “You will be mine, Robert.” I instantly screamed and ran to the stairs, tripping on toys along the way. I made my way up the stairs and through the door to the living room, slamming the door behind me. I ran to my mother, crying and she held me not knowing what was going on. I told her what had happened, but she just told me that my mind was just playing tricks on me again; what I had heard was just the wind, but my mind exaggerated it because of the darkness. From that moment in the basement, no matter what my mother said, I knew that whatever this thing was, it was real.
From then on, I refused to go into the basement alone; in fact I didn’t like going into the basement at all! The activity in the basement itself settled down a little bit because I was never alone down there after that incident, but I still had trouble sleeping. I would wake up at night with the feeling of being watched to see nothing in my room but darkness. I would lay there staring into the darkness with my blankets pulled up to my neck, hoping there was nothing there, but after a few minutes I would hear that same voice again; “You’re mine, Robert.” The second I would hear that voice, I would pull my blankets over my head and scream, causing my mother to run into my room and every time she would say it was just a bad dream. This sequence would go on at least twice per week until August of 1998 when the activity escalated yet again.
My mother had been dating her now husband for a while now and we were preparing to move into his house. I was going to be on vacation for two weeks in Quebec with my grandparents as my mom moved our things into the new house, but what happened my last night in that house still terrifies me to this day. I had fallen asleep easily that night, excited to be leaving on vacation the next morning, but the rest of the night would not be so easy. I woke up again that night, this time to the sound of breathing; I opened my eyes to see nothing but darkness yet again. Thinking that my mother was in my room with me, I called out to her: “Mom?” but what answered was definitely not my mother. It was that deep voice yet again; “Your mother is not here, she can’t help you Robert. You’re finally mine!” I continued to stare into the darkness thinking that it was my imagination, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see the silhouette of that dark figure standing at the end of my bed. I immediately pulled my blankets over my head and screamed, but my mother didn’t come. I felt pressure on the end of my bed, as if someone was sitting on it; I screamed again. Suddenly, I felt something grab onto my ankle under the blankets and pull. I somehow managed to turn onto my stomach and grab the end of my mattress, but it only gave me a few seconds before it shifted and I was pulled right out of my bed. I continued to scream, louder than I had ever screamed before. Finally I could hear my mother get out of bed and make her way to the door, only this time when she reached it, the door did not open. The entity continued to drag me toward the door as I continued to scream; I could hear my mother pushing against the door trying to get it open without success. As it dragged me across the carpet, I tried to grab onto anything that I could, but the only thing that seemed to work was the foot of my bed. I stopped as I took hold and I finally stopped moving toward the door. I could feel the entity begin to pull harder, hard enough to lift my body off of the carpet, but I managed to hold on. As I fought the entity, I could here my mother struggle with the door. It took my mother a good two or three minutes to finally get the door open.
As the door finally opened, light returned to my room and I no longer felt the grip on my ankles and I fell back to the carpet. I looked around the room, terrified. My room was a disaster; the sheets were in a ball on the floor, by mattress was half off of my bed frame, and my bed was no longer sitting flush with the wall but pulled off about three feet. I looked around for the entity, but it was no longer there. My mother held me tight as I cried on the floor, not knowing what happened only thinking that it was a really intense nightmare.
I spent the rest of that night in my mother’s bed, but did not sleep. The next morning, I could see the rug burn on my arms and elbows from being dragged across the carpet. I looked at my ankles to see they were red and swollen, but harder to see were the little scratches along the top of my feet. That was my last night in that house, and I’m glad that it was.
To this day, I do not know what this thing was or what it wanted of me, but thinking of it still scares me. In my adolescent years, and even now that I’m in my mid twenties, I have what my doctor has only described as night terrors; I wake up in the middle of the night to see nothing but darkness and as I stare into the darkness I see a figure, even darker than the darkness around it. I still scream when I see the silhouette the darkness. Now that I’m older though, I have more control over my actions; I take a flashlight and shine it through my room, or I’ll turn on the light switch. Many times I’ll just wake up screaming, sometimes even running out of my room, with no idea why. I do not know if what I see is the same entity that stalked me as a child or if it’s just my imagination digging deep into my subconscious, but the entity still haunts me to this day. I just pray that whatever this is does not start going after my wife or our future kids.
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Someone was in my kitchen last night.
I moved to this apartment about a year ago, and I swear that I haven’t gotten a single good night’s sleep since then. Every day, it’s been the same: get up, shove some cheap crap down my throat, go to school or work, come home, veg out in front of the computer, try to sleep. And I do mean “try” when I say “try to sleep,” because I have to try to block out the sound of scratching in the walls. Just this…scratching, faint, but just loud enough that I know I’m not imagining things. At least, I don’t think I am.
I’ll be lying in bed, bundled up in maybe two or three thick blankets if it’s winter, and just about to fall asleep when it starts. It’s always quiet at first, and I don’t think I consciously register it at first, but I definitely notice it after a minute or two. Scratching. Just this scratching in the walls, under the floor, sometimes in the ceiling. It always gets louder, or closer, every time I almost manage to shut it out. It used to keep me up for two, three days at time before I’d just pass out from sheer exhaustion. I’m taking sleep aids now, but…I’m not sure that’s a good idea anymore.
I used to think it was rats in the walls, and of course I reported it to the landlord. As run down as the rest of the apartment is, with its water stains, ancient plumbing, and unreliable furnace, my landlord takes any kind of infestation very seriously. No one wants to get a reputation for having bed bugs and rats in their buildings, after all. I think it took him maybe two, three days to get an exterminator in to take a look at the apartment. Not that it did any good; the exterminator spent maybe two or three hours scouring every nook and cranny, poking his nose into every dark space behind and beneath my furniture in search of even one scrap of evidence that some kind of pest was in there.
Nothing. He didn’t find so much as one whiff of a rat or a cockroach, not one stray hair or tell-tale dropping. He must have thought I was a crazy, because I pushed him to look just one more time, to stop just short of actually tearing open the walls, but he couldn’t find a thing. So when I heard the scratching in the walls again that night, I tried to tell myself that it was all in my mind, that I could just will it to stop.
It didn’t, of course. I wouldn’t be writing this if it had just been that easy. It just kept happening, keeping me up every night, and I’d lay there, exhausted but wide awake and hoping, praying, that it would just stop. I even started leaving traps and poison around the apartment, but nothing would ever be taken in the morning. I think that’s about when things…started getting worse, actually. I think I might have pissed it…them…off by trying to kill them.
It wasn’t just scratching in the walls anymore; I’d hear things moving around outside my bedroom, like animals walking around, or things being moved around on the table or counters. I’d hear the quiet bump of something being put down, or the shuffle of something being pushed or dragged, but nothing would be out of place. It’s like someone was re-arranging my stuff at night, then deciding that they liked the way I had it better. I bought a camera to try to catch whatever it was in the act; I wanted to buy more so that I could have one in every room, but I could only afford the one. Since most of the movement seemed to be coming from my kitchen, that’s where I set the camera.
I set it in the corner where it’d see most of the room, turned it on, went to bed…and woke up to find that the camera had gone missing. Just the camera. The tripod was still there, completely undisturbed, but the camera was gone. When I was looking for it, I found a small, neat brown envelope tucked in my couch cushions that I sure as hell hadn’t put there. My hands actually shook and I could feel my heart pounding against my chest as I picked it up and turned it over. No address. No signature. Not even a name. I don’t know why I was expecting these things; maybe I was just trying to find some strand of normalcy to cling to, some safety line to grab onto in the face of this…insanity. I opened it, nearly tearing it in two because my hands were shaking so badly, and I nearly pissed myself when I saw what was inside: the memory card.
I didn’t even bother packing my bags before I left. I just had to get the hell out of there, away from whoever had decided to pay me a “visit” in the night. All I grabbed was my wallet, my phone and my laptop; the wallet so I could at least get a motel room for the night, and my laptop so I could see what the fuck was on the card. The second I was settled in this crappy, cheap little motel room with a bed that probably housed STD’s still unknown to the scientific community, I popped in the card. There was a single file on it, spanning from midnight to 4 am.
That’s when they took the camera. Or at least that’s when they came in and turned it off. Most of the video was just dead air. Nothing was moving, nothing was being moved. I couldn’t see anything that could explain why I had heard things moving around all night, not a person or an animal or objects moving by themselves. I couldn’t believe it; not one thing was out of place the entire night. Nothing fell, nothing slid around. Nothing. I skipped to about 10 minutes before the end of the video, hoping to God that I’d get something to prove that I wasn’t going insane, but dreading the possibility of actually seeing whoever, or whatever, was responsible for tormenting me.
The kitchen was completely dark except for the night light I’d plugged in to keep myself from running into things on my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Well, that was the idea, anyway; you can guess how often I willingly got up to use the washroom in the middle of the night once everything started happening. The light cast this kind of greenish glow on everything, more giving shapes to the shadows instead of really lighting up the room. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but it was so close to the end of the video that I didn’t want to fast forward in case I missed something.
9 minutes. Still nothing, but I swear I saw the light dim ever so slightly.
8 minutes. Did a shadow just move? No, I decided; probably. It looked too similar to how it was before.
7 minutes. Was that a thump in the background, or just a digital artifact from the mediocre microphone?
6 minutes. Did the camera just shift a little?
5 minutes. The camera is trying to focus on something. There’s nothing there, but it’s trying to focus on something.
4 minutes. The ambient noise has just cut out. The video is completely silent, but checking the audio information shows that the camera was recording every sound in its range the entire time.
3 minutes. The ambient sounds are back, but I swear they’re louder.
2 minutes. I definitely heard something moving out of frame. It’s quiet, like it doesn’t want to be heard, and it sounds very close to the camera. I think it’s behind it.
1 minute. The night light goes off. It takes the camera a second to adjust to the complete darkness, and everything is still much darker in comparison to the rest of the video when it does.
30 seconds. The camera shifts just a little, like something bumped the tripod.
20 seconds. I think I can hear something…breathing.
10. The breathing is replaced by…static. I want to call it static, but it’s more like these distorted, animalistic noises mashed together and forced through some digital filter. Fuck.
5. Something moves out of the shadows. It looks like a person, but the way it moves it like it’s a part of the wall detaching itself and gliding toward the camera. It just…stands there, staring straight into the lens for a few seconds. I say “staring,” but only in the sense that it’s facing the camera. I can’t see any details. No clothes, no distinction between its limbs and its body, no face. It’s like it’s just this shadow existing where it shouldn’t be able to, standing there like it has some solid existence, like it’s not some violation of physics.
1 second. The entire frame just goes dark. I go back to examine it more closely, and I realize that this thing had actually covered the lens with its hand because I can see a couple of small slivers of the background between its fingers.
I can’t go back. This thing, this fucking thing, is still there, and it’s fast. I check the video, and it just…there was no transition between it standing and it covering the lens. One frame it’s standing and staring, and the next it’s right up in the camera. I looked through the rest of the video, and this goddam thing was standing in the shadows the whole time, just standing there perfectly still. I was still technically in the room for the first few seconds because I had to walk from the camera to my bedroom after turning it on. I was in the room with this thing, and I never saw it.
I’ve been watching the shadows in my motel room for a few hours now, and I don’t think it’s followed me, but how can I be sure? Can I even see this thing with my own eyes? I don’t know what to think anymore. I think I can hear someone pacing in front of the door, but that might just be a cleaning lady or another guest. I just wish they’d leave already. It’s been an hour, and they haven’t stopped pacing.
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One month ago, on a rain-slicked street
My mother and I got a bite to eat
But on the way back, I slipped and fell
And I suppose the car coming didn’t see me well
Because the next thing I knew, as I lifted my head
I was staring at the sheets of a hospital bed!
I could not move my legs, nor my right arm
My left was okay (it escaped from harm)
My mother came in, with a frown, and then
Said “honey, I’m afraid you’ll never walk again.”
A feeling came over me, not sadness or hate
But instead overwhelming apathy took place
“Oh well,” I thought, “I guess I’m done.
My life is over before it’s even begun!”
But the next day my mom approached me with a smile
And said that, with luck, I’d only stay here a while
And then, if feeling returned to my legs
I could come back with her and start my life again
Well, that filed me with hope; an optimism quite bright
And perhaps my stay here would even be alright!
The month passed by, rather pleasantly
I’ll save you the details on how I went pee.
Most of my actions needed the assistance of a nurse
But really I was just glad to not be in a hearse
A reporter came to my room to tell my story
I think he was expecting something a little more gory
The triplegia of a fourteen year-old kid
Was something that, sadly, couldn’t be hid.
My nurse was kindly, pretty and gentle
She helped me get through that month without going mental
She even gave me a book to read
About shipwrecked sailors whose captain couldn’t lead
I learned on that day that human tasted like pork
The captain got eaten (but he was kind of a jerk.)
The nurse was very good at helping me cope with my condition
But when she was gone I sometimes felt a suspicion
Something like I was being watched
But I shooed that thought from my mind and instead stared at the clock
One thing that bothered me was the sheet on my legs
They hooked tubes up to me so that I never left the bed
But I could not reach down for the sheet to be pulled
So I could not see my legs, my once-useful tools
At the end of this month, I’m supposed to go home
But more often than not I’m simply left alone
The female nurse does not come any more
Instead, a crueler face comes through the door
His face is all pudgy, he wears an apron
That’s always filthy, and wrinkled like bacon
He gives me my food, three times a day
And he cooks all my food in all the same ways
He grills it, whether it should be or not
Grilled meat, grilled veggies, and here’s food for thought:
He served me cereal once, and I swear to God
He even grilled the cornflakes! How odd!
Sometimes, while eating one of his grilled meals,
He would stand in a corner and try to conceal
The smile that spread across his whole fat face
Before noticing my horror and running out of the place
I told my mom to ask about this weird guy
She said the hospital staff had this reply:
“He’s both a nurse and a cook (one of the best)
But while applying for the job, under ‘name’ he put ‘Chef’
So everyone simply calls him by that name
He may look threatening, but he’s really quite tame!”
I tried to let that ease my fear
But I started having awful nightmares
His face appeared, looking like pudgy rubber
And all the while he stared at my mother
His eyes were planted firmly at her hips
And all the while, he was licking his lips
Thinking of Chef filled me with horror
And when he came to serve me
His meat became rawer
It was still appetizing, but just barely
And with every day he seemed more and more hairy
My mom normally visits every day at noon
She insists on seeing me in my hospital room
She’s never late; she’s always on time
She treats being late like a capital crime
But today, for some reason, she’s a few minutes late
If I ever did something like that she’d be irate!
Chef comes in and serves me some meat
I take a look at his disgusting bare-feet
And eat the food, as there’s nothing else to try
And when I realize the taste, I nearly die
The food I was eating was clearly not pork
Yet the taste was known as soon as it was through my fork
I was eating something else; I knew it to be true
I through the plate aside, and then my guts I spewed
I vomited and vomited, and as I did I cried
Was I eating my mother? Had she really died?
“You killed my mom, and made me eat her, too!”
I yelled with all the force I could bring myself to
Chef looked at me, with an emotionless face
My one good arm shot up with the intent to erase
His expression, his presence, his existence on this earth
But my fist just bounced off his impressive girth
At that moment, my mother rushed into the room
And said “what’s all the screaming? You sound like a loon!”
I looked at my mother, there in the flesh
And never felt more relieved as I got back my breath
My mom was okay, I was overreacting!
Staying in this bed all day had my sanity retracting!
Everything was alright now that she was here!
There was nothing to fret and nothing to fear!
I gave my mom news in the usual way
Chef left, but then returned midday
When he did, I tried to apologize
I said “I know what I did was awfully unwise;
I really am sorry for freaking out
But not moving from this bed’s made me a paranoid lout!”
Chef grinned at me, with black gums and missing teeth
Which then retracted like a sword in a sheath
He walked over to the my legs that were covered by the sheet
And scowled “I was hoping you’d enjoy my little treat”
He pulled off the sheet, and my legs were gone!
It was as if they’d been cut off by a saw!
A bloody pool was where they once lay
I yelled out in horror and tried to get away
But he leaned over and grabbed my chest
He leaned in so close I could smell his foul breath
He said “All that meat on your legs was going to rot
And I would never cook a woman in such poor health
Besides, watching you eat your own mother is not
Half as exciting as watching you eat yourself!”
Credit To – Greg G.
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NOTE: This is the prologue of The God Machine, submitted by the original author and hosted with permission from his publisher. I have to admit to not having read the book – I haven’t read much that isn’t pasta submissions lately! – but I really enjoyed this prologue and felt it stood well enough on its own that I could feature it as its own pasta. If you feel this will be a problem for you, you have been warned and nobody is “forcing” or “tricking” you into reading this. For everyone else, please do enjoy a prologue that, I think, stands on its own as a fun read.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water.” – Genesis 1:1
Baitman was uneasy as he got into his spacesuit. “What’s expected out there, Rawlings?” he asked.
“Well, like the briefing stated, we go out there, find out what happened to Fletcher and report back, asap. Other than that, I don’t know. Hopefully we will find him.”
Rawlings gave Baitman a look that expressed more than words could say. The fact that Rawlings was as baffled as he was from it all, made Baitman even more uneasy.
“I told him that this wasn’t a smart idea. Who plans this shit out? They told us to come up here and dig. So we dig. Four damned months we’ve been out here digging in that crater on the dark side where communications can’t even reach and they don’t expect to lose someone?”
“I don’t think they intended to lose anyone, Baitman.”
“No?” Baitman was beginning to heave his words out from his gut, he was getting emotional. “But they expect us now to go out there and find a man that was trained for this shit, just like us. Go out there with the same damned Rig he went out there with, to the same damned place… and we’re expected to come back? They don’t intended to lose us out there either?”
“Baitman, the months out here are getting to you. You need to calm down.”
Rawlings put his hand on Baitman’s arm, trying to comfort him and smiled, “Take a breath and let’s get going. We’ll be back soon, probably in time for lunch.”
“Probably?” Baitman looked at Rawlings in search of the leadership he’d seen from him in the past and was afraid that he wouldn’t find it this time. They had been out here on the moon digging for lunar materials many times over the years and for months on end. Not once has Rawlings ever lost face. Not once has Baitman ever felt that there was something Rawlings couldn’t handle or couldn’t fix.
He remembered his second mission with Rawlings. Two hours after landing, the power in the lunar base shut down, leaving the crew with only a few hours to figure out what was going on and how to get things running again. Power was provided by sixteen solar arrays mounted on an external truss and a few of them were cracked. It was possible that the solar arrays were hit by space debris or that the rare moonquake had occurred to cause the cracks, but Rawlings didn’t think twice about it. He managed to salvage what he could and fixing up two makeshift arrays. He rerouted the power flow to the main life support systems. His fast thinking and hard work bought them a full three days of power, which was more than enough time for a rescue shuttle to get prepared and shot out to pick them up. The crew of three dealt with thirty six hours of pitch black inside the lunar base and suffered hungry stomachs. The only loss was an aborted mission and a year set back.
That’s just how Rawlings was built. He took care of things without a doubt in his mind of weather or not it was possible, he just did his best with what he had to work with. But now, where was that cool and collected man when faced with stepping into the unknown, uncharted lunar surface that NASA wanted them to dig up, without so much as a word to describe what they were looking for. It wasn’t lunar material, the two men knew that much.
“We will be back in time for lunch. Okay big guy?” Rawlings was able to ease some of the thoughts rushing through Baitman’s mind. He could see it in his eyes; he was getting through to him and calming him down. “You know, sometimes I think these six month jobs are too long for you, Baitman. The moon makes you paranoid.” Rawlings laughed.
“You think so?”
“Yeah. You know, I don’t want to imagine what it would be like to be cooped up in here with you for those two year programs the big wigs are talking about. You’d start acting like Hal or something.” Rawlings smiled and slapped his hand against Baitman’s arm.
Baitman let out a small chuckle and started to relax. “2001: A Space Odyssey… I love that movie. Did you know, it was…”
“The reason that you wanted to fuck up your life and get shot out into this black mess we call space to begin with. I know buddy, I hear it every time we come out here.”
The two men finished getting into their suits and set out to the Rig. Scratched into the side of it was Blaster Master III, a name Fletcher gave the first time they were out here on the moon. Rawlings asked him, “How can you just name something, “such and such” three? Isn’t there supposed to be a Blaster Master and a Blaster Master Two first?” Fletcher shook his head and told him it just sounded right.
“Maybe we wouldn’t be going out there after him if he took his favorite Rig, huh?” Baitman asked.
“A mans fate lies with God. This Rig or the one he went out there in wouldn’t have made a difference.” Rawlings said, “Doesn’t matter to think about it anyways, let’s just focus on the job before your mind begins to wonder again, ok?”
Baitman nodded, keeping his cool.
Rawlings got into the Rig with Baitman and started it up.
The Rig was a NASA designed space vehicle, made to travel across a variety of terrains. It was similar in look to an M38 Wolfhound tank from World War II, yet nearly triple in size. Complete with a high powered, reverse circulation drill that can reach 500 meters into the ground and return the drill cuttings to the surface inside the rod.
Rawlings hadn’t driven a Rig in over a year. The last time he had driven one he almost drove it into one of the moons many canyons. He had to wait there for an hour and twenty minutes, seesawing on the edge of the canyon, until Fletcher came to get him and towed the Rig out.
“Maybe this is the balance of things, Baitman.” Rawlings laughed, almost yelling over the loud engine of the Rig resonating in side the cockpit. “Yeah, I bet he’s just sitting out there pissed. Wondering how many ways he can tell a man off for taking his sweet ass time.”
“Well you told him off nine kinds of ways that day. If he wants to keep things original he’ll have to think about it for a bit.” Baitman said. “Of course he has been out there for just shy of twelve hours.” Baitman’s smile began to fade, “The Rig only has about twenty hours of air supply. I bet he has given up on thinking about you and me and is trying to make peace with his maker.”
“His maker? I know I wouldn’t want to claim that piece of work.” Rawlings said jestingly.
Baitman let out an uneasy chuckle and the two became silent. They continued to mock the misfortune of Fletcher in hopes that he really was alright, trying to keep their minds off of the possibility that he was badly injured or dead. Trying to ignore the potential danger they themselves were embarking upon.
After an hour or so, they reached the dark side. The jesting had ceased and their chatter had turned into routine call outs of “Clear.” and “I still don’t see a thing.” The men were on their last string of hope. Traveling in the dark left a horrible feeling inside them both, a feeling that neither of them could shake off anymore. It forced their minds to spin around the thought that here, in this pitch black where even God himself couldn’t reach, Fletcher was dead.
The headlights of the Rig pierced the dark ahead of them. As Baitman looked out the window to his side, he could see nothing, but darkness. He tried to focus on the lit moon surface in front of them to keep his mind off of the darkness that surrounded them. The dark that seemed like at any moment would consume the Rig into oblivion. But, the more he stared at the lunar surface before them the more he got the feeling that the light was leading them both to a hell that waited.
Looking over at Baitman, Rawlings could see the furrows of worry upon his brow. “He still has time, Pat. We still have time.”
“I’m more worried that you’re lost Rawlings. I think you gave up on finding him awhile ago and you’re now just trying to get your bearings to head home.”
“Are you shittin’ me, Baitman? You think I’m lost on this rock after all the years of working her? Sheeeeeit, this place feels more like home sometimes than Seattle does, let me tell ya. And if I’m lost on her…”
Rawlings stopped talking and squinted, peering out into the endless black. In the distance the two men could see a source of light that was barely making the crater it was coming from visible. It was the Rig Fletcher had left in.
“You see that!” Rawlings exclaimed, pointing off in the direction of the light. “That’s our boy!” Rawlings laughed almost hysterically as he veered towards the crater and accelerated.
As they pulled up closer, the edge of the crater became visible. Rawlings slowed the Rig to a stop beside it and looked down into Parsons Crater, a name given to it when it was discovered in honor of the occultist and rocket scientist, Jack Parsons. He saw Fletchers Rig sitting there in the center of it and beside it he could barely make out what looked to be a large rectangular shaped object lying on the ground. In front of the object was a man in a spacesuit. It was Fletcher. A feeling of relief came over them. They had found their co-worker and could soon be on their way back to the base.
Rawlings opened the radio to speak with Fletcher, but there was no response. He tried a few times, but there was still no response.
”Get your helmet on Baitman. We’re going down there.” Rawlings said.
They locked their helmets and stepped out of the Rig.
Baitman turned on the short wave radio communication device in his helmet, “Fletcher, do you hear me?”
There was still no response. The two men started down Parsons Crater toward Fletcher who was facing the object in the center of it. When they got there, Rawlings shined his flashlight into Fletcher’s helmet.
Rawlings cried. “Fletcher! Baitman help me get him back in the Rig!”
Baitman froze at the sight of Fletcher’s face. It was locked in a contorted expression of fear and awe.
“Baitman, come on man! Help me!” Rawlings ordered.
Baitman composed himself enough to look away and quickly grabbed a hold of Fletchers right arm to drag him back to his Rig with Rawlings. They pulled him into the small closet space entryway of the vehicle and closed the outside hatch. Rawlings pulled down a large lever and the room hissed as it was quickly pressurized. The inside door opened and they stepped in.
“Get his helmet off.” Rawlings said, with a cool about him that came naturally.
Baitman took Fletcher’s helmet off and held his upper body up.
As Rawlings reached for the medical kit, he felt a stark hand snag his leg. He quickly looked down and saw Fletcher staring up at him. His face was still contorted and his eyes were sunk deep in his head, as if his life was being siphoned through the back of his skull.
“It’s so beautiful…” Fletcher said, barely able to pronounce the words as he attempted to move his mouth. Each word caused his jaw to pendulate.
Baitman pried Fletcher’s hand off of Rawlings leg, “Easy there buddy, we’re gonna help you, ok? Just let us help you.”
When he finally got Fletcher grip loose, Baitman held Fletcher tight in his arms and looked up at Rawlings, “What the fuck is he talking about? What’s beautiful?”
Rawlings just stared at Fletcher who began to moan and wail in Baitman’s arms, twisting free to the floor of the Rig. Fletcher’s body began to coil around itself, his arms flailing and Baitman backed away from him to avoid getting hit. Rawlings quickly snatched a strong sedative from the medical kit.
“Hold him down,” he said and filled a syringe with lorazepam.
Baitman froze and just stared at Fletcher. The sound of bones cracking echoed with a metallic ping off the interior of the Rig with each sudden twist of Fletcher’s body.
“Hold him the fuck down, Baitman!”
Baitman snapped out of it enough to react. He held Fletcher down and Rawlings injected the needle into Fletcher’s neck. Almost immediately, Fletcher was unconscious. Rawlings sat down in the driver’s seat of the Rig and took his helmet off. Sweat was beading on his face. His voice may be able to remain smooth, his mind keen, but his body couldn’t hide the signs of the stress he was under. His hands were shaking and he tightened them up around the seat of his chair. He held on as if he was worried that he’d somehow shoot off like a rocket. Baitman just sat on the floor and stared at Fletcher.
After a few moments of silence, they heard a voice over the radio in the Rig. “Tartarus, this is Houston. Do you copy?”
Neither man responded. They looked at each other, then over to the radio. The voice came through again, repeating the same words.
“Are you going to answer it?” Baitman asked.
Rawlings leaned over and pushed down the talk button, “Houston, this is Tartarus, we copy.” Rawlings replied.
“Have you found Fletcher?” Houston asked.
“Yes we have Houston. But, we aren’t sure of his current condition and I don’t think we have the equipment up here to take care of him.”
“You are at the dig site?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you secured the dig site?”
“Secured it from whom? We’re the only ones out here.”
“Secure the dig and prepare it for pickup.”
“The dig…?” Rawlings became angry. “Are you listening to me? What does the dig have to do with anything right now? Fletcher is hurt, bad. We need you guys to come get him now.”
“We are on our way, Tartarus. But we need you to secure whatever was found in Parsons Crater. Do you copy?”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Baitman said to Rawlings.
Rawlings pushed down the talk button, “We will secure what we can sir, just get some people out here fast.”
”As I said Tartarus, we are already on our way, but we need you to step out of the Rig and secure the dig. Make sure that everything is still intact. It is imperative that you do this, Tartarus. Do you copy?”
Rawlings looked over at Baitman who was muddled by the situation. After a moments pause, Rawlings queued in the radio again, “Copy, Houston, over and out.”
“Secure the dig? We have a man here, a friend, about to break his fucking spine, if he hasn’t already and they require us to secure the fucking dig?” Baitman said, already putting his helmet back on and standing up to move towards the Rig door.
”You know what we do out here as well as I do Baitman. The contract we signed was crafted by the devil himself.” Rawlings attached his helmet to his suit and opened the door.They stepped outside and walked to the large object.
“I’m starting to think you aren’t joking when you say that. You know I don’t believe in that religious crap, Rawlings, but any NASA big wig sure is a fine candidate for the devil. So, what do we do now?”
“We make sure that there is no damage done to whatever was dug up and we do it fast. Then return to base with Fletcher and wait until they arrive.” Rawlings was still angry, “I don’t know about you, but once we leave, I don’t think I’ll be coming back.”
“You will never leave.” Baitman said, his voice crackled a bit in Rawlings’ helmet, buried behind white noise.
“What was that Baitman? You broke up a bit.”
“Huh? I didn’t say anything.”
“Just now, you said…”
“I said what? When I asked what we should do now?”
Rawlings felt a chill down his spine. Being stationed on the moon could get to people sometimes and they could start to hear or see things that weren’t really there. Was he losing his mind? Was this job getting to him? Or was there something more sinister at work? He shook off the thought and focused on the task at hand.
As they drew closer, they shinned their flashlights toward the object. It seemed to be an enormous sarcophagus that was intricately carved out of a smooth metal, almost gold in color and clearly not of the moon. At least not any lunar material they had dug up. It was large, almost forty feet long. Along the sides of it were curious hieroglyphics depicting a story that neither man had the quiescence of mind to try and decipher.
They set up a ladder against the object and climbed up. The top was similarly carved, but the images were clear. It was of a man standing with the sun behind him, in the middle of eight serpents and above the serpents was a two headed eagle that gripped a pine cone in its left talons.
The man appeared to be in a bulky suit with tubes that connected from the body of the suit to the helmet. In the man’s right hand was a bucket. The sun behind him was made out of some type of crystal and the serpents surrounding it had unusual heads crowned with horns. As they walked across the top, Rawlings noticed that the lid to the object was a jar.
“Check this out Rawlings. Where did this come from?” Baitman knelt down and touched a large feather. He smiled, “It’s pretty.”
Rawlings was barely paying attention to Baitman, he shined his flashlight into the opening of the object. “Yeah, it is. She’s beautiful.”
“Hey, I thought you said the dark side was beyond our radio transmissions.”
“It is.”
“Then how did Houston get in touch with us this far out? They can do that?”
“No, they can’t” Rawlings said as he stared at what was inside the giant sarcophagus, “They sure can’t Baitman.”
Credit To – Anthony Genova
|
Water.
Water is the cornerstone of life. It nourishes us, irrigates our crops and waters our livestock. Water is vital for all known forms of life. We rely on it to wash our cars, clean our food and produce our power. It has an effect on almost every activity in everyday life. Without it, civilisation would cease to function. Governments would collapse, crippled by an undefeatable enemy – drought. It would be a matter of days – no longer than a week – before every living being on Earth perished. In short, we cannot live without water.
Two days ago, we were forced to begin doing just that.
I don’t know how it began. Nobody left alive does. During the initial hours of it, theories ranged from the barely plausible, like a new form of greenhouse gas, to the ridiculous, such as a new type of light, one that only evaporated water. I remember those hours fondly – the true enormity of what had happened had not yet sunk in and hysteria had not yet clutched the human race.
What happened?
I’ll put it simply.
The first was that every single drop of freshwater on the entire planet evaporated instantly.
I don’t think I can do this event justice, but I’ll try.
Can you imagine every single river, every single lake, every single natural source of water drying up instantly, without rational explanation? I doubt you can, but that’s exactly what happened. It wasn’t restricted to natural sources, either. As far as I can tell, all the bottled water in the world also evaporated, as did that in water tanks and other similar sources. It also disappeared from other substances, including soft drinks, creating foul sugar compounds that would make those that consumed it quite ill. There was not a single drop of freshwater left anywhere on Earth for anybody to drink.
But by far the worst result of the lack of water was the nuclear reactors.
Without pressurised water, most of the nuclear reactors in the entire world – those that utilise purified water as coolant – had no available sources of coolant, and just under half of these had poor or untested failsafe plans. The resulting effect of this led to catastrophic nuclear meltdown in roughly 46% of water-cooled reactors. The world, already reeling from the unprecedented situation, fell into total anarchy.
International communication ceased after almost exactly twenty-four hours after it began.
But there was a second effect.
The saltwater poisoning.
Many people flocked to desalination plants in the first few hours, hoping for salvation.
They found none.
At approximately the same time as the worldwide evaporation, saline increased by fivefold in every sea or ocean on Earth. Desalination plants were able to cope with this load for approximately twenty hours. Then, fuel began to run low – and with the imminent collapse of civilisation thanks to the multiple nuclear catastrophes, no more was delivered. Thus, the last ever drop of freshwater on Earth was pumped out no later than midnight yesterday.
After the drought came the collapse.
With no water available, civilisation soon descended into anarchy. Governments, typical of authority to the very end, tried maintaining order. It didn’t work. Soldiers rebelled, shooting rioters and runners alike. Those who didn’t die were brutally executed moments after. They turned on each other soon enough, with only a few militaries intact from the carnage. The deserters fled, unwilling to stay and watch the extinction of Earth.
But then came the worst, far worse than anything before it.
There was, in fact, one source of water that hadn’t been touched.
I’m so lucky I realised before anyone else in my town.
It was blood.
Blood, which is over 90% water, was the only remaining liquid fit to drink.
And so some did.
At first, I didn’t believe it. It was too horrific.
Animals went first. The desperate drank the blood of cats, dogs, pets and feral animals of all kinds. Many offered too little blood to be of any value. The situation was made worse by the fact that I live in a rather large metropolitan city and beyond domesticated pets and the odd feral animal, there was no animals to catch and drink from. Perhaps those in the country fared better – I have no way of finding out, and frankly I don’t really care.
I knew then that humans were the only other option.
I first saw it twelve hours ago.
An elderly man, dressed in nothing but a torn dressing gown, slowly made his way down the street that ran in front of my house. He called for help desperately, croaking out that his entire nursing home was dead or dying, that the nurses had fled and that he was looking for help. He was so pitiful that I almost opened my door, if only to offer him some respite from the midday sun, and some of my sparse rations.
If I had been a second faster, I would not be writing this.
Before I could open the door, three people – two men and a woman – pounced from the shadow of a nearby tree. The poor old bastard had no chance. They leapt upon him, frenzied in their dehydration, and set on him with makeshift tools. It was the most terrifying spectacle of my entire life. One of the men had a hammer – he set about bashing the man’s joints in, one by one. Crack. Crack. Crack. I retched bile each time the hammer slammed into bone, so sickening was the crunch. The other had a gardening hoe. He hovered above the elderly man, bringing the makeshift weapon down once, twice. The tool cut through the man’s ankles like a knife through a steak.
The metaphor made me vomit. After I did, I looked back, if only to satisfy my own growing horror.
Oh, how I wish I hadn’t.
The woman, who was weaponless save for her own two hands, had straddled the man’s chest. Her hands were spread on the screaming man’s face as her own companions butchered him. Then, even as I watched, she dug her thumbs into his eyes. He howled like nothing I had ever heard before. She dug harder, pushing inwards and outwards simultaneously. When they were pulled free, blood and some even less discernible liquid splattered all over her. She grabbed them and ate them like fruit. I could hear the chewing sounds from my door. They bent to consume the precious blood and I turned away.
I call them the Drinkers.
There’s one thing I want to make very clear about them. They aren’t zombies. Nor are they affected by some external force that forces them to drink the blood of humans, such as a virus or disease. They are entirely human. I suspect that dehydration affects them worse than it does others and this forces them to drink from humans in a form of pseudo-cannibalism or perish. They represent the dark side of humanity. The Drinkers also seem to recognise each other through some subtle signal. Not being a Drinker, I wouldn’t know it.
As fast as I possibly could, I took my meagre supplies, some small comforts, this journal and my .357 Desert Eagle up into my bedroom. I pushed the bed against the door with my rapidly fading strength and piled furniture on it. The Desert Eagle has a full clip of seven, and I have one spare. Enough for thirteen Drinkers and – well, I’m sure you can imagine.
—
Another six hours have passed. I can really feel the dehydration now. My tongue feels numb and my skin feels like sandpaper. I tried to eat some bread before and I almost choked, with no saliva to moisten my throat. Now I’m hungry as well as thirsty. I don’t even know why I’ve kept writing this. Maybe it’s something to occupy me during the final hours of mankind. Maybe I hold some hope that a solution will be found and somebody in the future will read this and remember what it was like. Maybe I’m just delusional.
—
It’s getting worse. I’m breathing heavily and becoming more and more lethargic. This room feels like a sauna. I can almost see the heatwaves bouncing across the room, becoming more and more intense until I am literally cooked alive. It’s not a pleasant vision. My pen keeps slipping from the page as I suffer random bursts of weakness. I’m scared I won’t even be able to pull the trigger if the time comes.
—
I’m so terribly thirsty. The last time I urinated it burned. I haven’t defecated for a long time now. My vision’s fading in and out and my head feels like it’s going to split open from the intense pressure inside. My skin is so dry and leathery. I know I’m dying, but I’ve still got the Desert Eagle. Maybe I should kill myself before I lose the strength to do so. God knows it’s better than dehydrating to death or letting the Drinkers get me.
—
so thirsty
its dark and i’ve lost the gun
vision almost gone
so THIRSTY
i’m going mad
i’m dying
wait
what’s that
so thirsty
somebody’s knocking at the door
they want to be let in
they say the drinkers are coming
should i
i don’t know
maybe i’ll go get a drink.
i’m so thirsty.
//
Credited to Archfeared.
|
I think I’ve lost my goddamn mind. Everything was fine until I walked out of work this afternoon. Dan, my cube-mate, and I were walking out of the building talking about our plans for the weekend. We had been pulling overtime, one of our clients was being more needy than usual, and we had agreed that lots of drinking was the only sensible plan for the weekend. As I stepped outside though, I had to double-check if I was drunk already.
There was a huge… person in the sky. At least, it looks like a person. The general shape of it was humanoid, but it towered over the horizon, almost like it was actually out in space just floating over the world. I stopped dead in my tracks. Dan looked back when he realized I wasn’t beside him anymore and saw me staring up at the sky with a look of horror.
“You alright?” he asked, looking concerned.
“You see that, don’t you?” I stammered out, still not believing what I was seeing.
“See what, man? There’s a few clouds but doesn’t look like any rain coming this way.”
“No. The person. There’s a huge person up there on the horizon. You seriously don’t see it?” I couldn’t fathom how he couldn’t see it. It was almost blocking out the sun and it had a big toothy grin on its face, just surveying the world.
“You been sleeping okay? I think all this overtime is stretching you thin.” Dan looked worried. I know I sounded insane.
“Yeah… yeah, probably just staring at that monitor all day. Got my mind going crazy.” I dropped the subject and kept going. As I got in my car, I looked back over to where the thing was. It was still there, now staring off upwards, into whatever sky was above it.
“I’ll see you on Monday! I’m just going to go get some sleep!” I shouted out the window as I started the engine.
The thing hovered there as I went through the rush hour traffic to get back home. All the stop and go gave me time to really get a look at it. It looked more and more uncanny as time went on. Instead of two eyes, it had multiple. The entire top of its face was covered in eyes, some small, some huge. There was no nose, just what looked like a slit running down half of its face until it came to the mouth.
The mouth was the terrifying part. It was wide open, almost slack-jawed, and full of teeth. I don’t mean like a bit toothy smile like some kid who had just gotten their first adult teeth and wanted to show them off. This thing had rows of teeth. It looked like a shark almost with row after row of sharp, pointed teeth. They went around its entire mouth. Not just top and bottom, it had teeth on all sides, like a fucking garbage disposal for small planets.
The damn thing was so huge I could only see it from the chest up. The rest had disappeared over the horizon. I finally got home and night had fallen, but the giant hadn’t shifted at all. By this time, I’m creeped the hell out. I decide I’m just going to go inside, close my curtains, and go the fuck to sleep. I’m just tired, right? This is all going to be gone in the morning.
I take one of my sleeping pills and am out in half an hour. The only thing I can remember about my dream that night is that the thing in the sky was picking people up and dropping them into its mouth. They were so far away but I could still hear their screams as they were slashed to bits on the teeth.
I woke up the next morning and opened my window, bracing myself to see the creature towering above the city outside. To my relief, it wasn’t there. I can’t tell you just how relieved I was. The last thing I need is a psychotic break to put me out of commission.
It was a Saturday, and my first day off in almost two weeks. I made some breakfast, and decided to go out and browse around the library for something new to read. As I stepped out of my house and got in my car, I looked out above the house. The bedroom window faced my driveway, and I didn’t think to look out any other windows before I stepped out of the house.
It was still there. It had just shifted to the other side of the earth, or maybe the earth had just rotated to the point where it was in a different position. It stood there, the same expression on its face as last night. I saw a plane fly by in the sky, barely brushing by the shoulder of the creature. It moved one of its many eyes to look at the plane, and a different eye focused on it as it moved by the creature.
With one swift move, it bent over and crunched down on the plane. There was a small plume of smoke and a flash of fire, and then it was gone. I couldn’t believe my eyes. How many people were on that flight? How many people just lost family members to that… thing? I had to do something. I called 911.
“Operator, what’s your emergency?” A woman’s voice, polite, yet urgent.
“An airplane just blew up in the sky. There’s a giant creature up there. It looks almost like a person, but it just ate a fucking plane!”
“Sir, I’m going to need you to please calm down. Now, you said a plane exploded?”
“Yes! Not really exploded, though. It was more… eaten. The thing in the sky leaned over and swallowed it.”
“Sir, this line is for emergencies only. You know that faking an emergency call is a crime, right?”
“I’m not fucking faking! Those people on that plane are dead! Don’t you care about that?”
“Sir, I’m going to disconnect the line. Please only call us if there is a real emergency.”
The line went dead. Fuck. What do I do? Dan couldn’t see it yesterday, and the emergency operator obviously hadn’t heard anything about it.
I looked back up at the thing on the horizon. It had turned, and was facing my direction now. As I stared at it, it looked down towards the ground.
Every single eye on its face looked right at me. I know it sounds crazy that I could tell from that distance but I know it was looking at me. It could somehow sense I realized this, because the grin on its face got even wider.
I don’t know how long I sat there screaming. All I know is that the next thing I knew there were two guys in suits outside my car window. One was knocking on the glass while the other had his gun drawn.
“Please step out of the car and come with us, sir.” The man knocking on the glass said. The other one lowered his gun slightly, and gave me a look as if to say that it was okay. “We don’t want to use force, but we have been authorized to if you do not comply.”
“What the fuck is going on?” I said as I opened my door. “Who the hell are you? Can you see that fucking thing?”
“No, sir, we cannot. However, we can take you to someone that has answers for you. The things you are seeing are real.” The one with the gun looked concerned, almost like he was sorry for me. The other guy just acted like he wanted to be done with it all.
“Fine. As long as I know I’m not crazy.” I walked over to their car with them. One opened the back door, and motioned for me to get in.
We drove for what seemed like hours. I know we were a good ways outside of the city by the time we pulled up to a small shack off a dirt road. I looked up at the horizon as I got out of the car. Over the tops of the trees, I could barely see the top of the giants head. One of the eyes on top was still looking right at me.
“Follow us, please,” said one of the men.
“So you’re going to murder me now, right?” I quipped. I was losing my shit, but trying to retain a facade.
“We’re not in the business of murdering, sir. Quite the opposite, actually.”
As I walked into the small shack I realized it wasn’t small at all. Passing through the door, there was a panel on the wall. This was just an elevator. The agents stood in front of me in the lift as one hit the button. Slowly, we descended down into the depths.
When the lift stopped and the door opened, there was a small room with a desk set up next to the wall and a door leading out to the left. An older man was sitting behind the desk, reclined back in a chair that looked like it would tip any second.
“Sir, we have the Cognizant in question,” one of the men said. The man in the chair almost fell back in surprise, then sat forward and looked at me.
“Yes, please come in. Have a seat. How are you doing today?” he asked.
“I… uh… I’ve been better. I’m pretty sure none of this is real though.” I looked around, trying to think of how I could get out if I needed to. It felt good though, almost relieving that I couldn’t see that thing looking at me.
“I can assure you, this is all real. You’re very much awake, and that creature in the sky is as real as you and I are.” The man smiled at me as if we were just talking about something as simple as the weather, not a death giant in the sky.
“You mean I’m not crazy? You can see that thing too?” I asked in disbelief. I still couldn’t fully grasp what was happening. If I wasn’t crazy, then what the hell was going on?
“Not crazy, I promise. I personally cannot see that creature. I do know a few others that can, though. I’m honestly surprised you’ve slipped under our radar for this long. We usually catch you guys much earlier in life.”
“You guys? What the fuck is going on? Can you please just stop being cryptic and tell me why the fuck I’m not crazy?” I was getting tired of all this runaround. There’s something really fucked-up going on, and this guy is treating it like fucking Sunday brunch.
“Well, I can explain everything to you, but first, I think you better have a seat. Would you like some coffee? It’s quite a long story…”
I sat down in front of him, and listened as he laid everything out.
* * * * * *
I sat down across from the old man at the table, not knowing what to expect. What had my life become in the past couple of days?
“Where are my manners? My name is Ronald, pleased to meet you.” The man extended his hand to me. I took it, hesitantly. He had a firm grip, and shook my hand as if he was an old friend.
“So are you going to tell me why life has gotten so crazy in the past day?” I asked him.
“Yes, that’s going to be quite the story. So, you’ve seen our ocularly-blessed friend outside?”
“I thought you said you can’t see him. How do you know what he looks like?”
“I told you, I have friends that can. One of them is quite the gifted artist.” At this, he pulled a paper from the desk drawer; on it was a near-perfect sketch of the creature I had been seeing. Just the thought of it sent a shiver down my spine.
“Now, as I’ve said, you’re not the only one of your kind running around out there. About one percent of the earth’s population can see these things. We call them Aberrations. They pop up every so often, and our job is to take care of them before they cause any major damage.”
“This one already ate a fucking plane! How did you not stop that sooner?” Now I was getting angry. If they knew these things were coming how did they not take care of it sooner? It had been there almost an entire day before it took the plane out of the sky.
“Yes, well. That one is going to weigh on us a while. Thing is, we’ve never seen one this large. Usually, the Aberrations that appear are on a much smaller scale. Think your typical Hollywood monster movie, that’s the scale we’re used to dealing with. This thing though… he’s big. Bigger than we’re used to. We haven’t quite come up with a plan to take him out yet.”
“Him? How do you know it’s a him? What do you mean there are more of them?” My head was beginning to hurt. This was all too much to take in.
“Oh, you can tell it’s a him if you get close enough to where he’s positioned, trust me,” he chuckled. Was this all so normal he could joke about it?
“So what do you mean there are more? How have people not heard about these things by now?”
“We’re very good at our jobs. Usually, anyway. There is typically some collateral damage from the larger ones, but most are small and can be taken care of with little notice from the outside world. I guarantee you’ve heard about some of the larger ones: Chernobyl, the San Francisco Earthquake… the LA riots were quite nasty. That one had a profound effect on the surrounding population.”
“So why am I just seeing this now? How come I haven’t heard about it before?” My head was really pounding now. Fucking hell, I’m twenty-six years old. I would have noticed these fucking monsters by now.
“It seems this is just the first one both large enough and near enough to catch your attention. No other explanation I can think of really. Like I said, they’re usually much smaller than what we’re dealing with now.”
“But you said that you take care of these things? Like, you make sure that they don’t cause too much damage and you can kill them?” I didn’t give a shit what he told me at this point. I just wanted to know if we could get rid of this thing so it would stop staring at me. I could still feel its gaze even though we were underground.
“Well, we can’t necessarily kill them, but we can send them back to where they came from. You see, the Aberrations are from Earth, just not our Earth. On occasion, the walls between our dimensions… tear, so to speak. This allows these things to slip through and cause havoc. Thing is, we never know what to expect because there are so many different variables.”
“So you’re telling me that giant fuck in the sky is from Dimension X or something?” This was a lot to take in in one day. Holy shit, I need a nap.
“The one outside is actually from dimension 426-9. First one we’ve encountered from that dimension. Seems like quite the nasty place, from what one of my colleagues told me.”
“One of the others like me?” I asked. All this Aberration stuff was interesting, but I want to know who else can see these things. Someone I can talk to that actually knows how fucking insane all of this is.
“Yes. We currently have three other Cognizants working with us. You will get to meet them soon enough, if you choose to join us.”
“Depends, what’s the pay like and is there health insurance?” I quipped back at him. I want answers, not some vague offers and sci-fi names.
“I’m sure you’re being sarcastic, but yes. We do offer a hefty pay. Dental coverage too, if that interests you. Anyway, time is somewhat of the essence here. You are a Cognizant, someone who possesses the ability to see an Aberration. With some honing of your ability, you can eventually see into the other dimensions as well.”
“So we’re special then?”
“Very. As I said, only about one percent of the population has this ability, and most of them go mad from it at a young age. It frequently gets misconstrued as a myriad of mental illnesses, and sometimes what they see is so horrible it just breaks them outright. There have been quite a few that put their abilities to good use for personal gain, though.”
“And you want to recruit me?”
“We would like your assistance, yes. If we have more Cognizants on hand, we can find Aberrations more quickly, and have you all in different locations keeping an eye on things. We will do all the heavy lifting when it comes to getting rid of the ones that appear. We just need you to be our canary, so to speak.”
“Doesn’t sound like too dangerous of a job…” I still wasn’t sure. I kept expecting to wake up any second and have this all be a dream, but the cold air in the room and feeling the Aberrations gaze shooting through the ground at me made it all too real.
“I must warn you: you will see some horrible things. Creatures that look like us, but can tear through you with a snap of their fingers. Lovecraftian nightmares, creatures much uglier than our friend in the sky. This will drain you.” His tone was much more serious now. We were reaching the end.
“Look, if I can get that giant asshole up there to go away, I’ll do whatever I can.” Besides, this might actually be a nice change of pace. Keep a lookout for any weird happenings, and get paid for it. Sounds good to me.
“Very well. Our agents here will escort you back home. Here is a card with my number. Please keep an eye on our friend up there for now and study him. This is a tall order for your first case, but I guarantee you will learn quite a bit from it. You’ll also be subject to regular psych evaluations. We will contact you when we get everything processed.”
“So I’m a monster hunter now?”
“More of a monster surveyor, if you will.”
I got up and followed the agents back to the elevator and up to the surface. When we stepped out of the shack, Big Guy was still there, watching me. All of his eyes followed as I walked over to the car. They kept following us as they drove me back home. Things were going to get very interesting.
I didn’t realize just how much more awful the Aberrations could be.
* * * * * *
Things got… well, awful, to be honest.
On the bright side, the big guy is gone. I have no idea how they do it, but he was sent back to whatever hellhole he came from. Ronald tried to explain it to me but it was really just a bunch of babble, quantum physics, and all that shit.
Now, though, I’ll take the big eyes in the sky any day over the things I’ve seen and learned these past few days. I met with the other Cognizants and they told me some of what I should expect out of this, and gave me some files about past Aberrations and some of the ones they’ve seen for themselves.
Turns out some pretty famous people were like this. Lovecraft? All that shit he wrote about was from personal experience. Turns out there really is another dimension beyond ours that’s ruled by giant monsters called the Eldritch. Thankfully, none of those have passed through. He just looked into their dimension.
As for some of the worse events in history… also Aberrations. The San Francisco fire was caused by an Aberration made of pure flame coming through the rift one night. Chernobyl was a creature that fed on radiation. There’s so much more… it’s just all a lot to take in.
As far as my own personal experience, I’ve been learning to look into the other worlds that are out there. Most actually aren’t that bad, worlds just like ours but with slight differences. The others though… they’re few and far between but they’re made up of some of the most terrifying shit I’ve ever seen.
So, things had been pretty quiet on our world until a week ago. Another thing that the Administration provided me with is a satellite link so I can view different areas of the world through satellite feeds and get access to almost any camera. I was watching a feed from Florida when I saw that there was a hurricane forming off the coast.
Looking further at one of the storm cams, I noticed there was something off in the water that seemed… big. That’s putting it simply. Then when lightning flashed in the middle of the storm I saw it. It was gigantic. Not quite as big as Eyes was, but at least big enough to level a small city. It looked like it was in the center of the storm.
I zoomed in, hoping to get a better look. It looked to be made out of pure darkness, with tendrils popping out of it in every direction. I saw a storm chaser plane flying close to it and my stomach fell out. One of the tendrils snapped out like lightning, piercing straight through the plane. It went down into the water.
I picked up my phone and dialed Ronald’s number.
“We have a problem off the coast of Florida. Creature in the middle of a giant hurricane. Looks like a giant black hole but it took a storm chaser plane down.”
“We’re on it,” he said. “There’s something you should know though. The other three have been noticing much heavier activity the past few days. There seems to be an increase in Aberrations.”
“Great. Just what I fucking need.” I said, sighing. “Will you guys be able to take care of this thing? If it’s in Florida that’s one state too close for me.”
“We’re stretched a little thin at the moment, but it will be taken care of.” He said. The line went dead then. Guess there wasn’t much time to talk.
I decided to see what he meant by heavier activity. I pulled up the log where we all recorded our findings. There had been a lot more entries in the past three days than in the past two weeks combined. This wasn’t good.
I scrolled through, seeing some of what we were dealing with. Victoria had apparently seen a massive ram with eight horns storming through the hills in Scotland. Greg caught a guy in the middle of Atlanta that was disintegrating anything he touched. All small things, thankfully. Nothing too big, until this hurricane.
I decided to turn in for the night. There wasn’t much else to do at the moment, and nothing could be done about the hurricane. I’m sure they would have it taken care of by morning.
Everything went smoothly the next day. The hurricane was gone, the tendrils disappeared. Seemed to be much slower. I actually managed to go a whole day without spotting anything.
That night I got woken up by my phone ringing. I saw that it was Ronald. I groggily answered it, still half asleep.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“Look outside. Tell me what you see.”
“Uh. Okay. Let me put pants on real quick.”
“No time! Go! Now!” he pressed. Shit. This must be bad.
I walked downstairs and out my front door. It was bright, way too bright to be this early in the morning. What the hell…
“Oh, fuck,” I said as I looked into the sky. This is bad. This is way worse than Eyes.
“What is it?!” Ronald shouted through the phone. “Tell me, goddammit!”
“The… the whole sky is torn open.” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I described everything to Ronald as I saw it. Up above me, there was a tear running across the entire sky. Through it there were hands reaching through, clawing at the night. These were huge hands, each one at least the size of a car, with large claws and seven fingers on each. As they clawed, the tear grew. Behind the mass of hands, light was pouring through. The light was almost a pure red color, like that of a sun close up.
“Ronald.” I said, “I think Hell just opened up above us.”
“Look I need you to keep your shit together. We’re working on closing this one but we’re still recovering from the last few Aberrations. We have a team on the way to assess the situation. Keep an eye and make sure nothing else happens.”
“You better hurry. They’re tearing it even more as we speak.”
The hands multiplied, more and more reaching through as the tear grew wider. I finally saw one of the creatures the hands belonged to as it fought its way out of the mass.
It looked… well, there’s no good comparison to what it looked like. It was big, at least the size of a small skyscraper. The limbs were long, spindly, but looked muscled. It had a long torso with a slim lower half, and it steadily got wider as it reached the top where I’m guessing its lungs were.
The heads were the worst part. It had four heads; at least, I think they were all heads. One of them was just a giant mass of sharp teeth, black as space. One was a giant glowing red orb. I realized with horror that this was where all the light was coming from, all of these glowing orbs on each of these creatures. The other two heads worked in unison, large tentacles branching off from each, almost like they were feeling the area around them.
It fell slowly to the ground. When it finally landed, I could see it standing up on the other side of town, towering over everything else in the area.
It started moving, at first seeming to check out its surroundings, then slowly lowering the tentacled heads down and running them over the ground. I saw it pick up a car and hold it up to the orb. As it held it close, the car began melting. After it was softened it lowered it into the maw of teeth.
It looked up at the tear, widening as more of its kind started clamoring at it. That’s when it let out a sound that will haunt me until I die. It was like an explosion mixed with the screams of a thousand dying people. As it roared, the clamoring at the tear became more frenzied. It finished, and started walking my way.
* * * * * *
The creature was moving straight for me, every step bringing it at least a hundred feet closer. The red orb that was one of its heads glowed brighter as it came closer. It was like it could sense me.
I jumped in my car and called Ronald.
“You guys need to get a handle on this. Now!” I screamed into the phone. “This thing is after me, and there are more like it coming down every second.”
“Shit!” he said. “I have a team en route to you right now. Just stay where you are.”
“I’m getting the fuck out of here unless your team can be here within two minutes. The creature is huge and it knows where I am. It’s going to be on top of me within five minutes. I already saw what it could do to a car, and I’m not fond of having that happen to me.”
“Fucking hell. Okay. Do you have the list of safe houses with you?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m going to the closest one. It’s only about fifteen minutes away. Hopefully, my car can outrun that thing.”
“Good. We’ll be in touch.”
I have to move. Quick. The thing was still stomping towards me. I could see light poles and cars crushed under its feet in the distance. The orb continued to get brighter. Above me, more continued to fall from the tear in the sky.
It began to rain at that point, wind howling. It still didn’t faze the creature. Everyone else probably just thought it was some freak storm tearing everything down.
I got in the car and squealed out of my driveway. The safe house was a few miles outside of town, in an abandoned convenience store off the highway. I just had to get there and push the code on the back door to take me a mile underground into the bunker.
I got to the edge of town, little over a mile to go when one of those things fell from the sky right in front of me. I didn’t see it coming until it was too late, but it’s front left foot landed right on the hood of my car, I got jolted forward and hit my head on the steering wheel.
I was dazed. Everything blurred and I felt warm blood dripping from my forehead into my eyes. This is bad. This is really fucking bad. I vaguely saw one of the tentacles wrap around what was left of my car and pick it up with me still in it. Had to act fast.
I reached down and unclipped my seatbelt, at the same time shoving the car door open. I rolled out as the car was turned over and lifted into the air. Goddammit. I’ve got to go.
I rolled over and got to my feet. Everything hurt. I could feel my heart beating into my throat. I started trying to run but goddamn it hurt. I probably had a couple of broken ribs. Maybe a concussion. I’m amazed I’m still able to walk at all.
The creature let out a roar as it brought my car up to the orb. I assume it’s an eye. The car started to melt as the howl of rage got louder. I looked up as I ran and saw more falling to the sky, even faster than before. They were coming down by the dozens now.
My phone rang in my pocket. I was still trying to run from the monster, and right now it was right above me. Even if I survived this, I’m not sure if the world will. I dug my phone out as I continued running.
“Little busy right now. Tell me you have some good news.”
“Where are you? Our other Cognizants have reports of these things falling near them as well,” Ronald said. I could hear the fear in his voice. This might be where it all ends. “Where are you now?”
“I’m on the side of 17. One of these bastards dropped right in front of my car and wrecked it. I’m probably a mile out from the bunker.”
“Good. I have two agents a mile behind you. Find a safe place to hide until they get there and they can take you the rest of the way.”
“I don’t think you fucking understand me right now. This thing is on the damn road. I don’t think they’ll get through.”
“They will. Just hide until then.” He hung up at that.
Shit. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to hide. If they’re a mile up the road then hopefully that means three minutes, max. Now isn’t the time for them to be careful drivers. My best bet right now is to just run and dodge until they get here.
The orb swiveled around and I swear it looked right at me. The head with the mouth moved down towards me, extending on the neck as it came down toward me, almost bending completely backwards to reach where I was underneath it. While it was doing that, one of the tentacled heads reached around from the side, like it was trying to close me in.
Fuck. This is bad. This is really bad. I closed my eyes and hoped for time to just stop right there. For the tear to disappear and this damn thing to vanish. I had a flash of the dimension it came from.
The landscape was leveled. Where buildings once stood, there were now just ruins. These things overran the land, devouring anything they can find. Their movements seemed to be determined by some sort of hive mind, all going toward the same goal. They were hungry, and we were the next buffet.
I snapped out of it and faced down the maw in front of me. I couldn’t run to the right because of the tentacles. The highway barrier was on my left. Nowhere to go but behind me and even then I didn’t know how fast those teeth would move. I had to do something.
I closed my eyes, gritting myself for what was about to happen. When I opened them again I almost gasped.
The creature was gone. Disappeared into thin air. In front of me stood one of the agents who picked me up on the day I saw the Big Guy, and he was holding a device that looked sort of like a projector.
“Get in,” he said, nodding back towards the car. I didn’t question it, but ran over and got into the backseat.
“So that’s how you guys get rid of the Aberrations?” I asked.
“Yes and no. Just one of these can work for a smaller-scale Aberration. I still have no clue how we’re going to fix the tear, though. Our number one priority is getting you to safety and treating your wounds.”
We drove the rest of the way to the convenience store, and I watched as more and more fell from the tear in the sky as we drove. There had to be hundreds by now. Who knows how widespread they could be?
They parked outside and rushed me in. We took the elevator past the door and it went the mile down to the bunker in almost ten seconds. I swear I almost hit the ceiling as it went down.
We stepped out into a brightly lit room, all-white walls, with a couch and small kitchen on one side and a bed on the other. Against the far wall were a ham radio and a small television.
“Alright, here. You’re obviously pretty banged up. Take this for the pain and lay down. We’ll keep you updated as things go on. One of us will be on duty constantly to monitor the situation,” he said as he handed me a couple of pills.
“How are you guys going to know what the fuck is going on if I’m not up there?”
“Ronald is coming up with a contingency plan, and we have the other Cognizants keeping an eye on things. Just rest for now and we’ll take care of all the big stuff. Priority for you is resting. Won’t matter what you can see if you’re fucking dead.”
I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have many alternatives. I took the pills and swallowed them, then laid down carefully on the bed. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off I felt every injury. Definitely broken ribs, possibly dislocated shoulder. There was a nice gash across my left leg too.
The stuff they gave me was better than anything a doctor could prescribe though. I drifted off in no time.
* * * * * *
When I woke up, the other agent was sitting at the desk, talking over the radio.
“What’s going on?” I asked, sitting up way too quickly and feeling the sting in my chest.
“Easy there,” he said, looking over at me. “We have it all under control. Some of the guys in the tech department figured out how to close the tear. Now we’re just rounding up all the ones that fell. You’re going to stay down here for a few days while you recover.”
“How the hell…” I said. There’s no way. This looked like the fucking apocalypse and somehow we managed to completely avoid it?
“I can’t promise it’s a permanent solution, so we’re keeping an eye on everything. We have your camera array set up down here so you can monitor and report as needed.”
I still couldn’t believe it. There’s no way this could have been done with so quickly. That’s when the ground started to shake.
“What the fuck is that?” The agent shouted, looking towards the door.
The ham radio crackled.
“Be alert. One of the strays is still after the Cognizant. They are fixed above your bunker.”
Jesus. The goddamn things are still trying to hunt us down even though they’ve been closed off from the rest. The ground shook again and I heard a loud crash from behind the steel door that leads to the elevator.
“Fuck. That’s bad,” the agent said. He pulled up a camera on the TV. The satellite feed zoomed down on our location, showing a blaze beginning where the convenience store used to be. Now there was rubble.
I knew he couldn’t see it, but I could. One of the Aberrations was above us, thrashing around at the store. It had found where the elevator shaft was and was battering it, trying to dig deeper. The noise we heard was the elevator car dropping the mile downward.
So, now it’s a day later and I’m writing
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Introduction
Fear of the unknown… a fear that almost all humans feel, an outcome that is uncertain. The fear of darkness is something that is mysterious, something we experience every single night. Each and every person has their own nightmares they encounter throughout their life. But what exactly are they and what do they look like? Why can’t we recognize some people in our dreams? When we see an entity with a blurry face in our dream, is it someone we’ve never met?
In this story, you are about to read how a detective named Richard Laycox, often mentioned as Rick, will come face to face with the said problem, following an eerie night that will change his life forever…
Being a detective means sacrificing a lot in life, the biggest problem being balancing a family life alongside it. There are big chances the detective’s family might get hurt, and that’s why sometimes detectives decide to abstain from having one, and so they live their life alone… The following story tells what kind of consequences Rick will face as well as find the one and only reason to have a family.
Rick begins his career working as an ordinary police officer. After being on the job for a while, he is assigned to one of the hardest cases he has ever seen. Rick’s job is to investigate and study the case of the master executioner in the “Sleepwalkers” mafia, one of the most notorious groups of criminals around. At the age of thirty-one, he arrests the executioner, Mitch, and puts him behind bars. Mitch is sentenced to life imprisonment for all the heinous crimes he has committed, and shortly after solving the case, Rick is promoted to a detective for his stellar work, now known as one of the best detectives in Blackbert City.
What is he ready to do to solve the problems that await him?
Prologue
Fateful Night
It all begins with a single 911 call. Someone reports a gunshot heard next door. The police hastily make their way to the specified location. Detective Richard arrives at the crime scene, sent to investigate the case. He enters the room and sees a man lying down on a table. As he explores more of the scene, he finds out that there are no neighbors in the building. Therefore, the emergency call becomes immediately suspicious.
Rick’s eye is caught by a tape recorder next to the dead body. He turns it on and hears a male voice saying “I can’t take this anymore” followed by the echoing sound of a gunshot. He goes to the other policemen and asks if anyone has touched the tape recorder. Everyone denies. Rick remembers that he had only pressed the ‘play’ button to listen to the tape recorder and not the “rewind” one. He straightforwardly knows that the tape is a decoy for murder set up as a suicide by a very skilled killer.
Rick leaves the building and encounters the chief officer at Blackbert City Police Department, Jerylin, an African-American woman. She tells Rick that it’s Christmas and that he should go home to spend more time with his family and get some rest as he has already made too much effort for the day.
Located in the suburbs of Blackbert, lives the Laycox family. On the beautiful Christmas Eve, Rick, along with his wife Ashley and their six-year-old daughter, Amygail, celebrate Christmas time together. While celebrating, enjoying Christmas dishes and talking to each other, on the TV screen is a live broadcast on the “Sleepwalkers” mafia, showing one of the local markets in Blackbert being sabotaged. After a moment the faces of the main members of the mafia, Martin Di Fatta, Mitch Caulton, and Zander Maddison (founded by Martin; the name being made up regarding the fact that he never sleeps, hence a “Sleepwalker”) are shown, too. The criminals are seen moving towards the TV reporter and the cameraman and obliterating them. Rick is terrified of the situation because he recognizes explicitly one of their faces, the master executioner, Mitch. He is shocked to see him out of prison.
Amygail asks her father what’s going on, but he tells her not to worry and that everything is fine. A few moments later, Amygail goes to her room, then comes back playing with the music box that Rick had bought her when they were at a carnival.
After some time, Rick can no longer control himself because of what he had just seen on the broadcast, so he fumes at his daughter, explaining that that is no toy, but a music box. He grabs it and goes to her room, intending to put it away. But as he goes up the stairs, his nose catches a bizarre, yet familiar smell. Approaching his daughter’s room, he feels the scent getting sharper. Having reached the door, he sees smoke trails underneath it. He puts his hand on the doorknob, but at the first touch, he is forced to pull back his hand… For some reason the doorknob is heated up. Quickly he gives it another shot, twists it and what he sees is terrifies him: smoke, flames and a wave of heat meet his face.
Rick calls for his wife, asking her to immediately call 911 as he goes inside and tries various ways of extinguishing the fire, but it is uncontrollable. In his rush to think of ways to gain control over it, he drops his daughter’s music box on the floor. Met with no success, he decides to rush out of the room and downstairs to inform his family that there is a fire. They report it to the authorities and ask them to send help, but the telephone line is interrupted. Rick tries to find a way to get his family out of the house but fails. The flames grow and spread rapidly, and within seconds, cover most of the upstairs floor. As Rick gets lost in thinking of how to approach the situation and is filled with adrenaline, a part of the house collapses and lands right in front of him.
Separated from his wife and daughter by the burning debris, Rick yells at them to stay calm and that he will find a way to get them out. As he twists and turns in panic, figuring out what to do, one of the building’s support beams collapses under the heat, hits him in the head and knocks him down, unconscious. Once Rick awakes everything is blurry in front of him. Laying down on the floor, he suddenly feels a hand grab his arm, belonging to one of the firefighters, who rescues him as the rest of the rescue forces make their way into the house. Together they pick Rick up, but as they drag him out of the smoldering remains of his living room and into safety, Rick sees his wife and daughter still locked inside, knocking on a window for help. Unable to do or say anything apart from some mumbling, they close him up in the back of the ambulance, sirens blaring while making their way to the nearest hospital.
Act 1
The Worst Nightmare
After the event, Rick wakes up in the local hospital and tries to remember the past events. In the room he is situated, he sees a nurse and his sister, Rachel. He immediately asks his sister where his wife and daughter are, but she does not reply. He asks her the same question once again, this time in a much more anxious tone, but as she is about to answer, they get interrupted by his partner Aleksei entering the room.
He is happy to see that Rick is awake since he had been in a coma for several days. Once more, Rick poses the same question, but this time directed at his partner, Aleksei, asking where his wife and daughter are. Aleksei tells Rick that he needs to rest and he will be informed about the situation once his mind is cleared, afterward suggesting that everyone leaves and gives Rick some time alone.
As he makes his exit, Aleksei turns on the TV so that Rick is not bored. The tv is set to show the local news channel, and displays a statement at the bottom: “The house of detective Richard Laycox set on fire!”. The news reports that he is housed in a local hospital, but his daughter and his wife were found too late and passed away in the fire. Rick does not believe what he hears and starts to panic. He tries to get up but is unable to do so. As he pushes his upper body forward, he realizes he is restrained to the bed. The nurse, Rachel, and Aleksei enter the room and try to calm him down, but to no avail. Rick starts screaming and having fits of panic, followed by an attempt at throwing himself out of bed with his full body force. The nurse quickly reaches for an injection to put him back to sleep.
Entering the dream world, Rick finds himself with Ashley and Amygail in a local park. He sits next to his wife on a bench while Amygail is on the swing. While they are talking, they hear a mighty squealing coming from the direction of the swing as their daughter cries out: “Dad! Daddy! Dad! “. As he is about to get up from the bench to see what is happening, he wakes up and sees a black silhouette of his daughter repeating: “Dad!, Daddy!, Dad!,” but the silhouette vanishes the moment a bolt of lightning hits the ground. He notices the restraints are no longer there, gets out of his bed and sees that the room he is situated in now looks much more different. Something seems strange to him, for as Rick gets up, he becomes aware that he is not in his hospital clothes, but outfitted in his work attire. He yells for his sister Rachel and is met with nothing but silence.
Darkness, cold, and emptiness are what Rick sees and feels. He leaves his room cautiously and once more calls out if anyone is there, yet again met with nothing but his own voice echoing down the halls of the hospital. After having left his room to investigate what is going on, his daughter’s silhouette appears again, which Rick tries to follow along the way. He walks around to looks for any sign of life, but the building looks twisted, black and there’s blood everywhere.
It looks like there had been a massacre, but not a single body lies on the floor. Rick is in shock and does not know what’s going on. As he slowly walks through the halls, he hears a loud shatter from a door nearby. In fear, he opens the door and sees a shadow of a man being killed and blood is shed only on the shadow. As he turns around to check his surroundings, he sees a doctor who works at the hospital running in panic and throwing objects around. Rick goes over to him, sees the doctor’s blood and asks him what is going on there, why he is injured. The doctor tells him that the shadows had attacked him and are chasing him down. As he finishes his sentence, a specter with no defined appearance enters the doctor’s mouth, and he then starts to scream with pain.
Rick watches the doctor’s skin become dark and quickly makes his way into the room he had just entered to hide behind the table. The doctor’s skin becomes even darker, and it begins to look like he’s being overtaken and transformed. All around the doctor’s body grow small shadowy tentacles, as he can no longer control himself. His face becomes blurry, and his hands a bit longer than usual. The movement of this creature does not seem human-like, and fumes with hostile intent. As Rick is crouched behind the table, he cannot believe his eyes and what had just happened. Before he could come to his senses, he sees the entity turn its head towards him. Having noticed Rick hiding behind the table, it charges towards him.
Fortunately, in his work uniform, Rick has his tools on him, and as he reaches for a knife from the belt, he decides it’s ‘kill or be killed.’ As he stabs the haunted creature multiple times, it shatters in a million pieces and vanishes into thin air.
Rick is totally shocked by what unfolds before his eyes and decided it is time to get the hell out of the hospital. While exiting the room and silently making his way through the building, he encounters more of these haunted creatures. Rick sees an elevator and decides to make a run for it. In his rush, he presses every button in there, and the elevator takes him three floors below. The doors open and as he exits and walks down the corridor, he sees the black silhouette of his daughter appear once more, signing that he should follow it.
Suddenly it comes to a stop and vanishes before his eyes. Rick turns his head around to see where it has taken him and notices that on his right there are huge windows, covered by torn up white curtains, swaying up and down, as if they are being blown by the wind, but he feels not a single gust of air. On one of the windows, his wife appears in a half-form of a silhouette, with burns on her body. He sees her head twisting at a very high speed and knows that he’s experiencing the worst nightmare he’s ever had. He tries to approach the window, but as he gets closer, she vanishes. He looks behind and spots a similar black creature to the one he had previously encountered, but this time its magnitude is much higher. Around him, he notices something similar to a fire, but it’s made out of a black shadow, and a lot of dark and twisted hands start engulfing his body.
Suddenly the whole building begins to shake. As Rick turns to looks back at the elevator for a way out, he notices that it had disappeared and is now just one extended hallway engulfed by shadowy flames. He decides to run in the opposite direction from the massive creature behind him, as it tries to grab him with its long, dark, twisted hands, but he dodges out of the way.
As everything around him falls to the ground and starts to break, Rick sees a single window at the end of the corridor and jumps through it. While he falls, he sees the creature looking down at him from the window as it has missed its opportunity. He turns his gaze back to the ground, but there is no bottom. Everything turns to light. Suddenly, Rick wakes up and realizes that it had just been a dream.
Act 2
Insanity or Reality?
After Rick wakes up, he realizes that it had just been a dream, but it’s not clear to him how it felt so… real, as if he were in the existing world. He turns his head and sees his sister Rachel, and asks her how long he was sleeping. She tells him that he had only been asleep for a few minutes and that they had to give him an injection that would put him to sleep in the first place, so he could calm down. She tells him that his daughter and wife were found dead in the house and Rick begins to cry. Unable to believe the terrible news, he starts to blame himself.
While talking, the television news broadcast reports something very odd. On the same night when the detective’s house was burnt down, the deadliest mafia member Mitch has been found dead nearby. The news reporter declares that he had died of an overdose. Rick starts to boggle his mind about what might have happened that night, but his sister breaks his train of thought by suggesting that they go to the graveyard together, to the place where his daughter and wife are buried. After reaching the cemetery as they walk towards the graves, Rachel tells him in details what had happened that night. Rick again blames himself for the situation, but his sister tries to convince him that it had just been an accident. Rick doubts it.
When they finally arrive at the graves, Rick still has a hard time believing what is happening and starts to break down. He begins to recall all the joyous moments he had had with his wife and daughter as tears start pouring down his cheek. His sister tries to calm him and tells him that he will be fine and that he should stay at her place because he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
While she speaks to him, Rick falls deeply into thought. As Rick stares at one of the other nearby graves, where his colleague Brian is buried, he sees himself in the grave through the shadow of the funeral plaque, and it’s as if a black figure passes. His spiral of emotions and thoughts gets interrupted when Rachel touches his shoulder and asks if he has heard what she was telling him, Rick returns from his thoughts and confirms. After they leave the cemetery, Rick and Rachel get into her car. While she drives, Rachel tells Rick that he can make himself at home at her place, that he’s her brother after all, but in the middle of her sentence, Rick begins to lose consciousness. As he does, his sister turns to him and cries out his name, but to Rick, she doesn’t appear the same as before. Rachel looks just like the creatures from his dream, completely dark and shadowy.
Rick is afraid, and his sister again notices that he has slipped away from reality. She asks whether he is listening to her. Rick starts to explain what he dreamed of and that the same thing is happening right then and there. Rachel is tired and thinks that what Rick sees is only a coping mechanism because he has experienced a tragic event and tells him that she will bring him to one of the best psychiatrists, Carl. Rachel tells him that Carl will take care of him.
As soon as they arrive, Rachel introduces Rick to Carl, and from then on, she leaves them alone. Rick explains to Carl that what he sees seems realistic and that this place he dreams of is dark, cold, and empty. Carl puts the metronome on the table and tells him to breathe along with the ticks he hears. Carl explains to Rick that it had just been a dream and that the unusual things he saw are a consequence of the tragic event he experienced. As the metronome begins to tick, Rick starts drifting off, and the psychiatrist suddenly disappears as he is speaking.
Rick enters that other world again. He does not understand what is happening and goes out of the psychiatrist’s office. As he opens the door of the clinic to explore the surroundings, he sees that it leads to a forest. Rick explores the woods and finds more of those same haunted creatures. This time, he has his gun with him, and there’s a flashlight attached underneath it. Barely able to wield the weapon, his hands shake from all the things he had been going through of late. As he manages to get a hold of himself, he aims the barrel of the gun, flashlight underneath it, at a figure closing in on him. The figure stops in his tracks and suddenly lets out an eerie shriek, though Rick hasn’t fired a single bullet yet. His mind pieces it together, and he figures that everything has a weakness, and for a world covered in darkness, the weakness could only be its complete antipode – light.
Rick notices the other figures were attracted by the loud shriek. He shoots at them and disables them successfully, though, to his shock, temporarily. The areas of their shadowy figures which Rick managed to hit, tear up and fade away, but as they fall to the ground afterward, their parts are regenerated, and they reanimate. Rick figures that for now, he may have found a weakness but not one that is able to end them. Rick makes a run for it while the figures are in the process of their regeneration, realizing he only has so many bullets in the clip and it’s pointless to waste them all on a futile task.
After some exploration of the forest, Rick finds a cabin and enters it with caution. Inside, after making sure the area is clear, he finds a piece of paper in the kitchen drawer with a message: “Silver is their biggest weakness.”. Next to the sheet, there is a box of hollow point silver ammunition. As he stares at the box, his mind recalls what happened in the hospital when he stabbed such a haunted creature with his knife, and it shattered into thousands of particles. He figures that the knife he has must be made of silver and is given to him by his father who had once been a policeman, just like him.
When Rick leaves the cabin, after a short time he encounters a wolf, but something seems odd about it. It is not black, like the other shadowy creatures, so he figures he is looking at another living being. Suddenly the wolf notices Rick’s existence, turns its head towards him and starts to growl. As it hovers toward him, its fur starts transforming. It appears false hope had struck Rick. The creature slowly turns black, just like everything else in this forsaken place.
Rick fires his gun, loaded with the silver ammunition he had just picked up. At the point of impact where the bullet connects, a visible black wound appears, looking as if the wolf’s skin is burnt, accompanied by a loud howl from the creature. It charges towards Rick, teeth showing and charging at full speed. After shooting several more bullets, the wolf shatters into many parts.
Following some exploration of the forest, Rick encounters some more haunted creatures, mainly wolves, although, along the way, he also notices silver bear traps which at first scare him. But Rick starts to lose that feeling, coming to terms with the fact that whatever this place is, everything he encounters will likely result in a ‘kill or be killed’ scenario.
On his way, a haunted man appears who speaks in a distorted voice and says to Rick that he should never have come here. Rick is ready to shoot anything he encounters at will, but before drawing his firearm, he notices something off about this man. He wields a hunting rifle strapped to his back, his leg has a visible wound, and on his body, there’s a bloody bear paw as if he’s carrying a trophy from his hunt. Up until now, all the haunted creatures that had attacked him had no weapons or showed any signs of communication. The haunted man stumbles towards Rick and suddenly comes to a stop right in front of him.
After Rick fights down that haunted man, and as he shatters, a light appears, and Rick wakes up in the psychiatrist’s office. He notices that both Rachel and Carl are sitting near him, both of their eyes glued to him, patiently waiting to hear what had just happened. Rick, covered in sweat and still not done panting, tells Carl that he’d seen the same world again, but this time he was in the woods nearby. Rick tells Carl that this time he had not only seen those haunted human-like creatures, but he’d also seen a variety of animals that displayed the same hostile behavior as everything else he had encountered. After explaining what exactly had happened along the way, he tells Carl that near the end, he saw something that looked like the shadowy figures, but appeared to be a hunter. Carl replies with confusion and says that what Rick is experiencing is just a nightmare, that such things are impossible.
Act 3
Paralyzed
After the event in the psychiatrist’s office, Rick decides to go to the police station to find out more about Mitch’s death. Having arrived there, Rick goes to his own office where he encounters his partner, Aleksei. He tells him about what he’d experienced so far, and Aleksei displays concern about Rick’s wellbeing. Meanwhile, Rick asks him if he has any information about Mitch’s death, to which he replies that according to the autopsy it has been confirmed that he died of a drug overdose. Aleksei tells Rick that the symbol Mitch carried on his hand had a strange form and that his body is in the morgue. Rick says he’ll check it out and let him know.
Paying a quick visit to the office armory, Rick picks up a shotgun as reinforcement, after which he leaves the police station to go to the morgue where Mitch’s body is being held. Rick’s exceptional skills, acquired over the span of his career, have a significant role during the investigation of this case. At the end of the research, Rick wants to check Mitch’s hand.
On his hand is the symbol of the mafia. Inside a circular shape – half sun, half-moon, there is a tree, whose half on the side of the sun is blooming, and the other half is withering. As the tree moves downward and enters the moon, it starts to look more and more sere. Around the circle, there are seven runes, each representing one of the seven deadly sins. Every member of the “Sleepwalkers” mafia has the symbol tattooed on the outer part of their palm or on their wrist and thus give the oath of loyalty.
What’s odd about this particular case of the symbol on Mitch’s body is that it looks like it’s been burned into his skin, not tattooed beneath it. Rick touches the emblem, and suddenly the world around him changes. As he is being transferred to the outer world, the drawers of refrigerators, in which the other dead bodies from the morgue are stored, begin to open and close rapidly.
Rick enters this outer world once more. He leaves the morgue, and as the door opens, a great light suddenly appears, but when Rick gets a clear vision, he is baffled. He finds he has ended up in the courtyard of the hospital for people with mental illnesses, known as Mirror Lake. As Rick enters the hospital to investigate his surroundings, he once more encounters many haunted creatures, but this time they are outfitted in white doctor’s uniforms. After Rick defeats them, he investigates the hospital and finds material that contains information about Mitch. In that documentation, he reads about the history of Mitch’s life.
“At the age of 17, in Blue Land, Mitch killed his parents while they were asleep. After doing so, he called the police to turn himself in for murder. He was immediately arrested. Because he had always said that he had done this because of the nightmares, he was sent to Mirror Lake Mental Asylum. While being housed there, he’s killed every single person in the facility, but it is said that there had been someone who collaborated with Mitch. There is currently no trace of that person.”
After Rick reads the information, he hears an object moving and instinctively pulls the gun to check it out. Rick notices that something moves at a tremendous speed, but he cannot see it, because it’s faster than the blink of an eye. As that “something” stops near him, out of nowhere, Mitch appears, who grabs Rick’s gun-wielding hand and paralyzes him. Rick is unable to believe what he’s witnessing. He feels his whole body get paralyzed and is left unable to act. Mitch, just like every other being in this world is completely dark, but unlike theirs, his face has a human-like form. Only around the eyes, there are black stains, one of his eyes being yellow, while the other brown.
Rick and Mitch are former greatest rivals. Mitch is the executioner of the “Sleepwalkers” mafia, and Rick was the one to put Mitch behind bars, thereby earning his promotion to detective. Mitch tells Rick that the call he received for the suicide case was actually him committing the murder. The call was just something to draw Rick’s attention, while Mitch prepared himself to set his house on fire as a sign of revenge. He tells Rick that he enjoyed the “show,” as he watched his wife and daughter burn and scream to death. His goal is, as much as he can, to provoke Rick because he knows where his greatest pain lies.
Shortly after, Mitch throws Rick’s gun on the ground, pulls out his black knife and tells him that the same fate as his family awaits him. To mock Rick, he releases him from paralysis, unknowing of Rick’s concealed weapon. He quickly and efficiently pulls out his silver knife and parries Mitch’s black one before it could pierce his body. As they collide, the blade of Mitch’s knife shatters, and he quickly teleports to another location, warning Rick to watch his back.
After the confrontation between them, Rick encounters problems that need to be solved to reach him. Soon, having settled this multitude of problems, Rick reaches Mitch. It’s still not clear to him whether he’s dead, so Mitch denies it. Following their short conversation, they both face one another to finally settle their rivalry once and for all. Once Mitch is eliminated, he evaporates in particles, the light reappears, and Rick returns to the real world.
Act 4
Beyond Good and Evil
Rick returns to the police station. He tries to find Aleksei to tell him about what he had seen. He fails in doing so, for Aleksei had already gone home. While Rick is in the police station, it’s time to find out more information about the “Sleepwalkers” mafia. He enters Aleksei’s office and tries to find some clues because he knows that he had been there at the crime scene when Mitch was found dead. Searching through the office, Rick comes across many documents among which there is one with details about Mitch. As he returns them, his eye catches a record that he doesn’t know about. It contains information Aleksei has gathered about a laboratory located in Novgorod. The record contains information from the moment he learns about such a laboratory until the moment he was thrown out of the case, even though he had never really given up. Even though Aleksei was already kicked out of his native country, it was his goal to resolve the mystery that was behind this particular case.
As Rick reads what his partner had written down, he moves on to the pictures. Suddenly one of the photos of the laboratory shifts into a shadow and Rick returns to the same dark world. This time he is in the police station, which is completely destroyed but replicated from the real world.
Rick goes through the police station, but as he walks, he enters some tunnels. Rick passes through the tunnels and suddenly finds himself in the same place he saw in the photos, that is the laboratory Aleksei has researched. As Rick investigates through it and uncovers the mysteries hidden in the lab, one of the documents reads that the laboratory was used for experiments on people who wanted to link several bodies in one, to make a living mutation. While Rick is reading all of this, a spider-shaped creature moves on the wall, much larger than any he has met before.
Three human bodies connected as one; the central body part, having two heads, one on the front, one on the back. On each side of its body, there are three hands. Above the thorax, there is a carrier body in an undefined form, that resembles a sphere in which the other two bodies are connected. In the middle of that spherical form is the third head, which is the central core of the creature and looks humanoid.
Rick barely manages to defeat the creature. After he has beaten the beast, Rick goes deeper into the laboratory and hears shooting. From the location where the shots are coming, he sees a man running. That man is Aleksei. Rick is confused because he had not seen many real human faces in that world until now; the only one he had met so far had been the doctor in the hospital he watched transform into a dark being. He tries to explain to Aleksei about what he’d learned from the laboratory, to which Aleksei replies that he already knows. Rick and Aleksei together as a team move through the laboratory and face the haunted creatures of that world.
As they go deeper into the laboratory, suddenly, the same black creature that Rick saw in the hospital appears. The same large form, a black flame around him, black hands protecting his body. Rick does not run this time. Having gained knowledge about this world’s beings from his previous encounters, he is confident, having a weapon with ammunition that has been proved to kill such atrocities. But after hitting multiple shots, he sees that nothing happens to the dark creature. It does not die like the other ones, and Rick is confused. The big creature summons an undefined specter figure and vanishes. The specter moves at a tremendous speed, leaping straight into Aleksei’s mouth. Rick sees a repeat of what he saw in the hospital.
Aleksei suddenly starts to tremble and transform all over from the specter’s influence and the dark world, turning into one of those haunted creatures. He loses all sense, becomes aggressive towards Rick and attacks him. Rick is reluctant to defend himself, he tries to calm Aleksei down and does not want to retaliate because he knows who is hiding behind the dark specter. Rick gets put into a corner with nowhere else to go, he has no choice but to defend himself with his knife. He cuts up Aleksei’s transformed body, which in turn makes the specter more and more aggressive. Given no other choice, Rick eventually decides to eliminate it. As Rick ends the being, the undefined apparition dies and with it, so does the body that had been overtaken. Aleksei passes in the real world as well.
Act 5
Hidden in Plain Sight
After Aleksei dies, his funeral the next day is attended by his family and Rick. During the ceremony, Rick is worried about what might have happened and how Aleksei could have died in his sleep, with a bullet passed through him. While Rick is lost in thought, he starts to hear whispers, turning into voices, and suddenly the world begins to shift and once more he is in that cruel, dark world. He gets up and goes to the place where Aleksei’s body is covered, but the body is gone, and Rick is confused. While he stares in confusion, behind him appears the silhouette of his daughter, which tells Rick to follow her. Rick does as he is told, but from time to time he sees a vision of his wife, the same one he saw at the hospital. Over time, he gets a flashback from the fire in his house and his family burning.
Rick faces his biggest nightmare because he’d just lost his partner, Aleksei, and his family, but som
|
My husband is dying. Despite his good prognosis after the accident, he gets weaker every day. When he became unable to even say my name, I got desperate.
I posted details of his condition on every forum I could find. Medical, accident survivors… I even posted it on a sketchy “deep web” forum called Help Yourself. That’s where I got the PM from Chris████.
I can help you. I’ll send instructions tomorrow morning. -C
The next morning, I didn’t get a PM. Instead, I got a letter. A real, paper envelope, tucked into my empty mailbox. After getting over the initial terror – he somehow knows where I live – I greedily opened it and read the note inside.
Dear Blair,
Here are the instructions. Be sure to follow them exactly, or they might find you. Then we’ll have a real problem on our hands. -C
Drive to the Costco in █████. Bring a photograph of your husband and something that is likely to have his DNA on it (like a toothbrush.)
Go to the refrigerated produce room in the back. You will see a red-haired woman standing there, pretending to sort through the lettuce. She will be wearing a red vest and a Costco badge – but don’t be fooled. She is not an employee.
Go up to her and ask: “Do you have organic blueberries? My son’s allergic to the other kind.”
As long as the produce section is empty, she will smile and lead you over to the blueberries. As she picks up a box and hands it to you, she will purposefully drop it. “Oh no!” She’ll pretend it’s an accident. Play along.
Such a mess. Blueberries all over the floor. She’ll say: “I’ll stand out there and make sure no one comes in while we wait for the janitor.”
No janitor is coming, of course.
She will stand guard outside the produce room. Go to the right wall, where the crate of mushrooms is. Push it back towards the wall – it will roll into a small alcove. Beneath it, you will see a rectangular hole cut into the floor, and a ladder leading down.
Climb down.
My eyes flicked to the bottom, where he had scrawled in red marker: WARNING! READ BEFORE PROCEEDING!
Don’t just make a beeline for the produce section. They’ll know what you’re doing. Get a cart, fill it with some junk. You should blend in with the other shoppers as much as possible. For that same reason, don’t wear bright colors or heavy makeup.
If a short woman with an infant strapped to her chest asks you for help, kindly refuse. She is one of them. If you look closely, you will notice that the infant pressed face-first into her chest is a doll.
Don’t talk to the man at the front of the store advertising flooring. (He’s not one of them; he’s just rude.)
Don’t buy any food from the café.
I folded up the paper and jammed it into my pocket. I then rushed into the house, grabbed the items he requested, and jumped in my car. With a squeal of tires on the pavement, I was off.
***
It had been nearly a decade since I last set foot in a Costco. Everything looked different. Bigger. Emptier. The shelves stretched up to the ceiling far above; a seasonal section of glittering Christmas trees and dancing Santas sat far below.
I rolled my cart into one of the first aisles. Napkins and disposable dining ware stared back at me. I grabbed a huge stack of paper plates and dropped it into my cart. Thraaang – the metal rattled.
When I got to the end of the aisle, I turned left.
“Excuse me?”
I turned around. A pretty blonde woman stood behind me.
“Yeah?”
She flashed me a sweet smile. “I don’t want to bother you, but can you help me get that?” She pointed to a jug of maple syrup on a high shelf. “I can’t reach it… and you’re so tall.”
I stared at her, my heart beginning to pound. My eyes flicked down. A motionless infant was strapped to her chest.
“No, I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry.”
“But –”
I quickened my pace. The cart rolled across the floor with newfound speed. I didn’t slow until I’d rounded the corner. Then I grabbed a few more decoy items – some corn muffins from the bakery, a bag of clementines – and arrived at the produce room.
When I entered, there she was. The red-haired woman, sorting through the lettuce. I cleared my throat. “Uh… do you have organic blueberries? My son’s… uh… he can’t eat them. I mean – he’s allergic to the other kind.”
Fuck.
She gave me a smile and walked over to the blueberries. “They’re right over here.” She picked up one of the boxes.
Splat.
I watched her walk out. When she was firmly stationed at the entrance, I ran over to the crate of mushrooms and gave it a push. It rolled easily under my hands. With a final glance at the red-haired woman, I descended into the pit.
The metal rungs were cold under my hands. They felt rough, as if covered in rust. The square of light above me shrunk, until it was little more than a twinkling star in a black sky.
Smack. My feet hit the hard floor.
Drip, drip, drip. The sound of water came from somewhere in the darkness, along with a soft rustling sound. I pulled my phone out and turned on the flashlight. Before me was a tunnel, roughly hewn out of stone – like some strange hybrid between a basement and a cave.
I walked forward. The floor was uneven, so I had to concentrate to keep my footing. The damp walls glistened in the white light. After a few minutes, I found a wooden door set into the stone. I pulled it open, revealing a dark, cavernous room. The smooth walls and rectangular shape looked like that of a traditional basement – but it had a rotten, swamp-like stench to it. In the center was a table. One leg was bent and broken.
There was a sheet of paper in the middle.
Leave the items here. We’ll take care of the rest. -C
I pulled the toothbrush and photo out of my pocket and placed them on the table. I looked around the room – but as far as I could tell, it was empty. The closest thing to a person was a heap of clothes in the back corner. My heart filled with doubt, but I tried to focus on Dan and the happy life we deserved as I exited the basement.
***
Dan came home from the hospital two days later. That first night home, we sat on the couch in front of the TV, eating ice cream – like nothing had happened. “Guess I’m living on borrowed time,” Dan said, through a mouthful of cookies and cream. “Better make it count.”
“By eating tons of ice cream?”
“By leading a good life.”
“Oh.”
He smiled at me. I reached out for his hand, squeezed it, and smiled back – but our smiles quickly faded when the news came on.
The newscaster was standing outside of the Costco. Dozens of police cars were parked around it, their red and blue lights cutting through the night. “Tonight, police found evidence of violent cult activity at the █████ Costco,” she began.
I jabbed nervously at my ice cream.
“Human remains, belonging to dozens of individuals, were found in the basement. They ranged from a few days to a few years old. Police believe some match the missing locals, but we’re waiting on forensics to answer. The most recent one, however, has already been identified – it belongs to 24-year-old Carlie Bessinger.”
A photograph flashed up on the screen. Blonde hair, blue eyes, a warm smile.
It was her. The blonde woman who asked me to reach something on the shelf.
“Security footage shows her walking around the store two days ago, alive and well. Until she entered the produce section…”
The reporter’s voice faded. I wasn’t listening anymore.
Chris lied. There was no them. No woman with a doll strapped to her chest, waiting to pounce on me. No evil entity watching, thinking, plotting. He just didn’t want me talking to a witness. A victim. A sacrifice.
I looked over at Dan. He watched, oblivious, a generic look of concern spread over his features. I looked down at the floor, unable to watch anymore.
Dan’s not living on borrowed time…
…he’s living on stolen time.
|
Once upon a time in a land far, far away there was a story that became well known in all the kingdoms of men. It started as a whisper in the back of ale-houses and progressed to the point of street-corner news barkers. No one knew if the story was true, but it slowly captured the imaginations of the common folk and royalty alike as it swept across the land through word of mouth and traveling caravans. Sometimes the smaller details would change but the heart of the story always remained true.
The account told of a princess of unparalleled beauty, Arachne, who was being held captive in a hidden castle by a monstrous creature whose identity ranged from a fire-breathing dragon with golden scales to a massive, green troll who cannibalized any who would come to save her. The only way she could be found was by listening for her melodic voice as she spent day and night singing a beautiful song while she waited in the highest tower for someone to rescue her. It concludes that only bravest knight, prince or warrior would stand a chance against the monster but if one were able to slay the creature and free Arachne, they would be blessed with not only her hand in marriage but also with the mountain of treasure the castle’s dungeons.
Stories like these weren’t uncommon; they were known as “Fairy Tales” and were generally dismissed as children’s entertainment, but not Arachne’s. For reasons unknown, hers took on a life of its own to the point where actual suitors began to gather and search for the elusive castle. Prince Pleasant became one such searcher after the boring political duties of a royal court became too much for him. Young and strong and with no desire for governing, the prince wanted some excitement; an adventure. Plus, slaying a dragon and rescuing a beautiful damsel in distress wouldn’t look too bad on his resume.
Pleasant searched for many months, to no avail, for any information that would help the quest and had just about decided to give up when, at a tavern practically in the middle of nowhere, he met the nomad. Happenstance put them across from each other at the same table and, much as it always did, the subject of Princess Arachne came up. Instead of the one of usual variations Pleasant usually heard, the nomad had very unique and very specific version of the story. His was a first-hand account rather than a regurgitation of what Pleasant had heard a million times before.
He told of a kingdom of mist, some distance away, with a castle that could barely be seen; probably wouldn’t have been seen had he and his group not heard the beautiful tones listing through the mist. It was a hypnotic melody that brought images of the sirens calling sailors to their dooms and in some regards had very much the same effect as three men from his group could not help themselves but to push through the mist and investigate. The nomad, preferring the company of men, was able to resist the temptation, although he admitted to feeling the pull as well.
The traveler waited for a day but his companions never returned and he made a hasty exit from the land of mist; the song still lingered in his head. My heart…my heart…true love for my heart…our ways will not part…new lives we will start. The words were fairly innocuous as he described them but there was something about the tones that got stuck inside his mind and refused to leave like an ailment he had been unable to cure. That, and the fact that he had never seen his friends again.
His story held everything accounted for in the fairy-tale and so, so much more. It was the many details that convinced the prince of its authenticity and, for a fair amount of coin, the nomad made a map for Pleasant to follow. It came with, at no added price, a dire warning. Despite the lovely song and the innocent seeming nature of the mist, there was something just…wrong about the place. “I felt an evil presence in my soul,” were the man’s exact words.
Warnings like these usually accompanied such quests and Pleasant wasn’t about to be dissuaded by the old-wives ramblings of a scared old fool. The pure exhilaration and excitement of finally having a legitimate destination for his quest carried through the next three weeks of rugged travel that traversed a number of landscapes from dells to forests to the swamps. When he finally reached his destination, the prince’s initial reaction was one of anger. The nomad had lied to him.
There was no castle…no mist or fog…no song; just an empty field and the fading sunlight. Tired from the journey and depressed at its finale, Pleasant decided to make camp for the night. He didn’t know where to go from there anyway; home maybe? It was all so anti-climactic the young nobleman needed an evening before a fire to nurse his wounded pride and temper his wild expectations for what his life should be. It was a troubled sleep, full of self-doubt and deprecation, as one might expect.
He was awakened by song just before dawn as the smallest sliver of sunlight began peering over the horizon to greet the new day. It was a divine melody; sweet and gently carried by the wind directly to him, as if an angel were lying at his side whispering heavenly promises into his ear. “My heart…my heart…true love for my heart.” Pleasant shot upright, instantly awake and aware; the princess! It had to be Princess Arachne.
There was very little light yet, but what small amount there was did nothing to reveal his surroundings as he was lost in a thick haze of fog, unable to see his hands in front of his face. The effect was disorientating; it made for a difficult time packing up his camp-site and even longer deliberating on whether or not to actually leave his horse and belongings behind and seek out the source of the song. In the end he did, of course, since that was why he was there after all.
Progress was slow at first as even the rising sun did little to clear the way. Pleasant didn’t remember seeing a body of water nearby but he figured that there must have been one somewhere close. That type of fog or mist didn’t just come from nowhere. He was unable to count on his eyes at all; all he had was the soft, lulling melody to lead him through the hazy unknown. The louder the song got, the more uneasy the prince began to feel. The unrelenting mist began to take on unusual physical qualities as well as he began to feel the mist brushing against his skin like soft silken strands.
The prince went on like this for some time, hands held out defensively, before finally seeing a large, hazy image looming before him: it was the castle. Pleasant had to place himself inches before the giant stone structure before he could make it out with any degree of clarity and when he placed his hands on the cool wall the singing stopped immediately. Instinctively, he pulled them away again but with a small degree of difficulty; the wall was sticky for some reason.
“Hello?” the prince called out, fearful he had lost his only trail of breadcrumbs and hoping it didn’t come out in his voice. “Is there anybody there?” It was deathly quiet for several long second before the angelic voice called back to him.
“Is there someone there…have you come to rescue me?” The prince’s heart skipped a beat. It was her; it had to be!
“Yes,” he was louder this time, with more authority. “I mean…well, are you Princess Arachne?”
“Please,” her voice seemed strained, “you need to come to the pipe.”
“The pipe?”
“Yes,” she insisted, “follow the wall in the direction of my voice until you find a pipe that sticks out. We can talk there.” Pleasant was confused but he had come too far to start questioning the circumstances now. If she needed for him to find a pipe; he would find the pipe. The idea sounded easier than it actually was. The building was enormous and the acoustics in the fog were…different, and after going a far distance he started wondering if perhaps he had started off in the wrong direction to begin with.
“Princess Arachne?” he called out; needing some sense of bearings.
“You’re close,” she called back, much louder this time, and he was close; the pipe was just ahead. Poking out a few inches at eye-level, the small pipe protruding from the smooth stone wall was an unusual appendage at best.
“I’m here.” The prince spoke into the pipe, assuming that was its purpose; the princess’s voice returned, as if she were standing right before him.
“Oh thank the gods…are you here to rescue me, good sir?”
“Yes,” Pleasant shook his head emphatically even though she couldn’t see him. “That is exactly why I’m here, Princess. I have traveled a long way for that exact purpose.” He could hear sobs coming through the pipe. Tears of joy? He could not imagine how frightened and tired the poor girl must have been; being held captive for so long. After all, it had been nearly a year since Pleasant first came across the captivating tale of her plight and he was certain it had come some distance before reaching him.
“Dear lady, please tell me how to enter and I come immediately to your aid. Also…” Not that he was worried, “if you have any information about the vile beast that’s imprisoned you, it might be…beneficial…for both our endeavors.” No reason to beat around the bush, he thought.
“Oh…” she sounded slightly different. “The beast…well, I don’t know. I’ve not seen the thing in a long time; I don’t even know if it’s still alive. I just can’t get out of this room.”
“That’s why I’m here; so do not worry.”
More sobbing and then, “If you do then I’m yours if you’ll have me; along with the treasure. I only worry that my beauty will not be enough for a man of your caliber.” It was an unusual remark but Pleasant never pretended to fully understand what went on in the mind of a lady. He was however, as was usually the case, quite suave when responding to them.
“With a name like Arachne I cannot imagine a beauty that would surpass you.” The princess laughed on the other end of the pipe.
“You are a sweet man. Do you know the story of my name?”
“Of course, Princess Arachne, that’s why I’m here…remember?” Another chuckle.
“Not my story…the story of my name: ‘Arachne’?” The prince remembered the name from childhood stories but couldn’t recall the details.
“I…can’t remember, Princess.”
“Come inside and I will tell it to you. There are no doors in the wall but if you walk backwards ten paces you will find a wooden hatch in the ground. That’s your way in. I’m in the very top floor; it’s quite large so any stairwell you find should lead to me. I’ll be able to hear and speak to you when you find one.” Then, with strained desperation, “please hurry.” Those last two words were all the incentive the prince needed and he set himself in motion; counting off the paces as he went.
The wooden hatch was exactly where she said it would be but something about it struck him odd. Not that the situation as a whole wasn’t odd. The dirt had been swept away from the area and the hatch was relatively clean. Not that there was anything particularly ominous about that but it just didn’t sit right. He wasn’t the only person to have come through that hatch in a long time. Perhaps the nomad’s traveling companions? He didn’t linger on the image for too long though; his dear Arachne had waited long enough to be rescued.
The wooden ladder led to a relatively clean, somewhat well-traveled tunnel which, surprisingly, was lit at periodic distances with burning torches. Who had lit these torches? What sort of caretaker did this place have? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answers. Perhaps there was a creature of some type still living within the walls, but what sort of monster keeps the torches and maintains the premises? Generally known for lurking in shadows while skulking their prey with occasional bone-crushing or fire-breathing involved, they’re not commonly imagined with feather-dusters in hand.
The tunnel was longer than he expected, nearly two-hundred paces and he passed nearly a dozen torches before reaching a set of wooden double-doors. They creaked with old-age but didn’t resist in the least leading into a massive hall adorned with elaborate tapestries and ornate hand-carved furniture. Pleasant wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but for some reason…this was not it. Rather than the dungeon-like facilities one might imagine a hostage being held in, it looked like something a duke or duchess, or even his own royal family, might live in. Even the massive fire-place that served as the center-piece of the room held a roaring fire.
The only indication that suggested that this was the home of no one, and it was a strong one, were the inordinate number of spiders running about with their webbing covering almost every surface. Combined with the elegant decorum, the effect was sufficiently unnerving. It wasn’t that he was afraid of spiders per se, but…well, nobody likes spiders.
Pleasant grabbed the closest torch from a wall hook and proceeded to bend and burn his way through the webs until he found what he was looking for at the end of a hallway on the far side of the room. There was an archway that led to a darkened circular staircase. Torch in hand, the prince headed up, his boots echoing before him, and after he had taken a couple he could hear the princess again.
“Is that you, my hero?” It sounded like she was right behind him, breathing over his neck. So odd were the acoustics that he couldn’t help but look behind him.
“Yes, my dear princess, it is I: Prince Pleasant of the Kingdom Farfrumer. I am on my way to your aide right now. I have just begun my ascent and I do not know how far up these stairs go, I’m afraid, but I will not dally.” The princess laughed again and it was a sound Pleasant knew he was already in love with. His was an ordained destiny and when they finished telling his tale it would decidedly end with, “happily, ever after”.
“I’m afraid you’ve a significant number to climb, but worry not, I will avail you with the tale I promised: the story of “Arachne”. I loved the Greek and Roman myths growing up; didn’t you?”
The prince smiled. “I enjoyed the heroes…the action: Hercules, Ulysses and the like.”
“Well isn’t that just perfectly a man answer?” They were already building a repoire and he hadn’t even seen her yet; theirs would be a love for the ages. “I rather enjoyed the maidens and goddesses and the stories of love and jealousy; but I guess you’d say that would be a typical woman’s point of view, wouldn’t you?”
“I would say no such thing, Princess.” She giggled again and then continued her story.
“The tale of Arachne wasn’t my favorite, especially, but I’ve never been able to get it out of my mind. There are several variations but, in my opinion, the Roman poet Ovid gave the account most accurately. As he told it, Arachne was a beautiful maiden, of completely human blood, who was unparalleled among her peers in her weaving skills. She wove beautiful tapestries showing amazing, life-like scenes from the tales of the gods.
She became so enamored with her own abilities that she began to brag…and brag…and brag. Arachne boasted of her abilities so much that she claimed no one, even the gods for goddesses, could do any better. The goddess Athena took offence at the prideful nature of the shepherd’s daughter and came to her in the form of an old lady; warning her ‘You can never compare to any of the gods. Plead for forgiveness and Athena might spare your soul.’
The foolish girl responded by saying, ‘Ha! I only speak the truth and if Athena thinks otherwise then let her come down and challenge me herself’. Athena removed her disguise and revealed herself appearing in shimmering glory, clad in a sparkling white chiton. The two began their weaving contest right away.” Pleasant’s breathing began to labor a bit and the princess seemed to notice.
“You can take a break if you need to, dear prince.”
“I’m fine. Please continue your story.” He didn’t want to come across as weak despite the fact that his legs were beginning to tire a bit.
“Very well, but if you need to rest I will think no less of you. So where were we…oh yes, the weavings. They both wove furiously and created master pictures of the gods. Athena’s represented four contests between mortals and the gods in which the gods punished mortals for setting themselves as equals of the gods, while Arachne’s weaving depicted ways that the gods had misled and abused mortals, particularly Zeus, tricking and seducing the many women he had been known to do.
When Athena saw the way Arachne had insulted the gods and with work far more beautiful than her own, she became enraged and ripped her tapestry to shreds. The goddess then struck the maiden several times and chastised her to the point of utter depression. Arachne, so devastated by the experience, tried to hang herself and end her life but Athena discovered this as well and placed a series of curses on her. The initial curse saw to it that the maiden would never again be able to take her own life, nor would anyone else be able to either. ‘Live on then, and yet hang, condemned one, but, lest you are careless in future, this condition is declared as punishment against you and your descendants, to the last generation!’ the goddess declared.
Her second punishment then was so much worse than the first. With the poisonous juice from Hecate’s herb and incantations, Athena made all of Arachne’s hair fall out. With it went her nose and ears; her head shrank to the smallest size, and her whole body became tiny. Arachne’s slender fingers became stuck to her sides as spindly legs while the rest became a belly, from which she still spins a thread, and, as a spider, weaves her ancient webs; her descendants destined for eight legs rather than two. This showed how goddesses punished mortals who dared to insult them.” Arachne paused to allow the finality of the story to stick.
“What then, dear prince, do you think of the tale?”
“I don’t know…it’s a bit…morose, don’t you think?” The princess laughed again and Pleasant wondered if it was possible to fall in love with someone, sight unseen. He was fairly certain it was…and he was.
“Morose? Hmmm…I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. There are several variations on the myth; Ovid’s was just one of them. None of them get the legend quite right, however. The truth was a little stranger than even that.”
The prince smiled, “and just how would you know that?”
“She’s my namesake…and I’ve had a lot of time to study while I’ve been waiting.”
“Waiting?” he asked. “Waiting for what?” There was a momentary pause before she answered.
“For you, of course. I’ve been waiting for you.” Her voice was louder now. He had to be getting close; which was a good thing because his legs were on the verge of jelly. Pleasant prided himself on being a man’s man, in excellent physical condition, but he had never been up this many stairs in his entire life combined. He made a mental note to find a set of stairs after the rescue and utilize them in his exercise routine. They made for one hell of a workout and he finally conceded to a small rest and took a seat.
The last thing he wanted to do was make her wait any longer but at the same time he definitely didn’t want to meet her and then be unable to sweep her off her feet. This was Pleasant’s first attempt at a fairy-tale and although he knew the rescued princesses were always “swept off their feet”, he had no clue if this was a literal expectation or metaphorical. With a short rest, he would be prepared for either.
“So how did the story really go then, Princess Arachne?” The prince leaned his torch against the wall one step below where he sat and tried to catch his breath.
“I’m glad you asked,” the princess continued. “Athena’s poison did curse the maiden and all her offspring to an existence as eternal eight-legged creatures, but she wasn’t turned in the tiny, unassuming…insect that the myth makers liked to represent her as. That was Athena’s final insult: a lie forever remembered.”“What was she then?” Pleasant prompted.
“Something much more glorious than a bug to be squashed.” A tiny spider dropped onto the prince’s knee causing him to reflexively swat it away accidentally kicking the torch down the stairs in the process. He didn’t figure the light would get too far away from him but considering the alternative was sitting in the pitch-black with a bunch of little spiders, Pleasant hustled behind it rather quickly. It only went about a ten steps down, or a rotation and a half, but what stopped it from going any further shocked him into immobility.
There was a wall of solid white, from the staircase to the ceiling. It was a spider-web, but not just a spider-web. It was made of thousands of thousands of spider-webs, intricately linked together to create the nearly unimaginable barrier. How in the hell were spiders able to build this? He only passed this point a few minutes ago.
“Are you okay?” the princess asked. Pleasant didn’t respond but the question was enough to break his stasis. He grabbed the torch and promptly burned through the webbing only to see another such wall formed on the next step down. After burning that, he found another, then another, then another. What had he walked into?
“Prince Pleasant?” she asked again. For the first time in his life, Pleasant wasn’t exactly sure what to say.
“There’s…spiders,” was all he could manage.
“Spiders?” her voice became odd again, like when he first asked her about the beast who had abducted her. “You say there are spiders out there?”
“Yes, my lady, there are…thousands…millions even. They’re everywhere…and building these massive…webs.” How could she not know about the bugs?
“Oh my,” she sounded herself again and genuinely worried, “How repulsive it must be. By all means, please hurry to my aide so that we may remove ourselves from the spider’s web.” The phrasing ‘from the spider’s web’ struck Pleasant as odd and put an uncomfortable feeling in his gut. It wasn’t any stranger than the entire experience had been up to that point but it was enough to re-confirm his need for defensive caution. He would keep his free hand very close to his sword’s hilt from here on out.
Heading back up again, he found that his initial assertation of being close to the top earlier to be accurate. It was only another ten steps beyond where he had rested. Another set of immense double-doors sat at the top…no lock whatsoever. She must be trapped further in. The doors gave way to another massive hallway lined on both sides with more beautifully hand-woven tapestries, the quality of which were incredible, even to his untrained eye. The striking detail they displayed would have rivaled a master painter, although they all bore very similar scenes: a handsome young man striving towards but never quite reaching a beautiful maiden. A tribute to the lovelorn, perhaps? There were many doors on both sides of the hall and none appeared to even be closed, let alone locked shut.
“Princess?” he called out. “Where are you?”
“I’m here.” It came from the open doorway at the far end of the hall. Pleasant went very slowly, fully expecting some hideous beast to jump out at him at any moment but all he saw were clean, well-appointed living quarters and social rooms. Finally reaching the end of the hall the room he entered must have been the princess’s bedroom complete with a vanity and four-poster bed. To the left of the bed was another open doorway and in that doorway stood…the princess.
It was significantly darker in her room than the others so the fine details still remained a mystery but from what Pleasant could tell…he could have no greater fortune. Prince Pleasant had been no stranger to the company of women. He had known bar-maids and brothel girls, school-marms and yes…even princesses; but he had never known a beauty such as what he saw across the room. Someone had sculpted his every desire and then breathed life into her and now she was waiting for him.
So overwhelmed, was he, by her raven hair, dark eyes and ruby lips that he didn’t wonder why she was there or why he had faced no opposition in finding her. He was simply enraptured to a point of hazy hypnosis; never before so awestruck.
“You’re…you’re beautiful,” was all he could stammer. She smiled and it brought an ethereal light into the room that seemed to radiate from his cheeks, making him both flush and elated at the same time. Had ever before a smile been so perfect…so inspiring? That smile alone made the labor of the journey all worthwhile.
The princess opened her mouth as if to speak and Pleasant found himself awash with excitement at the simple prospect of seeing her voice matched to her form. Before she could utter a word, however, she was jerked backwards into the darkened room behind her as if grabbed by some unseen hand. Her terrified cries erupted from the blackness.
With his unsheathed sword in one hand and the torch in the other, Pleasant hurried over to the opposite doorway and stepped through the threshold. The princess was no longer making any noise. The room he stepped into was pitch-black save the meager illumination of his torch. The light barely made a dent because, apparently, the room was enormous. There was a stream of dripping water somewhere in the far end and the echo acoustics alone gave a strong indication of its size.
He was a few tentative paces into the center of the room when the door he had entered slammed shut behind him causing the prince to spin around. The door looked to be black for the split-second before he got close enough with the light to cause the layer of tiny spiders to scurry away revealing a white door…a white door that was locked tight; and sticky.
Pleasant turned back around to face the cavernous darkness, sword at the ready for whatever might leap from its midst. The room was fairly quiet; not silent however. Aside from the dripping water there was a very distinct scurrying noise, like a billion little legs brushing against the floor, walls and ceiling all around him; and then there were the bigger ones. Still the same familiar brushing noise, just with more depth like someone, or several someone’s, were sweeping the floor in various places. It was more than a little unsettling.
“Princess…?” he called out timidly to the scuttling ocean of shadow around him. “Are you here?” There was no response for a moment as several small spiders dropped down onto Pleasant’s head and shoulders producing a convulsive motion as he swept them away. They continued to dive bomb until the prince waved the torch around the area, burning the wisps of web away with a flash and cooking the bodies of more than a few in the process.
“Help me.” It was the princess. She sounded weak, possibly injured but it was impossible to tell where it came from.
“Princess?” he called again, the fact that his nerves were getting the better of him apparent in his voice. “I don’t…”
“Please…I’m hurt.” She was somewhere to his right; twenty or thirty paces if he were hearing her right. He held the torch out as far as he could but the oil was beginning to expire causing his small circle of light to slowly shrink. This would not deter the prince, however and he forged forward, burning web and spider alike as he went. A lifetime of seconds later, he found her; standing in the center of the room, smiling her radiant smile.
“Princess…” the look caught him off guard entirely. “Are you…do you need…c’mon, let’s get out of here.” She reached her arms out towards him.
“You’ll need to carry me, I’m afraid.” Her voice was soft and sing-song and could not have been more out of place given the troubling circumstances. “I’m sorely afraid that I’ve been injured and won’t be able to walk on my own.” Everything about the moment felt wrong. Pleasant’s primordial instincts were screaming at him to escape the situation but…but she was right there. A vision of splendor greater than any goddess or pre-pubescent fantasy he might have imagined, everything he had ever desired of a mate, and she was right there for the taking; asking to be taken.
Despite the trepidation, Pleasant dropped his sword and torch and lunged forward to grab his future wife, throwing his arms around her. The moment his hands locked around her waist he knew he had made a terrible mistake. In a matter of milliseconds several crushing realizations came to the prince. The first of which, and probably the worst, was that he was not hugging the waist of a slender maiden at all. Whatever he had wrapped his arms around was not human at all.
The width of a tree trunk, it was immovable with thick, rigid hairs the size of his fingers covering it. Pleasant immediately threw himself back, or tried to at least; the thing was so sticky it took a real effort. He fell backwards onto the floor and grabbed his torch, holding it before him. Arachne the beautiful princess was no longer there. The black trunk he had been holding, which extended well into the darkness above, lifted itself from the ground and came back down next to him. It was a leg, jointed just above where his head had been and angling inward towards…the face.
Its head alone was nearly the size of his stallion with eight evenly spaced eyes, as big as birds and black as night. They were, in no way, human eyes but they did convey a deep intelligence. Pleasant was frozen with fear as the mutated creature’s two massive fangs swayed above his head, dripping…something…onto his chest. Seemingly, he had found the monster.
“What have you done with the princess, foul beast?” He wanted to sound commanding but given the position he was in, he was lucky it came out at all; not that he fully expected the hideous thing to understand anyway. Apparently it did, however, because it replied and its voice was like nothing the prince had ever heard, or would hope to hear again.
“Princess? What princess?” Although English, it was an inhuman sound nonetheless…ancient; like the words came from before time itself. “The only ones here are me and my children.”
“Arachne” Pleasant blurted out. “Where is Arachne?” He interpreted the noise that came next as laughter but only the kind heard from demons in the great abyss, a sick, low rumbling cacophony that literally made his hairs stand on end.
“I’m right here, little fly, don’t you see me?” Pleasant’s mind raced and told him this can’t be happening, but his heart knew better. “I told you I was changed into some much more glorious than a bug. Pleasant’s hand darted for his sword but Arachne was much quicker, her fangs lightly breaking the skin on his neck although they could have easily eviscerated him had she wanted. The poison, some of Hecate’s very own, began working very quickly; placing the prince in a state of paralysis.
“That’s good, sweet prince,” Arachne rumbled, “no need to get yourself all worked up. You will make a wonderful host for my babies…and eventually their first meal. I’d consider it an honor were I you. If you don’t feel that way, however, all I can say is to blame that damnable Athena. She’s the one who put us all in this position after all.” Pleasant could no longer move his mouth to speak but he could see, hear and feel everything.
“I don’t want you to worry that your sacrifice will be in vain, little fly, as I will weave a marvelous tapestry of your likeness and your beloved princess for my castle. In that way you will always be remembered…happily, ever after.”
|
My friend and I always used to walk through a wonderful, spacious park when we were younger. It was full of tall trees, and it was very nicely maintained. In this large park, there was an abandoned mansion – I can’t really say how long it had been there, but on that day, the front door of the mansion was wide open. The two of us decided to check out what was inside the place. As we inched through the door, the very first thing we noticed was that the mansion’s floor was littered with crumpled up pieces of paper. We looked at each other and observed that there was no furniture, nothing except for those wrinkled balls of paper. The mansion had six rooms on its main floor, and every room we entered bore more and more scrunched up pieces of paper.
We decided to open up one of the paper balls to see what was inside – our curiosity got the better of us. I picked up a single wrinkled piece, and, as my friend picked up another, I unfolded my paper, smoothing out its bends and dents. At that moment, it was almost as if a piece of a rainbow emerged before our eyes, and I was suddenly standing next to a large window in one of the upstairs rooms of the house. I was looking outside into the large park. When I looked down at the piece of paper I held, it read: ‘Look outside the large window that oversees the park in the upstairs parlour.’ I dropped the piece of paper and it fluttered gracefully to the ground. Meanwhile, I stared at my open hands in a bout of horror.
Dazed and utterly perplexed, I found my way downstairs and met up with my friend. He was in the kitchen, sitting at a round table that hadn’t been there before. Where did that come from? I wondered. My friend stared at his opened paper and re-read the words several times before he looked at me and turned the page my way. It said: ‘Go to the kitchen and sit at the round table.’ We stared at each other for a few moments, vaguely afraid, but then we began to chuckle. Within seconds, we were laughing our heads off, marvelling at our newfound game. We could hardly believe what had happened, but being young as we were, the mystery was endlessly exciting. We decided again to open another scrunched up piece of paper. As we opened up the crumpled papers on the floor, we experienced the same sudden flash of rainbow colours, but this time I ended lying down in the field behind the mansion. When I peered onto the paper in my right hand, it read, ‘Lie down in the field behind the mansion.’ I giggled uncontrollably. After a few minutes of running around the house, I found my friend collecting multiple balls of paper in his arms, eager to experience more of these strange, exciting phenomena.
We both got the gist of what was happening at this point. We had no idea as to how it was possible, but we decided to have more fun with it; the supernatural always had a way of captivating our hearts. After a few more run-throughs with these strange mini-teleportation devices, I began to feel apprehensive. I wondered if, at one point, I would be placed somewhere I didn’t want to be, or I’d be made to do something that I didn’t enjoy. We continued, though. Minute after minute, we unfolded many papers and travelled through bedrooms, closets, trees. But then, after having been on the roof of the mansion, I stood before my friend, dead on the living room floor. I didn’t scream. I couldn’t. “Murder him,” I read on my crumpled page as I felt a surge of vomit and bile rising into my throat. Nothing came out, but the sickness in my throat spread to my stomach, my head and my heart.
I didn’t know what to do. At this point, I began to scream and shout, praying to God for this to be a nightmare. I wanted it to go away; I wanted to rewind our day and be outside again, together, walking underneath the trees. All I could do was hide his body in a cupboard. I willed myself to be calm, and I hesitantly unfolded another paper in the hopes that the problem would correct itself. Once again, I saw the colours of the rainbow, and I found myself standing behind a tree several meters away from the house. I could clearly see the front door; within a few instants, I saw both myself and my friend walk through that door. I began to wonder if I had died, or if I was having an out-of-body experience. I looked at the sheet in my hand, and the only words scrawled upon it were “time will repeat itself, and a paradox will take place, and it will be allowed”
That gave me an idea. In my pocket remained the paper that made me kill my friend. Without looking at it, I crumpled it back up. Quietly, I followed my other self, who had separated from my friend as he explored the rooms of the house. As I crept behind him, he turned around very suddenly. Before he could utter a syllable, I forced the paper in front of my eyes and in a flash of rainbow colours, I was able to kill my other self. The laws of time allowed me to take over my dead self’s place in this world and also because of the fact that it was allowed to happen, as it was written on the second piece of paper that I had on me; which reversed time. It must have control over time and paradoxes, which made me now the new alive and present of my other dead self.
I hid my limp, bleeding other dead self in a cupboard in the upstairs bathroom to rot. To my great relief, I heard my friend call my name from downstairs. My friend, who managed to stay alive and well—my best friend. When I went downstairs, he greeted me excitedly, smiling childishly and being blissfully unaware of the situation. I pretended that nothing had happened. In a heartbeat, I told him that the house creeped me out and that it would be much better if we left.
After that day, we never went near the mansion again. I don’t know if anyone saw or heard about anything that happened between us, but I recently heard from another friend that the house had been demolished. And I can tell you with great certainty that while this news a relief, I dreaded the probable prospect that my corpse was uncovered in the bathroom cabinet.
CREDIT – ullahshy
|
In 1975, my best friend disappeared. I’m going to tell you what happened. It won’t take long because the story is a short one, but that’s a necessity of the facts. Quite simply, there aren’t many.
Here they are:
His name was James Wade. He was thirteen years old. One night, he went to bed and the next morning, he wasn’t there. The front door was open and James was gone. The house – as far as anyone could tell – hadn’t been broken into and there were no signs of a disturbance. James wasn’t a troubled child and his parents were decent, loving and hardworking. They all lived together in a nice middle-class neighbourhood in the suburbs.
No one ever saw him again. The police had no leads, no clues and no suspects. The story pretty much starts and ends there.
Pretty much.
But not quite.
James disappeared on Wednesday night. I saw him in school earlier that day and he told me that, the previous night, something had woken him up in the early of hours of the morning. Exactly what, he couldn’t say. It was late November and when he’d gone to bed the wind had been shrieking with a vengeance but when he woke up, everything was deathly still. Maybe the sudden quiet woke him. Sleep is strange like that. Whatever, when he did wake, he woke with a crawling sense of dread, like he’d just surfaced from a nightmare and, as he lay there with his heart pounding in his chest and the silence pounding in his ears, he heard something.
Faint at first.
The low, heavy growl of big diesel engine. Somewhere close and getting closer. Then, as it approached his house, he heard a second noise. It took him a moment to realise it was a horn. Beeping gently like someone taking care not to wake the whole street, tapping out a friendly rhythm, a kind of toot-toot toot-toot but it was a horrible noise, James said, tortured and unnatural, like the honking of a dying goose.
He crept to the window and looked outside. Crawling down the empty street at the unhurried pace of an ice-cream van was an old school bus, a battered yellow GMC – one of those things that looks like a cross between a tractor and a horse box.
It looked like it had driven through a swamp. There were mud splatters radiating out from rusted wheel arches and dead leaves rotting in the windscreen grill. The windows were streaked with grime. At least one of them was cracked. Some of the body panels had been replaced and the bodywork was a patchwork of yellow shades, adorned with black lettering that was peeling away, hanging off the sides of the bus like shreds of torn skin.
James didn’t switch on the bedroom light and he didn’t open the curtains, he just kind of peered through a crack between the drapes. But when he did, the bus rolled to a stop. It stood there for a few moments, idling in the centre of the road.
Then, its headlights flashed.
By now, James’ skin was crawling in terror. Seeing an old school bus on a quiet residential backstreet in the early hours of the morning was a strange sight but it shouldn’t have been one that inspired blind terror. But it did. James could sense that something was very wrong. He dived back into bed and pulled the sheets over his head. He lay there for a while with his heart beating and sometime later, not long, maybe five minutes, he crept back to the window. The bus was outside his house. When he inched the curtains open, the horn went, beep-beep. A friendly beep. A come on, it’s time to go beep.
James went back to bed and this time he stayed there. The horn honked a few more times. A few minutes later, he heard the bus pull away.
On Wednesday morning, when I saw him in school, James had black bags under bloodshot eyes. He claimed he hadn’t slept a wink. He was clearly distressed.
I made a mistake, he kept telling me. I shouldn’t have looked, he kept saying.
It doesn’t mean anything, I told him. It’s just a bus.
But nothing I said seemed to reassure him.
I shouldn’t have looked, he kept saying.
And that’s where my story ends. Me and James went our separate ways at the end of the school day and I never saw him again. That’s it – no big reveal, no explanation, no twist, no climax, nothing. Unfortunately, life is like that – loose ends and unanswered questions.
I’m in my fifties now. Sometimes I get nightmares. Sometimes they’re the same and sometimes they’re different but even when they’re different they’re just variations on a theme. Here’s one: It’s late at night. My car has blown a tyre. I’m fixing it by the side road. I hear an engine. It gets closer and closer until I’m shielding my eyes from the glare of oncoming headlights.
A school bus rolls by.
As it passes me, I see a kid in the back window, banging the glass and screaming something that’s lost in the roar of the GMC’s huge diesel engine.
It’s James.
He hasn’t aged a day.
I’m not a superstitious man. There’s nothing in this story that can’t be explained rationally. Maybe the bus had nothing to do with James’ disappearance. Hell, maybe there was no bus – maybe he dreamt the whole thing. Even so, I’ve got two children of my own and when they were young, I told them an embellished version of this story – a story about an old school bus that cruises the streets at night. It moves slowly, like a stalking cat, its horn honking gently – a siren song to curious children and if any children get out of bed, go over to the window and look outside, the bus will roll to a stop. The next time they look out of the window, it will be parked outside their house. Soon after that, maybe even the same night, that child will disappear without a trace.
I told them that sometimes you can see the bus during the day. But during the day, it can’t hurt you. During the day it just travels from town to town. Sometimes adults see it too. It can’t hurt adults. Or maybe it can – it just doesn’t want them. Mostly, adults don’t even notice it but even when they do, they certainly don’t notice anything strange about it.
Because, although you can see through the windows, you can’t see inside the bus. You can’t see the children banging on the glass, crying and screaming and wondering why the hell you’re just standing there looking at them and why the hell you don’t do something. You can’t see the children who gave up hope long ago and now just sit there, staring into space or sobbing into their laps.
The children never get old. The bus never stops.
My children cried and wouldn’t sleep for a week. My wife was livid. I didn’t care. I’m not saying that what I told my children is true – it’s a bastardised version of what James told me with gaps filled in by my nightmares. Nevertheless, it seemed important to me that my children know that if they are ever lying in bed and if they ever hear the sound of an engine and a honking horn, they ignore it. Failing that, they should run out their rooms and come and climb into bed with me and their mother.
Anything.
Just don’t go to the window.
|
This happened years ago, but it is still something that sticks with me. This all happened like a sequence. You never know if things are supposed to happen for a reason or if some unknown outside force influences it. But first, a backstory.
My friend, let’s call her Jenny, was a cheery, happy-go-lucky young woman. She rode one of those crotch rocket bikes and loved riding it. Always up for new and exciting things, she took a job as a security guard for a casino I worked at. She was always that ray of sunshine that would bring you up if you were having a bad day. Even when she was feeling down, she always made it a point to make sure you were feeling better.
After a year she was promoted to a gaming officer. She was really happy as this was an entry point to get into the upstairs offices. She would tell me often that if she got in she would try to get me in with her. I worked on the floor, paying out jackpots and getting change for gamers. Not long after her promotion, she started acting funny. Not so much that people noticed it right away, but enough that I noticed it. She would come to work tired or come late, but never said why. I noticed her attitude change as well. She was more jumpy and cautious than normal. One time during a conversation we were having on the floor she stopped and just, as I first thought, stared at me. I realized after a little bit that she wasn’t staring at me, but behind me. I turned but saw nothing. She seemed to snap out of it after a bit and brushed it off as losing her track of thought. I never questioned it at the time.
One day she came in two hours late. Her superior wasn’t too happy. He had actually sought me out on the floor to see if I could get a hold of her. When she did come in she looked worse for wear. She was unkempt, baggy red eyes, and jittery. When questioned by her superior, she put it as a late night out. When she came to the floor, she pulled me aside and asked to meet up after work. We met at Denny’s and she proceeded to tell me what was going on.
She, as she put it, was having “weird shit” happen to her. It started subtlety at first. A chill here, a noise there. Nothing she couldn’t explain away. But as time progressed, things got weirder. The chills got colder, the noises got louder and more frequent, things were never where she left them. Then it started happening at work. Her desk was always rearranged from how she left it. She thought that someone was messing with her, even voicing her concern, but nobody ever came forward. When she was walking the floor she would feel a tap on her shoulder or a tug on her shirt, with nobody around. When she would walk to her office, which was located near the uniform room in a less-trafficked area of the building, she always heard footsteps in line with hers, as if someone was walking right behind her. She was afraid to use the restrooms as well if no one was with her. It was there one day, she said, she got scared real bad. Answering the call of nature, she had just begun when, she said, there was a single, light knock on the stall door. She had announced herself in the stall when someone knocked again, this time two of them, louder than the first. She had said she was using it and was in the middle of asking us to use another when the door began to rattle, as if someone was jiggling the handle. Then it stopped. She said she was about to get up when, to her horror, the sliding lock began to slowly move, unlocking itself. Jenny said she flung the door open. No one was there. When she got out of the stall no one was in there. She was about to walk out when, turning toward the stalls, she said she saw a dark mass, humanoid looking, peeking out behind the furthest stall.
She said she has seen it often since. The day she was really late she said she was awoken from her sleep. It was night, her room was dark, and she couldn’t speak nor move. She tried too, she told me, but couldn’t. And she had a dreaded feeling like she wasn’t alone. The only thing she could move was her eyes, she recalled, and she happened to look up with them, seeing this humanoid mass looking right down at her, a faint glow where eyes would be. She said she closed her eyes and was able to scream, finally gaining control of her body. She jumped out of bed and tried to turn on the light near her bed, but it wouldn’t work. The mass then started to come toward her, blocking her bedroom door. She said she ran into the closet and shut it. The light in the closet worked. She said she was afraid of opening the door. She heard it moving around the room. She fell asleep in there, not waking till late in the morning, got quickly dressed and came in, hence her appearance. The last week of her life she stayed with me. Despite the odd occurrence at work, nothing ever happened at my place. She was peaceful. She was sleeping and eating again, and on her days off she reported nothing happening.
The day she died was one of the strangest and scariest days of my life. It started with me going in like normal. I came in at 8 and Jenny came in an hour later. Things were pretty normal and at 12 we went to lunch. During lunch, she told me she was going to go back to her place. The last week was pretty good and she hoped that whatever it was had finally left her alone. After that, we went back to our posts. About half an hour after lunch, my supervisor calls me in the office and says one of the swing shift people called out and asked if I could pull a double. If I agreed I could take the next day off or come in and get the overtime. So I agreed.
At around the same time, Jenny was asked to stay a few hours more as one of her coworkers had suddenly gotten ill in the stomach and had to go. So she agreed. After that, I got the strangest feeling like I was being watched. Couldn’t explain it. I felt someone was staring at me in empty parts of the floor. Jenny told me she started to feel like a weight was being lifted off her, but she also felt like I was in trouble somehow. She said something in the back of her head said that someone was mad at me, like they hated me. But she didn’t know who nor could she explain why it was that specific feeling. My second shift started and her extra hours started like this. Some of my coworkers reported feeling uneasy around me while Jenny’s said that she was becoming like her old self again.
When Jenny was getting ready to end her shift at 11 in the evening that night I took my final break to say goodbye, as I was getting out an hour after her. She said she felt free in what seemed like forever. She wanted to enjoy her ride home. She said she would text me when she made it. We hugged and I saw her off for what would be the last time. Needing to get back on the floor, I had the call of nature beckoning me. But I decided I could hold it. Or so I thought. As I was making my rounds, that urge came at me strong, literally forcing me to make a mad rush to the employee restroom. I ran in and got the nearest urinal. Relieved, I washed my hands and started to leave when a light, soft knock came from the direction of the stalls. There, peeking out from the farthest stall, was a black mass, humanoid looking with a soft glow where the eyes should be. I blinked and it was gone.
I stood frozen there, literally trying to rationalize if I saw something or not. I looked at the time on my phone. Twenty minutes had passed since Jenny left. I looked up and there it was again, only this time I got this really bad feeling that something was wrong and I bolted out of there. That image was burned into my memory and has been ever since. I called Jenny but it went to voicemail. I finished the rest of my shift with that dreaded feeling. After work, I went home and tried calling again. Voicemail. I left her a message to get back to me asap. That feeling stayed with me until I fell asleep.
My sister broke the news to me that morning. Her boyfriend was an EMT that responded to an accident call. He, Jenny and I as well as my sister had all gone to high school together. Being the one that took the call, he was shocked to find her off the road, about 40 feet to be exact, dead with a broken neck. She had hit the safeguard, this metal piece that curved with the road. He thought it weird that she would have landed 40 feet away seeing that the speed limit at the turn was only 20, and that later it was determined that she hit it going 10 miles an hour. No alcohol nor drugs were found in her system so they thought that she probably fell asleep and when she hit she landed neck first and slid to a halt. Though I was later told by my sister’s boyfriend that when he got there he didn’t see anything that looked like she slid. The ground, he remembered, was undisturbed.
This has haunted me for a while now. A few weeks ago I dreamed Jenny was talking to me. I couldn’t hear her and she had this blank, almost emotionless expression. She then points behind me and there it is, the thing I saw the day my friend died. I am by no means an artist or a painter. Hell, I can hardly draw. But after that dream, I had to try to depict what I saw in the restroom all those years ago. This is the closest I’ve gotten to it. One more thing I forgot to mention. When a time of death was given, it was around 11:20 pm, about the same time I saw that fucking thing.
Update:
It’s been years since I’ve been in that casino. I recently went back to my home town where it’s located and caught up with old friends who still work there. Apparently that thing is following another friend of mine like it did Jenny. My friend suffered a nervous breakdown during his shift. The girl I spoke to said he was always acting weirder than normal, culminating in his screaming and ranting about the “shadow” that won’t leave him alone. Only a close few people know about what Jenny went through and what I experienced and the girl I spoke to was one of them. She mentioned that other things have been happening. My brother, who started working security there a few years ago, mentioned something creepy he once witnessed.
The security team usually have a driver who drives around the property to make sure the parking areas and back part of the casino are safe. Behind the casino are these dumpster areas that the food and beverage and custodial teams use. Well, my brother tells me that one night he went on break. There is a patio area outside that employees use to sit outside or to smoke. There is a wall around it but on the other side is the dumpsters. He goes to the patio with one of the food and beverage girls to smoke. During this time they hear faint crying. At the same time, over his radio, he hears the truck driver calling in regarding a female he spots crying in the corner of the dumpsters. He says the driver describes her as short, long dark hair, blue sweater and jeans with no shoes on. She’s crouched in the corner, with her back to him, sobbing loudly, as he tells it. My brother, of course, being on the opposite side of the wall, can barely hear the crying. Well, he then says the driver calls it in to surveillance. There are two cameras that point in that direction, one seeing that particular corner very well. After he calls it in surveillance gets back to him asking what he’s talking about. This is how he put it:
Sur: What are you calling in again?
Dri: A female in the corner of the dumpster is crying. She is not responding to my calls.
Sur: Okay. We see you. We don’t see a girl.
Dri: What do you mean? She’s right in front of me.
Sur: No, sir. All we see is you. No one else.
Dri: Are you serious? You really don’t see the girl right here?
Sur: No, sir. If this is a joke then it’s a bad one, not to mention a waste of our time.
That’s about the time my brother says the crying stopped, followed by a shriek from the driver and him burning rubber out of there. My brother went on to say that the driver was visibly shaken and trembling. When pressed by his supervisor about what happened, he related that after surveillance said she wasn’t there, she stopped crying and stood up, her head falling back like it had no neck bones. Then she started to walk towards him, but backwards, with her head dangling side to side. He shrieked and got out of there. What was disturbing as well to my brother was that later, the driver said that when her head fell back, it had no face. I must say, some creepy shit is going on there. I wonder, though, about the way he described the girl.
I wonder if it was Jenny.
Even though she didn’t die at the casino, I wonder if that thing is keeping her trapped there.
|
It was mid-October in New York, but summer hadn’t quite given up on us yet. The day we’d chosen for the hike was likely to be one of the last good ones before the cold weather set in – we being me, Marisol, Allison, and Dexter.
Dexter was something of an expedition enthusiast – a real outdoorsy type, which is something that, personally, I would never understand. I didn’t even know the guy very well, he was a friend of my brother’s. The only reason I was invited was because he had specifically asked for a few locals with thick skin to accompany him on a weekend-long trek through Drery Forest. Dearest Brother had volunteered me, as well as Allison and Marisol.
Those two I did know. Marisol was my brother’s ex-girlfriend, and Allison had been a friend since childhood. We’d never hung out as a trio, but I didn’t find it difficult to picture. I rarely had a hard time getting along with people.
Dexter showed up at six in the morning on the day. I was barely sentient, an iPhone in one hand and a Red Bull in the other, constantly rubbing underneath glasses at my eyes with the heel of my palm. He was much taller than me, and had a lot more gear. His eighteen-pound backpack didn’t seem to faze him.
“Good to meet you, AJ,” he said pleasantly, and held out a well-toned hand for me to shake. I stuck my phone in my pocket to follow through.
After a long yawn that surely gave an excellent first impression, I nodded sportingly and said, “You, too. If I collapse from exhaustion, just tuck me in a bush somewhere and pick me up on the way back. I probably won’t even notice.”
Dexter laughed brightly. “The ride up to our starting point is about twenty-five minutes. You can sleep in the car if you like.”
I could tell that Dexter and I were going to get along.
He didn’t waste time. We left two minutes after that, once he was sure he had everything and my brother had finished getting ready. He was driving us down so that we weren’t leaving a car on the side of the road for three days.
Next we picked up Allison, and then Marisol. I stayed in the car and tried very hard to keep myself asleep through the packing and moving.
I was shaken awake by Allison what seemed like seconds later, only now, we were pulled over and surrounded by trees. The golden sunrise was masked to our left, and Dexter and Marisol were unpacking the trunk.
The first thirty minutes of the walk were mostly – at least for me – an agonizing attempt to wake up, so I don’t remember much. I eased into consciousness by watching the forest take form around me.
The trees were tall and absolutely beautiful. Most of the leaves blended from bright yellow to vibrant red, spilled along the forest floor or tucked away in high branches. Anywhere uncovered by leaves there was either fresh, healthy grass or wet-smelling dirt. The sun was making its slow ascent – which only added to the effect. It almost tempted me to delete my Twitter and become a forest-hermit.
Instead, I started taking pictures.
At the sound of the automated shutter click, Marisol, who was right in front of me, turned around. She kept walking, but looked at me skeptically, her dark skin radiant and darker hair bouncing from her fluid motions.
“Selfies? Really? You don’t get the whole nature thing, do you, AJ?”
I smiled at her indulgently. “Pictures of the forest, actually,” I corrected. “Human memory sucks. Now, I can look back at this perfect image whenever I want to.”
“Sure,” Marisol agreed lightly. “Until I catch you texting and throw your phone in a river.”
“I don’t mind you paying for a replacement,” I assured her. “Besides, I highly doubt I’ll get service out here.”
I heard Allison – tall, thin, with freckles, and sandy hair tucked beneath a knit beanie – snort ahead of Marisol. “Yeah, as if you’ve never tampered with it to get a better signal,” she said.
“So, Dex,” I redirected loudly and pointedly. “How did you get started with the whole hiking aesthetic? I get it. This place is gorgeous.”
“That’s a little bit why I chose it,” Dexter admitted thoughtfully. “I knew I was unfamiliar with the area and that I’d be traveling with people I’ve never met before – which isn’t unusual for me. Hiking like that just means that it’s usually more about scenery than exercise.”
Allison laughed behind him. “It’s nice that you’re so gracious,” she teased. “But, if that’s only a ‘little bit,’ what’s the ‘a lot a bit’ of your decision?”
Dexter shot a look at her like he was trying to decipher whether or not she was kidding. “Hell’s Asshole,” he said, as if it was obvious.
“I’m sorry, did you just say Hell’s Asshole?” I echoed.
Again, Dexter checked behind him, making direct eye contact with me. He looked almost disappointed.
“You guys really don’t know the legend in your own town?” he asked. “That’s upsetting. I grew up in India and I know your local history better than you.” He shook his head dejectedly, but I had the funny feeling he wasn’t going to hold this against us.
“I for one would like to be informed immediately of my town’s Asshole leading to Hell,” I said candidly.
Dexter gave a superfluously pensive hum. “From what I understand, campers who go through this part of the woods have strange experiences. Equipment disappearing, hearing voices at night, memory loss… The place is really called Hell’s Beacon, but the locals created a charming colloquialism: Hell’s Asshole.”
“For the first time,” I said passionately, “I’m proud to be an American.”
+ + +
It was much later that Dexter, quite suddenly, stopped in his tracks. It almost led to that comical domino effect of us bumping into each other’s backs.
“What is that…” Dexter muttered, peering ahead.
“What?” Allison echoed, and she too squinted into the distance. Marisol and I abandoned our places in line to join the group. And, faintly, I could see what they were talking about. Something was bumbling around in the distance, banging into trees and stepping loudly on twigs, as if it couldn’t see clearly in the bright, afternoon light.
“Is that… a kid?” I asked hesitantly.
“Should we go help?” Allison’s suggestion sounded weak.
So I volunteered and told the rest of them to wait here. The second I started to traverse the brambles, Marisol yanked me back by the hood of my sweatshirt.
“AJ, you are brave to the point of stupidity,” she hissed.
“I prefer to think of it as martyrism.” I unzipped the front of my hoodie to keep my neck skin from pinching just as Marisol let go.
“I’m coming with you, then,” she ordained, and stepped authoritatively over a fallen branch, in the direction of the whatever-it-was. I tripped over myself in my eagerness to follow, earning a solid streak of dirt on my chin. Marisol rolled her eyes and picked me up, then together we went to investigate.
It wasn’t far, so I wasn’t very concerned with losing Dex and Allison, but there was still the overbearing sense of what the fuck. The kid – or whatever the hell it was – had collapsed at about the same time as I ate shit. Now, it was lying on the ground like a starfish.
As we approached, I was more and more apprehensive. At the first sign of ax-murderer suspicions, I would bodily drag each and every one of us out of there.
My train of thought was cut off by Marisol’s horrified gasp.
“AJ, what the hell happ…”
“I don’t know,” I breathed. Then, “Shit. Shit! I don’t know.”
Neither of us could look away. It was fucking awful. We couldn’t tell the gender because the kid was only wearing what really looked like a fucking satanic black cloak. No shoes. The kid had clearly collapsed from… Over-exertion? Exhaustion? Something. The skin was pallid and smooth, far from sun-kissed. Both eyes were closed tight, countering the mouth that was open in a perpetual silent scream of terror.
But none of that was the worst part. The worst part was the barbed wire wrapped so tightly around their head that it was actually embedded into and overgrown with flesh. The skin around it was warped but smooth, like brush strokes from an oil painting. Whatever had happened, it had happened a long time ago, and this kid had been made to live with it. It was obvious why a body might give out.
“We need to call the police,” I whispered.
Marisol hit me on the shoulder. “Fucking obviously,” she hissed. “Get back to the others. Do you have a signal?”
With my phone, it wasn’t out of the question. I dug it out of my pocket to check – but even I couldn’t extend my service range indefinitely. I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Fuck. Let’s get back, then.”
We turned toward the path to reunite with Dex and Allison – but it was empty. We could see our own footprints, and beyond that the path, and beyond that an infinite backdrop of trees. But Dex and Allison were nowhere in sight.
“They wouldn’t leave us,” Marisol said, looking around in a flurry of panic.
My mouth was dry. “Maybe it was the guy that did THAT to a kid.”
“Shut your fucking mouth, AJ, I don’t need that shit in my head right now. What do we do?”
“We can’t get out of here without Dex.” I realized it as I said it, still looking around with dim hopes that one of us would suddenly spot the others.
So we stayed together and made our way toward the path. I tried shouting, and Marisol kept attempting to discern one landmark from another, but in the end, we weren’t even definitely sure which way we’d come from.
Only when my throat was threatening to give out did I finally shut up. “How can they not hear us?” I demanded of Marisol, though we both knew that I wasn’t expecting an answer. My voice was hoarse.
“Jesus Christ, AJ, we can’t just sit here. We’ve been walking all day, and we barely have enough supplies to last one fucking night. We have to pick a direction and start walking. We’ll have to come out somewhere eventually. What’s the direction we’re most sure we came from?”
She swiveled around and pinpointed one way, based on some supposition that I couldn’t fathom, so, together, we hesitantly set off. It wasn’t long before that plan fell to shit.
“Okay, wait right here,” Marisol ordered. “I need to piss. I’m going behind that tree, I’ll be right back.”
I raised both eyebrows. “Are you serious? We can’t split up, Marisol.”
“AJ,” she hissed, mouth drawn forward into and angry grimace, “I am currently lost in the middle of the fucking woods with my bladder about to burst because I have been walking for seven hours. If you try to take this one fucking moment of peace and privacy from me, I will fucking murder you and find the way home myself. Sorry that I can’t just unzip my pants, take out my magic fucking sperm wand, and immediately be accepted by society when I need to eradicate toxic wastes from my body. Wait here.”
I knew Marisol. She was a feisty, determined person, who was usually very angry when she knew was right and someone contradicted her. I also knew that she was only yelling at me because she was stressed out, so I left it at that. With my nod of affirmation, she turned on heel and disappeared behind a large cedar.
Not a moment later, she returned, brushing off the front of her shirt. She seemed to be in a better mood at least. I was glad she’d gotten herself together.
“Okay, let’s go,” was all she said. She started walking, but I stood planted. She turned back, looking annoyed. “I said come on, AJ.”
I raised an eyebrow and pointed west, nearly the complete opposite direction she’d set off on. “That’s not the way we were going,” I pointed out. She scowled.
“I have a better feeling about this way,” she said simply, but her tone made it clear that there were no more questions to be asked on my part. So, of course choosing to stick together rather than argue, I fell into step behind her.
Just as dusk hit, we began to hear voices. I perked up instantly and faced them. They seemed pretty far off, a few hundred feet toward the east, but it was enough to spring us both into motion. Marisol darted forward into the underbrush, faster than I had ever seen her run, uncharacteristically so – I lost sight of her in seconds.
“Marisol, wait, what the fuck!”
I did my best to follow her based on intuition alone, for a couple of reasons: I didn’t want her to get lost when we were so close to more people, I didn’t want her to find them only to realize that they were thugs or worse, and, most importantly, I really did not want to be fucking alone in the dark woods. I would be dead by morning.
I was wiped out before I’d made it thirty feet in her direction. A branch I hadn’t seen slapped me in the face and I feel onto my ass. It made me lose any bearings I’d had – Marisol could be anywhere. Most likely, however, she would have gone toward the voices, so I decided to find those next.
When I stood up, I hit my head again, although it wasn’t on the branch. It was startling enough to make me shout, though.
I grabbed it with one hand and ducked backward so I could make it out properly. And I was very surprised to find it was a doll.
What was worse, it appeared to be hanging from the branch by its neck with a length of twine. The most horrifying part of all was the way it was dressed. Barbed wire was pressed into the head, a dark blue hoodie, and, specifically, a fresh streak of dirt spread over its chin.
“What the fuck…?”
It was obviously supposed to be me. But… How had it gotten here, where the chance I would see it was infinitesimal to none? Who would make it? Who had even been around to see me? Was someone spying on me, even right now?
Had Dexter done it?
I barely knew him, so it was entirely possible that he was a murderer out for my blood. Maybe he had killed Allison while Marisol and I were distracted, then had led himself safely back to civilization, with the way only he knew. It was horrifying to consider.
But then, if he had left, why would this be hanging here? A place where I would never have found it if not for-
Marisol!
I’d completely forgotten about her. Was it possible that she had run into Dexter, that he had killed her like he had Allison? I must have been too late, it was all my fault.
“AJ?”
I spun around, terrified, acting on instinct and ready to defend myself by any means necessary. “Allison!” I cried. I had never been so relieved to see anybody in my life. Allison seemed only slightly concerned to have found her abandoned friend hours after she had deserted me.
“Whoa – are you okay? You’ve been gone for forever. Did you get lost?” she asked warily.
I threw my hands up in outrage. “Are you fucking kidding me? Yes, of course I got lost! You and Dexter fucking deserted us in the middle of the woods fucking hours ago! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Allison looked completely taken aback, her eyes widening as she struggled to process the influx of information. “AJ, AJ, calm down. What are you talking about?”
My temper flared. “What am I talking about? What are YOU talking about? You practically left me and Marisol out there to die, and now you’re acting like nothing happened!”
“AJ, listen to me,” Allison explained gently. “Nothing did happen. You and Marisol went off the path to investigate, and then you came right back. You were never even out of our sight. You guys said that there was nothing to worry about, that it was just an animal that had died, so we kept going. You were there the whole time. We walked for a bit, then we decided to stop and rest for the night. Twenty minutes ago, you said you needed the bathroom, so you walked away from camp and we haven’t seen you since. I came out here looking for you, and – what’s that in your hand?”
I tried to regulate my heavy breathing. How could she think that we had been with her the whole time? Was she the killer, and not Dexter, trying to lure me into a false sense of security? Was I going crazy, and the fact that I was doubting my friends a symptom? Had I really been with them the whole time?
Wordlessly, I held out the doll for Allison to see. When she realized what I had, that the doll was made in my image, she covered her mouth with shaking hands. “What – what the hell is that?”
I shrugged. Then, having regained some of my courage just by having a familiar face around, I threw the doll onto the ground and stepped on it had hard as I could. It didn’t do much, because the doll was newer, made out of that malleable plastic stuff, but it did get the point across. Whatever was fucking with me was going to have to try a lot harder.
“Where’s Dex?” I asked.
+ + +
Allison navigated us to a small campsite about fifty feet east. Dexter was there, but Marisol, who I’d assumed had followed the voices, was nowhere to be seen. When I voiced that, they both seemed worried.
“We have to go find her,” Dexter said bravely. “She can’t spend a night out here alone.”
We vehemently agreed, but I had to play Devil’s Advocate. “What about our stuff?”
“Marisol is more important than sleeping bags – not that I think anyone or anything is going to chance by this place,” Dexter said. “We fan out, but stay within earshot of each other. AJ, your voice sounds likeshit, so you stay with Allison.” Allison and I nodded our assent.
It wasn’t until Allison and I were just about to leave the campsite, standing next to the bright white electric lamp sitting on the ground, that Allison stopped. She was staring at me with a kind of puzzled horror. Or, not at me rather, but at my face.
“AJ…” she said softly. “Did you fall down… again?”
I gave her a confused look. “What?”
Allison pointed. “The dirt on your chin… You fell… and when you came back it was gone… but now it’s…” She trailed off, unable to look away, and my eyes widened as comprehension dawned.
“I never wiped the dirt off,” I told her solemnly.
She turned to look at the woods as though we were suddenly in the middle of a satanic ritual site. “What sort of a thing can do that… Can take your face and disguise what you see… Shit, now we know how you were in two places at once, this doesn’t even make sense, AJ, oh my God.”
I followed her lead, staring as far into the trees as I could, praying for either conformation or proof of our own stupidity – but there was nothing. The woods were as silent and still as always. “No, I don’t think it’s God,” I corrected halfheartedly.
The worst part was, the doll proved that whatever was out here knew about the dirt on my chin. It had simply chosen not to mimic that once it had infiltrated the group. Instead, it wanted us to piece everything together; it wanted to scare us.
“What do we do?” Allison asked weakly.
“We get Dexter back here, we hold out until dawn, and then we haul ass back the way we came.” Allison nodded faintly but resolutely. “So, first things first, we need for get Dex back here. Can you shout for him?”
Allison stated me in the eyes this time, and she looked utterly terrified at the thought. “What if it knows that we know?”
“If it can put a creepy doll two inches in front of my face, it already knows we’re here,” I said, but I ended it softly, because out of all of the suspicions I’d had for my friends, I couldn’t believe how stupid I was. The only friend I hadn’t suspected, the one who had vanished from sight and then led me right here, on a feeling. Marisol hadn’t been Marisol at all, had she?
“Shit,” I hissed. “I don’t think Dex is looking for Marisol. At least, not the real Marisol.”
“Oh, God, we can’t lose Dex, we’d be stuck in here for days,” Allison moaned, sinking to the forest floor and hugging her knees. I was suddenly wide awake, despite the above-average exertion I’d put my body through today. That being said, I wasn’t sure how long I could run on pure adrenaline, so I was smart enough to add caffeine to the mix.
I knelt beside Allison and swung my backpack around so I could rummage through it. “Here,” I said, handing off a Red Bull to Allison. She took it with uncertainty. “If this thing is fucking with our heads while we’re awake, I don’t want it anywhere near me when I’m asleep.”
That seemed enough to convince her, so we toasted and drank up.
That was when we started to hear it.
Something like a whistle pierced the air. It was like it came from all around us, a sudden torrent of shouts, whispers, jeers, and taunts. I jumped out of my skin and grabbed Allison’s arm. She was giving fearful, tearless sobs, the both of us on our feet again, turning back to back and trying to glimpse what was surely just out of sight.
It was a thousand voices, and yet, unified as one. Each jeer was a cutting, high-pitched shriek, each whisper a tickle ok the back of the neck. Then, there was one shout that stood out from the rest, delivered with a fucking awful, bloodcurdling cackle.
“He’s come out to play, out to play, brace yourselves, the Prince is out! The Prince is out to play! Brace yourselves, the Trickster Prince is out!”
And, like I said, I’m pretty adventurous, but when mysterious shit in the woods starts chanting about Satan in the middle of the night, I’m usually not going to test my luck. I knew we had to get out of there, but there was nowhere to go, and we were helpless without Dexter.
The next shout scared me more than anything, because it was Allison, with a deep, terrified scream:
“LEAVE US ALONE YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!”
My hand on her tightened instinctively, and I couldn’t help but think she’d probably just fucked us over.
But then, miraculously, everything stopped. Which was almost worse.
There was nothing. No crickets, no wind, no leaves rustling together. Fucking silence, that was all.
And then a breathy murmur, which escalated into something horrifying. Quiet, curious voices hissing through the air around us. I nearly shat myself. I didn’t know what they were waiting for. I didn’t know where Dexter was or what happened to Marisol or if I wasn’t still wandering around the woods and actually fucking crazy.
The voices were pulling into a crescendo. There was no crackling this time, no chanting – just the disorganized sound of a thousand people whispering at once. I suddenly got the sense that they were deliberating on us. On what to do with us.
And then it stopped again, this time for good. The were crickets again, but no rustlings. It was as though nothing was moving, but trying still to pretend that it was. I didn’t realize why until I heard Dexter behind me.
“What are you guys still doing here?”
Allison and I both screamed and turned around. There he was, standing tall and stock-still. Behind him, Marisol.
“I found her.”
Her head was bowed low, though she was still looking at us, almost so that only the whites of her eyes were showing. Her fingers were curling and uncurling stiffly at her sides, her mouth open in a grimace, waiting for the chance to growl. Her head was lolling slowly from side to side, sizing us up. Dexter was facing us, so he had no idea.
“What’s going on? Why do you look like that?”
“Dexter, didn’t you hear all that?” I demanded weakly. My eyes were darting from him to Marisol. Allison’s eyes were glued on her in terror.
“Hear what?”
“Dexter, you fucking idiot! That’s not her, it’s not her! It’s going to kill us all!” Allison screamed, pointing at Marisol.
The growl I’d been expecting didn’t come. Instead, Marisol spoke in a low, throaty voice that seemed to resonate in my spine, and I nearly pissed my pants.
“The Trickster Prince is here to play.”
Dexter spun around, nearly tripping over himself. “Marisol?”
Marisol threw her head back so sharply that I heard a distinct snap, but she seemed unaffected. Her mouth was wide open and laughing, her chest vibrating through the cackles like some sort of broken air conditioner. I felt Allison rip herself from my arm and start sprinting – which was the greatest idea ever.
Dexter took several stunted, alarmed steps back until he was next to me.
“What the fuck?!”
“FUCKING RUN,” I ordered, grabbing him by the shoulder. We abandoned the supplied and tore ass out of there. Marisol stopped laughing as we reached the end of the clearing, and I suddenly heard that same voice just as I’d heard what I assumed were its thousands of little minions.
“The Prince is ready to play! The Trickster Prince will play tonight! Run, run, run, here comes the Prince!”
“We have to help Marisol!” Dexter gasped as we ran. I was so thrown by the statement that I almost stopped to yell at him.
“Are you a fucking idiot?” I shouted angrily. “How the fuck do you think we can help her – if that IS her? Let me just grab my fucking handy dandy exorcist book! Or, better yet, my ancient sword of demon-slaying! Perfect! Fucking brilliant, why didn’t I think of that before? No, fuck that, fuck you, all we’re doing is collecting Allison on our way out of here! And YOU are leading the way, so try not to fucking DIE.” I would’ve gone on, but I ran out of breath at that point, so we carried on as fast as we could and did our best to experience nothing else.
Which didn’t last very long.
An ear-splitting shriek sounded at the same moment the area directly ahead of us lit up with unnatural light. Marisol was standing there, exactly as before, and Dexter and I both screamed as he pulled me to the side and we kept running.
I was already getting a stitch in my side, which was not fucking good when starring as Satan’s plaything.
We dove into the trees, which were strung up with more dolls, exactly as before. There were hundreds of them this time, though, and they came in different variations. Some looked like me, some like Allison, and some like Dexter. None of them resembled Marisol.
I batted them away and we pushed through, careening into Allison, who had collapsed at the place where the path reappeared. I knew we wouldn’t have time to stop, so I started shouting at her to get up.
“There’s no time to cry, stand up, fucking run, let’s go!” I shouted at her. She jumped a foot in the air, shaking, and settled just in time for me to grab her shoulder and drag her after us.
Another shriek sounded, and Marisol appeared at our right. Again, we diverted our course.
“Don’t tire out,” the voice hissed, tickling the back of my neck and spurring me onward.
This was all it wanted. It gave us a calm, peaceful morning to wander directly into the middle of its fucking house, and now we were trapped in the kitchen. The thing was just preparing its fucking dinner before cooking it.
Twice more Marisol jumpscared us. There was a point where we ran into the voices again, and it was like running through a room full of radiators. Allison swears she saw something, but she’s never been able to describe it. I believe her – trees don’t leave bite marks like that.
Apart from that, I don’t remember most of what I’m sure was plenty of stumbling and panicking through the woods. My therapist (Dr. Firske, what a guy. The fourth in a line of exasperated professionals having to deal with my rambling) says that the brain has ways of blocking that sort of thing out to protect itself. I believe that, too.
I still don’t know how the three of us survived. I do have a faint recollection, though, of one moment. It was just as the sky began to turn light gray – we were nearly out of the woods. Nothing had happened for quite a while, so we had slowed to a careful stumble through the brambles. A sudden thought had struck me. As we’d managed to evade it, to get farther and farther from the center of its territory, the attempts against us had become weaker.
I think most of it was luck. I think a lot of it was endurance or, in my case, Red Bull. I think if it hadn’t got all of that terror out of us to begin with, it might have tried harder.
Or maybe its waiting. Or it got distracted. After all, we still don’t know what happened to Marisol. She could be dead, or still lost, or she really was possessed, or God only knew where else. We didn’t want any police wandering in there either, so we claimed that it was always just the three of us.
We are quite literally out of the woods. So for all intents and purposes, it is over.
But it’s not. I can’t stop thinking about the woods. I know it isn’t over.
|
The streets, roads and dusty lanes of Colombia have been fertile territory for myths and legends since before the arrival of the Spaniards. Tales of ‘La Patasola’, a one-legged wailing banshee that forever sought her child, and of ‘El Duende’, a backwards-footed goblin that led travelers to their doom, nibbled at the corners of journeymen’s ease for centuries. Although these stories mainly troubled those living in or passing through rural areas, the growth of cities brought with it a new breed of urban legend rooted in the primal distrust we still harbor, somewhere deep inside, of modern technology. An example of this is the phantom bus that allegedly roams the streets of Bogota at night. Supposedly, young women who board it alone are found mutilated in overgrown outlying fields a few days later, a frozen look of abject terror illustrating the moment of their last, tormented breath.
That being said, given that you’re certainly not a young woman (at least not last time you checked) and that it’s 5:30 on a Tuesday afternoon, phantom buses and handicapped gremlins are the last thing on your mind. You’ve been using Bogota’s public transportation system for over two decades, and your greatest concern is that traffic levels have become all but unmanageable since the latest mayor took office. However, home is about 80 blocks away, so your only choice is to wait until the right bus comes along. Walking would certainly take longer than putting up with any traffic jam.
When a bus displaying the route sign you’re hoping for shows up, its advertised fare is 200 pesos lower than the standard going rate these days. This usually indicates that the vehicle in question is older and a bit more uncomfortable than most, but no bus rider in the history of the city has ever given a damn about that. Folks that consider themselves richer and “above” this mode of transportation pay seven times as much to get around by cab, and statistically expose themselves to a higher chance of being mugged or robbed. More power to them, right?
Never one to avoid seeking further discounts, you ask the wizened driver if he’ll let you on for a thousand. The wrinkled, musty-looking man’s eyes never leave the road as he silently takes your bill and slides it in the purse hanging from the bony gear stick. Satisfied, you turn your attention to the cabin; what would make this ride ideal would be an empty seat.
Curiously enough (considering the time of day), there aren’t enough passengers aboard for anybody to be standing. A few available spots are in sight, so you choose one on the left, towards the middle. Both the aisle and window seat are free, and you sigh contentedly as you sprawl out on one with your knee nested on the other. This particular trip should be over in no time.
The driver’s radio is off and your phone’s battery ran out an hour ago, so you pass the time staring out the window and watching vendors ply their wares and car drivers nod along to whatever music they’re listening to. Your position eventually starts taking a toll on your back, so you straighten up and take the chance to examine your fellow passengers. None of them seem to be riding together, given that everybody’s quietly facing the front of the bus. They are also all uncommonly old——not in the sense that they’re all over 100, but in the sense that nobody seems to be under 75. You find this a bit odd, and for a brief moment the idea that you don’t belong there flashes through your mind. It’s a silly thought, but combined with the bus’s particularly strong (although not necessarily atypical) smell of must and metal, it makes you look forward to the end of the trip. Nevertheless, as there are another 30 or 40 blocks left to go, you look out the window again, zone out, and let your mind go where it will for a while.
The sight of Pacho’s bakery pulls you out of your reverie twenty minutes later. You get up and make your way past your silent companions to the rear exit, where you hunt for the little silver button that will let the driver know you’ve reached your stop. As you spot it above the door, you realize that nobody’s boarded or left the vehicle since you got on, which is weird for rush hour. Shrugging it off as an unusual coincidence, you press down on the button and grab on to the
You are sitting on your seat, facing the front of the bus.
What… what the hell just happened? You look around and see that everybody’s still where they were a moment ago. Trying to make eye contact with them is fruitless, since they all seem to be lost wherever it is that old minds wander. The thought of saying something runs through your head, but you decide against it. What would you say, anyway? You were probably so zoned out that you simply imagined getting up to ring the driver’s bell.
That’s probably it; your daydreams are occasionally so vivid that leaving them is downright startling. Besides, you’re already two blocks past your stop. Call it a “weird thing that happened on your way home” or whatever, but for now you should just get off the bus. There’s no point in having to walk back too far. You (once again) get off your seat and head for the rear exit, somewhat unnerved by the other passengers’ stoic disinterest in everything around them.
There’s the button, right where you remember it. Except that you can’t remember it, of course, since you’ve never actually been back here; you probably saw it when you got on. After grabbing on to the guardrail (these bastards occasionally decide to stop on a dime when you ring), you look towards the driver, put your thumb on the button
You are sitting on your seat, facing the front of the bus.
A piercing chill runs down your spine, and instead of fading away, it spreads through every one of your extremities. It’s not a shift in body or ambient temperature, it’s the chill you feel when suddenly consumed by the level of fear that slightly precedes terror. Something really messed up is going on here. You don’t know what it is, but you want out, you don’t want to be here anymore. A feeling of bitter solitude is now gnawing at your mind; whatever these people around you are thinking, they clearly don’t give a damn about what’s happening to you.
Therefore, you once again decide to avoid saying anything and simply lift yourself off the seat, not processing the fact that you did it with less agility than should’ve been the case. All you want right now is to get off the bus. Besides, it’s already advanced more than ten blocks past your street, which suddenly feels like a distastefully long distance to walk. This is all secondary to the point at hand, however; you have to get off this damn thing.
As you make your way back, an old lady in the back row looks up at you. Her expression tells you nothing, but the way it fixes on you——on your torso, to be precise——as if you were just another chunk of the vehicle further spikes the almost overpowering sense of dread now coursing through your veins. Whatever, you can’t panic, not now. You stand at the back of the bus and, instead of going for the button, yell at the driver. You yell at him to stop, to let you off, that you’ve already rung twice, but nothing comes of it. You curse at him, tell him what he will die of and wish great evil upon his kin, but the door remains unmoved. The man is not listening. Or he doesn’t care. Or he doesn’t want you to get off. But you don’t give a damn what he wants or doesn’t want, so you grab on to the bars, take a step back for momentum, and send a solid kick right into the column of hinges that
You are sitting on your seat, facing the front of the bus.
It takes a moment to register. Maybe more than a moment, maybe it’s a full minute. And as you realize that the bus doesn’t want you to leave, you also realize that your right knee hurts with an unnatural, piercing sharpness. It’s the same leg you used against the door, and now it feels like it’s all but broken. This quickly becomes a distant concern when you attempt to massage it, though, because that’s when you notice your hands.
These are not the hands of a 25 year-old. They are wrinkly, set with well-defined veins and even lightly patched with liver spots. As you study your hands and arms, cold terror envelops every corner your psyche. You touch your face and feel wrinkles and whiskers that didn’t previously exist upon your cheekbones. Your head is patched with a few anemic strands of hair; as your fingertip grazes your coarse scalp, a spark of electricity shoots through it and down into the most private recesses of your being. Your eyes dry up, opened wide and unbelieving, and you feel a seven-ton lump of horror coalesce in your otherwise paralyzed throat.
You must leave this evil bus, you must leave it at once before it finishes what it’s begun. You carefully make your way off your seat——no need for any further injury——and head towards the front, towards the driver. Perhaps you can reason with him, or perhaps you can club him to death with a flashlight or something, since there are always a variety of trinkets and gadgets at the front of t
You are sitting on your seat, facing the front of the bus.
It takes a good five or ten minutes for you to come to terms with what is happening to you, to understand that your life is vanishing before your eyes. Your hands are now like those of your grandmother, your back hurts from its base all the way to your neck, and your eyes can barely focus on the signs posted above the windows. Even your mind isn’t as sharp as it should be; it takes you a while to determine that you should make another attempt at the exit.
Perhaps violence is not the answer, perhaps you can gently pull it open. Perhaps if you treat the bus like a living, gentle being instead of like a demonic machine it will let you out, perhaps…
The old woman is looking at you again. You notice her blue jacket, which is much too big for her; if it were a blouse of the same size, it would hang loosely off her gaunt frame. A tiny, hesitant tear forms on her frail face, and then follows a meandering path down her ancient features to land on her wrist with eerie finality. There’s a red Totto watch around that wrist, the sort that is currently all the rage with kids graduating from high school.
You examine the door. Two panes joined by a vertical line of hinges, coated on the right by a rubber pad to avoid contact damage. The door is slightly bent inwards, and as you notice this a glimmer of hope runs through you. If you can just insert
You are sitting on your seat, facing the front of the bus.
WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON MY HANDS THEY ARE OLD MY HANDS ARE THE HANDS OF AN OLD MAN, NOT OF MY GRANDFATHER, OF AN OLD OLD THE MAN BEHIND YOU STARTS WHEN YOU TURN TO HIM AND YELL AT HIM AND GRAB HIS FACE AND SCREAM AT HIM TO LET YOU OFF HE MOUTHS SOMETHING YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HIS TEETH HIS BLOOD YOUR TEETH OH MY GOD MY TEETH ARE LIKE TINY THEY ARE DUST THEY’RE WHAT THE HELL HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN HERE FUCK THIS I’M BREAKING THE WINDOW WITH MY ELBOW EVEN IF IT BREAKS I DON’T WANT TO DIE HERE NO MORE OF
You are sitting on your seat, facing the front of the bus.
After a long time, you glance down at your hands. They are the gnarled, rheumatic, blood-splattered claws of a hag that’s seen more than one generation’s share of horrors.
A hag? A hag is not the right word. A hag is a woman, right? At least so it was in mother’s stories. Like those of La Patasola. Your knee still hurts, but not as much as your elbow. It feels like it is shattered. Ah, yes. This bus. You must get off it. You know you must get off it now. You do not remember why you must, but it is imperative that you do. It is urgent. It was urgent. You are so tired.
You try to lift yourself off the seat but your knee buckles under your weight; it is by chance that you fall back on the bench. You must get off the bus. You remember these buses. They used to take you to work. You steady yourself on the bench. You will try to get off the bus. But in a moment. You must rest. The bus can wait.
You are sitting on your seat, facing the front of the bus.
You are sitting on your seat, facing the front of the bus.
Credit To – Lucas Llinás Múnera
Please wait...
|
Dr. Ellen Kennedy was just locking up her office for the evening when her phone began to ring. She paused at the door. It had been a long and grueling day and a ringing phone this late did not bode well. She sighed. While it didn’t bode well, it meant that it was probably important. Swinging her door back open, she walked over to the still ringing phone.
“You’ve reached the office of Dr. Ellen Kennedy. This is she speaking,” she said, holding the phone in one hand and her briefcase in the other.
“Hello, Dr. Kennedy, glad I’ve caught you,” a male voice on the other end. “My name is Detective Carl Rourke.”
Ellen put her briefcase down on the floor and circled back around to her chair. She had better make herself comfortable. If there was a detective on the phone she was probably going to be here for a while. “Yes, Detective, how can I help you?” She had been through this a few times before. Officers wanting her to disclose patient information followed by her refusing to give it. She had even been summoned to court once over it. Already she was preparing her speech mentally in her head as the Detective continued.
“I am calling in regards to one Connor Russell. He was found dead outside his apartment building tonight.”
And just like that Ellen’s speech scattered to the wind. Connor was one of her patients. He had gone through a long and harrowing ten years of therapy after the horrific murder of his best friend and had finally pulled himself back together. Just this afternoon he had been in her office, signing his newly published book for her. “Dead?” she said as she tried to re-marshal her thoughts. “What happened?”
“From what we can tell so far, a fire broke out on his floor. He was trapped in his apartment and could not make it to the fire escape. Witnesses say he jumped from his window.”
Ellen put a hand on her desk. Something moved under it. Looking down she saw it was a book, “By the Fire’s Light”. Connor’s book. She put her hand on her head and took a slow and steadying breath. “You want my opinion on the state of his mental health.” It wasn’t a question.
She could almost see the Detective nodding as he answered. “Yes.”
Ellen sat up straight in her chair, pulling on her mask of professionalism. Her emotions could wait. “I would say in no way shape or form was Connor Russell suicidal. He had just had a book published and it was selling well. He was getting ready to pursue a PhD in English Literature with an emphasis in folklore. He showed no signs of mental instability that would lead me to conclude that he would wish to take his own life.”
“I see,” the Detective said. He sighed. “In that case, is there anyone who might bear a grudge against Connor?”
Ellen stared in front of her, dumbfounded. “Are you suggesting that the fire was arson? Or that Connor did not jump of his free will?”
“I am not suggesting anything,” the Detective said, no emotion in his voice. “Just trying to gather all the facts.”
“There is Jared Holloway. He murdered Connor’s best friend, Kurt, ten years ago. However, Jared is still in jail to my knowledge and plead guilty to the crime before the trial. Didn’t even try for a plea bargain.” Ellen paused thinking back to this afternoon. “I do know that Connor went to visit Jared today to talk with him and try to figure out why he killed his friend.”
“Interesting,” the Detective said on the other end of the line and she could hear scribbling.
“Detective, did Connor truly jump? Or why would you even want to know about possible enemies?”
The Detective sighed again. “Okay, this is entirely off the record. Connor pushed himself backwards out the window. Witnesses say it looked like he was yelling at someone before he fell.” He paused. “One witness says they thought they saw someone look out the window after Connor pushed himself out.”
Ellen felt her mouth drop. “Then why would you think it’s a plain suicide at all?”
The Detective gave a small laugh. “Because I’m not sure how much I can trust the witness’s testimony. She said the person who looked out the window had no face.”
***
Ellen sat at her desk long after she had hung up the phone. She had dutifully taken down the Detective’s number and had promised to call back if she thought of anything useful. She stared down at Connor’s book, fingers drumming on top of it. It was absurd. When Connor had first been brought to her office ten years ago he had ranted and raved about how a faceless man had killed his friend. Called him the Slender Man.
Ellen picked up the book and thumbed through it. It wasn’t true of course. Jared Holloway had murdered Connor’s friend, Kent. Quite violently too. The nature of the crime still gave her the shudders a decade later. Lacerations up and down Kurt’s body with a final deep blow in his chest. From the pictures she had seen he had been drenched in his own blood, making it unlikely he would have survived even without the final blow in his chest cavity. The nature of the crime had caused Connor’s mind to try and protect itself. Unwilling to believe a fellow man could be so callous he had invented this Slender Man to take the blame instead.
Well, invented wasn’t quite the right word. More like appropriated. From what Connor had told her over the years, especially when he had begun writing his book, she knew Slender Man had originated on the Something Awful forums originally created by one Victor Surge. Not much was know about Mr. Surge as he was reticent with personal information. Regardless, others had gotten their hands on him and he had grown into a full blown internet urban legend. With Connor’s books hitting the stands, it looked like he’d be just a plain old urban legend soon. If anything, Connor’s death would spur sales.
So it was truly absurd to think a fictional monster had come to life and killed Connor. She could not, would not, and did not believe it. She put the book down. Well, she had to admit, the book was selling well. Perhaps the witness owned a copy of the book and with the fire, and the fact that it was Connor, the writer of the story, plunging from the window, had convinced him or herself that they had seen this Slender Man. That had to be it.
She sighed, getting up again. She really needed to be getting home. She picked up the book and stuffed it in her briefcase. If she could talk to this witness herself it would help put her mind at ease. But she knew there was no way Detective Rourke would tell her what the witness’s name was, on or off the record.
As she drove down the road to her house she turned on the radio to her car. “Radio on,” she said as she drove. It turned itself to the preset satellite classical station that she had never bothered to change from the default. “Tune to Local Channel 3” she said, eyes on the road. This was the local news radio station. The announcers droned on for a few minutes about sports, the weather, traffic, and a new tax increase to help the schools. Finally, one of them turned to the subject she had been waiting for.
“And in tragic news tonight,” the female announcer said, “up and coming local novelist Connor Russell died in a fire at his apartment complex. He apparently fell from his window trying to escape the blaze. Channel 3’s Angelica Logano is now reporting from the scene.”
There was silence for a few moments as the signal flipped to Angelica. While Ellen waited patiently for Angelica to begin, a loud blast of static burst from the speakers. “Ah, what the hell!” Ellen said. “Mute volume!” she shouted over the blare. The radio quieted obediently. What on earth had caused that? She looked up to see she was driving under a canopy of trees that lined the street leading into her neighborhood. She shook her head. She knew tall buildings and trees could mess with the line of sight that satellite radio needed, but she had always just lost the signal before. She sighed. It probably meant her radio was dying. When she turned the volume back up, the report was over and the announcers were back to talking about the local sports teams.
After pulling into her driveway, Ellen sighed and turned off the car. Well, it wasn’t a problem missing the report really. She was sure she’d be able to find something about Connor in a simple Google News search.
Twenty minutes and several articles later brought her no more information than she already knew though. She sighed setting aside her tablet on her bedside table. Even though she was off tomorrow, she still needed to get some sleep. But as she lay tossing and turning in the darkness, she knew sleep would not be coming anytime soon. Leaning over, she turned on the small lamp on her bedside table. She reached into the briefcase she had set next to her bed and pulled out “By the Fire’s Light”. Rummaging in the bag one more time for a pen and notepaper in case she needed to jot anything down, she settled back into her bed. Making herself comfortable, she began to read Connor’s book.
***
Prologue
He hates all he sees. Truly he is not properly a he. He does not think of himself as such. He has no name. He needs no name. He knows what he is. The others have left or gone too sleep. He was not powerful enough to follow those who left and he refuses to give in to sleep. This was his world and he will not surrender it.
But he is not powerful enough to take a form like others who were left behind. He is merely a fog of hatred. Those who encounter him feel an uneasiness, as if they know they are in the presence of something that should not be there. But he can do nothing more.
He wandered aimlessly for aeons or minutes he could not say. Time did not exist when this world was his and he does not readily understand it. All he knows is that one night in a forest somewhere lightning strikes in front of him. It is the middle of a hot and radiant summer, and all the wood is dry, waiting for the right match to strike. The lightning sparks a small fire, which quickly catches and grows. He watches, amazed, as the fire consumes all in its path, leaving nothing but blackened ash in its wake. If he could feel love, he would love the flickering of the flames he is now following across the forest.
As they weave and dance through the night, the flames cross the path of a young boy. He has been separated from his family and he is frightened. Instead of following the flight of the animals, the young boy has run in a circle, and how finds himself trapped by the fire. The nameless one draws close, eager to see what the fire will do to this intruder who has taken his world. The young boy senses him, senses his hatred. He thinks the nameless one is the fire or a being who controls it. And as this fear grips and consumes the young boy, the nameless one feels himself grow solid. He wonders at this as he feels feet touch the ground. He feels arms as long and flickering as the flames growing from what is now a back. He stands tall and black, as shadowy as the flame’s flickering light. His head flows and melts in the heat and he sees himself through the young boy’s eyes and realizes that he has none of his own.
But it does not matter for this makes him fearful to the young boy. He strikes with one of his flowing arms, casting the young boy into the fire. The young boy screams and pleads. He begs for mercy. The nameless one has none. The flames crackle up and down the young boy, taking first his outer covering and then melting flesh from bone. The young boy has long since stopped struggling, but the nameless one watches until all that is left is white bone. He feels himself growing looser again then and losing form. It doesn’t matter though. He knows what he wants to do now. He turns following the fire’s light before him.
***
Ellen felt herself growing tired and she did not fight the sleep that now came over her. She felt the book fall from her hands and onto her chest as she surrendered herself to the darkness. Her reading material, perhaps, influenced her dreams. Every which way she turned, she found herself surrounded by hot and high flames. In between the flames something dark and lanky darted always just outside of her vision.
Finally, just as she caught sight of the thing moving in the flames, she woke up. She opened her eyes and stared at her white ceiling for a moment, re-orienting herself with her surroundings. “Strange dream,” she muttered stretching and opening her hands. From her right hand fell a pen. She frowned.
“Odd,” she said, leaning over to pick it up. “I don’t remember actually taking any notes last night.” Connor’s book slid off the bed and onto the floor next to the pen. As it fell open, a stray mark of blue ink on the pages caught Ellen’s eye. She sighed. Had she accidentally marked the book in her sleep? Picking the book up, she placed it in her lap and looked at the pages.
What she saw was odder than finding the pen in her hand had been. There was a mark on the page, but it wasn’t a random stray mark. One of the words on the page was circled. “What,” she breathed, reading the word. “Why would I circle the word what?” She flipped through the book. As she did, every once in a while she would catch another page with another word circled. She felt a chill go down her spine. She definitely did not remember doing this last night.
Grabbing her notepad from her bedside desk, she started to methodically go through the book from start to finish. Every time she came to a circled word she would jot it down on the notepad. When she was finished, she held the notepad in front of her and read what she had written. “I am what you have made me. I like what I am,” she said. The word “like” had been circled several times, unlike the other words, so heavily indented the ink had almost seeped through the page.
She stared at the notepad for a moment and then tossed it away from her. It hit the wall on the other side of the room, but before it had dropped to the floor, Ellen was already up and in motion. She dug Connor’s file out of her briefcase. Flipping through it, she found the address to his apartment. Grabbing her tablet off her bedside table, she input Connor’s address into Google Maps. As it downloaded directions to his apartment, she hurriedly threw off her nightgown and dressed herself. Five minutes later found her out the door and on the road.
As she drove she briefly considered stopping for at least coffee to give herself a chance to calm down. A prickling fear she couldn’t dispel stopped her though. She needed to see Connor’s apartment for herself. Beyond that she wasn’t sure what she was doing.
Pulling into Connor’s complex, Ellen found a parking space a couple lots away from Connor’s apartment building. She didn’t want it to be too obvious what she was doing. She didn’t need management shooing her off the premises. Getting out of the car, she walked as casually as she could toward Connor’s apartment building.
It was obvious, even without directions, which one was his. The black and charred remains sat in between two other untouched apartment buildings. It almost looked like the other two buildings had ganged up on this one and given it a sound beating, large gaping holes looking like a fist had punch through them. Ellen glanced up to the fourth floor. Connor’s apartment had been somewhere up there. As she drew closer she saw a young woman standing in front of the building also looking up at the fourth floor. She wore ripped blue jeans and a pull over sweater who’s sleeves were too large for her. She looked up as Ellen drew close. “Came to see the wreckage?” she asked, a twisted smile on her lips.
“Yeah,” Ellen said quietly, grass crunching under her feet as drew even with the young woman. “Someone I knew died in the fire.”
“That Connor guy,” the young woman said.
“Yes. How did you know?” Ellen asked turning to her.
“He’s the only one who died in the fire,” she said, looking down. She brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. “Saw it happen,” she said quietly. She looked up at Ellen and offered a hand. “Name’s Cassandra.”
“Ellen,” Ellen said, shaking her hand. Ellen glanced at Cassandra out of the corner of her eye. “It’s such a shame about his death. What with Connor’s book just being published.”
“He had a book?” Cassandra asked, surprised. “Didn’t know we had an author in our building.”
Ellen just stared at her for a moment. Cassandra was telling the truth she could tell. The prickling fear ran up and down her spine again. Ellen took a calm centering breath. She didn’t know Cassandra was necessarily the witness Detective Rourke had told her about. Still… “I heard,” Ellen said slowly, “I heard that Connor wasn’t alone in his room when he died.”
Cassandra looked straight at Ellen for a moment, an expression torn between panic and relief flitting across her face. It was disconcerting. “Well, you heard right,” Cassandra said at last. “I saw someone look out the window after Connor fell.” She turned away and looked up at the fourth floor again. “I saw it again last night too,” she said her voice growing soft. “I dreamed I was still trapped in the fire. And I saw the thing in the flames. I don’t know how, but I could tell it was happy I was there.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m kinda glad I’m staying with friends right now. Don’t wanna be by myself.”
“You called it a thing,” Ellen said, taking an involuntary step closer to Cassandra, trying to control her shaking hands.
Cassandra gave a short, almost hysterical laugh. “Yeah, well, I didn’t see a face on the thing when it popped its head out the window. Cops think I’m loony.” She shrugged her eyes now defiant, turning back to Ellen.
Ellen shook her head slowly. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” she said quietly.
Cassandra gazed at her for a moment and then turned back to the apartment building. “Yeah, well that makes one of us,” she muttered.
Ellen went home soon afterwards. She left the radio off on her drive home, her own buzzing thoughts providing her with plenty of entertainment. As she shut and locked the door behind her, she shook her head. She was taking all this far too seriously. She dreamt about this Slender Man after reading a story about him and thinking about him for a good few hours before going to bed. That was not unusual. As for Cassandra, well, it wasn’t like it was easy to see people surrounded by flames and smoke. She probably just saw a person or person shaped object and suggestion had done the rest. That she should have a nightmare about a traumatic experience was not surprising either.
She paced into the kitchen and grabbed a wine glass out of her cabinet. She poured herself a cup of red wine and sat down at her kitchen table. She watched her willow tree throw its branches in the wind in the backyard. As for the words circled in Connor’s book… She watched the branches dance and play for a few more moment before turning away with a shudder. She was sure there was an explanation for why she would circle those words, she was just too tired to think of it now. She finished her wine and decided she needed to treat herself to a nice long soak.
That night as she went to bed, Ellen briefly toyed with reading more of Connor’s book. She peeled off her tan pantyhose and lay them on the side of her bed. She shook her head. No, given the dream she had had last night, her imagination didn’t need anymore fuel for tonight. She turned out her lights and quickly fell into an uneasy sleep.
She dreamed of nothing for a while. Then, slowly, she found flames growing around her again. Something tall and slender weaved in and out amongst the flames. She backed away, trying to find a way out, but everywhere she turned, more fire met her gaze. Finally, the black thing emerged from the flames. She knew what it was. Just too tall to be a man, wearing a business suit with long trailing arms and a smooth blank space where its face should be. She began to shake. “You’re not real,” she whispered.
The thing merely moved towards her, slowly as if enjoying itself.
Ellen felt her back stiffen, even in her sleep. She was a psychiatrist for God’s sake. She knew how the mind could play tricks on you when you were stressed. And she knew what was real and what wasn’t. She faced the Slender Man squarely. He stopped “gazing” down at her and Ellen could almost swear his body language was hesitant. “You are not real,” she said fiercely. “This is just a dream. You are a figment of my overwrought and stressed imagination. And I will thank you very much to leave my dream!”
The Slender Man leapt towards her, tentacles bursting from its back and reaching for her. But even as it flung itself towards her, it seemed to lose cohesion. A puff of wind blew through Ellen and nothing more. The flames snuffed out under the wind’s influence and Ellen found herself surrounded by blackness.
Ellen woke with a start. Breathing heavily her hand reached for her bedside light. It flipped on and Ellen covered her eyes with one hand. Sitting up, she wiped sweat from her forehead. Her nightgown clung to her back and she shivered as her skin made contact with the night air. She put her hand down on the black pantyhose she had left on the side of her bed before going to sleep. Her body shuddered as she breathed in and out slowly. Well, it looked like she had figured out how to deal with her Slender problem. She laughed quietly to herself looking down at the black pantyhose in her left hand. The black… Her eyes widened as the black moved underneath her hand.
With a screech she jumped out of her bed. Looking into the corner of her room stood a man so tall his head brushed the ceiling. His “face” looked down at her smooth and blank. And the tendrils on his back began to whip around angrily, crashing into the walls next to him. He took a step forward.
Ellen felt her back stiffen again. “This may not be a dream,” she said, her voice shaking slightly, but steel underneath it. “But I still know you are not real. I do not give you my belief. And I will thank you kindly to leave my house!”
He hesitated for one moment and then lunged at her. Ellen realized with horror that he seemed to be solid enough this time though. With a strangled scream she leapt out of the way. Wrenching her bedroom door open she darted out of the room, running through her dark house. She heard him crashing behind her, but she wasn’t foolish enough to look back. Grabbing her car keys off the counter, she dashed out the front door, not bothering to close.
She hit the unlock button on the keys and the car chirped. Wrenching the passenger seat open, she threw herself inside, shutting and locking the doors behind her. Panting and struggling she crawled into the driver’s seat, jamming the key into the ignition. She turned and heard her car roar to life, headlight’s automatically coming on and illuminating her house. As she tried to throw it in reverse, something and black plunged straight down in front of her into the hood of the car. With a horrible metallic ripping sound, it passed through the hood making the whole car shake. Several other tendrils followed, straight into the engine. The car shuddered and died.
Ellen pressed herself back in her seat as the tendrils withdrew from the car. She reached for her the driver’s door. She had to run. But even as she did, she felt something hard impact the passenger’s side of the car. The whole car rocked and she lost her balance. Her head banged against the window and she cried out in pain. The car shuddered again and this time turned over, first onto its side and then onto the roof.
Ellen fell against the roof of her car in the darkness, disoriented and frightened. She tried to move for a door, any door, as she felt something pierce her car again. The sound of liquid running down the side of her car and the smell of gasoline caught her attention. She froze and looked out the passenger side of the car. She could see a trailed of gasoline running down the back window. And in the small amount of light given from the street lamp by her house, she saw a long black tendril flick on the ground by the liquid. It grew suddenly stiff and striked the ground. “Tinder and flint,” she whispered as a small flame erupted from its tip. The fire began to grow eagerly and she watched it trail up her car. She curled into a ball and cried to herself as the flames circled her car, cutting off all her exits.
***
Detective Carl Rourke was not having a good night. First he finds out his witness in the Connor Russell case, Cassandra Brighton, has died in a freak fire caused by faulty wiring at her friend’s house. And now here is, standing outside the house Dr. Ellen Kennedy, her car flipped and smoldering, her body, or what was left of it, just now being removed from the wreck.
“And nobody saw any other cars?” he asked the two beat cops who had arrived on the scene first.
They both shook their heads. One of them, Patrick he thinks, flips open his small notebook. “One of the neighbors thinks she saw a tall slender man walking away from the car as it burned. She looked outside after she heard what sounded like a car crash.”
Rourke grunted. “But nobody saw the actual crash,” he muttered. He shook his head. “Two people related to the Connor Russell case both perishing in fires on the same night? Don’t buy it.” He sighed. “At least the witness didn’t claim the guy has no face.”
Patrick coughed politely and Rourke turned to stare at him. “She didn’t did she?”
“Ah, no,” Patrick said trying to hide his amusement. “She did mention something about tentacles though.”
Rourke cursed under his breath and made his way to Ellen’s house. Maybe he could find some real tangible clues inside so he could find the real tangible man behind these killings. Slowly he walked through the house, careful not to touch or move anything. CSI would kill him. And those bozos would be able to clean up the evidence afterwards.
Eventually he found himself in Ellen’s bedroom. He raised his eyebrows. Slash marks on the walls, strewn books and papers. It looked like there had been a struggle. He crouched down to look at one of the books on the floor. “By the Fire’s Light,” he read. As he did, something black on the wall next to him caught his eye. He stood up abruptly, but there was nothing there but his own shadow. Grunting, he pulled out his smartphone. He quickly made note of the titles of the books on the floor so he could look them up later. And then, with a final sweep around the bedroom, he left to check the rest of the house.
Author’s Note: This is a sequel to “By the Fire’s Light” which may also be found on Creepypasta!
Credit To – Star Kindler
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I had moved into a new apartment with my girlfriend about two years ago. It was pretty small; it had only a kitchen, one bedroom, one bathroom, and a living room. All of the rooms might have been small, but the rent was good, and we didn’t really care. Neither of us made enough money to move out of the place, so we tried to make the most of it. One of the oddest things about the place was that the left wall was completely hollowed out, and the right wall was rock solid. I didn’t even notice when we first moved in. Our neighbors were always quiet and kept mostly to themselves. When we moved in, the only neighbors we had were the Whites. The Whites were to the right of us, and they were an elderly couple. They were nice to us. When we had first moved in, they brought us a “welcome to the building” present, which is what they do for all of the new people who had moved in to an apartment in the building. It was a small apple pie, which was actually quite good. About five or six months after my girlfriend and I moved in, there was a new guy that had moved into the right of us. I remember first meeting him. I had just gotten back to the building with some groceries, and as I climbed up the stairs to my apartment, I accidentally bumped into someone.
“Sorry, excuse me Mr…” but I didn’t know who this guy was. Our building is fairly small, and just about everyone knows everyone else. The man I had bumped into was middle aged, probably in his mid-fifties. Something about him was odd, though. He had deep wrinkles, pale white skin, and long greasy black hair that were unkempt and around his face and back. He looked rather sickly, like he needed to see a doctor. His eyes were a solid dark purple, which is something that I have never seen before in my entire life. “Peters” the man said with a grin that stretched ear to ear. His teeth were disgusting. They were un-brushed and looked like they were rotting away. I can still smell his putrid breath, which seemed to reek of old decaying meat. All though his appearance was a little bit creepy, he seemed nice enough. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Peters. My names Matt. Are you new to the building?” I asked. Mr. Peters smile grew even bigger. I don’t know how he, let alone any human could smile that wide. “Yes, I am moving in. And I’m going to be living right next to your apartment.” He said as we both walked up the stairs to the top floor.
When we reached the top floor, Mr. Peters pace increased as he quickly walked to the door, opened it with his key, and shut the door behind him. It was odd, though. He did it so quickly, it was like a blur. I sighed to myself. “Great, now I have a freakish neighbor.” I thought to myself as I turned the handle of my door. It was about 4:00 P.M. My girlfriend, Sandra, was still at her job. She’s a hair stylist, and I’m a chef at a local Italian restaurant. I usually don’t get off until later, but because business was slow that day, and nobody was coming in, we closed early. I put the groceries down on the kitchen table and start to unload everything into the refrigerator. I didn’t have much with me, only about one bag. Quart of milk, a few sticks of butter, ground hamburger meat, and a box of cereal. I then got a text message from my friend, Tyler. “Bro, I just got my hands on the new Red Dead Redemption game, and you need to go out and get it so we can play together.” Was what the message read. Now, I wasn’t much of a gamer, but Tyler is one of my closest friends that I have. We’ve been best friends ever since middle school. I did have an Xbox 360, and Tyler and I would play games together from time to time. I didn’t really have anything better or more interesting to do, so I texted him back saying I would go out and buy it. As I was just about to leave to go get the game, I heard a lot of banging coming from the wall. It was weird though, because it was so clear. I went up to the left side of the wall and gave it a light tap with my knuckle. This was the first time that I realized that for whatever reason, the wall was hollow like a log. I went to the right wall, and repeated the process, only to be greeted with a thud. This wall was solid. I was puzzled on why in the world the builders of this place would make one wall solid, and the other hollow. I was also curious as to what Mr. Peters was doing to make all of that noise. I just shrugged it off. “Probably just moving things in or something.” I told myself. But, that couldn’t be right. He didn’t have anything with him when I saw him. I shrugged it off, and left to go get the game.
I got back at around 5:00 with my new game, and I was glad to discover that the banging from Mr. Peters ceased. I was happy with this. I didn’t really care what he was doing, as long as he did it quietly. I popped the game in and put my headset on. I have a pretty good headset, it blocks out most sounds. It was nice and tight around the ears, and I loved it. Tyler and I played and talked for almost three hours straight. I would have gone longer, but Sandra came home at about 8:00. I told Tyler that I had to go, and that we could play more tomorrow after I was done with work. Tyler didn’t have a job. He didn’t need one. His father was a rich man who owned some oil company or something like that, I don’t really remember. But I do know that he spoils Tyler rotten, giving him tons of money for doing absolutely nothing at all. I powered off the console and got up out of my chair to give Sandra a hug. We talked about stuff like how our days went, and things like that. I then I remembered Mr. Peters. “Did you know that someone was moving into the apartment right next to us?” I asked. She told me that she was unaware of a new member joining our building. Weird that she didn’t know of Mr. Peters. I decided that I would go ask Mr. and Mrs. White tomorrow morning. They know everybody in the building. They probably already have a pie baked and ready to send over to his apartment.
I didn’t sleep well that night. I had an insane dream about Mr. Peters just standing over my bed, my girlfriend beside me. Smiling that terrifying smile. I was going to do something, wake up my girlfriend, run away in fear, anything. But I was stopped when he simply put his finger over my lips and quietly said “Shhh” in a soft, friendly voice. It didn’t feel like a dream, though. Everything was so clear, and I can remember it all so well. It’s impossible that it was real, though. That’s what my therapist told me, at least. After a long sleepless night, I took a quick shower and was going to get some food for breakfast. I also noticed the banging on the wall from Mr. Peters apartment. It was softer this time, and more… creepy. After my shower, I went to my kitchen. Only, something was off. Quart of milk, a few sticks of butter, ground hamburger meat, but no box of cereal. I looked everywhere, thinking I just misplaced it by accident. Sandra woke up thanks to me frantically looking for the box. “Sandra, what’d you do with the cereal?” I asked her while still looking in the various shelves in my kitchen. “Didn’t you put it in here?” she asked while pointing to the spot where I swore that I put it. “I could have sworn that I did, but I don’t know where it went. Please tell me that you took it,” I said. Yet she continued to deny the accusation. I thought it was her regardless. What else could it have been? A burglar? No. What burglar steals boxes of cereal? I didn’t pay much attention to it, though. I just said, “Guess it just grew a pair of legs and walked off.” and forgot about the whole ordeal.
I went over to the Whites and knocked on their door. I was greeted when Mr. White answered. “Hey there, son. How are you this fine morning?” He asked with his typical happy-go-lucky tone of voice. “Hey there Mr. White. I’m doing well, thanks for asking. But I came over to ask you about someone. Have you heard of a Mr. Peters?” I asked. Mr. White frowned when I asked. “Well, no. Sorry son, can’t say that I have. Who is he?” He questioned. “He moved into the apartment right next to ours. I’m surprised that you don’t know who he is. You of all people in this building would know if someone new was moving in.” I said. Mr. White then smiled and said, “Well we should go and see how’s he’s doing, then.” I think about it for a second, and took him up on his offer. The two of us walked over to his door, and Mr. White knocked on the door. We stood there for a little bit, only to returned with silence. I found it odd that there was no response what so ever. We didn’t even hear any noises from the other side of the door. “Hmm.. He must be sleeping, still.” chimed in Mr. White. I found it to be a reasonable for the lack of sounds coming from the other side of the door. “Well, how about we come back later to see if he’s awake?” I ask Mr. White. He agrees to the offer, and says that he’ll have a freshly bakes pie ready for when I get back from work. We part ways, and I go about my day as normal. Then I got back home.
I changed my clothes, and then went to the kitchen to grab something to eat really fast before I went over to see Mr. White. I grabbed a chocolate bar, and went to the refrigerator. But when I opened the door, I saw no milk quart. Now I was starting to get an annoyed. Was Sandra just pulling a prank or something? I got home before her again, so I decided to just go see to Mr. White and talk to Sandra when she got home. I knocked on the door, and got something I wasn’t expecting at all. Mrs. White answered the door, tears running down her cheeks and red irritated eyes. “Hello, Matt.” She said through her crying. I was completely caught off guard by this, so I simply asked what had happened to out her in this state. “It’s George. My poor, sweet George.” She said. Now, even though Sandra and I just called him, “Mr. White”, we both knew his first name was George. “What happened to him?” I asked. “He’s gone! He just disappeared!” She said through her now heavy sobbing. My mind rushed to one conclusion; Mr. Peters. “Follow me, now.” I told Mrs. White.
I rushed down the hall to Mr. Peters door. I pounded my fist on the door. “Mr. Peters! Open up right now!” I was once again returned with silence. Complete and utter silence. Mrs. White came running down the hallway and caught up to me. “Have you called the police about Mr. White?” I asked. She nodded. “They came over and I told them what happened. Now, why are you banging the door? Who’s Mr. Peters?” I explained everything to her, and she too had never heard of him. Concerned, I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. Mrs. White and I waited for the police to arrive, but before they could get to us, Sandra came walking down the hallway. “What’s going on here?” She asked us. I told her about everything that had happened. Mr. White and I coming over, the missing milk, and Mr. White’s disappearance. Sandra waited with us for the police to arrive.
They finally got to the apartment, and I yet again explained my story. They both looked at each other, and knocked on the door, also to be greeted with silence. They went to go talk to the building manager to see if they could get some more information, but he said that there was no Mr. Peters who lived in that apartment. Both the police and the building manager returned to the door, master key in hand. The door then swung open. Nothing. It was just a normal empty room. We all walked in, confused, me more then the others. Then I remembered. I walked over to the wall, and gave it a light knock with my first. The hollow walls made its standard sound. I called everyone over, and showed that the wall was in fact hollow. What went from two police officers quickly escalated into ten. It took about three hours, but Sandra, Mrs. White, the building manager and I all waited for the police to finger out what to do next. After some discussion, the decision was to knock down the hollowed wall, and what I saw next would change my life forever.
It was a terrible sight. Mr. Peters lay quietly next to the dead corpse Mr. White, his stomach messily flayed open. It looked as if Mr. Peters used his teeth to grind a large slit in his stomach, and then used his fingers to pry it open. But that wasn’t the worst part of it was that in his opened up stomach, was a pit of milk, cereal, and blood. There was so much blood.. All over both of their bodies. Mrs. White didn’t take it well. She was hysterical, and started to vomit. Some of the policemen vomited as well, and even though I felt like I was going to, I resisted. Even though that the sight was hooraying, that still isn’t the worst part. The worst thing of the scene was his smile. He had that same ear to ear grin as he did when we first met. The police had their guns drawn, pointed right at him. But he just smiled, straight at me. Straight into my eyes. His gaze sent chills running up my spine. He got up and stepped away from his body, his eyes never leaving mine. His smile never losing its size.
The police brought him out to the apartment, and put handcuffs on him. Other officers took Mr. White out of the hollowed wall, Mrs. White crying all the way. I feel for her, really I do. If I found Sandra in that state, I don’t know how I would react. Mr. Peters was taken away, and he was given the death penalty. I saw a therapist not long after the ordeal, and I still see him once every week. I’m writing this right now, just to warn everyone out there. When you hear banging at you wall or roof, or are just hearing “house noises”, you might want to give it a closer inspection. It probably just is normal “house noises”, but after this event I never took the chance. I’m still incredibly paranoid. I remember one night at around 3:00 in the morning; i heard some banging coming from my kitchen. I got up as I always do, but this time was different. I saw Mr. Peters smiling at me, his teeth dripping with a crimson fluid, which had to be blood. I turned on the light, and he simply vanished into thin air. I don’t know why this is happening to me. I don’t even believe in the supernatural or anything, but I know what I saw. He was just standing there, looking right at me. Smiling that terrifying smile.
Credit To – Cade McKown
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Imagine the multiverse: Atoms converging into patterns infinite. Most universes listening to physics, placing only that which should exist into reality, but there are others in which the impossible happens simply because there’s no reason it is not. All the darkest horrors of the grimmest imaginations, made real with naught more than a vast cosmic whim…
It is a night, like any other, and the Stevens are a family, like any other. Sleeping in a house, like any other. A house containing young boy’s room, like any other.
Little Howie Stevens was always an imaginative young boy. His room reflects such. Small, glow-in-the-dark stars coat the ceiling and offer dismal green light to a room otherwise blanketed in black. By this light, one might see the blue walls with thin, vertical white stripes. Simple white carpet, supports a dresser of neatly organized clothes as well as chest of toys ordered with far less finesse. The half-open closet, the lamp slumbering on the dresser, and the door shut firmly.
This view in all its under-spoken peace would be decidedly picturesque but for the one small discrepancy: Young Stevens is not sleeping peacefully. No, he is quite awake and with no intention of rectifying this.
He is afraid, you see.
He is afraid, because Little Howie Stevens–in pajamas broadcasting his interest in small insects–sees monsters in the night.
Not ones in the closet or under his bed. (At seven, he is too old for such childish fears.) He sees them on the very floor before him, fading silently into existence, confused and purposeless before blinking away to nothingness once more. They don’t notice Howie and for weeks he was not sure they were appearing at all. A trick of the light or a dream creeping into conscious thought, haunting his waking hours too. But each time, they’ve stayed for longer. Not much. So incremental were the changes that he had no reason to notice them at all until the monsters began to stay for seconds at a time. Long enough to notice their surroundings.
He has seen monsters for almost a month’s time now–not every night, but every night where he lie awake past eleven. Not until the second week had he seen clearly the otherworldly beast. Abominably fat, squat hind legs, a slimy, lizard’s tail wagging in the night all dyed as red as the stones of Hell.
Once he saw it, the image was forever burned into his eyes like spots of colored light, ready to present itself whenever he blinked–whenever he slept–whenever he dared to let his mind wander.
Last week was the worst. The monster had finally turned around to see him. At first, the monster’s bulging eyes, dripping teeth, and questioning snout flashed astonishment at this young boy’s presence. The next night, this emotion was replaced with another: hunger. Hunger and delight.
The last few days, Howie did not sleep. Would not sleep. He stayed each time the monster whipped about and charged Young Howie–lunging to claim his meal, but always vanishing as the boy winced to meet his doom.
Afterwards, he would scream and his parents would come to save their boy from a would-be criminal, only to find him sobbing in solitude.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” his mother asks, sitting down to offer a protective embrace.
“Th-there’s monsters! Th-there was a monster right there a-and it keeps coming and then disappearing and now it wants to eat me!“ He trails off into sobs as he awaits his parents fear-wrought plan of defense. They won’t come.
His father flashed his mom an askew glance and sits next to his son.
“Howie, do you know what daddy does?”
“A-a s-scientist.”
“A physicist,” he corrects proudly. “I study everything that is possible in this world and even some things that are impossible, but if there is one thing I can tell you with absolute confidence, it’s that there was no monster in this room. If there was, we would see evidence of it. How it came and left!”
Exasperated, Young Howie retorts, “It appeared! A-and then it just disappeared!”
“Son, as a physicist I assure you teleportation is, thus-far, impossible,” then he adds matter-of-factly, “I think you just had a bad dream.”
“B-but that’s what I thought at first too!” He thirsts to make his parents understand. “But it kept happening for like two weeks and then last week it saw me and–and–”
He cuts off, distracted by his mother’s reaction. She’s suddenly fraught with worry. At last, he thinks. At last she understands.
But it’s not comprehension that his created her worry, but it’s lack. She looks with despair to her husband, but he waves away her concerns with a reassuring head gesture and then turns to his son.
“Son, I think you’re exaggerating. I promise there is no monster. You can sleep in our bed, this one night, but for the rest of this week, I expect to hear no more screaming about these nightmares.”
Howie wanted to argue, but he was so tired and his parent’s bed seemed so safe and he trusted his father’s words, though his reason yelled to the contrary.
The next night and Howie dared not sleep. He sat huddled against the wall sobbing silently into his pillow–determined to stay up the whole night and prove to himself the monster was not real.
It was eleven thirty-four and this time Howie smelled the creature’s hot breath as the wide jaws attempted to close around the young boy. If it had only been half a second faster, the blade-like fangs would have pierced Howie’s soft flesh and the monster would have tasted the blood it so violently craved.
The pillow muffled the young boy’s screams and then contained his sobs as he cried himself to sleep, determined not to displease his father.
He knew tonight could be his final moments of life. His mother expressed worry when her perpetually starving young boy pushed aside his dinner with a forlorn “I’m not hungry,” but her response was only to suggest he go to bed early if he were not feeling well. He solemnly agreed, only coming back out to sneak away with the biggest knife he could find.
He hardly dared to blink. He stared at the digital clock–numbers a clown-like, mocking red–as it slowly counted down his remaining minutes on Earth. It always happened at about eleven thirty. He didn’t know when exactly, but he was determined that it should not happen as he turned away. He wouldn’t sleep until then. It was ten now. It was… it’s… eleven thirty-two?
He jolts to alertness. Perhaps in fear of his imminent demise. Perhaps in rage that he let his guard down. Perhaps because he thought he might have missed it and find himself forced to endure such hell another night. Whatever the reason, Howie Stevens screams, dragging his parents from kinder dreams into his own personal nightmare. Howie’s parents come in with the same urgent rush as before, but as the father looks upon his whimpering boy, his worry hardens and he prepares in his head a lengthy speech about the boy who cried wolf and telling lies and about how Howie ought to be brave like his father. He sits down next to his boy, his mother already frantically stroking the child and waits for the child’s frightened eyes to meet his. He is determined to be gentle this one last time, but this is it. Never again, after this.
The father is right, on the last note, but the speech never comes to pass nor does the opportunity for gentleness ever arise, because–unbeknownst to all but one of the Steven’s–the monster of a far-off dimension had been prepared for its own recurring fantasy in which a young meal was but a single dive away. It prepared itself for the moment of transition and as the tingle that marked the beginning of a random, cross-dimensional journey through space-time, the monster did not make note of its victim as it bore down its destructive, knife-like teeth into the flesh of some writhing prey. Blood burst merrily into its mouth and when it sensed the presence of another, more aggressive being, the beast drove it’s fangs into that one as well, and felt its own home fade into meaning around it as the taste of foreign meat became only a treasured memory, nursed by a tongue licking crimson nectar from long teeth.
Far, far away, all Howie could do was howl in despair. Tears, running as warm as the blood that covered him, pouring from his parents wounds. Pouring onto the chrome tool he thought could be his only lifeline. He would cry all night. Loud and constant enough to warrant a disgruntled neighbor’s complaint to the police.
Howie thought–perhaps–this was his salvation. The bite marks would be the proof he needed to be safe. Between howls of pain, he tried to explain about the monster.
It was a certainly tragic tale the boy wove, but who could believe the words of a child when the wounds of the parents appeared so knife-like? When a suitable blood-stained blade was found clutched in the hand of that very child? When all signs of the monster had vanished as if it had never existed?
Certainly not the state-ordered psychiatric specialist who applied the sedative to Young Howie, who could no longer find any peace in the night. The doctor could only pray miserably that his words would break through to the poor, ten year-old boy, and shouted “There is no such thing as monsters! There is no such thing as monsters!”
Young Howie thought he heard his father shouting these words from across a great distance and although he knew he was ten now and far too old to believe in monsters, he swore he would never stop believing that somewhere, the monster was still out there, searching for Howie–getting inches closer every day. He swore it because the only thing worse than believing that the monster was coming to find him was believing the doctors and the judge that the monster was inside him and that it was coming for everyone else until Howie was left all alone, whimpering into the night.
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I am Sam.
I have reached the gates of Hell. I entered without fear. I met the Lord of All Evil, and we made a deal. I got back to Earth, with a task.
I have to kill 665 people before I die. If I do so, I will spend eternity as a Demon King in Hell, with my own Legion to command. Of course, I’m very delighted by that perspective…
There is one condition, though: I cannot just kill random people. There is a trigger: if they hear one simple incantation involving my name, they are eligible to be my target. I managed to make my job easier, putting this spell into a book, a famous one, so that many people will probably hear it. I am very smart, indeed.
So, after you hear the deadly sentence, I will know you. And, when you are least expecting, you’ll see my shadow out the corner of your eyes. And when you turn your head to see what that was… it will be too late.
I will be waiting untill you hear my name again.
Sam I am.
—
Credited to Creepy Mole.
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“No, I’m going to stay in. It’s been a long day and the most I intend to do tonight is hand out candy.”
“Lame. Look, just for once, ignore your spinster instincts and come to Jackson’s. We’ll get sloppy drunk and play strip Twister.”
“Sounds like a blast.”
“I already have our costumes picked out.”
“Oh, this I have to hear. What’s the costume?”
“Hipster scarecrows.”
“Yeah, no.”
“Josh will be there.”
“See, only in your mind would it sound appealing to make an ass of myself in front of a guy I like.”
“The trick is to get so wasted you don’t remember the embarrassing parts.”
“Uh huh. Also, it’s Wednesday.”
“Nina! I swear, you’re the youngest granny I know.”
“I appreciate the invite, genuinely. But I’m just not up for that kind of action tonight. I have a date with Michael Myers and 80 or 90 Twix bars.”
“Sexy. Alright, well, if you change your mind, text me.”
“You’ll be the first to know, promise. And send me some pictures of naked Twister.”
“You got it, Granny.”
I hung up the phone relieved. All things considered, I got off pretty easy. Ally could be… tenacious. Normally, I loved going out for Halloween, no matter what day of the week it was. But what I said was the truth – it had already been a rough week and I was looking forward to a relaxing night of too much candy, Jaime Lee Curtis, and maybe one spiked apple cider.
Halfway through washing some spinach for dinner, the doorbell rang for the first time. A chorus of “trick or treat!” erupted when I opened the front door.
Two little boys and their dad dressed in a group costume. Buzz, Woody, and Andy. Really cute. I let them take three each.
Quite a few came by after that. A princess, a Pikachu, lots of Spidermen, a mini Beetlejuice, a witch. As it got later and darker, the trick-or-treaters got older. The costumes changed. There were a lot of masks – creepy ones.
Thankfully, these were usually paired with a sexy version of something. Sinister burlap mask with black eye-holes was accompanied by a sexy skeleton. Ghostface walked up hand in hand with a sexy pirate.
By eleven o’clock, I was on Halloween 4, had gone through a disconcerting amount of candy, and hadn’t moved for almost an hour. The trick-or-treaters had tapered off around ten or so and I was contemplating my pajamas.
When the doorbell rang.
My first thought was, drunk teenagers. And I was ready to negotiate the non-egging of my house in exchange for Kit Kats. But when I opened the door, there was only one man standing there, waiting for me. Dressed as a clown.
I hate clowns to begin with, and this guy was massive. But, I have to say, it was the friendly kind of costume, not the creepy kind. The white face had smiling blue lips surrounded by red, blue around the eyes. It looked vintage.
Staring up at the happy-face mask, though, I couldn’t help to be a little creeped out. Then he leaned forward and whispered, “Trick or treat.”
Mentally, I slapped myself. Generally speaking, serial killers don’t walk up to the front door, ring the bell, and wait for candy. It was Halloween. He was probably a dad going around for his kid.
Mad at myself, I smiled and reached for the bowl next to the door. “Little late, isn’t it?” I said, trying to neighborly.
Without responding, he glanced down at the bowl.
“Oh, take what you like. I doubt I’ll get anyone else after you.”
He looked back at me, still not taking anything, and said again, “Trick or treat.”
I frowned. Did I not have what he wanted? What was the problem? “I’m sorry, I don’t–”
He took a step toward me, now crowding the doorway, and I felt myself wanting to shrink away from him. “Trick? Or treat?”
“For me? Uh, well, I’d choose treat. Definitely. I wouldn’t want a trick.” I laughed a little bit, like I still thought this was no big deal, like we were just chatting. Like I wasn’t fighting off real fear and wondering whether or not I could outrun him.
Nodding, he reached into his pocket. Before I had time to panic, he pulled out a dirty piece of paper and dropped it into the bowl of candy. Then, without another word, he turned and went back down the walkway and out to the street.
I slammed the door and locked it, not really knowing what I should do first. Call the police? And say what? That a giant clown was aggressively trick or treating? He hadn’t actually done anything. Just creeped me out. I doubted they’d call in the SWAT team for that and I really did not want to go down that useless road.
Unless, he’d written something on the note. Anything even vaguely threatening and I could take it to the police. Flinging the bowl of candy on the kitchen table, I uncrumpled the small scrap of paper. It took forever – he must’ve folded it ten times.
And when I did, I wished I hadn’t. Wished I’d never opened the door in the first place.
It said, “On the back steps.”
This is the part when everyone starts yelling to run – I know, I would’ve said the same thing myself. But run where?
Yes, he could’ve written that note hoping I’d go and check out the back. Or, he could’ve written it hoping I’d get scared and run out the front. Or, he wasn’t anywhere and had written the note thinking this would be hilarious.
I settled on the back. If I turned on the light, I’d be able to see out there without opening the door. If he was there and came after me, he’d have to break through the door – I’d at least have some time to run for it.
Well aware that it has almost never helped anyone in a horror movie, I took a knife from the drawer and edged toward the back. Waiting, I counted to ten, wanting to see if I’d hear the tell-tale rattle of someone trying to open the door. Nothing.
Back flat against the wall, I flicked on the porch light and looked out through the small window. At first, I didn’t notice the small package on the steps. I was looking for him – the hulking shape of a man either hiding or running at me. As far as I could see, he wasn’t out there.
I had no intention of turning that light off, but thought that maybe I should check the rest of the house, and started to turn away. That’s when my eyes landed on the box. Just a black cube silhouetted against the light. But I knew he’d left it for me.
I knew not to go out there. It could be a trap, a trick. Probably was. But I wanted help, damn it. I wanted the cavalry. And I was just so scared they wouldn’t come if they thought it was a practical joke or if they didn’t take me seriously. It could be evidence out there.
That was why I went out to get it.
I took another long look and unlocked the door, then opened it. If he was out there watching me, he’d have to cover a lot of ground to get to me and I thought I’d have enough time to get back inside.
Deep breath. One, two, three…
I sprinted the handful of steps to the package and grabbed it, careful not to overshoot and go tumbling down the stairs. Before I took another breath I was back in the house, door locked behind me, gasping for air like I’d just run a marathon. Checking the window again I saw, still nothing. Nothing but yellow leaves rustling in an unsteady wind.
Setting the box on the kitchen table, I took a pair of latex gloves from under the sink. It hadn’t just been the light, the box – my treat – was wrapped in shiny black paper. It crinkled unpleasantly when I lifted the lid.
I had no idea what to expect and drew back just in case something sprang out. But there was nothing like that – nothing alive, or dangerous in the traditional sense. Reaching in, ignoring the crackle of the paper, I pulled out two white shoes covered in blood. Little ballet flats about the size of my hand.
My fingers trembled and my eyes started to tear up. I wanted to believe, more than anything, that it was fake blood. That all of this was someone’s sick idea of a Halloween prank. But there’s no mistaking the smell of real blood. A lot of it had dried but there were still spots of dark, sticky red.
I stood there too long, looking at them, unable to break out of that horrified paralysis.
The police. No question now.
Where the hell did I leave my phone? It had to be back in the living room. On the other side of the house. Of course.
Ripping off the gloves, I made myself move. If I didn’t, I’d be cowering in my brightly lit kitchen until noon tomorrow. All I had to do was get there, grab my phone, and call 911. I took the knife just in case. Everything was going to be fine.
I screamed when the doorbell rang.
Gripping the handle of the knife, I looked out through the peephole. I couldn’t see anyone. Standing there, holding my breath, I waited for the doorknob to turn, for a fist to start pounding against the panels.
Instead, a small voice said, “Hello? Is anyone there?”
“What the hell?” I listened, not sure what was going on, not sure if I was quite possibly losing my mind.
“Can you help me, please?” The little voice sounded choked up, like it was trying very hard not to cry. “I’m lost and I can’t find my way home.”
If a little kid was out there, they had to get in the house. Right now. I opened the door to find a little girl, eight or nine years old, dressed in a bloody ghost costume. White face paint, dramatic black shadow around the eyes. White gloves and a cut up sheet that hung to the ground. She blinked up at me and said, “Please help me.”
I wanted to ask her a million questions: how long had she been out there? Where were her parents? But I was scared. My eyes jumped from shadow to shadow trying to see if any were moving in a way they shouldn’t be.
“I’ll help you get home, don’t worry. But you have to come inside right now. We’ll call your parents.”
She looked past me into the house and shook her head. Panic and frustration crowded in on me – all I wanted to do was grab her and drag her into the house. But that wasn’t fair, and probably wouldn’t speed things up. Maybe if we could just get to my car.
“Okay, I understand. Let me just get my phone and we can both–”
“No!” She looked past me again into the house. “He’s waiting for you. Listening for you to go into that room. You have to come with me right now.”
Before I could respond, I heard fast, heavy footsteps behind me, coming up the basement stairs.
The girl’s eyes widened. “Run!”
I ran. Leaving the front door open behind me, I sprinted after the girl. The knife in my hand felt like a toy and I almost threw it away. Just once, I turned and looked behind me and saw the clown crashing through the doorway.
The girl was already ahead of me, I could barely see flashes of white in the darkness, and sped up not wanting to lose her. Not daring to stop or even slow down, I screamed up to the houses we ran by to call the police, call for help.
We cut through yard after yard until we were racing down a street I didn’t recognize. Even though I ran faster than I ever had before in my life, the clown was still right behind us. And he was catching up.
Ducking under a low-hanging branch, I realized I’d lost the girl. Ready to take off in whichever direction looked most promising, I stopped when I heard her voice.
“In here!” I turned and saw her peeking out of the front door to a house. I ran to her and tried to lock the door behind me, but the deadbolt wouldn’t turn.
“Shit.”
I gave up and rushed to the back door. It was blocked. Twisting the knob with both hands, I threw myself against the panels. “Come on!” It wouldn’t budge.
I had no idea where the girl had gone but I knew I was almost out of time. I could feel it, the same way you can feel a headache coming on. That sense of pressure building. Back to the front of the house, I started up the stairs. I’d only made it to the fourth one by the time the door flew open.
Without turning around, I tore up the rest of the stairs and threw myself behind the first door I came to and slammed it shut behind me. A bathroom.
There was a window by the shower and I raced over, ready to break the glass if I had to – and saw it was a sheer drop to the driveway. “Damn it!”
Maybe if I tried using the shower curtain as a rope –
The door was kicked open with such force that the wood splintered. The clown stepped in and waved his fingers at me. In the other hand, he held a cleaver.
I had no chance at all.
He crossed the bathroom in two steps, that stupid clown mask grinning down at me. I didn’t even scream.
Then I heard a small voice yell from the hallway. “Hey! Don’t you touch her!”
The clown turned and froze, staring at the girl. Without thinking, I lifted the knife I’d taken from my kitchen – the one that felt like a toy, that never helps anyone in the end – and slashed it across his throat.
He stumbled back, one hand pressed against the cut. A hot, red spray spurted through his fingers and hit the walls, spattered against my face. He went down swinging the cleaver, slicing through my arm just below the shoulder but I didn’t even feel it. Face-down on the floor, the clown’s body shuddered. Heavy boots thudded against the tile, fingers twitched. I waited until he was still before I moved.
For good measure, I knelt and brought the knife down, stabbing it into the back of his neck and left it there.
Stepping over him, I went to the girl and grabbed her, hugging her. Probably too tightly. “That was such a brave, stupid thing to do! Are you hurt?”
She shook her head but started to cry a little bit.
She said, “You just have to come with me now, OK?”
The only place we were going was to a phone to call for help, but I nodded and let her lead me downstairs.
“I’m sorry, but I need you to make sure that someone takes care of my mommy and daddy.”
We came around the corner into the living room and my stomach clenched into a tight, sick ball. “Oh God, oh my God.”
Two bodies were sprawled in front of me, covered in blood, parts of them missing. The room started to tilt and go out of focus. We had to leave. I wasn’t about to leave that poor girl alone while I fainted.
“We’re getting out of here. Come with me, right now,” I said reaching out for the girl’s hand.
But she stepped away from me and shook her head no. “I have to go now. I don’t want to get left behind.”
That made me so sad for her. “I would never leave you here. We’re going to get help, together.”
She smiled. “I know. Just don’t forget about my mom and dad. And how much you helped us. Try to remember that and not be too sad when it’s all over.”
I looked at her, not understanding.
She pointed across the room. “My mom’s phone is on the table next to the sofa.”
Wanting to grab the phone and get the hell out of the house, I walked over, avoiding the blood as much as I could. As I reached down, I noticed something on the other side of the sofa. A flash of white in the darkness. And started to cry.
A cut up sheet covered in blood. White gloves. But her feet were bare. The shoes were gone.
|
The first thing that Geoff noticed when he opened his eyes was that he was completely immobile from the neck down. Next came the realization that it was now early in the daytime. The last thing he remembered was running alongside the Maryland stretch of Route 50 between Salisbury and Abandale at nighttime. Now it was day.
Geoff tried to gather his whereabouts. By maneuvering his neck around, he could see that his body was lying at the base of some sort of deep depression, a ditch, alongside the highway. A steep ledge on the side of the ditch he happened to be upon rose at an almost vertical angle for about eight feet, then gradually sloped another ten towards the pavement and guardrail. In front of him, the ditch had a small slope, no more than five feet, leading up to some marsh grass and a dense gathering of trees that lined the road for about ten miles.
Once all of this had been ascertained, Geoff tilted his head forward, pressing his chin uncomfortably into his chest. He wanted to see why he could not move.
Geoffrey Callister, former wide receiver for Kent Island High School, the college track star who could run a five minute mile no sweat, even a decade hence, was now a mangled, grotesque caricature of his former self. It looked like everything from the torso down had been jammed through a meat grinder. His legs were broken in at least twenty different places. The bottom portion of his abdomen was sliced open, and trailing about ten feet or so from his innards stretched a line of intestine, looking like a pale snake in the grass. Dried blood had covered his clothes and the surrounding space, caking him in a sticky film of goo.
Geoff began to scream. He did not relent for a good five minutes. He cried for help, cried from confusion, cried in pain, cried.
What was he doing here? How had he ended up in this situation? He forced himself to try and recall the events of the previous evening. Geoff recalled his car running out of gas. In his hurry, he had forgotten to refill it, and the tank was already low when he was on his way home. He was running though. Why had that been? Was there somewhere he desperately needed to be?
Mackayla. He was trying to get to her before it was too late.
So he was running, and then next thing he knew, everything grew bright. Then he had woken up in the ditch. From the looks of things and where he was, he must have been hit by a car. But why hadn’t the driver stopped? Or perhaps they had gone to get help?
No, that wasn’t it. They wouldn’t have abandoned him here like this. They would have called 911, or flagged a car down down for help or something. And why was it daytime?
Three words simultaneously struck him that caused a surge of panic throughout what was left of his body: hit and run.
He kept trying to shake the words out of his mind, he didn’t want it to be so. Yet, try as he might, he could not deny that this had to be the scenario. He had been struck by a speeding car that evening while running down the highway to find a gas station. The car must have sent him flying through the air into the ditch, where he had spent the night, miraculously alive after the ordeal. Had he only been on the opposite side of the guard rail, or had he only filled up his gas tank before going home.
Had he only not gone to work in the first place, and stayed with her…
Geoff realized that “what if” scenarios weren’t going to change his present state. He had to figure a way out of his predicament. His cell phone was in his left pocket. If it wasn’t smashed, he might be able to call for help. By forcing his concentration upon his left arm, he tried in vain to get the slightest movement from his hand. He couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t move. It wasn’t until he looked at his arm that he realized it was bent so bad in every which direction that it far more resembled a question mark than it did an appendage.
Not that it really mattered. He had come to the conclusion that he was, in all likelihood, completely paralyzed, save his head and neck. He was thankful that he could at least move these about. Geoff recalled an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in which a paralyzed man couldn’t move any part of his body, and was mistaken for being dead. At least this way, he could scream and call for help.
But it was early in the morning, probably no later than 7am. In the ten minutes that he had been awake, he hadn’t heard a single car pass by. Soon, however, he knew that cars would be roaring their way to work. He’d just have to stay conscious long enough to listen for them. Geoff wished that he could see them, but the steep ledge of the ditch he had come to rest in would not permit it. Instead, he lay in a deep shadow that obscured his vision of anything above the ditch.
A rumble could suddenly be discerned. It was distant, yet growing intensely as it approached. There was no mistaking it; it was probably a pickup truck on its way to Abandale.
A smile crossed Geoff’s face. Any second now, he’d hear the brakes squeal, the thumping of footsteps, and a friendly, concerned voice that would be his salvation. The rumbling of the pickup grew nearer and louder. Geoff began to imagine what the driver looked like. Closer it grew, not a hundred feet off. He bet that the truck would be green for some reason, his favorite color. He found a tear to be streaming down his cheek, so excited was he.
The truck continued on without stopping.
Geoff’s jovial attitude disappeared back into the fear and tormented cloud that had been over him since he had awoken. Why hadn’t the truck stopped? Why hadn’t they helped him?
“Hey!” he screamed as loud as he could, shocked at the croak that had escaped his lips. He was severely dehydrated and exhausted. Geoff persevered. “Come back! Please! Down here, I need help, I’m hurt real bad!”
He continued to scream for help long after the truck was gone. Eventually, another rumble could be heard coming down the road, two cars. This time he was sure he’d be seen and helped out by one of them, if not both. He waited expectantly, yelling “Hey!” over and over again, hoping that they’d hear him. Like the last time, they continued on without stopping to check on the shattered man lying in the ditch.
Geoff racked his brain at what was going on. Why wasn’t anyone stopping to help him? When one sees someone that’s been hurt real bad lying on the side of the road, typically at least one person is gonna stop and call for help.
Then it dawned on him.
When he had been in high school, Geoff had done a show for the theatre department. It wasn’t anything particularly good, he thought, but he enjoyed the camaraderie of the theatre students. He recalled one of the rehearsals during which he had been standing backstage in full view of the audience section. The stage manager, a little snot named Steve, had hissed at him to get back and out of view. “If you can see the audience, then the audience can see you!” Steve’s words were ringing through Geoff’s head at this moment. He could not see the vehicles on the road, or the road itself, therefore the vehicles could not see him deep down in the ditch.
Geoff began to panic. If the vehicles couldn’t see him, how would they be able to stop and get him out of here to a hospital?
For the next hour or so, perhaps even several, Geoff screamed his head off at each passing car. It wasn’t long before the rush of vehicles came, heading to work, yet not one of them could hear the poor man in the ditch, shrieking desperately for help against the roaring of rush-hour traffic.
Geoff prayed for an accident that would cause the traffic to slow up just a little bit, long enough so that he would be heard during the standstill.
No such luck appeared for him, and he found himself lying in the ditch, unable to do a thing but yell. After hours of such raucous activity, he found his voice growing fainter and fainter. He hadn’t the energy, consciousness was fading fast for him. He imagined his larynx had been reduced to ribbons by now, so hoarse were his cries and pleas for assistance.
Soon, the noon-day sun appeared over the lip of the ditch, almost directly over his face. At first, he had welcomed the heat, for he was rapidly growing colder due to the blood loss he had endured. It didn’t take long though before he started to see spots blurring his vision, and was forced to close his eyes. He did not want to do this however; he feared he would fall asleep. And if this were to happen, he was not entirely sure that he would be able to wake up.
A cold sweat began to break out across his brow. He itched for the opportunity to wipe his forearm across his head to clear the uncomfortable beads from his face, but knew this was quite impossible. Instead, he attempted to distract himself from everything by thinking about something else. Yet, the only thing he could find himself thinking of at this moment other than his battered condition was Mackayla McGuinness.
She had had an affair with him for nearly a year; she was married four years to some guy named Scott. Despite the nature of the situation, Geoff had always seen their relationship as stable. Never did a bit of guilt creep up into his mind. Mackayla insisted that she didn’t love Scott anymore and any day now she would leave him for Geoff.
Geoff liked her, no- ass over heels loved her! But Scott got a promotion and they were moving from Abandale to someplace up in New York. It wasn’t until yesterday though she had told him that they’d be permanently leaving and the affair was over. Geoff had found himself in such a state of shock at such a sudden bombshell that all he could do was leave her house and go to work. He was stupid enough to turn off his phone for the day and just leave. Why hadn’t he stayed home? Why hadn’t he tried to talk things out with her?
Geoff intensely loved Mackayla; had he stayed with her yesterday, he would’ve shown her the wedding ring he’d selected to give to her when she decided to leave Scott. He didn’t want to lose her, but he was so dumbfounded by her revelation that he knew that, if he did not want to hurt her or himself, he had to be out of and away from that house.
As soon as he had clocked out, he received a text from Mackayla; they were leaving that night. Geoff tore his way down Route 50 towards Abandale. A drive that typically lasted twenty minutes was increased to two hours when he ran out of gas. It was then he had taken off running, desperate for a gas station so he could get to her home before she left with Scott if she hadn’t already.
Undoubtedly she was far gone by now. She and Scott were likely to be over the state line, maybe even at their new house. Geoff began to weep. He was overwhelmed with several emotions right now, ranging from betrayal to loneliness to pain. The pain was the severest of all, and he wished to God it would go away. Once or twice that morning he had heard an ambulance siren go by, and imagined they would halt and jump out and pump his body full of drugs to stop the searing agony.
The ambulance was never for him, unfortunately.
Geoff had been so distracted by his thoughts for the past half hour that he had failed to realize the sound of a car door slamming just fifteen feet above his head. A thick, Eastern Shore accent broke his concentration.
“Gimme a sec, hon, I’ll be back.” Geoff’s eyes flashed open.
“Tim, you can’t do that out here! There’s a station not two miles up the road,” a middle-aged woman’s voice drawled.
“I said I’d only take a second, hon!”
Geoff grew excited. He began to hyperventilate, someone had stopped! They must have seen him! They were probably checking to see what it was lying in ruin at the base of the ditch, expecting an animal, but instead would see him. His rescue had finally arrived.
Try as he might though, Geoff was unable to make a sound. He had screamed so much that morning that nothing escaped his lips, not a croak nor a groan, much less a cry for help. But this did not matter, for in a few seconds he would be res-
A yellow trail of fluid came showering over the ledge of the ditch. For a quick second, Geoff was confused, but in a moment the urine was splashing over his mangled legs. A few droplets were spewed upon his face, and he tried to spit them off. His eyes closed and his head turned the opposite direction.
‘He hasn’t stopped to help at all,’ Geoff thought viciously, ‘he only needs to urinate, the bastard! Can’t he take a step further and see that I’m down here? Why doesn’t he see me??’
Geoff tried to scream, but to no avail. The urine continued for about twenty seconds before the man zipped up his pants and returned to his vehicle with a brief mumble to his wife. Then the car zoomed away down Route 50, onwards to Abandale. The salt from his fluid stung in every scar upon Geoff’s poor, broken figure. He began to cry. He knew the man hadn’t meant any harm or to humiliate him further, but how he wanted to hate the man, how he wished he could curse him for his ignorance! If only he’d been seen! If it weren’t for this impossibly deep ditch, Geoff would have been in a hospital by now. He knew he didn’t have too much longer to survive this hellish ordeal, he just wanted it to be over. He wanted to see Mackayla just once more, if that was all he was allowed. He had so much to say to her, but feared he would never have the opportunity.
A police siren whirred by, this time in the opposite direction, coming from Abandale instead of heading towards it. He didn’t bother screaming for help now; if he couldn’t gather attention from some dumb hick peeing on his body, how was he was supposed to get it from a screeching cop car?
It was then that Geoff became aware of a feeling deep inside his person. It was the first physical feeling beyond torment that he had felt in his body all day. Instantly, he knew what it was, and he tried to fight it. However, due to his condition, his muscles couldn’t even begin to give up a fight, and he found himself defecating in his shredded jeans.
Weeping, Geoff reflected on how he was slowly being stripped of his humanity. Robbed of all movement, no more voice, pissed upon, and now he was unable to control his bowel movements. He had no help from anybody but himself, and even then he was powerless to do a thing.
The smell was almost unbearable. He found himself breathing through his mouth and closing his nostrils, though it didn’t help too much. The stench combined with the sun’s heat made the air around him thick and hard to breathe. Flies buzzed about him, and he had to shake his head side to side to clear them from his mouth, nose, and eyes. He coughed and puked a few times, covering his personalized varsity jacket (which he wore from time to time) in waste. Now he began to feel the desire for water creep up throughout what was left of his body. He hadn’t had anything to drink in what he estimated to be around 16 hours. Looking up, he saw a few dark clouds gathering. He hoped it would rain, not only so he might have something to drink, but with enough water flooding the ditch, he might be drifted to somewhere visible from the road.
He was also intensely hungry. He needed food and water if he was to keep alive long enough to be found, but how would he be able to find food here? The grass wouldn’t do him any good to eat.
There was a rustling of leaves coming from the trees. Geoff’s head darted over so that he might see what was advancing towards him. Undoubtedly it would be some sort of forest creature, not that they could be of any help to him.
He was surprised to see a little woodland mouse scurrying through the grass. It first approached the intestine that stretched out through the grass perpendicularly to him. Geoff realized that, had the intestine gone a different direction, the driver that had pissed on him might have seen it. He shook this thought off, realizing it didn’t do him any good.
After it had gnawed a bit on his intestine, the mouse followed its trail to the source. Scurrying up onto his torso, the mouse examined the gaping hole in Geoff’s abdomen. He prayed it would not scramble down inside of him.
Fortunately, it didn’t. Instead, it began to carefully inch its way up his chest. Geoff angled his head to get a better look at the little brown-orange creature. His movement sent the mouse back a few steps, but it turned and looked into Geoff’s eyes, and continued on its course across his chest and towards his head.
Geoff knew what he had to do. If he was to survive, he was going to need nourishment. From this mouse, he would get energy and some hydration.
Reluctantly, Geoff opened his mouth.
His eyes were closed tightly, he did not want to see the deed done. With every step the mouse took up his torso, Geoff grimaced in disgust. Soon, its furry head and front legs had crawled audaciously into Geoff’s mouth. He snapped his jaws shut with the force of of a bear-trap, and instantly the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. A muffled squeal emanated from the tiny beast, it went stiff, and then ceased all movement. Geoff didn’t realize it, but he was crying. He wanted to scream, but his body again betrayed him and would not allow it. He tried peevishly to eat the mouse, but the crunching of its tiny bones and its hair forbade him from doing so; he threw up, his efforts in vain. The mouse carcass fell from his mouth and rolled away from his body, out of reach of his head.
Geoff passed out.
He awoke some hours later, much weaker than before. Something hot and wet was stroking his face. At first, in his awoken confusion, he thought that rain had arrived at last, but saw that a deer was violently licking him. It had been attracted by the urine of the man from earlier. Geoff felt its hot breath striking his face with each exhale, its sticky saliva being slathered all over him. It began to work its way down from his face to the hole in his abdomen.
Had he been hydrated, Geoff would have been sweating profusely. He watched worriedly as the deer eyed the opening in his body, fully aware that there was probably salt from the urine inside of him. The deer’s tongue darted into the hole and began to slap about his insides, slurping up what it could.
Geoff’s head began to slam against the ground repeatedly. His mouth was opened wide as if to scream. Each movement the deer’s tongue made was like a stab deep into his body. He thought at any moment his nerves would give out and he would die. The movement of his head caught the deer’s attention and it stopped. It blankly stared at him for a few seconds and scampered off into the woods.
Geoff began to pant repeatedly. He wept and prayed silently, mouthing the words, asking God to make the torture stop, that either someone would find him or that he would just die.
It was then that he noticed something. A dark shadow in the sky. It was too high up and near the sun for him to tell what it was. He hoped against probability that it was a traffic helicopter, though he heard no noise from it. It continued to circle and dive irregularly. It soon came close enough that Geoff was able to discern just what the flying object was; a turkey vulture swooped down from the sky gradually, obviously taking him for some kind of roadkill prey.
A wave of panic rose up in Geoff. He shook his head no, as if the bird would understand what he was saying. It didn’t care that he was still conscious and alive; from all appearances, he was dead from the waist down.
The vulture landed a few feet from Geoff’s legs. It eyed him hungrily, and began to bob its head back and forth intently, all the while rustling its wings. Geoff continued to shake his head, hoping the movement would send it off like it had done to the deer.
It hopped over about five feet to the end of his intestine. Its razor beak pecked at his innard a bit, before seizing it and giving it a solid jerk. The force of the bird’s movement caused Geoff’s entire body to surge over. A sharp pain rang about inside his chest cavity like he was some kind of pinball machine. How he wanted to scream so desperately, he was convinced that a strong, earth-shattering scream would alleviate the torment to some degree. Instead, he was mute, and continued to feel the vulture tug at his intestines, pulling more out of his body as if he were dispensing a rope.
When it grew tired of yanking at his intestine, the turkey vulture began to come close to Geoff. It first focussed on the hole in his abdomen, dipping its head into the cavity. Every stab was a step closer to death for Geoff. He saw his vision splinter in half as a dark line began to tear his sight apart. He was fading fast.
Then the bird was upon him, perched atop his chest as if it were a bust of Pallas, pecking intently upon his body.
Geoff no longer sought to rid himself of the bird. Perhaps this was what he had been hoping for. He felt himself slipping into unconsciousness as he could no longer breathe with the turkey vulture upon his busted rib cage. He resigned himself to this fate. The bird continued to heave and jab as he lay there, helpless. Darkness was overtaking…
“Hey you!” a voice tore through the darkness. “Get off of him, lousy buzzard!”
Geoff’s eyes slowly opened. He saw a tall, handsome man in his early thirties shambling down the side of the ditch. His dark hair was shining in the late afternoon sun. “Go on, git! Leave him alone, you bastard!”
The turkey vulture, confused, spread its wide wings and flapped itself away. The man came over and looked down at Geoff, amazed. “My God, you’re still alive,” he marvelled.
Geoff smiled and nodded his head. He tried to speak up, but the man stopped him. “Oh no, friend, you’re in no place to be talking. The way you look, you probably shouldn’t even be alive.”
Geoff was beginning to get irked. Why wasn’t this stranger calling for assistance? Surely he had a phone?
“I didn’t expect you to be conscious when I came back, much less alive,” he chuckled.
Now Geoff was growing uneasy. What did the man mean by saying ‘when I came back’?
“Geoff Callister, right?” Geoff nodded, amazed that this stranger whom he had never met before in his life knew his name. “Pleasure to meet you in person. Name’s Scott McGuinness. We belong to a mutual appreciation party, I do believe.”
Scott. The name flashed like an explosion through Geoff’s head.
“Boy, you know, coming back here, I expected you to be long dead. I didn’t think, after the way I hit you last night, that you could have even lived through the night, much less almost a full day! You are taking it like a champ, sir,” Scott seized his shattered hand and gave the broken arm a firm shake. Geoff grimaced, screaming intensely without any sound emanating from his lips. “Oh, forgive me, Geoff! I didn’t think you had any feeling left in your body.”
They stared each other in the eye for an expanse of time. Tears streamed down Geoff’s discolored face, wiping away dried mouse blood. “You’re wondering why, and how, aren’t you? I’ve known for quite a while now about you two. Mack and I tell each other everything eventually. There are no secrets between us.
“So, last night, while coming home to pick her up, I couldn’t believe my eyes; there you were, running down the street, headed towards our house determinedly. I recognized you. Oh sure, who could mistake it for someone else with that varsity jacket of yours with the name plastered across the back of your shoulders, G. Callister? Had to be you. Well, I let my nerves get the best of me. See, I love Mackayla. I love her a lot, as a husband should. But part of me thought I would actually lose her to you, do you know that? I couldn’t risk you getting to her before we had time to leave, so I just jerked my wheel a bit to the right and off you went, soaring into this ditch! Hell, it was really a sight, you should’ve seen it.”
Scott stood. His domineering shadow blotted the sun from Geoff’s view. “Now, although I said Mackayla and I don’t have secrets, I don’t see any harm in keeping this one between us, don’t you agree?” He smirked at Geoff’s motionless, silent body, incapable of any response. “Good, I knew you’d understand!”
Geoff’s mind was racing. He was unsure of what to do, what to say. There was not much he could do, except continue to cry. He was powerless to do anything. Here he was, inches from the man that had robbed him of his life, unable to lift a finger against him.
“Well, I really should be going, Geoff. I thought by coming back here and seeing you dead I could put my worries to rest. I can see now, that, all I need is to give you a little more time. That’s all.”
Scott began to ascend the wall of the ditch. As he disappeared over the ledge and walked to his car, Geoff could hear him mutter “Just a little more time in the ditch.”
|
If you really want to hear about it, here’s what happened. It was a long time ago and I was working at a local pizza joint called Peter Pizza. I remember clockwatching, waiting for midnight to strike so I could get the hell out of there. I didn’t have any plans. I just wanted to go home and watch a movie and maybe smoke a joint before going to sleep. I hadn’t been able to fall asleep last night and I was tired and pissy.
I remember hoping that the phone wouldn’t ring because that was exactly how it went in the food service industry: people called five minutes before closing time, expecting to get good service. Yeah…right.
Peter Pizza. What the hell kind of name was that? The better question was: why had I applied there for a job in the first place? I was twenty-five years old, for starters. Most people my age have “I’m paying my way through school!” to fall back on as an excuse but me…shit, all I could say was “It’s all I’m qualified for because I couldn’t decide on a major when I was younger and now that I’m older and wiser I realized that everything else is a fucking waste of time.”
Whatever. Apathy and I, we pretty much go hand in hand
Fourteen minutes until I could get out.
I hated the customers, or guests as the management wanted us to call them. “Guests” my ass. Being a guest required just a little bit of dignity so the assholes that waddled into Peter Pizza would be referred to as customers.
I didn’t work the front counter too much. I’m not entirely sure which end of the stick I was getting, because I usually clocked in as a delivery driver. Paul, the owner of Peter Pizza, gave me fifty extra bucks a week to pay for gas, which was more than enough.
Paul was okay, definitely not my favorite person. He had his moments of pleasantness, though.
Tonight wasn’t one of those nights. He had a stick up his ass for some reason or another, and it had been there since he’d walked in the front door–I could see it on his face, in his eyes behind his glasses. I didn’t know. I had arrived at work pleasantly stoned and had stayed that way until now. I didn’t really care why ol’ Paulie was mad, nor did I care if he was going to feel better.
Not with twelve minutes left on the clock.
You can’t just close the goddamn doors a few minutes early, can you? I thought, rolling my eyes as I watched the second hand tick-tick-tick its way around the clock. Paul was one of those bosses, the kind that would leave his front doors open for another ten or twenty minutes past close. And he wondered why the turnover rate was so high. When you pander to the customers and not the employees, things are bound to go wrong.
I sighed and reached into my back pocket to retrieve my cell phone. That was when the phone on the counter behind me rang for the first time in two and a half hours.
“Ah, fuck!” I groaned, rolling my head back.
Subtlety and I, we kind of clash. I was pissed. It was ten minutes until close.
“Asshole,” I muttered as I picked up the phone and put the receiver to my ear.
“Thanks for calling Peter Pizza. This is Ben speaking,” I said turning my head slightly to look towards the office, where Paul was busy with paperwork. “How may I assist you this evening?”
“Hey, I’m really sorry to be calling so late,” the guy on the other end said quickly. I immediately felt a little bad–he sounded polite albeit a little anxious, a little uptight. “Are you still delivering?”
“You bet,” I said.
“Oh, good, good,” the guy said. “Thanks. Would it be possible to put in an order for six large cheese pizzas, extra cheese?”
“You bet. What else can I getcha?”
“That’s it, thanks.”
“Address, sir?”
“1388 Alpine Drive, the big place,” the guy said. ”
“Name?”
There was a hesitation, the absolute smallest one that probably wouldn’t have been noticeable…but I was in a flaw-picking mood. It didn’t bother me. Not then.
“Robert. My name is Robert.”
“Be about twenty-five, thirty minutes,” I told him. He thanked me again and hung up as I punched the order into my terminal. I heard Paul exclaim in the back.
“Goddamnit!” he cried. “Six goddamn pizzas? It’s almost midnight!”
“You coulda closed early,” I muttered under my breath. Then, with a sigh to Paul: “Right there with you, boss.”
The pizzas took fifteen minutes to make. Paul told me to head home after the delivery—he didn’t feel like waiting around for me. I was just fine with that. I didn’t even know where Alpine Drive was until I punched it into Google Maps at quarter after twelve. I sat down in my Mazda3 and started the engine, waiting for the app to load.
“You should reach your destination by twelve-forty,” Google told me. I tilted my head back against the seat and let out a groan. Should reach my destination by twelve-forty. That was just great.
“Thanks, Google,” I said. I kind of wish it would say “You’re welcome, Ben!” or something cool like that, but I don’t know how comfortable I am with being on a first name basis with a Samsung.
The order total was over seventy dollars, though, including the delivery charge. That meant an extra ten or twenty bucks in my wallet, which was fine by me. Hopefully they weren’t assholes who didn’t tip.
I shifted into gear and started heading for Alpine Drive. I wished we had a delivery zone that was smaller than thirty miles. Whatever.
It could have been worse.
I don’t know how stoned I was by the time Google announced that I would reach my destination in three minutes. I had taken Highway 54 all the way south and the drive had been quick and uneventful. I played Alkaline Trio and Blink 182 on the way because some things never get old, no matter how old you are.
I wasn’t really familiar with the area, and I was glad as hell to have GPS. After awhile the endless fields on either side of the highway had slowly turned into black looming forests. The trees were black shapes against the eternally dark sky, lit only by cast of my headlights. I’m pretty sure that was the first (and last) time I was that far south on 54.
I’m all alone out here.
That was true and false at the same time. I had passed three or four houses on the way. I saw them because of the lights, glowing faintly in the dark. I remember thinking it was a ten or fifteen minute gap between seeing each house, making me wonder just how many miles the residents were from each other. It was an eerie thought, the nearest neighbor being five or six miles away. My ever-wild imagination conjured up an image: I was dead in a bathtub, the showerhead running over my naked and bloody corpse. I had fallen down, hit my head, and died because there was no one around to report me missing
I shook my head and continued driving until I was directed to take a right on Carpenter-Hooper Road. I ended up turning onto gravel road. I sighed, passing a bullet-riddled speed limit sign saying it was fifty-five through here. Were they serious? Who the hell went fifty-five miles per hour on an unpaved road? I coasted at a steady forty, keeping my eyes peeled for wildlife and random farm machinery. I wasn’t worried about other cars because it had been fifteen minutes since I’d seen one. It might have been longer.
All alone…
It was only five or so minutes until I reached the end of what looked like a driveway. The nav told me that I would reach my destination after I turned right. I obliged and continued up the driveway.
I was searching for the house and couldn’t find it. The map said that the house was on the left side of the road, but it wasn’t.
“You have arrived at your destination.”
“No, I haven’t,” I said impatiently. There was nothing but trees on my left, so thickly knotted together that it looked impossible to walk through, let alone inhabit a home with modern conveniences here.
I slowed down a little bit, and the bright beam of what could only be a porch light flared up in my rearview mirror…on the right side of the road.
“Google, you asshole…”
It took me a minute to do a successful one-eighty but I eventually started up the driveway. The driveway was paved and a few moments after I pulled into it, I was aware that my tires were no longer crunching gravel. It had gotten very quiet and this, for whatever reason, was really unnerving.
I rounded a bend and beyond the pine trees surrounding me was the house. Whatever light I’d seen was off now and the place was totally dark. The driveway looped around in front of the house. I slowed to a stop and parked, leaving the engine running out of habit. People keep telling me that my car is going to get stolen. Please…steal my Mazda.
Did everyone leave?
Maybe I’d gotten the wrong address, or typed in the wrong one or something. The GPS had already been wrong once.
No. The address next to the door was the same as what I’d typed in. I shrugged it off because it wasn’t that big of a deal. It wasn’t a big deal then anyway because that’s how things go. The characters in the horror movies make those stupid decisions because going upstairs to investigate that strange noise is what most people would likely do. It’s part logic because floorboards like to creak randomly and things fall over all the time. It’s a security thing, though—we, as human beings, have to be certain that we’re safe. The idea of an intruder was a slimy thought. The word ‘intruder’ even had a sinister feel to it.
Hey, Plato, your philosophies and anecdotes are adorable but your pizzas are going to get cold and you’re going to be Munson’d here in Bumfuck.
I was tired. My mind tends to wander when I’m tired. Slap-happy, I think it’s called.
I got out of the car and stood up straight, stretching and listening for a moment to hear my joints crackle. I let out a long breath and walked to the trunk to retrieve the pizzas because that’s just how much I care about my job and its valued customers that call just before close.
I took another glance at the dark house and rolled my eyes. This was probably a prank call. I was willing to bet a testicle that a bunch of assholes had picked a random address and sent me to it. They were probably all having a laugh. I’m not trying to be overly emotional but that honestly hurt my feelings. What a fucking waste of time…
I need a new job.
The pizzas were all in an insulated bag and I carried it lightly on my fingertips. I waited tables for God knows how long before this, and I’d developed a great set of forearms and really strong fingers because of how often I’d hold heavy trays and plates. I balanced the bag without thought as I made my way around the car and up the driveway, towards the front porch. The sound of my shoes crunching over loose gravel and dead leaves was loud and I felt isolated, a thousand miles from nowhere. There was no wind. The woods around me were quiet and the only light other than the moonlight was the glow of my headlights.
I don’t know why I looked up at the second floor as I walked across the yard. I was lost in thought, noting that the grass was long and in need of a trim. It was a quick glance up that led to an attempt at looking forward again. I looked up again in a flash. I thought I had seen the silhouette of a man in one of the upstairs windows but I marked it off to being a trick of the light.
I don’t know if I want to meet the owners of a place this far out in the boonies.
The thought gave me goosebumps that I tried to ignore.
I mounted the porch steps and walked across it, thudding and creaking across the floorboards. I noticed there was no doorbell and that the curtains were drawn. I didn’t give either a second thought as I knocked on the door in the tune of the theme from Star Wars. My routes at work had taken me to some really shitty places. This house looked fine, a little unkempt but far from gentrified. I stepped back from the door a little bit and waited for someone to answer but thirty seconds went by and then a minute. I knocked again, this time just three booming knuckle-raps that were loud and clear.
“Ah, fuck,” I muttered as I realized that no one was really home after all. “What a fucking waste of time…”
I turned around to get back to the car and gave the house a fleeting glance as I bounced down the steps. I stopped when I saw one of the curtains on the first floor fall back into place, as if someone had been standing there.
“Hey!” I called. “Hey! Dude! I’ve got a bunch of pizzas for you!”
I walked up the steps again. I was miffed, surprised, and confused all at once because I was sure the house had been empty. Why the hell were all the lights off? That was the big one, the question I really wanted to know. I wondered if it was a surprise party but shook it off. If Robert or Stan whatever his name was didn’t answer the door this time, I was going to drive my ass home and throw each of those damn pizzas out the window along the way.
I knocked on the front door again.
“Come on, man,” I said under my breath. I then said loudly: “Pizza guy!” Then, quietly: “Fuckin’ waiting for you…”
I gave it a full minute and turned around to leave but as I did, the sound of footsteps inside the house made me stop. I turned around again and was about to knock when I heard someone say: “Hey. Sorry.” It was a man’s voice, low and pleasant like a radio talk show host…but it scared the hell out of me anyway. I wondered why he was talking to me through the door instead of just opening it.
“That’s…totally fine,” I replied uncertainly. “You Richie?”
There was the slightest pause before he said, “It’s Robert.” The tone in his voice as he emphasized his name was a little weird, like he forgot it. I didn’t think too much of it mostly because he had scared the hell out of me but because the customers I served were strange and sometimes liked to use fake names when ordering pizza like Dale Gribble on King of the Hill. I don’t know why and I don’t question why people are the way they are.
“You ordered the…six…large cheeses?” I felt ridiculous, talking to this guy through the door, and a little uncertain. I was ready to run at any moment, in case things went south with the guy behind the door. Sirens weren’t going off inside; the guy instantly struck a weird chord with me but not a threatening one.
“Yes, I did. Look, I know this is a weird question but could you come around to the back door and meet me on the patio?”
I didn’t answer right away and maybe that’s why he added, “This door is all fucked up. I was waiting for you in the kitchen. I thought I mentioned that on the phone.”
All I could really say was, “Oh…yeah, okay.” Had he told me that? I didn’t think so but I couldn’t remember. I had been pissed about how late it was and everything but the order itself had vacated my mind. I was a little unsettled by how quickly he’d added that the door was busted. This is usually where most people say, “I’d get the fuck out of there!” and I probably would have until I realized that Paul would probably charge me the full fare for the lost pizzas. I didn’t feel like paying for them.
So I walked down the steps again and started heading for the backyard. Once again I heard the loud crunching of gravel beneath my feet as I balanced the pizzas on my fingers. The crescent moon above was my only source of light and it was no surprise that I nearly tripped over a rock the size of a softball that was hidden in the dark. I stumbled and almost fell, carefully righting the pizzas in my left hand.
I heard something crunch behind me. I whirled around and as I did, I caught a glimpse of somebody peering at me from around the corner of the house. He must have seen me notice him because he quickly withdrew and disappeared from sight. I started backing up, keeping my eyes on that spot. I had an unsettling thought: there had been someone behind me, walking in step with me to avoid detection until I’d tripped and threw him off.
I was still walking backwards but I was on the verge of walking forward and getting the hell out of Dodge when I realized just how scared I was. I didn’t want to go back the way I came, back towards where I’d seen the figure. I couldn’t help but think that he was waiting right around the corner and ready to grab me as I passed by.
But heading to the back door seemed like an equally bad idea.
I wished I’d never gotten out of the car.
I hadn’t stopped moving and waltzed right into the backyard. As I passed through the gate, a set of motion-activated lights mounted above the back door turned on. I dropped the pizzas in shock when the bright halogen lights washed over me and illuminated most of the backyard. I turned around wildly, expecting to see somebody standing behind me. To my surprise, though, I didn’t see anything but a fenced-in backyard that was flush against the woods. The grass was ankle-high and laced with various weeds but I didn’t pay much attention to it: the yard was huge and the guy probably hadn’t had time to mow it.
I was collecting the pizzas from the ground when I heard somebody say: “Hey, buddy.”
I turned around quickly and faced a middle-aged man. He was standing on the back porch with both of his hands held open at waist-level in an unintimidating gesture. He looked around a little wildly and gave me a nervous smile as I jumped to my feet.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, smiling sheepishly.
“It’s just a heart attack,” I told him, shifting the pizzas around so they were evenly stacked.
“I’m really sorry if it’s super creepy here right now,” he said in a tone that made me feel totally embarrassed. “I literally just lost power a few minutes ago. I don’t know if we blew a fuse or if the generator blew or…I don’t even know.” He ran his hands through his hair, shaking his head. “And to top it off, some asshole tried to rob my place the other night and fucking busted the front door…” He shook his head again and lowered his hands back to his sides. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a really shitty night, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. I felt really stupid. The man in front of me looked normal. He talked clearly and, again, pleasantly. He was even wearing a light blue shirt, khakis, and some kind of sweater tied around his neck. He looked like a rich snob the way he was dressed, to be honest. Hell, his hair was even combed over douche-bag style and he struck me as the kind of guy who had never worked anywhere near fast food. Usually this meant a lack of courtesy towards people like me, calling at such a late hour and such
|
I was ready to die. It’s funny; we, as human beings, like to imagine ourselves as fighters. We like to think that when death grips us by the throat, prepared to drag us into whatever beyond awaits us, that we’ll instinctively resist, either out of desperation to live or even some deeply ingrained sense of pride that won’t allow us to pass on without a struggle. Maybe it’s like that for some, but it wasn’t like that for me.
I didn’t know why, though. I had much to live for. I had a family who meant everything to me, a good job, close friends, and every reason in the world to want fight for my life. But despite all this, I was overcome with a hard apathy that prevented me from caring even the slightest bit about all the blessings in my life. The struggle proved too hard and I wasn’t able to fight.
With death looming nearby, these were the thoughts that went through my mind as my body convulsed with violent shivers. The wind howled around me, seemingly shrieking with laughter as it pelted me mockingly with fat snowflakes, symbolically tarring and feathering me before my death. I wrapped the emergency blanket tighter around my body and rocked back and forth, thumping lightly against the rear right fender of my car.
Immediately behind me was the shredded tire of my 2008 Ford Focus. A large stone covered by snow on the rode had decimated tire, reducing it to thin strips of rubber that dutifully clung to the metal frame that remained. Initially, I was merely annoyed about having to get out of the car in the freezing storm to change the tire. When I popped open the trunk and discovered that the tire iron was missing, I’d begun to panic. Staying out in this weather for more than a few minutes was dangerous, life-threatening even. I entertained the idea of getting back into my car and driving to the nearest gas station on the destroyed tire, but the car was running on fumes there’s no way it would have been able to drag the dead weight of its back end through the ever-thickening snow on the already precarious canyon road.
Desperately, I had tried to twist the bolts off the tire with my bare fingers. The icy weather made the appendages incredibly delicate and raw, but I nonetheless struggled for minutes that felt like eternity until my throbbing fingers were numb and coated with a thick covering of frozen blood.
Having destroyed my hands, I pondered my other options. I could get in the car and blast the heater, but what would that do? The battery might last a few hours, possibly even until the storm passed, but that wasn’t very likely and once the battery was dead I would be stranded. Granted, I could run the engine, but with how little gas remained in the tank, that would only end up the in the same result. Ultimately, either option would only prolong my hypothermic death. If I was going to die in either case, then I saw no purpose in extending my life only to watch frostbite work its way over my body.
I closed my eyes and leaned back against the car, trying my hardest to ignore the spasmodic attempts of my body to keep blood running through my veins. Interestingly, I wasn’t sad, frustrated, bitter, or anything. I really didn’t feel any emotion. Rather than thinking of my family, my mind played back random YouTube videos, minute details of things I’d noticed earlier that day like the tiny tear in tear in my waitress’s apron at Denny’s. Meaningless, sometimes mildly entertaining thoughts arbitrarily passed through my mind as my body slowly began to accept the inevitable.
An image of my dog, Max, a gigantic husky, balancing on the birdbath of our neighbor’s yard one sunny afternoon was on my mind when, of their own accord, my eyes slowly reopened, like when you dreamily awaken from a deep sleep.
Normally, what I saw would have caused a horrified shock to course through my body, but in my current state I was merely confused, trying to process what I was seeing.
No more than 10 feet in front of me stood a tall figure. It was draped in a long, black cloak with a high collar, effectively shielding its entire body from view. But instead of a person’s head, it had a ram’s head. Or, perhaps not a ram, but a goat or some kind of lamb. The animalistic head had the features and the horns of a ram but appeared more juvenile, more…innocent. The head that gazed back at me had tiny horns protruding from its forehead and ivory fur that was frequently camouflaged in the ensuring snowstorm. Its eyes caught my attention, though. Its eyes were pure white sclera, nothing else; no irises, no pupils, nothing. Empty seas of whiteness that were only separated from the rest of its face by a dark black ring. It looked as if someone had taken a lighter and burned the fur surrounding its eyes in a circular shape, leaving a charcoal colored black outline of its almond-shaped eyes.
I stared at it stupidly. I didn’t know what to make of this new entity before me. I was ready to close my eyes and resign myself to death once more when it spoke to me then. Although, it spoke without words. There was no audible voice, nor did it speak in my mind with words. It spoke to me through impressions. I felt a sudden urgency to get up and approach the being. I dimly shook my head no, trying to communicate that I had no control over my body, that I couldn’t get stand up no matter how hard I exerted myself. It pushed wordless encouragement into my mind, and I somehow knew that if I tried again, I could stand.
I was able to, but not without effort. My legs were about as responsive as the legs of a toddler who barely mastered the art of standing. Every moment that I remained erect, my legs threatened to collapse beneath me. It was with great concentration that I was able to take awkward, heaving steps towards the figure, my body spasmodically shaking and shivering the entire time.
The being was much bigger than I originally thought. Standing about 4 feet before it, I could see that it was easily over 7 feet tall, towering over me. Normally, I would have felt horrified. As it was, I simply stood before it and, had I not been shaking so much, would have shrugged as if to ask, “So…? What do you want?”
The front of its cloak ruffled slightly and parted down the middle as its hands extended outward. Like the rest of its body, the thing’s arms were covered with thick, black cloth, its hands wrapped in what looked like black leather gloves. Curiously, it seemed to have humanoid hands with four fingers and a thumb adorning each.
But in its hands, it held an object that I never would have expected. I almost laughed out loud with the sheer absurdity of what I was seeing. Like how a person dying of thirst in the desert sees a mirage of an oasis, I believed my mind had conjured up some unreal image in an attempt to convince me that not all hope was lost.
In its hands, the creature held a tire iron.
It held the object as delicately as a flower girl holds the pillow upon which the wedding rings are rested. It presented it to me with reverence, as if it were holding a holy religious relic and not a tool that is found in every automobile’s trunk in the entire country.
I reached out to grab it, but the being spoke to me again, harshly, almost angrily. Again, no words were spoken or even conveyed into my brain, but I knew that I was not take the tire iron unless I understood the gravity of what I was doing. This creature was doing me a favor. In fact, it was quite literally saving my life. It expected me to pay it forward, so to speak. It would bestow this gift upon me, with the understanding that I would use the tool not only for myself, but for its purposes as well. I’ll be honest when I say that I didn’t fully understand, all I knew that this tool was my only chance of returning home to my family before hypothermia or frostbite overtook me. I nodded to the creature and the oppressive feeling clutching my chest relented, replaced with a feeling of relief, of approval, and even of close affection, the kind of affection an adult feels towards an endearing infant child.
With limited control over my body, I was somehow miraculously able to return to my car, change the tire, and continue the drive home.
—————————————
That was three weeks ago. When I’d gotten home, my wife was one the phone with the police, ready to fill out a missing person’s report. I stumbled in through the front door and she had shrieked in a bizarre mixture of horror, relief, joy, and frustration. She spoke to me, but I don’t know what she said. All I could hear was the hot rush of blood flowing back into my head, into my hands, my feet, and all the other parts of my body where I had been too numb to feel anything. All I remember is that she stripped my wet clothes off of me, threw a thick wool robe over my naked body, wrapped me up in as many blankets as she could pile on me, and then pushed me into her car that was parked safely in the garage and sped me to the hospital.
I was committed to the hospital for two days before the doctor felt confident enough that I could return home. I had gotten frostbite on my left ear and both hands. The doctor had to amputate the ear as well as two fingers on my left hand and the pinky finger of my right hand, but I didn’t care. My wife sobbed with gratitude as I exited the hospital and she clung to more closely than I ever saw any of our three children cling to her when they were nursing. I returned her embrace as well, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill over and down my cheeks. I can’t believe that in my lowest moments I had somehow been prepared to leave her and our family behind.
Life slowly returned to normal, and at some point, I had dismissed the being that had greeted me in my near-death moment as some kind of wild hallucination, the malfunctioning of a desperate and horrified mind. When recounting the event to my wife, I completely omitted the character from the story. Doing so felt…wrong, to say the least. I couldn’t explain where I had obtained the life-saving tire iron, and when I had lied about it, saying that I found an abandoned car off the side of the road, I felt a conflicting feeling of deep shame and rage burn deep inside me, and in the moment I had even felt afraid, superstitiously supposing that perhaps I might have incurred the wrath of that benevolent being in the storm. The feeling never fully passed but became more muted. I attempted to continue with my life, but no matter what I was doing, that feeling never left.
At work, at home, playing with the kids, and even making love with my wife, that feeling plagued me, and I had an anxiety that grew inside me each day. All logic dictated that the being was a figment of my imagination and that I had never made any kind of deal, nor was I in danger of angering some sort of mythical creature. I attributed the stress, the anxiety, the guilt, and the fear all to some kind of post-traumatic stress and tried as hard as I could to push it out of my mind. My rationalizations could never set me fully at ease though, and I knew that what I had experienced was real.
—————————————
I awoke one night in extreme discomfort. I often will wake up during the night to use the restroom or to get a drink or even just wake up for no real reason. I’m a fairly light sleeper and so I’ve grown accustom to these late-night awakenings, and my wife typically sleeps through it.
Tonight was different though. I awoke with a jump, thinking the house was on fire. The air around me was stiflingly hot and I was sure that there must have been open flames in the room. When I opened my eyes I wasn’t greeted by blackness like usual, however. The room was cast in a deep red glow, which would have given credence to my worry that the house was on fire, except that the color was too deep. The color was visceral and thick, as though the room was engulfed in the blood of some kind of ethereal massacre. The light was dim and I could barely see anything, but my eyes were quickly drawn to a being in the corner of the room, near the door. It was the same being that had met me that night I almost froze to death. But…it was also completely different.
The innocent, cherubic lamb’s head that had once gazed at me was replaced with an adult ram’s head. There were no eyes, the sockets were filled with insects crawling in and out of them, venturing from the decayed ears, to the nose, and down into the mouth, out of which lolled a disgusting, meaty tongue that was bloated and purple, seemingly ripe with infection. The creature no longer wore a cloak, but stood naked before me. It was even more imposing than before; where it was originally 7 feet tall, it must have been at least 10 feet tall if standing upright, but the creature leaned forward, supporting its weight on its knuckles as a gorilla would. It had the body of a person, enormous in every dimension, and equally as rotted as the head. The flesh was pale and sloughing off in large sections. Its abdomen had been decayed all the way through and vomited out a long tangle of intestines. A symphony of thousands of flies buzzed around the creature as cockroaches and other unspeakable parasites darted in and out of the numerous open sores covering its ruined body.
Only after seeing the repulsive, rotting carcass before me did I notice the overwhelming stench in the room. Images of concentration camps and rotting bodies pushed en masse into open ditches flashed through my mind every time I inhaled, imagining that those scenes still paled in comparison to the reek that was wafting off of the thing standing in front of me.
Underlying all of this was an oppressive feeling that punctuated every second:
rage.
The bed frame, the photos on the dresser, the mirror on the wall, everything in the room that was even relatively loose rattled and shook as the creature emitted a deep growl of fury. From seemingly out of nowhere, the creature produced the tire iron and held it out one enormous, simian-like hand, similar to the offering it had the night it had saved my life.
Immediately I realized that I had insulted the creature by not honoring my end of the bargain. I had taken its life-saving gift and used it for my own benefit, but I had failed to use the gift it gave me in order to carry out its own purposes.
I climbed out of bed and approached the thing, the smell and the heat increasing exponentially with every step that I took. It communicated to my mind the same way that it had before. It had given me the tire iron for a purpose, and now I must return the favor. I dared not look it in the face. Once I knew what it was that I needed to do, I simply nodded and gripped the tire iron with my left hand, the missing fingers a stark testament that my first encounter with this being was all too real. The metal of the tool was white hot and I screamed in pain but was too terrified not to retrieve the item. I lifted the tire iron and held it in both hands, then finally summoned the courage to lift my gaze toward the creature and meet its eyes, or what was left of them. When I looked up however, the being had vanished, leaving me in a cool, air-conditioned room that was pitch black save it be the faint moonlight that trailed in through the window and the various LED lights of my wife’s my electronic devices.
I knew what I had to do. I was too terrified to delay any longer than I already had. Clutching the tire iron in one hand, I made my way downstairs and climbed into my car.
—————————————
Home from work, I opened the front door and entered the house. For the second time in 4 months, my wife nearly tackled me to the floor, gasping in relief.
“Oh, honey! I was so worried!” She breathed, holding my face in her hands and resting her forehead against my chest. She always did this when she was trying to hide her tears from me. She was horribly upset about something.
“I was watching the news,” she continued, “and I was so worried that yours was one of the cars on the interstate.”
I grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her away gently. Not out of frustration or annoyance, but simply so I could see her face and look into her eyes. My suspicions were right–tears were brimming in her eyes and threatened to spill at any moment.
“I’m fine, Sariah. Why would you be afraid that I was hurt?” I asked.
She gestured to the TV in the living room where the news was playing live.
“There was a major accident on the interstate. It’s made national news, no one has ever seen anything like it. On 9 different stretches of road cars have lost control. Cars have been losing control, running into the cement barriers, colliding with other cars, even some diesels have flipped onto their sides and slid into oncoming traffic. There’s already over 40 people confirmed dead. They’ve blocked off the entrances and exits and slowed traffic as much as they can. Hopefully they prevented more accidents but those people–” her voice choked out into a sob. “I was so worried you were one of them,” she said, shaking her head, shoulders heaving with sobs that almost sounded like laughs.
I looked over her shoulder into the living room and saw the image of a diesel lying on its side in flames, surrounded by other cars in a similar state of ruin.
“What caused it?” I asked numbly.
“Nobody’s sure. The best guess is that a number of the cars had broken axles or something. A lot of the cars’ tires just popped off while they were driving. One of the cars they examined apparently didn’t even have any bolts holding the tires in place, and the tires that had stayed on looked like they’d been pivoted outward, ready to pop off off. I just don’t understand, how could this happen?”
Sariah looked back up into my eyes and stared into my eyes with such love and concern.
I turned away.
|
“Mama, can I pllleeease have a popsicle?”
Lily’s face puckered into an adorable little pout. At just four years old, she was quite persistent, and knew just how to be persuasive with her mother when she didn’t have her way. Her baby blues widened as she heaved another desperate prompt between her puffed, rosy cheeks.
“Pllleeease, mama! I reeeallly want a popsicle!”
I sighed. There was nothing more that I could do. It was the fifth time that I had told her that dinner was supposed to come first. She hardly ate as it was, though I had read somewhere that toddlers typically have a much smaller appetite, especially during the summer, when the heat is overbearing. It was a rather muggy afternoon, and I figured that hydration would be at least one benefit to the sweet, frozen treat. Regardless, as a parent, it was hard not to worry about whether she was getting adequate enough nutrition. “Well, I can’t force her to eat,” I told myself. “At least she’ll be getting electrolytes, right?”
After arguing the matter with myself (more-so than Lily, I think), I reluctantly trudged over to the freezer.
“What color would you like, Lily?”
“Mmmmhhh, the red ones!”, she said in declaration. “I NEED the red ones!”
I scanned the frigid interior for any signs of red until my face became the color I was searching for. Nothing. I sighed again. “Well, Lily, I think we might have to settle for another color. We’re out of the red ones.”
“But I really NEEEED the red popsicles!”, she begged. Another pout emerged.
“Lily, honey. I think that you want a red popsicle. You don’t need one. We have other colors.”
“No, mama. I need the red popsicles!”
“Oh, boy,” I thought to myself. “There’s no reasoning with a four-year old when they think that they need something.” I will admit that I have quite a tendency to give in to her requests, so this was partially my fault. Many would say that I spoiled my child rotten, but I had always made a promise to myself that I would do my best to make her happy, and if I was capable, I didn’t mind going the extra mile for her.
“Alright,” I calmly replied, smiling. “I’ll tell you what, Lily. When daddy gets home from work, I’ll grab some red popsicles from the store. I have to do some light grocery shopping anyway…”
It was here that I thought that I would try my luck.
“…but you have to promise me that you’ll try to eat some dinner, okay?”
To my surprise, her chubby cheeks deflated, and she nodded somberly in agreement. Our little pact was made.
My husband mostly worked the late shift at the store that he managed, so I knew that he wouldn’t be getting home until about ten o’clock. I also knew, as well as Lily, that ten o’clock was past her bedtime. Ultimately, I would have to be the bad guy. I hated that, but it was the only way that I could get her to the table for some real food. Perhaps, she would fill up on dinner and forget about the red popsicles until morning, when I could surprise her with what she wanted.
I made shrimp and mashed potatoes, her favorite dinner, hoping to arouse some sort of hunger, but to no avail. She only mentioned the red popsicles, over and over, as I made it a point to mention our promise. “No dinner, no red popsicles.”, I affirmed with a stern look. She only paused to look at me, then back down at her plate, picking at her food with the tip of her fork.
After hours of attempting to entice an appetite, it was time for bed. Not even one bite of the food was consumed. The only sign that she had even visited the food was shown by the numerous impressions left by the metal utensils. I told Lily of the consequences to her stubborn actions. “No red popsicles,” I reminded her. After brushing her teeth, I helped Lily to her room and tucked her in.
As I read Lily a story, I could hear her tiny tummy rumbling.
“Mama, I really need my red popsicles…”
“We’ll see about tomorrow, honey. Goodnight. Mama loves you.”
Gently, I caressed her head with my fingers, and patted a light kiss on her forehead. Her skin felt soft and warm against my lips. As I left the room, I could hear her muffled sobs from the soft blankets surrounding her. I wasn’t sure if they were from hunger or disappointment. Either way, I felt like crying with her. I would do anything to make her happy. Anything.
I must have dozed off on the couch, waiting for my husband to come home, when I heard the garage door leading into the basement shut abruptly. “He must be here,” I yawned. I could feel my diaphragm depress deep within my chest. I wasn’t used to catching up on sleep, yet I had been doing a lot of that lately. Typically, I’d wait for Joshua to get home before melting into the couch with him, listening to the mellow sound of Bob Ross telling us how to paint mountains with a palate knife. Always, it was the same colors. Always, it was the same tone. That’s why it was always so easy to drift into dreamland. It was only due to a recent bout of severe depression that I had been experiencing unusual sleeping habits and, at times, unbearable headaches. Medication was a consideration, but I never felt the need to take a drug when I could muster coping with the symptoms myself.
I went into the kitchen in anticipation to meet him, coming up from the stairs. I waited to hear his footfalls on the wooden planks. Nothing. I opened the door and quickly flicked on the light. No one was there. “What in the world is going on?”, I pondered.
“Joshua? Are you down there?” No answer.
I began my uneasy descent into the grey, dampness of our downstairs room. As my bare foot left the warmth of the last wooden stair, the coldness of the cement floor sent a chill through my calf and into my spine. I made my way on tip-toe to the laundry room, wandering around the corner. I had hoped that I would catch him there, sloughing off his dirty work clothes before taking a shower in the nearby bathroom. To my surprise, he wasn’t there, either.
“Where the hell is he? I know I heard the door.”
Then I heard something else.
It was fainter, coming from the garage. It was too scarce of a sound to be him…
…I leaned my torso from the laundry room entrance. I listened from the quiet further…
…the pitter-patter of small feet. Another noise shortly followed…
Shuffling…then clanking. Was there an animal of some sort that had found its way inside?
I looked to my left as I approached the door that had aroused me from my slumber earlier. Joshua’s hunting axe hung across the top of the gun cabinet, covered in burlap. Without a sound, I took it down from where it was laying, draping the burlap on a chair that rested in the corner. Quietly, I turned the handle of the door and slowly pulled.
A minuscule slit of moonlight appeared. Being a mother, you learn in an almost instinctual way how to operate doors without alarming whatever could be on the other side. A creak barely emerged from the hinge. As I continued to pull, my confidence in my stealth was suddenly overwhelmed at the thought of the possibility that the B&E beast might take notice and jump at my direction to maw me. I kept my grip steady on the axe. Gradually, the gap was large enough to peer through, to see a little of what I might be dealing with. It was otherwise dark, except for the ominous beam of light coming in from the window on the wall directly ahead. I saw nothing else, despite my patient effort to be silent, until the door was completely open. In the far corner of the garage, near our workbench, was a small, dark figure, silhouetted by a bright LED.
The flowing material around the ankles…the long, wispy hair…
It was Lily.
“Lily!” I gasped. I briskly put the axe down. “What on earth are you…”
Immediately, as I turned on the overhead light, I fell to my knees. Her gown was streaked with red. Glass shards surrounded her delicate feet. She held something red in her dainty fingers, tilting her head slightly as she lifted it to her petite lips.
An intense, throbbing wave of ache emanated from my brain. I had forgotten about those vials. When we planned our family, Joshua and I, we decided to keep those in a small cooler in our garage for emergency situations, for identification and such purposes if anything should ever happen to us. I guess I had forgotten because we had never had to think about it until recently. Normally, that cooler was locked, but the lock was removed about a week prior when we had an accident.
It was our blood.
“Mama…”
The voice was gurgling and almost unrecognizable. It was Lily, but it wasn’t her.
“…I found the red popsicles.”
Immense pain welled up inside of me, overflowing…stinging my eyes with hot, helpless tears. I watched, unable to move, as she took another. I could hear the nauseating crunch of the slush in her mouth.
When did this happen? How? What’s happened to my little girl?!
…the cooler door. The accident. She was impaled through the stomach when that truck slammed into us head-on. She needed a transfusion. The voices of her doctor became audible once again as my mind tortuously twisted itself. “AB+ is hard to find.” It was her only chance…her last chance.
I glanced over at the axe on the floor.
“Maaammmmaaa…”
The voice deepened and distorted even more with the elongated, almost taunting word.
“…the red ones are gone. I NEEEDDD the red popsicles…”
It was my fault. I’ve always tried to make her happy. Perhaps always was too much, after all. I have spoiled her. Rotten.
It was everything that I could muster to hold that axe in my hands. If I was capable, I didn’t mind going the extra mile for her…
Just then, a sharp sound came from the ceiling above. The chain belt lifted the heavy, tri-fold car port entrance. Daddy was home.
The axe became heavier and heavier in that moment, as if I had been holding it there for an eternity. My heartbeat danced with the rhythm of the mechanism above. Just then, Lily’s head was yanked backward unnaturally, jolting her glare to me. The innocence of her face was marred with the coagulated red of her deed, slowly dripping from the nub of her small chin. Singular droplets wrote the story of her binge, as they fell in lines down her porcelain neck. It was as if a doll’s face were dipped in crimson candle wax, melting away the child-like facade, only to replace it with a hellish abomination. The deep, blue eyes that conveyed drama so well were empty, void from all emotion.
What was I to do?!
The slam of the car door was accompanied by the hurried shuffle of my husband’s shoes. The noises echoed against the cold, stone walls before escaping into the night. Like an on/off switch had been flipped, his quickened pace became a dead stop. Joshua was directly between us, Lily and I. He could only slump over in a trance, fixing his eyes on what I saw, staring for several moments at the horror of it all.
“What…the hell is that?”, he finally asked.
“That’s our little girl,” I murmured.
“Honey, please. We buried her days ago…remember? She’s gone. That thing is not our daughter.”
I would do anything to make her happy. Anything.
“Lily, say goodnight to daddy. You’ll have more in the morning.”
“The red ones, mama…?”
I could almost hear her voice again.
“Yes, Lily.”
I lifted the axe high above my head.
“The red ones.”
|
I don’t like telling this story and most people don’t believe it when I do. It brings back too many painful memories, memories that I’ve been running away from since I was a ten year old boy. I’d been called a devil, a murderer, a child just desperate for attention. I’m forty now and I’m sure people still question my sanity. I even question my sanity. It’s been thirty years, but I will never forget what happened in that house, I will never forget what I heard, what I saw. I saw things and heard things that no living person should see. Things that would leave a scar that can never heal and things that would leave you questioning your sanity. I will warn you, this story, this true story is NOT for the faint of heart.
It was in Ohio, 1985, when we moved into the house. My mother was looking for a fresh start after my father’s abusive acts became too much for her to bear. He never touched me or my sister, Hannah, in any harmful way, but he and my mother would go at it almost every night. My mother would be left with a black eye and a swollen lip. I pretended like I didn’t know what was going on. I regret that now.
When we first arrived at the house, I could tell that it was really old. The windows were dusty, the paint was weathered and peeling off, and the grass stood almost as tall as I did. It looked abandoned, as if we were the first people to live there in decades. There was also an old swing set in the back and behind that, was a pond that held dirty water with a greenish color. The fence would creak as you open it, as did the stairs.
The first two months were silent, nothing was really out of the ordinary, but I noticed something that seemed strange to me. I was in the house looking through the window to make sure that Hannah was okay being alone in the backyard. She was on the swing set, but, oddly the swing next to her was moving back and forth, as if someone was there with her. But there was no one there, nobody but Hannah. I figured it was probably the wind. I went out there, because I didn’t want her out there alone. I was very protective of my sister. When I sent her inside, I stayed out there for about a minute and I thought maybe I was imagining things because I saw someone in the hallway window. They looked down right at me, I couldn’t really see their face. Maybe it was Hannah. Maybe it wasn’t.
It wasn’t really until the next night when things got frightening. Hannah’s screaming echoed through the house in the middle of the night. My mother and I woke up and quickly ran to her. It sounded as if someone were attacking her, but we didn’t see anyone. She was just screaming on the top of her lungs, pointing up at the ceiling.
“She’s trying to drown me!” She screamed more than once. We didn’t see anything but she saw something that night, something was there.
After that night, things started getting… weird. I’ve heard footsteps echoing through the house and I know this is going to sound weird but I’ve heard someone singing. It sounded like a young girl and I know it wasn’t Hannah because it sounded nothing like her. I was laying in my bed when I heard it. It must have been around midnight because everyone else was asleep. She sung it over and over again.
The birds are singing, singing, singing
Go to bed, go to bed
I’ll see you in the morning, morning, morning
Now rest your head, rest your head
It got louder and louder. It sounded as if they were coming toward me. They were getting closer and closer until eventually, they were right at my door. I heard water dripping. It sounds strange but I know what I heard. The singing stopped suddenly and all I could hear was the water dripping. Then everything became silent. The doorknob started turning just slightly. I hid under my covers and eventually whoever it was or whatever it was had left.
That wasn’t the only time I had a weird experience like that late at night. I’ve also heard whispers, most of the time I heard them coming from the basement. I never understood what the whisperer was saying, but one night I heard them loud and clear. I was asleep, I heard footsteps in my room. It felt like someone was watching me, like someone was sitting right at the edge of my bed. I lay there with my eyes closed, hoping it’d go away. Then it whispered.
“Who are you?”
I didn’t reply, I didn’t want to make a habit out of talking to things I couldn’t see. It sounded like a woman. I guess it left afterwards because I didn’t hear anything else. I was horrified by what was going on in the house. I tried to explain it to my mother, but she never believed me. She claimed I was dreaming and I almost believed that maybe I was dreaming. My mother seemed distant. She wasn’t the same person anymore.
I was worried about Hannah as well. She must have been traumatized by what she saw that night. I loved my sister, we did a lot together, but she became distant as well. One day as I walked passed her room, I heard her singing.
The birds are singing, singing, singing
Go to bed, go to bed
I’ll see you in the morning, morning, morning
Now rest your head, rest your head
I walked in her room, and she stopped singing. She was sitting on the floor, drawing as usual.
“Where did you learn that song from Hannah? I asked her.
“I learned it from my friend,” she replied, pointing towards the corner of the room.
I looked around the room, but I didn’t see anyone or anything. I noticed her drawing and it was really strange. She drew herself sitting on the swing and next to her, was another girl.
“Who is that girl you drew?” I asked her.
“That’s my friend, her name is Maddie.” I figured she had an imaginary friend. She was six years old, so that was normal, but that didn’t explain the song.
“Is she the one who taught you the song?”
She shook her head yes. “Her mother used to sing it to her every night,” she told me. “And she still does sometimes.”
“Well where is she now?” I asked her. She dropped her crayon and stood up off the floor.
“She’s behind you.”
It was then that I felt a cool breeze rush through my body. I turned around slowly just to see myself through the mirror that hung against the wall. That’s when I saw her. She was only there for less than two seconds, standing to the right of me and drenched in water. She looked young, around 6, the same age as Hannah. I wasn’t as scared as I should have been. I asked Hannah if she was the girl who was on the ceiling that one night. She said no and that the one who was on the ceiling was Maddie’s mother. She said that her mother was evil and that she would kill us if we told anybody about her. The same way she killed Maddie. I wasn’t scared until then. I wanted to tell my mother, but I’m sure she wouldn’t have believed me anyway. I just wanted to protect my sister, so I said no word about it to anyone. I didn’t really think that a ghost could do any physical harm, but I was ten at the time. I didn’t know much about ghosts. The only thing I knew about them was that they were people who were once living.
Later that day, I was walking pass the basement when I heard the laughter of a young girl. It sounded like Hannah so I walked down the stairs. She was sitting alone in the middle of the basement. “You shouldn’t be down here by yourself Hannah,” I said to her.
“I’m not by myself,” she said. She had one of those old jewelry boxes with the ballerina that would twirl and play music when you open it.
“What are you doing down here?” I asked her.
“Maddie wanted to show me her jewelry box.” I looked around. I didn’t see anybody, not that I wanted to. I felt very uneasy, like somebody was watching me. Somebody was there.
“We have to go now!” I yelled. “We need to get upstairs!” I just didn’t want to be down that basement.
“Shhhhhh,” she whispered. “You’re gonna wake her mother.”
“Get up Hannah!” I yelled. I heard a noise, it came from the other room of the basement.
Hannah started crying, I could see the fear in her eyes. She stood up on her feet, dropping the jewelry box. “Danny…” she cried, pointing behind me. “She’s behind you.”
My heart popped out of my chest. I remember shaking and my heart beating at a rapid pace as I slowly turned around. I froze in fear for a few seconds. She was there. She had long black hair and was wearing a black gown, her face was pale and her eyes were pitch black. It was like looking in the eyes of death itself. I grabbed Hannah and we ran upstairs to our mother. I wasn’t sure if she believed us, she told us to stay out of the basement and that was it. The face still haunts me to this day.
Hours after that frightening experience, I lay awake in my bed as I couldn’t sleep. It was past midnight so everyone else was asleep. I heard music coming from outside my room. I got out of bed, thinking that maybe it was Hannah. I peaked out my door, but I didn’t see anyone. I walked down the hallway and on the floor, in front of Hannah’s room was the jewelry box from the basement. I watched as the ballerina twirled around and around and around. Everything was like in slow motion, I became lightheaded. The air was cold and heavy. Somebody was watching me. I heard somebody singing, singing that same song. It was a young girl this time, it was a woman. The singing was coming from Hannah’s room. I opened her door, the singing stopped and I didn’t see anyone. Hannah was fast asleep. I asked her about it the next day, but she had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.
Weeks after that incident was when everything took a turn for the worse. Just like before, she was screaming, screaming on the top of her lungs in the middle of the night. We ran to her, my mother and I.
“She’s trying to drown me!” She screamed. “She’s trying to drown me!”
“Who?” My mother asked. “Who are you talking about?” Hannah stopped screaming and stood from her bed. She was shaking, her face was pale and her voice became weak. Her eyes were wide as she stood there, almost like she was frozen, like she couldn’t move.
“She’s behind the door,” she whispered suddenly, pointing at the door with a horrifying look in her eyes.
BAM!
The door slammed shut and I found myself alone, outside in the hallway. They were screaming. My mother and my sister were screaming and there was nothing I could do. I tried to open the door, but it was stuck. LET ME IN! LET ME IN! I yelled, I kicked and I punched because that was all that I could do. They were screaming as loud as they could until suddenly…the screaming stopped.
“Mom! Hannah!” I screamed out. No answer. They were dead, my mother and sister were dead. That was all I could think.
The birds are singing, singing, singing
Go to bed, go to bed
I’ll see you in the morning, morning, morning
Now rest your head, rest your head
It sounded like my mother. I heard the door unlock from the other side. I opened it slowly to find my mother sitting at the side of the bed, singing to Hannah who was fast asleep. She then stood up, I saw the emptiness in her eyes as she walked by me, as if I weren’t even there. I was beyond confused. It just didn’t make any sense.
I woke up the next morning to a loud noise coming from the kitchen. I ran downstairs to see my mother making breakfast, soaking wet and singing that damn song.
“Why are you wet mother?” I asked. She said nothing. “Where’s Hannah?”
“Who are you?” She whispered.
“It’s me mother. I’m your son.” She looked at me, staring into my eyes as if she were stealing my soul. She smiled, a crooked evil smile I never saw before.
“I don’t have a son,” she said. “Now run along, Maddie isn’t available.”
She walked down the basement and closed the door. After less than a minute, I heard a loud noise that echoed from the basement. I ran upstairs to Hannah’s room, searching everywhere for her. She wasn’t in there. I walked out into the hall and that’s when I saw her walk down the stairs. I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought she was dead. I chased after her, she led me outside, but I lost her as I shuffled through the tall grass. I ran to the backyard, thinking she might be playing on the swing set. I didn’t see her, but the swings were both swinging rapidly. I heard laughter, it sounded like two young girls, one of them actually sounded like Hannah but I couldn’t see anyone. I walked behind the swing set and that’s when I saw her. She was floating lifeless, faced down in the pond. I heard her voice as it echoed with the wind…she was singing.
The birds are singing, singing, singing
Go to bed, go to bed
I’ll see you in the morning, morning, morning
Now rest your head, rest your head
|
Sometimes I miss the dreamy sensations that came with childhood, like the excitement of visiting an amusement park. Back then they seemed like dreamlands nestled in reality, and it was as though no kid could wait to visit them. My younger brother and I were no exceptions. Whenever summertime rolled around, we would eagerly count down the days until Playland opened its gates.
Never heard of it? Playland is a very old amusement park in our hometown of Rye, New York, and it was always the place to be when we were kids. I made many fond memories at that park: the first time I rode the famous Dragon Coaster, playing frisbee on the park’s beach with my brother and father, and the night my crush kissed me on the cheek as we watched the fireworks display from the boardwalk. One particular memory, however, overshadows the rest.
It was the night our adult sister and her boyfriend had brought us to Playland. The four of us had spent the day riding the coasters, playing minigolf, and so on, but what my brother and I were really looking forward to was going on the dark rides (you know, those indoor rides through dark tunnels with different scenery and animatronics). At the time, there were rumors going around that all of Playland’s dark rides were going to be shut down, so we were adamant about paying them our final respects. My brother insisted on waiting until nightfall before riding them, so I assumed he wanted to go on the Zombie Castle or the Flying Witch first. But once the sun had disappeared behind the sealine, instead he hurried us to the tamest of the dark rides: Ye Old Mill. While the other two dark rides take you through castles infested with zombies and monsters, this one takes you on a boat ride through caves inhabited by Disney-esque gnomes and trolls. I asked him,
“You want to ride this one first? I thought you were our main thrill-seeker.”
“Yeah, I am,” He replied. “But I want to try something.” I could hear a bit of mischief in his voice.
“Try what?”
“I heard that if you go on this ride alone at night, you can see a ghost at one part!” Okay, so it was clearly only a rumor he had heard at school, but what would one expect from a 9-year-old? I (who was 11 at the time) just brushed it off, although I was, admittedly, a superstitious kid. “Just wait here, I’m going on first!” He turned to run to the ticket booth when our sister swiftly stepped in front of him.
“No you’re not!” She snapped. “Don’t you remember what happened last year?”
“Oh, yeah…” I muttered to myself. I had almost forgotten about the incident that had occurred on the ride looming above us, a tragedy that had played out like a horror story.
You see, Playland has a small record of deadly accidents, one of which occurred in 2005. A 7-year-old boy had gone on the Old Mill alone, having passed its minimum height requirement. His mother, who had been waiting outside, was terrified to find that the boat he was riding in returned empty. The news later broke out that authorities had discovered his body stuck beneath one of the conveyor belts used to move the boats, under more than 2 feet of water. There were no eyewitnesses to the accident and inspectors found nothing wrong with the ride itself, so it was believed that the boy became frightened and climbed out of the boat in an attempt to escape. According to the boy’s autopsy, the cause of his death wasn’t by drowning, but blunt force trauma to the head.
“He’ll be fine as long as he stays in the boat.” I said. Sis frowned at me as my brother nodded in agreement. Even though I understood why she was worried, I thought she was overreacting. The Old Mill was one of the safest rides in the park, and our little thrill-seeker didn’t scare easily.
“Look, you two can just ride it together. The ghost might appear anyway, right?”
“Yeah guys,” Her boyfriend chimed in. “You can take it like a pair of ghostbusters!” The cheesiness of that line made me laugh, as did the face my brother made in response. I said to him,
“Sounds fine to me.” He just sighed in defeat.
“Oh, all right.” As my brother walked up to the booth, Sis put a hand on my shoulder and quietly said,
“Don’t let him do anything stupid, okay?” I turned to see her face dark with concern. Hell, she sounded like she expected us not to come back. What did she think our brother would do? Jump ship and hide in the scenery? Sounds silly, but it was technically possible. The Old Mill has narrow concrete paths running along the walls for staff access, so people could hop out of the sluggish boats and go exploring. To try and calm her down, I placed a hand on her shoulder and said,
“Okay, I won’t let him get eaten by the robot gnomes.”
“Oh, shut up and go already!” She gave me a playful rap over the head before checking out the nearby game booths with her boyfriend, leaving my brother and me to board the ride. With no line in front of us, it was only moments before we boarded one of the boats and were on our way into the Old Mill. Rounding the first bend, we were greeted by an animatronic gnome in mining gear perched on a pipe above us.
“Welcome to Playland Waterworks!” it announced in its usual Western accent. “We’re keepin’ it flowin’ down here! But stay in the boat and on the main waterways. There’s hungry trolls hiding in those back caverns!” With that, the boat drifted into the unlighted tunnels ahead.
Do you ever get the feeling that a room seems darker when you know it’s dark outside? Never having been on the Old Mill at night, I was getting that sense. Aside from the lights on the scenery, the tunnels were completely black. I tend to get a little anxious in really dark places since my eyesight isn’t the greatest, but being with my brother helped alleviate that anxiety. For the first couple minutes we just poked fun at the scenes we passed, which consisted of the gnomes performing generic mining duties: digging for gems, blasting stone with TNT, and accidentally blowing each other up (in the cartoony “covered-in-soot” way, of course). At one point I asked him,
“So, when’s this ghost supposed to appear again?”
“I don’t know.” He replied with a shrug. “But it wouldn’t be in here, it’s too bright. Maybe if we’re really quiet…” We had just entered a room full of mock machinery, the set brightly lit. Both of us went silent, so I just listened to the bouncy music playing over the speakers. I heard a sharp clicking sound a couple times as we passed through the room; assuming it was the music skipping or something, I ignored it and thought about the accident. That kid must’ve been really afraid of the dark, that or the “scarier” scenes got to him. But still, to frighten him enough to want to climb out of the boat…My contemplation abruptly ended when my brother turned excitedly towards me.
“This could be it! Get ready!” This is where the memory becomes more vivid for me, as though it happened last night. Ever since I was little, this particular part of the ride struck me as foreboding: as the boat made another turn, the comical music emanating from the machine room faded out, overtaken by the sound of gusty winds. A white strobe light flickered in the distance while faux thunder echoed through the corridor, creating the illusion of getting caught in a summer storm. The chilling atmosphere was amplified by light mist spraying about, surrounding us in a cool embrace. ‘There’s nothing here,’ I thought to myself, ‘Nothing here except us’. But then, I heard it again: Clickclickclick, just like in the last room. Without the music and voices of the animatrons, I could hear it more clearly; it reminded me of the sound a dog’s claws make when it walks across a hard floor. I glanced around, even though I couldn’t see a damn thing, and tried to locate the sound. Then it occurred to me that the only “floors” around were the paths alongside the boat…
“Hey, do you hear that?” I asked my brother.
“What?”
“That clicking sou-” A crash of thunder suddenly burst from the speakers, cutting me off and making my heart leap. But what frightened me more was that as soon as the thunder rang out, I thought I heard something splash in the water behind us.
“What? Did you hear the ghost?” My brother asked.
“N-no…” I stammered. Disappointed, he turned away from me without even noticing my unease. As our lonely vessel drifted beyond the stormy hall, I listened carefully for the clicking sound again. Clickclickclick; There it was, sure enough. ‘What the hell is that?’ I thought. I was beginning to think it was just in my head, but then I heard something else alongside it: Clack clack clack. It was just like the clicking, only…heavier. Sharper.
“Go back, please!” A worried voice warned us. I noticed we were drifting by the next scene: a gnome with a lantern waving at us from a small cliff. “Last chance! They’ll get ya for sure! Please, don’t go back there!” From that point forward, my imagination started to run away with me. I began to think the puppets were trying to warn us of some real, imminent danger, regardless of the fact that they were only reciting their usual lines. I wasn’t even focused on the scenery anymore, instead fearfully staring at the floor of the boat while my mind ran wild. If a ghost were haunting the ride, would it try to hurt us?
“I warn you, humans!” I heard one of the troll puppets shout. “Go away now!”
What if someone who had come in before us decided to hide in the scenery and scare whoever passed by? What if that person was dangerous? Or maybe, instead of some phantom or adolescent trickster, we were being watched by…something else?
“It’s too late now.” Another troll said, letting out a low, wicked laugh. I finally looked up, recognizing the scene in front of me: the troll was stationed next to a sharpened log suspended by vines; a trap. The log suddenly swung forward as the tunnel was engulfed in darkness, a crashing sound played moments later. Just before the crash, I let a scream slip out as I heard another splash. This time, it wasn’t as far behind.
“What?! What is it?!” My brother shouted back in surprise.
“D-didn’t you hear that?!” I stammered. “Something’s in here! In the water!” He paused a moment, as though to say he had been hearing something as well throughout the ride.
“Y-you better not be joking!” He was trying to sound tough, but he couldn’t mask the fear in his voice. The trepidation I had felt since the stormy hall had finally overtaken me. I was on the brink of tears, glancing every which way to find the source of that godforsaken sound of claws on stone. I hoped and prayed that we would come to a tunnel with more light and fast–
Clickclickclick…
I held my breath, frozen in terror. Whatever was making that sound was right beside the boat. For the first time, I heard it breathing; it took in quiet, shallow, croaking gasps as if it was struggling for air. It wasn’t the mournful moaning of a child’s spirit, however. No, it didn’t even sound human…I had to know. Despite the temptation to just hide my face in my sweaty hands, I had to know what in God’s name was following us. Summoning whatever little courage I had, I slowly turned my head to the path on my left. Fear pierced my heart as I met the incandescent gaze of two green, unblinking eyes. They were wide and blank like those of an angler fish, but I couldn’t make out the head they were attached to. I heard its claws lightly click against the concrete as it crept alongside the boat, its eyes locked onto me. Shivering, I took in only quick, stilted breaths, afraid that any sudden movement or sound would cause it to attack. I wanted to warn my brother and tell him not to move, but before I could…
“What’s that noise?” He asked meekly. I heard his body shift as he turned to face me. Suddenly, he let out a scream, clearly seeing what I saw. The creature immediately averted its eyes from me and locked onto my terrified brother, responding to his scream with a loud hiss. It darted past me and leapt towards him at alarming speed. My brother cried and screamed in pain, snapping me out of my fear-induced paralysis. Without thinking, I reached out to pull the infernal thing off of him, fumbling in the darkness until I got a hold of it. It wasn’t very big, but it was powerful. The rough scales that made up its exterior dug into my skin as it writhed and squirmed relentlessly in my arms. I was about to throw it overboard when I suddenly felt several claws strike me across the face. I shrieked and clasped my hands to my face as the damn creature slipped free.
“Get it away!!” My brother cried. “It’s going to kill us!!” Wiping my eyes of what was either blood or tears, I turned around to see those faint green eyes burning into mine. All at once I felt a churning blend of fear and rage, and as it approached again I swung my leg as hard as I could. The creature let out what sounded like a gasp as my foot slammed against it. Realizing I had the upper hand, I rushed forward and kicked at it again, and again, and again before backing towards my sobbing brother. Still unable to see anything in the darkness but those eyes, I watched as they unsteadily turned from us and disappeared over the rear of the boat with a splash. To my relief, the boat was just starting to pass one of the next scenes, offering us just enough light to see.
“Quick, it’s gone! Get out of the boat!” Thanks to the adrenaline coursing through me, I was able to pull myself onto the concrete walkway beside the set and my brother after me. I could see his wounds in the dim, orange light. His legs were scratched up as was his chest, visible through his torn shirt. But his worst injury was on his left arm, drenched in blood; he was tightly clutching a large mark between the wrist and elbow.
“It bit me!” He sobbed repeatedly. There was no way in hell we could stay any longer.
“Come on, we need to get help!” I choked out, trying to catch my breath. Thankfully, he was still able to walk. By sticking close to the wall, we were able to find our way to the next set without falling off the narrow walkway. The scene was of a troll cutting down a tree, so I knew we were close to the end of the ride. “Don’t worry, we’re almost there! Almost…”
Clack clack clack.
The familiar sound stopped us in our tracks. I began to tremble, ready to sob out of utter disbelief. ‘No, no that’s not real!’ I told myself. But what followed was unmistakable: a furious, hissing roar right behind us. Instinctively I turned around, just in time to see another glowing pair of eyes charging in our direction.
“RUN!” I screamed. We bolted towards the end of the set as the second creature entered the room. I looked back for a moment to see how far behind it was, catching a blurry glimpse of its appearance. It was some ungodly animal, larger than the other one, clawing its way toward us like an enraged crocodile. Its eyes burned bright yellow-orange like twin torches, and its teeth seemed to be bared and jagged. All I could see of the body itself was a greyish-red color, but I wasn’t about to stop to get a closer look. My brother and I scrambled into another black corridor, the longest in the entire ride, and saw the light of the last set visible at the end of it. I thought we were in the home stretch, but the next thing I knew, something clamped onto my right leg. I fell forward and hit my head against the floor, calling out to my brother and reaching out with my arms.
“What happened?! Hurry!” He cried.
“I can’t!” I cried back. I felt the creature tug on me, sending a splitting pain through my leg. Thinking I had been bitten as well, I looked behind and saw that the glowing eyes weren’t that close to me at all. I quickly realized that it had ensnared me with some kind of appendage. With his arm hurt, my brother couldn’t pull back, which left only one option. “Get help! Get out and get help, now!”
“What?! But it’ll–!”
“Go now! Run!” With that, I heard my brother’s crying grow fainter and fainter as he hurried to the end of the tunnel. The beast growled as it tugged on me again, pulling me closer to what would certainly be my demise. I desperately felt around for anything to grab onto or use as a weapon, to no avail. I tried to grip the edge of the walkway and pull myself free, my mind overrun with thoughts of my family, the memories of that park, and the child with whom I was about to share a final resting place…
Then, the creature’s growling became a dry hiss, croaky and shallow like that of its smaller counterpart. Its tugging was more frequent, but not quite as strong. It wasn’t clear to me then, but I now believe that it was losing its breath. In one last attempt to escape, I kicked at my right leg with my left, trying to hit the spot where its extra set of jaws had latched on. Again, and again, and again I kicked with all the strength I could muster. Finally, unable to last above the surface any longer, the creature released my leg and leapt into the water. I watched the fiery glow of its eyes fade as it swam back into the depths of the Old Mill. Fearing that it would return, I didn’t waste any time trying to get away. As I crawled toward the light of the last set, battered and bleeding, all the trauma I had endured suddenly caught up with me. My head throbbed violently and my arms grew weak, the whole world melting into a bleary mess before my eyes. The last I recall of this nightmarish memory is the glint of a flashlight, the garbled voices of Playland staff members, and the last animatronic gnome shouting, “I warned ya! I warned ya!”
I awoke the next day in a hospital bed. My dear younger brother was in the bed next to mine, still asleep. I would learn later that day that he had stumbled out of the ride pale and hysterical, screaming over and over that there was a monster in the ride and that I was going to die. God in heaven…Our little thrill-seeker got so, so much more than what he bargained for. We all did. The authorities later concluded that we had been attacked by wild dogs that had somehow found their way into the ride. What other explanation could they give? There haven’t been any incidents like this since then, so I can only assume the real culprits no longer reside in the Old Mill. Only God knows what they were or where they are now. Those soulless, incandescent eyes continue to haunt me, and perhaps they always will. Even more haunting, though, are the terrified cries of my brother. It brings me to tears to think what could have happened if I had let him get on that ride alone.
Credit To – ClockworkCreeper
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The cat walked slowly across the concrete, pausing to lick its paw in the middle. It sat there in the moonlight, just watching the skies and heavy rain. The clouds swirled, and the night was young. Perhaps it could find a confused mouse, or a drowned frog in this time. Its tail moved with anticipation of it’s hunt.
A chain-link gate swung open with surprising speed, startling the cat, resulting in a hissy fit. The man who opened it carried no thought of the terrible weather, cat, or of anything else he was up against. Yelling an obscenity, he ran as fast as he could through the opening. That thing wasn’t getting him, no way. He sprinted through the gate, and into the alleyway. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t know how, but something was following him. His first inclination was when he kept seeing this menacing figure at every turn. No matter where he went, he kept seeing it. He had thought that it might be a person following him at first, but that had quickly changed when he saw the height and shape of the being.
Great, a fork in the alley. Mark, sped towards the right. Not because of any good feeling, but because he knew whatever it was would catch up no matter which way he went.
The figure always seemed to be two steps ahead of him. Every time he turned around, it was there, silent as the night, just watching him. He could never make out it’s features in the rain, as it blurred his vision. He could tell it was tall, and seemed to have black and white skin, with the black covering the legs and torso. He had figured since it didn’t move when it was being watched, he could look at it and just keep it frozen. It worked, but when he stared at it, he felt sick, like something was clawing its way out of him. His worst memories resurfaced in his brain, among them an embarrassing date, a lost pet, his sister’s funeral… he had turned away, and crawled for a few seconds until he could stand up again. Then he ran far from the creature, the thing that, like his memories, he could not seem to escape.
Suddenly Mark slipped on a giant puddle, interrupting his thoughts. immediately, his jeans and hoodie became soaked on contact. Picking himself up from the water, the feeling to look back was too great. He turned around. There it stood, as real and frightening as ever. What really startled him was that it was closer because of his tumble, only a mere twenty feet away. Trying not to scream, in case that triggered a reaction from the creature, he spun around and ran.
The rabbit may not know of the fox, but it will sense danger when it presents itself. This was not unlike the feeling he felt right now. He didn’t know what it was, or why it wanted him, but he felt in his genetic memory that this thing was a great threat. If this thing was chasing him, it’d probably chased other people. Which meant that nobody had gotten away from this thing ever.
Or else they didn’t live long afterward to tell the tale.
Mark ran out of the alleyway, and into the street. The rain had been coming down hard, he knew that, but until now he hadn’t realized how much. The street was overflowing with water. It was even coming onto the sidewalks. A flash flood. He wasn’t really surprised nobody was out, even if it was New York. With this weather, everyone else would be inside closed and locked doors. Leaving him alone with…
Realizing his mistake, he threw himself into the street, while turning around. The figure had come to a stop about ten feet from where he was. Then he went under the water.
It was a little surprising being underwater in a city street, but at least it wasn’t deep. Finding a hold in the asphalt, he pushed himself up, and out of the water. Looking around, he found that the street was going uphill, or downhill depending how you look at it. This meant that there was a slight current in the water. Not enough to pull him away, but enough to make him unsteady. Mark looked around, frantic about the creature’s whereabouts. In the pouring rain, he couldn’t see ten feet in front of him. If the creature really wanted him, then he was about as vulnerable as he could have possibly been. Looking around, he finally spotted it about a yard away.
This close, and in the rain, it looked like something out of a horror movie. It stood around eight feet tall at first glance, but as he tried to find it’s head, it just seemed to get taller, like an endless ladder. Looking closely at it, he noticed that what he had originally thought was skin, was actually a formal suit, complete with a tie. It was both comical and terrifying at the same time, much like a clown. it took an ordinary object, and perverted it, twisting it into something sick. Upon even closer inspection, he realized it was far from perfect. It had large rips in the tie, and one sleeve was torn off about half way up. It had many tears in the fabric, and was stained with several foreboding rust colored spots. But when he finally found it’s face, he screamed. It wasn’t that there was no face, but it was just so horrible that his mind immediately erased the image from his head every second he spent staring at it. He literally could not remember what it was, but it terrified him beyond belief.
Snapping himself out of his trance, he moved to the right, narrowly avoiding a- tentacle? How had he missed that? Ducking, he closely evaded decapitation from another. Remembering the current, he threw himself down the street, being swept away with the current down the hill. The entity did not follow.
Floating down, unable to get a grip, Mark just tried to stay up on his butt while sliding. Looking ahead, he found to his horror, that the creature was already at the bottom of the large hill. Using his feet to steer, he sped himself towards a lamp-post on the side-walk. Reaching out, he attempted to grab it, only to find himself falling. Grabbing the edge of the sidewalk, as to not be swept in, he realized there must be an open sewer grate below him, unseen in the water. Cursing, he tried to pull himself up. Looking to his right, he spotted the figure about sixty yards away now. Gripping the concrete he tried to heave himself up. Another quick glance to his right.
Twenty feet away.
Giving it up, Mark let go and fell with the water. After four seconds of terrifying free fall, he hit the ground. Hearing a crack and experiencing extreme pain, he moved his left leg. It felt fine. Then the other. Once he moved it, he felt incredibly intense pain at the base of his thigh. That meant it was his hip. Shit. Trying to stand up, he found he couldn’t. The pain was too unbearable. He started crawling, knowing he had to get away. Dragging himself across the ground, he came to the sewer canal that carried rain water and gunk under the street. Looking to his left, he thought he saw a light. He couldn’t tell, as his vision was blurry. Funnily enough, it got cloudier. Then the sick feeling started again, along with the memories. Realizing his fate, he tried to drag himself into the canal so he could drown. Surely it would be a more peaceful death then whatever this being had in store for him.
Right as his body fell in, he felt a tendril grab him by the ankle, and lift him out of the water. Flipping him right side up, he hung there, looking at the creature for the first time, face to face. He was filled with unimaginable terror. It’s body radiated evil, and he vomited from the sickness, again and again. Then he felt two claw-like fingers lightly position themselves on his eyes. He tensed up realizing what it was about to do.
. . .
The woman opened her apartment room window. Looking out into the rain, she had thought she heard screams. But there was silence but for the rain now. There was no point looking outside anyway, there was nothing to see. The rain must have been coming down very hard, as it became. She thought about her mother, and the familiar sadness washed over her. She turned away from the window. Sitting down by the lamp, she began to read a book. Looking up slightly, she was startled to think she had briefly seen the faint outline of a man outside her window. But that was impossible. Her room was on the fifth floor of the building. She laughed at her absurd thought.
Then she saw the other shadow standing next to her own.
Credit To – The Doctor
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In mid-July of 1991, when Sam was six years old, he was holding his mother’s hand as they walked barefoot across the baking hot asphalt of the neighborhood pool’s parking lot. He had his other arm through the hole of his inflatable black inner tube, and was gazing off at an angle tangential to the sun.
Something was bothering him, and had been ever since school let out the month prior. Sam refrained from telling his mother about it (and his father was not exactly a prime source of emotional comfort) because he was afraid she would think he was going crazy.
The passage of time for the young always seems so much slower than for an adult, even in the happiest of days. With this secret weighing on Sam’s heart, the past month had felt like an eternity. Finally he screwed up the courage to speak.
“Mom, I’ve gotta tell you something.”
She looked down at him, a kind but apprehensive smile spreading across her face. She knew he was a good boy, but that was rarely a good way for your child to start the conversation. “Go ahead, sweetie.”
“Sometimes, I see things. Like some kind of squirmy bugs.” Sam said, “I don’t think they’re really there. I can kinda see through them, and they run away when I try to look straight at them, but they’re always there. I think they might be inside my eyes.”
Her smile widened and she looked off to the side so as to not let him see it, since this seemed to be a serious issue for him. So many nonsensical worries turned into serious issues for Sam, a trait he likely inherited from her. Most of his issues tended toward the ‘monster in the closet’ category – a battle she had finally won through countless subsequent nights in which he was not eaten by a grue – so she thought something with an actual medical explanation should be easily put right.
“I used to get those sometimes. Lots of people do, actually. I know they look weird, like squiggly little worms or something, but they’re really just harmless little specks in your eyes that people call ‘floaters’. They’re not alive, and they can’t hurt you. They come and go, it’s no big deal.” She ruffled Sam’s hair as they approached the girl guarding the entrance to the pool, and waved their membership cards for entrance.
Sam spent the day doing flips underwater, and sometimes just bobbing along the surface of the pool in his black rubber inner tube. He slowly began to put the visions – what his mother had called ‘floaters’ – out of his mind. She had seen them too, which alone would have taken most of their menace away from them, even if they weren’t harmless like she promised they were. He sometimes wondered if his parents understood how much less scary those closet monsters would have been for him if his they had only acknowledged the monsters existence. Knowing you’re alone with horrors that only you can see is always the worst part.
“But if mom sees the worms and still says everything’s fine, then it must be,” he thought to himself. He found it somewhat odd that she mentioned the worms but not the spiders, or the way they scream when you try to fall asleep – but he supposed it went without saying. Sam stretched out across the tube, and let himself float.
—
Ten months later, when Sam was seven, his parents took him to an Optometrist – Dr. Howard – for an eye exam. After reading off a series of letters, the doctor asked him to read another – smaller – series of letters. This and other tests went on for what struck his parents as an unusually long duration, before Dr. Howard finally stopped and stared at Sam thoughtfully. He leaned down to get to eye-level with the child, as adults tend to do, and said loud enough to make sure the parents heard as well: “Do you know what twenty-twenty vision means?”
Sam shook his head in negation.
“It means,” Dr. Howard continued, “That you see things from twenty feet away as well as most people see them from twenty feet away. That’s normal. Some people see things worse than most people, and they might see things from twenty feet away as well as most people see them from thirty or forty feet away. We call that twenty-forty vision, and that’s when people start having real problems with their eyesight.”
Sam’s mother and father both visibly stiffened, afraid of where this might be going. Dr. Howard glanced briefly their way, held up a hand, then returned his attention to Sam. “Yours, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. You have what I believe to be twenty-six vision. It might be even better than that, but I…” He shook his head slightly, bugged out his eyes, and turned his palms up, “That would be like describing an eagle. You might as well be walking around with a pair of binoculars in your head. It’s basically unheard of.”
Sam’s parents exhaled and smiled slightly, happy that the news was good, and their son was normal – exceptional, even. Sam, on the other hand, felt a spine-tingling ripple of unease wash over him at the comparison to eagles that Dr. Howard had made.
His parents limited his television time, except when it came to informative programs. So if it was raining outside and he was bored, his options were either a book or some educational show. Some weeks ago, he had seen a program on birds. He learned that contrary to what people once thought, birds caught worms not because of hearing or feeling their vibrations – but because of their exceptional vision. They would tilt their heads so their eyes were facing the ground, and watch for the most infinitesimal disturbances caused by a worm’s passing.
This tingle of unease was brought to Sam courtesy of the fact that the worms and spiders had become more well-defined in the past six or seven months, and screamed louder than ever. Worst of all was hearing the doctor tell him that his eyesight was above and beyond normal. Over the past few months his vision had become milky and clouded with the apparitions, causing him much concern. By the time the Optometrist’s appointment came, he could barely read even the largest of letters on the eye exam – making Dr. Howard’s proclamation of exceptional vision even more disturbing to him. Acting on a hunch, Sam had merely been repeating the letters which were being screamed to him inside of his own eyes.
—
By the age of eleven, the world through Sam’s eyes had become a grayish-white fog. He had summoned up the courage to initiate a tearful and terrified conversation with his mother and father. He told them everything, and his dad responded by silently retrieving a flashlight and shining it in his son’s eyes. He mumbled something about ‘cataracts’, but shook his head – he hadn’t seen anything other than Sam’s bright blue irises.
Appointments to Dr. Howard became a bi-monthly event, then had finally ceased. They were replaced by trips to a specialist, who was a two hour drive away, if traffic was moderate. The new doctor seemed increasingly agitated with Sam after each appointment. Sam didn’t know the word the specialist reluctantly told his parents – “psychosomatic” – but he did know that after four of these trips they promptly ended, and were replaced by a much shorter drive to the office of a completely different manner of doctor. This new doctor’s office had a couch, and lots of stuffed animals. All this doctor seemed interested in was talking about Sam’s life and feelings. He took lots of notes, and cast many sideways glances in the boy’s direction.
To make matters worse, there were dots now. Little milky punctuation marks which the worms and spiders left in their wake. While the worms and spiders kept squirming around, albeit slightly more sluggishly than they had before, the dots remained perfectly still. This essentially marked the end of Sam’s ability to view the outside world. Everything now revolved around the screaming circus conducting its daily performance inside of his skull. There was, however, a change in the condition which Sam regarded as horrible and merciful at the same time: They had begun to laugh. It was a terrible mixture of tittering and squealing, but it was undeniably laughter. At least they stopped screaming long enough to laugh, even if the shrill hissing sound did invariably cause his bladder to release.
—
Sam was twelve years old when the white specks which had erased the last vestiges of his view of the normal world began to split open and writhe, and everything suddenly made a horrible manner of sense to him. Eggs. They had been laying eggs. At this realization, whatever tattered remnants of his sanity had been hanging on by a thread simply slipped loose and flew away.
He squeezed his fingers against his palms but kept his thumbs stuck out, curled upward like dull fishing hooks. He raised them to his eyes, and began to dig.
As his thumbs met his retinas, there was a single distant screech – a polite but stern protest. This did not last long, once he began digging in earnest. The screaming became unfathomably louder than it ever had been before, which he allowed himself a moment to be surprised by. It was as if the creatures had discovered a bullhorn stashed away inside of his skull somewhere. He realized this was a noise which, had it been coming from outside his own head, would have been deafening. Deafness would have been a mercy, as it would have meant cessation of the hideous, wailing cacophony being orchestrated for its audience of one.
He dug until his milky-gray view of the world turned to fire, then ultimately blackness. As warmth rolled down his cheeks and ended in a quiet, sickening slosh on the wooden floorboards of his parents’ kitchen, Sam fell to his knees.
Horror and agony yielded to merciful relief the likes of which most will never know. Blindness came as a blessing, freedom from that which had so horribly oppressed him. There, on his knees, Sam tittered and ran his fingers along his now-vacant eye sockets. His laughter devolved steadily into screams as he began to feel a squirming sensation work its way up from the floor, ascending his form with frightening alacrity. Even without eyes, he could see the error of his ways.
The same documentary which taught Sam about how birds hunt worms went on to discuss the common goldfish – and how they could and would grow to match the volume of their bowls.
Upon achieving freedom from globes far too small for their goals, the floaters screamed in triumph through mouthfuls of their former host’s bloody flesh, and began to grow.
Credit To – Dave Taylor
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A few months ago I was watching television in my living room when I heard the first howl. It reverberated through my bones like something from my darkest nightmares, leaving me temporarily immobile with the shock of it. After a few moments I tried my best to regain my composure, reassuring myself with a forced laugh of self-deprecation that it was most likely just a stray dog or coyote. I told myself that it had just startled me with it’s suddenness, nothing more. After all, I reasoned with myself, the mind likes to exaggerate things. The rest of the night passed without further events and I went to sleep having all but forgotten. My dreams, however, were less forgiving. In them I stumbled through darkened woods, heard echoing howls that seemed to come from every direction at once, was haunted by the feeling of piercing eyes following my every movement. When I finally woke a short while before dawn I was covered in sweat. A lingering unease clung to me until daybreak.
The next few weeks were pretty uneventful. Rarely I would, on occasion, hear some strange sounds as if someone was walking in another room or on the porch, but nothing that I wasn’t able to simply shrug off as my imagination. The worst thing that happened was a recurring dream similar to the first I’d had. I would find myself walking down a dark stretch of country road located near my home at night. The dirt road stretched out in front of me, seemingly for an eternity, while the trees on either side formed a dense canopy that only allowed for a few stray shafts of moonlight to illuminate my way. As I walked onward, I would always hear movement to either side, just out of sight. I remember only on rare occasion catching brief glimpses of silhouettes in the dark. But always, always, I could feel eyes on me.
Aside from the occasional dreams, it was about a full month from the first night before I heard the howling again. This time it was not singular, but a series of overlapping howls that gathered to form a melancholy crescendo. It seemed like the howls came from every direction at once and with such piercing clarity that I could have sworn the sources were almost on top of me. I was horrified, there was something that just felt fundamentally wrong about these howls. I covered my ears and closed my eyes, trying to will away the horrendous cacophony. I truly felt like I was going to be driven to pure insanity by the piercing sounds of it all.
As embarrassing as it may be, I was in the fetal position rocking back and forth with my arms over my ears when the howling finally subsided. I was trembling from fear to the point where it must have taken me a full minute to even stand. Trembling, I made quick a lap through my house shutting all of my curtains and ensuring that my doors were locked and dead-bolted, never lingering by any of the windows for long. When I finally reached the sliding glass door leading to my back porch, I heard footsteps. I was just barely able to see the black silhouettes that broke up the faint glow of the moon on my porch. If I’d had the lights on in the room I probably wouldn’t have even noticed until I was only inches away.
Slowly, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone, all the while aware of the distinct sensation of their eyes upon me. I took one quick picture as my hands trembled, then slowly backed away, unable to stop gazing into those eyes which burned like the coals of hell itself. Eventually I inched back enough to duck into my hallway, sliding to the floor as fear took hold and drained the strength from my legs. With my back pressed to the wall, I fumbled for the hall light switch, part of me expecting to hear the telltale sound of breaking glass at any moment.
Nothing, no glass breaking, no footsteps on the porch. Absolute silence filled the air, not even the chirping of crickets reached my ears. Pulling out my cell phone and staring at the screen, not even daring to look at the picture I had taken, my hands shook as I tried to figure out who to call. Who could I call? “Ghostbusters…” I whispered aloud to myself after a moment, trying to force myself to calm down with a bad joke. The cracked mockery of my voice that came out of my mouth only served to solidify my fear. I remember thinking about what I had just seen, could I really call a friend, family member or even the authorities? Even worse, the gate to the driveway was almost half a mile away and I would have to go to my car and drive the distance to let anyone in.
In the end, I crept to the over side of the hall, cautiously entering my room and retrieving my CZ-52 pistol. I sure as hell wasn’t going to look for a fight, but I decided that I wasn’t about to die without one either. I ended up sitting there against the wall until morning, only mustering the strength to lean around the corner and look out the sliding glass door when the room was bright from the sun’s rays. The porch was empty. With gun in hand, I made a few laps around the house, feeling slightly more confident with the comfort of the sun. The area was clear, I didn’t even find any tracks.
Over the next few weeks I was haunted by the same dreams of being stalked as before. I could see the silhouetted figures more clearly in the trees now as if they were getting closer. I could see the redness of their eyes reflecting in the pale light of the moon. They never howled in my dreams, they barely even made a sound as they crept along and shadowed my movements. A call to animal control revealed little except that a few people reported hearing howling as well. They said that it was normal of coyotes and that the light had played tricks on me. Unconvinced, I made a habit of locking and bolting my doors as soon as I got inside and was always indoors by dusk, with my sidearm always at the ready.
I used the internet to try and figure out what could be going on. I poured through information about canidae. Canis lupus, Canis lupus familiaris, Canis latrans, I researched all of them. What I saw did seem like a wolf or coyote, but those eyes, those howls, they were just so unnatural and unnerving that I couldn’t accept this. Then there was the picture, that blurry picture from my cell phone that showed what I could only pray was a trick of the light. It was as if the creatures exuded tiny tendrils made of shadow that writhed in the air around them. I could only hope they were diseased or covered in wet and knotted hair.
A part of me knew there wasn’t such a clear cut and simple explanation to this, however. Despite wanting to remain skeptical, what I had seen and heard lead me to suspect there was something supernatural and malevolent about these things. Searches lead to stories of barghests and Black Shuck, mythical black dogs that are said to roam the English country side as harbingers of death. I hated to even imagine this as a possibility, that my own death was just slowly stalking me until the time was right, that my end was near.
Trying to allay my fears, I posted the picture I had taken on various forums, ranging from ones about wolves and wild dogs to those dedicated to the occult and supernatural. It seemed that every time I told my story I was either met with ridicule or nut-jobs who linked it all to ludicrous things like alien plots. I caught a few leads eventually in news reports. Stories started popping up from nearby towns of people committing suicide or being attacked by wild animals, people who had reported of hearing eerie howls much like I had. The sites were spread apart and seemingly randomized, but I kept up my search for similar incidents. I had to find something that would prove to myself that I wasn’t simply losing my mind. Sadly, all I could do was keep searching and hope to eventually find some sort of meaning to it all.
Finally, four nights ago my dream changed. After walking for so long I could finally see the end of the road. I was horrified. A few hundred feet in front of me the road simply stopped, vanishing into a wall of trees. In shock, I stood there, staring at the throng of old pines, wondering if I should turn back. I had scarcely a moment to think before I saw it. Out of the center of the mass of trees, plodded a large black wolf-like creature. Barely more than a shadow, its eyes pierced the darkness as it eyed me. Behind those eyes was an unmistakable malice. Even more frightening, there was an unmistakable intelligence in them. I was frozen.
After what seemed like an eternity, the beast sprinted at me. As the distance closed I could see its body clearly covered in flowing black tendrils that flowed in the air as if its very essence was reaching out to devour all around it. Instinctively recoiling, I braced myself for the impact as it lunged at me, covering my stomach and neck to try and save myself. At the very moment in which I knew that everything was over, its haunting howl echoed through the night and caused me to wake up with a start.
My heart was pounding in my chest as I woke, my hand was already reflexively gripping the pistol that I now kept under my pillow. Sitting upright, I was trying my best to catch my breath when I heard and saw it. Like a black smoke it poured through one of the darkened corners of my room, almost seeming to suck the light from the area around it. As more and more started to creep in I could clearly see those damned red eyes that were now dripping with blackened blood and a muzzle full of razor sharp teeth starting to form. What happened in the next few seconds will be forever burned into my brain.
I got off only three shots between the time it had formed and lunged on top of me. I remember in the back of my mind I was shocked that it even had physical form as the impact knocked me backwards onto the bed. My gun was knocked out of my hand as it pinned me and pushed its muzzle towards my throat. Its eyes were burning flashes like cigarettes in the dark, leaving bright trails as it maneuvered for a good bite. With one hand I gripped its throat while with all my strength fighting to keep its gnashing teeth from my neck. While struggling, the putrid stench of a thousand rotting corpses assailed my lungs as it’s breath washed over me.
With my free hand I groped frantically across my nightstand in a state of panic for some kind of improvised weapon. I was keenly aware of the sensation that my entire body was going numb. Those writhing tendrils of darkness seemed to permeate my very flesh, every where they flowed through my body felt like it was submerged in freezing water. I had lost all sense of feeling in my arm that held the creature at bay by the time my hand touched the base of a familiar metal surface. My touch lamp blazed to life.
In an instant the snarling atrocity which lumbered over me seemed to fade from existence. Nearby I heard a loathsome howl that echoed through my ears like a curse, then dissipated into nothingness. It took hours for me to regain feeling in my arm and my body, but I laid there until morning in complete and utter terror.
Had the light driven it back? Was pure luck the only reason I was now alive? I could scarcely believe that it wasn’t all some sort of hallucination. I wish that it had been something as merciful as insanity.
In bed, I remember pondering my situation. Trying to put some sense to this all. Three shell casings laid strewn across the floor and there were no holes in my wall. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It told me a few things, however. There was no blood, but that beast had been hit and I was able to touch it. The sudden bright light seemed to have driven it back, but I had heard it later, so I doubted that it was fatal. It had appeared out of the darkest corner, so it possibly needed to manifest in darkness. Oh yeah, it also stalked me in my fucking dreams and toyed with me, only to then follow me into my bedroom and try to rip my throat out. I had no clue what the hell it was.
I felt like I would never know what was going on. I started leaving all of my lights on all night and switched all of my bulbs to 100 watt. Saving power isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities any more. I’ve tried staying awake forever. Didn’t turn out so well, but I can’t remember what I dreamed of these past few nights. That’s something I really don’t find myself regretting. I’ve heard it nightly; outside, howling, walking around on my porch. I don’t think anyone can ever become accustomed to that accursed howling, but it doesn’t completely paralyze me with fear any more. It may not have been much progress, but it is something.
Last night I had a bit of a breakthrough, although it doesn’t really help my current situation. I’d long ago assumed there wasn’t any chance of actually getting a serious response in any of the forums I had visited and given bits of my story to, but last night I received an email from an alleged government worker. It seems I’m not the only one with firsthand experiences. He has been dogged (if you forgive the pun) by these same beasts for some time now as well, but unlike myself he was able to dig up some information from classified documents that I would never have been able to get to. At first I was extremely skeptical– until I began to read through the information he had sent me. Too many pieces fit into place for it to be sheer coincidence or him making things up.
Although it is a lot of data to process, I’ll relay the story as it was told to me.
————–
Over the past few decades, dogs have been the focal point of myriad scientific experiments. Soviet scientists, for example, used them extensively in their experiments. From studies of the effects of weightlessness on the body to attempts to preserve living organs outside the body. Some died in orbit as the first animals to ever travel into the blackness of space, countless others died deep in underground labs under the surgeon’s knife in countries around the world.
Not all of them, however, remained dead.
Dr. Peter Safar, the inventor of CPR, introduced a concept to the Army that must have seemed laughable at the time. He suggested that you could keep a body in suspended animation for hours by replacing all the blood in a body with an ice-cold saline solution. It was shelved for nearly two decades. But, again, eventually dogs were put on the chopping block in the name of science. Organs were torn and bones were broken, only to be repaired by the ones who did the damage. The saline was drained after hours of operation, blood was re-inserted into the corpses and their hearts were jump-started. Safar was right, you could keep a patient in stasis for hours until they could be operated on, then resurrected. It was an astounding medical breakthrough, one that would soon be twisted into a blasphemous mockery of it’s original purpose.
Despite many practical applications for saving trauma patients and wounded soldiers, this treatment is still not in widespread use, at least not as originally intended. The government decided to do what it had always done with new technology designed to benefit mankind. The decision was made to weaponize it. Once more, due to repeated successful re-animations, man’s best friend was placed firmly in scientists’ sights once more. Thus began the project henceforth known as the Kerberos Project. Whoever gave it this moniker likely thought it was extremely clever.
If only they had known just how fitting their choice was.
It was surmised that, while in this state of suspended animation, procedures which would almost certainly kill a living creature from shock could be carried out with significantly reduced risk. In this vein, the original plan was to test concepts on the canines, which would then be carried over to select active special forces troops if successful. One of the primary goals was to make physiological ‘enhancements’ that would make the test subjects much more resilient in combat. Wolf-dogs were selected as prime test subjects due to their oft larger and sturdier frames that resulted from cross breeding.
The first test subjects were put under with the aim of implanting subcutaneous body armor in the form of layered titanium plates, which would theoretically be able to deflect bullets. While many were able to survive this procedure, the scientists were completely unable to find an acceptable balance between weight and protection. Results varied from dogs who could not move under their own weight which were slightly resistant to small caliber rounds to dogs which were highly mobile but statistically no more likely to survive small arms fire than a dog without the augmentations. Many subjects were lost to suffocation through their own weight, while the lightly armored dogs were simply put under yet again, their armor removed. Eventually the solution was found in sheets of carbon nanotubes, woven into a lightweight ‘fabric’ that was both flexible and able to resist small arms fire. The resulting armor was a mere 0.6mm thick and capable of flexing freely. An astounding seventy percent ratio of tested dogs survived the procedure and showed an astounding resistance to small caliber handgun and rifle rounds.
Having proven the plausibility of a bulletproof super soldier, they began to focus on potential offensive enhancements to the animals. Again and again, the dogs were put into a suspended state and operated on. No real breakthroughs were to occur, however. Notions such as replacing claws and fangs with much sturdier and sharper materials resulted in the animals shredding themselves into grisly ribbons when they attempted to scratch themselves. It was in this period, however, that abnormalities started to make themselves clear. The wolf-dogs that had been under the knife the most started to show signs of instability. They ran into the walls as if chasing an unseen foe, they snarled and growled at vacant corners. It seemed that prolonged and repeated death and re-animation had resulted, unavoidably, in brain damage. The decision was made to continue the studies and to see just how many times the dogs could withstand the process before they were unable to fully function.
The symptoms became worse and worse, the dogs seemed to stare at things that were not there, their ears began to twitch as if listening to sounds unheard. Speculation arose that the animals had begun to hallucinate as a side-effect of brain damage, but the tests were not interrupted. In time, every single of the surviving dogs displayed erratic behavior to some degree. The ones that had been subject to the most experiments had started to even show signs of a weakening vascular system, their heart rates slowed to an almost death defying pace and their eyes began to fill with red as if all their capillaries had burst. Extreme cases began to develop where blood actually started to slowly pour from the eyes and nose of the animals. These cases were accompanied by an inexplicable darkening of the fur and behavior that, if applied to a human, would be classified as paranoid schizotypal behavior. Both fear and aggression were markedly increased, the dogs alternately slunk from and/or bit at anything around them, be it real or imagined. The order came down from the high brass that these red-eyed beasts were too unpredictable for practical applications or to even continue research on. Research was confined to an observation only basis.
Within a week, the first reports of howling on the base began. Dogs began to disappear from their cages, each time with no trace as to how they had escaped. All of the cages found empty had been magnetically locked and there were no records that indicated loss of power. With each night, reports of strange howling grew as the numbers of subjects inside the lab dwindled. Sightings of black ‘wolf’ silhouettes were reported by the guards, often seen vanishing around a corner to never be located again.
The corpses started turning up on the fifth morning. Twelve dead. In the nearest town people were found dead in their beds, at their computers and on their couches. Some had their throats ripped open, others had their entrails devoured entirely. This was easily attributed to the escaped animals, but the most puzzling thing is that a few of the homes had been locked, without any signs of forced entry. Frightened townspeople recounted hearing an ominous howling throughout the night that seemed to be coming from every direction at once. Some even reported witnessing strange movements in the shadows and claimed to have been stalked by creatures by dark red iridescent eyes.
Within sixteen days all of the remaining animals, totaling over two hundred, had inexplicably vanished from their cages. During this period the omnidirectional nightly howling that pervaded the nearby countryside pushed people to their mental limits. Local police were inundated with calls from panicked individuals who had locked themselves in their homes, afraid to turn out their lights or even sleep until morning. It wasn’t until the end of the third week that the death toll began to wane into nothingness. Reports of the eerie howling started to be confined to the most rural of homes before they stopped entirely. The total of missing and dead was tallied at ninety-seven, with eighteen deaths attributed to suicide. Of the suicides, four were notable for happening in the victim’s beds and for a complete lack of physical trauma or traces of known drugs or medications in their blood streams.
In the end, nondisclosure agreements were signed by staff. The government wiped its hands of responsibility and claimed the incidents in town were due to a massive rabies outbreak. All data was classified as Top Secret and summarily filed away.
————–
This is basically the meat of the information he gave me. As far as I can gather from our correspondence, this happened originally in a remote location in Arizona which was blacked out of the files. Given my location in rural South Carolina and the fact that I have only witnessed a few at most, I could only assume that most of these animals have branched off into small packs and been roaming ever since. Sadly, I can’t do anything but speculate on the details of what really happened based on what I’ve seen. The conclusions I’ve drawn only serve to horrify me even more, but I can’t think of any better explanations.
These dogs were taken into the realm of death dozens of times, only to be ripped back into our world. What if, each time, they took a part of the realm of death itself back with them? It’s as if they began to see and feel that which exists on both sides of the veil of death simultaneously and it cracked their minds. They underwent this turbulent transformation into some sort of semi-physical manifestation of the other side, becoming literal avatars of death. Now this transformation is complete and they aren’t broken minded killers any more, but stalking agents of the afterlife that like to toy with their victims before taking them down. At will it seems that they can manifest out of the blackness and travel the void between both worlds, somehow neither truly alive or dead, but something in between.
I don’t know if they can be killed, but the light holds them at bay. Earlier, I gathered all of my courage when I heard my demonic stalker on the porch and confirmed this theory. I slowly opened the back door after I had flooded the room with light. I locked eyes with the beast, but he simply glared with hatred through the glass door. He made no attempt to press forward through the light. It was a horrific few moments, but I had to be sure that the light could offer protection. I now feel like a prisoner of my own home, but at least I am alive for as long as I have power.
One fear keeps repeating itself in my mind, though. What happened to the four reported dead in their beds with no explanations why? Did they reach the end of the same road that I did and simply never wake up?
They’re out there. They’re hunting.
The only advice I can offer is to keep your lights on… and try not to dream.
Credit To – Wolfen
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I tense up at the sudden noise from my headphones that breaks the silence in my dorm room. It takes a while, but I adjust to the noise, letting the video play out with mild interest. My stomach growls harshly, I should get something to eat from the basement. I glance at the clock; 3:06 a.m. About bedtime, Kyle. I think to myself.
I roll over after laying my laptop aside and cover my tired eyes, only more tired by the effects of the glare from a computer screen that has shone into them for hours. The covers are warm against me, and my roommate’s steady breathing adds more white noise to the air conditioning unit above my bed. The air conditioner shuts off and the room is still, even my roommate’s breathing is too light for my sleep-deprived ears to pick up. It seems at night, silence breaks even itself.
So I lay there, for God knows how long. Listening. The silence is good for that. I lay there and adjust to a more comfortable position and as I get comfortable, I am brought back to alertness by the sudden noise of a few drunk friends in the hall coming back from a late-night party. They don’t say anything important; just being extra loud like most of their kind. So, I lay there, listening to one complain about his girlfriend being whiney and another tell him how whipped he is.
After the ramble calms, I close my eyes and attempt to sleep again, rolling over. My stomach growls loudly, ravenously, wolf-like, begging for a snack. So, I get up and slip on some short and flip-flops to go downstairs, pocketing a few quarters as I leave the room.
Newberry is always empty after midnight, but I don’t feel like taking the elavators, they take too long. So I walk across the hall to the stairwell, very reliable and fast when you live on the second floor.
The door closes behind me and the solid thud echoes up and down the eight floors of the stairs. It’s eerie how quiet it is afterwards. Not even the usually annoying, cheap, flourescent lights buzz. Just the sharp SMACK! of my flip-flops hitting my heels as I make my way to the stairs leading down.
I softly climb down the stairs, strangely nervous about being alone. I feel like I’m being watched, so I lean over the side of the railings and look straight up the stairwell. Nothing. And then I look straight down. Nothing.
I must just be getting paranoid at nothing, so I shake it off the best I could and make it down to the first floor, smiling at the only camera above the door and walking into the door leading to more stairs, which lead to the basement. So far so good.
This door is incredibly loud, and the sound rings off the walls for what felt like forever. But there was something else. I listen as hard as I can, but I don’t hear it again. It sounded strange, like a wheeze or a shuffle of something. Just another student, I think to myself, waving off the paranoia, with little effect. My eyes droop heavily, and I slowly continue marching down the stairs, ready to eat.
I make it to the basement and walk through the small maze of hallways into the open area we affectionately call “The Man-Cave,” which is nothing much, just a pool table, some ping-pong, and of course, vending machines. It’s dimly lit, and empty, save a few couches and those previously mentioned.
I walk slowly towards the machines, which stand in the darker area, the shadows seem to twist and stretch. My sleep-deprived brain can’t comprehend much. And out of the corner of my eye, in the hallway, I see a figure. It’s gone now. But it was incredibly tall, and dark. I didn’t look directly at it, because I’m always cautious to not move when in danger. I read The Ranger’s Apprentice… I really may seem weird for it, but I follow a lot of the stealth patterns presented in it. I mark off this sighting as mere sleep-deprivation. But my mind is racing. I don’t feel very hungry anymore… And my hands won’t stop shaking. I have no idea why I’m so scared… I just need to get to the room.
I grab a few snacks and something to drink and head to the elavator. I don’t care how long it takes, I just want to feel safer. So I wait by the laundry room, staring into the obscure room from which I came. Nothing changes, save a few instances of my vision making me believe I see someone standing in the corner, behind the vending machines… Peeking at me from near the top. I don’t think it’s a person, there’s no face, after all. It’s just the light playing tricks on me… But I can’t help but to feel upset at the sight of this. It couldn’t be real… Maybe I should check it out a little more….
DING! The elevator snaps me out of my terrified stupor and I board it with my sloppy groceries. Pressing the “2” on the pad. As the doors slide together, I look and feel both relieved and worried that the “face” isn’t there anymore. Watching me. My nerves are on end as I pace around the dingy little box.
It finally stops, and I get off. The doors slide together and I get off and begin to head towards my room, pausing as I look and notice it looks different… A few lights have gone out on my end, I realize. I think nothing of it, but it still adds to my paranoia as I enter the longer halls.
I creep around the corner, and look down the hall into the frightening darkness that embraces the end so tightly. And at the end I stop in slight shock and fear as I notice the tall man standing there. He seems to be bald, and must be looking down, or his face blurred by my vision, for I left my glasses in the room. Either way, I can’t make out anything other than a pale globe on his shoulders… His strangely thin shoulders, I notice as I draw nearer to my door, which is safely away from him… I can’t help but feel fear rising in me as I see him… Standing there. Watching me. I can’t see any eyes but I feel the gaze. I walk faster to my door, and try to open it. The door won’t open with my key, so I look up… Trying to ignore the feeling of his gaze. His horrifying gaze cutting into me.
“406,” the door read. I must have pressed the wrong button by accident. That’s why it looks so different. I look back down the hall and I don’t see anyone. This doesn’t help my stomach at all. I feel even worse now. That man was JUST there. Where could he have gone? I rush to the stairs, for they are closer than the elevator… And I don’t feel like standing in this hallway any longer than I need to.
The door slams louder than any of the others and makes me ears ring. But the ringing doesn’t stop. It just grows louder with each step down. I feel like I’m being watched by that man. I don’t know why, but I feel sick just imagining him. I’m panicking. I feel unsafe. Like I’m in danger.
I pass by the third floor’s doorstop and look through the small glass window for a person to talk to, just to get my mind away from this paralyzing fear… Or maybe to seek help. But through the window I see a man, dressed in a black-tie affair-like outfit, with the longest arms I’ve ever seen, standing there. He is much closer now, and I can see his face… Or where his face should be.
There was nothing. Just a pale white head. No sign of age, or wrinkles. The sight of it causes my stomach to lurch and I vomit on the door. The thing makes no response besides to stand there, as if enjoying my horror. Just watching through a window.
I tear myself away from the scene, as my body feels drawn to this thing. I run down the rest of the stairs and, feeling as if I’m safer, puke over the siderail in fear. As I open my eyes to look at how bad my sickness was all over the bottom steps I see him.
Staring at me. Slowly stepping up the stairs… But his head never moves… His neck just stretches over the side and keeps watching my pain and fear… Torturing me.
“WHAT?!” I scream and throw my food at him. He has no reaction. But the neck draws back under the staircase, and he dissappears from view. I run onto my floor in utter terror, just wanting to go to bed. And I turn around, and there, only a few steps behind me, he stood. Arms outstretched, as if beckoning me to come let him hold me. I choke on vomit as I see his face ripple across and lunge with all my might to my room.
I turn the corner and I see him again. On the far end. Staring. Like an ever-present Guardian Angel watching over me in my pains. I vomit again. This time it hurts horribly, and I can see drops of red leak from my lips as I finish. I start to cry. I feel like I’m going to die. I just want to give up. There’s no hope…
I make it to my door, which was just a few steps away, and open the door. The sound of my roommate’s breathing is all to be heard. No more ringing. Just breathing. I flip on the light and close the door, my roommate doesn’t stir. I close the door and look in the mirror attached to the back.
I look insane. My eyes are red and puffy, my hair a mess, and a tear stuck in suspended animation in my unkempt chin hair. I still don’t feel as safe I as I think I should. I turn around and begin to walk to my bed when I hear a THUNK! in my closet. I stop moving. And stare in horror as a long pale hand pushes the door open and a tall, thin, creature steps out. I turn around. Not wanting to look at it. But I can see it in the mirror.
I watch it stalk toward me on those tall legs. I watch it stop only inches behind me. And I feel it slowly close it’s limbs around me.
Then nothing but silence.
Credit To: Kyle Bailie
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Earlier this week, on Sunday night, I had a dream in which I knew I was asleep. I was stood outside of my house in torrential rain at night and thought I needed to get inside in order to wake up. I approached the front door and placed my knuckles onto the door-window ready to knock. I knew that my next action would bring me one step closer to consciousness. The moment I knocked on the door, the thudding sound of the knock was so loud, so frightening and so real that it woke me from my sleep.
BANG BANG BANG
I jumped up immediately and listened out for a further knock at the door. I was roasting hot, sweating profusely and my heart was beating so hard, I don’t think I would have been able to tell the difference between a knock at the door and my thudding heart beat. After I came to my senses and realised that the possibility of the door knocking at the exact moment of dreaming it is incredibly low, I fell back to sleep.
Monday, the very following night, I had the same dream. Right back outside the front of the house in the pouring rain again, intensely staring at the house. I slowly walked to the front door, this time it was open. I walked in and went straight into the kitchen. I opened the cutlery drawer and pulled out the largest meat knife I have. I looked into my reflection through the blade of the knife.
If you stare directly into the reflection of your eyes for long enough, eventually it will hit you that someone is looking at you. You know it’s your reflection, but for just a second, you forget and become self conscious, as if it’s somebody else behind your reflection’s eyes. It didn’t take a second of looking at my reflection through the blade to realise that somebody else was looking back. The moment I realised it was somebody else wearing my grin in the reflection, I slammed the cutlery drawer shut.
BANG
Again, I shot up out of bed. The sound of the metal clanging in the drawer as it abruptly closed was so defined and so crystal clear, it couldn’t have been a dream. Really spooked this time, I went downstairs into the kitchen. I was half asleep and had to check. I opened the cutlery drawer. I was relieved to find the knife still in the drawer. I closed it and went back to bed. It took a little longer this time, but I fell asleep.
Tuesday night, my dream started with that grin in the reflection. From the look in his eyes, I could tell that the man in the reflection knew he was looking back at someone confused and scared. I found myself looking into the reflection of the knife, already in my hand, while stood outside of my house in the rain. The front door was open again. I walked into the house, directly up the stairs and into my bedroom. I looked at the bed and saw someone sleeping in it. It was me.
I knew what I was going to do, but also knew that I couldn’t stop myself. Instead, I kept think over and over again “Wake up”. My emotions were both in two extremes at once. I was terrified, but at the same time I was thrilled and excited to kill. “WAKE UP!”
I shot right out of bed and stood up. I was absolutely drenched in sweat, roasting hot, but relieved to find nobody stood in front of me with a knife. It took a few seconds to realise that I was gripping something tight in my hand. I knew what it was even before I looked down at it and saw my reflection in it. It was the meat knife, and this time the reflection in it looked terrified.
I don’t sleep anymore.
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The loud bang on her front door jolted Clara from her daydream. This was it. After all the careful planning and struggling to survive, the end would come now; 9 blocks up in room 934 of the now abandoned Marriott. She started to cry, not for herself, but for her little 3 year old son, Jeremy. He was the world to her, and she couldn’t bare to think of his short life ended, not like this.
“Open the door,” she recognized the voice of her live in boyfriend of 4 years, Jerome. Quickly slipping off the guard chain, she opened the door and let him in.
“I don’t have much time. The boys are going to pick out what’s left of the Pathmark and I want to be first in line,” he suddenly stopped. “Damn baby, you smell good. What is that?”
“It’s called LOVELY, by Sarah Jessica Parker,” she said simply. “I found it next to the mini bar. Only the best, right?”
“Yeah,” he said as he left two backpacks next to the door and turned to leave. “I’ll be back soon. Keep the door locked, okay?”
Jerome was a survivor. While everyone else was scrounging for supplies downtown, he had had the bright idea to take his little family to the local Marriot to wait it all out. ‘No one is coming for us, they’ve given up on the major cities,’ he had said simply. The plan was to just let everyone kill each other while they lived the high life, stories up in the now abandoned hotel. It had worked. Most of what was left of humanity and the creatures they became had pretty much wiped each other out. Not that it hadn’t been a tough few months. The power was now out and they were down to canned goods.
But they were still alive. Clara dragged the two bags to the kitchen area and pulled out the dented cans. From the bedroom, she heard Jeremy waking up. A few minutes later, he came into the main living area.
“Mommy, mommy, look. I’ve got a gun shooter,” his excited eyes locked onto hers and she sighed. He was holding some kind of plastic handle he had obviously broken off one of the cabinets. He pointed it at her. “Bang. Bang. Bang.”
It reminded her of the awful gang violence just a week prior. Both Jerome’s crew and some Asian gang had had a disagreement over who owned what’s left of a number of grocery stores. That had ended with a few of their good friends dead. She didn’t show it.
“Let me see, honey,” she said, holding her hand out. He turned and ran into the bedroom. That was the annoying thing about the age, they never did what you asked. She quickly ran after him and pulled it out of his hand. She was now extremely careful not to let him have anything he could hurt himself with. It was safe enough. Other than the next two hours of constant noise, there was no harm in letting him run around with it.
“Mommy can we play that gun game again. Mommy, look at me. Mommy. Mommy can we play that gun shooter game again. Mommy, I want to play the gun game. Mommy …”
“Yes, yes. We can play that game again,” she hated that game. Every time she played it, it reminded her of the last couple of months. In the last hours of the city’s death, both sides had come out of hiding and shot it out. It was unsettling enough to be on the outskirts of a war zone. What made it absolutely unbearable was knowing that one side of the conflict was composed of the walking dead.
They had made it as far as the hotel. Jerome and his gang, as well as some of the other groups had held them off just over by 5th street, well within view of the 9th floor Marriott. They had been content to put bullets into their enemies and move on. Conversely, when one of those ‘things’ shot a human, they usually ended up carrying them off and eating them. Humans were fighting for survival. They were hunting for food. She had seen it first hand. A couple of asian thugs had been cautiously scouting between 5th and Broadway, and the enemy descended upon them with a plan that was both aggressive and cunning. These were not the meandering, shuffling corpses you saw in the movies. The enemy was very much intelligent.
And they were still out there.
She had only run into one of them once. Jerome had given her a handgun off of a dead police officer and told her, ‘just point and squeeze’. To be honest, he had taken care of things so well she didn’t think she’d actually have to do any shooting herself. But a day ago, in the hotel, one of them had slipped by the patrols and gotten in the building. She and Jeremy had gone to get ice – the power had still been working then – when she heard the slightest shuffle of feet around the corner.
She knew where it was and what it wanted. She could smell the rotting flesh. Something inside her, some force of survival, helped her know exactly what to do. The primal, maternal instinct within her guided her against this awful predator. Heart racing, she moved with her son past the corridor where she knew it lurked. She even continued the casual small talk with her little boy, slowly slipping her hand into her pocket where the .45 was located. She knew that once she and Jeremy were past the corridor, the thing would slip out of its hiding place and follow them, hoping for a clear shot. Once past the corner, she turned on her heal, pulled out the gun, rounded the corner and just started firing.
She was right. Not only had the thing come out of hiding, but it had moved at a quick pace too. In the two seconds it took her to spin on her heel and draw her weapon, the thing was already within reaching distance. Four shots to the body and two to the head that was still advancing upon her. She could still remember the expression of surprise and fear on its face just before its entire head popped, the grey matter spilling everywhere behind it. She had expected to see some expression of an undead creature, twisted in hatred and loathing. The terrifying thing, was that aside from the rotten smell and blackened appendages, its face still looked human.
Not waiting to see if there were more of them, she grabbed her son and bolted for room 934. She frantically reached into her pocket for the hotel room key card, cutting her hand on the various survival items in her pocket. She swiped it over and over on the door key, desperate for the green signal that would indicate the lock would give. Finally, it did, and she grabbed her son again and shoved him inside.
Rather than be traumatized by the whole event, Jeremy’s little mind instead translated it into a game. The ‘gun-shooter’ game. His three year old psyche interpreted the event as some elaborate fantasy, one that he wanted to repeat. It was odd the way that a child’s mind translated near death. Now, Clara had to relive the entire incident over and over again in order to maintain the facade that the two of them had not escaped certain death just yesterday.
“Bang. Bang. I got you mommy. In the head. I shot you, you’re dead. You’re dead mommy, fall down. Fall down!” She had humored him enough, and she couldn’t take the reality of the previous day’s horror any more.
“I don’t want to play anymore sweetie. Go eat your dinner.” She was surprised when he obeyed.
Sitting at the kitchen table, she watched as Jeremy ate the food she had made for him. Since yesterday, she had had trouble eating. She would put food in her mouth, think about the grey pieces of brain splattered all over the adjacent corridor, and vomit. But whatever it was about watching her son gobble up the last pieces of canned squash and mashed carrots seemed to finally convince her appetite to surface. In fact, she was really hungry.
She leaned in towards him to kiss him on the cheek, her maternal instincts kicking in again despite the nausea. Sometimes, a mother just has to reach over, grab her child close and kiss him over and over, especially considering recent events. She nuzzled her lips against his cute baby fat cheeks and rubbed her nose into him.
Something was wrong. She felt an unusual, insatiable desire to bite. His flesh, his soft supple baby fat called out to her aching stomach and demanded union. She stood up quickly.
“No.” she whispered. “Please god, no.” She ripped off the bandages and looked down at her wounded hand. The blood vessels next to the blackened incision had ever so slightly blackened up her vein like a mild case of tetanus. What had she cut her hand on again?
Jeremy sat next to the kitchen table, mindlessly muttering the gibberish of a 3 year old and coloring outside the lines of his favorite dinosaur book. She watched him for a moment, knowing that if she did not act quickly, her maternal instincts would be overcome by her insatiable hunger. Of course, she could just give in – if whatever was inside her hand did to Jeremy what it had done to her….
Her indecision was broken by her son’s innocent inquiry.
“Mommy, let’s play the gun game again.”
“Okay, sweetie.”
—
Credited to morebrainsplx.
|
Laura was woken by her father; something that he had not done since she was a child. As her thoughts slowly swam back into focus, she was suddenly sure that she had slept naked and he had seen her, but to her relief she was wearing her baby-blue pyjamas. God, what was he doing in here anyway?
“Come on, you,” he said brightly, opening the curtains and letting the sunlight in. Outside, she could hear a lawnmower running, perhaps in the next street, and what could’ve been birdsong. “It’s Button Day, remember? Get dressed, put something nice on. We’re leaving in an hour.”
Laura stirred, her voice groggy. “Dad, what the hell? Couldn’t you just knock? What if I’d slept nude?”
He didn’t look at her, he was too busy admiring his garden from the window. “Oh, you’ve nothing I haven’t seen before. I’m your bloody father, I‘ve wiped your arse many a time before now.”
“Not the point, Dad.“ Squinting, Laura sat up, rubbing her eyes, and remembered what he’d just said.
“Dad, did you just say ‘Button Day’?”
“Well, yeah. What, did you forget?” He laughed as he crossed the room to the door. “You were only talking about it last night.”
“Wait – what?” She frowned, not understanding. Something was wrong here. A fine way to start the day, really. She hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet, and she was already getting weird shit. “What are you talking about?”
He shook his head, still smiling as he left the room. “Get dressed. Breakfast is ready.”
He left her sitting up in bed, holding the covers to her breasts, a look of confusion on her face. Eventually she got out of bed, and began to pull some clothes on that were to hand. Familiar sounds floated up to her from downstairs: pots and pans rattling, the TV on low, the muffled tones of her family talking to each other, a short, harsh laugh – her brother. No doubt laughing at the TV.
She did her zipper on her jeans, and stood for a second before finally saying out loud, “Button Day?”
Downstairs, her mother was washing the dishes, humming to herself. Sunlight filled the room, making it warm and fresh. Her father and brother were sitting at the table, eating toast. There was a plate set for her, and she sat down, pulling it towards her.
Her brother was wearing a crisp white shirt – and he never wore shirts. She doubted that he even owned one. This was one of her father’s, she recognised it.
“What’s with the shirt?” She asked, picking her toast up, and his eyes never left the TV, which was typical of him. A year younger than her at fourteen, he was arrogant and know it all to boot.
“It’s Button Day, isn’t it?” He mumbled through a mouthful of toast, and her mother turned around, and tutted loudly at him.
“Mark, don’t talk with your mouth full.” She saw Laura and sighed. “Laura, you could dress a little better than that. At least make an effort.”
“What for?” Laura said, then looked at the ceiling, irritated. “Oh wait, let me guess. Button Day. Am I missing something here?”
Her mother shook her head, turning back to the dishes. “Don’t be so childish, Laura. It doesn’t suit you. Please make sure you get changed into something else before we leave.”
“I wanted to see Michael today. I’m not going with you, sorry.”
A hush fell over the kitchen as everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at her in surprise. Warily, Laura said, “What?”
“Are you crazy?” Her brother asked. “You can’t go out today, you’re coming with us!”
“Laura, you made plans? Today, of all days?” Her father asked, and she pushed back on her chair as a dull anger rose in her.
“Yes, I made plans! What the hell is going on this morning?”
No-one answered her. They were staring at her as if she’d took a crap on her plate. She got up, pushing her plate away. “You know what? Forget it.”
“Laura, stop this, right now,” her mother snapped. “You knew perfectly well what we were doing today. It’s been planned for a long time. Now you can just call Michael and tell him why you’re not seeing him.”
“That’s just it!” Laura yelled. “What do I tell him? I don’t know why I can’t go! It’s just you telling me I can’t!”
“It’s Button Day,” her brother said. “That’s why.”
“Button Day?” She cried. “What the hell are you all talking about? I’ve never heard of Button Day! You’re all acting like-” She suddenly stopped, comprehension dawning on her face. Her family were playing a joke on her. This was all a joke. With a warm rush, a huge weight lifted from her shoulders. Now she understood.
“Very funny, guys,” She said, her voice calm and collected. “You really had me going there.” She turned and left the room, heading for the front door. As she went, her mother called after her, “Laura! Please be back in an hour, we can’t leave without you, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Laura called back. “I wouldn’t want to miss Button Day, would I?”
The short walk to Michael’s house gave Laura enough time to feel guilty about how angry she had gotten with her family. As she’d gotten older, her temper had shortened. She planned on apologising later – she had an hour, right? Wasn’t that what her mother had said?
I wonder where we’re going, Laura thought, watching a plane a few miles above cut a white line across the sky. Or was that a joke too? Was it that they really were going out, and it had been a planned thing, and she had simply forgotten all about it?
She could see Michaels house from here, with the white fence and broad front lawn. She began to jog, eager to see him. As she crossed his driveway the front door opened and Michael came out with a look of shock on his face. He had seen her coming up the street.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Laura asked, and to her dismay he suddenly looked a little angry.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“What, did we fight, and I missed the memo?”
“You told me this was your family’s Button Day,” he said, and there was movement behind him.
Laura blinked, her mouth open in surprise. A blonde girl came to the door, squinting in the light, and slinked her arm around Michael. She was wearing a nightshirt and nothing else, and her hair was tousled.
“Go home,” the blonde said, and Laura backed away, blinking back sudden tears. Michael would not meet her eyes, so she turned and ran.
Her mother caught her just as she was about to run into her bedroom.
She pulled Laura close, holding her as she sobbed. “I know, I know. Let it all out.” She stroked Laura’s hair, rocking her a little. “Men are bastards, aren’t they?”
Laura pulled back to look at her mother, sniffing. “…You know?”
“You’ve just come back from his place in floods of tears. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what happened.”
“He’s got himself a blonde. A blonde! I’ll bet that’s why he wanted me to dye my hair!”
She cried for a little longer, and her mother held her. “There, there. Come on. Let’s get you changed for our trip.”
“…So we are going out?”
“Of course we are, silly! Here we are, this is a nice blouse. Your best, I think. Put this on, I want us looking our best for our Button Day.”
Laura’s stomach rolled lazily. She suddenly remembered Michael mentioning Button Day, too. This wasn’t a joke. This was real. It was all real, and she didn’t have a clue what was happening.
“Mom, listen to me a minute. Something here is very wrong.”
“I know. You really liked him, I know you did. It’s terrible that he’s upset you, on this day, of all days.”
“That’s just it, Mum – I don’t know anything about Button Day. I’ve never heard of it, and since this morning I feel as if I’m the only one who hasn’t the faintest idea what’s going on!”
“Well, to be honest, I’m no expert. I know it was the Governments idea to combat overcrowding, but other than that-”
“No, no. I mean at all. I’ve never heard of it.”
There was an uneasy silence, in which her mother looked at her for a long time. Her mouth was set in a hard line.
When she finally spoke, her voice was calm. “I know you’re upset, so I’ll play along with your little prank, okay? Just get changed – here’s your blouse – and I’ll see you in the car in five minutes, okay? We’re waiting for you.”
Her mother walked away, leaving Laura alone and frightened, her best blouse in her trembling hands.
The next thing she knew, she was in the car. Everything was flowing by in a fluid, carefree motion that made her feel more and more uneasy. What the hell was going on? Why did she not recall anything about this day that everyone was talking about?
She could see everything in absurd detail, slowed down to super slow motion: The fluff on the back of her mothers headrest. A bit of stubble that her fathers razor had missed. A crack in the pavement as they passed. She suddenly felt more lucid than she had ever felt in her whole life, yet she was unable to speak, trapped inside her own body. It was as if she were a puppet, walking on strings made from fear’s own web.
Somewhere deep inside, she was still clinging to an ocean-battered rock of hope, a charred crater of sense that told her that this was all a massive joke, a huge, elaborate hoax. As they pulled up outside the white, box-like building, squat and stern, that hope faded.
“Here we are,” her father said cheerfully, and she felt herself pull the door handle and step out of the car. She stood trembling in the sun like a baby deer, the building bearing down on her as if it had teeth.
Acting as if they were at the seaside, her family got out of the car, chatting animatedly. They set off towards the main entrance, Laura trailing behind. A sign stood over them: GOVERNMENT PROPERTY – KEEP OUT. She saw the security cameras watching them, and hurried after her family, her footsteps flat and dead.
The door to the building was made of glass, and as they pushed through into the clean lobby, Laura saw a receptionist busily typing on a computer. The receptionist looked up with a professional smile at her father as he approached.
“Hi, we’re the Krandalls. Here for our Button Day,” he said, and she smiled.
“Go on through, sir. Just keep walking that way.”
Her father thanked her, and on they went, down a long brightly lit corridor, lined with brass plaques which gleamed. There was something engraved on them all, blocks and blocks of text, and she drew closer as she walked to see what it was. She saw her own reflection looking back at her, and in the harsh fluorescent lights, she looked haggard.
Names. Hundreds and hundreds of names, thousands of names, one after another. Hogg. Wilson. Carpenter. Buxton. Bell. Palmer. Rowe. Brown. The list went on, seemingly endless.
Her family walked on, still chatting as if they were on holiday, and up ahead the corridor was coming to an end.
The corridor opened up into a large, white room. In this room, four small, waist high pillars stood, each with a red button on the top. Beyond them was a long polished desk, with three Government officials seated at it. The Government insignia hung on a huge banner over it all. The room was silent, and sterile.
Laura watched her family each step up to a pillar, watching the officials expectantly, leaving a pillar for her. Her very own button. Trembling, she stepped up to the pillar, only to notice with a jolt that the floor around them all was on a slight incline, angled towards a drain behind that she hadn’t noticed when she had first arrived. One of the officials spoke, his voice echoing in the open space.
“Krandall family. The Government has deemed this to be your Button Day. We thank you for your sacrifice to your country, and to your people. Your names shall join those in the long Hall in your honour.”
“We’re proud,” her father said, and her mother nodded, sincere. Her brother looked as if he were about to weep with pride.
The official continued. “Then please, in your own time, push your buttons. May God be with you all.”
Her father turned to his wife, his son, and his daughter, and smiled. “I’ll go first, to show you how easy it is.” He pushed the button on the pillar, and it depressed with a loud, satisfying click.
As Laura watched, her fathers face turned red, as if he’d been jogging. She remembered how easily flustered he got with exercise, and assumed he’d just walked too fast down the corridor, or something. That was when a crimson teardrop slid down his cheek, and plopped fatly onto the hard, white floor.
Laura watched, frozen, as blood began to pour from her fathers eyes, nose, ears and mouth. It ran down his shirt, over the belt that she had bought him for his birthday, and down his trousers. It splattered onto the floor. All at once, his eyes burst like over-ripe plums and hung on his cheeks, still connected by red strings. Liquefied brain ran from his eye sockets.
As his body crumpled to the floor, her mother and brother looked at each other and smiled, pushing their buttons at the same time. They turned to Laura, holding their hands out, blood seeping from their eyes and noses, tricking from their mouths. They assumed Laura had pushed hers, too.
Laura drew in a breath to scream, but the soft pop of her mothers and brothers eyeballs made it catch in her throat. They fell over backwards, landing on top of each other. Blood was being channelled to the drain, which drank quietly.
All was silent.
“Miss Krandell?”
Numb, she saw the officials watching her closely.
“Miss Krandell, overpopulation is destroying our towns and cities. Your country needs your action today.”
She stared wide-eyed at the official. To her side, her brothers hand twitched, the last of the nerve impulses fading. Blood was already congealing in his empty eye sockets.
The official was standing up slowly, and she saw that he was a tall man. Taller than most, no doubt.
“Humanity has called,” he said, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. The world had faded away to the button under her fingertips. It was smooth and red. Pushable.
“…Will you answer?”
|
Grant could not have asked for a prettier day to drive on. He had only been driving for Uber for a couple of months now in his free time, but he enjoyed it so much it was, little by little, starting to surpass his time bartending. There was something about the freedom and mobility that drew him. “It’s like having a desk job with a constantly changing view,” he had told his mother. She still didn’t like it, however, citing the fact that people in the world these days were “out of their minds.” Despite his mother’s pessimistic view of the general public at large, Grant found himself spending more and more time behind the wheel and “on the clock”.
He signed onto the app around noon and had his first ride request less than a minutes later. A few minutes after that he was pulling his white, 2012 Pontiac G6 to the curb in front of the Mason Cemetery where his first ride waited on the sidewalk. Even in the brief period he had been driving, Grant had learned to expect the unexpected and this was definitely…unexpected. It was fortunate that his car had a fair amount of head-space and leg-room because the man was exceptionally tall, maybe six foot six, and carried a fair amount of muscle on his large frame.
He was a black man with a lighter complexion but strikingly handsome to look at. Grant wasn’t gay but he was smart enough to know what was considered attractive by today’s standards and one thing was for sure: he didn’t want his girlfriend meeting this guy. His first impression was that the guy must have been a model, resembling a better-looking version of Tyrese Gibson. The outfit did nothing to hurt the impression either, as the guy was dressed to the nines.
The suit, shirt and tie were solid black giving him somewhat the appearance of an undertaker but much, much classier. The suit itself had to cost more than Grant’s car. Maybe he just went to a funeral. The man put his head down to the window.
“You my Uber?” His voice was rich and deep, somewhere between a Morgan Freeman and a James Earl Jones.
“Yea,” Grant replied, “hop in.”
“Front or back?” he asked.
“Up to you bud…whatever you’d prefer.” The man picked up two large black briefcases from the sidewalk, which Grant hadn’t noticed, and put them side-by-side in the back seat before climbing into the front.
“So the app says you’re going to Milton Estates…is that right?”
“Well…” The man paused for a moment, obviously trying to figure out the best way to phrase his proposition. “So here’s the thing…Grant; it is Grant isn’t it?” Grant nodded; his name was listed as the driver as well as a description of his car before he ever arrived. “I actually need someone to take me around to several places today; not just to Milton Estates. I will of course cover the rate and I’m willing to give you a hundred dollar tip for the dedicated service today. How long were you planning on working his afternoon?” Grant really hadn’t thought about it.
“I don’t know…a few hours, I guess. I didn’t really have a quitting time established yet.” He was, however, relatively broke, having just paid rent and a hundred dollar boost would actually go a long way at the moment. “How many places are we talking about?”
“At the moment, and that might be subject to change, but at the moment I need to go to three different places. It’s just that there’s a fair amount of distance between them.”
“All in town?” Grant asked. The man nodded. “I guess I can do that.” He really needed the cash. Once he got into traffic Grant officially introduced himself even though the man already knew his name; basically seeking a name to put to the other man’s face.
“My name is LeZaza,” he responded.
“LeZaza?” Grant repeated and LeZaza nodded again, apparently a man of few words. “That’s…different. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before. Is it African?” The question was probably too politically incorrect for the current social environment but Grant had never been one to think through his words before they escaped his mouth. Fortunately, his passenger didn’t seem offended.
“No. It’s actually much older than anything from Africa.” Grant didn’t know how to respond so he just kind of nodded in agreement. This was going to be an odd dude.
“So…” Grant glanced in the rearview at the cases in the back seat. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way but I kind of need to ask since we’ve got multiple stops going on here. You’re not doing anything illegal, are you? I mean, don’t get me wrong, if you’re selling drugs or something, I’m certainly not gonna say anything. Hell…I get high man, it’s all good. I just can’t be a part of anything like that…you understand?” LeZaza gave a hearty chuckle and the vision of a doubled-over Darth Vader popped into Grant’s mind.
“You can put your mind at ease, young man.” Young man? The guy couldn’t have been more than a few years older than he was. Probably one of those “old souls” his girlfriend claimed to be. “I’m doing nothing outside of the law.” It wasn’t that he was particularly worried about it exactly, but Grant had learned there were certain procedural questions that needed to be asked in this line of work, especially in circumstances where one person is making several stops. Drug dealers were some of the first to utilize Uber’s services.
LeZaza pointed at the radio. “May I?” he asked.
“Yea…of course,” Grant replied. “Whatever station you want; I can listen to anything, pretty much.” LeZaza turned on the radio, not too loudly, and scrolled through the stations before settling on a classic rock channel Grant didn’t even know existed. They continued on while Mick Jagger asked you to guess his name in “Sympathy for the Devil” and eventually arrived in the super-ritzy Milton Estates with its million-dollar homes. Although he had driven past the gate several times, Grant never imagined he would ever go inside. The front guard took one look at LeZaza in the passenger seat and opened the gate immediately as if he knew the man and exactly why he was here. There were no conversations involved.
LeZaza pointed to a beautiful home somewhere near the center of the subdivision and motioned for Grant to pull up.
“Front curb or driveway?” Grant asked and the man in the black suit only shrugged with indifference so he drove into the circular driveway and came to a stop directly in front of the main entrance. In no particular hurry, his passenger got out, retrieved one of his large, black cases from the back and proceeded into the home. He didn’t knock or ring the doorbell, didn’t even check to see if it was locked; just walked in with an ease he seemed to anticipate.
Grant turned off the radio while he waited. It wasn’t due to any particular aversion to the classic rock but the inane ramblings of the deejay were beginning to give him a headache. He could turn it back on when his passenger returned; which happened to be about ten minutes. LeZaza came out, closed the door behind him, placed the case back in the rear and climbed back in before pulling his phone out of his inner breast pocket. Grant was jealous the moment he saw it.
Something of a technology buff, he was surprised that he had never come across a model like that before and he took a mental picture to look up online when he got a chance. After scrolling through a couple screens, his passenger turned to him with the directions to their next destination. Normally, Grant would have fed the info into his GPS but he was actually familiar with the place they were going: Highwood Academy. It was a boarding school for military cadets; growing up his parents had threatened to send him there just about every time he broke curfew. It was all the way across town as well.
They got back on the interstate and LeZaza, without asking, turned on the radio again. Van Halen was “Running with the Devil” and Grant felt his headache starting to return. Maybe it was the music after all. When they reached the interstate, Grant’s lack of verbal filtering struck again as he blurted out another question that was probably inappropriate.
“So, Mr. LeZaza,” he began.
“Just LeZaza,” the passenger interrupted to correct him.
“Sorry…LeZaza then, what is it you do, or rather, what are we doing today?” Grant instantly regretted asking. “You know what…never mind. It’s none of my business.” LeZaza was calmly unfazed however and when he answered it acted as incentive for Grant to ask even more.
“I’m a debt collector.” That made sense…kind of. “And you don’t have to apologize. Curiosity is human nature.”
“So if you’re a debt collector,” Grant verbalized his string of thought as it came. “Why aren’t you driving your own car? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
“Not really,” LeZaza replied. “My car is a little ostentatious; a one-of-a-kind actually. Very easily recognized. I’ve found that if I use a different driver with a different car every day then it’s harder for them to see me coming.” That was a little weird but it probably made sense that people would avoid paying their debts.
“Oh…I see. So,” Grant continued while David Lee Roth crooned in the background, “I guess you work for the government then?” LeZaza smiled oddly and, while it looked like something one would see in an ad for men’s cologne or something, Grant found it a little unnerving.
“Not exactly,” was all he replied and Grant let it go for the time being. Forty minutes later, when they reached the gate of the academy the guard, much like the one from Milton Estates, merely nodded in recognition and opened the electric metal bars for them to drive through. Grant pulled right up front where LeZaza told him he would only be a few minutes before grabbing a case and heading inside.
Grant turned off the radio again and rubbed his temples. He was starting to get a real humdinger. Probably his allergies. In the fifteen minutes he had to wait, his mind began to wander to places it probably shouldn’t. “Not exactly”; what in the world did that mean? What kind of debt collector was this guy? Was he carting around some kind of mobster or something? Sure there were legitimate collections jobs where people avoided you but they weren’t grabbing cars so he wasn’t a repo-man, and they weren’t taking in any new passengers, so he wasn’t a bounty-hunter.
“You watch too much reality T.V.,” he muttered to himself as he tried not to look at the remaining case in the back seat. Even he knew that would have been beyond the bounds of proper behavior…but…what the hell was in there? Fortunately his passenger returned before the impulse became too strong. Same as before he put the case in the back, settled in and referred to his cell phone for the next address. He did have to feed that one into his GPS, however and was somewhat shocked when the directions came up.
“This is in the lower-east side!” he exclaimed. “I can’t go there.” Still stoic, LeZaza turned to him.
“Why is that?” he asked in deep voice.
“Look at me.” It seemed obvious, but maybe this guy was somewhat new to the area. “You see that I’m white…right?” Grant didn’t consider himself racist in the least but there were certain things that just fell under the umbrella of common sense. One didn’t go into the hood unless they had a damn good reason and one didn’t use the N-word no matter how tight they were with their black crew or how much they wanted to be one of them. “They would kill me in Tremont Heights…especially if you leave me in the car alone.”
LeZaza seemed to give it some serious contemplation and was about to reply when his cell phone buzzed. He put one finger in the air, essentially putting the conversation on pause, and answered the call.
“Yes sir…I’m heading to the third…no…not at all…I have an excellent driver, yes…two…I don’t know; I’ll ask him.” He turned his attention back to Grant. “Can you take me to two more locations after this next one?” Grant wasn’t even sure he wanted to go to the next one. The whole situation was starting to feel a little sketchy for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on and he was practically on the verge of declining the offer when LeZaza pulled a golden money clip holding an indeterminable amount of cash from his coat pocket. Grant could tell that the top bill was a hundred and if they all were then the guy was easily carrying fifty grand. Guess the answered the question as to what was being collected.
“How about this,” LeZaza continued, sensing his sudden apprehension. “How about, in addition to the initial one-hundred dollar tip, we add another…oh, I don’t know…thousand?” One thousand? This guy was going to give him eleven hundred dollars for three more stops? Was he insane? There was no way this could be on the up and up.
“What about Tremont? I mean, seriously man…have you ever been there before?” LeZaza turned his attention back to his phone call, essentially tuning the driver out in the process.
“Yes sir, he’ll do it…yes sir…yes sir…I appreciate that sir…as always I live to serve your word.” Live to serve your word? This was bizarre on a level Grant had never anticipated, but that being said, the weirdo was right…he needed that money. Grant put the car in gear and pulled out of the school. Thirty minutes later, he brought up the fact that his discomfort with the ghetto was more than just white-privilege paranoia. There were news stories, practically every day, of someone being shot in that neighborhood and for reasons a lot less trivial than just being a white guy.
“You don’t have to worry; I’ll keep you safe.” Grant wasn’t so sure.
“That’s easy for you to say…you’re a big, jacked-up black dude. No offense.” He didn’t seem offended and Grant gathered that was something the other man didn’t give into often. “What happens when you go inside and I’m left all alone? How are you going to watch my back then?” LeZaza flipped on the radio as a reply. The late Michael Hutchence was singing about his inner demons and Grant just sighed. He needed the money.
A little under an hour later they were pulling into another neighborhood that, much like Milton Estates, Grant never dreamed he would be going into; although for entirely different reasons. The address led them to a hovel of a home, maybe two rooms at most. The tiny, fenced-in yard hadn’t been mowed in any number of years. Young, African-American teens milled about on the various porches and loitered in the street.
Further down, little girls could be seen playing hop-scotch and the entire environment felt free of any tension. Up until the second Grant’s G6 pulled up, that was. He could feel the heat from all the stares that fell upon him and he hoped that the sight of a large, well-dressed, black man getting out of his car would be enough to discourage any interaction.
LeZaza jumped out without a word, grabbed his case and headed inside as if he owned the place. Grant looked around nervously. The number of glares thrown in his direction became more than he could count; he had never felt so out of place in his entire life. He had also never been anywhere where he had to worry about losing his life. Relax man…you’re getting yourself worked up for no reason. He hoped it really was paranoia run amuck but when three kids in typical gansta-gear, complete with gold chains and baggy pants that came nowhere near their waists, started towards the car he wasn’t so sure.
Grant tried not to make eye contact as he clocked them peripherally and, to his utmost dread, they were coming right to him. The image of his mother at his funeral saying, “I told him not to work for Uber,” flashed through his mind. What didn’t occur to him in time to do anything about it without being seen, was to take off his father’s watch, which was a family heirloom and worth more than everything else he owned combined. Grant hated himself for being socially engineered to even think that way but when they came up to the open window it was the first thing they said.
“Nice watch, white-boy,” one of them started, the aggression thinly veiled.
“Mmm-hmm,” the second agreed with him, “that shit would look tight on my wrist.” The third thug had a different opinion.
“Nah…that’s gonna be all me, G-mo.” He looked directly as Grant and patted his hip, insinuated that some type of firearm was tucked in beneath the baggy tee-shirt. Grant doubted that was the case since it would have had to been held in place by the kid’s boxers, but it wasn’t exactly something he wanted to call a bluff. “Why don’t you go ahead and pass that watch over here. This is what you call a ‘toll-road’ and that there’s your toll.”
Sweat beading up on his forehead, Grant was actually frozen with indecisive fear. That watch meant the world to him; he would have rather given up his car, but was it worth the possibility of losing his life over. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great, great-grandfather would probably have said no, but he didn’t want to be the one responsible for letting it slip out of the family. It was supposed to go to his son, for Pete’s sake. He didn’t know what to say and, fortunately, didn’t have to.
“There some kind of problem here, gentlemen?” It was LeZaza. Grant hadn’t noticed him coming back out and, obviously, neither had his visitors as they all took a step back upon seeing the big guy. The hoodlums shared a look with each other as if to underpin that they had each other’s backs, and then turned back to the car with a reinforced determination. This was their hood and they were going to take what they wanted.
“We’re gonna get that watch, my brother, and I would stand down if I were you,” the first one spoke again. “You a big boy and all but you don’t want to fuck with our crew; I’m tellin you right now.” LeZaza began to walk around the front of the car and the boys took a defensive position; ready to jump him with the slightest provocation. When he reached the other side he reached into his blazer’s outer pocket and pulled out a gold watch.
Obviously it couldn’t be verified from the angle or the distance but Grant would have sworn that it was identical to his father’s watch. Of course, that couldn’t be possible; his was a very rare, classic model that was difficult, if not impossible, to find anymore…but it sure looked like it. When the wanna-be gangstas saw the gold, their body language changed immediately and the situation went from being a probable robbery to a possible business deal of some type.
LeZaza led them away from the car to the other side of the street, continuing to pull various pieces of gold and jewelry out of his pockets the whole way. Within minutes the boys were covered in more watches, chains and ice than even they were safe to carry around with and LeZaza was handing them his cell phone. One at a time, in turn, they held their thumbs to the screen as if it were recording their prints, but Grant knew better; or at least thought he did. That wasn’t how cell phones worked…was it?
A few minutes later, LeZaza was climbing back into his Uber and the teens were rushing away, much quicker than they had approached, hooting and hollering as they went. They, seemingly, were pleased with the way things worked out. Grant got his directions and peeled out, drawing more unintended looks from the squealing tires, but not caring in the least. The quicker they were out of that area, the better.
The next address was in a neighborhood that seemed filled with retirees and the elderly barely able to still care for themselves…and cats; there were a lot of cats running around. Much as he had become accustomed to, Grant pulled right into the driveway of the well-maintained little home that looked like a ginger-bread house come to life. Wordlessly, LeZaza got out, grabbed his second case this time and headed into the home.
Grant was grateful for the reprieve and the opportunity to turn the radio off again. He couldn’t remember ever finding music that…irritating before. Even Charlie Daniel’s classic “Devil Went Down to Georgia” was making him grit his teeth and he loved that song as a child. The average ten to fifteen minutes passed before his passenger came back out again but this time he wasn’t alone. The windows were down, but it was still difficult to hear exactly what was going on.
An elderly, black lady was crying…sobbing…grabbing his hands; trying to keep him from leaving. Falling to her knees, she began to passionately beg him for something. LeZaza turned to her. He didn’t seem terribly fazed by her emotional display but his demeanor was one of compassion. He put his hand on the top of her head as she was doubled over, nearly to the point of hysterics. He said something to her. Grant couldn’t make it out at all but he recognized the deep timbre of LeZaza’s voice. Whatever it was seemed to calm the old woman somewhat.
She looked back up into his eyes and emphatically nodded her head up and down, the tears suddenly subsiding. LeZaza looked back at the car and held up his finger again as if to say “one more minute”, helped up the lady and handed her his cell phone. Similarly to Grant’s would-be robbers, the woman held her thumb to screen for a moment and then LeZaza, case in hand, followed her back inside. It ended up being a little longer than one minute but Grant was beyond the point of complaining now. Any time a disparaging thought came up he just said, eleven-hundred dollars to himself.
LeZaza returned and they were off to their last destination. Grant tried to initiate conversation before the other man realized that the radio was off again. He would have killed for an Ibuprofen.
“So what was that all about?” A long enough period of silence passed that Grant figured he wasn’t going to receive and answer when LeZaza finally spoke.
“Sometimes the family of people I collect from do not react well. Sometimes they offer to pay the price in their place. There are penalties for this, of course, but it’s not something we don’t allow.” Grant mulled this over.
“So the old lady paid for the debt?” LeZaza nodded in agreement.
“Yes…and her husband paid the penalties, but now her son’s debt has been paid and he won’t have to worry about seeing me again. Unless he decides to make another deal with us, that is.” This guy was spooky. Grant couldn’t tell if he liked the guy or not but, for the time being, he was happy to be on his good side.
“So you guys are like loan-sharks then?” LeZaza, gazing out the window, didn’t answer this time. Grant pressed. “What’s in the briefcases…money?” The passenger finally turned to look back at him.
“What happened to ‘it’s none of my business’?” While he had a point, after the oddities he had witnesses so far, Grant was starting to think that it was his business. If everything was as it should be why did he get so damn nervous every time they passed a cop car? If this guy carried a bank vault and jewelry store in his coat pockets, what on Earth could be in the mega briefcases? Grant had a hard enough time keeping his mouth in check that he didn’t even try to contain his thoughts.
“Yea…you’re right. It’s just…I don’t know…with all the valuables you seem to be carrying, aren’t you concerned at all? I mean, what if those kids had pulled a gun on you?”
“They would have regretted it.” It sounded like a cliché, action-movie line but LeZaza said it with a calm conviction that belied a menacing level of self-confidence. Grant was starting to believe that there probably weren’t many situations that the man couldn’t handle so, for the moment, he let it go. They were on their way to the last stop all the way on the other side of town again. Realizing that more gas was going to be needed, Grant pulled the Pontiac into an Exxon and got out to pump it.
His passenger was nodding his head to the Beatles “Devil in her Heart” while he was standing there, watching the digits tick by, when LeZaza received another call from his apparent supervisor and turned the music off. Grant couldn’t tell what he was saying but it didn’t matter because he found out the moment he got back behind the driver’s seat.
“We have a change of plans,” LeZaza started. “Still going to be our last stop but I need to head to a different location.” Grant just shrugged; it didn’t seem like a big deal at this point.
“Okay,” he said as he pulled the Garmin GPS unit off its mount in the window. “Where we headed?” Once again, the GPS became unnecessary because he knew exactly where his passenger wanted to go…all too well.
“Four-hundred Mountain Crest Lane? Why do you need to go there?” LeZaza didn’t seem to understand.
“I thought we already determined that,” the rider replied indifferently. “I need to collect a debt.” Grant knew he was probably being irrationally worried but he had to know.
“It’s an apartment complex…which apartment to you need to go to?”
“You don’t need to concern yourself with that. Just park in the front as we’ve been doing.” Grant shook his head. They weren’t going another inch until he had the information he wanted.
“Look buddy,” Grant’s tone was much harsher than was probably wise to use. “I know someone that lives in that complex and until I know that it isn’t them…well, you’ll need to find another ride.” LeZaza pulled his phone back out and looked at the screen.
“Grant,” he began coolly, “Unless your friend is named Tracy Masters, you have nothing to worry about.” The color drained from Grant’s face when he heard the name of the girl he had been dating seriously for the last six months. This is crazy. It made no sense at all and Grant felt frozen in his seat. The next several seconds passed like minutes while his mind desperately tried to come to terms with this new information.
“Why…” he stammered, “I…I don’t understand.” Tracy didn’t need money; she came from a wealthy family and even if she hadn’t she was hands down the single most talented person Grant had ever met. She was an amazing musician who, in addition to her stunning voice, had already mastered more instruments than the fingers he had on one hand, and that was only the beginning. Tracy was an artist; painting, sculpting and creating mind-blowing abstract pieces. She wrote beautiful poetry and insightful short stories and all these things combined left Grant baffled at to what she could have possibly ever needed from the loan-shark he had been carting around all day. It felt like he had been punched in the gut. “Why…why would she come to you?”
“I can tell you’re very close to this person and that is unfortunate,” LeZaza tried to console. “You should not have been put in this situation, but the fates of destiny are fickle bitches at best.” Grant was getting pissed.
“I really don’t need your Confucius bullshit right now, LeZaza. Tell me what you gave her. How much does she owe you?” Grant had already decided that he wasn’t taking this shady bastard to his girlfriend’s apartment but even if he didn’t, the guy would still find his way to her. He needed to figure out how to put this to bed…here and now; even if it cost him eleven hundred dollars.
“How long have you been seeing Tracy Masters?” It wasn’t exactly on topic but it was close enough that Grant would continue down that avenue; it would be unwise to alienate the man before some type of resolution could be reached.
Grant shook his head. “Six months or so…why?”
“It helps me to determine your point of view.” What does that mean? LeZaza continued, “If you had known Tracy five years ago, you would have known an entirely different person.” Of course she was a different person; we all were. “All of the wonderful things she is able to do usually come from lifetimes of practice and dedication…correct?” This had better be going somewhere!
“She has natural talent.” Grant’s voice was barely a whisper but the comment brought about another round of raucous Darth Vader laughter. He was really starting to dislike this guy.
“No one has that much ‘natural talent’. Your girlfriend’s magnificent gifts are just that…gifts.” LeZaza paused to correct himself. “No…that’s not exactly accurate. Gifts are given for free, whereas, her abilities came with a price.” Was the crazy son-of-a-bitch trying to say what he thought he was? That somehow he or at least his organization was responsible for Tracy’s…abilities; it was ludicrous thing to claim.
“Price?” Grant muttered, his anger slowly shifting to anxiety then fear. “What is the price?”
“That’s between she and I, I’m afraid.”
“But,” Grant wouldn’t be dissuaded that easily, “you said the debt could be paid by others…family. She is practically family; I hope she’ll be my wife one day.” LeZaza put his phone back in his jacket and sighed.
“You could cover her debt…yes, but there is a penalty. You cannot pay the penalty; it will have to come from someone else.” It didn’t make any sense at all. How would LeZaza know he could cover the debt; he knew nothing about him. Furthermore, the large man had to have already come to an assumption regarding his financial state given Grant’s eagerness to be of assistance when the wad of cash was offered.
“Someone else? For the love of monkeys, can you please just tell me in plain English what the hell we’re talking about here? I’m getting a little sick of your zen-budda, bullshit, Yoda answers. Just tell me what I need to do.” The fear was shifting back to anger; his meter in a state of constant fluctuation. LeZaza sighed again before turned his full attention towards Grant.
“Very well, Grant. I will give you the basic pitch as it regards to you. You tell me what you want. It can be just about anything in the world, minus a few minor scenarios. I will grant your wish and you will have five years to enjoy the fruits of whatever it is you would ask for. When one-thousand, eight-hundred and twenty-five days have passed, I will return for the payment of your desires: your soul.” Was this guy for real? Grant couldn’t help but to chuckle but the other man just continued on.
“We will be willing to exchange the payment of your soul for that of Tracy Masters, however, there is the penalty of one additional soul which will, of course, also receive a five-year period of the blessings of their own choosing. If you know someone who would be willing to agree to this deal as well then we will release the contract of Tracy as well as allow her to retain her desires. Are these conditions that you can agree to?”
Grant didn’t know at what point he had stepped into “The Twilight Zone”, but, crazy or not, this guy was dead serious. Maybe this was a prank…maybe he was being set up? He hadn’t see any television cameras but what he had seen was enough oddities to collaborate the nut’s story that Grant really didn’t know if he should believe him or not. It was obviously insane but Grant had always believed in an entire world of existence beyond what regular people could see or hear on a daily basis.
Call it heaven, another dimension or the spirit-realm, Grant had a strong faith that humankind would never get the full picture until death…and maybe not even then; it would have been foolish to assume otherwise. So he was Ubering either a crazy man or demonic soul-collector; neither prospect seemed terribly desirable. If LeZaza were a mad-man, what would he do to Tracy? Would what he considered to be retrieving her soul, actually result in her death? Had he been killing people all day?
Then there was the alternative. If he had actually stepped into a moment outside the bounds of rational reality, could he really let Tracy lose her soul? Grant didn’t consider himself a particularly religious man, but he did believe in the existence of the soul…believed it to the degree of having no doubt. So following that natural course he had to ask himself: would he be willing to trade his soul for hers? Grant had never pondered such a metaphysical question before and was surprised by the speed at which he received his answer: yes. He loved Tracy more than anything. He loved her more than he loved himself and that was really the bottom line.
That being said, he had no idea who else would be willing to make such a sacrifice. Her parent’s lived in France and he wouldn’t have a clue how to get in touch with them. From the stories she had told about her family, they weren’t really the self-sacrificing types anyway. Grant wracked his brain but couldn’t come up with a single person he would even begin to approach with this kind of request.
“Well?” LeZaza prompted after minutes of silence.
“Ok,” Grant said with gloomy conviction. “I’ll do it.”
“And for the penalty…you have someone in mind for that?”
“Yea,” Grant lied, “I got someone. We’ll go there now.”
“
|
My older brother stood over me, eyes blown wide and a smile spread across his face. He held out a hand to me like he was approaching a wounded animal, knowing that any sudden move could spook me into leaving. My feet scuffled on the floor and I looked up into his big brown eyes, the same eyes that mother said made him hard to deny. They really were beautiful, but that wasn’t why I was finding it hard to say no here. For one, I was 10, I had no understanding of why this was wrong. The second reason is that he was so much larger than me, only 13, but he towered over me. The third reason is that he had no problem with kicking my ass if I didn’t do what he wanted.
“C’mon, baby, let me help you feel good,” he purred in that voice that he used to comfort me when I was crying. I looked up to him for so long, he was my big brother and he was supposed to protect me, he was supposed to take care of me. Everyone always said we’d be the only friends we had when we grew up, I assume that they would change their mind if they knew what happened when Mommy and Daddy were away at work.
“Help me?” I murmured, grabbing at the end of my green and yellow striped, oversized nightshirt, my chin tucked to my chest, and eyes glancing up at him through long, youthful lashes.
“Yeah, we just gotta get rid of these clothes,” he started to gently brush my sleeve off of my shoulder. I didn’t stop him, but how could I, I was so young.
“Okay.”
My eyes opened slowly, toes and fingers flexing as I got used to my 17 year old body. Just another PTSD driven dream about that fucker. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and reaching for my phone, the bright light blinding in the dark of the room. When my eyes adjusted and the time became clear, I groaned in annoyance, throwing my phone back down. It was only two A.M. and I was still tired as hell. My hand reached out for the soda on my side table, sleep sticking my mouth together and making it uncomfortable. Just as I turned the slightest bit, I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye.
My head whipped around, my thoughts telling me it was just my hair confusing me and falling in my eyes, or I was still half asleep and dreaming. That was what I told myself over and over as I stared into large, glowing white eyes, the silhouette of a human stood in front of me. It was as if all light was absent from the figure, no features legible through the darkness. The black hole of a figure stared at me for a moment before moving forward towards me. I opened my mouth to scream, but my voice was caught in my throat.
“Shh, no need to alert your parents, child,” the creatures voice was smooth, calming, like a professional children’s storybook narrator. His movements were smooth, like he didn’t even need to push off of the earth to propel himself forward. Everything about him seemed human, but eerily off. The bed dipped and my legs shot back. The thoughts of hundreds of horror stories with creatures seated at the end of your bed flashed through my thoughts, but left in favor of focusing on where this thing was and what it was doing.
“W-what are you?” I whispered, trying not to anger the monster by alerting my parental unit.
“Never you mind what I am,” he ghosted closer to me, “it is your job to mind what I do.”
“And, what is it that you do?”
“I cure humans like you! Through dreams, I help humans through their past trauma. You are plagued by the memories of your brother, and I can take that pain away, if you wish for me to.” His hand stretched out as if to touch my face, hovering inches from my forehead. He was close now, far too close for comfort.
“And why should I trust you? I don’t even know what you are, let alone what you intend to do with me.” I pressed my back closer to the wall, letting the covers fall over more of my body to hide me from him. My hands were trembling as I clutched the blankets and I felt my breath shake. I didn’t want him to know I was scared, but, curse this body, it holds no secrets.
“What would you like to dream about?” He purred, hand creeping closer and closer.
“Uhm, I guess an autumn picnic…alone,” I held back a stutter and looked into those soulless, white eyes.
He nodded his head and the hand finally touched base. It was cold, and felt like wind on my skin. My eyes weighed heavy and my body went lax, taking me back into my deep sleep.
Darkness.
At first, that was all there was. The smell of iron oxide and something else, like copper, wafted through the room. Something wasn’t right here. My eyes shot open and I was greeted with a small, confined, metal space. Rust tinted the walls and the floor seemed to be a conveyer belt. I glanced around, looking for a way out. In the ceiling was a small, square hole, either an air duct or a way into a room above this one. I whirled on my feet and was staring at a strange machine. I looked like a statue of a monster’s jaws. Sharp, jagged teeth line the upper and lower parts of the mechanism. The teeth were all shapes and sizes, pointed straight down like it was made to chew something up.
As I was observing the jaws, my body jerked forward, the belt underneath me whirring to life. My body seized and my mind went blank. Metal screamed as it scraped against itself, the metal jaws pumping up and down, clamping down on thin air. I turned on my heels, ready to run against the belt, only to notice the wall moving as well. The noise in the room was deafening, scraping and grinding filling the air and left my spine crawling with anxiety. In the midst of the sounds came the shattering sound of wood and pieces of an old, wooden stool were falling out of the hole in the ceiling.
My eyes shot to the machine that was growing ever closer, hinges on the side controlling the motion of the machine. Working quickly, I scrambled for the pieces of wood, dropping a few and scooping it back up off the floor. I was right in front of the machine now, the already screeching audio getting intolerable up close. I began shoving the wooden chunks into the hinges, stepping backwards as I did to keep myself as far away from the jaws as possible. I tossed most of the pieces, afraid to get my hand close to the large shivs. I was halfway through blocking the mechanisms when my foot slipped, sliding in between two teeth in what had to be the most stressful moment of my life. I watched as the teeth wound up and went to clamp down again, I braced for the bite, but the teeth came just shy of my ankle, unable to close fully.
I stared in awe at my handiwork then quickly moved to the other hinge. The wall was still closing in, speeding up exponentially as I continued to stuff shards into the hinge. Finally, the jaws were jerking and lurching from the effort, jerking open and stopping abruptly mid-bite. I sighed as I looked for a way to get through the hole, the bottom so close together that I would have had to cut my leg to get through. As I was thinking about a way to use my new method of escape, the wall pressed against my back. I was about a foot from the machine, hardly any room to move. I had no time to think as I grabbed a tooth and tried to use it to push myself up. Instead, the metal sliced through the delicate flesh of my hand, causing blood to ooze out and a sharp pain to shoot through my arm. The wall pushed on and I had no choice, the wood was starting to give and break under the force of the machine. I jumped for it, hearing the wood finally shatter into pieces and just as I was about to touch the floor of the other side, the jaws clamped down around my leg.
A scream ripped through my throat and pain sliced up my limbs as the jaws kept chomping down on my leg, sliding it further and further onto the tooth. I took a deep breath and planted my left leg on the ground, pushing myself up and standing with one leg out behind me, continuing to be shredded apart, each bite making my good knee want to buckle and give way. I twisted around, my spine creaking and ribs aching with the effort. I grabbed hold of the leg, yanking upwards and screaming in agony as the muscle and bone was let go, only for the jaws to slam back down at a different angle and rip new holes into the mutilated flesh. My vision started to blur, tears blocking out the information. I grabbed hold of the leg again, hands shaking and arms weak. I had almost forgotten about the cut on my hand until I pulled once more, only for my hand to catch on my jeans and rip open further. A growl of annoyance and pain left my mouth and I gave one last tug, my leg jerking free and my body flinging forward. The useless limb flew forward and I instinctively put my weight onto my right leg, a grotesque snap ringing through the metal room as the bone fractured in half. My face slammed against the ground, expecting to find hard metal but landing against something soft and squishy. I cried out in pure agony and held my hurt leg, rocking back and forth to calm myself down.
“Oxygen,” I whispered, the word being a safeword in my family that marked an anxiety attack. “Oxygen!” I shouted as I placed my hurt hand on the ground, trying to hoist myself up. “Oxy-“ I looked down, bloody flesh staring back at me. Suddenly I was slammed back into reality. Bodies littered the floor, the same teeth marks placed on various parts of their corpses. My stomach heaved and I covered my mouth with my good hands, not wanting to add anymore bodily fluids to the mix. Tears streaked down my cheeks and I glanced around, looking for a way out. There was a platform, leading to a hole in the top of the far wall. I crawled on my hands and knees towards it, unable to balance on one leg in the pile of carcasses. My hand brushed over wounds that were long rotted and diseased, my knee driving into the stomachs of the dead participants. It felt like a lifetime before I reached the platform, hands reaching up to pull me onto the surface and pressing to get me back on my feet. I pressed up against the wall and hopped towards the hole, not looking back at the room full of corpses.
I rested in the doorway, a sob of relief leaving my lips. The room was similar, small and rusted, but there was a lovely red, leather sofa with cream accents and black armrests. The other addition was a beautifully polished grand piano on the other side of the room. I hopped to the sofa, still unsure of what I can trust, but not in the mood to look a gift horse in the mouth. I sighed in utter relief as I sat down, letting my eyes slide shut.
Soft piano music began filling the room, at first I thought nothing of it, until I realized that something had to be playing the piano. My eyes shot open and locked upon a beautiful blonde boy, maybe in his early twenties, messy blond hair fell in front of closed eyes, face calm with focus. His hands flowed across the keys in a way that was far too familiar. As the melody reached its last few notes, he slowed his tempo, the song ending and a hand hovering over the keys as though he wanted to play another song, but knew he was finished playing. The man lifted his head and placed his hands across his lap.
“I just adore music,” the creature hummed in content, turning towards me and opening its eyes, large, white, and glowing. “Don’t you?”
I nodded my head, sitting still and keeping eye contact. I felt as though staring at him was like looking into the face of your killer, though, he very well may be mine. The thought curled inside my mind, wrapping around my logical reasoning and snuffing it out.
“Who were they?” I muttered, my voice cracking as I thought back to the pile of dead bodies.
“Oh, them? Trauma victims who failed their tests. Don’t worry, if you die in here, it normally means that you gave up trying to live anyway. Though I don’t suggest it, it won’t wake you up. You are transported through dreams, but this doesn’t mean it is one. There are consequences to actions here and death is permanent.” His eyes stopped glowing, the white of their eyes broken by reptilian slits.
“Why do you do this?” I whimpered, feeling the blood in my mangled leg starting to dry and grow stiff and uncomfortable.
“Why? That I can’t tell you just yet,” he tutted with his tongue like I was a child that asked a questions too big for my age.
“Please, j-just let me go,” I pleaded, tears staining my cheeks.
“Not yet, you have not reached the end, you have three more trials before that.” He grabbed my arm and hefted me up, dragging me to a hole in the wall that just seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. “Now, play nice, he’s sensitive.”
Suddenly I was thrown through the door, expecting to catch myself, finding that my mangled leg had mended and, even more to my dismay, there was no floor. I let out a cry of surprise as I fell through a large black abyss. Looking around, I searched for anything that would slow me down, something to break my fall. I looked down to see a light growing below me, I started to reach out, clawing at air, searching for purchase, but nothing came. I stopped, closing my eyes and let myself fall, accepting that I failed this trial.
My body smacked off the ground, the ground giving way then jerking back to sling me back into the air and repeat the process till I stopped moving altogether. I gasped for breath and blinked my eyes back open. The ground seemed to be made of pillows, brightly colored and spanning as far as the eye could see. I tilted my head in confusion, standing up unsteadily on the unstable ground. A pastel house stood nearby, leading me to believe that I needed to head to it. I reached the hot pink door and took a deep breath.
“This isn’t so bad, I can handle this,” I chanted to myself like it would make it true. As soon as I opened the door I was smacked with colorful décor and the smell of death. The building looked like a fifties diner that was designed by a little girl. I sat down at the counter, tapping my fingers on the metal top. I turned when a door opened, revealing a small purple monster. He was egg shaped, furry and with small stubby legs. His arms were fat and his eyes were closed like he was sleep-walking, an oversized green and yellow striped shirt clung to his form. He looked like a puppet or kids cartoon character. He turned to face me, nearly causing me to jump out of my chair as I got a better look at him. Large, bloody teeth hung from an oversized mouth, little fangs were embedded in and around the mouth and he nibbled on a severed arm. Long, sharp claws held the arm in place and his mouth moved unnaturally, like a sock puppet that is being made to pretend to eat. He dropped the arm to the side and raised his free hand to wave me along, motioning me into the room he just came out of.
I slowly stood up, following the little beast into the room. My body froze as I stared at it all. The floor was yellow and the walls were bright blue, but the friendliness stopped there. Entrails hung like Christmas lights, dead bodies hung on the walls, skulls lined the window sills like pies or flowers, the rug was made of human skin, and the furniture was made of mangled body parts. The little monster stood proudly in the center of the room, uncanny mouth spread into a smile. He was hopping a bit on his stubby toes and waving his fat arms around like he was trying to show me something. The monster ran to the window sill and grabbed the skull that had the least amount of meat chunks on it, bringing it to me and pushing it into my hands. I grimaced as I took the object, looking down at the large claw, poking the skull as if asking me to look. I nodded and gave a forced smile.
“That’s very nice,” I said and handed the skull back to him gently, he ran and put it back in the sill then came back, grabbing my wrist and pulling me along to one of the neon blue walls. There was a dead woman, strung up on the wall, pieces of skin graphed from her legs and arms and sewn on her sensitive areas as if preserving her innocence. His claw poked at her stomach just like the skull, that innocent smile still spread across his face. I nodded and kept my tight smile, trying not to show my disgust. The hand still holding my wrist guided my hand to touch the woman’s stomach, as if he wanted me to feel just how soft it was. It was so cold and felt so dry, like she was ready to start decaying, but was never allowed to. My face twisted into one of disgust and I heard the monster whine. I looked down as it let go of my arm and walked over to his skull collection, picking up the one he had shown me and sitting in one of his grotesque chairs. His claws dragged across the top of the skull, as if petting an animal. The sound was strangely soothing despite its source. I sighed and walked over to the little thing, setting a hand on his fuzzy head.
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just not my style,” I gave a nervous laugh and started petting through the monster’s matted fur. “If it makes you feel happy though, then that’s awesome!” The monster turned its head to me, smiling again then opening its eyes, the white glow blinded me for a moment, closing my eyes and blinking them back open to see a different room. A tall, dark-haired man stood in front of me, maybe in his mid-forties and good looking for his age, his eyes that same white shade as the creature who ran this place.
“You almost failed,” he said with a disappointed frown. I looked up at him and nodded.
“What was the point of that, the monster didn’t even try to kill me!” I scoffed, not mentioning the unease of the situation, it felt like a perverted childhood dream.
“This isn’t about killing you, it’s not even about stringing up bodies to make you scared. You’re learning things. That is your purpose, to learn, child.”
“Learn what?! What am I learning? That you’re a piece of shi-!” his hand slammed over my mouth and he bared his teeth, long and sharp and angry.
“Watch the way you speak to me, child, I control this place and I control whether it is possible for you to survive or not!” I nodded my head, feeling his breath now, unlike before on my bed. His white eyes glowed dangerously and I had to focus on keeping my body from shaking. He removed his hand from my mouth and I sat there a moment, thinking.
“D-do you have a name?” I pretended, like I always did when I was scared. I was pretending he was a normal human, I was pretending he was just a stranger and I was okay, and I was pretending that I was going to get out alive.
He stared at me a moment as if thinking whether I was ready to know or not. The beast sighed and narrowed his eyes. “Chonak,” the word wafted over me, drawing me into darkness, unable to see, just like when I first was sent here.
My vision came back to me, seeing that I was in a rickety wood cabin with no entrance or exit. The ceiling was made of hay and string and the walls of large logs, tied together loosely with hay strands. It felt unsafe, like it would collapse at any moment. I moved forward poking at the wall and hearing the whole building creak. I took a deep breath and thought a moment. I heard the wall creak on the other side and turned around quickly screaming at the thing staring at me. It looked like Chonak had when he was playing the piano but his clothes were gone, his upper body looking skinny and malnourished, skeletal arms ending in frostbitten hands, blackened and scabbing. A third arm seemed to push out from his stomach like it had stabbed its way out of the flesh and the skin healed around it. His bottom half had four, broken, mangled legs, all meshed together by globs of fatty flesh, looking as though he was riddled with tumors. When he moved, his body rolled on his fatty legs, gushing and creasing against itself in an unnatural manner that was easiest for him.
My stomach heaved once more, watching him move made me sick. Then I watched as white, reptilian eyes glued onto my face, a smile that was a bit too wide with a bit too many teeth was laced onto his visage. A decaying hand came up to slide across the hay strands, finally taking it between his fingers with care and yanking, causing the building to groan and the corner pieces to bulge with effort. I tried my hardest to control my breathing, but it was getting difficult. His hand slid down, like a lover caressing his partner’s stomach, playing with the next strand and pulling again. The corner practically popped, crisscrossing and holding itself up through pressure, small holes opening between the logs. Chonak rolled his way over to the next corner, snapping me back into reality. He was going to wreck the place, collapse it in on top of the both of us. I surged forward, searching the holes for one big enough to squeeze through. I wasn’t that big, there had to be one. I tugged on the logs trying to make a bigger hole when yet another strand was pulled, rolling the logs out of place but creating an easy climbing surface.
My hands scrambled up the smooth wood, dragging myself up the first two layers only for the structure to jerk with the next strand. I scraped the wood with bitten nails, only to fall backwards, a sickening crack ringing in the room as my arm snaps underneath me. I cry out in pain, but I didn’t have time to focus on the agony, I had to climb, so I did. My hands clawed at wood, feet catching on splinters and flinging myself up, I was so close to the top when the logs rolled again, slamming against my legs, effectively trapping me. I growled out a sound of frustration, my legs not broken, just pinned.
“What the fuck is up with you and trapping my fucking legs you god damned-!” I jerked against the logs then realized what he was doing. He knew that he pinned my legs too, he knew that it would freak me out, that it would make me…
“Oxygen!” I screeched, jerking with my good arm, dragging myself, but not freeing my legs. “Oxygen, oxygen!” I scrabbled at the wood, the adrenaline kicking in as I jerked and pulled, seeing his hand go for the final strand. “Oxygenoxygenoxygen,” I chanted as I freed myself, flying forward and over the top log, easily making it passed the straw roof. Just as I made it over, the house fell, knocking the wind out of me, but doing no other harm.
Rolling onto my back, I stared up at a white ceiling, my chest heaving as I tried hard to breathe. Suddenly, a figure, seemingly devoid of light hovered over top of me. White eyes blinked as if assessing the situation.
“You almost-“
“I almost failed, yes I fucking know!” I flung my hand into the air and quickly turned onto my belly, his arm extended out to me. It was his left hand, he was forcing me to use my broken arm. I reached out anyway, taking his hand and shouting as the bone snapped back into place. I stood now on bruised legs, glaring at the shadow creature. “What are you playing at?” I hissed, too angry to realize just who I was talking to and the fact that I only had one trial left.
“May I remind you to watch your tone, you aren’t done yet, besides, it is not my job to explain my motives to you.”
“I’ve been shoved into metal teeth, thrown into a room decorated in body parts, and nearly had a house collapse on me, I think I deserve-!” Sharp pain split through my midsection, blood spurting onto the ground as I breathed unevenly, staring down at the gash in my stomach, then back at the black claws coated heavily in red fluid. My eyes squinted as if my brain was lagging behind, angry white eyes narrowed and staring me down as well.
I felt my stomach gluing itself together, sticking and catching, tearing like stitches in my gut. I doubled over and finally threw up, messing up the perfectly white floor. My tears ran down my face, mixing with what was left on my mouth. I wretched again, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I stood up straight, quiet now and less angry.
“Now that you are done with your outburst, I’d like to send you through the last trial.” Chonak waved a clawed hand at a door, white and like every generic door in any old house. The door nob was gold in color and there were black grease marks from grubby children’s hands dragging across it as they shut the door. There was a large hole in the door, covered by white duct tape which, assuming from past experience, was probably caused by an angry fist. I knew this door. I hated this door.
“No, no please, please don’t make me go in there,” I blubbered out through teary eyes and swollen lips. He turned around and glared back at me grabbing my arm and dragging me towards the door, a hand on the knob and there he waited. His demeanor changed, white eyes turning into a soothing light rather than an angry spotlight shining on my pain and sins. His shoulders were untensed and the anger that was once there was gone, he seemed sympathetic now.
“You can handle this. Remember, you were here to learn. Take the knowledge that you have learned with you and conquer your fear. Remember, you are not thinking what you could have done in the past, you are taking your newly found strength and using it now in the same situation. I’m giving you a chance to control a situation you couldn’t have possibly controlled before. Take advantage of this time, Seb, I believe in you.” The name calmed me now, his new attitude making it easier for me to consent to this. I nodded in agreement, wiping the tears from my cheeks.
“Alright, I’m ready.”
The door opened and to the left was a black TV cabinet, in the middle was a window, and to the right was the bed. I walked further into the room, staring at the mattress and recalling the details. Three layers, a box spring, a mattress, and a grey striped mattress on top. He had a yellow sheet on the bottom layer, a black duvet with yellow stripes on the bottom, and an orange blanket we got from grandma for Christmas. It was crusty and covered in sweat and fluids that dare not be named. It was like my green safety blanket, but all the softness was gone and it smelled like him instead of lavender and fruit. Two black and yellow, square, football pillows accompanied a gunmetal blue pillow, a yellow memory foam pillow, and an uncovered white pillow, covered n sweat stains. The room reeked of my brother, like sweat, grease, and zits. I wrinkled my nose, having trouble keeping my anxiety levels down. Suddenly there was a body behind me, hot breath brushing over my ear and hands on my hips.
“Hey, baby, it’s been a while,” I jolted forward, turning around and staring him down. My breath caught in my throat and a sob threatened to escape. His big brown eyes stared down at me, the same eyes that mother said made it hard to deny him. He stepped forward, backing me up onto the bed, my body falling back as my knees hit the edge of the mattress and gave way. I closed my eyes, trying to get my wits about me, but that fucking smell wouldn’t leave me alone. I shook my head to try to wave it away, but even if the smell had gone away, he had already placed his hands on top of my thighs. I opened my eyes again. He was wearing nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms, the string loose and allowing them to hang as if it were a threat. Anger bubbled up inside me as I stared at that calm, malicious smile. My hands landed beside me, something hard and cold touching my right hand. I looked down to see a knife, nothing special, just a kitchen knife. I picked it up and stared at it, then back up at him.
He was cowering now, the way I had when I was younger, but he was also pleading, lying. “Hey, now, Seb, no need for that. Where’d you get the kn-knife?” his smile wavered and I stared at him.
“You know I can’t even squish a spider, let alone kill you. Then again, spider’s are innocent, you aren’t,” I played with the blade, the wooden handle and smooth blade were familiar, a chip out of the very tip of the knife. It was my grandmother’s steak knife that I stole when I was living with her. “In fact, the only thing I’ve ever hurt on purpose was myself.”
White light hit my eyes from behind my brother. The room faded away into a room I didn’t recognize. It was strange, and it looked like two people lived in it. My brother looked older now, his proper age, like he was 20. There was makeup and perfume surrounding the room, like that of his wife’s. She seemed to not be in this dream. I shook my head and stared up at him again. He looked like he was barely afraid of me now, like with age he had grown cockier. He had that same grin on his face, the one he flashed that meant I was in trouble or that mom hadn’t believed me when I told on him. It pissed me off. Not enough to kill though.
“What are you gonna do, stab me? You can’t hurt a fly, kid. How the hell did you get here anyway?” I shook my head.
“I don’t know how I got here, but I sure as hell ain’t gonna stab you,” I said, dropping the knife to my side. I stared behind his shoulder and found Chonak standing there behind him, pointing at the knife then to my brother.
“This is the final trial, Seb,” My brother turned around quickly as if startled by Chonak’s presence. He screamed and stepped backwards, falling down as he tripped over his feet.
“Wh-who the fuck are you?!” He cried out in terror, eyes wide and trained on the creature.
“It is not your business knowing what I am, it is your business knowing what I do,” he cooed, similar to the words he spoke to me earlier tonight. Was it still the same night? It had to be, time passed slower in dreams. “I’m finishing their trial, all they have to do, is kill you.”
I stared up in shock at the beast, “I can’t just kill my brother!” I shouted. “My father would be devastated!” I held the knife tighter and stared down at the boy, cowering from the shadow.
“It’s only a dream, correct, Seb? There are no consequences in dreams, no one will be hurt, just finish your trial and move on to have a happier, better life with what you’ve learned!” I stared at the creature for a moment, trying to decide what was truth and what was lies. He had promised to take me to an autumn picnic and I was sent into a metal cell. Though, he did prove that wounds meant little to nothing in this world. I sighed and walked around my brother, stepping over him so my feet framed his legs.
“Seb! Seb, no! This isn’t a dream Seb, come on, Dad would be so disappointed in you. You’ll crush him, you’ll crush grandma and grandpa and Jane! Come on, Seb, I said I was sorry!” The boy scrabbled backwards, his back hitting the bed, eyes pin sharp and staring me down.
I stood over my older brother, eyes blown wide and a smile spread across my face. I held out a hand to him like I was approaching a wounded animal, knowing that any sudden move could spook him into leaving. The knife was clenched tightly behind my back and I sighed in content. It’s just a dream.
“Sorry, Matt, but don’t worry, it’s just a bad dream, we’ll wake up soon.”
I could feel Chonak’s smile widen behind me as I raised the knife, bringing it down only to be blocked by my brother’s hand. “C’mon, Matt, don’t make this hard, just submit to me,” I purred. I grabbed at his hands, pinning them above his head and staring him down. He jerked to get free, but we played this game as kids. He beat me up, so I learned how to hold him down. I grabbed a fist full of his hair, the only big weakness that I knew of his. He went slack, reaching up to grab at me, to do any damage, but we had done this as kids too. Too bad he only got a month of military training, he could have stopped me, maybe. I pulled his hair to the side before driving the knife into his exposed neck. Blood spurted out of the wound as I dragged the knife away and I stood up, breathing heavy and watching as he twitched and jerked with his last final bit of energy. I stared down at the lifeless body before me and took a deep breath, more hot tears spilling out as I realized what I just did.
“It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream,” I chanted and wrapped my arms around myself like I was holding myself together. Chonak came behind me, wrapping his arms around me in a protective hug.
“Very good, Seb, you passed, you get to go home!” I nodded and felt a hand brush over my forehead, just like wind across the flesh.
My eyes opened slowly, toes and fingers flexing as I got used to my body. Just another PTSD driven dream about that fucker. I heard my father talking through the door, he was on the phone with someone, it sounded like Matt, or Grandpa, or Jane. I heard him end the call and then his feet padded over to my door. There was a knock and my father was walking into the room.
“Yeah, Dad?” My voice was rough as I spoke.
“Jane just called…” He scratched the back of his neck and looked uncomfortable, like he was about ready to cry or have an angry outburst.
“God, what does that bitch want?”
“Seb, Matt was murdered last night…”
I stared at him dumbly, thinking through my “dream.” Dad stayed a moment then nodded and left the room. I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, lookin
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The other campers and I begged the girl to go into more detail about Timmy’s alleged sightings within the Appalachian region. She seemed all too happy to oblige us, seeing as we were hooked now, and launched into her second tale. This one cropped up a couple years after the initial sighting, a couple hours North of our camp.
According to the girl, Timmy used the Appalachian Hiking Trail to get around and keep away from the authorities. Only an unlucky few traversing the famed trail ever encountered him or one of his rocking chairs.
~~~
Kurt squinted at his map again. In the waterlogged foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, navigation was almost impossible. The big, mountain man reserved only one contingency for such drastic conditions: stick to the trail until you come across the first serviceable clearing.
His two friends were close by, both in good shape and experienced themselves. Kurt checked his watch. 2:37 in the afternoon.
After looking over the map once more and then up at the cover of black-grey clouds through the pine-trees above, Kurt came to a resolution: stop until the rain let up.
He waited for his companions and told them the plan. “We make camp at the next clearing. Shelter would be preferable, but I can’t be sure where it is on this blasted map. If the rain clears before four, we’ll go on for a couple more hours, but I want to be done well before nightfall.” His companions nodded in agreement.
Kurt left his other reason for wanting to hunker down unsaid. There’d been but scarce rumors so far, about a pair of women going missing a couple miles north of them two months before. The general consensus ruled they must have fallen off a cliff or simply hitchhiked out of the area. Pinning disappearances down on a 2,500 mile trail was like picking out a snowflake in a blizzard. Damned impossible. Kurt opted to remain silent.
They set off once more, and were relieved to find shelter within another half hour. Everyone stripped their packs free in the silver drizzle, set up their tents, and changed into dry clothes. The rain continued to fall, something everyone felt secretly relieved about as the prospect of hiking more in this gloom was unappealing.
Kurt relaxed in his two-person tent, enjoying the extra space afforded for his burly physique. He and his companions ate cold rations that night, not wanting to attempt a fire, so Kurt spent a couple hours reading an old paperback, chewing on jerky, and sipping from his canteen. Beyond the nylon walls of his tent, the rain continued to patter down, forming a blanket of watery monotony. Kurt delved deep into the contents of his book–a feeling he loved when he read. Sometimes hours slipped past without his noticing, and his mind would resurface at the strangest times.
That night it was around 7 pm. At first Kurt wasn’t sure what alerted him, but his eyes were torn from the pages nonetheless. He looked to either side, staring at the translucent, green walls of his tent. Water raced down over the gridded patterning, chilling the man on sight. He felt thankful for his tent.
Beyond the campers’ shelters, nothing but dark, sodden trees, brown leaves, and a bit of clearing resided. It was all empty, cold space, where nothing sane would roam. Kurt twitched as he struggled to go back to his book, but something about the isolating soundscape felt off. He sat up and tilted his head to either side.
As he rotated his ears toward the Northeast, he finally picked up on the disturbance: a faint buzzing. Mechanical in nature. Entirely bizarre to hear this far from civilization. Perhaps construction was going on down the mountain, but Kurt doubted that was the case.
Gritting his teeth, the big man hunkered down in his sleeping bag and tried to focus. Eventually the book pulled him back in once more, capturing his attentions for another half hour, before the buzzing sounded again. Closer this time.
Kurt pressed his ear to the tent, straining to pinpoint the source. He would be damned if he ventured out into the cold, wet dark at this time of night. It was almost 8, and the sun had disappeared, plunging the world into a dusky silver. Eventually the buzzing died away, so Kurt went back to reading.
At 8:42 on the dot, the buzzing sounded again, and this time it could be heard clearly. Kurt shivered at the thought of someone spending that much time out in the woods, soaked and on the verge of pneumonia. It felt queer.
Slowly, Kurt unzipped the inner layer of his tent and called across to his friends. “You boys hear that?” he said in a hoarse whisper.
Only one of the other men, a long hair man named Mark, responded. “No. Don’t hear nothin’ but the rain. John’s response is gonna be the same. He passed out before eight.”
Kurt chewed on that for a moment. “Right then. Just thought I’d ask. If you hear anything, let me know, you hear?”
Mark nodded and retreated into his tent. Kurt lingered at the edge of his tent for a moment longer. He’d been focused on John’s tent, tempted to go and wake the other man up, but there was little good about a poorly rested John. Instead Kurt cast his gaze beyond their tents to the edge of the clearing, where branches hung heavy and close to the ground, forming a dark silver netherworld. For the briefest of moments, Kurt could almost swear caught the outline of a child, emaciated and ragged, but a second glance bore nothing. Just a void of rotting trunk and slimy leaves. Sighing, Kurt zipped his tent back up and doused his lamp, ready to sleep.
The buzzing cut through the dream like a chainsaw. It was close. Kurt could tell even as he shook off the remnants of sleep. It permeated the air, fighting against the soft patter of rain for dominance. Kurt shivered. He could feel it only a couple yards away, as if someone were drilling holes in the trees.
Reluctantly, he crawled forward to the flaps of his tent and undid the inner flap of his tent. In the misty gloom and the moonlight cut up by the leaves, he could just make out the other tents. The buzzing had stopped. Only his breathing could be heard.
Kurt licked his lips, trying to think whether he should call out or not. After weighing the possibilities in his mind, he opted to see if Mark was awake. “M-Mark?” the words rolled over the clearing, ominously clear. No answer. Kurt straightened his back and pressed his face to his tent fabric, and said with a little more force, “Mark.”
Only silence responded. Sighing, Kurt pulled on his boots and reluctantly. Heavy sleepers, that was all. The little reassurance didn’t stop him from slipping his folding knife into one pocket though. Once he’d slid into his raincoat and fetched his flashlight, Kurt unzipped the tent all the way and slid out. A chill trickled down his backbone as he crept into the open. With the thin buffer of his tent gone, Kurt felt exposed; to the air, to his surroundings, and to something’s gaze. Try as he might, he knew something had its eyes on him. But he needed to ensure his companions were all right.
“Mark,” he hissed again. “John. Godammit, one of you answer me.” A faint buzzing sounded from behind him. Kurt whipped his head around, focusing on the clearing to his right. Nothing. Of course.
“Mark, something’s out there,” Kurt unzipped his friend’s tent and screamed. Mark lay on his back, mouth open in agony and his eyes twisted into gnarled craters of blood and gore. Stumbling back, Kurt fumbled for his knife and managed to wield it in front of him. Already, he suspected John suffered the same fate. But he had to check.
Another buzz curdled the air as Kurt parted the second tent. John’s skull bore the same devastation, not giving Kurt the same shock, but instead imparting a far worse feeling on him. Kurt was alone. Completely isolated, and whatever had done this was watching him.
With no other plan, Kurt did the only thing he knew might save him and ran headlong down the trail. The only thing Kurt sought at this point in the night was company. He needed to be with other people, both as a line of defense and simply to rid the burning ember of dread lodged in his gut. It made it hard for him to breathe, and before a mile he was gasping shrilly. Up ahead, he saw the outline of an old shelter framed against the trees.
Fighting a stitch in his side, Kurt made for the shelter. Only as he headed for it did he realize he was going off path. To the best of his knowledge, the trail had been rerouted around a rock fall, and the shelter lay on the old path. Still, he needed to get out of the rain. To hide. To cower.
Some sensible part of him returned at some point during his flight through the forest. Dangers of pneumonia were hot on his mind as he shivered and stumbled his way toward the hut. It looked slightly run down, but no worse for wear than most other huts. At this point, Kurt simply longed for a place he could crash and burn in until morning, then he’d navigate his way down the mountainside to civilization.
The hut creaked as he stepped up onto the raised platform. His flashlight illuminated a frail, wooden door and a rusted, tin roof. Kurt stepped up to the door, wrapped his hand around the handle, and froze. A pungent odor wafted up through his nose.
With a resolve borne of desperation and lunacy, Kurt slowly winched the door open. The smell nearly overpowered him–rotting meat, lots of it. Fearfully, the burly mountain man aimed his light through the door and found a huge pile of animal carcasses stacked against the far wall. Squirrel, rabbit, birds of every kind, fish, even smaller cats were all strewn into a miasma of rotting fur and bones. Kurt took a closer look. They were sloppily killed, with mangled limbs, and all bore crude rips from where human teeth tried and failed to mimic its predatory ancestors in devouring their prey.
Kurt buried his nose to ward of the stench, but it clung to him now, palpable and thick. As he made his way just a little more into the cabin, he noticed something else in the far corner. A rocking chair. Made of bone and bound together with sinew.
Kneeling to inspect it, Kurt was surprised to find the craftsmanship rather beautiful. The bones were worn smooth as pearls, and the sinew had been dried and handled with care. Kurt felt some of his exhaustion return to his mind. Sleep. He needed sleep.
With a final sigh, the mountain man lowered himself into the rocking chair, and found it held his weight easily. Kurt stared at the ceiling above as he began rocking back and forth. Baaack… and forth. Baaaaaaaack… and forth. Sleep came.
Bzzzzzzzt. Kurt jolted awake. Every muscle flexed as that sound drilled into his skull. The silent killer had returned. It came from beyond the door. Suddenly Kurt remembered his friends. And the very real danger he was in.
Standing slowly, Kurt took his flashlight like a club and his knife in his other hand. Another warning bzzzzzzt sounded from beyond the door. Already Kurt had a plan. Run down the mountain, don’t look back, don’t stop.
The bzzzzzzt’s grew louder. With a feral yell, Kurt stormed out of the cabin and into the morning light. No one could be seen. Still, he could hear the bzzzzzzt of a drill. It was all around him; a warning growl. Swallowing his fear, Kurt turned in the vague direction of the local town and ran.
As he raced down, the bzzzzzzts followed him, gnawing at his mind. He didn’t stop until he burst into the local police station, wild eyed and laughing madly. Only once the police were able to subdue him, calm him, and get him to talk, did the buzzing finally die away. Kurt huddled under a blanket and spoke with an officer, reporting everything he’d encountered that night.
They tried to get him to lead them up to his friends’ campsite, but he didn’t budge. Several police officers and a local forest ranger made the trek that afternoon, first stopping by the dilapidated cabin. Just as Kurt promised, there did appear to be a grotesque plethora of remains, reminiscent of a feral human squatting in the abode. They did not, however, find the rocking chair Kurt talked about.
The campsite proved more compelling in backing up Kurt’s claims about the killer potentially being the missing kid from a few years back. Both John and Mark resided in their tents, eyes in pulpy ruins, but the officers made another discovery. One disturbing enough to shudder each and everyone of their spines.
Like the animals in the hut, John and Mark’s bodies had been ripped open and their bones crudely removed. In the center of the clearing resided a new rocking chair, lacquered with blood and bile, strung with sinew, and crowned with the victim’s spines. And just as the officers discovered it, the chair finished rocking baaaaaaack… and forth.
Baaaaaaack and forth.
|
I see you over there, tucked into your bed. I hope you feel uncomfortable. I hope you sense me over here, watching you. I wonder if you can see my emerald eyes staring at you, I hope you feel them piercing your soul, I hope you feel my presence here, waiting. The bed trembles as you turn uneasily, I know that I will soon have my prize. I am coiled springs, ready to attack when you are weak, which will be soon. The blankets churn, it won’t be long now, I see your resolve fading quickly. Only a while longer until I can sink my sharp teeth into you, only a while longer until I can claw you into ribbons. You look around as you get up cautiously.
You know I’m here, but you convince yourself that I’m not lurking in the shadows that stretch across the room. As you walk by, I prepare, you will come back and that is when I will attack. I come out of my hidden spot, just enough so that nothing will catch me as I pounce to destroy you. You are walking back now, you are right next to me, I go! My claws and teeth sink into your protective coat, right into your core.
“OWW! Kitty, what are you doing?”
Killing the beast that has infected you I think, “meiow!” is what I say instead.
“It’s just a sock,” you say as you drag the bloodied white creature behind you.
It is a dead parasite, “Merrow,” I use lighter words to comfort you. As you settle back down into warmth, I can take vigil on top of the bed to scour the darkness for other things that lurk in plain sight.
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Death came to me that night as I sat numbly in a puddle of my own desperate blood and tears. And when I saw him, a tall entity clothed in a robe so black it reached past the depths of darkness I felt inside my heart.
I’d been upset. Not about one thing in particular, but multiple things.
I’d made so many mistakes, that trying to put myself back together had become harder than reassembling a broken eggshell.
A year earlier, I’d lost the most important person in my life. The only girl I truly loved: Penny. I could only blame myself. I’d spent the past year blaming myself for betraying her, betraying her trust.
She’d found a new guy, a better guy than I am. One that brought her flowers, took her out on fancy dates, was loyal to her. And all that reminded me of how many chances I used to have to do all those things for her.
6 months earlier the guilt and pain got to me – tore at my soul – and to numb the pain I took sleeping pills will alcohol every night, dreading the moment I’d wake up to another sunny, lonely day.
4 months earlier, I lost my job and my scholarship because the depression and substance abuse kept me rooted to the spot. I didn’t want to face a world where I’d have to watch everyone else swim, as I’m slowly sinking.
3 months earlier I lost my friends and family as well; I’d become distant and emotionless. I turned down invites, didn’t show up for holiday get-togethers, blew up on anyone who told me I needed help.
I was in chaos, and I could only blame myself.
1 month earlier, I’d bought the small rectangular case of razors. Adding self-abuse to the substance abuse. I’d feel the smallest release when I felt the sharp sting and saw the deep red flow down my wrist.
And that night, I called my ex-girlfriend slightly tipsy, but truthful all the same. I told her I loved her, I begged for another chance, I cried harder than I’d cried in months just at the sound of hearing her voice.
She told me one thing and one thing only, “I don’t love you anymore, Calvin. And I never will.”
She hung up the phone immediately after, and all I could do was stare blankly at the corner of the room. But as everything hit me at once, it hit me harder than a car going full speed.
I didn’t hesitate. I swallowed the rest of my sleeping pills, gulped down the remaining vodka straight from the bottle, and I used those razors to cut deeper than I’d ever cut.
So here I sat, hopeless and alone. But I wasn’t alone. I’d looked down at my bloody wrists for mere seconds, and when I looked back up he was there.
A normal person would have been hysterical and afraid, but I wasn’t normal anymore. I wasn’t surprised he was there. No, I welcomed it.
“Calvin,” he spoke in the most baritone voice I’d ever heard – lower than the voice overs on every movie preview – and he said that one word with a disapproving sigh.
The way he said it made me feel like a kid again, as if I’d done something and lied about it. But I wasn’t lying now. The proof was in the mess that was myself at that moment.
I sobbed shakily. “I-I’m sorry,” I said. For whatever reason, I felt like I had to apologize, so I did.
“You’ve spent a long time being sorry, Calvin. But not once did you say sorry to yourself.”
A crease formed in between my eyebrows as I mulled over what he’d just said. It came to me slowly. He wanted me to see that my only enemy was myself.
“Do you give all of the souls you come across helpful advice? I thought you were Death, not a psychologist,” I raised an eyebrow at him, still unnerved by the fact that I was looking into an endless black hole where his face should be.
He forced a deep, short laugh, “No. Mostly just the ones like you, that take it into their own hands to decide fate. It’s not up to you, Calvin.”
“So you give advice to your suicide victims. What does that mean?”
He sighed again, as if he’d explained it thousands of times before; I’m sure he had. “It means you don’t get to decide this. It means I’m giving you another perspective.”
I stood up, curiosity hanging on every word. “What perspective would that be? The only way I see things is that I’m a horrible, crap excuse for a human being. So why be afraid of dying when I’m more afraid to live? I had to do this. I needed to do this.”
“And I’m showing you, Calvin, what living can do for you.” A hint of persuasion sounded in his voice.
“Tell me, Death, what do I have to live for?” The question came out harshly, but he didn’t flinch.
“Listen closely. What if I told you that you’d make it through this depression, not fully healed but controlled by medication and therapy. What if I told you that because you’ll overcome this depression, you’ll get another job. And the job will pay for the education you dissed. When you’re done with that education, you’ll be admired. Admired by your friends..your family..and most importantly your ex-girlfriend. They’ll see the greatness in you that you know you have. They’ll be proud of that change. You won’t be able to look at a bottle of vodka without being sick. And what if I told you that your career will pay for the expensive ring you’ll use to propose to your one and only. And you’ll be able to give her all the flowers and dates and loyalty you’d failed to give before. Most importantly, what if I told you you’d be able to give her a dream wedding as well? And give her two beautiful children: a girl and a boy. What if I told you you’d be missing out on life by choosing to give up?”
Tears rimmed my eyes opaquely, “I can be happy again?” I asked hopefully, afraid of what the answer might be.
But his answer was the biggest relief I’d ever felt, “Yes, you can be happy again.”
I wiped my wet cheeks and cracked a trembling smile, “I’d say I want to live.”
“Then I am no longer needed,” the finality in his voice diminished the tension I’d felt before.
As I grinned wider, I let out a half cry-half chuckle, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Now go to the hospital, get your stomach pumped and seal up your wounds. Goodbye,” and in a flash the black void that was him vanished.
For days afterward couldn’t get rid of that smile. The nurses and doctors that helped me were puzzled by it. A man being treated for a suicide attempt is this happy? I knew to them there was nothing right about it.
But I hadn’t felt for right in my whole life.
Because of my obvious mental health issues, I stayed in the mental ward for a month after I healed physically. Just like Death said, I still had the memories of my depression, but it was nothing the therapy and medication couldn’t fix.
After I was released, I found a job at a call center that paid slightly more than minimum wage. It wasn’t the best of jobs, but I was sure glad to have it.
I saved money for a few months and started going to school again in the fall. I was working on a business degree.
My friends and family were there to watch me graduate, and I’d never felt more thankful. Finally, I was making people proud again. I wasn’t failing.
I didn’t even drink that night with the rest of my friends. I didn’t want to touch another drop of alcohol. I spent that night with the people closest to me, all seated at a large table at the best restaurant in town.
And I’m so glad I chose to do so that night, because our waitress happened to be the girl I missed so badly and still loved.
She looked surprised to see me, but she also looked glad. “Calvin…” She said, staring at me as if I was her long lost twin.
I wanted to smile too, but I noticed the faint purple under her right eye. It wasn’t completely hidden by her beige foundation.
She knew I noticed, and before I could say anything she began taking our orders.
Concerned, I told my family and friends as they were leaving that I was going to stay and speak to her. They understood, and after more congratulations, departed.
I waited another hour in the twilight-stained parking lot, where I could breathe in the fresh spring breeze.
She was one of the first to come out and she noticed me propped next to the entrance, halting her stride.
Penny’s face lit up and there were tears in her eyes, “I knew you’d wait for me, Cal. I know you’re a great guy, I think I’ve always known you had potential but I guess I was being my own worst enemy.”
Those words brought back the tiniest memory of what Death had told me months prior – that I should say sorry to myself. And she needed to do the same. “The past is the past Penny. No animosity.”
She looked even more grateful then and reached to hug me. I put a hand on her cheek before she could, and gently rubbed the purple under her eye, “Did he do this to you?” I asked concerned and pissed off.
Penny didn’t say a word, but her deep brown eyes said it all. He obviously was over the accommodating boyfriend role and had started asking too much of her. But I would become everything she needed and more.
I pulled her into a hug and ran my fingers through her long hair, “It won’t happen again, love. I’m here now.”
After that night, things were better than they’d ever been between me and Penny. She’d gotten away from her abusive boyfriend and together we got him the jail sentence he deserved. We’d spend every moment we had to spare with each other, and it was like we’d never even parted. Even our old inside jokes remained the same.
With time, I’d saved enough to buy her the most beautiful ring I could find, and I proposed to her. Right in the middle of the local high school football field where we’d met so many years ago.
A field, maybe not the best setting for a proposal but it meant so much to both of us.
Flowers filled our house with fragrant smells. I brought one home every day after work. I made reservations every weekend for dates. And no girl could ever mean as much to me as my Penny.
The wedding was the one she’d always dreamed of when we were younger: A winter wedding in the snow, everything adorned in blues and whites, and that long-sleeved dress she’d hoped for ever since she saw it in that store window.
A year after the marriage, Penny came to me with the best news I’d ever received from her. She was pregnant. We found out it was a girl, and I was every bit the happy father when our Violet came into the world.
Dark hair, just like her mother.
Two years later, we had our son – Jackson. He looked like me, with green eyes and a mop of chestnut hair. Violet was over the moon about having a younger sibling.
Life was amazing. It was everything Death had told me it would be, and more. I chose life the last time I saw him, and life chose me.
You can imagine my shock the day I found him standing in front of my work desk. I had been tapping away on my computer, focused on nothing but my work. He broke that trance.
I became a statue, still as Lot’s wife after she had turned to salt. After seconds of this vacant stare-off, I broke the stillness, “Why…”
He sighed, much like he had the night we’d met. That disapproving sigh, but now with a bit of apprehension. “Something has occurred, Calvin. Something bad.”
My heart beat swiftly against my ribs, I stopped breathing. “W-what do you mean bad?” A million things raced through my head at once. My family, my friends, myself; did something happen to them? Was something going to happen to me?
“You remember Hale, don’t you, Calvin?”
Hale. The piece of crap I’d put in jail. I hated hearing his name, “Yeah. I remember that bastard. What about him? Did he finally get what was coming to hi-”
“He got out of jail, Calvin.” The caution and pity in that one sentence couldn’t have been good.
I stood up from my office chair, flustered, “there’s no way! He couldn’t have gotten out yet! He received fifteen years! It’s only been nine!”
“Ever heard of good behavior, Calvin?”
I was enraged. How could this monster be capable of good behavior? And then I remembered. He’d fooled Penny for a year. He had been a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He was definitely capable of fooling others.
“I think you need to come with me, Calvin.”
I didn’t waste any time. I followed him, not bothering to tell anyone I was leaving work. My first priority was to make sure the people I loved were okay. But the pieces that were being put together in my mind was anything but okay.
I drove ninety all the way home. Beads of sweat had formed across my forehead and my breathing was loudly audible.
Death followed me into the house as I rushed inside, but he said nothing.
The living room was a mess of broken vases – the ones which held all the flowers I’d given to Penny. And a million little pedals and leaves littered the floor.
I was so immensely angry and scared at the same time. Scared mostly, because the scene in front of me hinted that nothing good could come from it.
I screamed, terror in my voice, “Penny! Violet, Jack! Wher-”
“The master bedroom, Calvin,” Death said from somewhere in my peripheral. He pointed to the door at the end of the hall. A door that was now chopped and broken, standing slightly ajar.
I sprinted down the hallway and pushed past the door, not worrying about the sharp splinters that dug into my left hand.
The light was off. I wish I hadn’t turned it on. Because when I did… I was met with sheer horror.
Blood. Crimson painted across the white carpet and bedsheets. On the walls. And painted on the bodies of the three people in my life that meant the most to me.
The details are too traumatizing to repeat, but the axe that had been used on all of them was left behind – embedded into my wife’s skull.
I fell to my knees in front of them, wracking sobs so hard they made me puke.
I just couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t speak. I was screaming under the weight of emotional pain. I was hurt.
“But you said it would be better!” I turned to Death, screaming and seeing red, “you said I’d be happy! Why…,” I sobbed deeply again, unable to contain the lump in my throat.
“And you were, Calvin. You were happy for several years. But with a life comes chances. Good ones and bad ones. Everyone suffers, Calvin.”
“Suffer? I have nothing to live for anymore, Death! I’ve lost my reasons for living, for working, for loving! That’s more than suffering!” I couldn’t contain the contempt in my voice and I got dangerously close to that black hole of a face Death wore, despite having to look up to see it.
“You’re wrong again, Calvin. I’m here not only for your family, as I do have to do my job,” he lifted his bony hands in surrender, “but I’m also here for you…”
“What?! You already know I’m planning to kill myself once again, psychologist?” I spat at him, every word drenched in hot rage.
“Actually, yes. I knew you’d try. You’ll go get the pistol from the top shelf of your closet and blow your brains out, you’ll do it in a few hours in this very room. But I have another perspective for you.”
My mouth hung ajar. He knew my plans, knew where the pistol was that I kept for protection, but I couldn’t be too surprised. After a moment I crossed my arms and glared, “Oh! Another perspective for me, huh? What?! What could possibly make me choose life this time? A life that isn’t worth living!”
For the first and last time, Death laid a hand on my shoulder, and although I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was looking me right in the eyes.
“You must live, Calvin, because Hale must die. And you’re the one who will make it happen.” I thought I heard his lips part into a smile, if he had lips.
Death made it clear once again for me. “What do you say, Calvin?”
I smiled then, too – what must have appeared a sick, sinister grin, but a grin all the same.
“I’d say I want to live.”
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I love cats. They’re so fuzzy and mischievous…totally adorable.
Well, not always adorable. Sometimes they’re destructive, annoying, and loud. Especially at night.
Any cat owner can tell you what it feels like to wake in the middle of the night to the sound of your beloved pet racing from one end of the house to the other and back at top speed, or to jump out of bed at the sound of a crash, certain you’re being robbed, to find your cat looking innocently up at you from a pile of pieces that probably used to be one of your most expensive possessions.
All cats are experts at demanding your attention, whether they’re jumping on your laptop while you’re writing that email or pawing at your face first thing in the morning to wake you. What they do in the night is likely just another method for making sure they keep your attention.
My cat especially is an innovator in this field. She’s a young tabby, just under a year old by the vet’s estimate. My boyfriend and I adopted her six months ago from a rescue run out of an older couple’s home. She’s always been an attention grabber with a sweet-and-sour attitude; she’ll hop right into my lap, knocking whatever I’m working on out of my hands, but she won’t let me pet her. She’ll nip at my hands if I try. Her bids for attention have changed a bit in the few months we’ve had her. She used to meow loudly for food any time I was in the kitchen, and try to paw her way into the cabinet where her food is stored. Now I only have to worry if I accidentally leave it open or leave the bag of dry food out on the kitchen floor, because she doesn’t hesitate to shred it up with her claws trying to get to the food.
Recently, however, she’s been acting really strangely. There’s a sound she makes when she sees birds and squirrels through the window, kind of like a barking/chirping noise. Apparently this is a normal part of the feline hunting routine. What’s strange is that lately she’s started doing that in our bedroom, to the wall opposite the windows. She’ll stare at a spot high on the wall, making that noise and trying to jump up to the spot like she thinks there’s something to catch there. It would be cute, if it didn’t make me worry she had vision problems or some other issue. The vet says she’s fine, so I just attribute it to her goofy personality.
It isn’t just the pseudo-hunting in the bedroom. Cats often have a habit of pawing their humans’ faces in the morning to wake them, but mine has started doing it in the middle of the night. She’ll paw at my face for a bit until I push her away, and then she’ll meow sorrowfully for a moment before hopping up and snuggling between me and my boyfriend. That’s another thing; this cat is not a snuggler. She likes to lay on my lap while I’m awake, but she does not particularly enjoy being held or cuddled and often snaps at me if I try to cover her with a blanket. Now she’ll climb under the blanket with us on her own. I’m starting to worry about her.
Now I know these peculiarities don’t sound all that odd, but something has just seemed…off, lately. Between my cat waking me and my boyfriend hogging the bed, I haven’t gotten much sleep. I’m always the last one to get to bed, so the cat and I are often the only two awake for a few hours each day. She likes to be right next to or on top of me during this time. I usually just watch or play something on my computer, or crochet. Sometimes I use this time to do laundry, but I don’t like going into the basement at night.
Now, I’ve seen some actual creepy basements in my young life. This isn’t really one of them. I used to work in a family-owned bookstore in the historic part of our city. It spanned two storefronts and the basements were joined. There were endless floor-to-ceiling shelves down there used for storing products and packing materials. There were plenty of lights, but the shelves made them ineffective anywhere but in their own aisles. There were pipes running through the whole area, several of which were low enough to require the employees to duck. There was a large wooden door on one wall with a red light coming from within through a knot in the wood. Certainly it was a boiler room or utilities room or something of that nature, but let me tell you, the time I spent alone slicing up cardboard boxes with a boxcutter right next to that door was a bit tense.
That was a creepy basement. The one in our house now, not so much. It’s empty, only two rooms. The stairs lead right to the middle of the space, with the laundry room on the left between the stairs and the back wall. It has another wall between it and the wall opposite the stairs but no door, so technically I suppose it’s all one room, except for a small closet under the stairs. The main space wraps around the stairs and the laundry room in an L-shape, and this is part of what I don’t like; I can’t see the whole room from the stairs. I’m one of those paranoid people who always sits in the corner of the room where I can see everything and I can’t stand to have anyone behind me. Going downstairs to arrive in the middle of a poorly lit room with several parts I can’t see is not fun for me. Even worse, the lights have been changing.
There are plenty of lights in the basement, the problem is that they don’t all work. Usually it seems like only the light in the middle of the room, at the base of the stairs, comes on, and it’s faint. There’s a separate switch at the bottom of the stairs for the laundry room, which has just been redone and thus has bright, working lights. But before I reach that switch, there’s very little light to go on. Recently, though, more of the lights in the basement will come on when I flip the switch, and sometimes the main light doesn’t go on with them. I mean, I guess that’s not too unusual. The house is old, and aside from the laundry room no one has touched the wiring in the basement for at least 40 years. It’s unnerving, though. I’m logical and detail-oriented, so changes like this make me want a more concrete explanation than “the lights are old.”
So, back to my cat’s strange behavior. There are two bedrooms upstairs that we’ve just been using for storage until we decide what to do with them. She has started wandering around the upstairs and meowing plaintively sometimes. Because the rooms are mostly empty, even her quiet voice echoes around up there. It sounds like she’s crying. I’ve brought her the vet several times since we got her; first for a basic checkup, and then out of concern over her eating habits. She’s finishing up her last round of worm medication and is otherwise healthy, so I know she’s not crying out of pain. I wonder if she’s lonely. That would explain why she keeps trying to wake me up in the middle of the night.
I’d love to get her a new feline friend, but my other half is going to take some convincing. I’ll have to start working on him tomorrow. Just thought I’d throw this up on my blog and see if anyone else has had similar issues with their cats.
My cat was not lonely.
She was not hungry, or bored.
She was terrified.
She woke me up last night, pawing at my face and mewing quietly but urgently at me. I tried to just ignore her, hoping she’d give up and settle down, but instead she extended her claws a bit. She managed to hit my right eye hard enough to make it water, then dodged my arm as I swiped at her, jumping up behind me and snuggling under the blanket between me and my boyfriend. She went very quiet and still.
Fuming, I thought about getting up to look at my eye in the mirror but decided against it; the room was cold, and my bed was warm. I decided to just keep the eye open until it stopped throbbing. Since I was laying on my right side with my long hair fanned out on my pillow, it fell across my face enough to block most of the light from the bathroom night light coming through the open bedroom door. As I waited to be able to close my eye and go back to sleep, I heard a noise.
The basement door was opening on its own.
Or so I thought, until I heard almost-silent footsteps navigating the kitchen with expert steps. Even in the dark, whoever it was managed to avoid the table, chairs, laundry baskets, litter box, garbage can, and cat food dishes without so much as a bump or a clink. I froze, not daring even to close my right eye or open my left. Through my hair I could see a large dark shape enter the bedroom and stop right in front of me. I prayed it couldn’t see my open eye as a thousand scenarios played themselves out in my mind.
Somehow my mind got hung up on the fact that it hadn’t tripped over anything in the kitchen, so this wasn’t the first time it had watched us while we slept. That fact kept me trying to breathe as I would in sleep, hoping that if it hadn’t done anything to us in our sleep during previous visits it wouldn’t start now. My cat was a warm, silent lump behind me, hiding beneath the blanket in terror.
Nothing happened for a few minutes. My right eye was still sore, and felt extremely dried out because I hadn’t blinked once. The shape didn’t move, standing so still I started to wonder if the cat had actually damaged my eye with her paw, creating the dark blur I was seeing.
Suddenly, I felt a movement from behind me. My boyfriend was stirring. I tried hard not to panic, unsure of what to do. Ordinarily I’m the kind of person who will grab a knife to go investigate a strange noise, but there were no knives in the bedroom and I didn’t know if the dark form was armed. It was definitely at an advantage, already standing above me, not tangled in blankets as I was. As my boyfriend shifted, it moved out of the room, back through the kitchen, through the basement door. I heard it close quietly.
I was pretty sure it hadn’t known I was awake. It wasn’t looking for a conflict; it had fled as soon as my boyfriend started to wake up. I felt him get out of bed to go to the bathroom and reached for my phone quickly. I didn’t want him to panic. I didn’t want the thing in the basement to know I saw it until it was too late. I dialed the police and reported a home invasion as calmly and quietly as I could. When I’d hung up, I got up myself, giving my boyfriend a hug and a kiss as I passed him on my way to the bathroom. I had to come up with excuses to stay awake until the police arrived without alerting the thing in the basement.
Finally there was the sound of sirens and a knock on the front door. I felt awful when my boyfriend came out of the bedroom and looked at me in confusion and concern as I opened it without a word, but there would be time for explanations later. I wanted whoever was in our basement behind bars. Tonight.
The police searched the whole house, but didn’t find anyone or anything as large as I’d described. The doors and windows were all locked and deadbolted from the inside, as we always kept them, but beneath the basement stairs they found a few bloody feathers and the bones of small wild animals. There was no point of entry for any animal from the outside, and there weren’t whole carcasses or skeletons, just a few bloody remnants of what looked to be, from the bite marks on the bones, someone’s last few meals.
The police didn’t know what to make of it, and to my knowledge no one has been arrested in connection with the “break-in” that left all of our doors and windows perfectly secured. I told my boyfriend what I’d witnessed and why I hadn’t alerted him sooner. We got a security system, added more lighting to the basement, knocked down the interior walls, and exchanged our normal stairs for a spiral staircase, eliminating the closet below the stairs and allowing for a full view of the entire basement from the top or bottom of the staircase.
Our cat started acting normally again. After months of wondering about her strange behavior I now realize that her demands for attention weren’t an indication that I should be worried for her, rather a sign of her concern for all of us. So the next time your pet starts acting up with no apparent medical reason, be on alert. Like I said, to my knowledge the thing under our stairs hasn’t been caught.
Credit To – Amanda Laven
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I am terrified of the dark. My grandmother, on the other hand, had an affinity for the dark. She loved and enjoyed the dark so much that most windows in her house were walled shut and the few that remained were, except for rare occasions like family visits, blacked out with several layers of black curtains.
It was only when I was about 16 that I realized that those two, her love and my fear of the dark, were connected.
When I was small I was, supposedly, very hyperactive. My mother never managed to control me and my father only did so on those rare occasions when he threatened me with punishments. But I loved my grandparents and, as my parents, said, I always behave right when my grandmother was around. Accordingly my parents dropped me many times at my grandmother’s place so that they themselves could have a calm weekend.
I was 8 years old when she died. At that time I was already scared of the dark – except, of course, when my grandparents were around.
Those eight years I stayed many times over. I remember vividly how I played with my grandfather and uncle Owen in the darkness. We had our special games, like a noise-based version of hide and seek which only worked when the house was particularly quiet and my grandfather taught me how to carve wood into spoons and flutes with just my sense of touch.
I remember it exactly – the way their faces were lightly visible in the dark but their eyes always penetrated through the thickest curtains of darkness. They were bright white, as if they were glowing from the sindise – with just a black pupil at the center.
My grandmother was always working around the house – cooking and baking for me, cleaning or tidying or preparing the beds for the night. The room always felt warmer when she was there and so, usually, i asked my grandfather and uncle Owen to play with me in the room that she was in.
Those weekends I never missed the light. Even my dreams were, often, just noises and smells and textures and shapes – never colors or visible objects. Still today I can navigate perfectly in the dark. And still today I can see very well in the dark and around my 16th year of life I concluded that my strong vision at night was the cause for my paralyzing fear of the dark.
The fear had been there as long as I remember and on most nights I slept with a nightlight. On those weekends with my grandmother the darkness had never been a problem. Cuddled up to her warm body I never felt fear and I never minded the figures that seemed to stand in the room, all around my bed.
They only came with the darkness. Never when there was a slight flicker of light, just with the absolute blackness of a night in a room without windows.
My grandmother called them the ‘Outcasts.’ She said that they were family and friends, former close ones, that wanted to return from the other side. She taught me again and again that I should never let them return.
I remember the way she said it. We were lying in the bed, my head cuddled up to the warmth of her shoulder. Somewhere behind me my grandfather was snoring and when I turned I could see his face glowing in the darkness, with his white skin it was even more visible than that of my grandmother.
“You can see the difference in their faces,” she said. “Their faces are darker. But if you really want to make sure then you have to look at their eyes. If their eyes are as black as their face or even darker then they are on the wrong side; they are dead and and they should stay that way no matter how much you miss them.”
“So they can’t come?”
“They can’t come unless you allow them to come.”
“What if I let them in?”
“Don’t ever let them in.”
Black on black, but I still saw them as clear as a pencil line pressed hard on a piece of paper, the type of pencil line that doesn’t just color the paper but rather pushes itself into the paper.
That night my grandmother fell asleep quickly but I, in the safety of her arms and with my grandfather behind me, watched the figures. They were gesturing and moving, voiced words and sometimes fought against one another; they pushed each other to the side and backwards, fighting for a spot on the borderline to life.
I saw their figures and I recognized their sizes and hairstyles, often I even thought I knew which clothes they were wearing. I never asked my grandmother about that, but for myself I concluded those were the ways they looked in the moment that they stepped from life to death.
With my grandmother I was safe. But without her the nights were terror. They came closer and they seemed more energetic, more violent, more likely to break through that barrier. Maybe they were closer because I was closer to letting them in, half out of fear and half out of curiosity.
The nightlight was my savior, but in those nights when my parents forgot to plug the light in there was no salvation. They stood above me with their dark figures pressed into the darkness and those eyes so dark that they seemed to extend deeper into space; as if they were hollow.
With 16 I tried to cure myself off my fear by “shock therapy.” I threw myself into one dark night after the other but rather than improve the situation got worse.
There was one figure particularly pushy. A smaller one with wild, curly hair and the darkest eyes of them all. I always knew who she was. She had only been there since I was 8.
The conclusions of my 16th year made too much sense to be overturned. I gave up my defense and accepted my fear and eternal dependence on nightlights. When I moved to university I even chose an apartment with a street lamp outside so that the light would certainly come through my window and keep the figures at bay.
With 23 I learned the truth about my fear.
I was at my mother’s place. We were at our second bottle of wine and a soothing melancholy, the type that you can see in a French actress’s eyes, had enriched the air. Somehow we came to speak about my grandmother.
“I miss her,” my mother said.
“Me too,” I said. “Sometimes I still dream of her cookies and when I wake up I can nearly taste the vanilla.”
“Oh,” she said. “Your grandfather loved those.”
“Did he? I don’t remember him eating any?”
My mother laughed.
“You were probably too young to remember that.”
“Not really. I remember playing with him.”
“Oh, you do?”
“Yeah. I played with him all the time.”
“Really, you remember that?”
“Of course.”
“Wow,” she said. “I’m really happy for that.”
“Me too.”
“I always thought you wouldn’t remember him because you were so young.”
I took a sip from my glass and let the bitterness fade from my mouth.
“I don’t remember going to his funeral.”
“Of course not,” she said. “We left you with a friend and went alone.”
“What? Why?”
“We thought you wouldn’t understand it. You were just 2 when your grandfather and uncle Owen had their accident.”
When I was 16 I thought I was scared of the figures standing at the borderline to our world.
Since I’m 23 I know that I’m not actually scared of those figures at the borderline. I’m scared and wondering how many others were allowed back inside.
Credit To – Anton Scheller
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Sometimes decisions in life aren’t easy to make, and rather than being driven by morals or logic, they’re driven by emotion and sheer necessity to survive. From time to time, everyone is forced to make a decision like this, and I am no different. That being said, it doesn’t mean I’m proud of what I do. In fact, I feel downright miserable about it, but there’s nothing I can do to change the fact that this is the choice I made to get by. Not now. Now it’s too late and I’m too far in.
I just graduated college with a degree in business. I was completely broke, dirt poor, having paid my entire tuition at a community college as I went along while breaking my back just to get the bills paid so that when I got out I’d be free of debt. I’d found myself stuck in a restaurant job with a business degree and no idea where to go from there. My sister Calliope offered to let me stay with her. To most people, that probably would sound like a no-brainer decision. Why, they would ask, didn’t you think of that sooner? I did. I lived in Texas and she lived in Vermont. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to move so far from what I was used to. Calliope did offer though, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. She agreed to come pick me so that we could have a little “sisterly bonding time” over a road trip. We’re twins…I didn’t think bonding time was necessary, but I was excited to spend time with her again.
A little over a year ago now, I had packed up my belongings, climbed into my sister’s car and left Texas behind. I didn’t know what the future had in store then, and if I’d known what I do now, I can’t say for sure if I’d do it again or not. Well…I guess it’s either this or struggling in the service industry for God knows how long.
For the start of the ride, she was very quiet. I felt as though I did all of the talking, even though nothing I said was of any importance. When I stopped talking, that’s when I could feel the silence. It was heavy.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked her. For a moment, she remained silent, staring at the road ahead of her. Her eyes had a look that told me her mind was far away. Finally, she answered me.
“They never found him, and I think they stopped looking. The trail’s cold. It wasn’t ever ‘hot’ to begin with.” She sounded as though she were numb to the whole ordeal by now.
Calliope was a teen mom. At sixteen she’d had her son, Calvin, and I’d always admired her willpower. She didn’t quit school, although trying to get through with a child wasn’t ever easy, but she knew college wasn’t for her. I respected her for the decisions she made for that child. Two years prior, just a month after Calvin’s fourth birthday, he’d been kidnapped. It was all over the news for about two months, and after no new evidence was turned up, the commotion died down and the community seemed to forget. My family didn’t forget. Certainly Calliope hadn’t forgotten. We wouldn’t forget. The story was so big because of the mystery surrounding the entire situation. Calvin was outside playing, in his own back yard mind you, fenced in, and he seemed to just vanish. There were no signs of forced entry, no signs that indicated anything was askew…just a missing child.
I turned to her now. “Cal, listen…they didn’t give up, and please don’t you dare give up hope. They’ll find him—“
“No they won’t Astra! They’ll never find him! No one will find him!” She cut me off.
I stared at her, a bit taken aback by the outburst.
“I know it’s taking awhile—“
“No. You don’t understand. There was never a trail for them to follow, absolutely nothing. I know something they don’t know, not that they’d believe me if I did open my mouth. I’ve known for a few months now.” I stared at my sister, unsure how to react to what she was saying. She pointed to the backseat. “Read that. I brought it so you’d know too.” I stared at her for a second before reaching back and picking up the thick packet she’d prepared for me. Some pages had been photocopied from books, others printed from the internet. I flipped through the pages, looking over at her after getting a few pages in, enough to understand what was happening.
“You think this…slenderman took Calvin?”
She reached across and grabbed the packet, flipping to the very back. She shoved it back at me. Staring at her, I took it back once more and looked at what I was now holding. It was a series of drawings, done by Calvin according to the note at the bottom that said sloppily in children’s writing “Calvin, 4”. The pictures weren’t anything remarkable, even for what a child was capable of, but it wasn’t the skill level that was interesting. All of the pictures had one thing in common: a tall figure, in some pictures with what looked to be eight extra arms jutting out from his back; in all pictures it was clad in a black suit. It never had a face and was always surrounded by trees…except for the last one. In the last one, it was in what looked like a rough sketch of Calliope’s back yard. I looked over at her again, waiting for an explanation.
“He was drawing these in the few weeks before…before he went.”
I shook my head slowly. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted more than anything to understand, but I felt more confused than I’d ever been.
“I need to do something. I need to.” It sounded as though she said this more to herself than to me.
Just as she said this, we pulled onto a fairly deserted road in West Virginia and I noticed a sign that said “Welcome to Grassy Meadows”. We drove on in silence. Not even five minutes later, I felt the car come to a complete and abrupt stop.
“Jesus!” I said, looking around in alarm and annoyance. “What’s the problem?” I asked my sister.
“That.” She said simply, staring out the window on my side. I looked and saw a good sized building, in decent shape, sitting beside me with a “for sale” sign out front on one side and on the other, a readerboard sign that read simply “Grassy Meadows Motel”. Before I could ask what was so miraculous about it, my sister was dialing the number on the for sale sign. I sighed heavily, waiting for her to end the call and explain to me what was going on.
“We’re buying that.” She said.
“Excuse me?” I had no idea what she was talking about.
“I said we’re buying that. You have a degree in business. We’re going to put it to use.”
“What are you talking about? It’s hardly going to be put to use if there’s nothing around here besides a post office that isn’t even open anymore and a few houses. Besides, this town is like…seven miles in its entirety. I don’t have money, especially not enough to buy a motel!” I said, voice raised in pitch.
“I have money. I sold my house.”
“You what?! You spent what you’d saved up for college your entire life on that house.” I shouted, staring at her. She put the car in park, climbing out and walking up the steps.
“We just have to wait for Gary.”
“Gary. Who the hell is Gary?” I asked, exasperated, but seriously beginning to worry about my sister. I got out and walked quickly over to her. Before she could answer me, a car pulled up behind ours. A short, chubby man with mucky brown eyes and no hair waddled over to us, shaking first my hand then my sisters.
“I’m Gary! Which one did I speak on the phone with?” He seemed overly excited, having the enthusiasm of a salesman on cocaine.
“Me. I’m Calliope, this is my sister Astra.”
“Wonderful! Such beautiful names. Can I interest you girls in a tour of the old place?”
“That won’t be necessary,” my sister said “we just want to buy the property.”
I stood back in disbelief as my sister and Gary closed the deal and felt numb when his blue Audi pulled away and drove into the distance. All my sister said on the matter was, “you needed money anyway.”
That was a year ago. Tonight I sat on the stool out front, the little radio in the corner playing some pop song I’m not familiar with as I stared out the window. My sister was making dinner. The sign out front that once read “Grassy Meadows Motel” now said “Just Like Family Motel” with the words “kid friendly” underneath. I watched as a small pick up truck pulls into our drive, the engine loud and quite frankly sounding as though it needed to be replaced. Turning the radio down, I watched as a man climbed out of the front seat, going around to the passenger side and knocking on the window.
“Yo Cal, we have company,” I called to my sister. A moment later, the kitchen door opened and she stood beside me, peering out the window.
“Did you see them?” she asked, rubbernecking to get a better look.
“I saw a man get out and I think someone’s with him but I don’t know.” I heard the front door open and looked in its direction. Sure enough, the man walked in carrying a little girl in his arms. The girl was awake, but clearly drowsy. No wonder. It was roughly ten at night, if I had to guess.
“It’s terribly late and I’d like to get a room,” the man said with a deep southern drawl.
“Of course!” My sister said, explaining the whole spiel about how pay is up front and by the day, 35 dollars per. I was hardly paying attention to her. I was watching the little girl, who was looking around the room with sleepy eyes. She looked about five, maybe six with brown hair and big blue eyes. My sister handed the key over to her father and as they walked off to find their room, I shot a glance over at Calliope. I imagine the look on my face was the same as hers—somber.
“Is dinner ready yet?” I asked, gesturing with my head in the direction of the kitchen.
“Yeah, can you set the table?” She asked me, eyes clouded with worry. I nodded and set out a plate for each of us, pouring some milk into two cups and putting those out as well, along with some silverware and napkins. I heard a soft knocking on the door and turned my head. I slowly approached the door and peered out the peep hole. It was the man we’d given the room three key to. I opened the door.
“How can I help you, sir?” I asked.
“Oh…pardon me miss, I know it’s awful late, but when I came in I could smell food…I hate to ask but I’m mighty hungry and I gave the last sandwich to my daughter…could I join you ladies?”
I glanced behind him quickly. The girl wasn’t with him, meaning she was probably alone in the room. I nodded and stepped aside.
“Of course, there’s plenty.” I went to the kitchen quickly and looked at my sister. It didn’t always go so smoothly. I didn’t say a word, just grabbed a third plate and cup and walked to the dining room. She followed me out quickly.
“I hope you like lasagna because there’s plenty of it!” She said in her most welcoming voice. I felt like crying. This has been going on for a year, but I still didn’t like it. I knew we had to do it for reasons, but I felt sick.
We all sat down at the table and began eating. The man looked to be only a few years older than us, maybe twenty six at most. He told us the story about how the girl’s mom had left and the entire sob story around that. Apparently his name was Seth. After about ten minutes, my sister gave me a look from across the table and I rose.
“Excuse me, I need to use the ladies room.” I disappeared into a doorway and made my way down the hall leading to the back door. I felt around for the key ring in my pocket for a good minute before finally pulling it out. I searched for the correct one and made my way to room three. Making as little sound as I could, I unlocked the door and stepped inside. The girl was lying on the bed, chest moving up and down rhythmically. I took a deep breath and stepped further into the room, getting up the courage to walk over to the bed. When I finally did, I reached out and shook her shoulder gently. “Sweetheart…your daddy’s outside and he told me to come get you…will you please come with me?” She looked at me for a minute and then nodded slowly, tiny fists going to her eyes and rubbing. I walked over to the door and turned back to look at her, watching as she climbed out of bed. Still rubbing her eyes, she came over to me. I looked ahead again and took a deep breath. I felt her small hand grab mine and I could nearly feel my heart breaking. “Alright little one, follow me to daddy…”
“Stacie,” she said quietly as we started to walk.
“What?” I asked, glancing at her briefly. She was looking up at me with those big eyes.
“My name is Stacie,” she said with the innocence only a child could have. “What’s your name?”
“Astra,” I choked out quietly, quickly moving my eyes back to the path.
“That’s a pretty name.”
We walked on down the heavily wooded path and I listened to her talk the entire way. The more I listened to her, the more I began to regret what I was doing. However, the more I listened to her talk, the closer we got. I fought off tears.
“This won’t take very long, will it Astra?” she asked with the sweet voice of a young child, like she was. “I left my doll and I don’t want anyone to take her.”
“I’m sure no one will take your doll, Stacie” I said, voice thick as I continued to struggle with tears.
“That’s good because my mom gave her to me a long time ago. Her name is Lucy. Do you have any dolls?”
“I used to…”I said, remembering what it was like to be a little girl, when a toy meant the world to you and nothing mattered much because everything was simple.
“What were their names?” She asked, swinging our arms a little bit as we walked.
“I had one named Angel…she was my favorite. I used to take her everywhere with me…” I stopped and looked up at the large tree before us. Stacie looked around.
“Astra, where’s my daddy?”
“I’ll…I’ll check to see if he’s coming! Just stay right by this tree…right in front of it…just like that! Stay there…I’ll be right back.” I backed away quickly before turning and walking stiffly up the path. I knew he wasn’t on his way, at least not the way she expected him to be. I turned my head to look back for a moment and saw the moonlight flickering on the polluted pond behind Stacie. When I turned my head, I also saw a tall figure standing behind her, many limbs stretching out into the darkness surrounding, and grab the little girl. I turned back ahead quickly and began to run up the path toward the motel, no longer able to hold back the tears as I heard her begin to scream. I fell against a tree close to the beginning of the trail and let my tears fall. I felt sick. I didn’t want to do this anymore. I didn’t really think that bringing Him these children would bring Calvin back, but Calliope did. She thought that if she brought enough, He would return Calvin with no questions asked, but I wasn’t so sure. I heard the choking and rattling motor of the small pick up truck Seth and Stacie had rode in with and saw Calliope driving it, like usual, to the large pond at the end of the path. I saw Seth knocked out in the passenger’s seat, weighted down by a large concrete block on his lap. I watched silently, tears staining my face, as Calliope rolled out from the vehicle quickly before it hit the hill and gained speed. I turned away and walked back to room three, not caring to see anymore. I heard the loud splash, and even that was too much for me.
I could hear the words of Stacie in my head as I walked and knew that, even though it was foolish, it might make me feel better. I went back to room three and I took her doll. Lucy, she’d said. Don’t worry, Stacie…I’m sure no one will take your doll…
Now, I’m standing at the tree, right in front of the spot where He had taken her and I’m holding Lucy in my hands. Calliope is back up at the motel, probably sitting on the porch and waiting for something that will never happen. I look at the tiny rag doll in my hands and place it in front of the tree. I run up the path and don’t glance back.
Sometimes decisions in life aren’t easy to make, and rather than being driven by morals or logic, they’re driven by emotion and sheer necessity to survive. From time to time, everyone is forced to make a decision like this, and I am no different.
Credit To – Ashleigh Margaret
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The most beautiful creature I’d ever seen never seemed to close the curtains of her room next door. We’d only moved in a week before, but it was hard not to notice a girl like her. I don’t think she’d ever seen me, but that just made her that much more alluring.
She was young and thin, skin as fair as winter’s first fall, and she had beautiful crimson hair. I would see her dance almost every night, her hair setting fire to the air with each dip and twirl. I was instantly captivated, catching every moment from behind just the two panes of glass. Some nights she danced, others she just sat at her desk, sometimes talking on her cell phone long into the night. It wasn’t until the end of that first month when I saw her murder that first lucky kid.
It was some girl from school, a ditzy spaz whose enthusiastic introduction to the “cool” drugs around campus had her bounce between all the wrong groups. A perfect victim. She always did things so perfectly.
It was the first night I’d seen her turn the light out so early. I might not have known what she had done if the crescent of her knife hadn’t caught the moonlight. It was a silver tracer, carving through the dark that soon began to glisten a brilliant, scarlet red. There were no screams, there was no sound. It must have only been a few seconds, but it felt like‘d been watching for hours. Exquisite.
When she finally turned the light back on, the ditz was obviously gone from sight. But her face, her beautiful face, was lovingly coated in a layer of fresh blood. She had the cutest grin on her face, her eyes seductive and wild. She had crossed the deepest line, she had made the darkest sin. God, how gorgeous. Her crimson hair falling so gracefully across her face, like a fallen angel.
The next three came and went just the same: a drunken football player, a reclusive theater kid, an experimenting Goth girl – all of them playing their parts in this wonderful show she put on for me all throughout the next year. She invited theminto her room, like an old friend about to catch up on the latest gossip. Then you’d see it, the moment I always waited for, her hand reaching just out of sight as a smirk crept across her lips. She’d always turn the lights out for the kill, but the look on her gorgeous visage when she turned them back on…I could almost feel the ecstasy she must have felt.
One day, I finally got up the courage to go meet her or, maybe join her in the fun. If I was really lucky, maybe I could be the one to inspire that terribly seductive smirk. I bought some really nice clothes, an expensive perfume too. I even to tryied bleaching my hair blonde, hoping I could get it to shine as vibrantly as hers. But that morning came the worst news of all.
My parents told me we were moving away. They had become afraid for me, as many parents had over the loss of a few teenagers. I tried to object, but what would I say? If I told them about the girl beyond my window, she’d be the one that would go. Then, I’d never see her again. So I obliged, hoping I would see her again some day. They sent me away immediately to stay with a family friend. It was hard, I got so anxious not being in my room again, maybe see her dance for me one last time.
My father’s job meant we moved a lot, but they hated moving me out of my room. It was just hard. I would get really anxious without having my mirror on the wall. When I got out of the ward, my doctor recommended I keep it up, like a window, to keep me from relapsing and lashing out at my family. I thought it was weird at first, but soon I would forget it was even there; I’d just get so distracted. Ever since I got out, we’ve always seemed to move in next door the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen, and this one was a blonde. A real angel.
Credit To – Mr. Major
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You might already have heard of the TV broadcast hijacking in Seneca, South Carolina; the story’s gained pretty wide currency on the Internet, and part of the broadcast is available on youtube, assuming it hasn’t been taken down for whatever reason. For the uninitiated, the Seneca hijacking is one of the lesser-known broadcast signal intrusions. It was big news here, but the nation news media barely touched on it. Anyway, I’ve decided to jot down my impressions of the whole thing, even though other eyewitnesses have already described it more eloquently than I could.
I was home on winter break when it happened, making chemistry flashcards in front of the TV. No one else was around. After watching the umpteenth Law and Order rerun, I got bored and started channel surfing. A couple minutes later, I stumbled onto this shitty public access channel where, bizarrely enough, my old high school Latin teacher was reciting a poem while wearing this dorky three-cornered hat. I watched for a few minutes and had a good laugh—I remembered him as a pretty serious guy, not the sort of person who’d embarrass himself in public like this—when suddenly there was this static-y crackle and the screen cut to this multi-colored test pattern.
Before I had time to change the channel, there’s another crackle and this weird cartoon shows up on screen. The animation style was detailed, but kind of jiggly and rough—it reminded me of those old anti-drug PSAs. Anyway, it seemed “normal” enough at first—an ordinary-looking middle class family eating breakfast together at a round kitchen table. There was a mom with an old-fashioned hairdo, a dad, two cherub-faced kids, a boy and a girl—all very Norman Rockwell. The family is making banal small talk: the dad complains about his day at the office, the kids prattle on about soccer practice, and so on. Gradually, though, the scene starts to get slightly sinister—a green light is seeping through the open window, and the family starts to acquire a jaundiced, unhealthy look: their skin changes color and their eyes become sunken. In the background, a droning radio broadcast slowly becomes perceptible: the announcer gives the date as November 15th, 2017, and starts to go on and on about some strange crisis—you can barely hear what he’s saying. He says something about a green light, melting flesh, mutations, strange shapes emerging from the sea; again and again, the phrase “Report to the nearest shelter immediately” is audible. Still, the family keeps eating breakfast as if nothing was happening.
And here’s where it gets really macabre. The family finishes eating breakfast and the mom loads the kids into a minivan. By now they look *really* unhealthy: their bodies are skeletally thin, the whites of their eyes are a sickly yellowish color, and their hair is disheveled. The car drives through a landscape bathed in the green glow from before. Strange shapes bob in and out of the screen, but you can’t quite tell what they are, and all the buildings the car passes look weathered and deserted. Finally, the car stops at a playground and the mom drops off the kids before driving away. There are large, odd-colored rocks all over the ground and moaning can be heard in the distance. The kids hang mirthlessly on the monkey bars for a while. Eventually, the camera pans over the playground, and you see that the rocks littering the ground aren’t rocks at all but naked human forms, horribly disfigured. They seemed to be either growing into or from the ground—I can’t say which. And they are very much alive. Behind the monkey bars, a tree can be seen with a human face growing from the trunk—its features are writhing and contorted in agony.
The scene suddenly shifts to a white collar office where the children’s father is stooped over a desktop, typing away. His features are as sunken and diseased as that of the other family members, and the office is covered in a green glow. In the other cubicles, fleshless corpses sit upright at their desks, frozen in death.
Finally, we see the family return home for the evening, walking through the front door together. Their skin is no longer simply jaundiced but actually melting off—dripping from their outstretched arms and running down their faces in drops. As they are literally falling to pieces, the family sits down in the dining room and begins wordlessly to eat dinner. Their flesh becomes more and more amorphous, ribbons of skin dangling from their bodies like the tendrils of an octopus. I can barely describe it, but they somehow begin to…merge with the chairs they are seated on—or rather, their skin grows over them. By now, their skin has the consistency of melted ice cream, and they are barely recognizable as human—except for their eyes, which somehow remain intact. The camera zooms closer and closer to the table, and finally their eyes all move directly towards the camera, conveying a feeling of unfathomable sadness. The screen goes black and large white letters appear on the screen: “Report to the nearest shelter immediately. Remaining at private residences is strictly prohibited.” And with that, the screen turned to static. I stared in stunned silence for a few minutes before the banal local channel switched back on.
And that’s all I know, really. I almost thought I was dreaming until the paper reported the story the next day. God knows what really happened: a ridiculously elaborate prank? An ill-advised viral marketing campaign? The crazier parts of the Internet have their own theories. You can look up the video yourself if you’re morbidly curious.
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I was fifteen when it happened. My sister was five. It started on her fifth birthday, when she received one of those dolls that’s supposed to look like the owner. It was a standard doll, the same height as my sister, red hair, freckles; it even came with an outfit matching its own for my sister. The only out of the ordinary part were its eyes. My sister had very strange eyes, blue with flecks of brown near the pupil. I used to tease her they looked like toilet bowls with poop floating in them. I’d never seen another person with eyes like this, but the dolls matched them perfectly. I don’t recall who gave her the doll, but I thought whoever it was had taken the time to repaint the eyes as a special touch.
After she opened gifts, my sister and her friends began running around, dressing up, the usual little kid stuff. I, not wanting to get stuck babysitting, snuck off to my room and shut the door. I was immersed in a scary story I was reading, when I heard the door creek open. Naturally, and considering what I was reading, I flipped my shit and turned around as fast as I could. Sitting nudged between the mostly shut door and the frame was my sister’s doll. Had there not been a gang of little kids in my house, I might’ve gotten a bit scared, but I was sure one (or all) of them had placed it there as a prank. I brought the doll back downstairs and that was the last I heard of it for a few months, save for my sisters stories and packing it around with her constantly.
Two months later, things got weird. My sister ran downstairs one day screaming that her doll was being mean to her. Knowing it was just her imagination, but no wanting to upset her, I firmly reprimanded the doll in front of her, then put it on the top shelf of my sister’s closet. She seemed satisfied that justice had been served, and I was a bit glad not to see that thing around anymore. It was a bit creepy how much it looked like my sister. I thought of the times I’d seen her asleep with it, and wondered if I could even tell the difference in the dark. But that was beside the point, because without my or my parent’s help the doll would be trapped in the closet, and I certainly wouldn’t be taking it down.
Later that night, I heard my sister screaming. I ran into the room to see the doll at the foot of her bed. It wasn’t even leaning on something, just standing there, staring at her. I grabbed the doll and bolted down the stairs. My parents came out to see me going down and asked what was going on, but I didn’t stop to explain. I stuffed the doll in our trashcan, the blue and brown eyes stared up at you, almost in an angry way. When I went back inside my sister was back asleep, having been calmed down by my parents, and I was glad to be done with the ordeal. Or so I thought.
The next morning as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I saw my sister at my door. I blinked at my blurry morning sight, and when I opened my eyes again she was gone. I walked to her room only to see her sound asleep. Odd, I thought. It must have been a trick of the eye. But later that night it happened again. I was awoken by footsteps and saw what I thought was my sister standing just outside my door. I turned to switch the light on, only to see there was no one there. Once again she was fast asleep in her room when I checked. The garbage hadn’t yet been picked up, so I decided to check the bin tomorrow morning. Maybe my dad was playing tricks on me. The next morning, as I suspected, the trash was empty. While we ate breakfast I confronted my dad.
“Dad, did you put Jane’s doll outside my room last night or this morning?” I asked.
“What? Don’t be stupid, that doll’s out in the trash where you left it”
“No, I checked, it wasn’t there”
“Well maybe some kid saw it and wanted it for themselves, how should I know where the damn thing went?”
That was the end of the matter. Strange, but I shrugged it off. God I regret that.
That night my sister was scared, so I agreed to stay in her room. All night we heard terrible things. Whispers and laughs I swear were in my sister’s voice, footsteps above and around us, we were petrified. But soon enough the noises stopped and sleep outweighed fear. I dreamed of the doll, sneaking into the room with us. But in my dream, it occurred to me that ripping the dolls head off would stop it. To this day I don’t know where I got that thought, but I wish I hadn’t. I awoke to see the doll lying next to my sister in her bed, but I thought I knew what I needed to do. I grabbed the doll in the dark and held it down; I remember it felt heavier than I remembered. I grabbed hold of the hair, so lifelike, and pulled as hard as I could. I looked into the dolls eyes, I had to pull harder than I thought to get the head off the doll, and it looked as if there were fear in its eyes. Finally there was a sickening rip, and the head popped off. I smiled, only then realizing how tired I was. I laid down, kicking the head and body away so I could sleep.
I woke to the sound of screaming. My mother was hysterical; I saw her run into the room, her faced covered in tears. I looked around me, I was surrounded by blood. It was on the floor and on my hands. My mother continued to shriek as she held the dolls head close to her chest, why was she so upset? I’d saved us! Where was all this blood coming from?
I looked around, and lying in my sisters bed, I saw the doll.
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Somewhere in West Philadelphia, you will find an old basketball court with a single ball lying in the middle. Pick it up and start shooting hoops. After a while, a small group of hooligans will approach you and challenge you to a fight, which you must accept.
After the fight, you must go home and relay the events to your mother. She will then inform you that you have an aunt and uncle living in one of the districts of Los Angeles, and out of fear, she will send you to live there for an indefinite period of time.
With your bags packed, go to the street corner, and whistle for a cab. The cab that will pull up will bear the word FRESH on the license plate, and upon closer inspection, novelty fuzzy dice will hang in the mirror. Although you will suddenly realize that cabs like these are extremely hard to find, do not bear any thought to it. At this point you MUST point out in front of the car and say ‘Yo homes to Bel Air’. You will stop in front of a mansion, and it will be sometime between 7 and 8 o’clock, even though it will feel like you’ve been traveling mere seconds. Get your luggage out and say ‘Yo homes, smell ya later!’, but do NOT turn back to face the cabby. Walk up to the door, look over your shoulder once, and then knock on the door three times.
If you follow these instructions, your life will get flip-turned upside-down.
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Scariest pasta ever, y/y?
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All this shit started when I found that little note.
On a square piece of paper I found at the bottom of a box I was moving out of my basement, it read, “HELLO? PLEASE RESPOND”. I had no idea how long the paper had been there, those boxes had sat in my basement since I moved in. I ignored it until the next morning, when I opened my coffee maker to throw out the grounds, and inside was a sopping wet piece of paper that read “PLEASE RESPOND! PLEASE HELP”. I figured it must have been put inside my coffee maker by whoever was pulling this pointless prank, because it wasn’t there when I put my coffee grounds in.
I found more notes, under my mousepad, inside my computer tower while I was putting in some new RAM, between the layers of tissue of my toilet paper roll, under my DVD player’s disc tray. Places that no one would ever look, places you’d never think of putting a note, places you knew no one would ever look and it would be foolish to put a note, because who knew when they would see it?
But it kept happening, and they all said the same thing every time, begging me to respond and help them. Being the retard I am, one day I just got fed up when I found one inside a cup in my dishwasher (right after I had run it – the paper was dry) I wrote on the back of it “HELLO. I’M RESPONDING. PLEASE EXPLAIN YOUR SITUATION!” and slid it under a crack in my bath-fitted tub.
No sooner had I left my bathroom did I find another piece of paper, floating on the surface tension on the surface of my glass of sprite I had in the living room.
I carefully picked it out of my drink, it read “THANK YOU.” and in larger letters, “I’M TRAPPED”.
I waved it around to dry it off a bit, and wrote on the back of it again, “where are you trapped? how are you sending me notes?” and, not creative enough to think of where to put it, I just threw it behind my couch. I waited and looked, but I didn’t see any other notes for the rest of that day.
The next day I checked my mail, inside of some spam letter was the next note, “IN THE SECOND DIMENSION. BELOW YOU”. I wasted no time in responding “whoever you are, this prank is retarded. give it a rest” and threw it outside, the wind blew it away.
The next note I got was still in obnoxious capital letters, though it was much longer than before and the last sentence seemed to have been squeezed into the remaining space. I think it was a passage from some encyclopedia or textbook. “The first dimension is a defined point in space. The second dimension (this was underlined) is anything that exists with height and width, while the third adds on length. The fourth includes time, the and the fifth is the past: time that has already occurred and is solidified in timespace.” Everything beyond that was too squished in to read. I rolled my eyes and responded again, “How can you read this if you’re in the second dimension? How can you even exist??” I slipped this note into the space in my toaster between the element and the metal casing.
My reply came when I brushed it out of my hair the next morning before I took a shower. “WRITING IS 2D. VISION IS 2D- TWO 2D IMAGES SUPERIMPOSED.”
That didn’t really get to the point of how I was supposed to “rescue” this person, which I defined in my next note that I flushed down my toilet.
“MAKE ME 3D” was all that was on the new slip of paper I found inside of a chocolate bar I unwrapped, later on. How the idiot was putting these inside sealed products was beyond me but at this point I decided to play along, maybe it was some kind of TV show thing.
“How?” was all I wrote for my reply. I remember exactly where I put it, because it was the last thing I wrote for a long time. I put it in a crack between my length mirror, and it’s wooden backing. As soon as I let go it slid out of sight and I didn’t see any papers again for a year and a half.
Getting dressed one morning for work, I went into my room and adjusted my tie and shirt in my mirror, the same one, only it was now on the opposite side of my room. Looking into it, I noticed a square behind me on the wall. Turning around, there was none. In the instant before I turned around again I thought it must have fallen off, but in the mirror it was still there, still suck to the wall. I touched my mirror thinking maybe it was some sort of warping or optical illusion, but it wasn’t.
I lifted my heavy mirror up from the ground and slowly walked backwards with it, nearing myself to the opposite wall on which the paper was stuck. The closer I got, the clearer the message on it became, until I stopped, sandwiched between the heavy mirror and the wall, looking at the paper immediately over my shoulder: “MAKE YOU 2D” it said.
I moved the fuck out of that house as soon as I could. After bunking at my girlfriend’s for a while, I got the fuck rid of the mirror, the toaster, everything. My heart still skips a beat when I see any perfectly square piece of paper, sitting on the floor, all alone. I still live in fear of some day I’ll open up a book or look in the inner lining of a jacket, and a piece of paper will flop out.
I check all my things, now. Constantly. I also don’t drink coffee anymore.
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Have you ever heard of the GPS Game?
Before you type it into Google, let me save you the trouble – you’re not going to find much. If it’s not on the internet, I must be full of crap, right? You can believe what you want. The fact of the matter is, very few people know about this urban legend, and even fewer have attempted to play, let alone followed it through to the end. You might have guessed it, but I am one of those people.
I’ll spare you the details of how I became acquainted with the game. That’s a long, mostly uninteresting tale that I’ll save for another time. What I’m here to divulge to you is everything I’ve learned while playing; everything you need to know to stay safe, should you choose to play yourself. I’ll touch on why I’m revealing this later; for now, let’s discuss gameplay.
The game consists of typing a seemingly random sequence of characters into the search bar of any GPS system or app and following the path that is generated – this is known as the ‘master code.’ Unfortunately, it’s constantly changing, never staying the same for more than a few days at a time. It has something to do with the Earth’s rotation, as well as its position in orbit around the sun. A lot of complex measurements are needed to determine the code’s string of values at any given time. That’s why you have but two options at your disposal.
-Contact a “spotter” (accessible via specific dark web markets). They can access the measurements needed and output a list of possible code variations, but it’ll cost you an arm and a leg.
-Contact me. I’m no spotter, but I’ve played the game enough to know what I’m doing. I’ve discovered the code time and time again without any help, and I won’t charge you a dime.
After retrieving the code and officially beginning your expedition, it’s important to stay in it for the long haul. No matter how many turns you take, nothing out of the ordinary will happen during the trip itself. This is why a lot of first-timers get bored and call it quits halfway through, sick of driving aimlessly down random roads. As is consistent with the legend, it’s about the destination, not the journey. The GPS Game is supposed to lead you to the secret town of Battered Grove. Therein lies the reason for all of this – exploration in uncharted territory; the discovery of a non-existent place.
Though the route is always changing, drive-time usually remains the same. It should take you anywhere from five to six hours to complete the trip, depending on traffic. Keep an eye out for these landmarks, so as to be absolutely certain you’ve arrived:
–Hank’s Supernova Diner, an eatery that boldly proclaims that it’s open 25 hours a day
–HexWorks, a boutique that specializes in vintage curiosities
–Grovewood & Co., a souvenir shop (for some reason, I couldn’t seem to find this building during my last visit)
–Garrett’s Locker, a death metal venue
–The Grovewood Inn, a hotel with a haunted past (or so I’ve been told)
As exciting as it will be to explore this new place, you mustn’t get carried away. Forces beyond your comprehension are at work, offering you a glimpse into a world you were never meant to see. One false move could shatter this cosmic window, disrupting the delicate balance between worlds, effectively catapulting you into a fathomless void of nonexistence from which you may never return. That might sound dramatic, but it really is that serious.
I urge you to take the following advice to prevent irreparable damage to yourself, or reality as we know it:
-DO NOT get out of your car while in town. Your presence will disturb the residents, the nearest of which will walk up to you and bash your brains in with brute force. When chasing an outsider such as yourself, a resident possesses reservoirs of unnatural strength, agility, and endurance. After ensuring that your heart has stopped, the resident will resume their daily routine as if nothing happened.
-DO NOT film or take pictures of the town. Don’t even take a selfie in the car. If you have a dashcam, get rid of it. There can be no record of your visit, whatsoever. If you fail to do this, something will happen to you. Not right away – it could be a couple of days or even a week after your return home, but rest assured, it will happen. A GPS gamer I knew by the name of Tom made the mistake of taking a short phone video of his drive through town, for his personal records. I can only guess that someone, or something abducted him and retrieved the footage. We usually touch base at least once every few months to discuss our findings. It’s now been over two years since we last spoke.
-Speaking of phones, let’s talk electronics. Most of us rely on them in our day to day travels, but this is the one place you absolutely cannot. Don’t trust a single one of your gadgets. For instance, if the GPS is still going once you’ve hit town, it will have you driving around in circles, eventually leading you into the unsavory depths of the town where you’ll inevitably run out of gas. After that, it’s game over.
-If you call someone while in Battered Grove, there is a 100% chance that they’ll pick up – only it won’t be them. Their voice and diction will sound identical to their real-life counterpart, but don’t be fooled. It’s a trick of the town, fighting for you to stay so it can eat you alive. If you do stay on the line, the person on the other end will become hysterical. What they say is different for everyone, but their words will cut deep and they will somehow convince you to get out of your car. We all know what happens after that.
-The town learns. Every time you visit, it’ll throw a new curve ball at you, hoping you’ll exit your vehicle for one reason or another. I thought I’d seen everything, but on my last ‘playthrough,’ I received an Amber Alert on my phone. The plate number matched the truck in front of me and I could clearly see a young girl in the back seat, clawing at the window. She looked directly at me, tears running down her face, begging me to save her. I followed the truck for a good ten miles before coming to my senses and getting the hell out of dodge. It’s best to spread your visits out with long rest periods in between; the more often you visit, the harder it is to get out. The town hates repeat visitors.
-Oh yeah, the book. This doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, be cautious. A book called Sleep Tactics: Exercises For a Mind at Rest will appear in your car on certain trips. It can show up in your glove box, the floor by the gas pedal, or even jammed in the crevice between the hood and windshield. Most of the time, it just appears on the passenger’s seat. No matter where it is, you can’t give in to the distraction. You will become strangely tempted to stop the car and open up the book to view its contents. DO NOT READ THE BOOK. If you do, you will be hopelessly engrossed and fall under its spell. As you devour the pages, you will become weary to the point of collapse, cast into a dark slumber. Depending on where you left off in the book, you will either remain asleep indefinitely, or exit yourself. In the latter scenario, your astral form will be adrift in Battered Grove eternally, with no means of communicating with the outer world, or returning to your physical body.
(Though this has only happened a handful of times, if the book happens to be Transpersonal Travel: A Guide To The Unknown Consciousness, TURN AROUND. You have to leave at once. Trust me.)
So, why am I telling you all of this? Well, I’m here. Right now. Stranded in Battered Grove.
I tried leaving by normal means, but the town is getting crafty. The roads that usually lead home rearranged themselves, all taking me back to this god-forsaken place. Remember what I said about spreading out your trips? Well, I got cocky. I went from a few visits a year to six or seven, to eventually coming out here monthly. It’s an addiction, one that I clearly don’t have the discipline to manage. I’ve officially hit rock bottom, sitting here in my car, completely out of gas, just waiting for the inevitable.
This is where you come in.
Below, I will reveal the current master code. I don’t know if it’s still active, but this is my only hope. Please help me, I beg of you. Even as I type this out on my phone, I’m in danger. The town knows I’m stranded and is doing everything it can to swallow me whole. Every few minutes I’m receiving calls from unknown numbers and getting pop-up ads for local gas stations that are “in walking distance from your current location!” I’m wise to the charade, but I know that it’s only a matter of time before the town fools me into thinking I can escape by leaving the comfort of my vehicle.
Given the town’s strange nature, I can’t be certain that this message will reach anyone, at least not in the way that I intend it to. Wherever my story does end up upon hitting this send button, I hope someone will give the game a try. Bring friends, make a road trip out of it, have some fun. If you end up finding me, that’s all the better. Even if you don’t believe a word of this, what do you have to lose?
Take the code and go. Now. I’m running out of time.
(MASTER CODE: P1NLNR4HRE2BI3ASETRGN2, BDE2AULEA1E62GI7TS4Y3E)
The author of this story wrote it for free. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving him a tip. Any amount helps! Visit his donation page today. If you want to feature this story on your YouTube channel, don’t forget to follow the author’s narration instructions.
WRITTEN BY: Christopher Maxim (Contact • Other Stories • Subreddit)
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Recently my great-grandfather died and me and my family inherited his house. We didn’t actually need it, since it was in another state, so we decided to sell it and use that money for something else. But before that we decided that we should clean the house out and get rid of all the stuff that the new owners wouldn’t need. It was mostly some old trash that grandpa hoarded over the years, but there were also some things that held some value, either to our family or to some pawn shop, so during the last weekend we drove all the way to the house to pillage through all the stuff.
While I was going through my grandpa’s things, I found an old diary of his father – my great-great-grandfather –which contained some… interesting entries.
Until I read the diary, I had never heard about the 1928 Siege of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, and neither had anyone else I asked afterwards, but according to my great-great-grandfather, it happened. And not only that, but he was one of the soldiers that had been involved in the campaign.
Initially, after glancing at some of the pages, I became skeptical about the diary’s contents. I’m not a history buff by any means, but was pretty sure that no conflicts of the sort described had taken place on American soil during the times the diary is dated.
I searched for some clues regarding Innsmouth, and discovered that it is a completely make-believe town described first by H.P. Lovecraft, a turn-of-the-century fiction author. Yet, even in Lovecraft’s work, there are no mentions of a “Siege of Innsmouth” taking place in 1928, and his story, in fact, took place in 1936. It does go on to say, however, that many people from Innsmouth were arrested in 1928 following an FBI investigation. It is also mentioned that during the same year, an American submarine torpedoed the Devil’s Peak, a cliff near the town that overlooks the ocean, but that’s the only mention of any military action taking place.
I had never met the old man, so I knew next to nothing about him, but it seemed to me that he was an aspiring author, as well as a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s writing, and so I assumed the entries were 100% fictional. Anything was possible. Perhaps his work had been rejected by publishers, or maybe he never submitted it in the first place. In any event, it simply ended up collecting dust in my grandfather’s closet, until I found it.
For reasons I still can’t explain, and in spite of my suspicions, I felt compelled to continue reading the contents of the diary.
While doing so, I also noticed that the notebook itself was made in 1927 by a small company called “Holler & Robbins.” Initially, I wondered if my great-great-grandfather had simply hung onto the journal for a long time before making use of it, but found that unlikely, considering that Lovecraft’s book was first published in 1936.
So I did some more research, exerting a lot of effort and spending quite a bit of time, pillaging through mountains of old papers in the archive in my search for answers. What I found was… somewhat concerning.
I learned that the “Holler & Robbins” company, which manufactured the diary in which my great-great-grandfather had been writing, was a small printing company in Massachusetts that closed down in 1929 during the Great Depression. Again, the diary itself was made in 1927.
My great-great-grandfather never lived in Massachusetts, so his only opportunity to buy such a diary would be if he had been passing through the state. What’s more, the story “Shadow Over Innsmouth” wasn’t written until 1936.
The question remained:
If my great-great-grandfather was nothing more than a creative writer, inspired by Lovecraft’s lore, how was it possible that he had described the events which had taken place in Innsmouth, nearly eight years before they were mentioned for the first time in print?
In spite of the intriguing timeline, I remained unconvinced that my great-great-grandfather’s story was credible, but held out hope that the remaining entries would shed more light on the mystery, and provide more clues. As I continued reading, however, the entries quickly became less exciting… and far more horrifying.
By the time I was finished, I wasn’t any closer to knowing whether what was written was true or not. But I do know one thing: I prayed it wasn’t.
I am determined to share the contents of the diary with others, in the hope that perhaps others will be more adept than I at discerning fact from fiction.
With that in mind, I present to you now, the unabridged written account of my great-great-grandfather, an alleged veteran of the 1928 Siege of Innsmouth, Massachusetts.
* * * * * *
11/23/1928
Our company was told to keep our mouths shut about his deployment, but that’s precisely why I’m starting this diary. If anyone finds out about it I’ll be dishonorably discharged and maybe sentenced to prison, or maybe even worse, considering that we’re about to wage war against citizens of our country for some unknown reason, but I can’t let them walk away with it. If we’re about to start slaughtering innocent people I want to at least document all of it so there is some proof of it in the future.
We were told that people of Innsmouth are all guilty of treason of the highest order, but I don’t buy that. You don’t just send an army to clear them all out, and I don’t see any reason to keep it under wraps even if every one of them is a spy. We were told that there would be heavy resistance, but let’s face it: if you knew that the army was coming for you and your close ones, wouldn’t you protect yourself? Isn’t our goal is to protect our people? This seems more like a crime war than anything else, and we were the mob sent to do the dirty job.
The only thing that calms me is my captain’s resolve. It appears that knows more than us but withholds that information for some reason. I can see a fire burning in his eyes, and it’s not guilt – it’s the hatred for the enemy. But I also know him long enough to see that there are also hints of being genuinely scared, even though he is not of timid nature, and that makes me wonder – what awaits us in that small town that was important enough to keep it a secret even from us but also makes the captain shake in his boots?…
In just a few hours we will engage in urban warfare, and I only hope that our command will be right… or that we’ll all be brave enough to see that they are wrong.
11/23/1928
I was wrong. The citizens of Innsmouth are as hideous on the inside as their appearance is, and there’s no redemption for them.
When we entered the town, its streets were already empty: it seems that the locals knew that we were coming and thus left their homes, going into hiding. I had been told that it was a small fishing town, facing the ocean on one side and being surrounded by swamps from all other sides, so I didn’t expect to see any riches, but the town looked like it had been abandoned many years ago. Many of the buildings were destroyed, either by fire or through negligence, and by the look of them they had been that way since the middle of the previous century. The other ones didn’t look much better: the locals definitely didn’t care about how their houses looked, or they wouldn’t let them stay in such a sorry state. The only indication that somebody lived there at all was the footprints in the mud that covered the roads. Complete with the dark skies above us and the fog that one would expect from such a moist place, the town presented a very depressing sight, and I caught myself thinking that it was easy to believe that no good people could live here.
We were slowly advancing through the streets, straining our senses to spot a possible threat, but there was none. The was only silence, undisrupted even by the wildlife, and I could hear every step that I or my comrades took. Even though the weather was cold, I was running with sweat that instantly cooled on my skin under the breeze, and I gripped my rifle so that it wouldn’t slip out of my hands during the most important moment.
They attacked us just as we began to lower our guard. Suddenly the air was filled with the noise of shots and bullets started whistling around us. They were armed with rifles and shotguns, and while we were out in the open, they were gunning us down from the windows, having both cover and height advantage. The only reason that I and most of my squad survived this ambush was due to the locals’ apparent lack of training and bad aim.
The instincts and army training kicked in, and we immediately dispersed, trying to get some cover. I spotted a small, narrow alley that went perpendicularly to the main street, and rushed towards it, intending to hide behind it and continue the fight from there. On my way there I saw our captain lying and thrashing in the dirt, his hands desperately clawing at the shot wound in his throat. The blood was gushing out of it at such a rate that it was clear that he wouldn’t survive.
Once in safety, I started unloading my ammunition in the direction where the shots were coming from, aiming for the windows. I know that I’ve said that it felt wrong killing those people without even knowing why, but at that moment I did not care anymore. The desire to live, to survive has engulfed me, and the instant I saw the ferocity with which they were slaying us I knew that there was only one way for me to get back home: over their dead bodies. It must’ve been the same during the Great War in Europe when the boys like me were sent to the front lines whether they believed in their country’s cause or not.
I could hear the sound of the gunfire coming from other streets, too, which meant that they attacked other squads as well, and that makes me wonder: how the hell did they coordinate their attack so well? It wasn’t like only we were engaged in the battle. No, the whole town suddenly erupted into violence, becoming a battlefield. This was not what you would expect from simple civilians.
Even from the distance, I could see that there was something off-putting about their appearance: their skin was of sickly gray color, and their eyes were bulging out, giving them the fishlike look. It was hard to aim for their heads, too, because they sunk deep between their shoulders, making them hard to spot. It made it hard to relate to them even as to opponents.
At that moment I heard the scream of one of our soldiers behind me, and I belatedly realized that the enemy could also hide in the buildings near us in order to flank us. But there was no gunshot prior to the scream, and it was not the one of pain, either: it was a shriek of horror, a cry of someone who realized that his life was coming to an end and there was nothing to be done about that.
Turning around, I saw only the shaking legs of a soldier who was already being pulled through the door of an old building, as well as the trail of blood that followed them. His pale comrade just stared in bewilderment at the whole scene. It was clear that he must’ve seen everything, but for some reason, he didn’t take any actions to help his still bellowing companion who, by the sound of it, was already suffocating on his own blood. Yelling something at him, I charged inside, gun ready.
I expected to see something as soon as I entered the building, but the trail of blood went around the corner into another room. For someone who was pulling a resisting man, the unknown assailant moved too fast, but I didn’t pay it much attention back then. The soldier was still alive, I could hear that, so without hesitation I went forward.
I expected a bunch of locals with hatchets, showing the most animalistic side of human nature, but the sight that unraveled in front of me didn’t fit any of my anticipations: you can’t ever expect to see something like that, even on the battlefield.
At first I thought that it was a grizzly bear, mostly due to the size of the creature but also because it was chewing on my companion’s neck when I walked in. But it was wearing fisherman’s clothes, even though they clearly didn’t fit its massive stature, and when it raised its head to look at me I saw that its face resembled that of a man – no more than it resembled the one of the fish, though. Its white eyes were big and bulbous, but clearly intelligent, since there was pure malice in them that was uncharacteristic for animals. Blood dripped from its thick fishlike lips right onto the soldier’s colorless face, mixing with his tears, and its arms, as big and long as its legs, were pressing the poor guy to the floor, with its long claws piercing his flesh like hooks. Overall, the creature was part man and part something else, like some sort of hybrid, a cross-breed stuck in development halfway between a man and some ancient dweller of the sea.
The creature eyed my rifle for a moment, clearly recognizing what it is, before letting out a croaking growl and charging me, moving in short froglike hops on all fours. My finger pulled the trigger, and the bullet ripped out a large chunk of meat out of its shoulder, but that didn’t hinder its advance. I knew that the second shot would come too late, so I turned around and headed for the door that led back to the street, hearing its uneven breathing and the soldier’s pleas for help behind me.
But while I was out of combat only for a few moments, a lot of things changed. My squad was in full retreat, leaving wounded behind, while a few more of those creatures were advancing on them, seemingly not concerned about the enemy’s fire. One of the beasts was feasting on my captain right in the middle of the road, cutting me off from the rest of my people. So, without any other options left, I headed for the alley that I had noticed before, thinking only about losing those monsters, even if it meant going deeper into their god-forsaken town.
Once I started running, I didn’t even think about direction anymore: I was just trying to increase the distance between me and those abominations. My heart was pounding, and I tried not to think about those left behind: the rest of the soldiers had abandoned me too, after all.
The alley was long and narrow, but that worked well for me, since I could just pour every ounce of my strength into running. I knew that I was probably followed, but at the same time, I felt as if hundreds of unseen eyes were gazing at me in anticipation of their attack, and every moment I feared that another one of those creatures would lap at me from above and main me. My only hope was to find a way out of town on my own or to meet up with another squad.
The next thing I realized was that an alley came to a dead-end. The only thing that surrounded me were high walls, with no way to climb upon them. Desperate, I turned around to see if maybe I wasn’t followed, but to my horror, the creature was already there, clumsily trying to gain on me with its small hops. There were maybe sixty yards between us, and with each second that distance was getting smaller.
I tried shooting at it, but my trembling hands, combined with me being out of breath made it impossible for me to aim steadily. Remembering how futile were my previous attempts, I turned towards the large warehouse doors next to me, locked on a padlock. Pressing the barrel of my rifle against it, I pulled the trigger. The shot did some damage to the lock, but it remained hanging there. The beast’s heavy breathing became apparent: I could see it charging with the corner of my eye, but I wasn’t brave enough to even take a look at it to know how much time I had left. Praying for success, I shot the lock for the second time.
The bullet ricocheted, but this time the lock fell down, completely destroyed. Without hesitation, I charged at the door, not even bothering to close it behind me as I entered the building.
The monster’s uneven heavy footsteps were right around the corner, and I knew that I didn’t have much time left. Hiding was not an option: I was out of breath and wouldn’t be able to keep it down, and instinctively I knew that if the beast wouldn’t hear my racing heart then it would certainly smell my sweat and… fear. I could only run, run blindly into the maze of streets and buildings to put some distance between myself and my pursuer, even though I knew that I was an easy target to track for its keen senses.
I noticed the small door of the storeroom, with a small window nearby: the room was probably intended for the warehouse’s security so that they could overlook the shelves of goods. It was my best bet, so I ran towards it, hoping that there would be a door that led back to the streets.
Lucky for me, the door was open, so I jumped inside the room and locked it behind me on catch lock. I was in a hurry, but I still noticed its huge, hunching silhouette against the rectangle of light that was the warehouse’s open doors. I didn’t see its features clearly anymore, but even that bizarre shape of its body has caused me enough trauma that it will forever haunt me.
I turned around, my eyes darting around the small room, barely ten square feet in size, looking for another door only to realize to my horror that there was none. A new wave of fear bolted through me as I realized that I finally caught myself in a trap. I think what got the most to me was that after all of that running I was still going to die, and my efforts were in vain.
I didn’t see it coming, but I could hear it: the heavy stomps of its legs and the triumphant croaking howl. I pressed my shoulder against the door, hoping to halt the beast’s advance. That was naïve of me, but I didn’t want to go down without putting up a fight. And, perhaps, were the beast to charge the door I would die under its feet, but it decided to break through the window instead.
The rain of glass missed me, as did the creature’s long flailing arms: it only put its torso through the window frame, but its mighty hands could reach halfway across the room. Dazed, I blinked, and that instant I felt its hot breath cover my face in blood and saliva: it was looking right at me. Dropping to my knees, I quickly crawled into the far corner of the room, barely evading the hook-like claws, and once there I turned around, raising my gun. I could see the bloody wound on its shoulder, and the expression of its face made it clear: it wasn’t just a bloodlust – it was personal. That vile unearthly monster wanted to exact revenge on me for me scarring its flesh, and it would chase me to the end of the world.
Taking a deep breath in, I aimed for its snarling maw, and as my finger squeezed the trigger I closed my eyes, unable to face the fact that my gun would be harmless to it.
Only the shot was followed by silence: I didn’t hear its raspy breath anymore. Carefully opening my eyes, I saw the beast hanging from the window – dead. Its skull now fashioned a large bloody hole, but even in death its face was stretched in a grimace of hatred and violence. Still not believing what I’d done, I exhaled, slowly, as if to not awaken the monster in front of me.
My uneven breathing turned into a hysterical, giggling laughter, as I realized that I survived – for now. But as I was wiping the tears of joy and fear, I came to another realization: I was in the middle of their town, far from my comrades who at that point could very well be on the outskirts of the town already, and the town itself was infested with fishlike monstrosities.
What are those things? Were they the reason why we were deployed here? I don’t know these answers, but I don’t think that their amphibian appearance and the fact that the town is located on the coast of Atlantic are coincidental. I’ve never heard of anything like that save for a few fairy tales, but who could believe them before seeing something like this with their own eyes?
I don’t even want to think how many of them are there in the ocean and what is the nature of their pact with the locals. Were they always there, in Atlantic? I think so. Perhaps they observed with their hateful eyes from the depths as “Mayflower” was swimming by them, bringing new people into their territory, and since then they resented us, looking for a chance to strike. And perhaps they are everywhere, around the globe, and as we brave their waters more and more their resentment for us grows, until they will no longer tolerate our presence. I fear what might come with the future – perhaps this battle is just the beginning of another Great War.
But I now know that they can be killed, and I will do my best to relay this information to my superiors. Chances are they know already, but if they don’t, such information could change the tide of this battle. And if I don’t make it to them, then I hope that they will find this diary, so that we who were the first to engage these beasts are not forgotten, and our sacrifice during the Siege of Innsmouth was not in vain. Right now, this diary is the best log of the first fight between humans and the devils that lurk in this accursed town.
I don’t where death will find me, but I write this from the cellar underneath the room where my fight took place. Mother, father, I love you and I hope you will be alright.
11/24/1928
I’ve decided to stay for the night in the cellar, since judging by the silence that has befallen Innsmouth, the main forces of our army decided to fall back. I didn’t want to risk going into the night alone when more of those creatures could be lurking around. I had to get my thoughts together before I was ready to head back into the fight anyway, and the cellar provided me with necessary comfort.
That said, I had far from a calm night. I could barely close my eyes, fearing that they could track me, and every sound made me jump up and grab my gun, with bizarre forms haunting my mind. I prayed that the town folk wouldn’t send anyone to look for their friend and that they wouldn’t come to the warehouse. Even if this cellar looks like a safe haven, a tight corner that nobody would look into, I didn’t want to find out if that is really so, for I know that above me is the whole town full of those monstrosities, a place where no human is welcome or safe. I could only wonder what they were doing at that moment.
I’ve only managed to calm myself down and get some sleep closer to the morning. The night was cold and merciless, but I prayed that those creatures could feel cold and needed rest, too. But the rest evaded me even in those fleeting moments: just when I finally dropped my guard and let my needs take over, the waking horrors gave way to nightmares from which there was no escape.
At first, those dreams were just the reflection of the previous day: I was being chased by grotesque, ever-shifting forms of the were-beasts who were trampling everyone in their way. No matter where I would go they would follow me, breaking through doors, windows and bursting out of the floor. They could not catch me, but that only prolonged my agony, as every inch of my body was screaming at me in despair to continue this race and get away from them. The background of the dream was constantly changing, not sticking to any recurring motif or logic: I was running through Innsmouth, streets of my hometown, corridors of my school, grocery stores, theaters – every place that I’ve ever visited, and I knew that I would eventually come to the end of the world had the dream not changed.
I suddenly found myself standing at the edge of the cliff that overlooked the sea. The dream wasn’t abstract anymore: on the contrary, it was so detailed that I could even feel the breeze of the wind engulf me and see the sun reflect on the ocean’s gentle surface. My mind also had perfect clarity, as it didn’t take me long to realize that I was in a dream, something that had never happened to me before… And that I was seeing it through someone else’s eyes.
I noticed that I stood abnormally tall – at least 8 feet above the cliff’s rocky surface. My body was clad in long robes, covered in runes of unknown meaning and depicting numerous sea dwellers in amazing detail – some of which I’ve never seen or heard of before. Discarding the robes to the side, the creature that lent me its eyes leaped from the cliff straight down into the water, piercing through its mass with great ease.
My new eyes could see underwater very well, and my body moved through water with terrifying speed: people often tell about dreams in which they fly, but none could imagine what it’s like to glide not atop the gentle winds, but powerful currents. I could sense every motion, my body opened up to new sensations that I never had before, and my eyes could see below me a vast city, built right on the bottom of the ocean.
It was located on the slide, and somehow I knew that went on for dozens of kilometers, going deeper and deeper, to the depths where no sun could reach its high spires and where its walls defied the monstrous pressure. Its architecture was unlike anything I’d ever seen, with cold rock having unnatural gracefulness that was gifted to it by the hands of an inhuman master. I knew that if I were to walk down the city’s corridors I could see miracles that challenged the boundaries of nature, and meet numerous enigmatic travelers, both from our world and others, where flesh was no more than a thing of the past.
I saw the dwellers of the ocean’s darkest depths, creatures so old they saw the rise and fall of dinosaurs with their black inky eyes, obey the sea folk as if they were their pets. I walked through the tunnels that led deep below the ocean, to vast caverns with entire new worlds that never knew the sun, and new oceans below them – all native to our planet, yet as oblivious about us as we about them. I saw riches beyond the imagination of even the wealthiest of our kind – entire mountains of strange white gold. And I knew that all of it was real, for my imagination could not come up with something so vast.
“Join us” – the sudden voice in my head commanded. Its soft yet powerful notes echoed through my entire body, every organ and every cell, pushing out not only my other thoughts, but even things like instincts and reflexes. I was no more than a string that was played by the masterful hands of an artist. “All of this – and much more – can be yours. Swear your loyalty to us, say the oaths – and you’ll forget about wars.”
The vision changed – I was myself again, only completely naked. To my horror, I realized that one of those creatures stood next to me, with clothes not concealing its bulky figure anymore. It was approaching me slowly, in a non-threatening way, and a moment later I realized to my disgust that I could clearly see the creature’s womanhood.
“Give the three oaths,” the voice continued. “Raise our children. Let your blood run with ours.”
The meaning of those words became clear to me in a few moments, when the beast grabbed me by my arms and lifted me up. Its powerful arms could tear me apart like a wet tissue, but that was not my main concern at that moment: if anything, I’d rather chose death then what was coming. But no matter how much I struggled, how much I wanted to wake up, to stop seeing these visions and feeling the creature’s cold and wet touch, I had no choice but to just observe, feeling the mix of shame, horror and disgusting arousal that invaded my mind and got a grip on my body, controlling it to satisfy the creature’s urges.
As the creature got what it wanted from me, the voice in my head returned, whispering its warnings: “refuse – and pay the consequences”. The grey-skinned beast in front of me suddenly started changing, its features waxing and shifting. I observed in horror as it spawned new eyes, maws, claws and fangs right on its skin that bulged and tore and melted to give way to all these new abominations. No matter how I struggled I could only watch as that heap of flesh began devouring me.
At that moment I finally woke up, looking around for any threats that might be nearby, but wherever I looked I could see only bizarre, ever-changing forms of an unnamed beast from my nightmares. Little by little, I calmed down, though the anxiety had already pierced its claws deep into my soul.
Were those just dreams or genuine visions cast upon me? Those nightmares felt too real, too detailed to be borne by my weary mind. But if they were real, then how could we fight such a powerful force? What we’ve fought were no more than spawns of an unholy union of men and beasts, and they had many more allies. From what I’ve seen I understand that we are no more than temporary occupants of our planet, the ones they tolerate like we tolerate the existence of mice, and that they were using like tools to meet their own godawful demands. Were they to choose so, they could wipe us all out in an instant, leaving no traces of our civilization for our successors to find – just like they probably did in the past.
It all comes down to the show of force here, in Innsmouth – perhaps if we can’t defeat them completely, we could at least buy us some time to develop further, to gather strength. The war to come would be the true War to end all wars.
I can hear the gunshots: my company must’ve begun another advance. Time to go.
The corpse of the creature from another night is gone: it’s like it has never been there. I can swear that I didn’t hear anything move during the night, not even the crackling of the glass under the beast’s massive frame. It’s too heavy to move it without making any sound. It’s like it just… vanished.
11/26/1928
I can’t speak about other wars, but I know for sure that this war is hell, and in more than one way.
I’ve managed to reconnect with my company during their assault two days ago, and since then we’ve been steadily progressing into the town. We’ve been progressing very slowly, measuring each step, for every building could hold some unpleasant secret, whether it was a gun-wielding group of locals, monstrous beasts, or something else entirely.
It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who had seen that dreamlike vision: almost every soldier had seen it, and it caused quite a lot of ruckus in our ranks. There had been a lot of cases when soldiers disobeyed the orders, straight-out deserted or simply went mad from all of their experiences. In just three days, we’ve lost a third of our forces, not to the enemy, but to the horror that had forever settled in their souls, as they would rather face imprisonment than spend one more second on the gloomy, insanity-infested battlefield of Innsmouth.
I can’t say that I blame them: the town was like a proof that God himself had turned the blind eye to us, letting these monstrosities run free on our land, and our priest was never out of work, for many souls began to question their faith and cause. But what could the man in the robes say to people who believed that their very souls were at risk of being dragged to Hell? The promises of paradise seem faint in comparison to the real, physical nightmare that we are facing.
It is clear now that our enemy employs not only the brute force, but some sort of mystic arts as well. Throughout the last two days, it had been raining non-stop, which I doubt is a mere coincidence, as water seems to rejuvenate these creatures: I personally saw how a mortally wounded creature crawled out of the building and into the rain, only to hop away with a newfound strength.
It is also impossible to capture these beasts, dead or alive: they fight too ferociously, until death, and upon it their corpses seem to disappear as soon as we look away even for a moment. Many begin to doubt whether they are even real or if they are the mirages of some sort, but then we wouldn’t be able to kill them – not to mention that we know that mirages look different.
One of the squads went completely insane after they encountered a creature similar to the ones we’d been facing all the time, but many times bigger, with its head towering high above buildings and its arms using the roofs for support. It appeared out of the thin air, walked a few yards towards them, and then dissipated, but that was enough for half of them to commit suicide out of sheer fear. The rest of them degraded to the point where they lost their speech and their words that described what happened were mixed with blabbering on an unknown language that no one had managed to identify.
Another squad went missing right in their camp: though their footsteps led to the cellars of the nearby building, nobody had seen them leave, and the basement itself was empty. They didn’t take their guns or any other equipment with them, either, which led their captain to believe that they were traitors and deserters, though everyone present understood that he said that only avoid spreading further panic.
The locals attack us at any time, from any angle. We constantly feel o
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Thank you for coming, doctor. I honestly didn’t think the renowned psychoanalyst, Jeffrey Gilland, would see me. Then again, it isn’t every day you are handed the opportunity to interview an insane colleague. And I am your golden ticket to a more profound reputation, aren’t I?
Please, you don’t need that arched brow to impress me. I’ve spent years trading theory and thesis with you, Jeffrey. Until you published your paper on paranoid delusionals, I thought I was the only one making any progress in schizophrenia research. But I see my banter is falling under speculative regard.
Very well. Let’s begin with the reaffirmation of patient ID.
My name is Professor Randall H. Courtney. I maintain doctorates in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, psycho-biology, para-psychology, criminology, and religious mythology; the latter a particular passion of mine. Until recent events, I was the head of Westerin University’s psychology department and special consultant to both Westerin Community Hospital and the state-funded Pleasant Glenn Home for the criminally insane, specializing in sociopathic and schizophrenic cases. I am 57 years of age, moderately healthy, and unfortunately close to the precipice of insanity.
Of course, you wouldn’t be here if I were not.
To the heart of the matter, as you would tell me when I began a long-winded diatribe. Here, then, are the circumstances which led you here:
It all began two weeks ago. I had read the case study of the Holiday Hacker, William James Morton, by Doctor Lansing in Athens. His paper discussed the complete personality and symptomatic juxtaposition of Morton. By all accounts, William James Morton was a classic case of a violent sociopath: he murdered a documented 156 women and children from 1993 to 2013. Undeniably, Morton was the most prolific serial killer ever substantiated in his claims. Unlike our tail-chasing study of Henry Lee Lucas, eh?
As the typical profile of a serial murderer, Morton was a white male in his late 30’s, middle-income class, with a “social magnetism” that allowed him to make friends easily. Coupled with an unusually high IQ, Morton was well-liked by colleagues and friends who, of course, never suspected his nocturnal activities.
Morton worked for the Indiana Public Utilities Commission as a meter reader; this gave him unlimited accessibility into his victims’ homes, to which he would cleverly observe several potential targets for 2-3 weeks prior to making his move. All of Morton’s victims were killed during holidays, most notably Christmas and Easter.
As you know, Doctor Lansing asserts Morton killed on holidays because his parents did not celebrate any of the accepted Christian holidays, and that either the indifference or non-participation of social interactions with friends and family created Morton’s behavior. Unfortunately, Lansing never appropriately explored the aspect of his ritual abuse by his father or the sexual recriminations his mother heaped upon him. And let us not forget his classic disassociation with morality and accepted social behavior. I see you have no taste for debate tonight. Very well.
Morton ritualistically entered the household of families wherein the father worked a third or graveyard shift between the hours of 1-4 AM, and proceeded to slit the throats of his victims, from oldest to youngest. His “signature” was the destruction of a major holiday tradition: stripping a Christmas tree of ornaments, tearing up Easter baskets, shredding Valentine’s Day cards, vandalizing the Thanksgiving centerpiece, etc.
But you’ve already read Dr. Lansing’s case study, eh, Jeffrey? Of course you have.
You know on the night of December 24th, 2013, the Jeffersonville police responded to a 9-1-1 call from a half-dead Iris Dennison. By the time they reported on scene, all three children – aged three to seven – were found dead in their bedrooms, as was Mrs. Dennison, still clutching the bedroom phone. Amongst the carnage and destruction, they found the 5′ 10” meter reader balled up in the corner of the living room, covered in his own bodily fluids and the blood of his victims. The police report concluded with Morton’s overwhelming confession and sorrow. What followed was to be the largest admission of serial murder ever told. As a matter of fact, when they found Morton’s infamous Tome of The Season – the grisly journal of his slayings – I wager Morton told them where to find that damnable book.
For some unknown reason, this brutal, remorseless killing machine was now raving like a paranoid schizophrenic in a highly manic-delusional state. Morton was now begging to be locked away for his crimes. This complete change portends an emotional 180-degree spin on all our known beliefs of mental illness. Curious, don’t you agree, Dr. Gilland?
I see you are still not impressed. Very well, let us move to the meat of the meal – the night of March 15th – the night Lansing and Morton died before my eyes.
I must, however, warn you in good conscience: this tale will, no doubt, test the limits of your psyche. So, I must ask you to suspend your disbelief until the tale is told. I cannot guarantee you will ever sleep soundly again, but, you will know the unbelievable truth which has stolen my sanity and placed me here under guarded supervision.
Before that fateful day, I had thoroughly studied Morton’s Tome with avid interest. As a long-range researcher, Morton’s Tome of the Season provided an invaluable resource the likes of which had never been seen before nor, I must suppose, will ever be seen again. Can you imagine a reference book for homicidal sociopaths written by a homicidal sociopath? This was no notebook of ranting against the machine of society, nor was it an incoherent catalog of instability. With an above-average IQ, Morton meticulously entered all thoughts, actions, and variables of each murder, down to any minute smell, taste, and touch he experienced. His view was frighteningly clinical; even his penmanship looked antiseptic, not obsessive. Words cannot express the terror of his analysis or the sheer horror of Morton’s accurate observations on the death of his victims. Honestly, Morton’s brilliance in notation and observation would shame the efforts of our most esteemed research colleagues.
This was also the opinion expressed by Dr. Lansing. That is why he allowed me to study the Tome as a precursor to meeting Morton. I believe the sheer immensity of the task at hand brought me into the fray. Perhaps it was the simple fact that Lansing needed an intellectual equal to back up his claims and save his reputation from the assertions he was about to make. Whatever the case, I should have politely denied him and continued my life in the blessed ignorance which will never again be mine.
Here, then, are the events of March 15th.
* * * * * *
Dr. Lansing and I arrived at Pleasant Glenn just before 6 PM. We were both in good spirits, anxious about our first in-depth interview with the man the media had dubbed the “Holiday Hacker.” We had discussed the Tome during the two-hour ride from the airport, and had formulated a strategy for interrogation of William James Morton. However, the strategy disintegrated once we occupied the room with this killer.
Morton was escorted into a room no bigger than the average living room, bound in a formidable straitjacket. His eyes were glassy, wide, darting; the epitome of a paranoid schizophrenic. He moved with shaky uncertainty, and, if not for the armed guard, would have certainly fallen into the table instead of being seated at it.
Lansing put on his psychiatrist’s hat and went to work.
“Good evening, William. My name is Dr. Lansing and this is Dr. Courtney. We’ve come to ask you a few questions. Would you mind?”
To this, Morton giggled and spat, “Your dime. Fire away.”
“We read your book, William,” Lansing continued. “Why did you write it?”
“For posterity, headshrinker. It don’t make no difference. Nothin’ does.” He began giggling like a schoolboy with a secret.
“What do you mean by that?” I piped in.
“I feel sorry for you assholes, I really do,” Morton said, rocking gently in his chair. “I’m gonna pay for what I did, but you, you don’t have a clue what’s gonna happen.”
“Maybe if you explained it to myself and Dr. Courtney we might be able to…”
“Save me?” Morton cut in. “I don’t think so, headshrinker. Can’t you smell the doom? Taste the fear?”
“Is it because of all the people you’ve murdered?” I asked.
A sneer of righteousness crossed his lips. “No, not cuz of all the people I killed.”
“Would you mind explaining what you mean?” said Lansing.
“You won’t believe a word of it, but that don’t matter. It’s gonna happen whether you believe me or not. But, I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ till you turn off those recorders. Agreed?”
We heeded his request and turned off our recorders. He simply smiled at the two of us and his eyes seemed to clear and his demeanor altered. The armed guard behind Morton leaned against the wall as if holding it up, oblivious to the conversation.
“It was the last expedition I underwent,” said Morton, “the Dennison family experiment. I am still sorry I did not have the time to record my observations.”
I found myself utterly without words as I listened to this madman speak without the previous trace of his drawl. His “new” verbal diction was measured, reflective; almost nonplussed. It was then an answer dawned on me for his abrupt and distinctive attitude alteration. The mystery of his 180-degree turn could be logically (and anti-climatically) explained. I jotted D.I.D. into my notebook and sighed in profound disappointment to such an obvious solution which the psychiatric community used to call multiple personality disorder.
“So it was one of the Dennisons you regret killing?” asked Lansing, as if he didn’t notice the change.
“Not for a moment.” Morton’s eyes sparkled. “Apparently, you forgot to read your paper on my aberrant behavior.”
Lansing shuffled uncomfortably in his chair without response. I quickly jumped into the fray. “What caused your radical behavioral change?”
“Any idiot with half the imagination can fake paranoia, get more attention and stricter supervision by his captors.” His voice was almost clinical in its approach. “A sociopath is simply locked into a cell, fed and watered as required by law, and forgotten. I cannot – will not – be casually erased from existence.”
“So you are perpetrating this ruse for attention?” scowled Dr. Lansing.
“For witnesses.”
“Why would you need witnesses?” I interjected.
“’Cause Santa Claus’s coming to town,” Morton sang, in a sickly sweet child’s voice.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“I killed the Jolly Fat Man,” he said flatly.
“What?” Lansing and I gasped in chorus.
“I butchered Kris Kringle, Old Man Winter, Saint Nick, whatever you choose to call It.”
“What do you mean by It?” I asked.
“Let me put it this way,” Morton began. I could see his calm, controlled demeanor begin to crumble like a glass house from a stone’s throw. “I have killed a lot of people. I know what dead is. In all of my research, I have never seen anything like It. I might be a sociopath, but I am not insane. I know the direct effect of all my actions and am totally aware of every child and mother I put in the ground. But, I will not be stalked by a figment of ceremonial imagination. When It comes for me, I want others to tell the tale. I will not be dismissed as some raving lunatic and have my observations shelved as another madman’s delusion.”
“Enlighten us,” Lansing asked, with a certain smugness.
Morton leaned forward on the table which caused the guard to lazily mutter, “Watch yerself, Morton. I’m only a step away from bustin’ yer ass.”
“I’m sure you are,” Morton dismissed the man. “It was Christmas Eve and I had just finished my experimentation on the children. By the way, did you know you can open a child’s jugular vein when they are sleeping, and they will continue sleeping into death, cradled in the warmth of their pooling blood? That is, unless you make noise or your instrument is not sharp enough.”
“Interesting,” Lansing said, clearly uninterested.
“Thank you, doctor.” Morton’s voice was less than gracious. I believe that was the moment he began to lose interest in Lansing’s presence and spoke directly to me.
“As I was saying, I had just completed my study and was busy leaving my calling card…”
“Defacing the Christmas decorations,” I supplied.
“Yes,” he nodded to me. “It was during my ceremonial defacing of the tree when I heard a large thump, like a pot roast hitting the counter from thirty feet.”
“Pot roast?”
“Yes; kind of a meaty plop.” He looked directly in my eyes. I could tell the story was an attempt to reaffirm his tentative grip on what he considered reality. “I turned around, expecting to find one of my victims in the survival category of willpower over wounding. Only ten percent do, you know.”
“Interesting theory,” Lansing offered, trying to re-establish his role in the conversation, “Could you offer more on this aspect?”
“No.” Morton dismissed Lansing and continued. “I turned to find a fat man in a red and white suit. Yes, he was covered in ashes and soot. Yes, he had a big, round belly, shaking like a bowl full of jelly. All the stereotypes were accurate.”
“Santa Claus?” the name escaped my mouth in reserved disbelief.
“In all his wonder.” Morton’s eyes began shifting to the barred window and back to me. “The fat abomination started to laugh like life was all hearts and flowers, and all the holidays I never had were in the past and meant to be forgotten. He had the audacity to glorify a celebration that the Christians stole from the Pagans, and capitalists stole from God Himself. So, I planted my scalpel in his chubby throat.”
“What?” My shock could not be contained.
“I knifed him,” he said, with a cool, triumphant smile, “and he had the nerve to spit out through the blood: ‘You’re being naughty’. He pulled the scalpel out and picked me up off my feet and said: ‘Santa doesn’t like naughty little boys and girls’. That tub of lard tossed me across the room like a rag doll.”
I remained silent; I had nothing to say to his unbelievable tale.
“You probably guessed that – irritated me.” He tried to shrug off the rest of the story, but it flowed from his lips like bitter wine. “The first thing that came to hand was the Christmas tree stand, which lay discarded among the remnants of light strands and broken bulbs. I used the stand to split Its head open like an overripe melon. By the time I was finished, Its head was a bloody bowl of red oatmeal. But, It tried to get up. Can you imagine my surprise and frustration?”
“No, I can’t,” I responded.
“Well, this was no experience a clinical man like myself was prepared to anticipate. I improvised, knocked It to the floor, severed Its head from Its body and got myself together to leave. Unfortunately, Santa had wasted valuable escape time. I was trapped. My mind tried to figure out what to do next. That’s when I heard a bloody gurgle behind me. Santa was on his feet, wagging a finger at me.” He stopped for a moment to regain his composure. “And, do you know what that bloated corpse said?”
“What?” droned Lansing.
“‘I’ll be back, you bad little boy,’ It said and then popped up the chimney and jingled off into the night.”
“And this is your explanation for your abrupt change in behavior?” Lansing scoffed. “I can smell fish stories from miles away. Do you truly think I will report this hogwash?”
“I don’t care what you do, you academic leech,” Morton growled.
“Why didn’t the police see Santa fleeing the scene? Wouldn’t they have been tipped off by Rudolph’s nose lighting the way?” Lansing taunted.
Morton turned to me, his eyes intense and focused. “I just needed a fellow colleague to listen and to know. I am surprised I have not been assassinated by now. I have spent too many nights wondering when my end will come. Now, it doesn’t matter if It comes for me; the story has been told. That is all.”
“Indeed,” sniffed Lansing, “I have never heard such…” Lansing trailed off, cocking his head like a collie to a dog whistle. “Do you hear bells?”
At this point, Jeffrey, reality crumbled. It was almost as if the terror was waiting for its cue to take the stage. The sweet sound of bells grew louder and louder as a red light from outside the window drew closer.
“Oh, shit! It found me!” It seemed Morton’s persona switched again and struggled within his bonds. “Let me out of this jacket, Goddammit!”
The outer wall of the interview room exploded noiselessly into the dark night, collapsing as if hit with a great, silent force from inside the room. The dust swirled about the gaping maw as three of the four of us stood frozen in place.
“It found me!” Morton shrieked as he pushed off his chair and tried to make himself small behind the interview table.
The guard broke from deep lethargy and pulled his gun. “Freeze, you sunnuva bitch!” He pointed the shaking weapon toward the hole in the wall.
From a sleek, red, levitating sleigh, two smallish men, roughly three feet tall, with pointed shoes and ears to match, grinned maniacally and quickly disembarked. The obscene jingling of their droopy, conical hats mocked the viciousness of their body language. They stood like doormen at the sides of the missing wall, leering wildly at the bewildered foursome.
“Which one?” called one of the little men in a shrill soprano.
We all held fast in pure horror as It stepped through the hole. It wore the suit of Santa and bounded from the sleigh with a jolly stride. All the myths were true except for Santa’s head. It was more an assembly of leftover parts from a slaughterhouse than a head with a pristine red hat. It looked like roadkill which had boiled on the unforgiving black asphalt for days. Jagged bone protruded from shredded, pulpy muscle, as a dark-stained beard revealed a ruptured orifice which could only be the mouth. It rasped in a voice of sandpaper and pain which pierced my very soul.
“Naughty!” It pointed a gloved finger at the hiding serial killer.
The men in green, elves I would presume, advanced on Morton, glaring.
“Am I invisible?” The guard barked, drawing back the hammer of his .40 caliber pistol, “Now back the fuck up! I won’t say it again!”
Faster than the mind could comprehend, one of the elves was upon him. Eyes wide with disbelief, the guard watched as the little man tore into his flesh like a rabid wolverine. The guard, I believe Carl was his name, found himself caught in the middle of an eruption of blood. His blood. Carl had the horrifying honor of watching himself being autopsied while still alive; his last memory was of his entrails sliding from his chest cavity and slapping the floor. He quickly collapsed to the gray-flecked institutional tile, cocked gun still in hand.
Finally, Lansing reacted: he vomited, spewing God’s name between each hasty exit of the day’s meal.
The two elves pounced on Morton, hauling him to his feet amidst his tearful protests. The elves clamped around his bound arms like a metal vice grip. This only increased Morton’s shrieking.
And what, you may ask, was I doing during all this? Nothing. No, that is not true; I was trying to escape to the part of the mind we psychologists claim comatose patients go when severely traumatized by life. My little place must have been closed for repairs, for I was forced to witness the hideous events that continued before my previously agnostic eyes.
Morton continued sobbing and rocked in his straitjacket, Lansing continued vomiting and taking the Lord’s name in vain, and I became a statue as the corrupted thing in the red suit advanced upon his elf-bookended victim. The thing’s head contorted in an expression which most likely was a smile amongst the shredded muscles of Its face. It lifted Morton’s tear-stained face with a gloved finger as if examining a slave soon to be auctioned.
“No, please, no, I’ll be a good boy,” Morton pleaded to mutilated ears. The elves giggled knowingly.
As if it were not surrealistic enough, Lansing came under control and tried asserting himself as the voice of reason. Can you imagine, Jeffrey? The old fool tried to rationalize with mythical characters in our unfathomable situation. I could smell death upon him even before he managed to spew his initial salvo of psycho-babble.
The elves released the whimpering Morton and focused on Dr. Lansing. Their movements would have shamed the best bodyguard or Secret Service agent as they swarmed Lansing.
“This situation has not become unsalvageable,” Lansing said, smiling at the three-foot gremlins. “Perhaps we can avoid any further unpleasantness if we can allow ourselves a moment of reflection?”
One of the elves came face to face with Lansing, listening to his words with a contemplative face. The first elf nodded agreeably and said in that squeaky soprano: “No.”
With the stealth of shadows, the second elf neatly penetrated Lansing’s back with a petite, clawed hand. The intrusion must have granted Lansing a form of anesthetic shock, for his face was less comprised of pain than of surprise. Whatever the case, Lansing fell to his knees immediately as I watched the demonic second elf playing tug-o-war with Lansing’s spinal column while the first elf continued to lock his gaze onto Lansing as if milking the suffering from the psychologist’s eyes. The tug-o-war was being lost, until the second elf put a foot on the doctor’s back and wrapped its fist around the exposed section of his spine. Effort redoubled, Lansing’s spine popped loudly then slid from his body with a wet, sucking sound. The little monsters briefly considered Lansing’s wide-eyed death mask, cackled gleefully and went back to their original target, ignoring my useless presence.
Maybe it was the dismissal of me as a harmless entity that awakened me. Vanity has always been a great motivator in our profession. It was as if the magical inner button had been switched off, for my senses returned. I was wrapped in raging anger for the first time in my life and it was my assertion that these abominations of nature needed to be brought to justice. At least, I prefer to think my motives were purely altruistic instead of triggered through selfish preservation.
My first thought was of my need for a weapon. I then remembered the guard’s unfired gun. I mustered my courage and walked slowly toward Carl’s mutilated body and my only salvation. They continued to ignore me, preferring to get the pleading Morton under control. I retrieved the heavy weapon without incident. Until that day, the thought of firing a weapon repulsed me; yet I was beyond the point of moral justification. My clinical world was at an end and I was determined to survive the brave new world into which I had been so unceremoniously thrust.
The unreality that was the three interlopers blanketed the sobbing Morton. “Naughty!” repeated the abhorrent Santa, as his mitten-clothed hands reached for the pristine red hat on its mutilated head.
“Naughty,” I quietly mumbled. Actually, I believe I giggled as I said it.
It was that giggle which alerted the elves. Both of the little green monsters spun on their heels and faced me like a western showdown. I did not mix hyperbole, I simply pulled the trigger. The gun roared, catching one of the elves in its slender neck. In fact, the .40 bullet nearly severed the elf’s head. It sputtered some ancient gibberish and fell to the ground, twitching.
Unfortunately, the remaining elf was quickly upon me; rather, upon my leg. It lashed out with its savage claws, removing my patella with near-surgical precision, as if it were an old-fashioned bottle cap. Pain exploded across my being, yet this was not the time to recognize my shortcomings. I fell backwards and struck the unforgiving institution floor. I scarcely had the opportunity to blink before the little creature was upon my chest, set to strike the killing blow.
“Dead!” it shrieked, raising a gore-soaked talon.
“Yes,” I smiled.
I almost experienced a moment of pity for the little elf as it felt the gun barrel dig into its crotch. Almost. At close range, the bullet shredded through the elf, throwing its lithe body across the room.
Believe me when I say this, Jeffrey; If I were you, I would be wearing the same disbelieving expression. Sometimes, in the silence of night, I, myself, have cause to doubt all that occurred in that antiseptic room at Pleasant Glenn. Yet I cannot escape the conclusion. In the immortal words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.
Here, then, is the most improbable fate of William James Morton.
I struggled to my feet, the table a proper crutch to my shattered leg. Though it seemed like an eternity, I had dispatched Santa’s helpers in a matter of seconds. I, unfortunately, did not miss the horror unfolding between Morton and the shredded Santa.
Excluding the appearance of Its head, the scene played out innocently: the obese dead thing removed the hat. To this, the straitjacketed Morton bellowed and squirmed like a worm on a hook. Santa calmly placed the hat upon Morton’s head and chuckled, “Ho, ho, ho!”
Never had I heard a cry of such torment and terror as I heard that day, nor do I ever wish to hear it again. My blood ran cold as the Holiday Hacker, bound and helpless, called to a God he never believed in while the abhorrent creature offered a grotesque, gurgling chuckle.
I raised my weapon, not knowing what I could do against his terrified screams.
“Kill me!” Morton’s eyes locked to mine. “Kill me before it’s too late!”
I leveled the gun at his head; the corpse Santa made no motion to stop me.
“Please, please, please!” Morton cried. “I can feel it! Hurry!”
I swallowed hard and squeezed the trigger. To this day, I do not know if I was too late or if the bullet would have had any effect had I delivered it sooner. Needless to say, I placed a bullet hole neatly in the middle of Morton’s forehead. The bullet hole puckered, diminished and sealed the flesh of his forehead as the manic terror in Morton’s eyes swelled.
The metamorphosis had begun.
Before my eyes, the smallish frame of William James Morton expanded. Along with growing girth, his facial features softened, losing the terrified sociopath in puffy cheeks. His face erupted in white tufts hair, with the hair upon his head lengthening in a shocking snowy white. His restraints melted into a thick red blouse with matching pants as bare feet became shod in shiny black boots.
During this transformation, the thing that was Santa deflated like a balloon slowly losing air. When It hit the cold floor, Morton rose to his feet. No, it was no longer William James Morton.
“Ho, ho, ho!” it roared, jelly-belly and all.
As if on cue to this battle cry, the dead elves exploded, showering the room in large, cottony snowflakes.
It was at this point my mind decided it had truly seen enough. I fell to the floor and began laughing as I tried to catch a snowflake or two upon my proffered tongue. I wondered to myself how many I could catch before I bled to death.
The new Santa looked at me for a moment and patted me on the head. “Now you be a good little boy.” He offered a wink, thumbed his nose and through the blasted portal he rose.
Once through the hole in the wall, the crumbled bricks reformed and jumped backed into place, resealing the room as if the intrusion never happened.
My memories pick up in the hospital as an attending doctor told me I would most likely never walk again. I remember my comment being slightly sarcastic, but I cannot remember what I said. It really does not matter at this point.
* * * * * *
So, Jeffrey, am I insane? Oh, don’t look at me that way. I know, only an insane person could create such a fantastic world to play a scenario such as this. If only the evidence did not exist to the contrary, eh? The psychiatric community will play it off as an extreme psychotic episode from a man who has worked too closely to his subjects. The local law enforcement, unwilling to advertise multiple grisly homicides, will be more than happy to agree and quietly close the case.
However, before I am escorted back to my padded room, consider this: We, as a society, look to insane explanations to rationalize those topics which we personally do not wish to breach. Babies come from a benevolent stork, weather balloons cross the globe as UFOs, the son of God relieves the weight of personal sin by ritualistic torture and eventual death.
In this pantheon, my greatest fear is reserved for a creature that keeps track of our morals, rewarding or punishing us for being nice or naughty. A beast that prays only upon the most innocent of our culture: children. A being which, despite the security alarms and fences, is allowed to enter our house and is given unrestricted access to our inner sanctum. We do not question his valor or mission, we simply expect this modern icon to perform in a righteous manner. But, I must ask, what if this creature is not here for our mythical amusement? What if, like the old wives’ tales of cats who steal childrens’ sleeping breath, Old Saint Nick has an ulterior, sinister motive?
You know, Jeffrey, the suicide rate for Christmas is staggeringly higher than any other time of the year. Coincidence? Have we, in fact, unleashed a terror into our normal lives that sustains itself with supernatural malfeasance? Now, more than ever, I remain skeptical.
No matter. I believe I shall never leave this place. I have seen too much and perhaps said too much. My advice to you, dear Jeffrey?
You better watch out, you better not cry. You better not pout, I’m telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town.
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I am a chronic sleep talker. Always have been. Everyone who’s ever slept in the same house as me will tell you that. My parents, siblings, friends, and especially my exes. They’re the ones who got an ear-full. It was something we’d laugh about in the morning, because most of what I’d say would be incoherent or nonsensical. Some of my famous lines included, “There’s too many helicopters in the pool!” and “My balloon’s on the wrong foot.” It never bothered anyone around me; my friends and family pretty much just got a kick out of it.
One day at work, the subject of sleeping came up. My co-workers threw stories back and forth about some of their weirdest dreams. I chimed in with my sleep-talking antics. Everyone laughed as I raddled off some of the crazier shit I’ve said while zonked. One of my co-workers, Bill, really busted a gut. After he finished hyper-ventilating, he told me that I should set up a voice recorder while I sleep so I can play it back at work every morning. Honestly, I didn’t think it was a bad idea.
That night, I downloaded a decent voice recording app on my phone and placed it on my nightstand before I went to bed. Being single and living alone, I had no way of knowing what I said in my sleep anymore, so I was looking forward to hearing what it would pick up. It would be a humorous way to start my otherwise dull mornings.
For two months I recorded a lot of great stuff. One night in particular, I kept screaming, almost as if I was running from something in my dream, but after a few minutes I said, “Bad fridge!” I couldn’t stop laughing at that one. Neither could my co-workers when I showed them.
Eventually, the app picked up something unsettling. Listening to the audio for any trace of funny banter I might find, I heard a loud bang. It sounded like a door being slammed shut with great force. Hearing that, my heart sank. I wondered if an intruder had made their way into my home.
My house is a small cottage on the outskirts of town. I was able to get it at a great price due to its location and age. As such, some of its components are antiquated. I knew after hearing the recording that the only two doors sturdy enough to make that loud of a thud were that of the attic and the basement.
Basements and attics have always freaked me out. Never liked to go near them as a kid, and I still don’t as an adult. They kind of terrify me. The ones in my house, even more so. Something about them being old made them all the more sinister.
Despite my fear, I had to make sure no one was in the house. I got up out of bed and headed straight for the basement, as that was the door closest to my bedroom. I hesitantly opened the door and descended into my home’s depths. I was nervous, but I was desperate for some peace of mind.
The basement… was empty.
I quickly ran back up to the first floor and proceeded to journey upstairs. Once I reached the attic door, I froze. As much as basements make my skin crawl, I find attics to be far worse. Maybe it was because they were always a big unknown to me. I had only ever been in an attic once my whole life and that was to help my dad unload some Christmas decorations. Even then, I was spooked.
Because of my phobia, I installed a dead bolt on the door when I moved in. It sounds foolish, but hey, it helps me sleep at night. Looking at the door, I noticed that the dead bolt was still locked. An intruder could have gone in and then re-locked it on their way out, but at least I knew they weren’t in there anymore. This was my excuse not to go inside. I went back downstairs and put the noise out of my mind.
Forgetting all about the loud bang, I continued to record at night in the hopes of catching more sleep-talking. I did, but it wasn’t of the hilarious, absurd variety. The night after I recorded the noise, the only thing I said the whole night was, “Where are you?” I didn’t pay it any mind, as I’ve said similar things in my sleep before. It wasn’t until I heard the following night’s recording that I became alarmed. I said the same thing, “Where are you?”, only this time it was followed by a strange, static sound. This was odd, but I chalked it up to coincidence and a phone malfunction.
I quickly discovered that neither of these things were to blame.
Every night after, I got almost the same exact thing. I would ask, “Where are you,” and then I’d get some sort of static interference. I couldn’t explain it, and it left me rather frazzled. I showed my co-workers, but they weren’t able to offer me any insight. I thought about not recording anymore, but not knowing would make me more uneasy. I wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on.
And then, one night, I caught something different. Listening to the audio intently, I heard two distinct things. During a two minute stretch in the recording, there were footsteps in the background, almost as if someone was pacing. It was very faint, but it was most certainly there. The second thing I heard was me asking the same question, “Where are you,” only this time I received a response. It was a low whisper, but I could make out what it said.
“I’m upstairs.”
***
Deeply unnerved by my findings, I set up the app again the next night. I also took the liberty of setting up two digital cameras; one in my room, and one facing the attic door. After adjusting the light settings on each, I felt confident in my approach. I didn’t have time to deal with this bullshit, so I wanted nothing more than to get it sorted out, somehow. Unfortunately for me, it just wasn’t that simple.
I slept through the night, like normal, but I did have a weird dream.
In my dream, I was at home. I was sitting on my couch watching TV when I heard a scratching sound coming from upstairs. Naturally, I assumed it was mice, but as I sat there, the noise grew louder and louder. It eventually morphed into a horrendous knocking sound. That’s when I got up to investigate.
I made my way up to the attic door and the noises ceased. I stood there for a moment, expecting it to start up again, but it didn’t. Complete silence for what felt like a few minutes. Then, without warning, a loud clicking sound broke the tension. The deadbolt had unlocked itself. And that’s when I woke up to the sound of my alarm going off.
I immediately got up and gathered the cameras, as well as my phone. I was eager to see if they’d captured anything. They did, but it only left me with more questions.
Halfway through the audio on both my phone and the camera in my room, I heard once again, “Where are you?” There was no response and no static, but there was a loud bang, just like the one I’d caught before, only more distinct. It was most certainly a door being slammed shut. I quickly grabbed the second camera and began looking through the footage. The attic door never opened. Instead, I heard the bang in the background, ever so faintly. Given the volume in each of the clips, it seemed as though it might have been the basement door. After skimming through the rest of the footage and finding nothing else out of the ordinary, I decided to check the basement again.
With a mixture of nerves and adrenaline, I ran over to the basement door and swung it open. I hurried downstairs and turned the light on. I was fed up and a little annoyed, thinking someone was somehow having a laugh at my expense. However, when the room lit up, I was greeted with the familiar sight of an unfurnished basement. It was completely empty. No intruder and no answers.
Frustrated, I went off to work and tried to keep my mind off of my odd dilemma. That proved to be a difficult task. I kept playing out different scenarios in my head during the work day, but nothing made sense. The only logical, though somewhat illogical explanation that I could come up with, was that I was being harassed by a spirit. I didn’t want to give in to that notion, but I was running out of ideas.
I tried to talk with my co-workers again, in the hopes that they would tell me it was nothing to worry about. Instead, I received the opposite. One of my co-workers told me to call the cops and have them look through the house for signs of a break-in. Another told me I should stay at a friend’s house. Bill told me to abandon the house and run for the hills. He was only joking, but it didn’t make me feel any better about the matter.
Things took a turn for the bizarre when I arrived home that day.
Opening the front door to the cottage, I stepped in and set my jacket down on the couch. I then plopped down in an attempt to unwind. Immediately after sitting, I heard the bang again. It was clear as day. It was the same sound from the audio and footage, but this time I was hearing it in person.
I jumped up and looked straight ahead at the basement door. You could see it from the couch – it had been in my line of sight the entire time. Though I hadn’t been looking directly at it, I was fairly certain it hadn’t moved. Still, the bang definitely came from that direction. Spooked but curious, I decided to check it out.
I walked over cautiously and examined the door. There was no indication that it had been slammed shut. The wood around the door was pristine, and the floor below had not been scraped. I opened it and trotted down the old, creaky stairs to investigate the basement for a third time. After reaching the bottom, I turned the light on. I expected to see nothing, just as I had before. While scanning the room left to right, nothing is mostly what I saw. After doing a double take, however, I realized that something was amiss.
Off, in the center of the far wall, was a door. This sent a chill up my spine. My basement had no doors. That I was sure of. I knew this before purchasing the place almost a year ago, when I first took the grand tour. I also didn’t see the door when I went down there that morning or the other day. It didn’t make a lick of sense.
I walked towards it, bewildered. I wasn’t sure of the door’s origins, but I knew that it had to be the cause of the sounds I’d been hearing. There was no other explanation. As I approached the impossibility before me, I realized something that made my skin crawl. I recognized the wood, the design, and the deadbolt.
It was the attic door.
I didn’t want to open it, for fear of what might be lurking behind. Instead, I ran upstairs and checked to see if the attic door was still there; the actual one. It was indeed. I then ran back downstairs into the basement, only to find that the door down there had vanished. Had I merely imagined its presence?
Thinking I had gone completely mad, I went back upstairs and sat down on the couch. My mind was running haywire, trying to comprehend things, but it eventually gave in to its own weariness. I ended up taking a short nap, and that’s when I had another weird dream.
This dream was similar to the one I had before. I was sitting on the couch, watching TV, when I heard a scratching noise. The only difference was, it was coming from the basement, rather than the attic. It too progressed and turned into a voracious knocking that I couldn’t ignore. As such, I got up from the couch and went downstairs to put a stop to it.
In my dream, the basement was empty. No mysterious door in sight. That, and the knocking and scratching ceased upon my entrance. At my wit’s end, I went back upstairs. The sound then returned with a vengeance, only this time, it was coming from the attic again. I ran up there as fast as I could, but the noise stopped. I waited. Following the narrative of my previous dream, the deadbolt clicked, signaling that the door had unlocked itself. Unlike my previous dream, however, the door opened up a bit and a hand reached out from within. That’s when I woke up.
I wrote the first dream off as the byproduct of an over-stressed mind, but to have it reoccur? That wasn’t ordinary, at least not for me. Between the door in my basement and my strange nightmares, I was a mess. Both perplexed and frightened, I called my friend John.
John is an eccentric fellow. He’s the kind of guy who believes in UFOs, ghosts, conspiracy theories, the occult, and other things of that nature. Not only does he believe in them, but he studies them. He knows more about Roswell than I do about myself. Being a skeptic, I always thought the massive amount of information he retained was borderline useless. I changed my mind about that after seeing my attic door pop up in my basement. If anyone could help, or at least steer me in the right direction, it was him.
I spoke with John for a couple of hours. He was ecstatic after hearing about my experience. He began rattling off all of the different things he thought it might indicate. Some of his theories included a wormhole, a gateway to the other side, and even a glitch (one of the many theories that he subscribes to is that the world we live in is a simulation). He told me that he couldn’t be completely certain about what it was without seeing it for himself. Unfortunately, he lives too far away to just stop by and visit.
Instead of leaving me empty-handed, John gave me some advice on what to do next. After telling him about the voice I captured and the dreams I’d been having, he started leaning towards the ghost idea. He thought it might be trying to communicate with me. Because of this, he told me I should set up the voice recorder in the basement and ask the spirit some questions. I could play back the recording after and listen for the voice. John said that I should do it in the attic as well.
Though weary of his methods, I told him I’d try it out. After all, I couldn’t just sit around and expect the situation to resolve itself. I didn’t like the idea of going up into the attic by myself, but I needed to do something.
After getting off the phone, I immediately put his plan into action. The basement would have to be first, as I was still apprehensive about going upstairs.
I set up the app and put my phone on the basement floor. I proceeded to ask questions, leaving enough space in between for someone… or something to answer. I asked for normal things like its name, its age, and what it wanted. After roughly five minutes of interrogation, I stopped the recording and played it back.
I must’ve listened to my own voice a million times, hoping for anything audible to present itself. To my dismay, I caught nothing of the sort. It seemed as though the attic would indeed have to be my next venture.
I reluctantly climbed the stairs up to the attic door. I looked at it for a few moments, took a deep breath, and unlocked the deadbolt. I opened the door and braced myself.
There was nothing there, save for the previous owner’s belongings.
When I first purchased the house, I had to do a little bit of renovating, so to speak. The owner before me had no cable, electricity, or proper plumbing. On top of that, they left all of their stuff behind. I had most of it removed, but left everything that was in the attic. I had no need for the space, and I didn’t want to put any more money into emptying the house than I had to.
I perused through the attic’s wares for a bit, curious as to what it was that I technically owned. Some of the interesting items that stood out to me were an old postcard from Paris, a strange-looking dog collar, and a book on witchcraft. The fear set in while going through the contents of my new collection. The angled ceiling, antiques, and large window overlooking my yard did give the place a dose of charm, but I still didn’t like attics.
I quickly hit the record button on the app and set my phone on the floor. I asked the same questions as before, but didn’t leave as much space in between as I really wanted to get the hell out of there. Before stopping the recording, I had a thought. Perhaps the spirit would respond if I asked it the same question that I did in my sleep.
I cleared my throat and asked, “Where are you?”
After asking the final question, I stopped the recording and played it back. It sounded almost identical to the one I’d recorded in the basement, complete with a lack of answers. That is, until the very end. After I asked the last question, I heard a familiar, low whisper.
“Behind you.”
After hearing this reply, I immediately turned around. There was nothing there. Despite this, I hightailed it downstairs. That eerie voice reinforced my phobia of attics and instilled in me an indescribable dread. I could no longer bear to be in that house by myself.
I called John again and begged him to help me out. I told him I’d give him the gas money for the 8-hour round trip. He was reluctant at first, knowing that he’d have to spend the night and call out from work the next morning. Curiosity got the best of him in the end. After much deliberation, he agreed to come over.
I waited for John in my car. While sitting there, I couldn’t help but examine my house. I began asking myself questions, like is it really haunted, do ghosts really exist, and my favorite, is this what my life has come to? Though the questions were speculative and rhetorical, I pretty much knew the answers. As I gazed towards the house in disappointment, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.
It was a silhouette, standing at the attic window.
Holy shit. What the fuck. What do I do?
Those were the only retorts that crossed my mind after seeing the shadowy figure. After a few moments of staring, the figure stepped back from the window, completely out of sight. I sat and pondered about it for a few minutes after its departure.
In a moment of bravery, I chose to go back in the house and up to the attic. Crazy, I know, but it’s my house, and I needed to show this thing that I wasn’t interested in playing its games – even if I was scared shitless. Besides, John would have my head if I didn’t follow the damned thing.
Feeling confident, but still shaky, I ventured up into the attic. I swung the door open without hesitation and waltzed in like I owned the place. After all, I did. The attic was void of any ghostly figures, but it did harbor the faint scent of candle wax. Unsure of how to proceed, I started talking in a loud and firm tone.
“This isn’t your house. I’m tired of your bullshit games, spirit. I demand that you leave at once!”
I knew this wasn’t going to work, but it was almost cathartic. I felt a hell of a lot better fighting back. I walked around the attic, satisfied with my rant, thinking that I had actually conquered my fear. My smug demeanor wouldn’t last more than a few moments.
Soon after I spoke, a gust of wind blew through the attic and hit me like a bus. Nearly knocked me over. I knew it was the ghost’s doing. I tried to stand my ground, but I was pretty damn frightened. I watched as everything around me flew about, creating a tornado of mementos and keepsakes. I was about to retreat, when I noticed something that hadn’t budged an inch. It was the book on witchcraft that I’d seen before. Upon noticing it, the wind inexplicably stopped and everything fell to the floor. I walked over to the book, curious as to why it remained stationary. As I did, it opened up on its own. It was startling, but I somehow sensed no malice. I was coming around to the fact that the ghost might really be trying to communicate with me.
The page the book landed on was a spell. The whole thing was in Latin, but from what I could make out, it had something to do with growing plants. Confused, I reached out to the ghost for help.
“What do you want me to do?”
After asking the question, the attic door slammed shut. I thought for a moment and gathered that it wanted me to recite the spell in the attic. I was still confused, but somehow calm. It felt as though I was helping the spirit in some way.
Before I could read from the book, my phone went off. It was a text from John:
“So, so sorry. I can’t make it out there. My boss won’t give me the day off tomorrow and I’m not sure my car will make it there and back. It desperately needs new tires and I won’t be able to buy those until Friday. Give me a call back then and I’ll see what I can do. Good luck.”
Fuck.
Even though I wasn’t freaking out anymore, it was nice knowing that someone was on their way to my house, just in case things went sour. I didn’t like it, but I was on my own. I accepted this, and turned my attention back to the book. It was time to deliver the spell.
I cleared my throat and began reciting the text in the book. I took Latin in college, and although I didn’t retain all the information, I knew enough to make the proper pronunciations. Even still, I stumbled over my words during certain parts. Because of this, I had to restart a couple of times. I wanted to get it right, especially if it was truly what the ghost wanted.
After finishing the spell flawlessly (for the most part), the attic door opened. I walked out with the book in hand, wondering if everything was over. When I reached the bottom step and turned around the corner, it became quickly apparent that it wasn’t. The basement door was wide open.
I was in uncharted territory, taking orders from a ghost, but I hoped I was following along alright. Seeing the basement door ajar convinced me that I probably needed to recite the spell down there as well. I still wasn’t sure why, but it felt like this was the spirit’s will. As such, I obliged.
I walked down into the basement with the book and turned the light on. A quick glance around revealed that I was alone and that there was no door. I cleared my throat once again and began reciting the spell, word for word. Honestly, I was a little excited. It felt like I was doing something productive about my ghost problem, and that it might actually help put it to rest. This time, I got it right on the first try.
Upon finishing the spell in the basement, the house began shaking. When I say the house, I mean the whole house, basement and all. I ‘d never experienced an earthquake before, but it seemed like the only logical explanation for what was happening. It wasn’t until I looked around the room during the madness, that I realized it was the spell’s doing.
There, on the far wall, shaking with the rest of the house, was the attic door. I wondered if the spell had somehow summoned it, simultaneously causing the house to wobble. The tremor eventually stopped, and I was left with the door, lending credence to my theory. I waited for a few minutes, thinking the door would open, but it did not. It seemed that I would have to do that myself. I wasn’t too happy about it, but I’d come too far to back out now.
I gathered my wits and walked over to the door. I proceeded to swing it open, without fear, just as I had upstairs. Behind the door was a surprise.
It was the attic. The attic, upstairs. Everything was the same, only there was a man standing at the window. Hearing me open the door, he turned around. His eyes widened when he saw me. He ran so fast in my direction that I didn’t even have enough time to take more than a single step back. He rushed through the doorway and into the basement. He turned back around and slammed the attic door shut, making sure to lock the deadbolt. He turned to me, grabbed my shoulders, and looked me dead in the eye. I was baffled and scared for my life.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! Thank you so much!”
After expressing his thanks, the man let go of me and ran upstairs, but not before turning back around and offering me some advice.
“Whatever you do, don’t go in there!”
He gestured toward the attic door before bolting upstairs. I ran after him, wanting to ask some questions, but when I got upstairs, it was already too late. My front door was open, and I could see him running down the dirt road towards town.
And that was that. I’ve slept every night since then with no noises or paranormal issues whatsoever. I even set up the cameras and voice recorder a few times to make sure. They didn’t catch a damned thing. I don’t know what the hell happened, but I am sure of one thing. The man that came out from behind the attic door was no ghost. It was a living, breathing person.
(Click HERE to learn more about the man in the attic)
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WRITTEN BY: Christopher Maxim (Contact • Other Stories • Subreddit)
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Grynnwald grabbed his son by his beaten breastplate and shook the hysterical young man, slamming him against a massive oak tree, nearly unleashing the chest-piece in the process.
“Haurik!” he screamed desperately trying to break through the panic. “Compose yourself!” It took a moment for Haurik to fall silent, save the hyperventilation and accompanying sobs, and Grynnwald could see him returning to the man he was…the man he raised him to be.
“Haurik?” He repeated, this time with a deserved compassion. The hell they had gone through was nothing he would have wished on any man, let alone his son; he was damn proud of the young knight. Haurik nodded, his breathing slowly returning to normal and Grynnwald embraced him causing their armour and chainmail to clank together.
“I’m sorry father,” Haurik whispered as they hugged. His father pulled him back while still holding his shoulders and locked himself into the younger man’s gaze. Those eyes…it was so hard sometimes to look into his eyes and not see the child that he used to bounce on his knees. At times like these, however, those thoughts had to be put as far from his mind as possible. Seeing his son like he was now, bloody and worn from battle, there needed to be a firm distinction between the two images and Grynnwald never quite found the balance. It was both a blessing and a burden to have his son fighting by his side.
“You have no call for apologies, my son. I need only to know that my lead knight has returned to me.” Haurik nodded emphatically and Grynnwald knew the young man was back with him. It was not as though the histrionics weren’t warranted. The quest bestowed by their king had become more perilous than any had imagined. With the five kingdoms on the verge of war, they had expected some light opposition, perhaps; but nothing along the lines of the Black Knight who had been pursuing them from day one.
The Black Knight was both a boogeyman tale to keep children in their beds at night as well as a reality so much worse than any parent could dream of. A ghastly specter in his black, onyx-line suit of armour, no one had ever seen his face…or lived to tell about it. Aligned with evil spirits and steeped in black-magic, he was known to travel with a variety of hideous, mutated creatures he called his “war-beasts”. There were the army of “hell-pigs” the Black Knight resurrected from the long extinct Entelodonts, the pre-historic version of which were mostly herbivores. These, however, were bred with a thirst for blood and were particularly useful when tracking over long distances.
They were only the start. The Black Knight used his demonic magic to create all number of mutated and previously nonexistent creatures from a type of “murder-monkey” with three inch fangs and razor-sharp claws which would swing through the trees above their victims and rain hell down upon them. The “hell-dogs” bore a closer resemblance to something from the Jurassic period than actual dogs. Probably most feared of them all would be the bats. It was unknown if the Black Knight had a clever name for them but they were definitely big and scary, often displaying wing spans of ten feet in length and known to fly off with prey as large as horses.
All in all, the Black Knight and his army were well known in all five kingdoms but rarely, if ever, actually seen. Grynnwald was certain his king would have never anticipated the myth coming to life over the course of the quest he had assigned. He had placed the container with the scroll in Grynnwald’s hands personally.
“Sir Knight,” the king had said, “This is of the utmost importance and that is why I’m sending you and your order of knights; I trust no one else to the task. The kingdoms are in turmoil and this will go a long way to effort our kingdom. Place it in King Wyndemere’s hands only. Do you understand?” Grynnwald had. Wyndemere had been a powerfully ally in the past and it only made sense to combine their efforts once again. That had to be what the king wanted but it might be even more important than that…as the pursuit made them believe.
Grynnwald and his knights were nine total, the Order of the Lance, and were in the king’s favor, generally considered the greatest fighters in the kingdom and the most frequently assigned to protect the king and queen themselves. Their abilities and bravado were unparalleled and before the quest began any one of them, with a pint of ale in their gut, would boast of the Black Knight not standing a chance in their presence…were he more than a fairy-tale, that was. If became fairly clear that wasn’t the case, however, and now the only two left living were firm believers.
The first two died in an ambush that came in the middle of the night as they made camp. Caught completely unawares, the vicious hell-pigs tore into the group as they slept, killing two immediately, and then another two who sacrificed themselves for the rest to escape. Had they not, the entire order would have been slaughtered. At one point, in an attempt to elude, Sir Latimore’s horse lost her balance on the side of a mountain plummeting them both to the distant ground and unfortunate graves.
Later that same day, still doing their best to conceal themselves from the hellish army pursuing them, they lost Sir Vanyimir to, of all things, quick-sand. With no one even noticing, the brave knight sank stoically to his death without making a sound, not wanting to give away their hiding spot. The death was heart-breaking, there was no doubt, but it wasn’t nearly as emotionally devastating as that of Sir Gilliaunt’s. Claymore Gilliaunt was the same age as Haurik and the two young men had been nearly inseparable since they were old enough to run.
Clay’s only mistake was to touch an arrow. He literally did no more than pick up one of the Black Knight’s arrows from the ground and toss it aside. He had no way of knowing…none of them could have; but they knew now. There were rumors about the broad-sword the demon carried and now they knew that extended to the arrows as well. The recognizably black arrows were coated in a dried poison harvested from a million Vicca spiders, easily the strongest poison in all five kingdoms and such that it need only touch the skin to begin working.
In the two hours that followed that unfortunate incident Clay deteriorated to a state which saw him crying for relief. It was Haurik that provided that relief and his mental state had been skewered ever since. On occasion, there were certain things that true friendship dictated one must do…thing that one should never actually be made to do. What might seem to be a moment of mercy for one man could end up as a life-time of torment for the other. Grynnwald had hoped that wouldn’t be the case for his son.
The final loss before it was just the two of them was perhaps the biggest blow to the mission itself. Sir Brutinea Thiscane was lovingly referred to simply as “Brute” and Brute was, hands down, Grynnwald’s most valuable piece on the battlefield. An absolute mountain of a man, Brute’s weapon of choice was his unbelievably heavy battle-axe which could separate five men from their bodies with one swing; but that was no concession towards his abilities with other weapons. Brute was blessed with the ability to take life and he took many, many lives before forfeiting his own.
That happened only hours before and very close to the thick forest where they now took refuge. The three of them were approaching the wooded area with as much speed as their exhausted and malnourished steeds would carry them when they were set upon from both sides by the Black Knight’s cavalry. When it became apparent they would be unable to outrun the six riders closing the distance, Brute leapt from his horse, placing himself in their path.
With wordless acknowledgment, Grynnwald and Haurik hurried on. Brute would give them as much time as possible to escape, even at the cost of his own life…a cost he was made to pay. The first two riders to meet him were cleaved from their horses with two swings while the beasts scampered off. The next two were dispatched with relative ease as well, a small pile of body parts beginning to build around him before the fifth horseman arrived. Brute swung his axe at an angle which, while killing the rider, managed to become stuck in the horse’s spine. The beast squealed in pain as Brute struggled to pull the weapon free. He had just about gotten it out too when a blade slid through his neck, decapitating him.
Grynnwald and Haurik had gotten away and now, while their horses drank thirstily from the only stream they could find, they tried their best to gather themselves. Their armour, beaten and caked with blood and dirt, was really no more than shredded chainmail, breastplates and shin-guards anyway, both having lost their helmets and various plates along the way.
From just above the trees they could see the rising pillars of smoke that were emanating from the Castle Wyndemere pyres. They were so close now. All they had to do was get to the other side of this damnable forest and they would be close enough to the castle to signal for re-enforcements. Were the Black Knight himself to meet them on the other side it was highly unlikely that even he would want to tangle with the entire might of Wyndemere. They just had to get there.
Grynnwald could understand his son’s desire to lose himself to emotion. They had suffered so much loss. The Order of the Lance were more than just his men to command; they were his brothers to die for. In the last three days they had lost the closest family either of them would ever know, barring their own relationship and the losses hung heavy on their hearts. Falling to one’s knees and crying hysterically felt like the more appropriate response to what they were feeling but that wasn’t a luxury a knight of the royal army was afforded.
They had sworn blood oaths to the service of both the king and the kingdom. The message they were carrying and, in turn, the quest itself, was important to the king and therefore it was important to them. They owed their lives to the knighthood and its centuries of tradition and were they to die in battle…no more honorable death could have been asked. So they would push through; these were the moments that defined a man.
The horses, while still hungry, satiated their thirst and the iron-clad father and son made their way back to the trail. There was a legitimate fear that their beasts of burden would not make it all the way; they had been ridden, very nearly, to the point of death. The stretch of forest they needed to traverse, while not exactly accommodating, wasn’t too far…given the distance they had already traveled. The problem wasn’t how far they needed to go.
They realized almost immediately after getting back to the trail, the problem was going to be those damn murder-monkeys. The knights could hear their simian, “Ooohf, ooohf,” and see their black, shadowy forms swinging through the canopies above them. They urged their mounts with unprecedented urgency and the faithful stallions, Lancelot and Arthur, gave the men everything they had. Grynnwald knew the effort would probably kill the horses but there were things at stake greater than all their lives. The steeds ran like the devil was behind them, unfortunately, the devils were above them and their efforts just weren’t enough.
Rocks and sticks and things much worse than either began to rain down on them with painful intensity. Grynnwald could feel Lancelot’s muscles begin to weaken beneath his legs. The noble creature wanted to give him more…but there was no more to give and he began to slow. It wasn’t much, just a bit, but it was enough; a savage primate dropped onto Lancelot’s back behind him and began flailing at Grynnwald’s back and head. The majority of the blows struck iron back-plate before the knight could fling the miserable ape off the horse but one well-placed slice from the razor-blade claws managed to peel away a generous portion of scalp from the top of his head.
The hair and skin, still attached on one side, began flapping around in what could, at best, have been called…irritating. The adrenaline subsided any pain but the blood that began to flow down his forehead and into his eyes was becoming a real detriment. Still holding the reigns with one hand, Grynnwald tried to wipe away enough blood to see with the other…as well as mushing the patch of hair back down. That damn flapping!
They could just see the archway of light that represented the forest’s exit when a stone the size of an orange struck Lancelot in the side of the head, instantly killing the horse and sending Grynnwald flying forward through the air, flapping hair and all. Haurik caught the carnage in his periphery and spun Arthur back around to get his father. Grynnwald, with tactical instincts, tossed the scroll to the young knight. He was, after all, the only one with a horse and therefore the best chance for the quest’s success.
“Now go!” Grynnwald screamed, waving his son on from beneath a hail-storm of monkey missiles. Haurik went nowhere, however, and only waited with his arm extended to his father.
“Just go! Complete the quest.” Haurik had returned to his stoic demeanor and only waited patiently for the older man to realize he wasn’t going anywhere without him. It must have been plain in his eyes because Grynnwald, in a bad tactical decision, mounted Arthur behind his son and the two made way to the edge of the forest. The monkey’s got off a few extremely painful parting shots but the men were able to cross the threshold of green into the open meadow.
The horizon held Castle Wyndemere and both men breathed a small sigh of relief at the sight of it. The sensation, however, was short lived. Running parallel to the tree-line, a single rider was approaching them with unbridled speed. The silhouette was as distinctive as it was terrifying; it was the Black Knight. Black armour with a spiked helmet sitting upon the largest, black horse either of them had ever seen; it was like watching a nightmare come to life: the grim reaper himself.
Haurik spurred Arthur into as much speed as the poor animal could muster under the weight of two and the men knew it wasn’t nearly fast enough. At their current rate, the wraith would be upon them before they could get close enough to signal for help. A cloud of grass and dust gathered in the air from the small army of war-beasts that galloped behind the Black Knight, a frenzied assembly of blood-thirsty nightmares dotting the landscape. The distance between the two parties was closing quickly.
Grynnwald swung himself around, putting his back to Haurik’s, to face the oncoming horde, the movement causing Arthur to buckle for a moment and filling both men with the legitimate fear that the majestic steed had reached his end. The horse responded to the falter with a burst of increased speed. Arthur was going to give them everything he had left but, while they prayed it was enough, Grynnwald knew that it wouldn’t be.
Once the gap closed to a few yards, the commanding knight screamed to his son, “Complete the quest, Haurik! It’s the only thing that matters!” before flinging himself to the ground, sword in hand.
“NO!” Haurik shouted back, but it was too late. The additional weight removed, Arthur’s momentum increased and the distance between the father and son was nearly immediately unsurmountable. There was no way Haurik could have turned around to get him without sacrificing all their lives. For a brief second, the two knights met each other’s gaze and everything they both wanted to say was expressed in that wordless moment. It was goodbye for now; they would meet again in the halls of The Great Kingdom.
The Wyndemere Castle began to slowly rise before Haurik; first the ramparts and battlements, then the gate and draw-bridge and finally the mote. When he could see the glinting light of the lookout’s spyglass in the tower Haurik grabbed the white flag adorned with their kingdom’s coat of arms from Arthur’s pouch and held the flag over his head. He turned his head to look back at his pursuers and found that they had stopped and gathered around his father and the Black Knight who were locked in a rancorous battle.
Looking forward again, Haurik could see the drawbridge lowering and what appeared to be at least a hundred Wyndemere cavalry riders emerging, fully armored for battle: reinforcements. It was reassuring enough that Haurik brought Arthur to a stop and considered going back for Grynnwald with the Wyndemere soldiers. He spun the horse around, but it was too late to do anything as he turned at the exact moment the Black Knight’s broadsword penetrated his father’s heart, sliding through his breastplate and back-plate both as though they didn’t exist.
Haurik let loose a cry of utter anguish which brought the attention of the Black Knight and his minions but they didn’t make a move in his direction. Haurik could hear the galloping soldiers coming from behind him and could only imagine his adversary was smart enough to realize that it would be a battle he might not want to undertake. Already outnumbered, the tactician that he was knew that a battle next to the strongest military castle in all five kingdoms would be at best…unwise.
Haurik watched as the Black Knight unsheathed an arrow and placed it in his bow. There’s no way he could shoot this far, Haurik thought. He was wrong. The arrow flew further than any arrow Haurik had ever seen and came within inches of striking Arthur…probably would have had they not reacted so quickly. The Black Knight loaded another arrow and Haurik set the steed in motion to the castle, desperate to increase the distance. With a high-pitched whistle the arrow flew past his face. Haurik didn’t look back and didn’t slow down.
The soldiers had stopped about fifty yards away from them, no doubt seeing the insane distance the Black Knight was achieving with his shots. Forty yards…thirty yards…twenty…this had to be far enough. Haurik had nearly given way to relief as he had reached the safety of numbers when there came another whistle. Reflexively, he turned his head towards the noise just in time to see the black blur glide by his face, grazing him on the cheek. The cut was paper thin with only the smallest line of red to indicate any form of contact, but the stinging was immediate.
By the time he was being escorted across the drawbridge, Haurik began to lose control of his muscles and he fell from his horse to the wooden bridge, nearly tumbling into the mote in the process. The closest men jumped from their horses to help him up but were wary to touch him; the veins in his face becoming black and necrotic around the small cut. The effects of the sorcerer’s poison were becoming obvious. They wanted to retrieve the scroll then, knowing that the knight would not live long and afraid of contamination but Haurik was not having it, his father’s voice echoing in his head, “Complete the quest! It’s the only thing that matters!” There was no way he would betray his father and his king in the closing moments of his life.
After a few moments of deliberation, the knight was rushed to King Wyndemere’s viewing chambers. By the time he was face to face with the king Haurik was unable to stand on his own and barely had the energy to reach into his pouch and hand the scroll to him. The pain was immense and overwhelming and Haurik knew it would only be a matter of minutes now…apparently, they all knew. The king read the note gravely and then turned his attention to Haurik’s dying gaze.
“My dear knight,” the king’s voice was soft with compassion, “You have completed your quest with great honor. The deeds of you and your order will be recorded in our annals. Is there anything, most noble man, which I can do for you before you…leave us?” Haurik nodded his head; there was one thing. There was one thing that he knew would help him to pass peacefully to Valhalla: he wanted to know what great cause would come about from the deaths of his brothers, his father and himself.
“The message,” he whispered hoarsely, barely able to produce the words. “What was the message from our king?” King Wyndemere looked at the scroll in his hands, then back at Haurik, then back to the scroll.
“Are you sure, Sir Knight? I’m not certain that will help…”
“Please?” Haurik cut him off. The king nodded somberly and proceeded to read the scroll aloud, just finishing the message as Haurik took his last, pain-filled breath.
“My Dearest King Wyndemere, given the state of political unrest in the five kingdoms my advisors have informed me that travel between our two kingdoms could be extremely hazardous for the time being. For that reason, and with great apologies, that I regret to inform that we will be unable to attend the celebration for your daughter’s fifteenth birthday in two weeks’ time. We will, of course, send a lovely present with an assembly of knights, perhaps the Veritas Order, in the near future so please look forward to that. Thank you so much for the invitation and we look forward to visiting in the future. Sincerely, King Claudius Protorius. P.S. The queen requests the recipe for the lovely cake we had during our last visit.”
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Horror in real life doesn’t come suddenly, it’s not a shock, or a reactionary scream. Horror in real life is a slow realization that occurs over the course of years. It needs time to mold, decay, and spread. True horror is painful, often sad, and tragic. It’s a slow deterioration, separating you from all forms of comfort and happiness. It is this kind of horror that I have felt ever since I learned of my mothers passing.
The circumstances of her death did not make things any easier. It wasn’t a slow death with time to make amends, adjust or say goodbye. She hadn’t been fighting a disease or infection for years. She wasn’t old and nearing the end of her life. Her death came for her quickly and unexpectedly.
My mother who after divorce, and my brothers moving away, had been living alone. She kept herself busy by working for the church and caring for her parents. My last couple visits home I had noticed she seemed more fragile than she should for a woman her age. She had lost weight and seemed starved for visitors. There was also a look in her eyes that bothered me; they were sleepless, panicked and broken. It seemed as if she wanted to tell me something but couldn’t. Instead she would just smile sadly and change the subject. I was told that my brother found her late one night in October, locked in the downstairs bathroom naked lying in her own blood with her wrists sliced open. She was sixty three years old.
Knowing that suicide is a mortal sin in the catholic church, and my mother being a devote catholic, I couldn’t help but wonder if something else was involved in her passing. Not anything scandalous, or plotted but something queer and uncomfortable that had been with me and my thoughts since I was a child. It dealt with our family home and more particularly the old wooden doors.
It all began with trouble sleeping. For as long as I can remember I always had trouble falling asleep in my parents house. My grandmother told me that as a small child I was prone to sleep terrors. She would watch me during the day while my parents were at work, and in the evenings, when they went out to dinner. She told me that she was watching me the night a bad storm hit our neighborhood. A tornado had been spotted that night but never touched down. However the lightning did claim the house’s electricity. My grandmother raced to my bedroom worried the window facing my crib would break under the violent wind. There was something else she was afraid of as well. When my grandmother picked me up from my crib she said she felt something in the room, something new, different and dark. My grandmother who came to America from Italy as a child told my parents that she had felt a strange presence that night and begged them to allow her to do a prayer to remove the maloik, an old world superstition. But my parents who were religious, believed in angels and demons, not folklore. They didn’t want to dabble in curses and superstition.
As I got older the sleep terrors continued as nightmares. It wasn’t uncommon for me to wake up hours after going to bed only to be too afraid to fall back asleep. Later in high school I dealt with my insomnia by not sleeping for days until I could fall asleep quickly. It wasn’t until I went away for college that I was able to rest peacefully.
I attribute my difficulty sleeping all of those years to the doors in my parents house. They were big plain wood doors, simple with no additional furnishing or decoration. They seemed ominous never the less. I would spend hours looking at the patterns in the grain, finding shapes and images in them like one would do with clouds. The more I looked the more I saw, until the images seemed so clear to me. Strange famished figures, naked with one leg or half of a torso, rabid dogs, an old bearded man. I saw faces too, wide eyed, mouths open, sometimes made of knots in the wood. All suffering as if the spirits of these things had somehow become trapped in the wood.
The bathroom door on the first floor was the worst. It was positioned next to the door leading to the basement and the lock in the door knob was finicky. It would sometimes get stuck, or give way, locking or unlocking by itself. The bathroom door also had one of the strangest designs. In the center of the door there was what looked like a woman in intense pain as if she was in labor. Her face was contorted and blurred with vertical lines of grain. Taring its way out from what I could only imagine as her stomach, in my childlike imagination, was a wide eyed creature.
I would see the bathroom door in my dreams as well. I had terrible nightmares where I was floating and desperately trying to get away from the bathroom, but I was being pulled backwards by an invisible force unable to escape. It would suck me into the darkness of the room, the door would slam shut and lock before I would have a chance to wake up panicked and out of breath.
The nightmares and the lack of sleep only made my already active imagination worse. The strange images in the door weighed on me. There was a door for every room in the house. I could not escape them. They were a constant presence, staring out at me from the wooden veneers. As a child I began to see other things. Things that found a way out of the trappings of wooden frames. Not things I could look at directly but rather things that appeared in my peripheral vision. The kinds of things that always begged to be questioned. Was someone there or was my imagination getting the best of me? Overtime I got better at being watchful, and looking without shifting my gaze.
One night when I was six years old I went into my parents bedroom feeling guilty that I wasn’t yet asleep. I needed to be reassured and comforted because I had scared myself badly. My mother gave me a hug and asked me what was wrong. I told her that I see things out of the corners of my eyes. She asked me about their appearance. But I couldn’t get a good look at them, as soon as I turned my head they were gone. She asked me when the last time was that I had seen one. I told her that there is one with us now in the corner of the room. My mother looked over at what to her was an empty corner in her bedroom. She told me that maybe they were angels sent by God to watch and protect me. But they weren’t. Something in the pit of my stomach would turn and I would feel sick around them.
They were motionless beings, staring blankly at me, only moving when I wasn’t looking. Slowly getting closer to me every time I looked away. I’d first discovered them in my peripheral vision outside my bedroom on the stairs late at night when I couldn’t sleep. I would notice a dark shape peaking over the top stair, eyes glistening, where nothing should be. I would try to quickly shift my gaze, to refocus on them, but they were always gone. I’d eventually look away and then find them again at my bedroom door, and then even closer at my desk. Ever present, just outside of sight.
I decided that they must be demons, not the red horned demons from cartoons but something else. They seemed old as if they were somehow misplaced, out of time. At night when I would see them I would be too afraid to move, or do anything but stare blankly, not giving them a chance to move in closer.
Sometimes I would hear them talk to me in my head. They would tell me to do things like to wait in the corner of the room, or flood my mind with images of strange exotic places. I would sometimes do what they said, though nothing ever came of it. My mother panicked one afternoon when she couldn’t find me. She searched the entire house eventually finding me in the bedroom closet, facing the wall, where the voices had told me to wait. She was in tears when I told her about the voices. She bought me a rosary and asked if the demons were the reason I was having trouble sleeping.
Eventually my father blessed the house with holy water, room by room as part of the celebration of the Epiphany, recommended every year by the church. It was after this, when I was still seeing them, that my mother became bothered by my demons and their doors. It began to weigh on her as well.
I grew up in a suburb just outside of Cleveland in a working class neighborhood predominately made up of Irish, Italians and Slovenians where religion was very much a part of life. My parents were passionately involved in the church as well and it was through them that I learned to take the sightings I was having very seriously. Instead of denouncing my demons as part of my imagination, my fears were reinforced and their existence confirmed through the power of faith and community.
One night we had a priest who was new to the parish over to our house to meet the family. After dinner he asked me if there was anything I wanted to ask God for. I told him that there are demons in this house that hide in the doors and I wanted them to go away. My parents shared a look of concern as my mother tried to explain. The priest looked at the doors before he left and assured me everything was okay. Later that evening he spoke with my parents and something was settled between adults.
A couple of months later my father did a small home renovation which included replacing all of the doors with white ones. It was relieving for the doors to finally be gone, and I thought I would now be rid of the strange creatures and be able to sleep. But it was too late. My mother told me that she was having the nightmares now as well. Something about the doors she would say.
As I got older I read about the possession of objects like the Annabelle doll, and how the native americans believed in evil wood spirits called Wakąčųna; but I mostly ignored the demons and I eventually stopped seeing them. Despite my mothers wishes I no longer went to church and I refused to talk about religious matters or anything involving the strange things I had seen and felt in the house. I told myself that the horrors I faced as a child were due to my overactive imagination and strict religious upbringing. By the time I left for college there had been no talk of doors, demons, or nightmares for a long time, although I would still occasionally get that sick feeling in my stomach late at night when I was near the downstairs bathroom door.
My parents would later divorce, my mom keeping the house and working at the church. I moved away for work to Twin Falls. It wasn’t until my Dad called to tell me about the circumstances of my mother’s passing that I began to wonder if something more had happened to my mother.
I made the trip home to find that my childhood neighborhood had been hit hard by the recession. It was now only a faded memory of the town I grew up in. The corner ice cream parlor was now a get-cash-fast lender, and the streets were relatively empty and bleak. Houses were boarded up and my old high school had closed. Parked at a red light I watched the traffic lights signal to empty streets. My parents house even looked different, old and not as well kept as it was when my father had lived there. The grass had been overrun with weeds and the siding was dirty.
We stood in font of the house that afternoon after the funeral, my brothers, father and I. My brothers explained to me how my mom had been stressed. Her mood swings had been violent and her sleeping pattern was erratic. She would go for long periods of time without sleeping and then fall into a deep sleep for days. My brother told me how late one evening after work he had gone over our mother’s house to check on her. It had been two or three in the morning by the time he had arrived and let himself in, finding our mother in the kitchen making breakfast. He told me she had become confused about the time and had thought that it was morning. He explained that she was trying different medications to help with the insomnia, and the doctors had thought the mood swings and suicide could have been a side effect. I told them about how I used to have trouble sleeping in her house and about the demons and the doors. They laughed, they were too young to remember. I told them that I thought I was going to sleep better after Dad had replaced the doors but it wasn’t until college that I slept well. My Dad stopped me and told me that he never replaced the doors, he just had them painted white.
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Cynthia smacked, howled and screamed against Todd Barrett’s motel room window that night. Times like these, he was glad he hadn’t fully committed to “tramping,” and bought himself a fifth-wheel. Sleeping in a camper on a night like this would have been impossible. Instead, he had a soft bed below him, a strong roof above, and a simply superb on-demand adult video channel buzzing before him.
Three months prior, Todd had completed his apprenticeship. Now, he was a full-blown honest-to-no-one lineman. FP&L was shuffling him everywhere in the great state of Florida to keep the electricity flowing. Sometimes it was faulty wiring, but most times, the times Todd liked best, he was hiking up power poles and repairing the damage from Mother Nature’s worst.
Whenever bad weather was on the rise, Todd went out to location prior to the worst of it so he could get to restoring power early the next morning. If Cynthia truly evolved into the horrible raving bitch of a hurricane she was predicted to be, he would have his work cut out for him. He looked forward to the morning. Powerless cities were quieter, the smell of freshly snapped trees was often in the air, and despite the destruction, the birds usually went right on singing.
With a bright surge of light in his motel room, the electricity was gone from the entire building. Todd Barrett’s all-time favorite lesbian porn flick vanished from the screen. He should sleep anyway, he thought, but before he could close his eyes, they were flooded with a blue light that could have competed with the sun. The blue turned to orange, and through his second-story window, Todd could see a deluge of sparks raining down in the motel parking lot.
As he stepped to the window, another burst of sparks ejected from the transformer above the lot. If not for the rain, the un-trimmed hedges below would have been set ablaze. In the brief light he saw—did he?—it could have been someone down there, in the center of the parking lot. Todd wasn’t sure, until a third spray of particulate fire illuminated the property. It was a man in a white T-shirt and basketball shorts. He was curled up in the fetal position. It was as if he had mistaken the muddy rain puddle for his bed, coiled up and fallen asleep right there. He wasn’t moving but—was he screaming? It was tough to tell over the storm and through the window.
Now came the most ancient of debates, to help or turn away. Todd groaned a mellow “oh, shit,” when he realized he had already made the decision. He was supposed to be a good man. He had told himself he would be making all the right changes ever since mouth had gotten him into trouble. Todd had a knack for talking, usually about others, and often about things they considered personal. Since his black eye from last week, he would drink less beer, help more, hurt less, shut his mouth, and hopefully find a good honest woman sometime soon.
Todd Barrett threw on his raincoat and left the room in a hurry. In all likelihood, the sudden electrical flash had temporarily blinded this poor bastard that probably ran out to his car to retrieve his forgotten toothbrush or something. Todd had seen what an overload could do to someone up close, and they were still plenty dangerous from afar.
The motel clerk was gone from her desk, though he saw her flashlight moving in the back office. “Hey, someone’s hurt out there,” he hollered, but heard no reply. Todd pressed the emergency release on the automatic sliding doors, and stepped out into the rain.
Cynthia was indeed an ill-tempered, wild lunatic of a storm. Her winds tried to possess Todd’s very movement. He was soaked instantly; his jeans probably wouldn’t dry for three days. He slowly approached the motionless pile of a man, who was now face down in the flooding parking lot. As Todd drew nearer, some part of him questioned what form of temporary blindness would cause a man to scream into mud like this one seemed to be.
He suddenly realized the error in his assumption that this wet screaming mess had been a tenant of the motel. Maybe he was a roving crack addict or an escapee from some kind of institution. Todd lost all interest in placing a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder, but planned to do so anyway—he was here, wasn’t he?
“You’re ok,” were the first, most natural and least accurate words to Todd’s lips, but they were lost to the wind. He repeated them, this time yelling, “You’re okay!” and finally his hand touched the man’s sopping, cold, cotton shirt. The screaming man rolled over and his yelling was quickly reduced to a gurgle through the witch’s brew of mud, rain, saliva, and blood in his mouth. Todd saw the dirty red fluid streaking from all corners of the man’s face, digging miniscule gullies into the mud and gravel stuck there.
Two bloodshot eyes, tucked within that filthy mask, searched wide and eventually locked with Todd’s. The gurgling stopped, and the man aggressively inhaled, no doubt taking in some rainwater, then painfully coughed and wheezed. That was when, from behind Todd, the transformer on the offending power pole breathed fire again, and Todd turned to look at it. What he saw there was no mere utility structure.
Something was clinging to the top of the pole. Mother nature’s light show had stirred up by now, and the thing—whatever it was—was occasionally silhouetted by jagged strikes of lightning in the sky. The first thought into Todd’s mind, of all things, was that this thing was something from The Muppet Show. Its four limbs were of such lanky length that they looked as though only a puppeteer’s wire could move them.
Another flash of lighting brought more unwanted detail. Tufts of hair covered the monster’s impossibly skinny form. It seemed to lack elbows and knees, instead utilizing a slow arcing bend of its slender limbs. There was more, it was doing something up there. Todd watched in disbelief as the nightmare’s almost perfectly spherical head parted into a gaping mouth with canine teeth, and sank them into the transformer. Another blast of sparks was set loose. It looked to be feeding on the power grid.
In perhaps a more delayed reaction than Todd had ever experienced, he began stuttering and repeating the only word his mind seemed to have on hand, “No, no, no, NO!”
The creature halted its feast. It had heard him. Now, the thing’s eyes opened, and their intense glow told Todd that they had previously been closed.
In two moments, Todd would make the absolute greatest mistake of his life. As those infernal, luminous eyes swept their surroundings like headlights, and the rain fell like ocean waves, Todd could have run away; but he didn’t. Crippled by his own fear, he could only stare. The evil eyes found Todd, and he looked back into them. That was when everything changed.
His arms were raised above his head. He heard a plastic, grating sound and felt a sharp pain at the back of his head. Todd did not suddenly become aware of the situation, but rather felt it slowly envelop him. He was being dragged down the street. The plastic grating had been the rubbing of asphalt on his raincoat. The pain behind his head was that same rugged surface scratching into his scalp.
It was a bright, moonlit night. Cynthia was long gone from wherever he was now. He raised his head to see the horrible, lanky creature pulling him along by the ankle in slow, lumbering movements. It was much taller than it had initially appeared when beheld at a distance. The thing was maybe nine feet tall, those skinny, jointless legs made up most of the height. Its head hung low, and its free arm slowly swayed to and fro with each step.
Todd actually spent a moment debating whether or not he should play dead. Next he considered that he was likely as good as dead if he didn’t do something. He started with shouting, then kicking. He twisted and rolled and palmed his hands into the surface of the street. His nails dug into the asphalt and were sanded down, along with his now bloodied fingertips. He recoiled his captured leg, hoping to gain ground and attack the monster head-on. It was out of reach. He summoned his will power and reached for the disgusting hand that was grasping his ankle. He felt a static shock as he touched its dark, matted fur, and pried with all his might, but could not break the grip. The thing, despite Todd’s violent rebellion, trudged on.
Todd tucked his shirt and raincoat into his pants and tightened his belt, trying to keep his outer layers from wrinkling upward and exposing his bare back to the passing ground. He slowly regained his wits and took in his surroundings. The neighborhood was quiet, it seemed there was no one here to help him. The cars looked older; in fact, he didn’t see a single one that looked newer than nineteen seventy. Over the course of a dreadful two minutes, Todd recognized, double-checked, and reconfirmed that he was, in fact, being dragged through the neighborhood in which he had grown up.
He was pulled around a bend, turning onto old Wilkie Avenue. At the end of this street would be a cul-de-sac, at the center of that would be his childhood home. Todd leaned and contorted, trying to see past his captor and catch a glimpse of their destination. He could see that the creature’s open, radiant eyes were lighting the way.
All along the street, his former neighbors stepped out onto their various yards and porches. Each person’s flesh had changed, head to toe, into that same muddy, bleeding mixture he had beheld in the parking lot. They went about their daily lives despite the grotesque transformation. Mr. Davis pressed his thumb over the end of a hose and sprayed grass clippings off of his sidewalk. Karly Mason, dressed in her now darkly soiled pink tutu, performed pirouettes and plies for the world to admire. Todd tried not to look.
His miserable guided tour continued, up the curb, across the driveway, onto the porch and through the door. As the creature lumbered up the flight of stairs towards the second floor, Todd grabbed hold of the banister and squeezed with everything he had. The creature pulled so hard, Tom thought his leg might rip from its socket, but before it could, the wooden post cracked and snapped in two.
Up the green-carpeted stairs, and down the second-floor hallway he went. He knew whose bedroom was at the end, and as he was pulled into it, he observed muddied, bleeding versions of both his parents. They were pressed up against the wall, wildly trying to conceive his younger brother, all to the beat with The O’Jay’s “Love Train”, which seemed to be blaring from the very walls. It had once been a younger Todd’s favorite song. He screamed, flipped and kicked but couldn’t seem to close his eyes.
Todd’s horrible, gangling tour guide stepped out the second-story window, dragging a now crying Todd with it. He was pulled out, to his surprise, not onto the roof, but the dirty surface of his old schoolyard. There he watched the imaginary battles of his youth turn real, as each of his mud-caked, bleeding, friends were slaughtered by one another.
By what could have been called the second day of being dragged—though time did not exist in this place—Todd had already seen most every location he once cherished. He was dragged through the ’64 Chevy Station Wagon in which he had received his first blowjob. He made a hot lap around his high school while listening to “Love Train” and watching a disgusting rendition of his old football team gnaw out each other’s muddy throats.
Todd’s raincoat had mostly withered to Swiss cheese at this point, and his cotton undershirt didn’t provide much protection from the ground’s coarse sandpaper effect. He resorted to sitting up, entrusting his rugged jeans to hold up at least twice as long as the jacket. He and his silent captor had just about completely caught up on his life by now, and Todd assumed an end of some kind was close at hand.
On the third day of the dragging, Tom was pulled out of the dark motel room that he wished he had never left. He was brought through the lobby, out into the rain, and past the screaming man he had hoped to help. Beyond that, everything turned bright. The rain stopped, and Todd finally felt the sun on his face. To either side of him, he saw vast, endless lines of wavy dunes. It was a desert that existed somewhere outside of his own memory.
On the fifth day, his entire upper layer of clothing had completely worn away. Grating, hot sand ground into his wounds and formed a layer of bloody paste around him. If he had tried to scream, his dry throat would have yielded no sound. The sun had burned his face and chest to the point of blistering. The sand had rubbed his back down to mere muscle. It also seemed that hunger existed in this place, though it could not kill. Todd’s mind failed him, as he began thrashing wildly, no longer hoping to escape, but letting out his rage and trying to distract from the pain.
Day ten approached, and the dunes rolled on. Todd’s rag of a body was pulled past the rusting hulk of an old Lockheed airliner, the decaying hull of a cargo ship, and a few other scraps of metal that his weak eyes couldn’t identify. Above in the tauntingly blue sky, Todd observed a ringed planet, hosting a family of several moons. “Love Train” rolled on, echoing unstoppably from deep within his mind. He turned over, opting to let the ceaseless sun destroy his back, which had been stripped of its nerve endings. He braced for the grating pain of sand on his wretchedly burned chest.
By the fifteenth day, Todd’s muscles had been stripped past the point of use. The lost layers left him more closely resembling his captor than any human. Thirty pounds of flesh had been shredded away from his miserable body. Knowing he should have been long dead by now, he wondered what he had done to deserve what he feared would be an eternity of senseless agony.
On day twenty, Todd suspected that by tomorrow, he would lose his mind entirely, and that might be good. He was well on his way to ending up just like—
His feeble mind stopped, reversed course, and retraced its steps. He would end up just like the man in the parking lot—Insane. In a merciful flash, Todd understood it all so clearly. This creature wasn’t something told of around a campfire. He had never heard a single word spoken about such a monster—Why? This had all started the moment he locked eyes with this terrible creature. He had seen it, and it knew he had. Todd had never heard of the monster because no one who saw it could ever speak of it—or anything—again. It was a secret. Now, for witnessing that secret, Todd was being driven insane.
He struggled to form the words with his brittle lips, but couldn’t. There was no way for his vocal cords to produce a sound. He tried anyway. If mouthing the four words was all he could do, he would do so for the rest of his tour.
I won’t tell anyone, he said, though it was really more a thought than spoken word, and a remarkable thing happened. The creature stopped. Todd felt his own foot drop into the sand. The creature, gangly, yet somehow graceful, crawled right over the top of him. Through its disgusting dark tufts of fur, Todd could see what might have been eyes; they looked deeper into him than any human eyes ever could.
The creature grunted, stood, and from Todd’s perspective, its towering form was never so apparent. It turned, and lumbered away, off into the endless dunes. The creature could not whistle as it walked, so the wind did so for it.
Todd was alone now, lying there in that blasted desert, somewhere outside the realm of rationality where pain met time. A sudden breeze kicked sand into his eyes. His decaying fingers curled and gripped the sand to find that it was now wet, and not sand but mud. Water, sweet cooling water, fell onto his wounds and flowed in all around him.
He was no longer in the dune, but laying in the motel parking lot, next to a man who, little did he know, had been dragged for three thousand and eighty days, all in an instant; all for looking where he shouldn’t.
Above Todd, in a weightless perch on the power lines, was the creature. It blinked once at him, spread its limbs, and caught a gale of Cynthia’s wind. With one flash of lightning, Todd saw the silhouette of that hellish puppet disappear into the thunderclouds. He wondered if he was the only one to have laid eyes on the being and survived with half his mind, or if there were others that shared his secret. He would never know. For the rest of his dark, broken life, Todd would never speak of the monster that almost cost him his sanity with a single glance; and the world’s most ancient secret went on unheard of, riding the winds of violent storms until wind itself was no more.
|
I had always made it a point to avoid that isolated stretch of road like the plague. I’d heard so many stories about it, and even though I was certain that most of them were untrue, my disbelief did not squelch my fear of driving it. Urban myths and rumors emerged over the course of many years regarding the Coral Ridge Bypass. There were tales of a deranged feral man that supposedly roamed the area hunting other humans – tales of twin sisters that were killed in an accident decades ago, who would mysteriously appear in front of your car – tales of people vanishing after witnessing things they shouldn’t have seen, and so on.
My friends used to try to get me to ride through the bypass with them. “C’mon, Derek! Don’t be such a baby. Everyone should go through at least once.” They would tease me like that nearly every weekend, but I never relented. Unlike those who were actively seeking the thrill of exploring our local urban legends, I did not willingly wish to travel through the bypass. However, on one rainy night I had no choice as an eighteen wheeler had overturned on Highway 53 and my usual route home was completely closed-off.
I sat in my car watching the flashing red and blue lights a hundred feet ahead. My headlights exposed the metal ribbing on the underside of the semi’s trailer and my windshield wipers kept time, crisp as a metronome. The clock on my dashboard told me it was 1:32 AM. Just a few yards ahead and to my right was the turn-off. The reflective green street sign pointed into a black void in the otherwise dense woods. ‘Coral Ridge Bypass’, it stated, giving me more of the impression of a warning than that of helpful direction.
Turning around and going back the way I’d come was not really an option. If I did that I would have to drive about thirty-five miles out of my way in order to get home. ‘Maybe I can wait it out,’ I thought to myself. But it didn’t take long before I realized how foolish that was. It might take hours to clear the wreck.
A policeman approached me and signaled for me to roll down my window. “You’re going to have to take the bypass,” he said, leaning toward my open window. He was a tall, thin man with sunken blue eyes and dark sideburns. There was transparent cellophane stretched over his trooper’s hat which caused the raindrops to bead up and roll off of it.
“Is there any other way?” I asked.
“Not unless you turn around and backtrack to the interstate. It’s quite a ways further though.” He must have noted the look of concern on my face, so he added, “Don’t worry, son. Those are just stories people tell.”
I thanked him and resigned myself to facing my fears and taking the bypass. He motioned me forward and I slowly turned onto the desolate road. Tall trees towered overhead on both sides. They seemed to lean forward and blend together at the top, creating a tunnel effect. My headlights briefly exposed each massive trunk as I progressed deeper into the woods. I tried to stay focused on the pavement because if my gaze lingered on the woods beside me for too long, the trees took on unnerving shapes. Knotholes became gaping mouths – twisted branches became arms and hands attempting to prevent me from going any deeper – roots became feet, poised to break forth from the soil at any moment and step into my pathway.
I blinked my eyes forcefully to rid my mind of the frightening images. My windshield wipers began to squeak dryly on the window. I had no doubt that it was still raining heavily somewhere overhead, but most of the droplets were unable to penetrate the tree coverage. I dialed the knob back to an intermittent cycle with a much longer pause between swipes.
Every so often there was a break in the trees containing a narrow gravel road that led into the woods. I must have passed four or five of those. Undoubtedly, they were the driveways of reclusive landowners. Some had ‘No Trespassing’ signs posted – others had rusty metal gates across them. They didn’t have to warn me twice. There was no way I was going to take one of those paths, only to be greeted by someone on the front porch of a dilapidated trailer home brandishing a shotgun at me. No sir.
I had never seen so many twists and turns in a road in my entire life. The signs that warned of upcoming hairpin curves were old and barely visible in my headlights. Thankfully though, I could still make them out, since any turn with a speed limit of ten miles per hour had to be taken seriously, lest one drive off the low shoulder and come to rest wheels-up in the ditch.
I had just exited one such turn when my headlights glimpsed a scene that took me by complete surprise. To my right was another gravel drive, and off the road blocking the drive was a van. It appeared to be an older van, a late 1970s model maybe, and it had been cheaply painted in flat-black – probably with spray cans by the look of it. There were no side or rear windows, but the rear access doors were wide open, and there were two men standing at the back. All of the vehicle’s lights were off.
Startled by this scene, I slowed down, initially thinking that someone was having car trouble. The closer I got, I realized that the men were leaned over, struggling with something inside the back of the van. Whatever it was had been wrapped in some sort of tarpaulin or plastic trash bags. A plume of exhaust rose around them as the van idled with a low gurgle.
As I eased past, one of the men looked directly at me. He was thin, and had a full brown beard. He wore a flannel shirt and straw hat, and had a cigarette pressed tightly between his lips. His eyebrows sank as he gave me a look of disgust. The other man was bald, slightly overweight and wore denim overalls. I could not see his face.
I did not want to know what those two men were up to, so I sped up a bit and drove on. I could feel my elevated pulse throbbing in my neck and I wanted nothing more than to emerge from the desolate woods and back onto Highway 53.
“How much longer is this road?” I wondered aloud.
It seemed to go on forever, but eventually the trees thinned, the twists and turns straightened out, the rain returned to its prevalence on my windshield, and I saw an intersection ahead with a junction sign for Highway 53 reflecting in my lights. The guardrails lining the wide highway came into view. I breathed a sigh of relief as I slowed at the stop sign then turned right onto 53 and proceeded home.
– – – – –
I slept very lightly that night – if it could even be called sleep at all. It was more like drifting in and out of consciousness, accompanied by the occasional fever dream of the two men struggling with the wrapped object in the back of the van. I repeatedly saw the bearded man scowling at me as I crept past. I must have awoken in a cold sweat at least three times. The last awakening was at 3:54 AM. I remember because I looked over at my alarm clock after hearing the sound outside.
I lay there in bed and listened to the distant peels of thunder and the rain pounding on the roof. The thunder then took on a steady sound as if it was holding an endless note. The longer I listened, the more it dawned on me that it wasn’t thunder at all. What I was hearing was a car engine, except that its sound did not fade into the distance as a passing car’s would have. It seemed as if someone had stopped in front of my house.
I got out of bed and entered the bedroom across the hall, facing the street. At the window, I separated the blinds in a tiny sliver – just enough to peer through with one eye. Beneath the orange glow of the sodium vapor streetlamp was the black van, lights off, idling in the street in front of my house.
Instantly, my heart raced. Even though I was petrified, I watched the van intently. A thousand thoughts went through my head: How had they found me? What exactly had I witnessed in the bypass? What were their intentions toward me? I felt chilled, and my fingers that held the blinds began to tremble. I continued watching until I heard the engine of the van rev slightly as it moved slowly forward. The muffler had corroded past the point of being able to do its job properly, and it was almost as if I could hear each individual cylinder firing as the van continued at a snail’s pace down my street.
I knew they would have to come back past the house in a few seconds since my street ended in a cul-de-sac. I waited, hoping to get a glimpse of their license plate as they passed by. I heard the van before I saw it, then its silhouette appeared out of the shadows, and once again into the street light in front of my house. They slowed, but did not stop. I strained to read the license number, but could not make it out clearly. It’s possible that the plate had been tampered with. Once they were nearly out of sight, the driver turned on the lights. The houses ahead were washed in the yellow headlamps, and two small red taillight circles appeared just before they drove out of sight over the crest of the hill.
And all was quiet.
– – – – –
I dreaded having to drive home from work the following night. Working second shift was bad enough in and of itself, but with the added stress of the incident on Coral Ridge Bypass – and later, in front of my own house – I was terrified of nightfall. I came out of the factory just after 1:00 AM and panned the parking lot with much more scrutiny than normal. Once I deemed it safe, I proceeded to my car.
Highway 53 was wide open, and I pushed notably beyond the speed limit in order to get home and off of that dark stretch of road as quickly as possible. The radio was on, and I had it tuned to a station that was operated by the local public library. I liked it because it was commercial-free. At that time of night they ran a program called “Nightshades” that was mostly somber instrumentals. The host had a calm and soothing voice, and he spoke only a minimum of words between tracks. The show had a reputation for garnering a listenership whose vast majority consisted of people sleeping while radios played softly on their nightstands. Music to induce deep sleep, along with the occasional otherworldly dream.
A beautiful, albeit short, piano piece had just ended. “That track was ‘The Winter of 1539-1540’ and the artist was ‘Goldmund’,” the DJ stated in his smooth, sultry tone. He continued, “And here is a much longer piece with a much darker vibe. The artist is ‘Deathprod’ and the title is ‘Dead People’s Things’.”
At first I scoffed at what I thought was an overtly pretentious title. Until I heard the song.
The droning bass notes rose slowly into audible range and they continued to swell, ebb and flow for the remainder of my commute home. I had never heard such a dark and ominous piece of music before. It was trancelike, and it cast an incredibly disturbing aura over the already unsettling drive home. I should have changed the channel, but I was mesmerized. Along with the fading in and out of the low end there were also swirls of what I can only describe as the sound of ambient hiss inside a large pipe, then even higher-pitched squeals akin to someone playing a saw blade as a musical instrument.
This went on for nearly twenty minutes, and by the time it was over I had to snap myself back into reality. I was sitting in my driveway, car still running, headlights splashed harshly against my closed garage door. And I had no recollection of arriving there. A different song played on the radio. I pressed the button on my visor to open the garage door, and then pulled inside. As the door was closing behind me, I caught sight in my rear-view mirror of the black van passing by on the street toward the exit of the neighborhood. ‘Had they been watching me from the cul-de-sac?’ I wondered, ‘Or had they followed me home without my knowledge while I was distracted by that foreboding music?’
Panic overtook me once more. I rushed into the house and made sure all of the doors were locked. My heart did not calm down for the better part of an hour, until I finally had the courage to lie down in bed. I was, once again, in and out of sleep that night with visions of the van and the memory of the droning bass line from that sinister song washing back and forth in my head. It filled me with the sensation of impending doom.
– – – – –
Apparently I looked pretty haggard the next evening at work. A co-worker of mine named Simon approached me in the break room.
“Hey, Derek – you feelin’ alright, man?” he asked.
I looked at him with half-closed, puffy eyes. “Yeah, I’m okay,” I replied, then took a swig of strong coffee.
“You look exhausted. You’ve had to stop the line three times tonight. Normally you’re on top of it.”
“I just haven’t been sleeping well lately, that’s all.”
He gazed at me more intently and raised his eyebrows. I could tell that my explanation wasn’t good enough, so I continued, “I don’t know, Simon. It’s just that I…” I broke off and then tried again, “Do you ever get the feeling that you’re being followed?” As soon as it escaped my lips I regretted saying it. Now Simon was going to think I was losing my mind.
“No. How do you mean, exactly?”
“The other night I was forced to drive through the Coral Ridge Bypass, and there was this really old black van on the side of the road with these two guys loading something in the back-”
Simon interrupted me with a sarcastic laugh.
“Nice try, Derek. I’ve heard this one before. You don’t actually expect me to believe that old legend, do you?” he said.
I gave him a confused look. “What legend?”
Simon’s face changed. “Wait, you’re not joking? You actually saw the black van?” he blurted out. Then in a shocked whisper he added, “I didn’t think that one was real.”
“You’ve heard of it?” I questioned.
“I can’t believe you haven’t!”
I shrugged and shook my head back and forth impatiently, hoping he would get the point and fill me in. He did.
“Supposedly there were these two guys – brothers, I think – that used to ride around in this blacked-out van. This was back in, like, the early eighties. One night they had a little too much to drink, or maybe a little too much to smoke, if you know what I mean, and they hit a man that was jogging. I know, I know, it’s stupid to be out jogging on the bypass, right? But that’s how the story goes.
“Anyway, they took the body with them to get rid of it later, but another lady that was driving by at the time witnessed them packing up the body. They vowed not to let her get away, and they tracked her down and killed her, too.
“And the legend goes that if you see the van when you’re driving through the Coral Ridge Bypass, the guys will come after you, too. And they won’t give up until you’re dead.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But that happened thirty-some-odd years ago,” I said. “How could they still be out there stalking people today?”
Simon leaned against a snack machine and crossed his arms. He breathed in deeply and exhaled long and slow. Finally, he said, “Derek, those guys are dead. They were killed in a shootout when the police came to arrest them for what they’d done to the jogger and the witness.”
I felt the stress mounting and rubbed my temples. I couldn’t believe my friends had never told me about this one.
Simon glanced at his watch, stood straight up and said, “I gotta get back to work. I seriously hope you’re joking with me, dude.” Then he walked out of the break room.
“I hope YOU are,” was all I could muster after the door had swung shut behind him and the room was empty.
The remainder of my shift was completely unproductive. So much so that my boss actually pulled me off the line and sent me home at 11:00.
My eyes were heavy on the commute home. I switched the radio to a classic rock station since the Nightshades program was only making me sleepier. I felt somewhat more alert after that, so I guess it worked to a degree. There were very few other cars on Highway 53, which allowed me to hum along at a good pace.
Suddenly I was blinded by a bright light in my rear-view mirror. I squinted, but tried my best to focus on the source. I was able to make out two headlights that had just switched on directly behind me. I had no idea how long this vehicle had been following me without lights, but I instantly knew it had to be the van, and I wasn’t about to let them run me down and kill me. I pressed the accelerator and put a bit of distance between us. The van matched my speed and nudged even closer than before.
Suddenly red and blue flashing lights appeared above the headlights, and I muttered a few choice words while I slowed my car to a stop on the side of the road. The cop must have been hiding in the dark on a side road and then pulled out behind me before turning his lights on.
The officer approached my window – the same officer with the hat and sideburns that worked the truck accident scene the other night.
“License and registration,” he commanded, dryly. There was a look of recognition in his eyes when he took the documents from me. “You’re out here quite often late at night, huh?”
“Yes sir, I work second shift at the cannery,” I said, pointing over my shoulder.
He gave the hint of a nod, but said nothing further about my job. He was busy writing on a clipboard. After a moment he asked, “In a hurry to get home tonight, son?”
I wanted to blurt out the whole thing – to tell him about my sighting the other night, about the van that I thought might be stalking me, about how I thought I was in imminent danger and needed his help. But I knew it would sound crazy. Not to mention, nothing threatening had actually happened yet. There would be nothing he could do.
“Yeah, I’m a little tired,” was my only reply.
He spent a few more minutes back in his cruiser before returning to my window and letting me off with a warning and a promise to drive safely. After he pulled out from behind me, I let out a sigh of relief and eased back onto the highway. I took it easy the rest of the way home.
I topped the hill on my street, and as I approached my house, a wave of fear washed over me. The black van was backed into my driveway, all the way up against the garage door, lights off, just waiting for me. My heartbeat quickened as I passed up my house and headed toward the cul-de-sac, hoping that I could get turned around before they blocked me in.
I kept watch over my shoulder and in my mirrors while I swung the car around at the end of my street. I sped up and looked over at the van as I approached my house again. The van’s headlights switched on just as I passed my driveway, and I saw it lunge forward. It turned onto the street behind me and I pressed the accelerator further down just before cresting the hill.
The van closed in on me as I cut corners and navigated the turns in my neighborhood with reckless abandon. I darted out onto Highway 53, narrowly missing the wooden fence at the subdivision’s entrance. The van barreled along right behind me. My speedometer needle reached uncharted territory in the straight-aways of the highway. I hoped with everything in me that Officer Sideburns was still patrolling this stretch. My heart sank when I passed the spot where he’d pulled me over just moments earlier and there was no sign of him.
I checked the rear-view mirror constantly. At one point, and for no apparent reason, the headlights began to fade into the distance. Soon they were merely two small yellow dots on the horizon. I eased up on the pedal and coasted to a much more comfortable cruising speed. With the threat out of the way for the time being, my thoughts turned to my next steps. I had no idea where I was going to go from here – home was not safe. And how would I ever escape these guys if what Simon told me was true? And if they were, in fact, ghosts, could they really harm me? There were so many unknowns and the more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t even want to drive through the bypass in the first place.
As I rounded a long sweeping curve several minutes later, I was jolted out of my thoughts by the sight of the van parked across the road, blocking both lanes, headlights pointed into the tree line on my left. I mashed the brake pedal. The car nose-dived and skidded to a halt about twenty feet away from the van. I could hear the choppy idle of its massive engine. I had no idea how they’d gotten around me so quickly. Either they knew another shortcut, or they really were supernatural beings.
The van began moving forward slowly and straightened up to face me directly. As they drew closer I knew that I didn’t have time to turn around in order to go back the other way. My only chance at escape was the narrow road that entered the break in the tree line just off to my left – the Coral Ridge Bypass. It’s almost as if they were forcing me to go back there. Before I could give myself time to second-guess the decision, I sped off onto the bypass. The van followed close behind.
I traveled at an uncomfortably fast pace. I was in no way familiar enough with the bypass to anticipate all of its dangerous twists and turns. The ghosts in the van had the definite advantage in that department – this was their home turf. Because of that, they were never more than a few feet behind me, headlights illuminating my car’s interior and blinding me in the mirrors.
The tree trunks were a blur. I had no time to see the twisted faces and gnarled arms hidden within them. I sped on, over small hills and valleys, through tight curves and broad ones. A couple times my tires left the pavement and kicked up dirt and gravel. Eventually, my luck ran out when I barreled into an insanely sharp hairpin turn. I could not slow down fast enough and my sweaty hands clenched the steering wheel tightly as I skidded off into the embankment.
My car came to rest at a forty-five degree angle, its passenger side tires off in the ditch. I took a quick mental inventory and determined that I was okay. I didn’t feel pain anywhere – no blood had escaped me, as far as I could tell. My engine had cut off, but my headlights still shone brightly into a pile of dead leaves and overgrown brush.
In my mirror the headlights of the van shone brightly. It idled motionless directly behind me. I frantically searched my car for some sort of makeshift weapon. I had a tire iron, but naturally, it was in the trunk. I was rummaging through the glove box for a flashlight when the window next to me was shattered violently by the man in the straw hat who was wielding a large metal crowbar. Shards of glass sprayed my head, neck and shoulders. Before I could react, the man reached inside, pulled up the door lock, yanked my door open, and pulled me out of the car by my left arm.
I was thrown out onto the street and I lay there breathing heavily as the man stood over me, crowbar readied to pummel my face at any moment. The large, bald man joined him. All I could see where their dark figures silhouetted by the van’s headlights. Aside from the van’s rumbling engine, all was quiet for a moment. The one with the straw hat threw a cigarette onto the pavement and ground it with his boot.
As terrified as I was, the only thing my mind could think at that time was, ‘These guys are not ghosts. They’re as real as I am.’ Which led me to the fact that Simon had apparently made up the legend on the spot based on what I told him I saw out here.
“That little prick!” I said out loud, but not intending to.
“What did you say to me?” the straw hat guy demanded. I chose not to repeat it.
He took a step forward so that he was lumbering over me with the metal bar suspended above my head. “How much did you see the other night?” he barked.
“I didn’t see anything. Just that you were pulled off to the side of the road,” I managed to say between gasps. After a moment I added, “How did you find me?”
“Let’s just say I have enough connections to trace a license plate,” he said. The man in the straw hat looked over at the bald guy, as if seeking approval to beat me senseless.
“He could be telling the truth,” the bald man declared matter-of-factly. Then, after thinking over what they’d already done to me, he said, “but we’ve got to finish what we’ve started.”
Straw Hat Man lunged forward and raised the crowbar high overhead. I rolled quickly to my right and the bar landed just behind my back, sparking as it struck the pavement with a loud clang. During the moment that he attempted to reset his swing, I was able to scramble to my knees, then my feet, and run into the coverage of the dense trees.
I made my way deeper into the woods and stopped behind a wide tree trunk. I peered back in the direction of the van. The two men were still standing in the beams of the headlights, yelling and arguing with one another. I tried to remain as quiet as possible. I could not make out everything that was said, but I was able to gather enough of their words to determine that what they’d been involved in recently included the elimination of several witnesses that were threatening to expose their meth ring.
Suddenly there was a rustling of movement in the foliage off to my right. I stood still as a statue and listened in that direction. The movement became more pronounced and frantic until finally I saw a figure burst out from the tree line and into the street where the van was parked. The two men immediately stopped arguing and turned to face the beast.
At first I could not make out exactly what it was since the creature approached the men on all fours. It had the appearance of a crouched-over man, but it moved much too quickly on its hands and feet to be entirely human. It had an immense amount of facial hair – so much that it was difficult to make out any distinct features of the face. When the beast stood upright to confront the men, that’s when I knew that I was seeing the famed feral man. He was tall and incredibly muscular. It was hard to be certain from my vantage point, but it appeared that he wore no clothing.
The deranged man pounced onto the criminal with the straw hat and crowbar first. The bald one took a few steps backward and watched helplessly. The metal bar clanged against the pavement and its echo rang out into the woods. I heard cries of torment the likes of which I never want to hear again. Soon the man’s body lay limp in the road and his straw hat came to rest atop a pool of blood a few feet in front of him.
The creature turned its attention to the bald guy, who was attempting to enter the driver’s door of the running van. It was of no use as the wild man grabbed his left arm so hard that I can only assume, based on the scream, that his shoulder was dislocated. But the screams were short-lived. After several more seconds of clawing and tearing, the large man collapsed to the ground.
With his fresh kills completed, the feral man grabbed one of the bald man’s ankles in his left hand, then he took one of the other man’s ankles in his right. He dragged the corpses off of the street and disappeared into the thick, dark woods, leaving two streaks of red on the pavement. I didn’t want to think about what he was going to do with the bodies. I stood in my wooded hiding place for what seemed an eternity with my pulse in my throat and an acidic taste in my mouth. The only sound was the low rumble of the van’s engine still idling.
I knew that my car was incapacitated, so after enough time had passed that I felt safe enough to emerge from the woods, I made my way to the van, got into the driver’s seat, and headed directly for the police station. In the cargo area behind me was a pile of large black plastic bags filled with things I didn’t want to see. The smell was so unbearable I wanted to vomit. Tears filled my eyes, and I wasn’t sure if it was due to the air inside the van, or because of what I had just experienced.
I began trying to piece together a story that the police would readily believe. I feared they would dismiss me as crazy if I attempted to convince them that I knew at least one of the legends of the Coral Ridge Bypass to be true. I had seen him with my own eyes. I also hoped they didn’t try to place the blame on me for whatever brutal atrocities were contained in the back of the van. But those things could all be dealt with in due time. For the time being I was just glad to be alive, and I couldn’t wait for the bypass to empty back out onto Highway 53.
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When I was fourteen, I had a best friend named Boone Hicks. He was real sweet looking, with long blonde hair, Irish green eyes, and an elvish face. He was a little on the short side, only about five feet tall, and we hung out mostly indoors because he was so fair skinned. His parents didn’t like him too much, though, and he spent most of his time at my house, but I never minded it.
It was when his aunt announced the gender of her unborn baby that things started to get weird. “When the doctor told me, I was so excited,” His aunt Caroline said, rubbing her belly affectionately. “I just knew it was going to be a girl.” We were all at Boone’s house, sitting in the family room; he had invited me over to meet his aunt. Boone just kind of stared at her with his piercing green eyes and a blank expression.
“No, it’s going to be a boy.” He said, still giving Caroline that heavy stare. She gave him a questioning look.
“But the doctors said it was a girl.”
“I guess there was a mistake,” he said, his expression never changing. “It’s going to be a boy.”
His aunt stared back at him with a worried look. “Are you feeling okay, Boone? Why are you saying these things?”
“I felt it.” He said simply, shifting his eyes to the floor. His mother threw the book she had been reading earlier at him, hitting him in the chest. It fell to the floor, but he didn’t even look at it.
“Boone, hush up, you idiot! Quit trying to scare your aunt!”
“Hang on, Julie,” his aunt said, holding a hand up. “What else did you, uh… “Feel” about the baby?”
“Well, it’s a boy,” he said, causing his mother to roll her eyes. “a-and it’s going to be born a month early, January third at eleven thirty A.M to be exact.” He went into another stare, eyes back on his aunt. “You were thinking about naming your girl Addison, but you want to name your boy Aiden now.” His aunt went wide eyed.
“H-how did you know that?” She asked, furrowing her eyebrows at him. “I haven’t told anyone about that!”
“I felt it.”
“No!” She yelled, grabbing his shoulders. “How did you know that?”
“I told you, I felt it-”
“Quit saying that, you freak!”
“Hey!” I said, interfering the fit that she was about to throw. “It was probably just a coincidence that he guessed his name, I mean, how many choices are there, really? You said you wanted it’s name to start with A, right?” I asked, recalling something Boone had told me a couple weeks earlier. “Besides, you haven’t even figured out if he was right about the birthdate or gender. Everyone just needs to calm down.”
Caroline looked at me for moment, and I honestly thought she was about to slap me. She just stood up. “I’m leaving.” And she did just that.
“Boone, you screw up! Get out!” Mrs. Hicks yelled, shoving Boone and me out the front door. I decided to let Boone sleep over at my house that night.
“Dude, why’d you do that?” I asked him as we walked down the road, the sun setting in the distance. “I think that was a little much.”
“But Viktor,” he said quietly, sounding a little like he was about to cry. “I felt it.”
I felt shivers rack my spine at that moment, and I slept as far away as I could from Boone that night. A few months later, his aunt gave birth to a baby boy, one month early, on January third at eleven A.M, and she named him Aiden. I don’t think he ever saw his aunt Caroline again.
Months passed and we soon forgot about the scare Boone had given his aunt. We went on with our normal lives, hung out and played video games like old times. That was, until my accident.
I was walking home from school one day, alone because Boone was home with a cold. The school was only a couple blocks from my house, but I decided to stop by a gas station and get a Pepsi before heading home. Too do that, though, I had to cross the street. Keep in mind, I was fourteen. If I didn’t see a car passing straight in front of me, I was not going to wait before running across the street. I began jogging across the road without a second thought. All I heard was squealing tires and a crash, then nothing. When I came to, I was being wheeled into a hospital room and poked with needles.
I don’t know how long I had been in there when one of the doctors came into my room. “Excuse me, sir, but someone’s here to see you.”
I expected it to be my parents, but it was Boone who came through the door. He rushed to my side, tears in his eyes. His hands hovered over me, like he was scared if he touched me he would hurt me. He finally settled one on my forehead. “I knew I’d find you here,” he mumbled, lips trembling. “I felt it.”
I shivered at those words. I didn’t know what was going on with Boone, but it was scaring me a little. “Did you call my parents?”
“Yeah,” he said, sitting in one of the plastic chairs beside the hospital bed. “They’re on their way.”
“Boone,” I started, turning my head to look at him. I couldn’t move my left leg, and I had a killer headache. “What are these “feelings” you get?” I had to ask; it was eating at me.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled, playing with his shirt sleeves. “I’ll just be sitting there and all the sudden I know about something before it happens. Or before anyone knows about it.”
I looked at his Irish green eyes one more time. They looked far more frightened than I felt. “That’s… That’s really cool.”
He grinned at me, then my parents came in, bawling and yelling about how I should’ve watched for cars. I was put in a cast later that day, my left leg was declared broken, and I had a minor concussion.
It was a year later before Boone had anymore “feelings”, but his last one haunts me to this very day.
It was a perfectly normal day, just like any other, except for the fact that Boone had been exceptionally quiet at school. I asked him about it at lunch, but he shrugged me off saying he hadn’t got much sleep the night before. I wasn’t convinced, but I dropped it. Boone didn’t walk home with me that afternoon, but I didn’t run across the road again. I went home, did homework, ate dinner, and went to sleep like always.
I awoke to tapping on my window at what my clock said was two in the morning. I moaned, rubbing my eyes and rolling over to face the window. Boone stood outside, in his pajamas, motioning for me to come over. I sighed, falling out of bed and shuffling to the window. I unlatched it and yanked it open, popping my head out. “What is it? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“Come on,” he motioned for me to climb outside. I raised an eyebrow at him.
“What?”
“Shhhhh! Come out, we’re going to the police station.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” I asked, closing my eyes. I just wanted to slam the window in his face and go back to bed.
“Just trust me!” He gave me a pleading look and I grudgingly put on my shoes.
“Fine,” I snapped, climbing out of the window and hopping to the ground. “But if my parents find out, you’re dead.” Boone didn’t say anything, just began jogging towards the police station.
You should have seen the look on the police officer’s face when Boone asked him to do my finger prints. He looked at him like he had two heads, but took me into a room and did as Boone said. After I washed the ink off of my fingers, I came back into the front room where Boone was saying something to one of the officers. When I got closer, I heard him telling him to compare my fingerprints to the ones of a missing persons case from eleven years before. I stopped dead in my tracks. He had to be crazy.
I felt something like a weight drop in my stomach and I thought for a second I was going to be sick all over the police station floor. I started shaking, then I tore out of the door before they noticed I was listening. I left Boone at the police station that night, running all the way home. I climbed through my window, collapsed on my bed, and cried myself to sleep.
It was a few weeks later when my “parents” were sent to court, and then sentenced to prison for kidnapping. Apparently, my name wasn’t Viktor. It’s Garret, and I was taken from my parents when I was only four years old. The police found my real parents, who I met the day my “parents” went to prison. They were bawling and hugging me, saying they thought they’d never see me again. They told me I’d be moving with them several states away, back to my home in Montana. I’d be leaving Boone.
Our goodbyes were short, and they ended with a long hug and a few tears. I would never forget Boone Hicks and the impact he had on my life, and as I watched him waving goodbye to me when I boarded the plane to Montana with my real parents, I didn’t have any questions about how he knew I’d been a missing person’s case. I knew he felt it.
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It’s just a legend.
But…I suppose…that’s what most of those unbelievable things turn out to be…legends.
I heard this legend from my grandmother. I asked her about it when I saw her drawing the Easter Island heads on a piece of construction paper. Actually, when she found out that my dad never told it to me, she was a bit upset…I guess it’s family tradition. She even made me promise to tell it to my children. My grandma originally heard it from her mother, who heard it from her mother…well, you know how these things work. It goes back in my family for as long as anyone can remember. You see, if you trace back my family far enough, you’d never leave the United States. The earliest official records of my family say that we started in Hawaii, but according to my grandma, we actually started out on anisland in the southern Pacific Ocean: Easter Island (or, as my grandma ordered me to call it, Rapa Nui). That’s where this legend comes from—supposedly unaltered, exactly the way it was told centuries and centuries ago.
According to the legend, the people on Rapa Nui had always been in touch with the spirits. They had their ceremonies, they did their fair share of sacrifices, etc. Sure, these days the idea of sacrificing an animal to a god seems a bit crazy, but keep in mind that it was normal back then. It was all they knew; the civilization had worshiped the spirits that they believed walked among them since the dawn of time. (Well, actually, I should say “flew”…apparently, the spirits that my wise ancestors worshiped were actually giant, creator bird people. Not that I’m judging or anything.)
But then, after hundreds of years of the same traditions, the same ceremonial rituals, the same chants, the same animal sacrifices…something changed. The people started to see something. Every once in a while, someone would report seeing a man standing by them in the night. Occasionally, he stood at the edge of the forest and “watched” the people who dared to walk by alone. He could be seen in the shadows, in the water, in the trees, or even in the grass. Regardless of where he was or who saw him, though, he always looked the same. He was reportedly very tall and covered in wrinkly, dark grey skin. He had a long, almost rectangular head, but where his eyes should have been, he had two deep, smooth depressions surrounded by shadows. His giant nose was also rectangular, and the bridge sunk back into the shadows along with the eye sockets. His mouth, stretched into a long, dark frown, rested above a square chin. His arms were short compared to the rest of his body. They were nothing but stubs, but when he moved them, it seemed that he had at least 10 joints. (I asked my grandma if she meant like tentacles–she said no, because tentacles flow, and the man’s arms were rigid and stiff.) Apparently, he had two legs, like any human, but they curled up and contracted like a worm until they were inside him. He didn’t need legs, my grandma said, to be tall.
The first time somebody saw the man, the village thought he was insane. He talked nonstop about this man that only he could see. He tried to describe the mysterious figure and insisted that it was familiar to all of them, that they’d all seen it before, dozens of times. No one could understand the descriptions of the man, though. A week passed, and the man from the village saw the strange being (who, from now on, I will refer to as the Mo’ai) more and more frequently. But the more he tried to explain to his family what the Mo’ai looked like, the less they understood what he meant. Then, exactly a week after first seeing it, the man was found dead where he slept. The Rapa Nui people thought that their gods had struck him down for blasphemy, and they chose to never speak of him or the Mo’ai again. However, about two weeks later, another member of the village claimed to have seen the Mo’ai one night. She said that he didn’t watch her, but simply stood over her, staring straight forward into the darkness. However, she also mentioned how the man who saw it before was absolutely right–now that she saw it, she knew it. She had known its face, with its sunken eyes, its pointed nose, its bald, wrinkled head, and its eternally closed mouth. The villagers thought that she had gone mad as well, and ignored her as she described the Mo’ai to them. A week after she first saw it, she, too, was found dead. She had eaten a poisoned berry by mistake.
The people of Rapa Nui kept on seeing the Mo’ai, and everyone who saw it died seven nights later. It wasn’t like a plague, though. It wasn’t like the Mo’ai would appear to people, therefore condemning them to death. It seemed that those who saw it would have died anyway—it was more of a warning than a sentence. And each time someone saw it, they would realize that they knew its face like they knew the camp in which they lived, like it had always been there, and they just didn’t realize until they saw it. But the people who couldn’t see the Mo’ai swore that they had never seen anything like what those who could were describing before. But one thing about the clan’s attitude towards the Mo’ai did eventually change: the chief decided that it was an evil spirit who appeared to those who were to die.
One man who saw the Mo’ai got so frustrated that no one knew what it looked like that he decided to carve it out for his fellow villagers to see. He made it out of the tallest boulder he could find, and he carved the omen exactly as he saw it. But the Rapa Nui people, upon looking at the effigy, held that they had never seen the thing before. The man who carved the statue was so angry that he took one of the stone tools that he had used to carve the statue and sliced his throat open (at this point, I silently decided never to tell this story to my children). He ended his own life exactly one week after he first saw the Mo’ai.
Then, something terrible happened. I guess you could call it genocide, but it’s not like you’d expect. You see, the clan’s chief demanded to know what the Mo’ai really looked like. If everyone who saw the Mo’ai recognized it, then they should have recognized the statue, too. But they didn’t, so they needed another skilled carver to see the Mo’ai and make as many statues as he could. And here’s the terrible, genocide-ish part. The natives came up with an idea: everyone who knew how to carve stone was to kill themselves in a week. That was the plan. The plan was for the carvers to plan to kill themselves. Well, it worked, and they produced quite a few statues out of it. But by the time that the workers ended their lives, the chief looked upon the statues that had been produced and saw that they were all identical to the original. So he ordered more people to kill themselves. Not enough people volunteered, so he sought help from other clans on Rapa Nui. None of the others had heard of the strange Mo’ai creature that the messengers talked about, but after someone from the first tribe visited another tribe, then people from that new tribe began to see it too. Suddenly, it was an island-wide disaster, and every craftsman on Rapa Nui was ordered to be executed in seven days. It worked, and every craftsman began seeing the Mo’ai. They carved it into the boulders to prove what it looked like, but they were still almost exactly the same, and still no one knew the face.
My grandma said that the mass homicides and suicides went on for almost a year, until finally every chief, all at once, saw the Mo’ai. They realized that the people they had killed had really been carving the statues perfectly the entire time. They stopped ordering deaths of stone carvers, but that didn’t stop the uprising all across the island that took the life of every chief.
That’s where the legend part stops, I’m afraid. Because the people of the island stopped carving the statues after that, and a few hundred years later, the Europeans arrived. They were a bit surprised by the statues (which, by the way, had since been positioned along the shoreline in hopes of frightening away any more dark spirits). They figured that the statues of the Mo’ai were simply erected in honor of the Rapa Nui ancestors. It wasn’t until one of the settlers started seeing the Mo’ai that they realized what the statues were. They thought that the Rapa Nui natives had summoned the evil spirit by building the statues, and they tried tearing down them down. It obviously didn’t work.
I asked my grandma what happened next; I mean, obviously people who visited Rapa Nui didn’t still see the Mo’ai when they were about to die, did they? She told me that it only ever appeared to the people who currently lived on the island and to direct descendants of the original island natives. Visitors weren’t haunted by it. I asked her if I would see it when it was time for me to die, since she had just told me that I was a direct descendant of the Rapa Nui natives. She just smiled and laughed quietly as if I had just told a joke.
Then, I asked her why no one knew about this legend. I mean, if the Mo’ai still appeared to some people, don’t you think they’d want to tell someone? She told me that the locals know not to make a big deal out of it. The more they talk about the Mo’ai, the more often it appears to them. She said that some people went mad if they didn’t talk about it, though. Apparently, the fact that no one understands exactly how familiar the Mo’ai is until they see it is almost too frustrating to handle. Sometimes, it’s so unbearably maddening that its victims end up killing themselves (making me wonder exactly how true my statement about how the Mo’ai doesn’t condemn people to death by appearing to them really was). But people find their own ways to deal with it during their last week of life. Some people travel to Rapa Nui to see the ancient statues. Some people make their own mini sculptures of the creature. Some people simply draw the Mo’ai on paper, just to make it easier to deal with the stress.
My grandmother died four days later.
Credit To – Christopher Gideon
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Drewer’s Inn
By Allison Miller
The rain poured down in thick, roaring sheets from a sky as black as tar. Jack Adams leaned forward in the seat of the old sedan, pressing his chest against the steering wheel and squinting through the windshield as the wipers frantically swished back and forth. The road was barely visible in the dim headlights, and every minute or so there would erupt a massive gust of wind that shook the sides of the car. He briefly considered pulling over and waiting for the rain to stop, but one glance at the large duffel bag and blood stained denim jacket in the passenger seat quickly dispelled that notion. Frankly, he considered himself lucky that he had made it this far without so much as hearing a siren.
Suddenly the car thumped and jostled as it struck a large pothole. Jack cursed under his breath and swerved to miss a few more. This highway was rarely used, which was why he chose it. However, that also meant it wasn’t often maintained. What with the storm and how rarely the lines were painted on the blacktop, Jack couldn’t even say for certain which side of the road he was on. But it will all be worth it, he thought to himself with a smile. All he had to do was withstand the storm and this sorry excuse of a road for a few more miles till Elm Springs. There, he would rendezvous with Mack Mason to barter a phony passport and by tomorrow morning he’d be sitting in a cushy airline seat heading straight for Costa Rica to commence his life of luxury. Four million dollars’ worth of luxury, to be precise. And all it took was a few minutes and the life of one dumb bank teller, whose blood currently stained his jacket. Not bad for a day’s work.
Despite these happy musings, the road didn’t become any easier and the storm never lessened. Up till now Jack never dared go over fifty-five miles an hour in this weather, but his patience was running thinner by the second.
“Screw this,” He muttered to himself, pressing down on the gas and shooting the sedan up to sixty…then seventy… then finally eighty miles an hour before he decided to keep it there. The hissing from the rain as the car surfed over the asphalt intensified, puddles splashed up over the sides like ocean waves, and up ahead, unknown to Jack, was a faint curve in the road.
If Jack had still been going his previous fifty-five miles an hour he might have been able to see it in time, even with the storm. At eighty miles, however, the turn was there in a split second.
“SHIT!” Jack cried, wrenching the wheel to adjust for the curve, only to have the tires hydroplane out of control and skid off the road into the ditch.
The sedan fell into a mad roll. Glass shattered and flew like crystal snow as Jack was tossed and shaken; his arms flying up, then down, his head flung back and forth, all the while screaming to a deity he had long since stopped believing in. Then, just as quickly as it started, the rolling stopped. Jack’s head hung barely an inch above the sedan’s roof, suspended by the lifesaving miracle that was his seat belt.
“DAMN!” he swore to himself, shaking off the daze. Groaning, he undid his seat belt and tumbled into the debris and mud that was seeping in through the smashed windows. He then wrapped his hands in his denim jacket and pulled himself through the driver’s side window, dragging the duffel bag with him.
The storm continued to rage, the torrents of rain washing most of the mud and blood away from Jack’s bruised and cut face. It was only with the help of the still functioning headlights that he managed to climb up out of the ditch and back on to the road. What the hell am I going to do now? He thought to himself, looking up and down the deserted highway. Elm Springs was still at least sixty miles away, there was little to no chance another car would be coming anytime soon, and God knows he couldn’t call the police. I am up the metaphorical shit creek without a single damn paddle!
Resigning himself to a very long, cold, and wet evening, Jack began slogging down the road. Gonna catch pneumonia, tuberculosis, or strep, He grumbled to himself. Gonna die in this friggin’ downpour, then where’ll I be? All this money, my hard work, all down the…
It showed up so suddenly that Jack figured at first it had to be some sort of optical illusion. But sure enough, as he stumbled down the road and passed through the watery veil there could be no mistaking it. Squares of light, stacked neatly one on top of the other, seemed to grow out of the ground, only faintly encompassed within the black profile of a tall building. It stood nine stories high and was perfectly rectangular with a pointed roof, looking, Jack thought, like a giant’s mausoleum. Just under the roof he could see what must have been a sign. Squinting against the rain and darkness he read “Drewer’s Inn.”
Who would be stupid enough to build a hotel way out here, Jack thought to himself. Most hotels, even small cheap ones out in the country, are usually accompanied by gas stations or a series of restaurants and diners to entice travelers, but this one stood alone; a solitary structure in the middle of Nowhere, USA. They couldn’t be getting good business, but whether or not the owner was Rain Man himself, the place was a welcome sight to Jack.
A cracked and ill maintained drive circled off the road and ended at a barren patch of asphalt in front of the hotel that had to be the parking lot, though the lines separating the spaces were no longer visible. Jack sprinted across the lot towards the thick double doors and threw himself inside. The light was blinding after the dark of the storm and he had to pause in the entrance while his eyes adjusted.
The lobby was much more elaborately furnished than Jack would have expected for an out-of-the-way highway hotel. On the right hand side stood a welcoming cobblestone fireplace, bordered with cushy leather couches and chairs and a large moose head hanging over the mantle. From the door, a spotless maroon rug lead up to the front desk, where a tall, thin man in a business suit stood gaping.
“Welcome to Drewer’s Inn!” he cried, his gape bursting into a wide smile. “How may I help y…” the smile melted as he noticed the state of Jack, covered with mud and scratches. “Good lord, man! Are you alright?”
“Yeah, yeah I’ll be alright.” Jack panted. “I just need to use your phone.”
“Of course, of course!” the man immediately swiveled the phone around to face him. Jack fished a moist slip of paper from his jeans pocket and dialed the number scribbled on it. It went straight to voicemail without a single ring. You have reached the voicemail of…Mack Mason…please leave a message…
“Damn it.” Jack muttered, hanging up the phone a little more harshly than necessary. The man in the suit raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. “I don’t suppose,” Jack continued, trying his best to sound cordial, “you know of any taxi services?”
“None operating this late. Also, there is the storm to consider.”
Jack took a deep breath and slapped on his best grin. “Well then, I guess I’m going to need a room for the night.”
“Wonderful! Happy to serve!” The wide smile once again split the man’s face.
“But here’s the thing,” Jack dropped his voice a few octaves and leaned forward conspiratorially. “I’m afraid I lost my wallet with all of my credit cards and my ID, but I have plenty of cash…”
“Ah, I see. Well…” the man folded his hands on the counter, pondering. “Such a thing is normally against hotel policy these days. But seeing as how you seem to be in a bit of a bind…I guess I can accept just cash. On one condition, however.”
“That is?”
“You sign the guest book!” and he slapped a dusty leather ledger down on the counter.
“Uh, sure.” The man handed Jack a fountain pen and flipped the book open to a page marked with a maroon ribbon. Half the page was covered with signatures in illegible cursive and all were written in the same red ink. Jack unscrewed the cap and swiftly scrawled “James Swanson” beneath the others.
“Wonderful to have you here, Mister Swanson! A real pleasure! I am Mr. Drewer. Harry Drewer. Old Harry to my friends.” Mr. Drewer snatched Jack’s hand and shook it heartily.
“Drewer, huh?” Jack said. “You must be the owner, then?”
“Indeed I am.” Drewer’s chest puffed slightly with pride. “This hotel has been in my family for…many generations.”
“Don’t suppose you get much business way out here, though?”
“No, sadly. We used to do a thriving business in better days, but a competitor managed to slow things down for us. That’s all ancient history, however, and you’ve obviously had a trying night. Here, let’s get you a room, shall we?” Mr. Drewer paused and regarded Jack for a second, seemingly glancing from the duffel bag to the denim jacket he had rolled up under his arm. “hmmm…I think the fourth floor would suit your needs best.” Turning around, Mr. Drewer pulled a shining brass key off a hook and handed it to Jack. A plastic tag showed it to belong to room 401. “Have a good night, and…pleasant dreams.”
“Sure, thanks.” Jack took the key and made his way over to the elevators on the left. From his peripheral vision he could see Drewer watching him all across the lobby. As soon as the doors slid shut behind him, Jack shuddered. Something didn’t feel right about that, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Maybe it was his suit, so tediously overdressed for a hotel that looked like it saw two to three guests a week. Or maybe it was his overly polite way of speaking. Either way, Mr. Drewer and the hotel just didn’t seem to belong, somehow. Oh well, what do I care, huh? Jack thought to himself as the elevator slowly lurched to the fourth floor. First sign of daylight and I’m outta here.
The doors slid open with a hollow ding to reveal a small landing where he was faced with a pathetic assortment of dusty paper flowers on a coffee table under a tarnished mirror. The corridor ran perpendicular to the landing, stretching left and right under dim wall lamps and ending with curtained windows on either end. The carpet kept with the maroon color scheme of the rest of the hotel, but was pale and worn in the middle where countless feet had once trod.
Jack turned towards his room, but was distracted by an odd shape at the far left end of the hallway. It looked to be a maid’s cart, still pushed up against the wall near a room. But what maid would still be working at this time of night? Would a hotel like this even need a regular maid? Jack figured it must have just been left there from this afternoon, but then, shockingly, a dark silhouette seemed to glide out from a room and go towards the cart. Slowly, mechanically, it bent down and pulled out what could only have been folded towels, and then paused. It rose and appeared to turn and stare down the hallway at Jack. He stared back, expecting some sort of response; a greeting, a waving hand, anything. But the strange silhouette did nothing. It just stood there and stared. Jack shivered and hurried to his room, practically slamming the door behind him before turning the latch.
He leaned against the door. The room, he could see, was clean but painfully old fashioned. The only signs of technology, the TV and the phone, looked to be from the 1970s (with the TV still having a rabbit ear antenna and the phone being a turn dial) and there was a faint smell of mothballs. I guess without any regular guests they never bothered to upgrade to the twenty-first century. Jack thought as he tossed the denim jacket and duffel bag onto an armchair in the corner. Looking at himself in a mirror over the desk, he could see that he desperately needed a shower. The rain had washed off most of the mud, but his hair still bore traces of it and his arms and face had thin patches of smeared grime that shown like bruises. Before walking into the bathroom, Jack unconsciously double-checked the latch. Then, just to be sure, he set the chain.
Like the rest of the room, the bathroom was spotless but seemingly from a different decade. The tub was colored off-white and stood at the opposite end on clawed feet, blinding white towels hung above the toilet, and the floor squeaked under Jack’s shoes as he walked in. The only miniscule sign of imperfection was a tiny circle of rust around the drain in the tub. Jack peeled off his filthy clothes and threw them carelessly on the floor, then twisted the shower knobs to a comfortable heat.
But it wasn’t water that flowed from the showerhead. A red liquid, reeking of iron, gushed forth and splattered against the clean white of the tub. Jack screamed and fell backwards, tripping over his discarded jeans and hitting his head against the door. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the red liquid ceased and was replaced by clear water. Jack stood up, massaging his head. Rust, Jack reasoned to himself. It’s gotta be rust. An old place like this that hasn’t been visited regular has gotta have rust in the pipes. Jack chuckled as he stepped under the steaming water. You’re letting your imagination get the better of you, Jacky boy.
Jack sat and soaked under the hot water for almost twenty minutes before getting out. The towel he used to dry himself took the place of his clothes on the floor, which he hung over the curtain rod to dry for tomorrow. His boxer shorts were slightly damp where the rain had soaked through his jeans, but made adequate pajamas.
Throwing back the bedspread and the sheets, Jack crawled into the king size bed with a sigh. This place was old and freaky as hell, but at least they got the beds right. Reaching up, he pulled the chain on the lamp and plunged the room into darkness. His eyelids grew heavy and he could feel himself drifting into sleep…then SQUREEEAAAAAKKKKK…..SQUREEEEAAAAKKKK.
Jack shot up in bed. That horrible sound pierced the silence in regular intervals, getting louder; the shriek of an unoiled wheel. With horrid screams, it came closer and closer down the hallway before it seemed to stop right next to Jack’s room. Through the crack under the door, Jack noticed the twin shadows of feet stand just outside. For a whole minute they stood there, silent and unpredictable, before shuffling away. The shrieks sounded again, only this time receding down the hallway before silencing altogether. Jack flicked on the light and checked the door. The latch was still secure and the chain still in place, but he still felt uneasy. Tearing off a wad of toilet paper in the bathroom, he stuffed it into the peephole before going back to bed.
Jack was reluctant to turn off the light. He lay there, staring at the chain, before finally swearing at himself and tugging it so hard the lamp nearly tipped over. But the exhaustion he had felt before was gone, replaced by a subtle yet unrelenting fear. The hours seemed to tick by slowly in the darkness. There was no real way for Jack to tell the time; he had no watch and the room didn’t have a clock. At some point Jack drifted into a half-sleep, the kind of sleep where the body shuts down only out of necessity but the brain remains fully aware and ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.
No dreams come to a man in half-sleep, only darkness as he waits for the sun to rise, but Jack could swear he heard noises. The squeak…squeak of the maid’s cartwheel came back to him. Jack assured his unconscious self that it was just his imagination and kept on sleeping. Eventually the noise ceased and he thought no more of it. He drifted on through oblivion a bit longer…then, for some reason, the oblivion grew darker. He felt like he was being watched and forced himself to resurface. His eyes flickered in the darkness…and registered a dark silhouette standing at the end of his bed. Jack cried out as he grabbed the bedside lamp and flung it at the silhouette, only to have it smash against the opposite wall. He jumped out of bed and slapped on the switch.
The room was empty, not a soul to be seen. Breathing heavily, Jack checked the door and saw that all the locks were still set. Even the toilet paper was still in the peephole. He threw open the bathroom door, the closet, and even checked under the bed; nothing. Nervous laughter escaped him as he wiped the sweat off his brow. There was no one here, it was just his imagination. Just his own…There, on the armchair! His denim jacket and the duffel bag containing the four million dollars were gone!
“SON OF A…!” he cried, running into the bathroom and pulling on his clothes. She took it, the psycho maid! It had to be her. He had no idea how, but it had to be. Maybe she didn’t know what was inside, maybe she was just some kind of freaky klepto, in which case all he had to do was find Drewer, get it back, then get the hell out of there. But if she did know, if she looked inside that duffel…then he would have to kill them, the maid and Mr. Drewer. He had already killed one person for that money; two more wouldn’t make much of a difference. But first he had to find it.
He ran out of the room and down the hallway towards the elevator…or, at least where the elevators used to be. Where the hallway used to cut off into the elevator landing, it now continued on with more rooms. Jack continued down the hallway all the way to the opposite end, frantically looking left and right.
“Shit!” he cried. He ran back down the way he came, making it all the way back to his room with still no sign of the elevator. He cursed again, slamming his fist against the wall. Then he noticed something he hadn’t before. The door opposite his room…before, he would have sworn it was just another room, but now he saw it was an emergency door leading to a stairway! He slammed through the door and dashed down the stairway all the way to the bottom, passing three other floors with their numbers painted on the thick iron doors. He threw open the bottom door…and was in another hallway just like the one he left. The number on the room across from him was 901.
“Wha…how the hell did I get up to the ninth floor?” Confused, he walked quickly down the hallway. Halfway down he encountered an elevator landing identical to the one that was, or rather supposed to be, on his floor. Frantically, he leaped forward and slapped the only button. The doors opened with the familiar hollow ding, and Jack ran inside, pushing the level one button. The elevator lowered down to eight…then nine…slowly but surely making its way to the bottom. Eventually it came to three…then two…then one…but it refused to open.
“WHAT! Come on!” Jack frantically jabbed at the level one button, but it refused to relent. Instead, it continued on to the basement level. The doors slid open with a rattle.
“Good evening, Mr. Adams!” chimed Mr. Drewer, his arms behind his back and the familiar smile upon his face. He was standing in a small concrete room, pipes spider-webbing across the walls and ceiling and what appeared to be a large furnace hissing behind him. The grate to the furnace was thrown wide, revealing a roaring inferno inside. But all that was nothing compared to the creatures standing next to Drewer. They stood hunched and crooked, tattered and stained maid uniforms hanging off of emaciated forms with grey skin. Their faces were sharp and bony with pointed teeth that gnashed and grinned at the sight of Jack. One was digging a clawed hand into Jack’s duffel bag, throwing wads of money into the furnace to heat it. “I hope you are enjoying your stay. You’ll be glad to know we have your more permanent residence finally prepared.”
“Wha… What the hell?!”
“Oh, Hell indeed, sir.” Mr. Drewer snapped his fingers and the creatures surged forward, grabbing Jack by the arms and legs and effortlessly lifting him off the ground. He screamed and writhed as they carried him over to the furnace.
“N-no! P-please, no, I…” his screams cut off with the final slam of the furnace door.
Inspector Stewart watched languidly from the roadside as the firemen doused the flaming sedan. Eventually one fireman climbed out of the ditch holding a charred license plate.
“This that Adams guy’s car?” the fireman asked, showing the plate.
Inspector Stewart flipped through his notebook and checked the numbers. “Yep, sure looks like it. We won’t know for sure if the corpse inside was Adams until the dental records come back, though.”
“A real shame.” The fireman said, taking off his helmet and shaking his head. “It looks like the fuel line got cut in the roll and started the fire, cooking the guy inside while he was maybe unconscious. Heck of a way to go.”
“Well, if it was Adams,” said Inspector Stewart. “Then he’s facing a higher judgment now.”
Credit To – Allison L. Miller
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This is the fourth entry in the By the Fire’s Light series.
“So,” Jared said, a sneer on his face. “I suppose you’ve come to find out why I did it.”
Connor looked into Jared’s face, at the sneer, the hate. He looked into Jared’s eyes, and saw, just for a moment, a flame flicker in them. “No,” Connor said, surprising himself and Jared. “No,” he said again, wonderingly. He put the phone down for a moment and looked around them. The guards were alert for any wrong-doing but they weren’t really paying attention to what he was saying. He picked the phone up again and turned to Jared. “I want to know why you took the blame.” — By the Fire’s Light
Jared Holloway was a solitary man. He was not anti-social by any means. But he did not feel the need to constantly be in the presence of his fellow man. The equivalent of a night on the town for Jared was a hike in the nearby state park. As he would tromp through the woods, listening to the sound of the wind blowing through the trees, the scampering of small creatures in the undergrowth, and the occasional crashing of much bigger things, a tiny spring of tension in him would release. There was no one to judge him out here. There was no one to demand he produce four thousand new lines of code in a single day after some idiot deleted the BIOS systems at work.
Which was exactly what had happened three days prior before Jared’s latest trip into the woods. Some moron in tech support had walked away from his work station without logging out. He was a high level tech with high level access. Well, had been anyway. Some other moron had messed around on the computer in his office. Jared wasn’t sure how he had done it, but he had managed to delete the BIOS of every computer on the network. It was either a work of great genius or astounding stupidity, and Jared was leaning towards the latter.
Some of Jared’s bosses outside ITS were under the impression he would need to write new code for the entire network, hence the demand. Fortunately, Jared had been prepared for just such a situation (perhaps not as dire as losing the BIOS directory on every computer at once, but still) and had a backup copy of the BIOS directory burned to a CD. One CD. That needed to hit hundreds of computers. After a few days of burning more copies and visiting many computers in tandem with the rest of his co-workers, they had restored relative order to the company. So, perhaps today he was feeling just a tad anti-social on top of his usual solitariness.
He stopped on the trail he was on and sat down on a large rock on the side of the path. He allowed his pack to drop next to the rock. Leaning back, he let the sun’s rays that filtered down through the leaves wash over him. He breathed in and out, shifting his shoulders as he did, trying to ease the tension out. As he did, the sound of laughter came to him from farther down the trail. He opened an eye and looked down the green path before him. It was the middle of June, so most of the schools were out. It sounded like a couple of younger men horsing around. Jared grunted to himself. He really did not feel like meeting anyone else out here.
Scooting down off the rock, he leaned over to pick up his pack. As he did, a scream rent the air. He dropped his pack and looked up. Another scream quickly followed it, this one shriller and more panicked. It was coming from the same direction as the laughter. Letting go of his pack, Jared took off down the trail. This wouldn’t be the first time inexperienced hikers hurt themselves while tromping around back here. The screaming, while growing fainter even as he ran forward, had a more terrified edge to it now. Commingled in with the screams were the yells of someone else.
Then, suddenly, it just stopped. Jared paused, leaning on a tree, his hand resting on a knothole in the rough bark, and caught his breath. He listened carefully. He heard what sounded like someone crashing through the forest. Jared knew he wouldn’t be able to follow them on sound alone though. He’d need to find where they had left the path.
Walking forward quickly but with an eye for breaks in the foliage, Jared continued on. It wasn’t long before Jared came to another abandoned pack on the path. Looking to his right, he could tell by the way the branches were bent which way the user of the pack had gone. “Hello?” Jared called as he stepped off the path. “Can you hear me? Are you injured?” He put a hand up to his forehead, trying to shade his eyes and get a better look ahead of him. The greenery was dense here and he picked his way slowly, following the trail of bent branches as best he could. A hint of red on the grass below him caught his eye and Jared stopped again. The red was shiny.
Jared bent down and lightly touched the red stain. “Blood,” he said to himself. He scanned the ground and saw a small trail of it leading forward. Holding his breath, Jared pushed his way further into the forest. “Oh my God.” Lying on the ground not ten feet from Jared was a young man. He was covered in cuts, dozens upon dozens of them, all of them a bright red. Jared quickly walked forward and bent down next to the body. Gently, he put a couple fingers on the neck of the young man where his jugular artery should be. As he did, he also watched the young man’s chest, hoping against hope to see it rise and fall even slightly. But both chest and artery were still. This young man, this boy, was dead.
As Jared stood, he remembered the laughter from earlier. There had been more than one person out here. He could tell that someone else had run away from here, and in a hurry. They had either killed this person, or were running from whoever had. Jared hesitated. Either way, there was likely a murderer at the end of this trail if he continued to follow it. He pulled out his cell phone, but he knew even before he checked it that there wouldn’t be a signal. It was part of the reason he came out here, so he couldn’t be called in. He’d have to track all the way back to the beginning of the park to get a decent signal, and that would take close to an hour.
He looked down at the young boy and noticed he had a pack on his shoulders. So, that meant the pack on the path belonged to someone else. And if someone had crashed off into the woods without their pack, it was probably because they were in mortal terror of something. With that, Jared made up his mind. He would not leave this person to their fate alone. He quickly sprinted back to his pack and unclipped his Gerber military style knife off the pack and then re-clipped it on his belt. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Then, not quite running, but moving as quickly as he could without losing the trail, Jared ventured into the forest. He made sure to mark his progress as he did so he could find his way back when he was done.
Jared spotted a piece of cloth in a briar patch up ahead. Jogging up to it, he bent down to observe it. There was some blood on the cloth, and it looked like it was still wet. His head snapped up and he looked around himself warily. That meant he was probably close to whoever had fallen in here. He stood up slowly. As far as he could tell, the trail continued up a tall hill ahead of him.
Looking for debris and branches on the ground as he walked, Jared made his way up the hill. He drew his knife out and held it in his right hand. He stayed crouched as he walked so that when he crested the hill he wouldn’t be a noticeable target. The sun beat down on him uncomfortably, and he rolled his shoulders again trying to release the tension in them.
Coming to the top of the hill, Jared went down on his stomach and looked over the edge. What he saw made his heart stop. There was another young man with black hair at the bottom of the hill, lying unconscious (or so Jared hoped) in the middle of a patch of mushrooms. Standing over the injured man was a tall, skinny, bald man in what looked like a business suit.
Jared quickly debated with himself whether to yell down at Mr. Business Suit or not. Opting to move in as quietly as he could, Jared started to make his way down the hill. As he did, the injured young man started to scream, just like the screams Jared had heard earlier.
Jared sprung to his feet, adrenaline coursing through his body. He had to act now. “Whatever you’re doing, just stop right there!” he shouted, bounding down the hill. As he came to the bottom of the hill, he prepared to plunge his knife into Mr. Business Suit to make him stop doing whatever he was doing to the injured party.
Then, with his knife raised, Jared realized something. Mr. Business Suit wasn’t just sorta tall. He stood a good eight feet high, at least. And he had long slender black growths waving from his back. The knife shook in Jared’s hand as the man began to turn. Two seconds later the knife fell from Jared’s hand and hit the forest floor with a small plop. “Your face, where’s your face?!” Jared screeched backing away, hands outstretched. Then one of the black things on its back whipped forward and slashed towards Jared. Jared held up his arms and felt a stinging cut and he stumbled backwards. Red blood poured from his right arm, but the physical wound barely phased him. As the thing had made contact, Jared had a brief vision of fire and screams. Small children’s screams.
The thing towered over him and slashed at him again and again, each blow that landed giving Jared a clearer picture. Fire and death that wasn’t death and so many children. Fear was replaced with anger. This thing picked on children? Not if Jared had anything to say about it.
With a mighty roar, Jared sprang forward. The thing, surprised at this outburst, took a momentary step back. Swiping his knife off the ground, Jared rushed this monster, swinging for its chest. Jared had to stretch his arm up and above his head the thing was so tall. The knife sunk in to the hilt but no blood came. As it did, Jared felt like he had been hit by an electric shock. He saw and he understood. Oh, God, he understood what this thing wanted. It was like a demented Pinocchio and this boy this this–images and sounds flashed, fire and children and screams– Connor was his chosen vessel to help it be a real boy. He looked up into its non-face and realized this meant his death, or rather fiery non-death if he let this thing take him.
“Wait!” he screamed, springing away again. A tendril struck his face and he fell to the forest floor. A panicked sob escaped him. “Wait, I can be of use!” he screamed backing away. “You killed his friend! The cops won’t believe him if he says a faceless monster killed him.” He cowered, waiting for the next blow. When it didn’t come, he looked up into its eyeless gaze. It stood tense, its tendrils whipping, but it made no move at him yet.
“Y-you need someone to take the blame,” Jared said, arms held up over his head. Blood dripped from his right arm and spattered on the the grass in front of him. His whole body shook. “I can do that.”
Then the tendrils, looking for all the world like streamers in the wind, were plunging towards him. Jared screamed and covered his head. But, the tendrils did not slice into him this time. Instead, they wound around him, holding him tight. He let out a gasp as they squeezed harder and harder. Then they stopped. Jared raised his head and found the faceless thing leaning over him. Jared was completely in its shadow, the blackness blocking off all light. One final tendril raised in the air. It quivered and shifted back and forth slightly, as if unsure of its destination. It plunged with sudden decisiveness and buried itself in Jared’s left shoulder.
Jared tried to scream, but the pain was so great it was all he could do to unlock his throat enough to breathe. He felt the tendril burrow deep within his shoulder. As it went, he could see blood dripping from where the tendril had plunged in and surrounding the blood was livid, red, inflamed flesh.
He felt the tendril wrap around the very bones in his shoulder. He shuddered, trying to pull away, but was held fast. Visions began to pour into his mind again. Only this time it was different. He wasn’t just looking into the thing’s mind this time. This time he could feel it tearing into his own thoughts, ripping through his emotions and innermost psyche, laying his most precious memories bare. It was as if it was weighing them in its tendrils. Tears rolled down Jared’s eyes and he managed to stammer a whispered, “St-stop.”
After what felt like centuries, but could only have been a few moments, the thing released him. Jared fell to the forest floor, grabbing at his left shoulder and panting. He managed to raise himself up to his knees, still clinging to his wound. The faceless thing watched impassively and under its steady gaze Jared felt a burst of adrenaline. Without knowing what he was doing, Jared was off and stumbling up the hill. He scrambled along the ground, gripping branches and slender tree trunks to help himself up.
His shoulder burned as he ran, but he ignored it. He ran as if death itself was at his heels, and for all Jared knew, it really was. He smashed into the briar patch he had found the blood-stained cloth in, falling down not far from it. With a small whimper, he ripped himself up, covered in a dozen new scratches.
Breathless, tired, and frightened, Jared finally allowed himself to collapse by the body of the first young boy he had found. Crying quietly to himself, Jared curled into a small ball. “What am I going to do?” he whispered over and over again.
After a few minutes, Jared calmed down enough to uncurl and sit up. He knew he couldn’t stay here. Promise or no promise, he wasn’t going to wait around in a forest with that thing in it. He had to get help.
As he stood, a black shadow passed over Jared. Looking up, he found himself confronted by the faceless thing again. Freezing, Jared stared up at it. It was waving something in one of its tendrils. Eyes focusing on it, Jared realized it was his knife. Jared looked at it confused. Why did it have his knife? Surely it didn’t need any other weapons. With a small toss, the thing dropped the knife by the boy’s body.
“Oh,” Jared said, quietly. He looked up at the towering thing and wondered if he ran fast enough, if he could make it to the path.
As if sensing his thought, the thing turned towards him. As it did, Jared’s shoulder lit up in a fire of agony. With a scream, he dropped to his knees. White hot pain radiated from his shoulder through the rest of his body and he felt as if he had been plunged into flames. “Okay,” he managed to scream, “I’ll do it!”
The pain stopped as quickly as it had started. Trembling, Jared crawled over to the knife. He hesitated for just a moment, and then brought his knife down into the already dead body. He traced several of the cuts with his knife and made a couple of his own. He made sure to get the boy’s blood on his hands, and for good measure, he nicked himself with the knife and allowed some of his own blood to land on the boy. “There,” he said, voice cracking, “I’ll wait nearby and when they come looking for the boy I’ll confess.” He laughed, sounding slightly unhinged. “I’ll just pretend to be mad. Okay?” He turned, wincing as he did. The thing was gone though.
Jared stood up. A slight buzz in his shoulder warned him that though he could not see the thing, it most certainly could see him. Feeling as if he was in a dream, Jared forged an obvious trail away from the body. After about half a mile he stopped and waited. He sat on the ground with his knife and rocked on his heels, back and forth. The pulsing, droning buzz of cicadas in the afternoon sun was the only sound that came to him. No searchers. Not yet. Jared’s rocking slowed as he became more and more light-headed. His gaze turned to his still bleeding arm. He was covered in cuts but that first one on his arm was the deepest. He supposed he should cover it with something.
As he watched the red blood drip away the world began to blur and swirl around him. Heat engulfed him as he lost his balance and toppled over. Not the tearing searing heat from earlier, but a fuzzy warmth that shrouded him and dulled his thoughts. And then nothing.
After an interminable time, Jared opened his eyes and froze. The landscape had changed. He was no longer in a forest. At least, not the same forest he had started in. There were a few stray trees. But they were blackened and brittle. They looked as if a strong breeze would topple them and turn them into ash. The very ground on which Jared lay was black and coarse. As he shifted up, Jared looked at his arms and realized the cuts were gone. There was still, however, the livid, red spot on his left shoulder. He probed it and winced as pain radiated from it.
Placing his hand on the ground to help himself up, Jared paused. There was a reason the ground was black and coarse. It wasn’t ground, it was ash. Eyes widening, Jared dug his hands into the ashes. Deeper and deeper he reached down, trying to touch ground and failing.
Breathing heavily, Jared stood and swayed from foot to foot. “This isn’t real, it’s a dream,” he muttered, turning in place. An urge to run surged through him. But where would he run to? Raising his eyes to the horizon, he saw an orange glow. Every instinct in his being told him he did not want to see what was there. Deliberately turning his back on it, Jared ran in the opposite direction.
He slapped himself as he ran, hoping the pain would jolt him awake. He scratched at his face, pinched his arms, threw himself at the ground and twisted his ankle. Nothing worked, though, and he continued to stumble through the nightmarish landscape.
Then, suddenly, despite turning his back on it, he found himself on top of the orange glow. It wavered before him, and he heard crackling. Shaking, Jared stepped forward. The orange flickered and split around him, and he found himself in a sea of flames that oddly did not burn him. He could not say the same for the children surrounding him on every side. There were a few adults and older teenagers too, but for the most moaning and thrashing and screaming children twisted on the ground around him.
Jared put his hands to his head and fell to his knees. “Why are you doing this you sick fuck?!” he yelled. A small hand hit his leg and Jared turned to look at who had hit him. It was a young boy, no older than four with blond almost white hair. Jared reached a hand towards him and watched the flames part before his hand. He took in a small breath. Could he stop the boy from burning if he were to hold him close?
Without hesitation Jared picked up the small boy and held him close, protectively. The boy thrashed in his grip. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” Jared choked. He began to run through the flames, trying to find an exit.
The boy screamed. “No, no, no!” he said. “It hurts more!”
Jared stopped. He gazed slack-jawed at the boy. The boy thrashed harder and screamed, a long drawn-out wail. Gently, Jared put him back down. Flames covered him again, burning but never claiming the boy. And though he moaned and thrashed, he calmed, as if the flames were better than Jared’s touch had been.
Small black tendrils surrounded Jared and he looked up into a pale featureless face.
A burst of white light, and Jared jolted up on the forest floor. His arm throbbed, but someone had wrapped it in a now blood-stained cloth. The white light proved to be a flashlight pointed at Jared. Shading his eyes, Jared saw two uniformed police officers. One of them was holding a plastic bag. And in the plastic bag was Jared’s knife. He giggled. “Did you see my work?” he asked.
The officer’s stiffened, and he saw one’s hand stray to his holster. Jared tried to stand, but the officers barked at him to sit down. Jared ignored them. Maybe he could get them to shoot him. Then he could get away. Away beyond its reach. He took a step forward, his whole body loose and flowing, as if his joints no longer had any interest in properly working.
Before he could do anything more, one of the officers and tackled Jared to the ground. He struggled underneath his grip. This wouldn’t do. He needed to be at threat, a clear and present danger if he wanted to be shot. He snarled and twisted, trying to bite the officer’s hand. But the events of the day had caught up with Jared and then some. It was all he could do not to pass out as he felt his arms twisted and a pair of cuffs slipped on his wrists.
Jared heard the other officer speaking into his radio as the one who had cuffed him hauled him to his feet. “–possibly caught Kurt Kent’s killer,” Jared heard him say. Jared laughed again. Was that the boy’s name, Kurt? These fools should be grateful they had not crossed Kurt’s real killer. Even as madness threatened to engulf him, Jared retained enough of himself to realize that he had no wish for these officer’s to make contact with that thing. Not even just because of what the thing would do to him if they did. No one deserved to fall into that thing’s clutches. And the only way to protect them was to be convincing.
Jared pulled against the officer holding him. “Possibly nothing,” he said. He licked his lips and and gave a short breathless laugh. “That is, if Kurt Kent was killed by several dozen slashes from which he bled so scarlet red,” he said, his voice a sing-song. Jared felt the other officer’s grip tighten on him reflexively.
“Todd,” the other officer said, glancing sharply at the one who held Jared. “Don’t.”
“Yes, Todd, don’t,” Jared agreed, looking back at him. “Police brutality will just cloud your case.”
“You shut your mouth,” Todd said through clenched teeth. Todd jerked his head back towards the path. “Let’s get him out of here.”
“Agreed,” the other officer said, following Todd as he dragged Jared back through the forest. As they walked, just for a moment, Jared though he saw one of the slender younger trees bend over. Ignoring it, he turned his eyes forward and allowed himself to be dragged along.
***
Jared sat in the interview room, hands cuffed in front of him. He stared at the mirrored window on the other side of the room. A sullen and slightly demented looking man stared back at him. He was covered in scratches and abrasions, some with stitches showing. Bandages swathed the large cut on his right arm. His eyes were narrow and they never stopped moving, as if always looking for something.
Jared rotated his left shoulder, which throbbed very slightly. It would know. It would know if he told the truth. It had been three days since Jared’s run through the woods and he had slept little since then. Every time he closed his eyes it was waiting. Always he found himself in the land of fire and ash. He did not move anymore. He laid curled on the ground, waiting for wakefulness to claim him. He was beginning to wonder, though, which part of his life was the dream, and which part was the nightmare. Or perhaps it was all nightmare. He didn’t know anymore.
The door clicked open. A man who looked to be in his early thirties walked in. He wore a dull dark blue suit with a dull dark blue tie. He seated himself at the table across from Jared. He said nothing at first, merely setting a manilla envelope on the table followed by a digital recorder. He glanced up at Jared, pulling a card from his suit jacket pocket as he did. With a flick of a finger he turned the recorder on. “This conversation will be recorded,” he said, in an official-sounding voice.
“Of course,” Jared said, head nodding, voice full of false amiability.
The man did not react. He merely maintained a steady gaze with Jared. “I am Detective Carl Rourke,” he said. “And before we begin,” he said, looking back down at the card, ” You have the right to remain silent,”
“Oh, really, Detective, really?” Jared said settling back in his chair. “Must you?”
Rourke ignored him. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him present with you while being questioned.”
Jared gave a long drawn out sigh. “No, no lawyers. They just draaag things out,” he said, gesturing with his hands as best he could. And Jared had no intention of dragging this out. None.
Rourke continued unperturbed. “If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to represent you before any questioning if you wish. You can decide at any time to exercise these rights and not answer any questions or make any statements.” Rourke locked eyes with Jared now. “Do you understand each of these rights I have explained to you?”
Jared nodded slowly and exaggeratedly.
Rourke pointed at the recorder. “Out loud please.”
“Yes,” Jared said, slowly and distinctly.
“Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to us now?” Rourke asked, never letting his gaze waver from Jared’s.
“Yes, very much so,” Jared said.
Rourke put the card back in his pocket. “Very well,” he said. He folded his hands and placed them on the table. “For the record, where were you at 2:30 in the afternoon on June the sixth 20–?”
Jared leaned back in his chair. “I was at Constitutional State Park,” he said. “I believe at 2:30 I was driving a knife into Kurt Kent’s body.”
Rourke raised an eyebrow. “Believe?”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Jared said. A slight twinge in his should nearly made him gasp. He resisted the urge to try and rub it. He was overplaying it. He leaned forward. “Let me be clear. On June the sixth, at 2:30 in the afternoon, I took my knife and I killed Kurt Kent. I stabbed and slashed him and watched as he bled out. I also tried to kill Connor Russell but he was able to run from me like the pansy he was. I did this. With full knowledge and consent,” he said, glancing at the recorder.
“Hm,” Rourke said, opening his folder. “It is true, Kurt was found covered in slashes with your blood on him and his blood on you. There’s just a few discrepancies I’d like cleared up.”
“Like what?” Jared said, sweat forming on his brow. His shoulder twinged more painfully. He needed to pull this off. God help him, he needed to be found guilty of this murder.
Rourke pulled out what looked like a report from his folder. “Kurt did not die from bleeding out. He died from a singular puncture to his heart. One that was not made by the knife found on your person.”
“Is that right?” Jared said, trying to sound nonchalant. Panic was rising in him as the pain started to radiate down from his shoulder again.
“And while several slashes on the body do appear to have been made with the knife, most of them appear to be post-mortem,” Rourke continued. He looked up at Jared again. “Can you explain this?”
Jared rolled his eyes. “Easily. What makes you think there was only one weapon?”
Rourke cocked his head. “Where is the other weapon? And what was it?”
Jared thought back to the thin hole in Kurt’s chest and of the black flowing tendrils. “Oh, just a little steel affair I had specially made. Very sharp, but it came to a very thin point. ” He shrugged. “I lost it while running after the other kid. Connor. I backtracked and tried to find it, but…” he shrugged again. “It’s a dense forest.”
“It is,” Rourke conceded, still neutral. He slid the report back into the folder. “And for what reason did you attack and kill Kurt Kent and attempt to kill Connor Russell?”
Jared rotated his head on his neck, trying and trying to ease the terrible burning in his left shoulder. “Because they were there.”
Rourke regarded him evenly. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Jared said with a nod.
Rourke looked down to the folder and back up again. “Mr. Holloway, you do realize you are being charged with first degree murder?”
Jared nodded and then remembered the recorder. “Yes.”
“And you realize you are pleading guilty?”
“Yes,” Jared said, sounding annoyed.
Rourke fixed him with a fierce stare. “Mr. Holloway I do not believe you are being frank with me. I believe there is more going on than you are letting on.”
Jared’s shoulder flinched involuntarily as it flared in agony. Jared saw the detective’s eyes briefly rotate to it. In his panic, Jared tried to cover. “I’m done,” he said.
Rourke looked back to his eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
“My rights, or whatever. I’m done talking.”
Rourke nodded. “Very well, this interrogation is over.” He turned off the recorder. He gazed at Jared again. “This is off the record. Nothing you say now may be used against you.”
“Okaaay?” Jared said, trying not to shift his shoulder.
“Mr. Holloway, why are you determined to be found guilty of first degree murder?” Rourke asked, putting his hands on the table and leaning forward.
“Because I am, dammit!” Jared exclaimed standing up.
Jared saw Rourke briefly wave a dismissive hand at the mirrored window. “Are you?” he asked, fiercely.
“Yes!” Jared shouted. “Why do you keep asking? What more do you want?”
“The truth,” Rourke said simply.
Jared stared at him for a moment. And then he laughed. He collapsed back into his chair. “No, no you don’t,” Jared said. He shook his head. “Take me back to my cell.”
Rourke stared at him for one more moment, and then he gestured again to the mirrored window. Two uniformed officers came in and took him to his cell.
****
The rest had been fairly straight-forward after that. If there were any niggling doubts about Jared’s “guilt” Detective Rourke had been the only one to notice. Or care. There was more than enough evidence to convict Jared and with his own confession to the murder it was something of a slam dunk.
Jared had waived both the right to counsel and the right to a jury trial. He had gone before a judge to plead guilty. There had been a lengthy question and answer session with the judge to make sure Jared wasn’t being coerced. Which of course he was, just not by the people the judge thought might be doing it.
What happened next surprised Jared. Even though he had waived the right to a jury trial, a jury was still called for the penalty phase of his sentencing. Jared had made no plea bargains with the prosecution, so the death penalty was still on the table. Which was exactly what the jury gave him after Jared made sure to act like an egomaniacal bastard in front of them.
Though his shoulder twitched now and again, Jared never properly saw the thing after the first couple of dreams. Oh, he still went to the land of fire and ash every time he slept (which was as little as possible), but he would just sit in place and wait to wake up. It was amazing what one could get used to.
Jared had worried about the the prisoners in the jail at first. These were real murderers and rapists and Jared was just… Jared. His fears turned out to be unfounded. As a murderer sentence to death, Jared found himself in a maximum security facility in a cell by himself. There was no recreation outside of occasionally getting to visit a larger cell with a television. There was no group recreation. It was just Jared, the guards, and a small but never unending burning in his shoulder. He worked hard every day, manual labor, that gnarled his hands and gave him a wiry strength that he had never had before.
Days blurred into month blurred into years. Even though he offered no appeals to his sentence, it took a very long time for Jared to make his way up death row, so to speak. His state was very paranoid about accidentally executing innocent men and it took the better part of a decade, at the fastest, for most men to see execution.
As they day of his execution drew nearer, Jared grew more frightened. Not of death, he welcomed it. He was afraid the thing would not let him have it, though. Honestly, there were nights he sat up wondering why the thing had never come for him. He had surely served his purpose.
Then, one day, the guards came to his cell. Said he had a visitor. Jared was confused. There was no one on the outside to visit him. His family had disowned him and he had had no friends close enough to want to be friends with a murderer.
The guards took him to an empty room with one chair, a large thick plastic window, and a little beige phone to talk with the person on the other side. As Jared walked with the guards, he had learned whoever wanted to see him had had to pull some strings to do so. As he walked into the room, Jared understood. Sitting on the other side of the barrier was the boy Jared had found at the bottom of the hill. Connor Russell.
As he sat, his shoulder flared as it had not in ten years. Ten years of learned suppression kept Jared from crying out. The thing did not want him to talk to Connor. That was easy enough, Jared just had to refuse to pick up the phone. But as Jared stared at Connor, he thought he saw something. It was indistinct, but if he looked close enough into Connor’s eyes he could swear he could see a flame flickering in them. The thing was very
|
Some people might recall some momentary buzz caused a couple of years ago by a particularly odd Morrowind mod. The file name was jvk1166z.esp. It was never posted on any of the larger Elder Scrolls communities, usually just smaller boards and role-playing groups. I know in a few cases rather than being posted, it was sent via PM or email to a ‘chosen few.’ It was only up for a few days, to the best of my knowledge.
It caused a buzz because it was a virus, or seemed to be. If you tried to load the game with the mod active, it would hang at the initial load screen for a full hour and then crash to the desktop. If you let it get that far, your install of Morrowind, along with any save files you had, would become completely corrupted. Nobody could figure out what the mod was trying to do, since it couldn’t be opened in the Construction Set. Eventually, warnings were distributed not to use it if you found it, and things died down.
About a year later, in a mod board I used to frequent, someone popped up with the mod again. He said he was PMed by a lurker who deleted his account immediately after sending. He also said that the person advised him to try playing the mod through DOSbox. For some reason, this worked… sort of. The game was a bit laggy, and you couldn’t get into Options, Load Game, the console, or really anything else, other than the game itself. The QuickSave and QuickLoad hotbuttons worked, but that was it. And the QuickSave file seemed to be just part of the game file, so you couldn’t get at it anymore. Some speculated that the changed game used an older graphics renderer, making DOSbox necessary, but it didn’t LOOK any different.
This part I can speak about from personal experience. When you start a new game in JVK (as the board came to call it), once you left the starting bit in the Census Office and came into the game proper, the first thing you notice is that the ‘prophecy has been severed’ box pops up. This is because every single NPC having to do with the main quest is dead, with the sole exception of Yagrum Bagarn, the last of the Dwemer. Their corpses never despawn, so you can go check on all of them. In effect, you begin in a world that is doomed to start with.
The second thing you notice is that you’re losing health. It’s only a bit, but it keeps happening, a little bit at a time. The longer you stay in one place, the quicker it seems to occur. If you let this health loss kill you, you’ll find the cause: a figure we came to call the Assassin, because he seems to wear a retextured version of the Dark Brotherhood armor from Tribunal, even though the expansions don’t work in JVK. It’s all black, completely untextured, like he’s just a hole in space. The way he moves… he gave me quite a start, the first time I saw him scuttling around my dead body. He crawls inhumanly on his hands and feet, his arms and legs splayed out like a spider. You’d usually only see him after death, crawling around and over your body just before the reload box popped up. Occasionally, you could catch a glimpse of him darting around a corner or crawling on a wall or ceiling. It made the game very difficult to play at night!
Other than that, the only noticeable difference is that at night, at random intervals, every NPC in the game will go outside for a few minutes. During this time, the only thing they will say when hailed is, “Watch the sky.” Once they return to their normal behavior they act like normal, though.
After a while, a player on the board discovered a new NPC named Tieras, a male Dunmer in the temple at Ghostgate. Two things are notable about this NPC: first is his robe, a unique article of clothing that was lovingly rendered with twinkling stars all across it, looking like a torn-off chunk of the night sky. The second is that all of his dialogue, in addition to showing up in the dialogue box, is voiced. You can skip it if you wish, but it all sounds like it’s in the default male Dunmer voice. Some people said that they thought the voice was “slightly” different, but it was a very, very good imitation.
I won’t go into the details, but the questline he sends you on has to do with a dungeon referred to simply as ‘The Citadel.’ Up until this point, the quests were all of a fairly generic ‘discover the secrets of the ancients’ bent. The entrance to this dungeon is on a small island far to the west of Morrowind proper. I eventually discovered that if you used a Scroll of Icarian Flight at the westernmost point on the main landmass and jump directly west, you’d end up almost exactly at the island.
Even though the dungeon is called The Citadel, it goes straight down. It dwarfs any other dungeon, both in size and difficulty. From a natural cave area you’ll proceed down into an ancestral tomb looking area, then a Daedric ruin area, and then a Dwemer ruin area. I made it down to the Dwemer Ruins before I quit. The creatures here were strong enough that a level 20 character would have to take care, and since you can’t use the console in JVK, level 20 took a while to get to. Since QuickSave and QuickLoad are your only options, it’s all too easy to get yourself into an impossible situation too. I did, and I just didn’t have the energy to start over.
Now what I’m telling you is based on what those few who went further reported. Past the Dwemer Ruins you find yourself in a level like the Dwemer Ruins, but darker. Rather than the usual bronze, all the surfaces, including those of the creatures, are black. The sounds of machinery are loud here, and grow louder still, randomly. There’s also steam or fog everywhere, limiting your vision to about ten in-game feet or so. If you can make it through all this, you will reach a hall that those who found it called it the Portrait Room.
Like the fire in torches or other effects from early 3D games, this room has picture frames that always face directly at you, no matter how you look at them. The images in the frames were always randomly chosen images from your My Pictures folder. On the board, the ones who got there had some fun posting screenshots of the Portrait Room with various pictures in the frames (Usually porn, of course).
At the end of the hall was a locked door. After admitting defeat and returning to Tieras, everyone just found him saying, “Watch the sky,” in his gravelly voice. What’s more, nobody else in the game would say ANYTHING. There was just a completely blank dialogue box with no options at all. They wouldn’t even rattle off the usual canned audible greetings. The only exception was at night; whenever they’d go out for a few minutes, they’d still repeat it. “Watch the sky.” At this point, one of the players – a friend of mine from the board – noticed (and the few others who got this far agreed) that the night sky was no longer the usual night sky of Tamriel; it had changed to a depiction of a real night sky. And it moved.
From this point on, everything is based on what this one person reported. Eventually, he got himself kicked from the board, but I kept in contact with him for as long as he responded. According to him, based on the constellations and planets, the sky started around February 2005. If you died, loaded, or went back into the Citadel, it would start over. When the usual day sky graphics took over, the movement would be suspended until the stars appeared again. In the space of a single night, everything would move about two months worth. Since the timescale of JVK was more or less that of the standard game, that meant that a bit less than an hour was equal to a 24-hour period.
He became convinced that the door would open based on some kind of celestial event. Of course, waiting for that meant leaving the game running. Of course, THAT meant that the game couldn’t be left unattended, thanks to our old friend, the Assassin. My friend decided he’d hang out for a whole day, just to see if anything happened. That would be about a year’s worth of movement. Here’s the post he made at the end of this experiment:
“I loaded in Seyda neen, where it all starts. It wasn’t too bad, just had to check in now and then to move around and heal to make sure I wasn’t dying. But check it out! 24 hours exactly in, and the Assassin learned a new trick! HE SCREAMS!!!! I was reading and all of a sudden, this crazy loud shriek just about makes me crap myself. It’s like something out of a horror movie! I look up, and there he is, just crouched down right in front of me. Of course, the second I moved my character, he ran off. When I went back down to the Portrait Room, the door was still locked. Damn it, damn it, damn it!”
A bit later, he came to the decision that he needed to wait three days – three years. The PM advising us to try DOSbox showed up in February of 2008 was his reasoning, anyway.
“After the first shriek, the Assassin stops hitting you out of nowhere. Now he’ll shriek, and if you don’t move for a few seconds after that he hits you. I think whoever made the mod was trying to help. At night, I’ve got my headphones on and I was just kind of dozing off…when he wakes me up with a shriek; I jiggle the mouse, and I’m good!”
That post was two days in, from his laptop. Once it was over…
“FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! FUUUUUUUUUCK! So FUCKING done. So, I wait, the three days, right, and right after the FUCKING Assassin made me jiggle the mouse, he shrieks again. So, I look, and everyone in town is outside. They’re all saying, “Watch the sky.” I don’t see anything, though. But then the game starts getting dark… like REALLY dark. I turn up the brightness all the way on my monitor, and I can still barely see. I can see other people in the game, little figures running around in the distance, just running back and forth. If I try to get close, they run off. Now, I was trying to sleep, so the lights are off, and this is kind of creepy. I don’t want to get up to turn on my light because I don’t want to miss anything, but NOTHING fucking happens. Eventually I go back to The Citadel… it’s still dark, and I gotta swim, and the whole time I can see all these guys swimming all around me, just barely there. I make it to the Citadel, and its normal light inside, and I get worried. Sure enough, the Portrait Door is STILL FUCKING CLOSED. I go outside and it’s ALL STARTING OVER. So that’s it. I’m fucking going to bed, and I’m fucking done. The end.”
After that, two things happen. First, another of the people who got to the Portrait Room claimed that the Assassin was showing up in his regular Morrowind game. (Quick explanation. If you reinstalled Morrowind to a different folder, you could have a normal Morrowind install along with JVK.) He himself chalked it up to an overactive imagination at first, but he reported a couple of really big scares with the black figure crawling right at him, or seeing it waiting for him just around a corner before scuttling off. Another of those who reached the Portrait Room started a regular Morrowind game, but never saw him for sure; it was just a couple of ‘maybes’, late at night, and always at a distance.
The second is that my friend started getting really abusive and short-tempered on the board, though he stopped talking about JVK entirely. It got so bad that he was soon kicked off. I didn’t hear anything from him for a couple of weeks after that, so I sent him an email. This was part of his reply:
“I know I shouldn’t, but with classes out I’ve got some time, so I started JVK up again. It’s almost 2011… and I think I’ve got the sleep madness! But stuff is happening! It’s still dark… once it gets dark, it never gets any lighter. It stays like that. The people moved a few months ago… everyone in Seyda neen just went to that little bandit cave and moved in. They killed the bandits inside, and now they’re just standing around inside. They don’t say anything anymore; they don’t do anything when you click on them. I quicksaved and killed one, and he just stood there until he died without fighting back!
And it’s like that everywhere. You have to walk, since the quick travel people are all in caves now, too, but all the cities and towns are just deserted; all the people are in caves and tombs. Everyone in Vivec is down in the sewers. I’m going to Ghostgate next… I want to see if Tieras is still there. I’ll tell you what he says when I get there!”
I replied and said I wanted to see what he said too, and waited a day. When I didn’t get a reply, I mailed him again, and a couple of hours later he sent back:
“Sorry, I totally forgot. So it’s 2014 now… since it’s always night, the stars are always moving. The whole screen is dark, but you can still see the brightest stars moving around. Tieras was gone… everyone in Ghostgate was gone. I don’t know where they went. They’re not in any of the nearby caves. But there’s new stuff… people still don’t say anything, but their eyes are bleeding. it’s so dark that even with a light spell you have to get right up against them to see, but there they are, little dark streaks coming down from their eyes. I think I gotta be getting close. I know this is stupid, and there’s no way the pay off is going to be worth it, but I just want to be able to say I stuck it out!”
I got that one during the day. Later that night, I got a follow-up email:
“Some of the planets aren’t moving right. It’s pissing me off… if this keeps up, I won’t be able to keep track anymore. It’s almost 2015 now, I think. Fuck. You know, I just now noticed that there aren’t any monsters anymore, either. I’m completely alone outside now. The main quest people’s’ bodies are still lying around, though. I went to check on them.
I don’t need headphones anymore, so I just leave them off. When he shrieks, it’s like he’s screaming right into my ear. I think I even kind of anticipate it. He’s around a lot more now, a lot closer. He’s different from the other people who started showing up, remember? They keep running around, just where I can barely see them. I have to admit, it’s kind of creepy at night. Sometimes, when I go to the bathroom or whatever, I swear I can see something out of the corner of my eye. I’m keeping all the lights on now.”
I sent him a letter, jokingly telling him to get some real sleep, and left it at that. Two mornings later, I found this in my email. It was the last thing I got from him. After this, he stopped responding completely:
“I just got up from a fucked up dream, I think. The Assassin shrieked at me, and when I opened my eyes, he was right there, crouching over me. His arms and legs were longer, more like a spider’s. I tried to push him away, but when I touched him my hands just went inside and I couldn’t get them loose again, like he was made of tar or something.
Then I woke up, I thought. he was gone, but when I looked at the monitor I wasn’t where I was. I was in the Corprusarium, with Yagrum. For once, the light was okay, and I could see him all bloated on those mechanical spider legs. I sat down at the computer and he started talking to me. Not in a box, but really talking to me, in Tieras’ voice. He knew things about me. He told me things that I never told anyone, some things I totally forgot about. He told me that almost nobody had made it this far, and that the door would open up soon. I just had to hang on a little while longer. He said I’d know when it was time. He said I might be the first one to see what was inside.
And then I woke up for real, but I was at the computer. I still wasn’t where I was. I’m swimming out to The Citadel Island. And I can hear this tapping. It’s at my window. It’s over on the left, so I’m sending you this, because I left my laptop by my bed, to the right. Just a little *taptaptaptap*… like he’s knocking his finger against the glass. I might still be dreaming now.
So, I guess that’s the end of the story. I know there’s a few other stories floating around about the mod, but this is the only I know as true, as far as it goes. I deleted my JVK copy of the game pretty much right after I gave up, but I’d like to get the mod again, if anyone still has a copy of the file. I’d like to see some of this for myself.
Source
|
October 9th, 2006
One day they will catch me. FBI, police, “Men In Black;” whoever the hell it is that comes after somebody like me. I guess when the time comes they will read this; which is precisely the point of this. This is my journal. These are the inscribed thoughts of a man slowly gaining fame one news-station/newspaper at a time. Counties right now, cities soon, statewide panic will follow. In the end, the world will pick up the stories and the tri-county news affiliate that aired/printed the gory details of my first crimes will become a macabre tourist spot. I should have started this earlier. I’ll try to catch up.
My first murder was easy. Rapist. Hung from a tree. Reported suicide. Easier to set up than I ever expected. TV makes it seem so hard to get away with; it’s not.
Second murder, child abuser. The little boy had decent enough family except for the father, so I decided he wouldn’t be too strongly missed. He wasn’t by the way. Turned out after the mugging/fatal stabbing, his wife remarried to the cop that investigated the crime.
Third murder was a murderer. I tortured him first. I wanted to savor the irony. I did. He pissed his pants twice before the gun that killed the brother killed the keeper. That one I didn’t even cover up. I left only a suspected murderer/child rapist as evidence. Even if I had left evidence against myself, the police would have only tracked me down to shake my hand. They probably hoped it was one among them that did it.
First three must be the most important, as the order of events preceding the murders following them are a little fuzzy. Drownings, electrocutions, stabbings, fatal beatings, I killed somebody with a blowtorch once; saw it in a movie. I guess the death toll is roughly 30.
I’ve been doing this for about two months. I watch the news when I can. I don’t see my murders on the news too often; I assume it’s because the people I kill are the bane of the local law enforcement and they don’t want word to spread that they are begrudgingly hunting their invisible best friend. At the same time, you don’t really report somebody scraping shit off the sidewalk as news.
It’s pretty apparent that I don’t have any qualms with calling myself a murderer. I am. It’s also apparent that after my first two murders I developed a taste for torture. I thought in the beginning that murder wouldn’t agree with my conscience and kept it as simple an ordeal to stomach as possible. I learned quickly that murder is as primal and satisfying as sex. Like sex, the second time held no special thrill; which is why for the third, I introduced torture to the primal spectacle. I felt alive in my newly triggered sense of vengeance. When his brother discovered the truth about what his only son went through while in the care of his trusted uncle he was shot dead somewhere between dialing 9, 1 and the last 1. That man had tortured his nephew. That man had foregone spankings for sodomy with a plunger handle. That man replaced groundings from TV for forcing that small child to watch him masturbate to gay porn. And now he had killed the boy’s father right before his eyes. The father and son were never heard from again. For all this he deserved to cry, to beg for his life, to piss his pants as a barrel of empty chambers (save one) clicked away pressed firmly to his newly shattered testicles. That night, my method of deathbed reform was born. That night I began having the regrets I still feel to this day… That I cannot change how little my first two victims suffered.
October 9th, 2006
Pretty warm night tonight for the fall. I’m sitting at a bus stop outside a bar. Downtown Tulsa bus stops have these nice covered benches so I can sit here and write while I wait. Why am I waiting here in downtown Tulsa on an unseasonably warm Monday night? To kill a man.
To kill a man who killed two others and got away with it… For a while. I was walking around the downtown area today waiting for somebody like him to come along. It didn’t take him too long to show up but he was on his way to work. I had to pass the time. Some type of desk job. Giant building downtown. He wore a nice suit. Nearly 10 hours later and he leaves for the bar. Followed him closely. He was too preoccupied with his sick thoughts to notice me. He was also too busy noticing the women we passed by. He was walking, by the way. I don’t have a car and luckily neither does he. So here we are, Courtesan’s Bar; whatever the fuck that means. I’m not familiar with the word and I assume the business types flowing into the building don’t know what it means either. It just sounds professional and pricey so they go thinking their suits will impress. I’m not impressed; but I am wanting a beer right about now. But I don’t feel like going in there and risking losing him in a crowd. I checked the back and side door; both are emergency exits only so I know he is trapped into leaving through the pricey revolving, glass bottleneck. I am growing anxious.
He not only killed two people, he also kills cats. I fucking despise those who torture and kill animals, especially so senselessly; yet I am currently smiling. I am capable of giving the deaths of these poor beautiful animals some meaning. Justifying their death as inspiration is a shallow justification but it’s the best I can do to honor them. I have it all planned out and I am growing very, very anxious.
Philip Harnath
The warm windless air clung like tightly stretched fabric across his sweaty face. Though drunk and walking in an erratic stumble, he still had the restraint to stop himself from wiping his brow with the sleeve of his expensive black suit jacket just inches from his face. He pulled a handkerchief from an inner pocket of his unbuttoned jacket and wiped his face before stuffing it into his pants pocket. His gait became even more unstable as he diverted his blurred attention to unbuttoning the two buttons underneath his collar.
As Philip Harnath stumbled feebly towards his bed, his final resting place, a dark shadow trailed silently behind; stopping at every deep contrasting darkness the cars, alleyways, side-streets and gaps between the old world imitating street lamps of downtown provided. He waited silently in each abysmally hued pocket as his quarry slowly shuffled block by block towards the gates of Hell. There were only two more blocks to go and the anxiety within the shadow dweller grew equivalently greater.
Twelve minutes later, Philip’s heavy footfall rattled through the open air hallway leading to his apartment as he clumsily climbed the concrete flight of stairs leading to the second floor of a large three story apartment building lit in excruciating yellow by hundreds of fluorescent lights humming as loudly as the flies within Philip’s apartment would in three days.
The apartment building was one of three arranged in an open box formation around a neatly kept kidney-shaped swimming pool. Philip entered through the back of the center building. His human shadow had no choice but to wait behind in the parking lot. No matter how drunk, Philip would have had no trouble making out such a dark and menacing figure bathed in bright yellow light. He knew which apartment belonged to his prey; before sunrise it would become his tomb.
Philip had the deadliest vice a marked man could possibly have; repetition. He would drink every night he could at the same bar and stumble home around the eleven-thirty mark to pass out for roughly five hours before waking to wash off the previous night’s excesses and stumble hung-over to work. The hangovers were described to his officemates and employers as frequent migraines and with a little acting he was able to pull off the illusion. It was his life before business college that had marked him. It was his animal torture and constant alcoholism that had sealed his fate.
An hour of silence slowly passed by and the unnatural sentient shadow entered the electric yellow glow and ascended the stairs without making a sound.
A small pressurized snapping sound and a muffled cry awoke Philip from his dreamless sleep. Instinctively trying to sit up, upon the realization that the muffled cry was his own, he nearly pulled his shoulder out of socket and fell back to his bed with a grunt. He was tied down; bed sheets wound around his wrists, waist, ankles, headboard and footboard. He tried to scream despite the realization that he was gagged. The room was completely dark and a small piece of flesh on the right side of his stomach stung. He screamed and struggled himself breathless in less than three minutes. He felt two objects slide firmly into his nostrils; a strip of duct tape soon sealed them in place.
“You have asthma, Phil,” a slightly gravely voice casually informed him in a low emotionless tone. “You might just want to concentrate on drawing as much air as you can through that towel in your mouth.”
Phil kept total darkness and silence during sleep. Heavy curtains blocked out completely the yellow aura outside his bedroom window. He could hear the voice clearly; the objects in his nose must be his earplugs. His heartbeat raced and he whimpered as he panicked to draw breath.
“Red Ryder BB Gun; I used to have one of these. I never shot cats with them. I would never even pump them more than once if there was even a remote chance an animal was near. You pumped it ten times and aimed at cats’ necks or eyes.”
Phil stared into the darkness and struggled to breath. The sharp mechanical intake of air and click of metal on wood caused a new wave of struggling jerks.
“One,”
Phil screamed as loud as he could and gagged when the vibrations forced a ridge of cloth to scratch against the back of his throat.
“Phil, you have night terrors, thick walls and neighbors who no longer check on you. I could ungag you if you like. Would hearing yourself scream make you feel better?” Ignoring the muffled frantic attempts at responding, he pumped the air-gun once more. “Two. This is as far as I’ve ever gone when I was planning on shooting at one of my friends when I was younger. Two pumps is what I hit you with a couple minutes ago. I always wondered about three. Two is just kinda funny from ten feet away but I hit you from about three feet away. I kinda felt bad. I should have backed up a little more, huh?”
Phil no longer responded. His breathing growing weaker as his saliva wetted the towel too much to breathe properly. His entire focus was on staying his panic enough to focus on filling his lungs, but each new casual statement and inquisition from his tormenter, delivered in an increasingly bright and friendly manner, brought with its casual hospitality new waves of terror.
“Are you bleeding Phil?”
Phil’s only reply was a low whimper.
“I wanna know if you’re bleeding,” he stated as the bedside lamp to Phil’s left flicked on. He noticed Phil’s nude semi-muscular body glistening with sweat as his scared brown eyes quivered and his intoxicated pupils slowly shrank. His curly brown hair dripped even more sweat across his already soaked forehead. “You shouldn’t sleep naked, Phil. You never know when you might get robbed or attacked in the middle of the night.”
Phil strained to make out his captor but could only make out a dark trench-coat and long dark hair in the low light of the forty-watt bulb barely penetrating beyond the lampshade. The menacing figure moved back to the foot of the bed where he nearly blended into the darkness.
“Nah, you’re not bleeding,” he began again as he slowly pumped the air-rifle a third time and stated, “Three.” He backed up into nearly complete darkness and raised the rifle’s sight to his eye. “I’m about six feet away when I’m up against the wall,” he stated slowly as he focused on his aim. “Aim is really important, you know. Especially right now. It’s dark; you’re naked. It’d be really easy to hit something your not aiming for if you don’t pay attention.”
Phil’s intent gaze into the darkness cringed away as he turned his head to the right.
“Those tears, Phil? Tell me, would you be shooting those poor little kitties if they knew it was coming? If you saw the understanding of what was coming in their eyes? I think you would. These things get kinda loud once you reach ten pumps. The tenth one, especially, is pretty loud; feels like the lever is gonna snap too. I bet they understood plenty of times. I bet they didn’t cringe like you are. They didn’t cry like you are and that was with ten pumps.” Without warning, he fired into Phil’s right inner-thigh less than a second before finishing his sentence.
A muffled sustained wailing and thrashing erupted, shaking the bed, as thick blood began to pool underneath Phil’s leg.
“Damn, Phil. I never would have thought just one extra pump would do so much. I probably should have aimed somewhere a little less tender though, huh?”
Phil winced and stiffened his body against the pain.
“Settle down, Phil, it was only three pumps,” the torturer said through a sneer as he rapidly pumped the BB gun multiple times. “This next one will be six,” he added as he slowly aimed at Phil’s torso and fired into his right breast.
Phil’s body convulsed as he tightened every muscle in his body and bit deep into the towel. The small puncture slowly began to trail blood towards his sternum.
“There ya go; that’s how a man should face pain. Press against it with everything you have. Screaming just shows lack of emotional control,” he explains over the loud clicking of eight more pumps. “I realize I haven’t made my intentions clear here, Phil,” He added as he slowly stepped forward and pressed the muzzle to the skin an inch below Phil’s navel. “I’m not necessarily here to rob you, though I will take any cash you have.”
Phil’s rapid breathing became thin and wheezy as he squirmed against the muzzle pressed forcefully against his flesh and stared up into the now visible blue eyes calmly looking into his and waited for the words, already mentally delivered, to be spoken. His eyes followed the slightly upturned nose down to the clean-shaven slightly tanned face and slack yet menacing expression.
“Phil, you’re 32. You went to college to better yourself when you were 24. You had the world ahead of you. You only had to overcome one small thing.” The stranger leaned in closer, focusing his weight on the gun and beginning to speak with a gradually growing seriousness to his tone and an increasingly stabbing glare in his eye. “All you had to do is stay off the alcohol. You even made it through AA yet you went back into the same ditch you crawled out of. All you had to do was focus. You just had to focus as intently as you are now. You made everybody so proud. How proud would your mother be now, Phil? How proud would she be to know two separate hit and runs weigh on your conscience, yet you still drink? You think selling your car so it doesn’t happen again made you a better person?”
Phil, crying and wheezing, stared deep into his blue eyes without a single attempt to lie or plead.
“I’m not going to turn you in, Phil. I’m going to kill you.”
Phil closed his eyes as tears pooled over his cheeks and his throat clutched under the weight of his now uncontrollable sobbing.
The stranger slowly stood straight and fired the gun where it rested below the navel. A small pool of blood instantly rose to kiss the barrel.
Again, Phil fought against the tears and stinging pain to reply only with tense muscles and gritting teeth shredding his cloth gag.
“Phil, you knew somewhere in the back of your mind that somebody like me would come along someday and make you pay for everything you were ever ashamed of,” the executioner slowly stated as he pumped the gun ten times and leisurely walked back to the bedside lamp.
Phil’s eyes shot open and stared at the gun aimed for his skull and quietly muttered the only word that had yet to make sense through his wet, shredded gag. “Ten.”
The gun unerringly slammed into Phil’s left eye-socket; cracking bone and forcing runny pink liquid and chunks of white and red tissue to ooze from between the socket and gun barrel as he convulsed and moaned.
“Eleven” he corrected as he pumped one final time, snapping the lever off, and fired.
October 10th, 2006
Didn’t sleep last night. Usually don’t after a murder; no matter how tired I may be. Watched the sunrise through the thick clouds. It’s still morning and it’s starting to sprinkle. Last night’s victim was kind enough to buy me breakfast; Daylight Donuts and milk. Sitting on a bench in Woodward Park and eating; writing whatever the hell I can make interesting. After I’m done I think I’ll take a walk around Swan Lake. Swan Lake is a large beautiful pond filled with different species of waterfowl. It has a couple islands and a fountain in the center. I don’t really know who may end up reading this in the future, but it may surprise you to know that the most tranquil and beautiful places are often the places you are most likely to meet somebody with a guilty conscience. The last time you were at a place like Swan Lake you probably saw somebody standing at the edge of the water fixated solely on the ripples. No matter how noisy or crowded the area surrounding him gets, he remains completely lost in his own reflection. This person is likely a murderer or rapist. He is there to wash away his sins. He is there because the chaotic, unceasing memories of his dark actions hammer away at his conscience and he is looking for anything to dull the pain. It’s places like these that I find one of the most common type of prey; Repentant Offenders. Not all of them deserve the type of punishment I specialize in. Sometimes they just need to be scared. Sometimes they need reality to manifest the fears they try and pretend are simply paranoia.
Philip Harnath, last night’s victim, was one of these Repentant Offenders but it was clear that no consequence, save death, was high enough to sober him up before another died at his hands. It was true that he sold his car, but he sold it out of fear of it becoming all the evidence needed to tie him to two deaths. He would have bought another. He would have drank more. He would have swerved uncontrollably into a child, a young couple or maybe even into a whole family.
Donuts are gone. Rain is lightening up. I think I’ll go gaze into Swan Lake…
October 10th, 2006
People pass by and I wonder why they don’t cut a wide circle around me as they go. Can’t they see the same thing in my eyes that I see in my reflection? Swan Lake is clean today. I saw only one murderer there. He was drowning in the sins he had witnessed. He was staring up at me from the dark overcast sky beneath the ripples. We locked eyes and judged each other. Neither of us appeared to have the strength to carry on.
It gets like this sometimes. The depression sets in. The obscurity of my existence blankets me like a heavy fog. It gets like this whenever I find myself to be the most guilty person within sight. There is only one cure for it; punishment.
I know how it feels to be a vampire. I know the depressing loneliness that comes after a meal and their thoughts are no longer on blood but companionship; once the blood within their prey stops calling to the vampire’s instincts and they can see for a small amount of time beyond the bloodlust that drives them. For that portion of time, they are at their most human and are most likely to feel the remorse and longing that can only be felt by those who have crossed a boundary that can never be returned from. Their struggle to live can only be fueled by denying that right to another. They are forced after every meal to watch as those they long to be go about their lives. They are forced to wish they could be the things that hours later they must kill.
However tragic a vampire’s story may be, mine is much crueler. I am a vampire that can only sustain my life by extinguishing that of another vampire. I am forced daily to witness the vampire long for his former life. It is during this touching scene of remembrance, longing and heartbreak that I slowly set upon and violently disable my prey. The vampire is a great and terrible predator and its death is not often mourned; but when caught in reflection upon its transgressions, the sorrow and repentance is very real. When death is certain, all but the cruelest and vilest show promise of change. However, promise is not a guarantee of change and it is my heart-rending duty to deny that chance and see not the face of a killer upon death, but that of an innocent.
Regretfully, I have become as reflective as Swan Lake’s surface. It would take the discovery of a true monster to restore my determination and focus. I know just the place to find one…
October 10th, 2006
Veterans Park; not the type of place you would have expected me to look for a true monster, right? Wide open space. Near business buildings and an often used road. That’s what you see.
I see a park near a school with a parking lot, a concrete shelter, shady trees and an easy to find location. I see a perfect place to meet your drug dealer after dropping your kids off at school. I see a true monster sitting at a picnic table in the shelter reading a magazine, checking his watch and occasionally glancing around. He’s waiting for someone, maybe more than just one. However many his is waiting for, I will find out.
He is just another guy enjoying a cloudy day at the park. So am I. As he sits and innocently reads his magazine, I will find a tree a couple hundred feet from him, and coincidently within perfect view of him, and read Fahrenheit 451. I always wanted to read it. I wonder if Phil ever did. If so, his copy shows no signs of it…
Credit To: The Eye Of Providence
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Dear Reader,
I’d like to start off by saying that I don’t have a clue why I’m writing this letter. Maybe I want this thing to be known to the world, or something. The events described in this letter happened about a month and a half ago, in Springdale, Kentucky, although I started writing this about two weeks ago. I just haven’t really had the guts to finish until what happened at the gas station.
The story starts in late September, when my family went to go visit our relatives, who invited us up to celebrate one of them getting like 2,000 bucks in some scratch-off lottery thing. They live in this really hillbilly part of Springdale that people from Charleston, Shepherdstown and Duncanville (basically the least redneck parts of KY) like to call “Hicksville”. We lived in Duncanville. It is way down in a valley, and exactly like how everyone pictures it when they hear about it – nothing but crappy shacks and rusty-ass rebuilt trailers.
The relatives we were visiting are absolutely weird. They all acted as if there was some sort of secret that they always had to keep hidden. Which they did, and that would be discovered later. So anyway, we’re up here in this godforsaken trailer, and it sucks. There’s like eight relatives, plus me, my dad, my mom, and my sister. About two hours in, my mom takes my cell phone so that I can “focus on the family time together” (which is crap, all we did the whole time was eat TV dinners and be forced to watch Nascar and shit). After like 6 hours of that, about ten minutes before we’re supposed to leave, it starts raining. We know how treacherous the roads can get down in the valley, so we decide to wait for the rain to die down.
Two hours later, it’s fucking dark as hell, ten o’clock, and there’s a flood warning for the area. I have my phone back by this time (no service, of course); I’m playing Tetris and Texas Hold’ Em and stuff. When suddenly I hear my dad start losing his mind in the next room. I walk over, and it turns out that they let slip that they’d buried their kid, Thomas, outside, and apparently were afraid the rain would wash up his body or some other crap. The kid was like six, he was attacked by a dog, and they never told the cops. Just fucking buried him like he was a family pet. My dad’s flipping out and rightfully so, because, you know, we live in the 21st century and all. So our relatives all say they’ll sort it all out in the morning. My parents tell me and my sister to stay in the same room as them during the night, and we do. None of us really suspected that they’d killed Thomas or anything, since they’re really peaceful. They didn’t even own any guns except for this one old rusty double-barrel shotgun they had on a mantle. Nevertheless, we were creeped the hell out, and intended to tell the cops in the morning once we got to town.
So, it was like 3 in the morning. I couldn’t sleep. Power had gone out for the fifth time or so, and I’m not able to charge my dead phone. Worst part is, I could see Thomas’s little grave right outside the window. Little cross on it and everything, and I assumed the kid couldn’t have been buried deep at all since they were so worried about him just washing up out of the grave. So I was just fixated on it. I kept being drawn to look out the window. And then I saw the fucking worst thing in my life.
Something was creeping through the trees toward the house. I stared at it for a while, but couldn’t get a good look at it since it was raining and the brush was so thick. For a few minutes I assumed it was two really pale horses, kind of ambling through the woods side-by-side. But then it walked into the moonlight, and I saw that it was all one thing, like some kind of human torso, but wider. It finally stepped into full view, and I saw it had something like six legs, kind of somewhere between a beetle’s legs and a horse’s legs. Two arms, right where someone would normally have them, but they were about a half a foot longer than any normal man’s arms. It had a bald head, but the face looked like some sort of fucking bizarre blank kind of mask, this clenched-up, furrowed forehead and a nose that looked sort of like a raven’s beak. It didn’t have eyes, either…just the sockets where eyes would go. It looked like it had a human mouth, just a very large one. What still strikes me to this day is that it seemed to have a stinger on its back. Right between where a normal person would have shoulder blades. The thing moved sort of gracefully, and made these soft thump-thumping noises when it moved. It must’ve been like seven, or eight feet tall, but sounded like it weighed maybe only 100 pounds at most.
It starts walking towards Thomas’s grave, and then I finally snap out of whatever trance I was in, and scream. My mom is the first to wake up, and I tell her to look out the window. She rushes over, and doesn’t really seem to understand what she’s looking at. After a minute, though, the thing bends down and starts pawing at the grave with its clawed hands. My dad and Jasper, my uncle, rush in, and Jasper fucking loses his shit. Screams like a little girl, runs back out of the room, yelling for his father screaming “It’s outside, it came and it’s outside!”
I look back and see the thing is digging furiously at the ground, kicking up huge mounds of dirt. I hear the sound of feet running around the house. I think they were looking for the shotgun. The thing reaches into the hole and grabs up what I assume was Thomas’s body by the leg in one hand. The thing kind of gallops back into the woods, snapping all these branches and shit, and then that’s when we all hear it:
A kid crying. The sound of a child sobbing and crying, from the direction that the thing took off in. So we left as soon as the rain let up, at like 5 am. I don’t even think we told anyone at the house, just drove straight back to Duncanville, only stopping for gas. No one said a word to each other. My family refuses to speak about what happened; I tried to bring it up once, just to make sure it was real. My dad told me to shut the fuck up, so I did. I started writing this about three weeks after it happened, but just saved it in a school folder and left it alone. Never mentioned it to any of my friends or anything, just tried to erase it from my mind. It mostly worked, up until I went to work.
See, I work at this gas station in Duncanville from 8 pm to 3 am. I work the register, keep the place clean, and take out the trash. When I was bringing the trash bags over to the back of the building for the dude in the morning to take care of, I heard what I had assumed to be some junkie kicking around in the dumpster. I yelled at whoever it was a couple of times to get the hell out before I called the cops. But as I walked towards the source of the noise. I suddenly heard those same footsteps. That soft thump-thump. Hooves or feet, or whatever the hell they were. I turned right around and went back into the store and hid behind the counter. I look over at the outside security monitor and see some kind of movement from just off screen, something huge casting a shadow and moving. I caught a glimpse of…I don’t know, an elbow or something. A pale limb, darting in and out of view. It had to have been the same thing. I waited for it to leave, and after a while, it did. I woke up behind the counter at 1 am this morning. I was in complete fear of the creature that was pursuing me. But it was gone now, and now I had nothing to fear. At least for the moment. That was when I heard the cry. The cry of a child. Then there was scratching at the back door. I ran back and made sure that the door was locked, which it was. Thankfully, the back door had no window on it, so I didn’t have to see what was there. I went back to the register and looked at the security cameras. A young boy, around the age of 6, was scratching on the door. His head leaned at a strange angle, and some of his flesh had fallen off. But what was even more disturbing about it was that he seemed to be growing extra limbs. And a strange pointed one was starting to jut from his back, right between the shoulder blades… I continued to cower behind the register until I fell asleep again.
I woke up this morning to my boss flipping out because I was asleep on his floor. He was probably thinking I was a drug addict or something. I took the whole week off to stay at home, waiting for the creature to come back. Every so often, it does. I sit and I wait for that creature to finally have me. I have photocopied this letter and mailed it to all the people that I hold dear. You may find me dead one day, if you don’t find a way to help me first. The power has been out at my house for a while, and the phones don’t work. I’m going to go outside for the first time in a long time to mail these. Hopefully, it isn’t waiting. I hear it now, and I may have just heard a window break. Maybe I won’t get this out for a while until it’s gone. Or maybe not at all, depending on whether or not the shadow looming over me is my imagination. Thump, thump.
Credit To: Kyle
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As the dead of winter approaches, you may find yourself alone at night, feeling isolated and abandoned in an all-too-empty bed as the night grows ever bleaker. Ghastly shadows, dancing across the wall. The crying wind battering against your window. An ambulance siren in the distance. And there’s no one there to convince you that you didn’t hear those gunshots. There’s no one there. No one there.
But do not be afraid. He waits for you.
Wait for the moon to hide itself, perhaps behind a gathering of clouds. Midnight is the best time to do this. Just close your eyes and hold your breath as you leave your bed. You may open your eyes once you exit your bedroom. Get dressed if you like, because you’ll be leaving your house soon. Take nothing with you, except for what you can keep in your pockets. Then, drive out of town. Drive as far away from civilization as you possibly can. Eventually, the air will become still. Then a dense fog will form just a short way down the road. You will hear nothing but silence as you approach it. Let it consume you and your vehicle. No harm will come to you from it. I promise.
Do not be afraid. He waits for you.
The fog will lift. You will see a dimly-lit motel, stranded and alone in the night. Just like you. As you walk inside, notice that there is no one else there. The only sign of human inhabitance will be a small key on the front desk. Take these keys. Wander the corridors until you find the proper room. You will soon know exactly where it is. But you won’t know why. Use your key to enter this room. Walk in, and lie down in the bed.
It’s no more comforting than your bed at home. There’s nothing but pure silence for miles. Death hangs in the air all around you. And it’s so cold. You’re still alone. And frightened. But it’s okay. He’s frightened, too. And it’s just so cold. Cold enough to hold the pillow close to your body, burying your face in its softness and embracing it. Pretend that it’s a lover all you want; you won’t feel any safer. But you will feel… warmer?
Open your arms, lift up your head! The warmth… is his arms. Two twisted, mutilated arms, tracing down your body. There he is. And he’s frightened, too. You can see it in his blackened, spherical eyes, fixating upon your face and twinkling with the light of another dimension. The light shines in specks from beneath his parched skin, making him glow from the inside. Bruises cover his decaying neck, as well as deep, finger-wide indents. It’s as if someone had tried to strangle him. He sighs, and softly caresses your face. The skin of his hands begins to flake off onto you, and you want to sweep it away. But you’re stunned, completely stunned by this strange creature that’s completely enamored by you.
At least you’re not alone anymore.
You’ll then gather enough will to take your hands, and gently lift him off you, placing him to your side. You get a better look at him. His legs are disturbingly crooked, having been broken in so many places, and healed in ways that they just weren’t meant to. And he won’t stop staring at you. Small, glistening tears drip from his eyes. He shivers and trembles, trying to form words with his torn mouth. You can’t tell exactly what he’s trying to tell you. It doesn’t matter for now, anyway. He will want to touch you, to hold and to comfort you. Whatever pain you have ever felt from loneliness, whatever sorrow you may have felt in your entire life, he feels it. His tears fall onto you, and he lies back in submission. He will let you do anything you want to him. He knows that no matter what you do, it will never hurt him as much as what the others have done. It will never hurt him as much as the isolation he’s felt in this motel. As you gaze upon his twinkling eyes, you may gain a sudden urge to mutilate him, and punish him for existing the way he does. But please, be kind. He loves you, after all.
Spend the night with him. He’ll let you do anything, and he won’t be able to speak. But be sure to leave the room before sunrise. He will do everything in his power to keep you from leaving. He will grab onto you, cry, and scream at you. Tears will keep gushing from his glowing eyes, disintegrating his skin even further. But no matter how much you pity him, leave! Resist him, and leave! If you don’t, you will be forever trapped, and doomed to live the same existence that he does. Do not let him follow you. Just close the door behind you, and lock it.
You’re alone again.
Next thing you know, you’ll wake up in your bed at home, some time after the sun is risen. The events of last night will feel as if it were nothing but a dream. Everything in your home is where you left it last. Your car, your clothes, everything. Then, if you are lucky, something incredible will happen. Within a few days, you just might meet a new person. This person has everything you want, and it’s as if they were made for you. Within time, the two of you will fall in love. You will almost forget the ghoul in the motel, and forget about those glowing eyes staring at you. All that will matter is that you will be in love with this wonderful new person, and they will love you.
But once they move in with you, things will grow progressively stranger. As you lie together in bed, you might hear a faint scratching on the door, and an all-too-familiar cry. But do not worry, your companion will keep you from becoming too worried about it. The next night, the cry might become a shriek. The scratching will become a pounding. And only you can hear it. No matter how hard you try to convince your partner of what you hear, they will only tell you to go back to sleep.
And one night, you will notice that the noises have vanished. Nights will be peaceful again, and it will just be you and your partner. But from then on, you will constantly look upon your lover’s eyes. You will notice a new glow in their eyes, twinkling with the light of another dimension…
Do not be afraid. He’s waited so long for you.
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Credited to Lindsay “HackerOnHacker” S.
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It’s a simple enough thing. It’s all a part of the body’s sleep processes. Sleep Paralysis, right? No big deal, really. Your body produces a chemical that paralyzes your body during R.E.M sleep to prevent you from hurting yourself by thrashing about during your dreams. No big deal.
Okay, so, you opened your eyes and you can’t move your body. It’s the chemicals. Oh, you can keep trying to wriggle those toes, but it’s not happening. Forget it. Just relax. It’ll go away. It’s fine. It’s normal.
Oh, now there’s something pressing on your chest, real hard, it’s making it hard to breath. It’s heavy, so very heavy, whatever’s on your chest. Chemicals. It’s all chemicals. Stop trying to scream, it won’t work. Your throat muscles are paralyzed too. You still can’t breath.
You are staring at a blank ceiling, you can’t stare anywhere else. Shadows flit across your vision, forming shapes you try not to think about. A clawed hand, a flash of jagged, shadowy teeth. All images from your subconscious. A face forming above yours, leering through black void eyes. You think you
hear sibilant whispering. Angry hissing, like a snake that’s been disturbed.
Suddenly, a sharp white light briefly flares in the room as a car pulls down the street, dispelling the shadows. The weight is gone. You can breath, your hands clench sheets.
You feel an eternity has passed by but it was all the work of a moment. You wriggle, just to prove to yourself you can. You sit up, take a deep breath and then laugh a little at yourself. Sleep Paralysis. Stupid.
You turn to shake your spouse awake, eager to share your experience. You feel paralyzed again, but it has nothing to do with Sleep Paralysis. You stare at the blood, the jagged wound in her throat, her wide, staring eyes, mouth opened in soundless scream.
You survived your Old Hag Syndrome.
She didn’t.
—
Credited to C. Noel Huff
|
We were having another lockdown drill when I found out about Holly Reyes. I was in Social Studies, third period, when Principal Weston’s muffled voice spat at us from the ceiling. We all sighed and ducked under the long tables, limbs shoving aside plastic chairs as we army-crawled into tucked positions. Mrs. Loew shut the door and sat back at her desk to grade papers.
I remember being glad the drill happened in third period because that’s the class I shared with my best friend Dina. We lay on our arms under the table, glancing at Mrs. Loew, waiting for the unspoken amount of time to pass until we could whisper to each other without getting in trouble.
When we heard a few boys at the table next to us snicker at each other without retribution, Dina glanced around and whispered, “Who do you like?”
Her favorite game.
“No one,” I said.
She rolled her eyes. “You have to like someone.”
I shrugged and dug my chin into the carpet, a grumpy blue color with red flecks. “I dunno. I don’t. Who do you like?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me.”
“But I know you like Tom.”
She held a finger to her lips and glared at me. “Not anymore!”
I looked around the room, trying to think of a reasonable victim for me to “like” so I could learn her secret. I suddenly remembered a moment from the day before: a boy running out of the lunch line to chase a dime and a penny that were rolling away, change I had dropped in an embarrassing effort to get money out of my new Pikachu wallet. He handed the coins to me. His smile was so bright, and he had dimples—
“The new kid,” I said. “I don’t know his name.”
Dina raised her eyebrows. “Ricardo?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Dina gasped so loudly that Mrs. Loew shushed her. “Oh! No! But you heard what happened to his baby sister!”
I barely knew who we were talking about. “No?”
“Holly, a sixth-grader,” Dina said with a grin that only schadenfreude could build. “Her posters went up this morning. She’s missing.”
I remember feeling the weight of those words like a foot stepping on my back. I remember thinking she was lying, then thinking I was dumb for not knowing until three whole periods had passed, then hearing Dina babble about her latest crush, whose name I forgot immediately because I just didn’t care about that anymore.
The missing posters went on every telephone pole and bulletin board in Hocstat, which turned out to be a lot for such a small town. A few made it onto the trees, even though people mostly avoided the black maples that hovered above all our buildings because the black maple sap in Hocstat was notoriously gooey and hard to get out of your clothes.
I felt a dramatic, overwhelming tug at my heartstrings every time I saw Ricardo in the halls. He had stopped trying to make friends. His eyes had bags under them that I’d never seen on any other eighth-grader. All of his notebooks looked like they’d been yanked from a shredder, and he often trailed pencil stubs behind him. I wondered why his parents didn’t just pull him out of school, but Dina pointed out that they were probably distraught at home, so maybe being at school gave him some peace.
It didn’t take long before the high schoolers started passing down rumors to their siblings in middle school, which then spread around our territory like wildfire. I heard the rumors from my science partner Finn DeCorma, whose older brother said this was exactly like the disappearances of Troy Evers and McKenzie Kentworth, two ninth-graders who disappeared a few years back. I didn’t remember much about Troy and McKenzie; but thankfully, Finn was more than happy to tell their tales while I labeled the parts of a cell in colored pencil.
Troy and McKenzie didn’t disappear together like everyone thought. McKenzie went first, sometime around nine at night. Troy was last seen the next day around three. The gossip mill suggested that they were in a secret relationship and ran off together. But neither seemed the type. Troy was quiet, shy, and small for his age. McKenzie wore blue lipstick and was rumored to be a witch. Finn said people were afraid of her because she cut words in her arms. And everyone knew Troy was in the closet. So no matter what the adults said, none of the kids believed they left together. And no one really believed they left by choice.
“Because my brother saw the monster,” Finn said. “He was trying to convince Troy to play kickball with him, and then he looked at the woods, and the Sap Man was right there.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. It was so like a high schooler to make up something like that so he could be involved in a spooky story. But I also remembered rumors going around that someone’s older sister had seen McKenzie making dolls of the Sap Man out of sticks behind the school. I felt like that had to be a lie. Even though I didn’t believe in him, the Sap Man of Hocstat lore had a very distinct look. He had these long, squiggly arms that would be very hard to make out of sticks, and he had a pale, featureless head. It probably just seemed like a McKenzie thing to do, so people started saying it without thinking it through.
Anyway, no one ever found Troy or McKenzie.
I think it was March when Holly went missing, because the whole Hocstat PTO put on their puffy coats and brave faces for the Find Holly Reyes search party. Mr. and Mrs. Reyes made several TV appearances, sobbing, recalling their daughter’s last whereabouts, begging whoever had her to just return her, please, no questions asked. I noticed Ricardo was never on TV. Soon, people started whispering that maybe, just maybe, Ricardo had killed his sister. Then the whispers turned to roars. Kids at school got mean. Some, not all. Dina and I just felt bad for him.
About four or five days after Holly went missing, all my own thoughts and theories about the case went up in smoke. I’m not sure what would have happened if Dina hadn’t had an Emergency School Council meeting during lunch, but she did, and then… I don’t know, things just started aligning. Dina and I usually sat with a few other friends, but those friends spent much of their lunch reading manga, and I knew I wouldn’t be missed. I saw Ricardo sitting at one end of a table by himself, and I thought about the Sap Man, and I just, I felt angry. I felt like he had to know about the Sap Man from a reliable source (me) before some bullies tried to use the Sap Man to scare him to death. I’d already seen an etching of the Sap Man on his locker, but it was pretty poorly drawn, so I doubted it had clued Ricardo in. Still, it was only a matter of time before the convoluted whispers of “Ricardo the Sap Man” reached his ears.
I plopped my lunch box on the table across from him. He looked up from the carrot sticks he was picking at, but he didn’t say anything.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Rowan.”
Ricardo nodded.
I knew I was about to lose my nerve, so I blurted out, “Have you heard of The Sap Man?”
Ricard looked at me like I was both crazy and suspicious.
“Good. If you haven’t, I mean. But you will. And I just want to say, he’s stupid.”
“The Sap Man is stupid,” Ricardo repeated quietly, as though he couldn’t believe those were real words I had just said.
“Yes. But people are going to tell you… and I know because they’re talking about it a lot… people are going to tell you the Sap Man has something to do with people disappearing.”
Ricardo looked straight at me, his eyes brightening. He shifted in his seat. I knew right away that he was desperate for any lead, no matter how far-fetched. And I knew that if those kids and news reporters could see what I was seeing, they would know without a doubt that he had nothing to do with Holly’s disappearance.
Ricardo said, not even trying to disguise his hope, “Who is the Sap Man?”
I knew this conversation was going the opposite direction I had wanted it to, but I couldn’t let this poor kid down now. I stammered, “Well, he… supposedly, he lives in the woods. He’s this tall man made out of sap from the black maples. He has long, sticky arms, like… sometimes LOTS of arms… or finger-thingies… and a bright white head, and no one’s ever seen his face.”
I weighed my words down with a tone of incredulity, trying desperately to convey how stupid the whole idea was. But Ricardo was rapt. He wanted me to go on.
“He’s not real,” I said quickly. “My dad, he works for the town’s historic district, and he said the legend of the Sap Man probably came from when people first settled in Hocstat. He said they would camp out under the black maples, and when the maples lost their leaves, the branches would look like long, spindly arms coming out of the tall trunks. And the sun or the moon coming through the trees would be a big white orb, so like, people thought it was a faceless head.”
“And what does Sap Man do with children?”
I sighed. “Um, well, supposedly, the Sap Man would kidnap them and bring them to this big stone house on a hilly part of the woods, so that the town couldn’t grow. ‘Cause like, if your town doesn’t have kids, then it dies out. But obviously our town is doing pretty well, so.”
Ricardo stared at me. “It’s a small town.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “But it’s nice that way.”
I didn’t know what else to say. Somehow, instead of heading off the dumb legend, I’d given it to him like a gift of hope. I awkwardly unzipped my lunchbox and started to take tiny bites out of my food. Ricardo had stopped eating his carrots altogether. He was staring off into space with narrowed eyes and a bend in his brow.
“Are you thinking about the Sap Man?” I asked through a bite of applesauce.
I remember he looked at me, or through me, and I remember knowing exactly what he was going to ask as the words left his mouth.
“Where is the house?”
I didn’t ask Ricardo what he told his parents he was doing after school because I figured it was a lie, and I did not want to be more complicit than I already was. After the last bell rang, I hurried past the gym to the double doors at the back of the school. I looked around, but I didn’t see Ricardo. One of the gym teachers, who I never had for class and didn’t know the name of, was setting up orange cones on the field. His eyes were hidden beneath a baseball cap, so I wasn’t sure if he knew I was skulking on the edge of his field.
Ricardo soon arrived, no backpack, no coat, even though the late-March wind sliced goosebumps into my arms.
“The house is through there, if you follow the path long enough,” I said, pointing to the woods behind the school.
“Cool.”
Ricardo started off towards the path without me, and I had to jog to keep up, my backpack swishing across my shoulders. I glanced behind me to see if the gym teacher was going to try to stop us, but he didn’t. He was watching us, though, so I dashed ahead before he could reprimand us for going into the woods without an adult.
Even though I’d been to the stone house several times with my dad, I felt nervous. It didn’t seem hard to make a wrong turn and get lost. And I definitely didn’t believe in the Sap Man, but I still glanced at every bobbing branch to either side of us with suspicious eyes, almost daring them to be something else. Thankfully, the path never seemed unfamiliar, and we caught our first glimpse of the old stone house after about ten minutes of walking.
“See up there?” I said, pointing above us.
Ricardo squinted. “Up on that ledge?”
“There are some wooden steps to the top,” I told him. “For tours and stuff. It housed the first Hocstat mayor. That’s why it was built well enough to survive.”
Ricardo’s eyes scanned the roof-less building, the crumbled rocks, and the overgrown yard. He mumbled, “Sort of survive.”
We stared at it another minute in silence, taking in the brief period of rest. From where we stood, the limestone blocks looked like they were being held up by a net of dark tree branches, hovering above the winter brush.
And then they moved.
I swear to you, they moved.
Like one of those Magic Eye tricks, or like a leaf bug on a tree that starts to crawl, I went from not seeing him at all to seeing him all at once. His body was humanoid, but about four times the height of a normal man. His face was as blank and pearly white as a tooth, but round and long as an egg. His white neck dipped into a collar— it looked like a suit and tie, but it may have been markings, the same way a black widow wears her red hourglass. And his arms, his long arms, they looked heavy like tentacles, but they moved like gooey black sap.
We screamed.
Ricardo wasn’t going to move. I don’t know if he was in shock or if he wanted to get his sister back from the creature, but he was staying put. So I grabbed his arm and yanked him back down the path. I was undoubtedly slowed down by my heavy backpack – and by the near-dead weight of Ricardo – but I didn’t have time to regroup. I just ran. And when the woods opened back up into the field, I kept running, running to the double doors of the gym.
They were locked from the outside. Because, you know, it’s a school.
I didn’t look behind me. I pounded on the door, over and over, crying, screaming. I felt like the Sap Man was still behind me. I could feel him, feel his fingers on my shoulder—
But it wasn’t the Sap Man, it was the gym teacher, coming from around the corner with another armful of orange cones. He let us inside, then asked us to sit in his office and tell him what happened. He was unlocking his office door when Ricardo shook his head so hard that the tears on his face splashed away.
“I need to see my parents.”
He turned and ran down the hall. I glanced apologetically at the gym teacher, then darted after Ricardo. I found him in the school’s entryway on his cell phone, repeating over and over, “Just pick me up. Just pick me up.”
His right arm was covered in a shiny black coat of something so slick and smooth it looked like oil. The Sap Man must have grabbed his arm while we were running. I felt a sense of unease, like when you see a spider descending from the ceiling and then lose sight of it. I walked to a window and turned around. I craned my neck to look at my reflection. Thick black streaks ran down the length of my backpack.
I was really shaken up, so I told my parents about our excursion into the woods. They scolded me for wandering off when another kid had just disappeared. When I got to the part about the Sap Man, though, I underplayed it, saying things like “it looked like” and “I could have sworn.” I had attributed the marks on my backpack to sap from branches, and I was doubting everything else I’d seen regarding the Sap Man. My parents certainly didn’t try to convince me I’d actually witnessed an urban legend. We were all more than happy to write it off as nightmares, or a stress-induced hallucination. Puberty will do that to ya, we laughed.
I didn’t sleep much.
A few days later, Ricardo pulled me aside. He told me he had tried to get the police to search the stone house for his sister, but they wouldn’t. They said they already did. They asked him why, what did he know? He became even more of a suspect.
“We have to go back,” he said.
But I wouldn’t.
There was going to be a vigil for Holly at Hocstat Middle School. Candles were ordered. Extra parking was roped off in the field. Yearbook pictures were sent to Staples and glued to posterboard. Everyone was ready to say goodbye.
But then someone saw her.
According to the Hocstat Middle grapevine, some sixth graders were kicking a soccer ball during first-period gym when they saw Holly standing at the edge of the woods covered in black paint. And according to the grapevine, the second Ricardo heard about Holly, he hurtled down a flight of stairs so fast that he fell and broke his arm.
I believed all of it. Except the paint part. Not paint. Sap.
She had tried to escape. But that means the Sap Man had kept her alive. Even as my brain slowly accepted the Sap Man as reality, these elements just didn’t want to add up.
No one made it over to Holly before she vanished again.
Ricardo wasn’t at school the rest of the day, but he showed up on the news in a neon green cast that stuck out against his all-black clothing. He and his parents were there to encourage the new team of searchers preparing to do a second scan of the woods behind the school. Reporters interviewed the kids who saw Holly. I got an ugly feeling that no one really believed them, they just liked this exciting new update to the tragedy.
The searchers turned up nothing. They searched the stone house, but it was empty as usual. They searched the woods miles deep but nothing seemed strange. They brought out flashlights to comb nooks and crannies as it got dark, but nothing, nothing, nothing.
By midnight, no one believed the sixth graders. How could a little girl stay alive for a week on her own in the woods, then show up at the school, and then disappear again before anyone could catch her?
I saw the adults shake their heads, fed up with the charade of believing Holly was alive. No one had really seen Holly, they decided. Kids just love attention. Especially middle schoolers.
I lay awake that night trying to piece things together.
The next morning, a body was found.
That gym teacher, the one with the orange cones, was found where the field meets the woods. He had drowned, they said – or choked. It was hard to say which it was when the substance that filled his lungs was sap. Gallons of black maple sap had burst the lining of his stomach, coated his lungs, and sloshed against his brain. It came out of his nose, his eyes, his ears… I saw the photos. With so many eyes on the scene, nothing like that stays under wraps. Not when it happens so close to a lunchroom, which spreads news faster than a telephone wire.
The teacher’s wife said he’d gone out to join the search party. He said he’d be out late, so she had gone to bed alone.
Everyone was still puzzling over the sap-filled corpse when Holly came home.
A day after the gym teacher’s body was discovered, she wandered into the school building, covered in sap. She would hardly say anything. People “gave her time,” but still, nothing. She would murmur a few words here and there, but nothing else. Nothing that answered any of the questions we had.
Until she asked the police if he was really dead.
We thought she meant the Sap Man at first. She didn’t.
They searched the gym teacher’s home. They searched his computer.
They stopped grieving his death.
“I swear I didn’t know,” his wife sobbed in an interview. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
“She’s doing better,” Ricardo told Dina and me at lunch. It had been a week since Holly’s return. “She’s seeing a child psychologist. We’re not sure how much he… how bad it got for her. But we think it could’ve been a lot worse.”
“So that’s why she ran away!” Dina said. “To hide from that creep!”
“Mhm,” Ricardo said. But he glanced up at me, and I knew we were on the same page.
After school, Ricardo and I met behind the gym. We silently walked towards the woods. The weather had gotten much warmer, so I busied myself in the silence by tying my hoodie around my waist.
“I heard those other kids were on a flash drive,” Ricardo said.
I pushed a branch out of my way. “Troy and McKenzie?”
“I think so?” Ricardo shrugged. “And a bunch others.” He then answered the question I didn’t dare ask: “But not Holly.”
“No?” I asked happily. “She wasn’t?”
He shook his head. “If she were, I don’t think she’d be alive.” He looked directly at me. “They’re saying he got them. He— he took those kids. And he took the pictures, and then he killed them.”
I played with the sleeve of my hoodie. “But not Holly.”
We stopped and stared up at the stone house.
“I’m moving,” Ricardo said.
“I heard.”
We walked up the wooden stairs to the stone house. Around the base of the stone, the ground felt damp and spongy. It sagged with each step. The feeling was weirdly relaxing, like meditative breathing outside my body.
“Bet your new town won’t have cool historic buildings in the woods,” I said, trying to ease tension.
“I hope not,” Ricardo said. “I hope it’s boring as hell.”
I laughed. We climbed through one of the stone house’s windows. The house was just one large room and the roof had long since fallen away, but there were remains of a chimney in one corner. A few burnt sticks sat inside like someone had recently built a fire.
I looked up at the web of dark branches above us. The Sap Man did not appear. But if I squinted, I could imagine that the wind-tossed branches were his long arms.
Even though I knew the Sap Man had only been trying to protect the kids – including us – I couldn’t shake the sinking feeling I got whenever I remembered seeing those black streaks on my backpack. I didn’t blame Troy or McKenzie for running away from the terrifying Sap Man (and, inevitably, towards a teacher who should have kept them safe). I would have, too. I didn’t know how Holly knew the truth, but I was so glad she did.
Of course, the Sap Man probably didn’t give her a choice. She was just slower than the rest of us.
And I didn’t like that Holly had been used as bait (at least, that’s what I assume she was the time the sixth graders saw her), but I also didn’t trust that the gym teacher would have been brought to justice if she weren’t.
Ricardo picked up a piece of charred wood from the fireplace. He tapped it on the stone, and it left a black streak. He ran it across the stone until he had written the words THANK YOU.
I smiled at the words, and Ricardo smiled, too, but I wondered if they would go unread. There was a relaxed feeling to the woods I hadn’t felt before. Maybe it was just the birds chirping on one of the first warm Spring days or the green buds appearing on the trees. But maybe the Sap Man had moved on. Maybe he had left to consume another predator. To be some other town’s legend by some other name.
Ricardo flung the charred stick into the woods. We leaped down the wooden steps and followed the path out. We raced each other back to school, branches crunching underfoot, the smell of black maple sap on the wind.
|
“Christ,” I muttered to myself, as the first flakes of snow started to fall. They gathered in fuzzy clumps over the windshield before my wipers cleared them away. I’d been waiting for fifteen — no, twenty minutes now — in my sister’s driveway. Had I chosen to wait inside with her, I’d have been dead by now thanks to her two grey cats. Cute little devils, but murder to my sinuses. Puffy eyes and a clogged-up throat, that’s just what I needed.
Every Christmas, our family made the annual trip to my grandparents’ cabin tucked away in the woods of Hope, Alaska, and I’d hoped to beat the heavy snowfall that was forecasted. Since my sister’s license was suspended from a DUI, here I was — a hostage to time — with my finger tapping anxiously on the steering wheel.
When my mother had asked me to be the one to grab my sister, I had honestly dreaded it from the start. It wasn’t that we hated one another; we just weren’t as close anymore. After decades of constant arguments and bitter disagreements, we became distant and our relationship fizzled. Yes, we were siblings, but it felt more accurate to call us the residue of what siblings once were.
Finally, like the gates of Valhalla, her front door opened, and out she came. Her hair was forest green. The last time I’d seen her, it had been white. The time before that, it was violet.
“Got everything?” I asked, as she clambered her way into the passenger seat.
“Mmm,” she responded, as she adjusted her glasses and stuffed a few bags in the back seat.
And just like that, we were off.
Hope was about a thirty-minute drive, and it didn’t take long for the awkward silence to inflate between us. It didn’t help that the radio didn’t work in my car and that the broken auxiliary port made your music sound like it was having a seizure.
By the time we reached the turn-off for Hope Highway, the road was turning into a thick white sheet. Thankfully, on Christmas Eve night, the long stretch to Hope’s small community was quick and vacant. The cabin was tucked away in a fortress of trees five miles off the main road.
As I made the turn, my sister cracked the window, pulled out a blunt, and lit it with her lighter. “Want a hit?” she asked.
Snow crunched beneath us. “Not while I’m driving.”
“It’s a straight path. We’re practically there already.” She took a drag and blew it out the window.
“I want to just focus on this, alright?”
She huffed and pushed up her glasses. “If you’re that worried, maybe slow down a bit then.”
There was the jab, a piece of bait to lure me into another fight. But I wasn’t going to bite, not this time. She could live with us getting there faster. The drive was almost over, and soon I’d be in a warm living room with my feet up, a spiked eggnog in my hand and Bobby Helms’ Jingle Bell Rock in the air. I could already hear Uncle Jed spouting off one of his crude jokes: Why does Santa Claus have such a big—
“Dude!” my sister shrieked, jabbing a finger in my side and whipping my mind back to the windshield.
The car had just finished winding around the thick trail. The large body of a reindeer stood in our path. Eyes wide open and blank, it didn’t move as the high beams found it. Snapped into a panic, I twisted the wheels in a desperate swerve. The car veered greasily to the side in a fine spray of slosh.
The reindeer, also known as a caribou, remained still, even as the bumper soared inches from its nose.
We came to a crunching halt off the main path. “Jesus,” I sighed, blessed with relief, “did we hit it?”
“No,” my sister said, leaning out the window to check, while exhaling another plume of smoke.
I wound the steering wheel back around and pressed on the gas. The wheels shrilled in place, kicking up globs of sleet but not moving an inch.
“Perfect,” I moaned and unfolded myself from the seat to check it out. The two front tires were caked in black slush and practically swallowed in a mound of snow. I kicked at it, trying to clear off the icy debris from the treads and beneath the wheel well. When that tired me out, I resorted to scraping it off with my fingers.
“Screw off, Prancer,” I heard my sister call toward the dark silhouette of the reindeer, its antlers like gnarled fingers reaching for the treetops.
Then she made a sort of startled yip, followed by a “What the fuck?”
I looked up from the scrim of snow.
The reindeer was now standing tall on both of its hind legs. It looked strange, like a silly caricature you’d see in a kid’s book. But out there, in the silence of the woods, it was a creepy image. The way its vague shape stood on just two legs held an almost human-like balance. For whatever reason, I realized then it didn’t have a tail.
Its muscular neck craned to the side and let out an ululating scream—a miserable squeal of metal grinding against metal.
My legs were ice sculptures, cementing me to the spot as the shriek quieted to a succession of wet grunts. The reindeer dropped down to its original posture and stomped heavily. Puffs of white vapor and strings of snot vented from its nostrils. I was no hunter, but it didn’t take a lot to tell when a pissed-off animal was about to charge.
I leaped for the driver’s seat, pulled the door open, and slammed it shut just as the muffled thud of hooves reached me. Antlers scraped the door as its large body practically flew over the patch I had just been standing in. Fast, very fast.
My sister screamed as the large bulk of its fame wound back around and charged again, this time shattering the headlights and submerging us in darkness.
“Just go already!” my sister hollered in my ear.
“I’m trying, goddamn it!” I hissed.
The wheels continued to spin helplessly. We were trapped.
The creature charged again, this time nailing the window. A cobweb of cracks bloomed near my sister’s head.
I searched for anything — literally anything — that I could use as a weapon. I was never really a gun enthusiast, but at that moment I’d have shaved my head and joined the Secular Monks if it meant having a Glock in my hand right then and there.
After rattling the car once more, the reindeer finally appeared to lose interest and disappeared amidst the cluster of trees.
Granted some time to breathe and think, we phoned our Dad and told him about the situation. He was going to come down in his pickup and get us unstuck and out of this mess.
I looked over at my sister, who was taking long and steady breaths between her fingers. “Are you alright?” I asked.
“What do you think?” she grumbled. “I told you to slow down.”
Another jab, and this time I wasn’t going to have it. “You want to be useful?” I yelled. “Get out there and push! No? Then shut the hell up! I don’t need it right now.”
She said nothing else, and neither did I, returning once again to the pocket of silence that our relationship succumbed to. The sooner Dad’s headlights peaked in the distance, the better.
Suddenly, she rolled the window down.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Sssh.” She pursed her lips. “Just listen.”
Humoring her, I waited, and sure enough, the sound reached me too. The quiet voice of a little girl coming from outside.
“Somebody,” it whimpered, “I’m lost. Please help me — I’m lost.”
My sister unlocked the door and motioned to open it.
I grabbed her wrist.
“What are you doing?” she snapped. “There’s someone out there.”
“Just wait a second! It’s weird, isn’t it?”
The voice continued to whine, choking between sobs and pleading for someone, anyone, to help her. I didn’t like the way it sounded. The same lasting drawl between words, the same weeping sounds, like someone was hitting repeat on a speaker. Something wasn’t right, and my instincts were hoisting red flags left and right.
Then my sister looked at me, and her expression warped into shock. She flung back, pinning both shoulders against the interior. Things that sounded like words bubbled up but didn’t quite make it out of her throat.
I turned and saw what was looking at me. It had the face of a man, surrounded by the mottled fur of a caribou’s body. The skin was a mummified brown color, wound tightly around its long skull like old, crinkled leather. Snowflakes landed upon its wide, expressionless eyes and melted into the dark membranes of its pupils. It circled the car, bobbing its antlers and fogging up the windows as it peered inside.
My heart shook the walls of my throat. I locked eyes with my sister, unable to say anything behind the sheer disbelief.
I should have grabbed my phone. Snapped a photo. Recorded a video. Anything. But my thoughts were jangled.
It then let out that same horrible scream, but I didn’t see its tight, contorted lips open. The sound was coming from its neck…
Small, fleshy orifices, flapping open like mouths, were converting the high-pitched shrill into the mimicked cry of a little girl. “Help me — I’m lost. Help me.”
Headlights glazed the area. My father’s pickup came into view, paving its way down the path. The reindeer, or whatever the fuck it was, ran off, vanishing once again into the snow-covered thicket.
Nobody believed us. Why would they? If anybody had told me that story, I would have assumed they were hopped up on some crazy psychedelic. But the reality of what I saw was cold, and it’s something I still to this day can’t fully swallow. Instead of sleeping that night, my sister and I did some research that led us to the myth of skinwalkers — beings of some sort, capable of mimicking voices and disguising themselves as animals to lure people into the woods. After reading other accounts, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind what we’d witnessed out there.
Every so often that night, I’d stare out the window and eye the yard, wondering if I’d see that leathery face watching from the tree line.
Neither I nor my sister ever made that trip again, much to the frustration of my family. But there was a silver lining. She and I have never been closer.
|
Breakfast today consisted of three apples, a bowl of oatmeal without milk, two slices of toast smothered in butter, and a glass of orange juice. I set them all on the food tray and lifted. When I got to the door, I set the tray on a small table beside the handle.
I twisted the deadbolt above the handle, and opened the door toward me. It revealed a small room with a second door beyond it. The second door was made from reinforced steel, designed for safe rooms where people could hide in the event of an intruder.
This door had been installed backwards, however.
It kept it from getting out.
Grabbing the tray again, I put it on a nightstand I’d placed inside the small buffer room.
I raised my arms up and began at the top, twisting the deadbolt at the top of the door, and working my way down to the one just above the handle. Then, I bent over to twist and lift the bolt that held the bottom of the door. The bolts were all well oiled and maintained, so they made very little sound.
When those were all unlocked, I pulled a small keyring from my back left pocket. I turned around and closed the other door behind me, locking it with a key. A single bare bulb overhead lit the small buffer room.
I slid another key from the ring into the final lock. It had a keyhole on both sides, preventing anyone but me from opening this particular door. Once the click told me it was unlocked, I put the keyring away, lifted the food tray, and used my elbow to turn the handle down.
My hip easily pushed the door open. It swung inward on silent hinges, hanging over the wooden steps that led down to the basement.
Before proceeding any further, I kicked the door closed from a few steps down. I held the tray in one hand while I fished the keyring from my pocket and locked the door. Then, I turned back around.
I looked over the tray of food down into the dim light.
The stairs went down in a straight line and went directly to a concrete floor. I’d intended to finish the basement one day. Now I never will.
It was waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. Standing there. Watching me. The side of its face was illuminated by the single bulb I left on down there.
It was a woman today, barely older than a teenager.
I ignored its hollow, yet piercing eyes and descended a few steps. It didn’t move as I got closer. It was standing to the right of the stairs, so I was able to scoot past it. As I passed, I felt it’s heavy breath on my skin, and it turned its head to follow my movement.
“Food’s here,” I said out loud, walking to the heavy dining table I’d set up down there. I set the tray on the table and gathered up the pieces of the last meal. I saw the clear signs of partially eaten and then thrown food. It ate just enough to live, then threw a tantrum.
Looking at the woman by the stairs who was watching me, her arms hanging limply at her sides, you’d never think that it threw tantrums. But I heard them.
I gathered what food chunks I could onto the old tray before pulling my flashlight from my back pocket. I turned it on and aimed at its face. It didn’t recoil or flinch. Its eyes didn’t blink or turn away either.
Sweeping the flashlight around, I began my usual checks. I inspected the metal over every window, ensuring that the welds were holding and looking for any new scratches.
There were ten windows originally in the basement. I had filled in four with concrete and intended to finish the rest when I had time. The remaining six were covered by two steel plates. One was welded on the inside, the other was welded on the outside.
Layers were key. Layers kept it in.
All the windows were fine and perfectly intact, so I turned to go back to the table.
It was right behind me, and I almost ran into it. Almost touched it.
My heart was pounding, but it had done this before. It moved quickly and silently, trying to startle me. Trying to throw me off guard. I found that my hand was already holding the taser, pointing the weapon at it.
I saw its eyes fixated on the weapon as I put it back and walked past it. My reflexes had taken a while to become so good, but it was worth the training.
Before I picked up the old tray, I skimmed my flashlight over the shelf hanging from one wall.
There were eight of them, just like there should be. Eight clear snow globes that were six inches tall with a plain white base and a single object sticking up from the base into the water.
Satisfied, I picked up the tray and clomped up the stairs. It followed me all the way to the top, but stopped on the third step down. I put the tray on the nightstand and turned around to close the security door. It watched me, moving its head to maintain eye contact as I closed the door.
With shaking hands, I locked every deadbolt and relocked the keyhole. Only after I tested the door with a quick bang did I relax. Turning around, I unlocked the entrance door and took the tray out.
I locked that door back up, and went to get ready for work.
At night, it panics. Something about night time makes it lose its calm control over its emotions, and it freaks out. I have to sleep with headphones and loud music to cover up the screams, bangs, scratches, and thuds.
The windows and my door all hold tight, however. I’m not worried it will get out, but the noises are haunting.
In the morning, I wake up at 6 AM and compile breakfast for it. One meal a day.
I always go to bed before the panicking begins. I want to get the music started and fall asleep before the noise starts. Two nights ago, however, I didn’t use the bathroom before I went to bed.
The urge to pee was too intense, so I got up. I took my phone with me to the bathroom, keeping the music playing through my earphones.
When I dried my hands from washing them, I caught my headphone cable and yanked the buds out of my ear. They fell to the floor, and I cursed in my sleepy stupor.
Except the house was silent.
No crying. No banging of fists on metal. No screams.
The silence was more unnerving than the noise.
I didn’t want to, but I walked downstairs to the main floor. My hand automatically snatched my taser on the way. When I entered the living room, the door was shut. I twisted the handle ever so slightly so it wouldn’t make noise.
Locked. Good.
Relieved, I walked back to the stairs. Until a horrible, terrifying thought snuck up on me.
But is the security door locked?
My foot stopped on the first step, and I looked back at the plain white door. It was only made of wood. If it managed to get through that, it would be free.
I rubbed my eyes and carefully trod back to the entrance. I stared at it for a few minutes, looking for… anything.
After a minute, I pressed my ear to the door. Absolute silence.
Hesitantly, I removed the keyring from my pocket and unlocked the door. When I opened it, I was greeted by the security door. It was closed. The locks were all turned in the correct direction. It looked secure.
Just to be sure, I walked into the buffer room and slammed my fist twice against the metal. It didn’t budge.
Immediately, a bloodcurdling scream filled the other side of the door. Fists rapidly beat on the metal. The beating was so hard that I felt the door vibrating.
I think I screamed. I definitely fell backwards, knocking the entrance door open and putting a hole in the wall with the handle. Rolling up, I slammed the entrance door hard and locked it tight.
It took me hours to fall back asleep. I didn’t bring it breakfast that morning.
And then came last night.
Silence again. Except I didn’t get up to investigate. No, I stayed in bed and tried my hardest to sleep. Once again, the silence was more unnerving than the sounds.
This morning, I was exhausted. I got up a good hour earlier than I should have. I was going to be late to work, but I still prepared breakfast anyway.
I made the same thing that I always did: three apples, a bowl of oatmeal without milk, two slices of toast smothered in butter, and a glass of orange juice.
When I unlocked the entrance door and set the tray down inside the buffer room, I inspected the security door. All the locks were in the correct direction, and it was shut tight. Good.
I unlocked all the usual deadbolts on the security door, locked the entrance door behind me, and stuck the key into the security door. As usual, it opened with silent ease. I descended a couple of steps, tray in hand, closed the door, and locked it with my key.
When I turned back around towards the basement, I saw it. It was waiting at the bottom of the stairs again, but a little further into the shadows. It was different today, I could tell by the new pants it wore. The shadows hid its face from this angle.
I took the steps one at a time until I reached the concrete floor.
“Food’s he–” I started, but my last syllable caught in my throat. It was Sarah today. It was never Sarah. There were seven others to choose from, and it never, ever chose Sarah.
I closed my eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and walked towards the dining table. I could feel Sarah’s eyes on my back as I set down the tray.
The meal from two days ago was completely untouched. That struck me as odd. It should be hungry. It should have eaten. Why didn’t it eat?
Regardless, I put down the new tray.
I slid my flashlight out of my pocket and clicked it on. I aimed it into Sarah’s face like I usually did. That was a mistake. My breathing intensified and my heart rate skyrocketed. Sarah was just like I remembered.
Twenty-nine, beautiful hair, plump lips, attractive curves, and an ever-present smile that was so slight that it was nearly invisible. Even her eyes were gorgeous, despite the creature’s inability to change its eyes.
Sarah took a step towards me, and I dropped the light from her eyes.
Time to check the windows and be done with it.
I went from one to another, inspecting them. No new scratches or marks.
Hands suddenly wrapped around me, and I froze. Sarah’s hands slid under mine and felt their way around my chest. Her smell intoxicated me, and for a minute I was transported back in time.
We were at the beach, and she was standing behind with her arms wrapped tightly around me.
“This is nice,” she said into my back, muffled.
“Yeah,” I sigh with a smile. Her hand lowers into my pocket to retrieve my phone. She laughs as she tries to unlock it without being able to see the screen. I take it, unlock it, and give it to her. Her head leans around my shape to view the screen and turn on the camera app.
She holds out the phone, and we pose for a picture. The camera clicks, and our images are frozen on the screen.
Sarah lets go and runs away.
I pursue.
It shrieked as it scrambled for the stairs. I shoved it, and it tripped, landing against the stairs. Sarah tried to take the stairs on her hands and knees, but I grabbed her leg and pulled her back. Her noises were inhuman as she screamed at me.
One of her legs caught me in the nose, and my grip loosened. I fell back to the concrete floor clutching my nose. Blood poured down and covered my hands. Through the dim light, I saw it reach the top of the stairs and begin to unlock the security door with the keys she’d slipped out of my pocket.
“No!” I yelled angrily, pitching forward toward the stairs. It screamed when it saw me coming. I snatched the taser out of its holster and held it ready as I ascended.
The security door opened, and Sarah slipped through the crack to the buffer room. I was halfway down the steps.
The security door was ajar by a few inches when I reached it. I stuck my arm in the door just as Sarah tried to pull it closed. We fought over the door, but I heard it jangling the keys and trying to unlock the entrance door.
I managed to force the security door open just as it opened the entrance door and slipped out. Fear rose in my throat as I threw myself through the buffer room and into the living room. The front door slammed shut, and I raced towards it.
When I opened the door, it was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t even know which direction it had gone.
I panicked and threw a tantrum for a few minutes.
Then, like a robot, I got ready for work and left.
During lunch, I came home. I inspected the basement thoroughly again. Nothing out of place or damaged. The food I’d left behind was the same.
It wasn’t in the basement. For some reason, I had to verify that it was truly gone. Now it’s free. I’m so sorry, everyone. I’m so sorry. I can fix this, I can.
The basement was the same, but the shelf. The shelf was different. Instead of eight snow globes, there were now nine.
Slowly, I walked to the wall and picked the new glass sphere off the shelf.
The new one was exactly the same as all the others, except for the figure sticking up from the base in the water. It was a little girl, no more than eight years old. The others all contained adults.
The girl was walking forward in her watery globe. Her arms were wrapped around herself as if she were freezing. Her body pitched forward as if she were bracing herself against a strong wind while she walked. Despite going nowhere, she walked perpetually forward.
It had gotten another one. Now, there were nine to choose from.
It had come back and left the snow globe to remind me that it was free.
It had come back just to taunt me.
Some of you have asked how this thing came into my life. I’ve edited the post to include that story. It’s not as clean as the first one, I know. I’m kind of in between strategy planning and preparation.
Three months ago, I came home from work and Sarah wasn’t there. No phone calls, no texts, no notes, nothing. Just a snow globe on the floor in the kitchen, laying on its side.
I looked at it, and it was pretty clearly Sarah walking through the invisible wind just like the child I described previously. It’s down on the shelf now, but while I was waiting for Sarah to turn up at home, I watched the globe. I was misled by the television shows. You can report someone missing before 24 hours have passed. But I didn’t report her missing because she turned up before the 24 hours were up.
The front door opened as I sat on the living room couch, watching the snow globe figure. Sarah poked her head through the front door, and I jumped to my feet. She entered warily, and looking back now, she was eyeing the snow globe on the couch.
I asked where she’d been and what she’d been doing, but she didn’t speak. She just walked past me towards the globe. The backpack I hadn’t noticed before was lowered into her hand and she unzipped it.
When she picked up the globe, intending to put it into the bag, I grabbed her backpack. I didn’t get it away from her, but it tipped over and seven globes rolled out. Each of them had people.
That’s when it really clicked that something was wrong with Sarah. She turned on me angrily, only it wasn’t Sarah anymore. It changed in the blink of an eye, I didn’t even notice the change until the man was grabbing my neck and shaking me. I punched him in the side, and he flinched.
Tripping over globes, I scampered out of the way while he ignored me and picked up the globes quickly. I pushed him over, and he rolled onto the carpet. I knew the globes were important now, so I grabbed one in each hand and ran for my bedroom. If I could lure him up there, I could use the taser in my nightstand.
It worked, and it chased me up the stairs once it saw what I was carrying. It was hot on my heels as I got to the top and threw one of the globes at it. He caught the globe in one hand, and I felt myself go pale at his reflexes. Quickly, I raced into my room, slammed the bedroom door, and flicked the handle locked. It was jiggling the handle only seconds later. I snatched my taser from the bedside table and tried to breathe. The snow globe was placed in the drawer and shut.
Going to the door, I readied myself and unlocked the handle. The man was through the door immediately, and I pressed the taser to his side. He immediately stiffened and then dropped to the floor as the spasms kicked in. I pulled my belt off and restrained his wrists. My closet provided some of Sarah’s scarves that I also added to his wrist restraints and tied his ankles together loosely. I tied them loose enough so he could walk, but not run. When his spasms had calmed, I demanded that he stand up, and pulled his arm to make him stand. He complied, eyeing the taser. I brought him downstairs and cleaned the globes up in front of him, stuffing them into the backpack. Then, I tied him to a chair in the dining room and tried to get some answers.
No threat worked but the taser. He resisted being cut, punched, kicked, or yelled at. But the threat of the taser made him flinch. Regardless, he didn’t speak. He didn’t tell me where Sarah was, why he looked like Sarah, what the globes were, or why Sarah was inside of one. Even when I tased him in the chair, he didn’t say a word. Just screamed.
I moved him to the basement after the second scream. I have neighbors, and I know the basement is a good sound buffer. Once he was secured to a chair down there, and the chair was tied to the stairs, I kept trying to make him answer. Nothing.
I went upstairs to take a break just as the sun was setting.
And then he started screaming.
I came down to him thrashing and wailing against his bonds. Every vein in his body was popping out, and his eyes were wild and frenzied. I just ran right back upstairs because it filled me with the most intense fear I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Being upstairs muffled the screams, but didn’t make them stop.
So I left the house and went to the hardware store. The sounds were swallowed up by the house, and you couldn’t hear it outside. That gave me the confidence to leave.
I knew that it wasn’t human and that I was going to have to lock it up until I could figure it out. So I bought nails, plywood, and a second door with a deadbolt and lockable handle. When I got home, it was still freaking out, but restrained. I boarded up the downstairs windows with an excessive amount of nails, and installed the second door where the security door is now.
I tried to make it talk or shut up or anything, but it just kept wailing and screaming and pounding its feet on the floor.
I locked it in the basement, still restrained, and went to sleep.
In the morning, it was quiet and unmoving. I thought it was dead until it swiveled its dark eyes to watch me in sullen silence. I tried to get answers again with my newly charged taser, but nothing worked again. I fed it a little, but left it alone during the day. I called in sick to work and just stayed at the house, trying to search online for anything. I had no idea what to search for though.
When I went downstairs, it was free from the chair. It had its back against the far wall and watched me as I descended. It was a woman this time, which startled me. I berated myself mentally for not checking its restraints, but it hadn’t escaped the basement. Then I saw the hole in one of the plywood sheets over the window. It had punched a hole straight through both the plywood and the glass.
That incident made me step up my security. It was one event after another.
I replaced all the plywood with steel plates that were screwed in. It used its fingernails to unscrew them and almost finished.
I welded all the plates to a steel frame that fit in the window sill. It started punching holes in the new door I’d bought. I installed the security door with only two locks. I found it pressing a sliver of wood into the crack of the door to push the deadbolts back. It had unlocked two out of three by the time I found it.
Then I started filling in windows with cement, installed more locks, and made one of the locks have a key on both sides. Then its attempts to escape ceased, and it just stared at me whenever I came down to ask for answers. Every day I came down, it would make its hands into a sphere and hold it out to me. I knew what that meant. Give me my globes. Give me my snow globes.
The scariest part was the snow globes. I had put them in a closet upstairs after inspecting them for a month but to no avail. All the security measures were in place, and it hadn’t tried to escape in days. Every night, it would scream, cry, bang, hit, and screech.
And then, one day, I went down to bring it food.
And there they were, all arranged and perfectly spaced on the shelf. It stood in the corner when I came down and watched me. I threatened it with my taser as I went forward to grab them, but it ran at me and shoved me into the wall. I held the button on the taser, ready to make contact when it got too close, but it stayed back and watched me. Each time I moved towards the globes, it rushed me and halted before it got to arm’s length. Then it would retreat and watch me again.
I left the globes alone after that.
I checked, and the globes were gone from the closet, the backpack left behind.
Even the one in my nightstand was gone. It hadn’t seen me put it there.
The most worrying part was how it got out to retrieve the globes. And, if it was able to get them, why didn’t it leave?
I still have no idea.
My only plan now is to wait for it. If the snow globes are that important, it will come back for them.
I’ve gathered all but one and I plan to bury them in the basement before covering it with concrete tonight. The one I have left I plan to mail to a P.O. box I’ve bought online in another state. I’m keeping it because I don’t want to bury the one Sarah is in.
I’ll be buying a few guns, and when it comes back, I’ll be as ready as I can.
If I can shoot it, that is.
If I have the guts.
* * * * * *
I’d like nothing more than to put this all behind me. But, maybe sharing will help me feel better.
I was right, it did come back for the snow globes that I buried. But not before getting Sarah’s globe. I called the post office where my PO box was, and they confirmed that no package had arrived.
That was painful to hear.
Before Sunday, I had set up quite a few preparations. I’d borrowed one of my co-worker’s shotguns for a couple of weeks, set up curtains and boards on every window, and kept my doors locked at all times. I would have bought steel plates for all the windows upstairs, but they were too expensive and laborious to install.
Sunday night, it showed up.
I woke to a scream. A very familiar scream.
It was four in the morning, so it would still be in temper-tantrum mode. I had expected it to come during the day when it could control itself, so I was caught by surprise.
As I walked down the stairs, I tried to use the screaming to figure out where it was. The sound was muffled, so it was clearly outside the house. Luckily for me, the screaming would alert my neighbors too and the cops would be called.
I considered calling them myself, but I didn’t want to lose concentration.
A pounding was suddenly at my front door. The screaming was in the backyard, so I assumed it was my neighbor coming to complain before they called the police. Shotgun in hand, I answered it.
When I opened the door, it definitely wasn’t any neighbor. The tall figure at the door launched through, shoving me to the ground. I gasped as I lost my breath, and it placed its thick hand on my neck to hold me down while it leaned over me. The shotgun fell to my right, half-buried under the couch.
All while the screaming continued in my backyard.
I saw that it was a very tall, black man, though I doubted it was human. It ran its hands over my pockets until it found my keys to the house. It stuck two fingers into my pocket and ripped it open to access the keys rather than pulling them out.
When it clutched the keys, it made a yell of its own. It sounded just like any guy yelling out, the voice didn’t even sound supernatural. Nevertheless, it chilled me to my core.
Watching something that you know isn’t human make a human noise… it’s… horrifying. It’s like watching a cat look at you, open its mouth, and say “I’m going to kill you tonight,” before slinking off.
After the man yelled, the screaming moved around the house until the same man I’d fought before came through the front door. He had gone quiet as he walked up the porch. When he came in, he slammed the door shut.
The thing holding me down tossed the keyring, and the original man caught it.
There were two of them.
When the tall man looked back at me with dull eyes, I thought I was going to die that night. We listened as the original man unlocked the basement one lock at a time. It wasn’t moving like it was in a hurry. It flicked each lock with care, flinching when it clicked.
With the keyring, he unlocked the security door and pushed it open. He gasped in pain and descended quickly. I watched his body get swallowed up by the darkness.
“He won’t find the snow globes,” I said to the one holding me. It turned its gaze from the doorway to look at me. Its eyes were the same as the original man’s.
“I mailed them away.”
And then it smiled at me. But the smile looked forced. Not forced as in it didn’t want to smile, but more like it had a new face that it was learning how to control. I repulsed.
There was a scream from the basement that reverberated all the way to where we were. The thing’s expression flickered for half a second.
I reached out my hand, grabbed the butt of my gun, and slammed it into the side of the tall man’s face with one hand. It screamed like a five-year-old and fell to the side, releasing my neck. I tried to get to my knees and whirl the gun around, but it was faster. It slapped the gun out of my hands, and it hit my boarded front window with a loud bang.
There was a loud slap, and I was suddenly on the ground. I realized that the tall man had slapped me across the head and sent me careening to the ground. I must’ve been unconscious for a little while, because the tall man was gone. But I could hear them moving around downstairs.
I got unsteadily to my feet. The shotgun still laid under the front window, so I picked it up and walked to the basement entrance.
As soon as I crossed the threshold into the buffer room, the basement went silent. No more scuffling. No more movement.
It was pitch black down there, and the doorway to the basement didn’t let any light in.
Hesitantly, I took one step down the stairs. My foot made a solid thud. I could hear them breathing heavily down there.
Stepping back up, I grabbed the security door and swung it shut. I flicked all the locks as fast as my trembling hands would allow. I heard them begin screaming insanely and rushing up the stairs. Their footfalls sounded like a landslide racing towards me.
I managed to turn three locks before they slammed against the door. The metal absorbed all their punches, letting out a metallic reverb with every blow. Shaking, I twisted every lock and stepped back, gun in hand. I could have sworn I heard “let me out” from the other side, but I could just have easily been imagining it.
It was noticeable when one of the pounding creatures stopped beating at the door. It kept screaming, but stopped hitting.
I didn’t hear the keys jangle, but I watched as the top lock slowly turned to the right. My heart leapt into my throat as I realized that they still had the keys.
The second deadbolt turned.
Then the third.
I jumped forward and turned the top lock back into position. The pounding resumed again, this time making a pinging sound as the keys struck the metal door. I locked the second and third deadbolts again.
This time, it started from the bottom and flipped that deadbolt.
I realized that we could keep doing this all night, but it wouldn’t solve the problem. If the police would hurry and show up, someone else could handle this.
The other one stopped hitting the door, which changed the atmosphere from deafening to silent. Only the small clicks of a key entering a lock and twisting were audible now.
Not good. They had a plan.
I kept flipping locks back into position, much to the creature’s frustration, but tried to listen to what the other one was doing. I couldn’t hear anything.
The metallic clang that was familiar only from movies startled me.
No way.
There’s no way it could fit in there.
I could feel slight vibrations on the floor as the metal bumps continued. I stepped out of the buffer room for a moment to watch the floor and feel the vibrations.
It was climbing through the vents.
The vents in my house would never, ever fit a human being. You know how sometimes you can tell where something is based on a sound alone? I could practically watch the creature’s progress as it moved through the vents towards my utility closet where the vents were accessible.
I wanted to run over and blockade that door, but if I left, the other one would get past the security door.
Stepping back into the buffer room, I flipped the four locks it had managed to undo, and it shrieked angrily at me.
Darting back out of the buffer room, I watched my suspicions come true as the door to the utility room burst open, and a writhing mass fell to the floor. Half of it was still in the vents as it surged its way forward along the carpet.
The creature had changed into a bag of skin. That’s the only way to describe it. If you made a bag from human skin, hair and all, and packed it with bones that moved as if they wanted to escape and break through the skin, you’d see what I saw.
The bag expanded from its smaller shape that had fit through the vents, and the bones that were so close to bursting the layer of skin came together until arms and legs emerged. Skin peeled backwards and revealed a head that twisted back and forth, as if fixing a pain in its neck.
Its face hadn’t finished forming, like a newborn child in the womb. Its eye sockets were indented, but eyeballs hadn’t yet formed behind the skin, nor had the skin split to allow blinking.
It stood with some difficulty, putting a hand on the wall to support itself. Its mouth opened, ripping holes in the skin. It sounded like rubber bands snapping.
Despite having no eyes, it zeroed in on me and lurched in my direction. Its skin was changing to the color of the black man who’d attacked me, and hair was slowly curling out of its skull as it approached.
Just as I raised my shotgun, the security door ripped open, and the original man flew at me out of the darkness. It tackled me from my left, and we fell to the ground. The man immediately began to throw another tantrum, hitting and punching me, screaming all the while. The screams weren’t from a man, they were from a little girl. It made the blinding fury so surreal that I began to disbelieve that what I was experiencing was real.
The assault stopped so suddenly that I was surprised when the next blow didn’t come. I opened my eyes to see the two of them running out the door into the night. The black man had a backpack on along with all of his clothes. It confused me, because the attack couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes.
The door stayed open while I laid on the floor, aching and groaning.
It took me a while to get back up and look downstairs. The spot where I’d buried the globes had been torn open. The pickaxe laid in the corner, untouched. There were finger-sized grooves in the concrete, as if they’d been digging through playdough, not concrete.
The snow globes were all gone.
My trap was sprung, and I have nothing to show for it. No bodies, no captured monsters, no evidence, nothing.
I’ve failed. And once again, they’ve escaped.
They have no reason to come back, unless they want to kill me. But if they wanted to kill me, they would have done it. They didn’t take advantage of so many opportunities.
I still don’t understand these things. I don’t know what they want, I don’t know everything they can do, I don’t know why the snow globes are so important, and I don’t know how to fight them.
I can’t do anything to help Sarah now. They must be long gone now that they have nothing holding them here. I have to find some explanation for where Sarah has gone. If I don’t, I could be blamed.
The nightmares are bad, as you’d expect. I wake up and think I see one standing in my doorway, but nothing is ever there.
I haven’t gone back to the basement. I leave the security door locked because deep down I’m afraid that if I leave it open, one day I’m going to come down my main stairs, and see her standing motionless at the bottom, following me with her intense eyes.
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When I was a child there was nothing to eat. I was the eldest of five, so it was my job to make sure that I always let my brothers and sisters eat before me. War was inching inward from the coast, and as it marched closer, our food grew scarcer. Animals fled the area, or were slaughtered and consumed in panic by the other families in our village.
My father was a wise and cautious man and so we waited to slaughter our two chickens until the fall, when grass and tree bark had become too hard to find or inedible. The other families knew we had chickens and father stayed up all night, every night to watch over them. He had to kill at least one boy from a neighboring town who had gone mad with hunger and tried to burn down our small home with a burning branch.
When the chickens were naught but bones and the bones had grown brittle and porous from Mother’s many soups, my parents sent my two eldest siblings and I out to collect bugs and field mice for supper. We were hungry, but not quite starving until one morning we woke to the first frost and there was nothing alive left to eat. My parents began to discuss the inevitable – perhaps my father should go to the coast and sell his father’s pocket watch to one of the drunken, but well-paid soldiers. It was the only thing we had of value and the only family heirloom my father had to pass down to me.
I didn’t want him to go. I was afraid war would arrive while he was gone and I was too young and too weak to protect my mother and younger siblings. I begged him to stay, but he insisted it would be alright and promised to be back within two weeks. I was so scared that when he and Mother were outside preparing his satchel, I smashed the pocket watch under my foot and placed it back in my father’s half-rotted desk.
My mother cried for days. Father did his best to comfort her as I watched them peel the leather from my father’s boots and boil the hide for dinner. The next night, Mother found a dead rat and boiled away the disease with the new fallen snow from outside. The next evening, she filled our bellies with rat bones and more melted snow.
My little brother Albert kept everyone awake that night, crying over his hunger. He begged for all the things we’d eaten when we had a garden and animals – beef stew, white rolls, succulent corn, and spiced lamb. He made all of our stomachs moan and torture us, and I soon screamed at him to be quiet while my mother sobbed from her room.
Father stroked Albert’s hair for hours and then went back into his and mother’s bedroom, shutting the door behind him. Albert moaned until the thin light of dawn peeked through our threadbare curtains. I could hear Father in his room, tinkering with the watch. My hunger had long worn out my fear of soldiers and I silently prayed that he could repair it.
Father worked on the pocket watch all through the day and into the night. Selia had found dead crickets in the walls of the abandoned bakery, and as we ate them, Father emerged from his bedroom with Mother right behind. The smile on his face was one I had almost forgotten, as I’d not seen it since the day my youngest sister was born. He told us that he had repaired Grandfather’s watch and that he’d heard of a soldier encampment nearby. Three days, he promised us, three days and I will return with carrots, lamb, and rolls so big, they’ll fill our bellies for a year!
We clapped our hands in delight and ran around our small, dirt yard with a glee that seemed a foreign language to us. Father said that we were all to help mother find beautiful things with which to dress the table. The next morning, he gave us all a piece of rubber from the sole of Mother’s shoes to chew on and sent us out on our mission after kissing us goodbye and promising to be back before we’d remembered he had left.
We had such fun that day, gathering horseshoes and shards of broken glass. We threaded bits of twine through the horseshoes to hang above the table and tied the glass to the ends, hoping they would shimmer in the lamp light. We returned home as the sun set, happy with our day’s work and eager to return to it tomorrow.
We weren’t yet in sight of home when I first smelled it – onions, chicken broth, spiced lamb, even sweets! I ran as fast I could, dropping our table dressings carelessly along the way in my maddening pursuit for food. I burst through the door to find Mother at the stove, preparing our meal in a quiet reverence. I threw my arms around her and asked if Father was home already.
Yes, my love. He had the fortunate chance of meeting a wealthy mercenary on the road who was only too happy to buy your grandfather’s watch.
I hugged her even tighter and sat down at the table as my brothers and sisters came spilling through the doorway. They found their places quickly; hungry, expectant looks upon their faces. Father came out of the bedroom and took his seat at the end of the table as Mother brought over a steaming platter of spiced, boiled lamb. She nodded at us and we filled our hands with the rich meat, hardly bothering with our plates.
After dinner, we were sent to bed with full tummies, barely a word having been said by anyone since our food had been set on the table. We ate our fill the next night and then the next and the next. But as our food stocks started to dwindle, so did Mother’s health. Each day bled more out of her until we were left fighting over scraps of raw meat while our mother lay weak and wilting nearby.
The first night I went again without food was the night that the hazy, happy ether began to lift and my memories of the past few days became confusing.
I recalled that the spiced lamb I’d consumed with such ferocity had actually been sickly sweet and the accompaniments I had first smelled from afar had never been brought to the table.
I couldn’t remember Mother eating anything in all the days since Father had returned; instead she’d sat quietly next to us at the table, staring at the pile of gray meat we consumed with such fervor.
And Father; I couldn’t recall hearing his voice since the morning he had left for the soldier encampment. His chair had sat empty, night after night, and as the peripherals of my memory formed shape, I couldn’t be entirely sure he’d ever been there at all – at least not since the morning he had cut pieces of rubber from Mother’s shoes at the table.
Frightened and starved, I didn’t find sleep until the darkest hours of the night. The following morning when Mother emerged from her room, I asked where Father had gone. She told me he’d left to become a solider and sent us out to peel bark off of the bushes in the forest. Father never returned.
Perhaps the reason I didn’t realize what happened back then was because it was too awful to consider, and I was so very hungry. But Mother died a few days ago, and in death, she thrust the truth upon me. From her stock of meager possessions, I was bequeathed a small box that contained nothing more than a shiny, broken pocket watch.
Perhaps she wanted me to remember it all: the only hope of our survival that I’d smashed under my heel. My Father’s last, loving hug before he sent us to collect dressings for the feast. The overly seasoned gray meat. And the rancid smell that had begin wafting out from under Mother’s door, becoming more pungent each day.
My father sacrificed more for his family than most ever would. I used to lament that I had nothing to remember him by. No family heirloom to pass down to my own children.
But now I have his pocket watch, a thing I cannot give to my children. Not because the glass is shattered. Not because the gears are cracked.
I cannot part with the watch because it is a curse that I must bear… for the shiny, contorted metal has never lost the sickening smell of that sweet, silvery meat.
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Chapter 1
What I’m about to tell you will seem unbelievable, inconceivable, and I’m sure downright made up. I can’t help the way that it sounds. I can only tell you what happened, what I remember, and hope that someone finds it within their compassionate soul to believe me. I know that I have to tell someone now because my time is short. I am no longer a spring chicken, nor a middle aged woman, let alone the innocent child I once was. I am now what people call over the hill, elderly, kaput. At 87 years old I am not in denial about my worsening health, loss of memory, or lack of ability to care for myself. I also am no longer in denial about what happened to me when I was just a small girl living in the beautiful forest of Upstate NY.
If you care to hear the story please pull up a chair and put on your listening ears. Bring an open mind and an interest in the unexplainable and I will spin you a tale of small children and pixies. Ahhhhh, I see you doubting already. No matter. You’re already here so you mind as well hear my tale before calling me crazy. However you should be forewarned that this is not a cute little tale of children making friends with cute little winged people. This is a dark and frightening tale of abduction and terror the likes of which most people will never experience. I hope none of you do. It’s why I tell my tale. If I can prevent one person, 1 child, from going through what I went through then I have lived and died for a purpose.
So let’s see here. Where should I begin? It was the end of summer when I was just a small girl of the age of 4. I lived in the woods on a long winding road without a neighbor for miles and miles. It was just my mother and myself. She was a single mother which in those days was unheard of. The towns people always gossiped and stared when we came into town but she was lucky enough to gain employment from a kindly older lady named Mrs. Willow who widowed by her husband had taken over the small motel they had run together. Mrs. Willow in her elder years had hired my mother to do the room cleanings she had done herself for nearly 45 years. She paid her a meager wage of just $1.50 an hour and of course didn’t need her for many hours per week as it was rare to have more then just 1 or 2 guests in a week.
Anyways as for my father. I never got to ask her about him. Someone once told me when I was about 13 or so that he had been a drifter whom my mother had loved deeply but who had left before knowing of her pregnancy and was never seen again. At the age of 4 though my mother was my whole world and I was hers and we had what I would call a wonderful life. That was until THAT day. A chill runs down my spine just thinking about THAT day again. It was the day that I went from being an innocent carefree girl to an adult in a small child’s body.
On THAT day, it was a Saturday evening, my mother and I were playing outside the small little shack we called a home. We were having a tea party on the small stump of an old tree that had fallen in a storm years before we moved in. My mother put a small table cloth over it and we got out my little tea set that I had gotten for Christmas the year before and we sat on the warm soft grass and toasted to another beautiful day together. We smiled and giggled and even though I can’t remember the exact words either of us said I can remember the feeling of being happy. Just purely joyful in the evening sun. I can remember the sun shining through the leaves of the trees and glittering all around. I can remember the smell of my mother’s hair like the lavender perfume she wore. How I miss that smell. How I miss her. Even now, all these years later I miss my mother more than anyone else I’ve met in all my years. I suppose I shall be seeing her again soon enough though.
I digress. THAT day as we sat giggling and having tea time we suddenly heard the ringing of our phone through the back door we had left open. Mother loved to air the house out daily as often as she could and today being warm and lovely she had it swung wide open with a concrete cinder block holding it in place. My mother told me to stay put and she’d be right back. I watched her walk away, up the 3 crooked wood steps, and disappear into the house. Her long lavender scented hair glistening in the sun as she went. It was then that I heard it.
“It” was the faint sound of…….hmmmm how do I explain this? Maybe like a wind chime or a small flute. A soft trickle of music emanating from the woods at the edge of our quaint backyard. It was beautiful. Soothing. It drew me in and without even knowing what I was doing I was getting to my feet and headed towards the woods. The soft music growing slightly louder as I neared the edge but still faint and soooo, hypnotic. I wanted to see what was making that wonderful sound. As I neared the woods there was something else too. Something sparkling here and there when the light from the sun caught it just right. Curiosity drew me closer and closer. I squinted my eyes to try and bring whatever it was into focus but it was small and even though at 4 yrs old my eyes were a far cry better than what they are now I still didn’t see what that glittering thing was until I was just about on top it. Even when I did see it my brain didn’t register what it was right away.
This is where my story may make you question my memory or my sanity, perhaps both. Please bear with me though and allow an old dying woman the peace of knowing she told someone, warned someone, whether you choose to heed those warnings is entirely up to you. Anyways. I leaned down close to the ground and there on the soft bed of fallen leaves was a very small unicorn with a jewel encrusted horn. I know that’s hard to believe. At first I thought it was a toy but then it moved. To be honest it scared the crap out of me and I jumped back in shock. However then 4 yr old me was reaching out to touch it before I even knew I was doing it. I felt like I was in a dream. The world around me hazy and fading into the background. It was like the only thing I could see was this unicorn with it’s amazing horn and all I wanted to do was touch that horn. Just once. If it would let me. But I knew it would. A little voice in my head said go ahead and touch it. It wants you to. So I did.
As soon as my soft skin touched that horn I felt it stab into my flesh. It was the tiniest thing, no bigger then the end of a sewing needle, but it was sharp and it hurt like someone had sliced my finger with a kitchen knife. I started to scream but my voice caught in my throat and I hit the ground twitching and struggling to breathe. I remember laying there on the ground with the world shaking around me, the sun glaring down on me, blinding me, and thinking I was dying. Even at 4 the logical outcome was undeniable. Even then I knew that no air meant no life. I scratched at my throat and slowly, it seemed an eternity, the world around my went black. I thought I was dead. Later on I wished I was.
Chapter 2
When my eyes opened again everything around me was still dark. I automatically began to scream for my mother. Surely she would hear me and come running. She would turn on the light and brush my tangled hair from my tiny face and rub my cheek. She would tell me to “breathe baby” and follow it up with “shhhhhhhh” as she hugged me to her and that wonderful lavender hair would brush against my cheek and I would be safe. That’s not what happened though. Someone did talk but it wasn’t her. I wasn’t even sure it was a someone. It sounded more like a something and the very sound of it’s voice nearly drove me to the brink of insanity. Something in the dark let out a stern sounding “shhaddduuupppp you whining little crybaby.” The voice didn’t sound human though. It sounded moist. Bubbly, as if there were liquid in the throat of the creature who’d said it. It was a, for lack of a better word, evil sounding voice. I was silent but tears rolled down my little round cheeks and I struggled to see into the darkness.
I reached out with tiny hands into the dark. I reached out cautiously but I reached out. I seemed to be on a bed of leaves and twigs. The leaves were wet and the twigs were hard. Some of them were poking into my little bare legs that stuck out from underneath my pretty yellow sundress mother had made me. It hurt but I was too scared to think about it or even notice. Even as I felt blood trickle down my right leg from where one of them had punctured the skin I didn’t notice. As I leaned a little further into the darkness I touched, something, it was all around me but my hand could slip past it in parts. Suddenly I knew what it was. It was a cage. I was in a cage. Why was I in a cage? I didn’t understand. Cages were for birds or other animals, not little girls. I crawled to the edge and stuck my face up to the bars and realized there was light coming from below me. I struggled to see what it was and then fear swept over me. Not only was I in a cage, I was in a cage about 15 feet from the ground. Just dangling up there in the dark.
I peered down into the faint light below me and that’s when I saw IT. My fear turned into pure terror and I was sure something snapped in my brain. I once again began to scream. This time it’s return screams of “shaddduupppp” didn’t silence me. My screams were not a choice. They weren’t an option or voluntary in any way. It was like something was pulling them out of my stomach by way of my mouth. That thing! OH MY GOD that thing that was down there. It still rocks me to my core to even think about it and I’d rather not. I can’t tell you my story without you understanding though. Fully understanding what I saw, what had me in that cage precariously perched high above the ground.
What I saw below me can best be described as petrified wood that has started to rot and grow moss and mold. Rotted, mossy, moldy, wood that had come to life in a vague shape of something that resembled human form. The dimensions were all wrong though. The arms and legs too long, too thin. The back curved much like my own back does now. Even in the darkness I could see things slithering around it’s body. Living things and I wasn’t sure if they were feeding off of the things growing on this creature or putting it there. Maybe both. When it moved it made sounds that were both dry and cracking yet wet and mushy. It’s back was to me and it looked as though it was preparing something. A meal maybe? The light was coming from under a very large pot with liquid in it. I suddenly became aware of the smell coming from that liquid and it turned my stomach. At the time I didn’t know what that smell was. No 4 yr old would or should. No 4 yr old should ever know what human meat cooking should smell like.
That creature heard me scurrying around in my cage and turned to look up. I wish it hadn’t. The sight of it’s grotesque body and the sound of it’s hideous moist voice were enough for me, but it turned none the less. It turned and I saw the face of evil. The face of evil knew I saw it and sneered showing it’s pointy uneven teeth in a mouth that was much too large. My God that thing had teeth that looked like the rear end of a porcupine. They were long, skinny, and pointy. I knew right away if this thing bit me those teeth would go all the way through my arm like a sharp knife slicing some butter that’s been left out in the sun all afternoon at the family picnic. It’s eyes were nothing more then little slits with glowing yellow coming from the centers. I didn’t see a nose but it’s ears were tall and ended in a point that leaned back away from the face. It also appeared to have something growing out of it’s back. If I were older it may have taken me longer to figure it out but being just a little girl who often fantasized about fairy tale creatures I knew almost instantly what they were. I mean they weren’t like any I’d ever imagined but they were wings nonetheless. They looked like more of that dry wood jutting out from the back in multiple branches. The “branches” were strung together with something that looked like skin. It was stretched and thin with holes in it here and there as if it’d been torn by something and the light shown through them illuminating them in a way that made me quiver. Suddenly the world was going out of focus again and I fell to the bottom of the cage cutting my cheek on a twig as I did.
I’m not sure how long I was passed out for either time. I do know that some time did pass and when I awoke I was being lowered downward. My cage kind of bouncing and swinging as I got lower and lower. Panic hit me and it hit me HARD! That THING down there was lowering me. It was going to eat me up with those sharp, skinny, pointy teeth it had. I began to cry and slid myself back against the far corner of the cage. I had not been to the restroom since earlier that day and while at age 4 it had been a good long time since I had any type of accident I can assure you that when I came to face to face with this monster from the dark my bladder let loose and urine spilled out of my body and down my legs. It ran in a river to the edge of the cage and off onto the floor. I thought the creature was going to be mad but it smiled happily instead. It was loving the fact that it scared the piss right out of my little body. It knew I was frightened and it loved every minute of it.
Once lowered I came face to face with a creature most people never even see in their nightmares. It was like a combination of every horrifying creature created for the big screen all thrown into one beast. It sneered and then from between it’s long skinny teeth what appeared to be a serpent like tongue jutted out and licked it’s lips. This time I was so scared I couldn’t make a sound. My eyes squeezed shut tightly and I prayed I was just dreaming. Inside my mind I screamed for this to please be a dream. When the creature spoke again I knew it wasn’t a dream though and I opened my eyes to face this monster. It said “Time to eat child, you’re far too skinny.”
I slid back from the cage door as the creature removed the lock and pried it open. It had a bowl of something in it’s creepy long fingers and it slip it onto the floor of the cage and then closed the door once more. “Are you going to hurt me?” I asked. Hopeful that the answer was no but knowing that even if this thing said no it would mean yes.
Opening it’s gaping mouth once again into a grin evil enough to drive a sane man mad it said “Eat!” and then I was being raised back up into the ceiling of this dark hole where the creature resided. What ever was in that bowl smelled horrid and as hungry as I was I wasn’t going to touch it. I laid down in my cage and cried myself to sleep. I wanted my mommy. I wanted my bed. I wanted my stuffed bunny Marshmallow who’s fur was tarnished and dirty from the love of a 4 yr old girl who took it everywhere. I wanted to be anywhere but here. Here I would stay for another 2 weeks though.
Chapter 3
The days pass slowly when you’re being held hostage by a creature in the dark. 1 day slowly rolled into 2 and by the 3rd day I was so hungry so that I ate the food that the beast gave me. He informed me that his name was Trekin as in “Trekin says EAT NOW!!!” He took me out of the cage to clean it after a couple of days of me using part of it as a bathroom. Even then I knew it was disgusting but I didn’t have a choice. I tried to hold it. I begged him to let me out so I could go. He responded to my cries with screams and guttural noises that I wasn’t sure if it was a language or just noise. I never told anyone about having to go to the bathroom in that cage but if I’m going to give you the full account of my time there then I’m going to go ahead and lay it all on the line.
The 3rd day was also the day that Daisy showed up. I really liked her. I saw Trekin carry her in slumped over his shoulder and imagined I must’ve looked much the same when he brought me in. He popped her into a cage and raised it up near mine. She lay sleeping for what seemed like hours and then slowly began to stir. It was very dark in there but after time your eyes adjust and you can see well enough to make due. I saw when he brought her in that her hair was dark. Either brown or black. She had a plump little body that had been poured into some pink overalls with a white shirt, already dirty from her trip here, under it. Her hair in 2 braids that hung to about the middle of her back. She was wearing a little pink shoe on one foot but must’ve lost the other in transit because her other foot was bare. When she started to stir I tried to quickly calm her. It didn’t work. As soon as she opened her eyes to the darkness and then finally figured out what was happening she had much the same reaction as myself. There were screams and cries and even some begging and pleading to be let go. Trekin paid no attention to any of these except to tell her to shut up.
Once Daisy calmed down and began to accept her new reality I spoke to her again in a whisper. “Hello, are you ok now?” I asked. I knew that neither one of us was ok but I wasn’t sure how else to begin our first conversation in this dark and dank environment. Daisy replied in a weepy voice, tired from screaming and crying that she was for now. We talked for much of the night about our homes, our families, even our toys. I learned that she was 6 and in the 1st grade at her school called Hillside Elementary. She had a teacher named Miss. Buckner who was nice most of the time but sometimes got mad at this one kid named Shawn and would yell loudly at him which scared her. Daisy was shy and sweet and in some ways even more terrified then me. She was older so maybe she had everything figured out before I did. Either way I liked her and I felt so much better having someone to talk to. There were times over the next couple of days where I almost forgot where I was. There were times we even giggled as little girls do.
Happy times were often cut short as we were lowered to face that horrid thing that resided below us so that he could feed us or clean our cages. If he thought we were too happy he would poke those long fingers of his into our arms or legs until he punctured our delicate skin bringing blood to the wounds and tears to our eyes. He loved to torment us, he loved to remind us that this wasn’t summer camp.
6 days into my stay with Trekin I asked him shyly what he was? He looked pleased. “Have you never seen a pixie before child?” That sly smile touching his crooked mouth. I shook my head no and dropped my gaze to the floor of my cage. Looking into the murky eyes of that creature was something I cared not do for long. “I am a wood fairy. My kind has ruled these forests for over a thousand years and will continue to do so for many many more.” I had no doubt he was telling the truth.
“What do you want with us?” I asked
“Dear sweet girl, there is only one use for a child of man……………” He paused dramatically and smiled in a manner even more gruesome then usual. “You’re food!” he said as he threw his head back and began laughing like the lunatic he clearly was.
I wasn’t surprised by this news. I mean part of me hoped not but part of me knew. He was feeding us often and somehow I knew it was to fatten us up. Somehow I knew that this creature had one plan all along and I knew that his plan never involved us going home again. Tears rolled down my face silently as he raised me back up next to Daisy. All the while he was laughing to himself.
It was that day that I decided that Daisy and I needed to escape as soon as possible. Of course poor Daisy would never step foot out of this creature’s den again but I didn’t know that. I also didn’t know that this creature while nothing like the pixies I had imagined in appearance did in fact have magical qualities that would make escape even harder then imagined. It was in fact Daisy’s death that led to my escape. I’ve always felt terrible for the loss of her but at the same time at least her torment ended. Mine still continues all these years later as I wait for the return of that hideous creature named Trekin. I don’t know how I know that he’s coming but I know none the less.
Chapter 4
After being raised back up I whispered to Daisy that we were going to have to get out of there. She agreed and we started hatching a plan. It was simple and not very well thought out at all. We were just young girls ages 4 and 6 if you recall. Our plan was simply to wait to have our cages cleaned again and then to make a run for it. One of us, whoever he cleaned first, would push past Trekin and grab the huge spoon he stirred his pot with and hit him in the head with it as hard as she could. Then that girl would open the other cage and we would both run as far and as fast as our legs would carry us. It was simple. It was foolish. As if it would be that easy. Our young ages blinded us to the reality. Of course reality is a fleeting thing for small children locked in cages in the den of a wood pixie anyways. Irony was definitely laughing at us throughout this ordeal.
On the 8th day in Trekin’s possession our chance to escape came. It was Daisy he let out first and she did as we had planned up high in our perch above his elongated head. He unlocked her cage and she made a mad dash pushing into her door and knocking him off balance as she sprawled out past him on the dirt floor of his abode. She quick jumped to her feet and grabbed the large spoon and swung it hard as she could smashing Trekin right in his mouth full of pointy sharp teeth. I saw him grimace in pain and part of me relished it even in that small moment of time which was most likely no more then a microsecond. I yelled for Daisy to hurry and let me out as I shook the bars ferociously.
Trekin wasn’t knocked unconscious as we had planned though. While being knocked down had shocked him and being hit had hurt him it wasn’t long before he recovered and was on his feet headed straight for Daisy with his long fingers reaching out for her. I saw panic in her face and an apologetic look as she turned away from me and ran for the door. She was leaving me. She was going to run and leave me here to be eaten by this creature. I understood though. In that small flash of time I knew I would have done the same.
Daisy reached the door of the den and swung it open throwing herself through it as fast as her pudgy little legs would permit. That’s when it happened. That’s when I realized that leaving this place was going to be even more of a challenge then I had previously thought. Daisy’s body hit the doorway and not just bounced back but was thrown backwards with the force of a mac truck hitting her. She flew through the air and hit the far wall of the dome shaped room. What I’m going to tell you next is graphic but I see no point in making this out ot be anything other then the full account of what I saw and heard during my stay with Trekin the wood pixie. Daisy hit that wall with such force that I could literally hear the bones in her little body break into pieces inside of her. The back of her skull flattened against the wall and as she bounced off and hit the floor face first she left behind what could only be blood and brain matter with chunks of skull that actually stuck into the wall. I let out a scream and fell backwards in my own cage. My only friend in this hellish place was dead. I know this sounds awful but I didn’t know what upset me more. The loss of her, the realization that I was alone with Trekin, or the realization that my own death was next. Either way I lay there in the bottom of my cage crying uncontrollably.
Trekin had walked over to where Daisy lay in a pile of broken flesh and bone and was hovering above her. I heard him laugh maniacally and then even through my own sobbing I heard him say something that caught my attention. “Silly child of man,” he said. “You can’t leave this enchanted space without the key.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him and saw that he was holding out a rope from his neck. He was holding it out over her body and laughing. On the end of the rope I saw a small charm. It wasn’t a key at all though. It was……….MY GOD!!! it was a tiny little unicorn. I had seen that tiny creature before. The last time was the day I was brought here and it was alive. This time it was more like a little glass figurine but it was the same creature. I was sure of it. Trekin picked up what was left of my new friend and carried her into the next room. I sat there debating in my mind how I could get that necklace from around Trekin’s neck and escape this awful hole that he called enchanted. The events of the day had worn on me though and I fell asleep leaning against the bars of my cage.
When I awoke again I peered down into the faint light below me to see Trekin coming back into the only room I had known for days now. He had a tray in his hands and on the tray was pieces of meat and blood. He tipped the tray up and they slid into the boiling pot below me splashing some of the hot liquid inside onto the floor. It was then that true terror touched my soul yet again. It was then that I realized that was bow cooking my friend Daisy. It was then that I realized that the food I had been eating since the 3rd day of my capture was whatever child had sat in this cage before me. The world got all wobbly and I felt everything in my stomach lurch up into my throat. It spewed from my mouth violently and then the world went dark as I fell face first into my own freshly spewed vomit. Not a pretty picture I know. One I wish wasn’t locked into my memory but that’s what happened.
Some time later I opened my eyes to my cage being opened and I jumped backwards so hard I hit my head on the bars of the cage and saw stars. Trekin was peering in at me with his teeth showing in a snarl and saying something about I’d better not try anything or I’d be joining my friend sooner then later. His long wood like fingers grabbed a hold of my tiny wrist and he dragged me out of my cage in one movement and threw me to the floor. He towered over me and then grabbed a large bowl and to my shock dumped cold water right on top of me. “Dirty, filthy, creatures, children of men are.” he said shaking his head. Still you could see the enjoyment he got out of dumping that cold water on top of me while I was still dazed and confused from the events of the day. One side of his face lifted in an Elvis like sneer and he dumped a second pot into my cage rinsing away my vomit, urine, and feces. He grabbed another pot and dumped in some new leaves and twigs and then grabbed my drenched body and lifted it back into the cage. He peered at me through the open door for a moment. I thought he was going to say something but then he shut the door and locked it once again. He didn’t raise me up though. He left me hanging just a few feet from the ground and started to fill a bowl from the large pot in the center of the room that he had generously fed me from all along. I instantly started shaking my head and crying. He re-opened the cage door and slid the bowl in. “Your friend is sweet as pie.” He said laughing as he started pulling the rope that rose my cage into the air.
Once raised I looked at the bowl and I cried. I told Daisy I was so sorry. I knew then that I would go hungry either until I finally died, Trekin finally killed me, or until I escaped this place. I was hopeful for an escape. My little brain just couldn’t think of how to do it though. No matter how much I tried I couldn’t figure out how I would ever be able to get down, get the “key”, and escape without being killed. 4 more days passed and with each day I grew weaker from lack of food. The weaker I got the less hope I had. I was now on my 12th day here in this hell and I was now hoping more for death then anything. I just lay in the bottom of the cage. Not moving, not speaking. I didn’t cry. I didn’t do anything. Honestly I think that was also a big part of being able to escape. Trekin grew concerned. Not because I was weak but because I was getting thinner and thinner. “You’re no good to me without some meat on your bones!” he said. He was clearly angry. He lowered my cage and stared at me. He must have been thinking of ways to get me to eat or deciding if he should just kill me now before I could lose more weight but he said nothing. Just stared. He stared for what seemed an eternity but I was lost to my own little world, slowly dying as I lay there in the bottom of my cage.
Trekin didn’t bother to lift me back up. When he went to the other room for the night he left me down low. I’m not sure if he didn’t feel I was strong enough to be a problem or if he just plain forgot. As I entered into day 13 I sat up slowly and looked around the room I was in. Escape hadn’t crossed my mind just yet. At first I was merely looking to see if there was any food near enough to me to reach and eat. Across the room on a small table I saw something that looked like bread. My stomach growled and I touched the lock on my cage door as if it would just pop open because I wanted it to. It didn’t. I reached my arm through the cage and tried to grab the edge of the pot in the center of the room. My fingertips were about 2 inches shy of reaching it and so I stretched and leaned. It was then that I realized my entire arm was now out of the cage and half of my head. I realized that if might be possible to slip my entire head out of the bars of the cage. I pushed and pain hit me instantly as my ears bent up tight against my head and one of them scraped against the rough metal of the bar and ripped open. Blood came pouring down my neck and onto my shoulder. It wasn’t enough to stop me from pushing though. The pain in my ear was nothing compared to the pain in my stomach and I pushed with barely a sound as my head popped out of the bars of the cage. Of course now here I was with my head and an arm hanging out of my cage about 3 feet from the ground and not sure what to do next. I was sure the rest of my withered body would slide through as well but what if Trekin caught me?
Fear made my heart pound against my tiny rib cage almost hard enough to physically see it. I decided I’d rather die fighting then laying in that cage. I don’t know why I decided it. I don’t know where that strength was for the days before this moment but I was suddenly filled with the desire to live. Pushing through the bars was easier then I imagined it would be. After 4 days of not eating my tiny body was little more then some skin and bones. Had I been in the air this would have been pointless but this close to the ground it was an easy task. Of course going head first was difficult as I had to lean downward and fall to the ground head first as well. As I left the cage it swung back away from me ever so slightly and when it swung back it hit me right in the side of my head just as I was setting myself upright. The metal created a gash that instantly began to bleed about an inch long and I grabbed my head and cried out before I could stop myself. I stood there like a deer in the headlights quite sure that Trekin was going to come running and and destroy me with one hit from those pointy wooden claws of his. Everything remained quiet and nothing stirred though.
I walked over and grabbed the bread like stuff from the little table and began shoving it into my mouth. It was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten in my life. It wasn’t bread. It was better then bread. It was moist and sweet and after just a few bites I was already feeling full. I kept eating though until my little belly protruded. When I was done I looked around the room once again. Something in my brain said I should climb my butt back into that cage and live to fight another day. Something else in me was screaming though. It was screaming to me to find a weapon. To look for Trekin. To take that necklace. Finally to ESCAPE this place. I listened to the 2nd voice. After all, that one was much louder.
Chapter 5
I slowly and quietly crept into the next room. Trekin was not there. It was a small room with tables and cabinets on one side. This was the room where he prepared the meat for his stews. There was also a hole in the floor to one side of the table. I peered in and the smell came up and hit me in the face like a baseball being pitched by a professional pitcher. I knew right away that this hole was where he threw the parts he couldn’t use. I almost lost the new food I had in my belly but managed to keep it down. I rose from my knees and started to quietly open drawers looking for a weapon of sorts. On the 3rd drawer I found a knife. It wasn’t very large but it was sharp and it fit in my tiny hand nicely. I grabbed it and
|
Life is a cage. I realize this now. The worst part of this realization is that most people know it. But they never do anything about it. They’re content to look through the bars, as long as the cage has a roof and there’s food inside of it. They don’t dare attempt to escape, to risk something better. That, or they’re expecting someone to come along and open the cage for them. That never happens. If it does, you can bet that whoever opens it has his own plan for you. A plan you’re probably going to hate. I finally decided to open my cage. However, I didn’t feel like it had been a matter of pushing a door open and walking out. I had practically bloodied my hands trying to rend the bars, finally grinding them down so that I was barely able to escape. I came out with the scars to prove it. I fought for my freedom.
Outsiders understandably scared me. Homeless people, junkies, drifters, hobos. For some weird reason, I’ve always had a pathological fear of ending up like these people. I can’t tell you why. Maybe it was ignorance. These types always seemed naturally repellent to me. Instead of repulsion and fear, I now felt a completely different emotion towards them: jealousy. Some of them might have been mental, granted, but some of them just didn’t care. They lived life on their own terms, not their bosses’, not their parents’, not society’s. Theirs.
I wanted to live life the way that they did. I wanted to start riding trains. I started researching this mode of travel, my brain soaking up every bit of information it found. Hobos were nowhere near as honorable as they were depicted. They would sometimes kill each other by shooting, stabbing, or just pushing one another off of the boxcar while it was moving, not giving a care as they moved onto the next job out West. I learned about the current incarnation of freighthopping, which is basically a pastime of crust punks and bedraggled addicts, filthy transients who don’t have to ride a train. They need to. There are gangs on the rails – the Freight Train Riders of America and its bastard child, the Blood Bound Railroad. I didn’t feel that I had to fear them much. They were monsters that mainly slinked around trains in the Northwest, like ticks on a snake. I was in the South. Yet, I still felt they could be here. Even if they weren’t, there could be people like them.
I went through nearly every scenario in my head that could happen if I hopped a freight train. I’m a small female. Rape. I know nothing about hopping trains. My body getting dumped at the base of a ravine. Where would I find food? They might use you for food. These were concerns that I considered seriously, but I needed more knowledge of this beast before I attempted to bridle it.
There was a railyard a few miles from my apartment. I went there one summer day. It was glaringly sunny and around 90 degrees, sweat beading on my thighs, causing my blue jeans to constrict around them. I arrived at the railyard, a junky maze of boxcars in drab greens and maroons being taken apart by men with glistening, dirt-speckled skin. The crew change, I thought. As I approached them, my boots kicked up the yellow dust that swirled on the ground, wading through dead, scrubby plants that were choking on the surface.
The man closest to me turned to stare. He was missing the majority of his teeth, and his thinning hair was pulled back in a scraggly ponytail. While he had a more prominent nose, he lacked a chin, giving him kind of a dopey look.
“Can I help yew, ma’am?” he said in a strong, country accent.
“Not sure, but I’m willing to take my chances. I’m Emma.”
I extended my hand and shook his dirty, wet palm.
“Pleasure to heyelp. Watcha need?”
“Well, I was wondering if you would mind telling me a bit about the railyard and the trains that come here.”
The man introduced himself as Will. He was a motor mouth but thankfully an informative one. He told me all about arrival times, when crew changes were, and where the trains were headed. When he slowed his pace, he finally got around to asking me some questions.
“Yew doin’ this fo’ a school project?”
“Uh, not really. I-“
I looked around the railyard to make sure no one was listening.
“I actually wanted to hop a train.”
Will’s eyes widened, causing the skin on his forehead to wrinkle.
“Wah wouldja wanna do that?”
“To get away.”
“Ah see.”
He nodded his head intently.
“Is there any way you could help me?”
There was a moment of silence between us as Will contemplated what I had said.
“The best tahm to fahnd me is around 10 in the mo’nin. I can tell yew ev’rythin’ yew need to know.”
From that point on, every day at 10 AM, I would go to the railyard to meet Will. Before he worked in the railyard, he had hopped trains to get around, so he was a fairly reliable resource. He told me about the finer points of which cars I could get on, which were the safest. If he admonished me once, he admonished me a million times about cargo shifting and crushing me and to avoid the cars that held them. His advice to me about catching out of the yard was to wait until the train was completely stopped. Due to my inexperience, he wasn’t confident of my ability to catch on the fly – hopping on the train while it was moving.
About a week into my training, Will finally broke it to me.
“Ahm worried about yew,” he said.
“Why?”
“There’r a lotta bad people on the tracks. Some gooduns, mind yew. But a lotta… crazy people can be on the train.”
“I’ve prepared myself for that,” I said defiantly.
“No, ah don’t think yew have.”
Will’s voice had taken on a stern quality that I hadn’t heard before.
“Ah was one of ‘em.”
I stood there unmoving. He took a swig of Pepsi, looking me in the eye as his head came down.
“Ah pulled a knife on a man once. Ah was high on meth. Ah cut ‘im across the arm. Thankfully, he lived. Ah spent some time in jail. Lucky ah got straightened out. Listen, ah don’t think yew should do this. At awl.”
“Well, I’m going to. I have to leave. If you don’t want to help me, I’ll just get on the train while you’re not here. You know Tom is a lazy ass bull anyway.”
The look Will gave me was possibly the saddest that I had seen cross over his face in the short time I had known him. I felt sorry that I had put it that way, but I wasn’t going to be swayed. Will also knew that Tom, the security guard at the railyard was sleeping in his office most of the time. He absolutely wouldn’t be bothered with me.
Will nodded his head solemnly.
“When’re yew leaving?”
“Tomorrow,” I said.
Will remained silent for a second.
“Ah’ll see you off then,” he said.
***************************************
I arrived at the railyard early. It was still dark out. I had a backpack with me that held a loaded gun, some extra ammo, a bit of food, a knife, and a flashlight. In my hand I held a gallon jug that I had filled with water. I wore heavy, supportive boots. I was covered in layers despite the heat and humidity. Once the train got moving, the wind would be freezing. I met Will.
“Yew sure about this?”
I nodded.
He directed me to the last car on the train. It was completely empty, and the doors were open.
“Hide in the back. Yew got a rock?”
I leaned down and picked up a large weathered stone. I could wedge it between the doors in the event I had to close them, since they didn’t open from the inside. I scrambled into the dark corner of the empty boxcar. Will would sometimes lean against the boxcar and talk to me, but most of the time he was getting things set up. It came time for the train to take off.
“Yew know about the next stop? It’s a whiles away.”
“Yeah, Will, you’ve told me,” I smiled.
“Yew stay safe and don’t let anyone fuck yew over.”
“I won’t.”
The train started moving. I waved to Will as it gained speed. We stared at each other until Will’s image was obscured by trees. I was completely alone now. I sat in the corner of the train, contemplating my situation. I was scared, more scared than I ever had been. And I loved it. I was free. No one, except for me, knew where I was going or where I would end up. Food was going to be a bit of an obstacle, but I figured I could just go to a soup kitchen or work as a waitress somewhere. While there were challenges inherent with this lifestyle, there were also a myriad of possibilities. I was ready to take hold of them.
The first couple of hours in the train, I kept to the back. It was probably running at about 70 miles an hour, and I hadn’t yet gained the courage to move to the open area. I secured the gallon jug behind my backpack and slowly rose. I held to the sides of the boxcar and sat at the opening. What met my eyes was astounding. A dark gray mountain sat in the midst of a sea of green trees. Its vastness filled the land, as a fierce wind howled through the trees, exposing the silver undersides of the leaves. It was like an island fortress in an ocean of undulating greens and silvers, daring anyone to swim to its shores. This scene was gorgeous, but it also terrified me. My apartment, my cubicle, and the eateries in the surrounding area where I had lived were my familiar landscapes. They had been replaced with the dingy metal walls of a car and the fantastic, daunting views of nature you could only see by traveling this way. I left my crappy boss and co-workers, the bartenders who served me when they should have cut me off, and throngs of faceless people I didn’t care to know. I wondered who would be replacing them.
I stood up in the train now. The sun shone upon my face. I took off my coat and threw it in the corner with my backpack. My body pulsed with this unfettered freedom. For the first time in my life, I was happy. I must have stood there for what felt like hours, my skin growing taut with the cold. I drank in every image that nature had to offer. As ecstatic as I was, I was growing exhausted. Will had told me that the whipping wind would suck the life out of me. I now fully believed him. I carefully moved to the corner again with my backpack. I drank heavily from the jug and put my coat on. I closed my eyes and fell asleep immediately.
The positivity of my experience while I was awake hadn’t translated to my slumber. My dreams were plagued by all the horrors I had read about. Grimy, toothless men with jaundiced eyes leered at me through the jungles on the side of the tracks, stalking my every move. Gang members hiding behind black bandanas held knives to my neck as they tried to pull my pants down. A woman with stringy hair howled at me as she lunged at my body, trying to bite me.
I woke up in a cold sweat. I thrashed as I looked around the car. Night had fallen by this point, but the train was still moving. I hadn’t reached my destination yet. I pulled my flashlight and my gun out of my backpack. No one was in the car. No one but me. I took a deep breath and finished the contents of my jug. I would have to get more water when the train stopped. A couple more hours went by. I had shaken off my terrible dreams, dismissing them as my subconscious response to stress. The hobos and the gang members I could understand. I’d read about them exhaustively. The woman I couldn’t. Had she been a drug user? Maybe I had seen her on Google Images, one of those “after” pictures you see of addicts. If she was, she would have to have been one of the more intense cases. I remembered nothing like her. I didn’t remember her at all. My worry about this dissipated as I felt the train slow down. Will had told me to look out for a huge tower with a blinking red light nearby. I saw it in the distance. This was going to be where the train would stop. I could either get off at this place and find somewhere to stay, or I could wait for the yard workers to unload and sneak back on. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.
The train slowed. I could tell it was about to stop. I put my gun and flashlight back into my backpack and made sure my coat was zipped up. I stayed in the corner as I felt the train come to a halt. I was thrown forward, so I was glad that I had at least held tight to the walls. I grabbed all of my things and peeked out the open door of the car. I needed to stretch my legs desperately, but I didn’t want to encounter the bull. All I saw were other crew workers who had hopped off of the train when it was only going a couple of miles an hour. Will had told me that the yard workers here were pretty accepting of people hopping the train as long as they were nice. Luckily, there was a crew change going on, so I had at least a few seconds to get out of the car. I hopped off and breathed in the air. Thunder rumbled overhead, and dark clouds obscured the velvety, dark blue sky. Fat raindrops hit the top 0f my head, startling me. I didn’t feel comfortable walking in the rain in a place I didn’t know. Back on the train it was.
All of the necessary paperwork had to have been in order, because I saw the new crew hop on the train. I quickly got back to my original hiding place. It was too short of a rest, but I could live with it. I propped my backpack in the corner. I was worried about not being able to get any water. Maybe I could hold the jug outside of the train and catch water that way, risky as it was. For the time being, I felt fine. I was relaxed, warm, and I felt safe with the rest of the crew being relatively nearby. Despite my long sleep just a few minutes before, I had the urge to doze off again. The rain was falling heavily at this point, hitting the top of the car like little torpedoes. The thunder would boom at random intervals, making me jump out of my skin every time it did so. I hadn’t seen any lightning yet though. As if my recent connection with nature had grown to be psychic, a burst of white light illuminated the car. That’s when I saw it.
There was someone in the opposite corner from me. I had roughly been able to make out a body with a face. No, no, there couldn’t be someone in here with me. I had only been out of the car for a few seconds, and I hadn’t left it. I would have seen someone get into the car, felt their presence near. If someone had gotten in, they had to have been fast. And quiet. Had I hallucinated? I… didn’t feel like I had. The rain pelted the top of the car with a frightening intensity, and the wind howled. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could see that I hadn’t just imagined something. A dark shape was huddled in the corner. I could see its head shaking as if it were having a seizure. I heard gurgling noises coming from it as its body quaked. It made this sound for a while – until it started laughing. It was a breathy laugh, the laugh of someone who was trying to conceal a joke. The laughter gradually became louder, morphing into a cackle, with the choked gurgles coming up in intervals.
I felt like my bones had separated from my muscles. I was paralyzed as I watched the thing heave up and down, and my throat had run dry. My mind raced as I tried to figure out what I could do. If I jumped out of this moving train, I would die. I was scared to even move, fearing that this thing would attack me. The person in the corner stopped laughing. It inched its head forward, as if it were trying to look at me. One arm extended in front of it, bones cracking as it did. A long, skeletal hand splayed on the floor in front of it. The thing’s shoulders were hunched like it was about to pounce. My fight or flight response kicked in, and I shoved my arm behind me to grab the gun out of my bag. I managed to pull it out and point it at the thing that loomed just a few feet away. I shook even as my finger was on the trigger. However, the figure never moved away. Instead, it cocked its head as if it were amused by my action. In my hurry to grab the gun, the flashlight had fallen out of my backpack. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. I don’t know why, but I felt I had to see what was crouched in front of me. I was prepared to kill this person, but I guess the human side of me had to fully recognize it before a bullet went through its head. I grabbed the flashlight and shone it at the thing. This was an action that I will regret for as long as I live.
Pale, translucent skin stretched across its skull, and greasy, stringy brown hair hung off of it in patches. One of its eyes was a pale corpse-colored blue, its pupil merely a quivering pinprick. The opposite eyelid was plastered into a deformed crevice, revealing the cavernous insides where an eye had once made its home. It growled through a clenched mouth, revealing jagged yellow and black teeth, some of them looking like they had been sharpened down to a point. Its body was grimy and severely emaciated, the outlines of bones looking like they had been carved into its flesh. Red, raised scars covered this thing from its arms to it skeletal face. It appeared to be covered in oily brown rags, one small, wrinkled breast exposed. This was the woman in my dream. This was the demon living invisibly among the drifters, the death goddess willing my destruction. Tears welled in my eyes as she heaved and growled. When the light hit her face, she let out a shrill, high-pitched wail.
Before I could pull the trigger, she lunged at me, pinning me into the corner of the boxcar. Her long, jagged fingernails ripped into my face as inhuman screams emanated from her mouth. I fought her, kicking and flailing, trying to push her off of me. She was stronger than I thought. She was able to wrestle me to the ground, her long fingers grasping around my neck. Her face was millimeters from mine. Her one eye, the hue of decomposition, bored a hole into mine. Her sour breath felt hot on my face, and her cracked lips spread into a wide leer. In a low, gravelly voice, she spoke to me.
“Eeeeeat you… send you to hell… make my house with your bones,” she screamed.
She sunk her teeth into my shoulder, making me yelp in pain. I thrashed as she dug deeper into my shoulder. The gun was to my right. I tried reaching for it while my other hand pulled her hair, trying to rend her off of me. I was able to slip my middle finger around the trigger guard and bash her across the head with the gun. It shocked her enough that I was able to throw her off. I pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger, but it missed her, sailing out of the open door of the car into the darkness. She threw herself at my legs, still screaming, and brought me to the ground. I hit her across the shoulders and upper back with the gun and kicked her off again. She was too fast for me. If I was going to have a chance at life, I had to make a decision. I looked out the door of the car and saw trees in the distance. I lunged out of the moving train into the storm.
The side of my body hit the ground, and I rolled down a hill, rain pelting me mercilessly. I only stopped rolling when my body hit the bottom of a ravine. My ears stung from the howl of the wind. I clambered up the hill, trying to get to the tree line. A more piercing howl rang through the night. I looked back to see the woman running on all fours down the hill, shrieking with anger. I used all the strength that I could to run. Blood spilled from my shoulder, and the gun felt like a heavy weight attached to my hand. She was gaining on me, and I knew that my fate would be even bloodier than it would have been on the train. She wanted revenge. This propelled me up the remainder of this obstacle. I rain across a short distance and flung myself into the woods, never stopping to look back. My legs caught across blackberry bushes, and I had to push limbs out of the way of my face. I could still hear her howls in the distance, but I pressed onward in the dark. I could see nothing and felt like I was moving through jelly.
I finally came to a more open part of the woods. I had to stop due to sheer exhaustion, even though I didn’t feel safe. The only sound I could hear now was the light sound of rain hitting dead leaves and crickets chirping. Most of the rain was caught in the canopy above, forming a roof over my head. I was thankful for this slight reprieve. I didn’t want to look at my shoulder, but I felt I had no choice. It was covered in red, blood covering it completely and running in rivulets down my breast. I started crying. I was going to die out here, I would bleed to death, and there would be no escape. That woman would find me, finish me off, and eat my dead body. She would use my bones to make a house, whatever that meant. I was at the mercy of an insane person and far from any civilization I knew of. As I became resolved to my fate, I listened to the rain. I remembered the mountain and the trees and the wind through my hair. I didn’t want to die. Not yet. That’s when I realized the crickets had stopped chirping. Something was moving through the brush somewhere in the distance.
A surge of adrenaline burst through me, and I took off in the opposite direction. I ran and ran and ran, hearing her howl as she tried to find me. I kept running until I saw colored lights ahead of me. It was a diner, on the other side of a road. I started laughing when I saw it, thanking whatever force was in charge of the world for bringing it to me. I pushed the doors open. A waitress was behind the counter. I smiled and collapsed.
**************************************
I woke up in pain. I was propped up in a booth, with a woman staring at me. I jumped when I saw her.
“Shh,” she said. “You shouldn’t move.”
I looked down at my shoulder. It was covered in gauze, but it wasn’t bleeding anymore.
“I-I need to get to a hospital,” I said.
She looked at me sympathetically.
“I’m sorry, hon, but the nearest one is about an hour away. It’s pouring out there. I don’t want to risk either of us. I stopped the bleeding. You’re holding up just fine.”
I looked at her blankly.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
I was swiftly reminded of my terrifying encounter with the thing that stalked me like an animal.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” I said.
The waitress nodded. She brought me something to eat. She introduced herself as Mae. She started telling me about herself. At any other time, this would kind have annoyed me, but anything that could take my mind off of the recent hours was welcome. Mae had had a fairly hard life. Her stories weren’t uplifting, but they felt like Disney movies compared to what I had just faced. She talked about how she and her siblings, a brother and a sister, and been moved from foster home to foster home. They weathered sexual, psychological, and physical abuse. She mentioned one home where a male pedophile had locked her and her sister in the closet while he sodomized her younger brother.
“My life was hell as a child. But, it did get better,” she said. “I have a pretty good life now. I make good money for what I do. I can go out and drink. I have friends. I can’t complain,” she shrugged.
“What about your siblings?” I asked.
She hung her head. Mae didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but she finally spoke.
“My brother couldn’t take it anymore. He committed suicide a few years later. My sister was placed in a psychiatric facility. She was supposed to stay there for the rest of her life. But she left eventually.”
I looked at her.
“So, she got better?”
“You could say that.”
“What do you mean?”
She gave a small smile as she looked at the gauze on my chest.
“I guess it would make more sense for me to explain further. The bastard pervert who raped my brother – my sister killed him. She took his eyes out and bit his nose off.”
I stared at her in silence, but she continued.
“They were going to lock her up, but a shrink determined that she wasn’t in sound mind when she did it. So, they sent her to the looney bin. She was only trying to protect my brother. He and I would go visit her. She talked about getting revenge on everyone who had hurt us. When she had bit that son of a bitch’s nose off, she said that she liked the taste of the blood. She told me that she was going to eat all of the people that had hurt us. She said that if she ate them and shit them out, that would be sending them to hell. God wouldn’t take them, because they were shit. Those people drove her insane. But she’s still smart. She escaped. I still see her sometimes.”
I was trembling. Mae looked up at me the same way that a lion looks at a gazelle. She zeroed in on my shoulder.
“You met her tonight, didn’t you?” She smiled with all the evil in the world, her pale blue eyes lighting up at my terror.
I remained silent. She laughed. Her voice dropped down to a whisper.
“She wants to send everyone to hell. I really do admire that in her. Sometimes, she’ll bring me something – an arm or a leg. I’ll cook it up for her. She’ll pull the meat apart like a dog. She takes the bones back with her. I followed her once. She sticks them in the ground around her. It’s like she builds a wall around herself.”
“You’re insane,” I choked out.
“Maybe I could find her. I’m sure she’s looking for you. We could eat you together.”
Mae cocked her head and grinned at me. I bolted from the booth and raced out the door. I looked back to see Mae grinning that evil sneer of hers. I ran down the road, hoping and praying that someone would pick me up. I put all my effort into getting away from this place, this experience, this life I had made. I ran into the night.
Occasionally, I would hear something in the woods beside me. Something walking. I wondered if it was her. After two hours, I had no choice but to slow my pace. My legs couldn’t take more than a sluggish crawl. To my left, a rowdy biker bar crackled like electricity through the night. Two men stood outside near their motorcycles under a yellow light. They laughed and threw back beers. They stopped their chatter when they saw me. They followed me with their eyes. One of them had shoulder length black hair. He smirked as he looked me up and down. At this, I disappeared into the woods.
**************************************
I live in a different place now. It’s an apartment. It’s not as nice as my other one, though. I do some odd jobs. They don’t pay much, but they get me what I need. I’ll work at the little corner store nearby. I sell watermelons to old people and act like I’m normal. After my day is done, I take the money and go to the bad part of town. I get the stuff from the man who can give it to me. I don’t want to do it, but it helps me to forget. Forget my life, my current situation. It helps me forget her. I go up the steps to the dingy place where I live. The other people who live there stare wide-eyed at me as I go by. I don’t know why.
When I get inside my place, I ready my materials. I tie a tourniquet at my upper arm and smack my veins so I can see them. The needle sucks the stuff from the spoon. I flick it to expel any air bubbles. When I put it inside me, I go away. I see the mountains, I see the trees, I feel the sun. I feel alive. The drugs don’t work when it rains outside though. When the thunder booms and the wind howls, she’s there. I can’t fight her with the needle. The sun is overtaken by black clouds and a hideous, killing cold sets in. I lay in the middle of the moving boxcar, my limbs severed. I can only scream. She lopes around the car, fastening bones together, always making sure her eye and my eyes meet. Her mouth pulls back in a wide smile, laughing. Life will always be a cage. You just have to make sure it’s one you’ve built yourself. I broke out of my cage, and I don’t have the means to build a new one. So she does.
|
The first four days Lachlan had been excited. The fifth day, that Friday that he came back from primary school with dirt on his knees, he was not excited. He was euphoric.
I was in my office, writing the final formulaic words of another research proposal.
“Daaad!”
“Hey!”
“Dad! Dad! Dad!”
“Oh wow, someone is happy. Enjoyed school?”
“School is awesome!”
“That’s great!”
“And I have loads of friends!”
“Of course you do.”
“Look!”
He stretched his small, dirty hand towards me.
“You cut yourself?”
“No.”
“That looks like a cut.”
“It’s a talesman.”
“A what?”
“A tales-man.”
“A talisman?”
Lachlan grinned.
“A tal-is-man.”
“Oh.”
“You like it?”
I pulled his hand closer.
A perfect circle, clearly cut into his skin, with a small chequer in the center. The chequer was a solid red. Not just a cut; the solid red of his flesh.
“Did you do that on purpose?”
“No. My friends did it.”
“Your friends did it?”
“Yeah.”
“And they did that on purpose?”
“Of course. They all have one too.”
“Lachlan, are those friends older than you?”
Lachlan nodded.
He took a step back, but I still held his hand.
“And do they go to your school?”
He nodded.
“And do you know their names?”
He shook his head.
“You don’t know their names?”
“They don’t have names.”
“Oh,” I said. “But they are in your class?”
“No.”
“But in your school.”
He nodded.
“And when did they cut you?”
“In the first break.”
“The first break?”
Lachlan smiled.
“They gave it only to me and Nichole.”
I took my mobile phone from the table.
“Lachlan, how old were they?”
“I don’t know.”
“How tall were they?”
“Smaller than you.”
“Smaller?”
“Just a bit.”
“And what did they look like?”
“I don’t know. Really white.”
“White?”
“Really white.”
My fingers were scrolling through the list of numbers.
“And where did they do that?”
“On my hand.”
“No, I mean, where were you when they put it on your hand.”
Lachlan paused. He bent his head to the side.
“Where were you, Lachlan?”
“Downstairs,” he said.
“Downstairs? Like in the basement?”
“No,” he said. “More downstairs.”
My index finger tapped the name of the class teacher. I asked him whethere there was a girl called Nichole in Lachlan’s class. The teacher said yes. I told him to come to school and to call the parents of that girl.
Then I called the police.
When we arrived Ms. Bullen was already arguing with the police.
“That would never happen,” she said. “Older kids and adults can’t just go in here.”
We stepped towards them. Lachlan was scared. I lifted him up, pulled the band-aid off and showed his hand to Ms. Bullen and the officers.
“Lachlan said some kids did this.”
“My god,” said Ms. Bullen.
“No,” said Lachlan. “Those were my friends!”
One of the officers bent towards Lachlan’s hand.
“Your friends?” he asked.
“Yeah. They showed me the school. And Nichole too!”
“And they were older than you?” asked the officer.
Lachlan nodded.
“And you are sure they were in the school?”
He nodded again.
A mother with a young blond-haired girl stepped through the door.
Lachlan waved and tried to get to the ground.
“Nichole! Nichole! Show them too!”
Nichole stopped walking. She took a few steps back, until her mother lifted her up.
“Show what?” asked the mother.
“The ta-lis-man,” said Lachlan.
Nichole shook her head.
“What talisman?” asked her mother.
Lachlan grinned.
“On her hand! I have one too!”
The color of Ms. Bullen’s face seemed to disappear in the small red wound on her daughter’s left hand. A circle surrounded that square wound too.
The police asked the janitor to safe all security tapes. Then they asked Lachlan and Nichole to show them where they had met their ‘friends’.
“Downstairs,” said Lachlan.
“In the basement,” said Nichole.
“Not the basement,” said Lachlan. “It was more downstairs.”
“It wasn’t,” said Nichole.
“But it was more black,” said Lachlan.
Nichole nodded.
“It was really dark,” she said. “But it didn’t hurt.”
The two pulled us to a flight of stairs at the back of the school.
“Those stairs are usually locked,” said Ms. Bullen.
The officers called for backup. Then they went downstairs with us. Carefully, with Lachlan holding my hand and Nichole holding that of her mother, we stepped down into the darkness. Ms. Bullen found the lightswitch and the bare corridor blinked to life with bright white light.
Shut doors to each side. One after the other the officers opened the doors, flipped the lightswitches on and searched the rooms. A second pair of officers reached us after half the rooms had been discovered as empty.
“It’s not here,” said Lachlan. “Too much light here.”
“And it’s too cold,” said Nichole.
“Yeah,” said Lachlan “It was really warm.”
“They were really scary.”
“No,” said Lachlan. “They were really nice.”
“They were really white.”
Lachlan nodded.
“And,” Nichole said. “They didn’t have noses.”
“They had noses!” said Lachlan. “Just flat ones.”
“And they didn’t have a mouth,” said Nichole.
“No,” said Lachlan. “That was just their masks.”
“They wore masks?” asked the officer.
Lachlan smiled.
“Really cool ones.”
“Cool?”
“Scary,” said Nichole.
“Like doctors,” said Lachlan. “But bigger and gray.”
“And you weren’t scared of them?” I asked.
Lachlan shook his head.
“They are our friends. They started school with us!”
“They’ve been here the whole time?” asked an officer.
Nichole and Lachlan both nodded.
When all the rooms had been checked the police interviewed Lachlan and Nichole again.
There were three or four of them. White skin; flat noses; large gray masks that looked like microphones. Large eyes or sunglasses.
They had played with Nichole and Lachlan during the week, but not with any other kids.
They had asked them to come to the basement and then, so said Lachlan, it was all black and the stairs suddenly ended and in the darkness he only saw the white of their bodies.
Then the men gave them talismans.
“It was really quick,” said Nichole. “It didn’t hurt.”
Then the light returned and they were told to run up the stairs.
That night Lachlan fell asleep in my bed, with my arms wrapped around him. He wasn’t scared. It was for me, not for him. I locked all the windows and doors; checked the attic and every single wardrobe. And still, even with my bedroom door locked, I still could not sleep except with him in my arms.
At 2:40am I woke up and there was nothing in my arms. And he was not under the bed or in the wardrobe. And the bedroom door was still locked from inside.
I called the police. Then I called Nichole’s mother and she sounded as panicked as I was.
I ran through the whole house and garden, screaming his name.
Then I got the call.
Nichole’s mother.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “He’s here.”
Nearly eight miles away. Yet he was there, in a locked bedroom, sleeping in the top bunk next to Nichole while Nichole’s sister slept below.
The police searched each of our houses but they didn’t find anything suspicious. I took him out of that school and stayed with him in the same room at most times. At night I tied his arm to mine with a silk cloth. Then I wrapped my arms around him.
For two nights it went fine.
The third night I woke up from a girl’s screams.
Nichole, squeezed between Lachlan and me.
The fourth night I woke up and he was gone.
I called Nichole’s mother and she ran to Nichole’s bedroom.
I heard her slam the key in the door.
She called Nichole’s name, but Nichole’s voice didn’t answer. Only her sister.
That moment we both, I think, had a nervous breakdown. I ran through the house again, screaming, and at the other end of the line she and Nichole’s older sister seemed to do the same.
Then there were screams on the line.
Then there was quiet.
The police arrived long before me.
They found the door locked and rang the bell loud and long.
Nichole’s mother answered. She said she had been in bed. She allowed the police to come inside.
Together they went to the girls’ bedroom.
They found Nichole’s sister sleeping on the bottom bunk.
They found Nichole and Lachlan on the top bunk.
Nichole’s mother said she didn’t know how he had come in.
Nichole’s mother also didn’t know how she had gotten the strange cut on her hand. And why her daughters and Lachlan all had the same.
She didn’t remember going to the school.
She didn’t remember meeting me.
It’s the fifth night now.
Lachlan is right next to me, his arm tied to mine.
His eyes are closed and his breathing is calm.
But I can’t sleep.
I sit with my back against the wall and my arm wrapped around him and my laptop on my lap and a camera at the other end of the room.
I can’t sleep because I wonder why that wound on his hand doesn’t heal.
I can’t sleep because I wonder whether he will disappear and whether he will be back.
And I can’t sleep because I wonder whether I will remember that something is wrong.
Credit To – Anton Scheller
|
You’ve made a lot of them. But you’ve always managed to escape the consequences so far. You know that flash out of the corner of your eye, like picking up some peripheral movement just out of sight, and then you turn your head and there’s nothing there? That was one of the times you’ve made a mistake.
That creeping, unsettling feeling that you’re being watched, that there is something dark and sinister near that can see you? That’s a warning tens of thousands of years of instinct has driven into your body that you’re about to make a mistake.
And that unexplained bruise, that fresh cut you can’t remember receiving, those times you wake up sweating, screaming, and breathing like you’d just run a marathon and can’t remember why? Those are the times when they almost got you.
What are they? Well, it’s hard to describe. Imagine trying to explain ‘red’ to a blind man. You can’t really explain it, you just have to experience it for yourself. And you really don’t want to experience this. I can tell you that you are just one thing to them: food. And they can keep you alive for quite a long time while they eat.
You’ve probably heard at least one unexplained sound while reading this. Maybe it’s nothing. But sometimes it’s one of them trying to break through, to find you. But they won’t, not unless you make a mistake. When you make a mistake, it’s like dangling a piece of meat in front of a pack of hungry dogs and then yanking it away again. Sometimes they don’t react quick enough. Sometimes they do. There are so many unsolved disappearances over the centuries, it’s hard to tell how many were victims of their own kind, and how many simply made one too many mistakes.
You see, it’s when people are most worried about making mistakes that they tend to mess up the most. What mistakes are there to make? If I told you that, you’d just make sure you didn’t do them anymore. And that would be a shame.
We almost got you last time.
|
I used to go diving a lot. Not so much anymore, but a couple years ago I was really into it, had my license and everything. It’s really beautiful down there: the pale patterned sand, the water washing away the distance like a blue mist, and flashes of the brightest colors you’ve ever seen as some fish darts into view. I’ve done my share of exploring wrecks and grottoes, but my favorite thing to do is hover right where the shelf plunges into the deep. You get the greatest dynamics there as deep-sea creatures come up to feed.
Anyway, one time I was drifting along near Antigua about 40 feet down. I had two tanks with me so I could stay down for several hours. The shelf sloped off to my left and rocks and coral broke the monotony of the sand to my right. I hadn’t seen much that day and was getting a bit bored, but then I noticed a large octopus. It was a deep-sea type, probably washed up accidentally (they don’t usually come up to hunt). It seemed sluggish and didn’t react much when I drifted over to it.
Now, octopuses aren’t very friendly creatures; if you manage to get near one they usually flee within seconds. I’m sure you’ve seen videos of them changing colors to match their environment. Not all species can do that, but they’re all very good at hiding. So seeing a deep-sea octopus up close was quite an opportunity. It was about a foot from crown to beak and dark mottled green. Its tentacles curled around it, perhaps four feet long when extended and pale on the underside. Its eyes looked like golden rings around narrowed black pupils. It was having trouble moving and looked half dead.
I decided to try to get near it. There were some yellowtail jacks nearby and I speared one with my knife. Sorry if that offends you, I’m not one of those “touch nothing” divers. Cautiously I approached the octopus and offered it my fish, shoving it out ahead of me and letting it drift toward the creature. Success! It didn’t run, but lazily reached an arm out to capture the morsel. It brought it under its beak and began to devour it. I drifted closer, trying to acclimate it to my presence.
Over maybe half an hour or so it became more lively and used to my presence. Apparently I had bought its tolerance with my offering, and it even began to play a little bit, darting away from me and then back. I had a stick with me that I used to test holes and mud and such, and it occurred to me that maybe I could teach it to play fetch. I brought the stick out and waved it until it seemed like I had its attention, and then threw the stick out sideways. It didn’t go very far underwater, of course, but the octopus went after it and grabbed hold with its tentacles. It didn’t seem inclined to return to me, though, so I swam closer. It was waving the stick at me, and then it tossed it out to the side. It was copying me!
I retrieved the stick and then an interesting idea came into my head. Next to us was a large flat rock covered in half an inch of mud and detritus. Careful not to disturb the layers, I took the stick and slowly drew a crude figure of a man: two legs, two arms, and a round head coming off a central cylinder. The octopus seemed to be watching with interest. I tossed it the stick and it caught it easily. It sat there toying with it, and for a few moments I thought my expectations had been too high. But then it reached out with the stick and began tracing its own mark in the mud. It was even cruder than mine, to be sure, but clearly drawing. However, the proportions were all wrong. It had fused the head and the body into one ball, and there were too many legs. I was just happy it was copying me; I’d heard octopuses were smart, but this was really something. But then, it hit my like a freezing wave: the octopus wasn’t copying my drawing, it was drawing itself!
The implications for this were huge. If I’d had a video camera then, I would be a famous man today. The only other animal I’m aware of that’s capable of the imagination and self-awareness to do something like that is the ape, first cousin to humans. That the ancient octopus, without so much as a spinal column, had the mental capacity for such a feat would surely have turned biology on its head. However, I didn’t have a camera, and the scientists I’ve told my story to greet it with understandable skepticism. I would put all my time into trying to prove it myself, but I just can’t bring myself to go diving any more.
Anyway, once that realization struck, I got excited. The octopus passed the stick back and I began drawing other sea creatures and common sights. We kept on for maybe an hour, and the octopus contributed as much as I. It even drew something I took to be a crude figure of a submarine, with a con tower, propeller screw, and even torpedo holes. Finally, the octopus led me to the other side of the rock, a blank canvas. Far down in the corner, it again drew itself and then me. These figures were very small, maybe an inch or two tall. Then, painstakingly, it went to work on a much larger drawing. At first, I thought it was a whale, but whales are roughly of a size with submarines, so it didn’t seem to justify the scale. Furthermore, the proportions were all wrong: this seemed like something more humped and compact, almost as if it were upright rather than aqualine. And it had weird bits sticking out of out that didn’t seem like fins. I couldn’t place it. An oil platform, maybe? No, the lines were too natural, and an octopus wouldn’t know what the top of a platform looks like.
When the drawing was done, we both sat and looked at it for a while. I took the stick back from the octopus and circled the drawing of us, and then drew a line to the thing. I’m not sure if the octopus picked up on my confusion, because it just sort of sat there for a while. It didn’t try to take the stick back. Then it started swimming away. I followed it at a distance. It seemed to be keeping a pace, leading me on. Then it turned and shot out into the deep area off the shelf. I was a good way through my second tank and wasn’t supposed to go any deeper, so I had to let it go. It stopped once to watch me, and then darted off, dissolving into the dark blue depths. I looked after it for a few minutes to see if it would return, but there was nothing, so I started watching the other fish and making my way slowly back to the boat.
Then, suddenly, there was a low thrumming sound all around me. It wasn’t very loud, but it was *big*, as if it came from the ocean floor itself. I’ve heard of underwater eruptions, but I’ve never been in one, and I wondered if I was about to be. But this didn’t sound like anything natural. It sounded like the call of some animal, slowed down into the virtually sub-sonic range and projected from huge speakers very far away. I’ve had a chance to look over the seismograph recordings for that day, and nothing shows up at that time for that frequency. I have no idea why. The fish were going crazy, darting back and forth and all heading inland. And not just the reef fish, larger ones from deeper in were streaming by me even faster. Suddenly, among them, the octopus appeared again. It or one quite like it. It swam up to me and eyed me strangely, then darted past with the rest. The thrumming sounded again.
Looking out to sea, I gradually became aware of a large dark patch. It was very hard to tell how big or far away it was, but there was plenty of both to go around. It was hard to tell more than just a shadow in the murky water, but it clearly wasn’t a whale or anything man-made. I couldn’t even tell if it was a single creature; there seemed to be long strands like kelp or jellyfish tentacles streaming off it, but immeasurally larger. It looked like nothing so much as an ancient, misshapen section of coral reef broke off and floating. At least the part I could see; it seemed to fade off into the distance as though that mass, immense as it may be, was only a limb to some far larger entity. I’ve never seen a naval carrier from underwater, but I imagine that’s the kind of shadow it would cast.
The thrumming rang out a third time. An unreasoning fear seized me. I didn’t appear to be in danger: though the thing was vaster than anything I’d ever seen, it was too far away to reach me quickly, and it seemed like it wouldn’t fit into the shallows, anyway. Nevertheless, I was gripped by the feeling that if I didn’t get away as fast as I could, I would be dragged down into the abyss and consumed. I could feel the very water itself drawing me down into that black maw. Heedless of the depth or my equipment, I surged upwards. As I rose, of course, I began cramping, but I clawed my way up anyway. I was still far from the boat. When I broke the surface I could barely move; I had to keep my mouthpiece in because I couldn’t keep my mouth above water. I certainly couldn’t call or signal the boat. Far from receding, my panic was worse than ever; from above the water I couldn’t see the thing or tell whether it was coming for me. I thrashed my slow, painful way toward the boat. Finally someone on board noticed my and they came to pick me up. I had the bends bad, and had to stay in a hospital for a few weeks until I was over it. The doctors tell me I was lucky not to get a stroke or some other permanent damage.
So, that’s my story. I’m sorry I can’t give a more satisfying conclusion; I still don’t know myself what I experienced. My friends think it was some form of rapture, but it just doesn’t match the symptoms; narcosis is supposed to reduce anxiety, not stimulate it. And my hallucinations, if that’s what they were, were too vivid and specific. Anyway, since then I’ve been afraid of the water. I tried going out once or twice, but all I can do is stay shaking in the boat. I think there really was something out there, and I don’t think it’s something I ever want to come across again.
|
I’m writing this tonight in desperation. I need help. I need answers.
I have seen her for as long as I can remember. My earliest memory is even of her. I was gazing out of my classroom window and that’s when I saw her, standing towards the back of the school playing field. She was too far away to make out any features, but she wore a pale yellow dress. and as she would always be… she was waving.
I initially thought it must be someone I knew who had sneaked onto the field and was simply waving hello to me. I didn’t wave back, but I smiled and squinted my eyes to try and make out her face.
‘Benjamin!’ my teacher, Mrs. Emerson said sharply, placing a skeletal hand onto my desk.
‘What are you looking at? Am I boring you?’ she continued tersely.
I was scared of Mrs. Emerson, she was a tall and bird-like woman, a face of sharp features and even sharper nails which she would tap upon her table like the countdown to an unstoppable horror.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered.
‘What’s outside which is more interesting than learning the form of a Haiku?’
I turned my head back to the window and told her, ‘The girl.’
Mrs. Emerson walked over to the window and looked out over the playing field, right in the direction of the girl in the yellow dress.
‘Well, if there was a girl, she’s gone now. Your attention please, Benjamin.’
This was the moment I knew something was wrong, that there was something unusual and different about the girl. Mrs. Emerson said she had gone, but she hadn’t. She was still standing in the field waving.
That lunchtime the girl had gone, but I decided to stay close to the school building, something in my stomach was aching and the left side of my head was throbbing.
‘Where’s your imaginary friend?’ the class arsehole Katie asked, whilst her gaggle of friends giggled.
‘You didn’t see her?’
‘No, none of us saw your girlfriend. She doesn’t exist!’ Katie said matter-of-factly, before running off with the rest of the giggling girls.
That was the first time I saw the girl, the first time that I remember at least. I wouldn’t see her again for several years, but when I did I realized that she was not just my young imagination playing tricks. She was real, in some way she was real. In some strange and unexplainable way, she was as real as you and me.
The next time I saw her was brief. Mum and I were on the way to London on the train to see The Lion King in the West End. I think I was 12 at the time. Yet again, I was gazing out of the window and there she was, standing in a field. She was closer this time, but still not close enough for me to make out her face. I remember sitting bolt upright, wiping my eyes, but she continued to wave, continued to exist until the field disappeared behind the hedgerows.
Coincidence? I had thought. But, no. It couldn’t have been. The same dark hair, the same pale yellow dress. It was her, I was sure of it. Again something made me feel sick and the left side of my head hurt. She hadn’t changed. In the six years since I had last seen her, I hadn’t forgotten, and she hadn’t grown. She was still a little girl, in a yellow dress, waving to me.
I am 16 years old now, and since the time on the train, I have seen her a dozen or so more times. Each time she gets closer, but I had never seen her face, until today.
At my local vocational college, I am studying for a motor engineering diploma. The classroom where we learn our theory is on the third floor of an L shaped building. I was busy making notes, jotting down something I didn’t understand about exhaust systems when I felt it. The pang in my brain, the turmoil in my stomach. I needed to get up, I was going to be sick.
‘Where are you going, Ben?’ Mr. Jim Taylor the mechanic who teaches me and the rest of the class asked.
‘Toilet,’ I replied, which was difficult as I was scared of opening my mouth and throwing up in front of the class.
I hurried towards the door, turned the handle, looked up through the glass door pane and there she was. No more than ten feet away from me, waving from across the hall.
I screamed, jumped backwards, tripped over a chair leg in the process and was sick.
Some of the class laughed, Jim picked me up and sent me home. I was too scared to walk out into the hallway and out of the building, but luckily Jim also walked me to the college gate.
That was this afternoon.
On the way home, I rang my mother. I broke down in tears on the phone. I had never told her about the girl. I hadn’t said a word about her since that day with Mrs. Emerson and Katie. I expected my mother to worry and say she would take me to a doctor, a psychiatrist, someone to find out why I’m seeing things, why I’m seeing her. But, my mother didn’t say any of that.
She listened to everything without saying a word and then asked me a question.
‘Have you ever waved back?’
‘What?’ I said, almost bemused by the question.
‘Ben, I need you to tell me now, have you ever waved back to her?’ She was serious.
I thought about it for a second before saying ‘No, I never have.’
‘We will talk when I’m home from work. Listen, listen, Ben. Listen carefully. Promise me if you see her again you will not wave back. Promise me!’ I could hear the desperation in her voice, so I promised. I told her I would never wave back. We said goodbye and now I’m here, alone in my bedroom, alone in the house. Waiting for mum to get home and explain what the actual fuck she’s talking about. Waving back? What does she know? What am I not being told?
However, there’s one thing I haven’t told you yet, I wasn’t sure if I was going to, but I will, and please, please, please! If anyone has seen her too, then tell me. Tell me who she is. I’m so confused, so fucking scared. What does she want?
I’ve just heard mum’s car pull up. She finished work hours ago, God knows where she’s been. I tried calling, but there was no answer. It’s the middle of the night, she has never done this… I was worried. It’s time for questions and it’s time for answers. I’m going downstairs now to talk to her. I will let you know what she says tomorrow or whenever I get the chance to. And shit, the thing I was going to tell you all. Well, I saw it. I saw her face. Fuck. You’re all going to think I’m losing it, but I promise I’m not mistaken. It was mine. The waving girl had my face. The same eyes, the same fucking mouth and nose. I must be ill, something must be wrong with my head.
Mum’s calling me. I have to go.
* * * * * *
I stormed down the stairs and embraced my mum. I had been terrified since what had happened at college and having her with me made me feel safe. I asked her straight away what had she meant by not waving back to the girl. This is what she said to me.
‘Do you trust me?’
‘What?’ I replied.
‘Ben, do you trust your mother?’
‘Yes, of course, but…’ She cut me off.
‘I can’t explain everything right now, but I know someone who can. That’s where I’ve been this evening. We need to get into the car and we need to leave, now.’
I nodded. To see my mother so serious scared me, but at the same time comforted me. I know that sounds strange, but she was taking charge, she was helping. I suppose it was comfort in not being alone.
We drove out into the countryside, not far, but a good ten minutes outside of my hometown, down dark country roads.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘To see a friend, her name is Morgan, she’s a doctor of sorts. She used to look after you as a child. Do you remember?’
‘No.’ I didn’t remember. I had never even heard of a woman called Morgan before, mum had never mentioned her before that night.
Eventually, we arrived at a cottage in the middle of nowhere, a warm light shone from a window and I could see the silhouette of a person standing inside. Mum parked and we walked over to the door.
‘Ben! It’s so good to see you again. Please, come in,’ the woman who mum had called Morgan said as she greeted us on the doorstep.
Morgan is a strange-looking woman. Her hair is white and frizzy, it sticks out all over the place. If someone asked me to draw a mad scientist, I would use her hair. She’s short and plump, but doesn’t have the charm which can come with it. Her lips and cheeks are pale rather than rosy and she smells a bit like cat piss and the bottle of mixed herbs mum uses in the spaghetti sauce at home. Still, she was friendly and kind, that’s the main thing.
I won’t bore you with what happened next, we had a cup of tea and went to bed, nothing more to it than that. Morgan said she will explain everything in the morning, but I need a good rest. I was tired, too tired to argue, so I went to sleep in the room Morgan had made up for me.
Today we spoke about the visions. Morgan is a psychiatrist, she specializes in cases like mine. Apparently, it’s rare, but not unheard of. She believes that I have some sort of gender dysmorphic disorder, that for whatever reason I am not comfortable in my own skin and I see the little girl as this is how subconsciously I feel. I know that sounds strange, trust me it’s weird enough for me. Anyway, we did some mind exercises which seemed to calm me, but there was one thing which was still bothering me…
‘Mum, why did you tell me not to wave back?’ Mum looked at Morgan and Morgan shot my mother a concerned glare.
‘She said that because it’s best not to engage with the visions, it’s best to ignore them. Don’t worry, Ben, we will get you back to yourself,’ Morgan answered for her.
I suppose in some really, really, super weird way this kind of makes sense. Like, there’s obviously something wrong with me, but I’m in safe hands now.
So… I’m afraid there’s not much more to this story than I secretly seem to want to be a little girl. Hahaha! It’s so strange, I honestly do not feel in any way that I want to be anyone other than myself, a 16-year-old guy. I guess this goes to show that the human mind is a place we don’t truly understand. I mean surely I should know myself better than anyone, yet apparently I have this gender dysmorphic thing. Ah well, I suppose it could be worse, right?
I’m sorry for anyone who was expecting something a bit more paranormal or scary, but I’m actually relieved. I’m spending the next few days with Morgan, mum is staying with me too. I’m getting the help I need. So, I’m going to go to the bathroom, clean my teeth and get into bed, a long day of unscrambling my brain tomorrow. Night everyone.
* * * * * *
SOMETHING IS WRONG! THE DOOR WON’T OPEN, THE DOOR IS LOCKED!
I’VE TRIED CALLING TO MY MOTHER AND MORGAN, BUT THERE’S NO REPLY.
I’M GOING TO LOOK FOR A KEY.
FUCK. FUCK NO.
THERE’S A DRESS IN THE BEDSIDE DRAWER. IT’S PALE YELLOW, IT’S NOT MADE FOR A LITTLE GIRL, IT’S MADE FOR A WOMAN.
THIS IS FUCKED, THIS IS WRONG. I’M CALLING THE POLICE.
THE POLICE WILL NOT COME, THEY SAY THEY NEED TO SPEAK TO MY MOTHER OR MY DOCTOR. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. WHAT IS GOING ON?
I TRIED CALLING OUT AGAIN, I HEARD LAUGHING FROM SOMEWHERE IN THE HOUSE. I’M SO SCARED.
SOMEONE, I THINK IT WAS MY MOTHER HAS JUST SPOKEN THROUGH THE DOOR. SHE’S CALLING ME OLIVE? SHE’S TELLING ME TO PUT ON THE DRESS AND SHE WILL LET ME OUT? ‘PUT THE DRESS ON, OLIVE AND WE WILL UNLOCK THE DOOR.’
I’M MAD, I’M FUCKING BAT-SHIT.
LOOK IF ANYONE READS THIS I’M IN A COTTAGE JUST OUTSIDE OF COLCHESTER. THE OWNER OF THE HOUSE IS A WOMAN CALLED MORGAN. MY MOTHER’S NAME IS SERENA JACOBS AND MY NAME IS BENJAMIN JACOBS. FOR FUCK SAKE PLEASE SOMEONE FIND ME.
I’M GOING TO SMASH THE WINDOW. I’M GOING TO SMASH IT AND JUMP.
I’M GOING TO SMASH THE WINDOW NOW. PLEASE GOD, OH PLEASE.
* * * * * *
I lost my head when I saw the dress.
I did smash the window and I did jump.
Thankfully cottages tend to not be very tall so I only twisted my ankle during the fall. Looking back at it now if I had broken something and had been unable to stumble into the woods then I dread to think where I would be now.
I ran the best that I could into the woods in excruciating pain from my ankle, sweat was dripping from my face and behind me, I could hear them.
‘OLIVE!’ my mother cried out.
‘WE WILL FIND YOU, OLIVE. WE’VE WAITED SO LONG FOR YOU!’ screamed Morgan.
I didn’t even think about the words then, I was completely focused on getting as far away from the cottage as possible. I knew I wasn’t too far from my hometown, but in which direction I needed to go I was unsure. There was no signal on my phone and I decided not to try and hitchhike as I believe they would have been searching the roads for me. Instead, I followed the roads from behind the hedgerows, hoping they would lead me back to the town.
Thankfully, by first light, I had found my way back to Colchester. Of course, going home was out of the question. My mother, the one person I have ever truly trusted is involved in whatever this is. I’m trying not to dwell on this, I don’t want to get emotional, I need to survive.
My phone died shortly after I made it to the town center, which is why I am only just updating you all now. I thought about going to the police, but as I stood outside the station door I realized that this might be just as dangerous. If I tell a police officer this story they’re going to think I’m mentally unstable, they will contact my mother and then they will know where I am. Instead, I slept rough last night in Castle Park, which is a large green area in Colchester town center. It was dark and wet amongst the bushes where I concealed myself, but at least I was hidden.
I woke up this morning in pain, my ankle is badly swollen and my back aches from sleeping on the floor. It hit me then that I need a better plan than hiding in bushes and hedgerows for the rest of my life. I need to figure out what the hell is going on. So, I had an idea…
The Colchester Town Library is free to use, it has computers and as you can imagine, a lot of books. However, I wasn’t interested in reading any fiction or otherwise on this visit. I wanted to use the computers which have access to the town records. I got a few strange looks as I hobbled in, damp and probably stinking from not having washed in a couple of days, but I found a computer and got to work.
The first search I did was for my own name, but strangely nothing came up, not a birth certificate or anything. That was an alarm bell.
There was no point in searching for Morgan, I didn’t have her surname or an address. Instead, I typed in ‘Serena Jacobs’, my mother’s name. She came up.
Two birth certificates appeared on my screen. I clicked on one of the birth certificates, it was her own and there was nothing out of the ordinary about. It was the second birth certificate that chilled me to the bone. It was mine, at least I think it’s mine. It had the correct place I was born and my birthday, but it was the name. The name reads ‘Olive Jacobs’. I swore loudly when I saw it and one of the librarians gave me a furious look.
As you can imagine so many questions started to run through my head at that moment. I didn’t seem to exist. Benjamin Jacobs wasn’t a recorded person, but Olive Jacobs, a name I had first learned a couple of days previously did.
I decided then I would go to the police, I had run out of options. I mean I’m not sure what I was even trying to find, I just wanted something, something to tell me what’s going on. I was about to close the computer window and walk back to the police station when something caught my eye. There was a name next to my mother’s on Olive’s/my birth certificate. The name read ‘David Jacobs’ right next to the parent’s signatures.
I did a search for ‘David Jacobs’ and clicked on the one which was born in Colchester at around the same time as my mother. It was the right one as the birth certificate popped up alongside a dozen or so ‘change of address’ forms. David Jacobs has never stayed in one place for more than a year, by the looks of it. I clicked on the most recent form and noted down the address. I’m not going to write it here in case they are reading… If you are reading this, Mum and Morgan, I have some bad news, I’m afraid I have deleted the records for David Jacobs, so good luck trying to find me!
So, yeah, that’s my plan. I’m going to find David Jacobs. It might be a long shot, but I don’t have many options. Maybe he will be able to give me the answers I so desperately need.
My phone has just finished charging in one of the library plug sockets. I’m going to post this and then get out of here before they have time to find me. I will update you all as soon as I am able to, hopefully when I have some answers.
‘We’ve waited so long for you!’ Morgan had screamed. Well, looks like you’re going to have to wait a little longer, bitch.
* * * * * *
I have found him. I have found David Jacobs.
I took a train yesterday in the late afternoon to a location I will not disclose here. As the train sped past the fields that patchwork this country I looked away, down towards my feet. The memory of seeing her, seeing the girl in the yellow dress still palpable in my mind.
When I arrived it was raining, as it so often is at this time of year. My money was running low so I decided not to take a taxi to the address. Instead, I used the map on my phone to plot my route and find the place I believed David Jacobs lived.
It took me about forty-five minutes to set my eyes on the house, if you could call it that, which was the same as the address I had scribbled down from the town records the previous day. It stood alone, distinctly separate from the other houses nearby. It was a wreck of a building and old too. Tarred timber sagged from its roof, the windows dirty, two of them smashed. I picked my way through the garden which looked as if it had never seen a lawnmower before and knocked upon the door.
From the inside, I heard a man call out weakly, ‘Who’s there?’
‘My name is Ben, Ben Jacobs. I’m looking for David Jacobs,’ I called back.
Immediately I heard the clunk of metal bolts unlocking from the inside. The door opened and a man rushed out, before I could ask him who he was he embraced me, wrapping frail arms around my back.
‘Ben, Ben, it’s you. I’m sorry my son, I am so sorry,’ he whimpered.
I couldn’t say anything, I was stunned. You see, my mother had gently broken it to me when I was ten years old that my father had died. That he had left when I was young, but had passed away several years later. Eventually, I regained my composure.
‘Are you David Jacobs?’
‘Yes.’ The man said, taking his hands and placing them on my cheeks. He was crying.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said and stepped aside so I could step inside.
If the outside of the building was bad, the inside was worse. The floors were bare, the furniture in the living room broken and covered in filth. I tried not to react to the smell, but it was unbearable and caused me to cough violently.
‘Yes, I am sorry for the state of this place. It’s temporary,’ he added.
We both sat down in the kitchen on the only two wooden chairs that had all their legs. It felt like an age before one of us spoke.
‘You have questions, is that right?’ David began.
‘Yes, I do,’ I replied.
‘Go ahead, I owe you that.’
‘You are my father?’ The words felt strange to say out loud.
‘I am, yes. Where have I been? It’s a long story,’ he replied sheepishly.
I stared at him until he caught my gaze and then he continued.
‘When you were young, your mother met a woman, a terrible and twisted woman.’
‘Morgan?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Things began to change after that. Her personality switched almost overnight. She would be gone for days at a time, at first I thought she was having an affair… so one night when she left I asked some friends to look after you and I followed her.’ He paused and looked over his shoulder.
‘Go on…’
‘I found her car parked up at the roadside, but it was empty. Behind it was a wood and the entrance to a small woodland trail. I went down it, until I could see lights in the distance. When I got close I saw them, dozens of them.’
‘Dozens of what?’
‘Women. All women dancing around a fire like something from the medieval times. They were naked and singing, all together, singing strange words that I did not recognize.’
My heart was racing, my head pounding. ‘Then what happened?’
‘I spotted your mother and before I considered the situation I burst from the bushes and ran towards her. As soon as I did they all stopped singing and dancing. Instead, they began to scream and like wasps began to swarm towards me. I ran. I got back to the car, but it wouldn’t start, their screams were growing louder and I had no option than to continue running. I called the police when I could no longer hear them, they said they would send someone immediately. I waited for an hour or so, but nobody turned up. I called Steven and Abigail who I had left you with, but there was no reply. I had no choice, but to walk back to town.’
‘This is fucking mad!’ I said loudly. David, my father, nodded.
‘When I got to town I got a taxi to Steven and Abigail’s apartment. When I arrived the door was open, I called out to them, but there was no reply. I ran up the stairs and there I found them, there I found you too…’
‘What did you find?’ I beseeched.
‘Dead, you were all dead,’ he whispered.
I laughed, I couldn’t help it. ‘Clearly, I wasn’t dead….’
‘You’re alive now, but then, at that moment you were dead, your throat slit. I cradled you in my arms, your lifeless body and wept. Eventually, I heard sirens, I looked around at the scene, covered in blood, I panicked. I ran. I’ve been running ever since.’
‘Running from the police?’
‘No, my son, from them.’
‘Who are they? What do they want with me?’ I was so confused, these answers only leading to more questions.
‘They call themselves The Daughters of the Merciless. A cult, a band of witches. I have been researching them ever since that night, hoping one day to get my revenge for what they did to you.’ He leaned forward as he said this, his forehead almost touching mine.
‘What did they do to me?’
‘Resurrection.’
‘Fuck off,’ is all I could reply.
‘It’s true, Ben. But something went wrong. It is what they long for, what they are trying to achieve.’
‘What?’
‘You see her, don’t you? The girl in the yellow dress?’ he leaned back in his chair, eyeing me curiously.
‘I do.’
‘She is who they were trying to resurrect. Her name Is Olive Pendleshem. They believe she was the original, the first witch who made a pact with the devil for ungodly powers.’
‘But, what does that have to do with me?’ I questioned.
‘For some reason, the resurrection spell failed. Yes, they brought you back from the dead, but who, what, they really wanted was Olive’s soul to occupy your body. They believe once Olive Pendleshem returns she will gift her followers powers such as her own.’
‘That’s mental.’
‘It is remarkable, my boy. But I swear you were dead and now you live. I am so sorry for leaving you, it is my deepest regret. I wanted to come and find you, I did, but as long as Olive’s soul is twisted with yours they will always be able to find you.’ He looked over his shoulder again.
‘You mean, they can track me? They know where I am? THEY KNOW I’M HERE?’ I stood up sharply.
‘Yes, they will always know where you are. They will know until Olive’s soul consumes you, or you rid yourself of her.’
‘HOW? How do I get her out of me?’ I grabbed my father by his shoulders.
‘By killing the conduit. By killing the witch who led the ritual to bring you back… By killing your mother.’
I couldn’t comprehend this right then. I had found answers, impossible, insane answers.
‘I need to get out of here. If they know where I am they will be here soon.’ I finally said.
My father shook his head.
‘You can leave, my son. You can run the rest of your damn life, but they will never stop. Or…’
‘OR WHAT?’ I snapped back.
‘Or we make a stand, together. This house might look like a shit hole, but look around you.’
I looked around the room properly for the first time and saw what my father was talking about. The back door was covered in crucifixes, the window frames weaponized with nails sticking out of the timber and behind my father, mounted on the wall, was what I believed to be a gun cabinet.
‘You’ve booby-trapped the place?’
‘Yes, Ben. This is my fortress. And now you are here they will come and I will take my revenge for what they did to me… what they did to my son. Will you fight with me?’
I looked at my father blankly, but I could tell he was serious.
‘And if I leave? What if I choose to run?’
‘Then they will come here and kill me. Then they will hunt you down. I’m not sure how much time you have left before she consumes you.’ He said concernedly.
‘What do you mean until she consumes me?’
‘She’s getting closer, isn’t she? Olive, when you see her… she’s close now.’
I thought about that moment at college, when she was no more than ten feet away. He was right, she was getting closer.
‘When she reaches you, there will be nothing we can do. Olive Pendleshem will rise again and Ben Jacobs, my son, will be lost forever.’
I stood there for a few minutes, looking down at my feet once more. This was crazy, absolutely fucking mad. But what choice did I have?
‘Will you fight, Ben?’ My father stood up too then. He unlocked the gun cabinet and passed me a shotgun from inside.
‘Will you fight?’
I looked my father in the eye and I spoke….
‘Yeah… fuck it. Let’s finish this.’
We are waiting now, waiting for them to come tonight. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but what I do know is I’m going to fight. I’m going to stand by my father and end this madness. I want you all to know that If I do not update you again, then we lost. If you do not hear from me again then I hope anyone who has read what has happened the last few days will do something for me. Please, please promise me you will end what I couldn’t. Find Morgan, my mother and The Daughters of the Merciless and rid them from this world. Find me too, I will be Olive Pendleshem then, you must kill me too.
I hope that doesn’t happen. I truly hope I survive this night. I’m going now. I wish I had longer.
I hope this isn’t the last time I say this…
Goodbye.
* * * * * *
They came that night, just as my father said they would.
They tore through the defenses he had made by sheer mass of numbers. We fought the best we could, but there were too many, far too many for two people to fight alone.
I could sit here now and write about how we killed them in their dozens. I could describe the carpet of corpses that piled in and around the house, the screaming, the blood which sprayed the walls, and the flesh which littered the floors, but I won’t. Because this is not important. What is important is what happened next.
We were retreating down the upstairs hallway when something heavy was thrown, striking my father in the head rendering him unconscious. I dragged him into the bedroom and locked the door behind me before pushing a dressing table against it. It was a pitiful barricade and I knew it was only a matter of time before they broke in and that would be the end.
That’s when I felt it. The sickness in my stomach, the pain in my head. It was unbearable, my stomach caused me to cripple in half and as I did I lost my footing. I stumbled forward towards the window with my eyes closed, all I could hear was howling and laughing from the witch women who knew I was trapped. I caught myself with an outstretched hand against the windowpane, I could sense her then, I could feel her looking at me through the glass. There was no way out, I had all but given up, so I opened my eyes and of course, there she was on the other side of the glass, and as always she was waving.
I stared directly into her eyes, they were blue, I had never noticed that before. I could hear the women clawing and kicking at the door. What did I have to lose? Any minute now they would break in and I would be as good as dead. In fact, I would have rather died than been captured by those freaks.
So I did it. I waved back.
Suddenly I was blinded as the room filled with light and then I felt it, her hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see Olive Pendleshem smiling, standing before me.
‘Thank you, Ben,’ she said sweetly.
I couldn’t say a word, I was stunned, but my face must have said it all as she continued.
‘My name is Olive Pendleshem, I have been trapped for over six hundred years. You have set me free.’
‘What do you want?’ I mumbled, frozen stiff with fear.
‘I have what I want now, to be free.’
I collapsed in a heap on the floor. I didn’t understand, not any of it. Olive kneeled down in front of me and took hold of my hand.
‘Let me help you.’ She whispered and then something happened I cannot truly explain, it was like I was transported to another time and place, but still in the room at that moment, both at the same time. I was in her mind, just as she had been in mine.
I watched her strapped to a wooden table, surrounded by nude women. I saw as her eyes turned black and how she broke free from her restraints, before slaughtering the naked figures with her bare hands.
Next, I watched as she skipped through the woods in her yellow dress, followed by women, hundreds of them, naked and covered in blood, dirt and debris.
I witnessed the charge of the men with crosses painted on their shields and the battle which commenced.
Finally, I saw Olive Pendleshem retreating from a man in a white robe holding a crucifix, into the arms of more men with swords who butchered her into pieces.
I woke up from the vision and finally I understood.
‘What was it?’
‘A possession, a devil inside of me, given by those women,’ she answered.
It was at that moment it all made sense. My father was wrong. Olive Pendleshem was no witch, she was not evil. Olive was the victim of evil people and evil beings who used her to cause death and decay in this land centuries ago.
‘There’s one thing I still do not understand,’ I said, grasping her hand tightly as the sound of someone hitting the door with something sharp echoed cracks around the room.
‘Go on.’
‘A wave. All you needed to be free was a wave. I could have given that to you so long ago.’ I felt ashamed at my own fear.
‘One day you will learn, just as all people on Earth will learn, there is magic and power in the smallest of things. I was never waving hello, Ben. I was waving goodbye. I needed you to wave goodbye to me so both our souls could be free.’
I began to cry then. Morgan, my mother and The Daughters of the Merciless were not interested in Olive Pendleshem the girl. They wanted whatever was put inside her by their kind all those years before.
Olive had been trapped by whatever once was inside of her, but the resurrection of myself went even worse than the witches realized. Their failure had freed Olive from what had possessed her and instead, she had possessed me.
‘They’re going to kill us,’ I wept.
‘No, Ben. I have watched over you for so many years. I shall watch over you now and for all the years to come. I will return them to their mistress, who will punish them for their oversight.’
With that, she let go of my hand and faced the doorway. With a swipe of her hand, it flew from its hinges smashing into the wall. There was Morgan in the doorway, an axe in one hand.
‘Great Mother, you have returned!’ she cried, falling to her knees.
But whoever Morgan thought Olive was, she was not, and as Olive tore Morgan’s head from her body I saw the last look of someone who had just realized they had made a terrible mistake. Olive flew through the doorway, screams echoed from the hallway, growing more distant as Olive took her revenge upon the kind who had cursed her.
She returned to the room soon after the final scream had been screamed. There was not a drop of blood on her or her dress.
‘I have to go now, Ben.’
‘Go where?’
‘To be at peace,’ she said gently, and with one last touch upon my hand, she turned into the most dazzling golden light which skipped around the room before flying out of the window and up toward the heavens.
When dad woke up, I explained what had happened. He nodded solemnly as he understood the events which had taken place. I found my mother with her rib-cage torn out of her chest, her eyes open in a fearful expression, the color of her cheeks fading to gray. I stood there with my father beside her body for a moment. I was angry that these women had brainwashed someone I had loved and now she was dead. It was difficult to see the person I had been closest to like that, despite what she was trying to use me for. Still, I truly believe, in her own twisted way she loved me too.
I bent down, closed her eyelids and said goodbye, as did my father.
We left the house that night. We are now traveling northwards, to rebuild our lives. Dad says the police will investigate the house at some point and find the massacre, but we need not worry about them looking for us.
‘There are organizations that deal with situations such as these. They will cover it up… li
|
Everyone is familiar with the idea of a soulmate, someone meant for you, your perfect match. The missing piece of you that exists out there, off in the world, just waiting to cross your path. The idea is touching, and viewed as a little naive by most people. After all, true relationships are built on hard work and dedication, not false promises of perfection.
I met my soulmate when I was a young adult, overcome with a strange sense of being watched one night when I was out on a walk. Although I lived on a street filled with houses and life, at that hour, you’d think it was a ghost town. The perfect way to clear your thoughts, and take in the outside world without the buzz of kids and cars.
The feeling that washed over me wasn’t the same kind of fear inducing sense of being watched, it was more like a strange sense of knowing.
Except the street, aside from me, was empty for as far as I could see or hear. There was not a moment in which I had passed someone by, or heard the tell-tale scuff of shoes on pavement that told me someone else couldn’t sleep. It was dead quiet.
I chalked it up to sleep deprivation, but allowed my pace to pick up as I started back down towards my home. I want to preface this with self awareness by saying I’d always been open minded to the idea of there being more out there. Aliens, cryptids, the paranormal, anything that could be possible, was potentially possible in my mind.
That’s not to say I was a firm believer in these things. On the contrary, I’ve always been logical as can be, like anyone else this day and age. There was always the thought in the back of my mind that we can’t quite disprove life after death, or aliens existing out there, or even a cryptid or two staying isolated from us.
I also want to admit that I’ve always been an avid horror fan, with a particular small hope that something terrifyingly exciting would happen to me just once in my life.
But as we all know, you have to be careful what you wish for.
Just as the feeling of being watched, if not stalked completely at this point became suffocating, I heard him. Rather, his shoes, scuffing the pavement behind me as he jogged along to catch up to me. My back was turned to him, and I kept my eyes ahead to avoid looking paranoid. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up, goosebumps pricked up on my skin.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, a strong grip and determined fingers gently digging in with a sense of urgency.
“I don’t want to scare you, but there’s something in the bushes that’s been following you down the street for the last twenty minutes.” His voice was a bit labored, and he lacked any sense of tiredness. If I had to guess, he might’ve been riding a wave of adrenaline that had come on suddenly.
That in itself alarmed me. All evidence suggested he must’ve just come from his home, one of the ones on the street, in quite a rush to warn me about my situation. Still, I could hardly find words.
“Excuse me?” Was my voice always that small? “Someone’s following me?”
By now I was facing him. He was taller than me, not hard to do, considering I’m a young adult man standing so dashingly tall at 5’ 6. He was considerably taller, though, maybe even an entire foot. It was hard to make out his features, but I could tell he was handsome even in the dim streetlight glow.
His eyes were the loveliest shade of green.
“Not someone, something,” the stranger clarified, casting a tentative glance to the bushes across the street as if to prove a point. I swallowed, my stomach dropped with anxiety and I could feel myself tense up.
There were a million questions to ask, that I should have asked, but at the time only one went through my head.
“But I live over there, how do I get home?” My voice was a whisper, I realized. Without deciding whether I really believed this man, I found myself worried about alerting this mysterious thing that was apparently fascinated with me.
In hindsight, one might wonder whether or not he made it up just to talk to me. That’s what I believed when I had time to calm down, but right then and there, my panic was starting to take hold. Just how would I make it home if I had to cross the street, where this thing was currently hiding right now?
The stranger smiled, warm and brave. It was gentle, promising that all would be well without words.
“I’ll walk with you. Everyone knows about safety in groups, right?” He offered a hand, guiding me further down towards the crosswalk and occasionally peering behind us and back at the foliage. “I’m Rider, by the way. I’m sorry if I scared you. I woke up to use the restroom and I saw you walking down the street by yourself.”
“Elias,” was all I could manage. I was far too busy trying not to look behind us, even though my terrible curiosity wanted me to.
“I know it sounds weird, okay? I thought I was seeing things at first, and then when I saw it run across the street when you were under the lights again, I realized I wasn’t,” Rider continued, gently nudging me along the sidewalk and blocking my view of the path behind us with his body.
The rest of the short walk was silent, we were both listening out for whatever he’d seen and on our toes. But we made it just fine, and I never saw nor heard a single thing out of the ordinary. As I fumbled to unlock the door of my home, I felt sadness wash over me.
It wasn’t my own. It was foreign, alien.
Rider saw my hesitation and gave me another charming smile, filling me with the courage to start thinking for myself long enough to all but throw the door open. The poor cat was scared half to death when it hit the wall with a loud smack, staring up at us with wide eyes. All things considered, the disgruntled cat was a welcome sight.
“Well, you’re home, safe and sound,” my savior chuckled, keeping a respectful distance outside the door. I was thankful for that, I’d always been socially anxious and the idea of having to kick him out after he helped me was not a good one.
“Yeah, I sure am. Ah, thanks, for walking with me,” I murmured. Compared to Rider’s confident cadence, I sounded like a ghost who didn’t want to be seen.
Without missing a beat, Rider offered me his number and warned me against walking alone at night for various reasons.
“Especially here,” he added, as casual as someone discussing their day. “He got pretty close to you before you reached the lights.”
At the time, I thought nothing of that comment beyond Rider explaining what he saw.
After that night, my life became a lot more exciting than I asked for. For one, Rider and I became very close very quickly. Never in my life had anyone ever paid me any attention, cared about what I had to say or given me much of a second thought. Until I met Rider. Where I was appallingly, undeniably and painfully average and routine, Rider was adventurous, exciting and handsome to boot.
You can probably guess that we were dating before long. It was just a casual relationship beginning, and we were slowly spending more time together to try and ease into a more serious one. As it stood, he never stayed overnight because he knew how much it stressed me out to be around someone for more than a few hours. That was another amazing thing about him, he understood my defects enough to accommodate them. It touched me that someone thought I was worth that effort.
So, casual it was.
Until late April, well into the night. Ever since the incident before, I’d stopped my night walks and taken to new coping methods in my home when I felt anxious. Rider had helped me many a time when I’d called him on the verge of a panic attack while he was dead asleep, helping me form new hobbies or things to keep me busy that wouldn’t put me in as much danger as being out alone at night would.
He cared about me, after all.
It was late again, just passed midnight when I curled up on the couch and turned on the TV for background noise. My sketchbook was out on my lap, and my hands fiddling with a pencil while I tried to decide what to draw. Feeling confident I wouldn’t need to disturb Rider’s sleep tonight, I decided to draw him and give it to him as a gift when we next met up. Silly, I know, but I was so grateful to him.
And then there was a knock at the window across from me.
Tap…. tap…. tap…..
The knocking was almost nervous. Nowhere near as nervous as I was when I lifted my gaze from the paper in front me, up to the window across the room. It was well lit in here, and terribly hard to see anything outside. I could hardly see at all, save for two pairs of glowing red eyes staring back at me.
I almost choked on my own fear, anxiety rising as fast as my pulse as my hand slapped around for my phone. A few moments of sheer panic, and then my fingers smacked the familiar cold and flat surface, and I was dialing Rider’s number in an instant.
“There’s something outside my window… Please help me,” I croaked, still making full eye contact with the intruder watching me. Rider gave no verbal response, but I could hear him rushing out of bed and pulling clothes on. It was no more than five minutes later that he was at my door, disheveled.
As shocking as the ordeal was, it was even more shocking when Rider all but ran for the back window. For the first time since I’d known him, I saw a flash of rage on his face I never thought he was capable of.
Only when Rider ripped the back door open did the thing outside look away from me. I couldn’t hear anything over my partner’s furious cursing, his body stiff and face red with anger as he paced the back yard and shouted after the thing. Rider didn’t come back inside for a long time.
When he did, he looked exhausted, like he’d been busy at work. But when I inquired, Rider simply made me promise never to go outside when I see it again, and to always call him first. Always. There was a hint of something dangerous in his tone, something angry, daring me to protest.
But I smiled weakly and told him of course I’d call him, he was my hero after all. And I told myself he was only angry because he was scared.
That seemed to calm Rider down, and he relaxed and came inside. For the first time, he stayed the night with me. I don’t know if it was because of what happened, or the air of uneasiness that settled over me like a fog, but I couldn’t sleep at all that night. Even though the only person who’d ever protected me and respected me was sound asleep next to me, it felt wrong.
It felt bad.
Eventually, I quietly slipped from my room and returned to the couch. As I finally started to drift off to sleep, and my consciousness lapsed into dreams, I once again caught the gaze of the eyes from before. There was something so, so upset about them. Sadness that knew no bounds. Anger that could rend entire worlds, and send the gods to their knees.
I slept until I was awoken by Rider grabbing me rather violently by the arm and yanking me off of the couch. He was shouting at me, but I’d just woken up, I couldn’t make sense of it in my haze. The back door was open, my furniture had been upturned and broken. My senses didn’t return until the pain from a hard slap to the face knocked them right back into place.
Rider hit me.
That same day, he declared — not asked, declared that he would be living with me from then on. I was too affection-starved to say no. If this was the only person who would care about me, the only one for me, then so be it. No one can survive alone.
Things fell back into some semblance of normalcy for a while. And I learned very quickly to stop reporting anymore “incidents” of being watched to Rider if I didn’t want to be punished for them. I’d never been one to socialize much, but I was also punished if I attempted to go out or contact family.
One night in utter defiance, I walked out and spent a night to myself in town. Deep down I knew I only stayed out so long because I was terrified to return home, Rider would be furious and I knew even though it felt wrong I’d be on my knees begging him to love me, apologizing for being the ungrateful worthless pig I was.
By the time I did get home, Rider was already asleep. But he made sure to make his point; my phone was smashed to pieces on the kitchen floor and the note next to it warned me that it I ever did this again, my legs would receive the same treatment.
I like to think of myself as strong, but I’m not. I started crying, unable to understand how or why someone who treated me so amazingly had come to treat me like I was nothing in such a shockingly short time. A toxic whiplash, stinging my skin and burrowing deep, deep into my gut.
And that’s how it was from then on for the next year. My time outside was limited to an hour a day, and I was not to take it first thing in the morning or any time Rider was sleeping. The eyes outside the window became the only routine I had anymore, each time I saw them I kept it to myself. But it hurt, the eyes, they were so upset.
I could relate to that.
On my birthday Rider decided to celebrate by locking me in my room for most of the day and at the end of it, attempting to force himself on me. I say attempting because my memory of what happened next is extremely hazy, and not because he succeeded in being a total piece of shit.
No, it’s because of what I saw. The window shattered, glass splinters flew this way and that. The roar coming from it shook the walls, I swear, shook them so hard I thought they’d fall. As a large, red-eyed form entered my peripheral vision, I squeezed my eyes shut. Stupid as it was, in that instance, my only thought was that I was going to die and this time, Rider wouldn’t protect me.
Besides the roar, there wasn’t any noise beyond a sudden, wet tearing sound and a violent splatter. My memory cut out here, it’s just blackness. But they told me later that Rider’s body had been reduced to the human equivalent of wet tissue paper, all over my bedroom. They told me someone in my home dialed the police, but no one actually spoke to them or told them anything.
I don’t know how I got from the bedroom to the living room. There’s a vague memory of large, cold arms on my back. The warning bite of clawed fingers on my side. They said when they found me, I was hysterical. I was begging for him to come back. “I don’t want to be alone again, please!”
They assumed I was talking about Rider, whose killer was never caught. The police ruled me out as a suspect pretty quickly. I’m small and, when they found me, malnourished severely. Rider only let me eat if I weighed less than a certain number on any given day.
Last night, I was finally able to come home after my home was cleaned and restored. Everything felt empty and lifeless, drained of all meaning, painfully lonely. As anyone can guess, I spent all evening in one of my worst panic attacks to date, crying so hard that I had to sit by the toilet because I was throwing up. Too afraid to sleep in my old room, I instead resigned to the familiarity of my couch.
Again, as I was drifting into sleep, I saw two pairs of red eyes watching me from outside. This time, there was no sadness. Not like before, at least. It was a empathetic sadness, as if we were understanding what tragic lives we’d both lived thus far in one glimpse.
Recognition dawned on me, words not from me probing into my mind clumsily. As awkward as my attempts to speak with anyone else. I sent back encouragement, careful, with what little light I had left in myself. The eyes widened slightly, and then softened.
Memories that were not mine eased into my mind. The perspective from the outside of my home at night, glancing inside. Rider producing knives, waiting for me to sleep. Rider at his own home that first night I let him stay, measuring out pill dosages that would kill someone of my height and weight. That very first night we met, Rider watching me from his window, a dark idea blooming in his expression.
I understood, then, that this red eyed being had been protecting me all along. Each time I was supposed to die, it had purposefully provoked Rider’s ire to redirect his attention. It couldn’t be there during the day, but at night, it was free to roam.
And I understood then, that Rider had never charmed or comforted me in some mysterious way I couldn’t explain. That this being had been sending me comfort, bravery and the will to calm for my own sake whenever it could.
When I woke the next morning, I also understood why Rider never allowed me to glance or step foot outside until he’d woken and cleared the home of whatever evil the thing haunting us left behind.
Scattered all along the perimeter of my home were the most beautiful red flowers I’d ever seen.
|
The “Game of the Shadow Man” is one of the earliest forms of demonic summoning rituals known in urban legend, dating as far back as 1200 A.D. The ritual has gone under many other titles, the most popular being “The Boogie Man Ritual,” “Satan’s Shadow,” or simply “The Dark Summoning.” Many forms of the summoning ritual have come and passed, most resulted in more failures than results, while others simply passed into obscurity. This version, however, is one of the remaining few that yields results. This tutorial will act as your personal guide on how to perform the “Game of the Shadow Man.”
Before enacting the ritual, it is best noted by past reports that the summoner, you the reader in this case, must be first informed on what the Shadow Man is as to better understand what you are dealing with. The title “Shadow Man” is simply a description of what the being is: A tall, shadowy, humanoid figure. The true name of this creature is unknown, though through conversation with the being it tends to give a variety of names it refers to itself as. The most prominent name it calls itself by is simply “Shadow.”
The being is a tall lanky figure appearing masculine in nature. Its skin, a pale grey, is referred to as “rotting while alive” in appearance, and its hair is a thick ebony-black mess. It is always described as wearing a grey or black cloak that covers up everything but its head and hands. However, its hair always covers its eyes as well, making it impossible to see if the figure even has eyes. Furthermore, the nose is described as abnormally sharp, and the mouth is a wide sharp-toothed smile with lips described as charred skin. The hands of the figure are tipped with a strange black ashy substance from the foremost bend in the finger to the tip, and is sharpened to a pointed end.
Now that the being has been identified, the ritualistic process can begin. There are three steps to the process: The Preparation, the Execution, and the Resolution. First, the Preparation.
Before the actual ritual can take place, certain forms of preparation must occur. First, acquire access to a decently sized room that, when closed off, will be completely dark. No light must be able to get into the room during the entirety of the ritual, else it will yield no results. Due to this, it is prefered to act during the darkest hours of the night for the best results. This is to give “Shadow” a place to access during the ritual.
Second, grab a pencil and a piece of paper. Not a mechanical pencil, but a genuine #2 wooden pencil. Take them both and draw out your best self portrait. It seems that realism and details do not matter to the execution, as even a simple stick figure yield the same results. After you finish the picture, no matter how good or bad it is, scratch out the eyes with the same pencil. Make it as thick and dark as possible, make sure the eyes are completely blotted out and cannot be seen. This is to allow “Shadow” to have a form, as most claimers detail it as very similar in appearance to themselves. Added with this, find any piece of clothing that you have worn for at least a month or so. This is to add another layer to the formation of “Shadow,” and sadly, you will be losing this article of clothing in the process. If is something that comes in pairs, use both.
Third and finally, acquire 12 identical candles. This will be both your portal and defense against “Shadow,” and further details about how this will be used are explained later.
The following must also be obtained, and will be used during the Execution process:
•A candle lighter
•A sharp object, preferably a knife
•A pair of gloves and socks (to wear)
•Black ink (printer or pen ink is fine, though a decent amount is needed)
Now that you have obtained all necessary items, it is time to begin the ritual. Start by going into the selected room and measuring out a space wide enough to perform with. The best way to test is to stick your arms out to your side and spin in a circle. If you hit nothing or nothing gets in the way, you have enough room. It is okay before you begin to have light in the room to see what you are doing. Begin placing your candles in the circle space you measured out, each spread out equally apart, and once they have been set, light them all up.
Now, close off any light to the room; make the room entirely sectioned off to just itself with no outside connection. Go to your circle of candles and, using the ink, put out the fire on every other candle. For better reference, imagine the candles like a clock, and put out the ones placed at the 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 spots. This is the beginning of the ritualistic process, and as said in reports, this is the portal for “Shadow” to enter through. If at any moment you wish to back out, simply light up one of the dead candles. However, whatever you do, DO NOT have more candles out than on. These candles are your one safety net, and if you make a mistake, it will not end well.
Continuing forward, make sure you have your gloves and socks both on as an added layer of protection. Even with the candle circle, it is very important you have a layer of clothing as well. Take the preselected article of clothing you wish to use, set it in the middle of the circle taking heed not to distort or destroy the circle, and stain it with the remainder of your ink. Following that, take up your sharp object and cut a diagonal line from the top to the bottom.
Once you have done that, slip in the drawing you had made from earlier into the clothing. If it is too small to fit inside, simply lay the drawing on top. Now burn it. Take the lighter, and burn the drawing. You won’t need your sharp object for any other reason afterwards, and as said before, your lighter can be used if you wish to back out during the ritual. However if you do back out, NEVER attempt the ritual again.
Now, the next stage is one that requires the most… direct influence. While the picture is burning, stand back, and begin to think of one particular thing: Hate. Think of things you despise, things you find horrid and disgusting, things you could harm or kill over. Focus on these thoughts, and all the while, say the words “Shadow.” It’s not so much a chant, but you will need to repeat that word over and over again.
Slowly, the room around you will shift. It will turn from black and white to crimson and magenta. The air will seem ashy and stale, hard to breath properly. And from the center of your candle circle, a figure will begin to rise. That is “Shadow.” You will know when it has fully entered when the room suddenly goes quiet. Even if it was already silent to begin with, it will oddly become even moreso. Focus your attention now on “Shadow.”
This is where the final stage comes into play. You have brought it into your realm to make a deal with it. So long as you are aware of everything you and it both say, you can converse as you please. There is no penalty in conversation, and you can talk for however long you would like. But the ultimate deciding factor is the deal it provides. You can ask “Shadow” for anything you desire, fame, fortune, even murder. You can be as simple or as descriptive as possible. However, you must be aware of what is said for both sides of the bet. Make sure anything you bet for and have to pay for is not a major harm to you. Following your request, “Shadow” will raise its hand to you, to shake in confirmation of its deal. So long as you have your gloves, do not worry, and take its hand.
Before you even realize it, “Shadow” will have disappeared. The ritual will have been completed, and while it may not come immediately, your reward will eventually be provided. But there is one more thing you must take care of: The gloves. Immediately strip them off and throw them into the circle. Set fire to them, light all the candles on fire, do anything you can to discard of your evidence. Shadow knows of what you’ve done, but so long as you have destroyed the evidence, it cannot track you.
From this point, you will have successfully won the “Game of the Shadow Man.” You are free to live your life as you please without fear of consequence. What you wished for will come to you naturally. If it was money, you will get bonuses and raises at your job unexpectedly. If it was fame, word of you will get around very quickly, and people will take a liking towards you over all. That being said, a few individuals may still be questioning something in this process: What would happen if you were to fail? If you retried the ritual after a previous attempt, failed a step in the execution, or did not get rid of the evidence, what would have happened?
The details of failure are blurry, mainly because not many people who failed are alive to tell the tale. However, there have been a few select reports that detail what might just happen. It is said that when someone fails, the consequences are not immediately noticeable. It may start off as a voice, or a visual problem, but soon you will start to notice strange changes in your life, changes that will effect your mind. Most reports show once healthy people developing symptoms of schizophrenia and PTSD after failure. But the worst part is not during the waking hours. This was of only one report, but it is said that dreams are “something like a trip into hell, and you can feel and hear it all.” No further reports are known of those who have failed. All people who have failed were claimed dead no longer than a week after attempting the ritual.
CREDIT : Robert D Alsbury
|
Sunset had fallen on the countryside, and the warmth of the day was fading with each passing moment. Vespers of an autumn breeze whispered through the fields, setting the amber stalks of corn into a somber dance… yet with each swaying step, two interlopers were revealed, standing stark and defiant against the motion of their surroundings. In seeing their still forms, one might almost believe that they never breathed nor blinked. Such was certainly the common belief, perhaps shared even by the figures themselves, which made it all the more surprising when one of them spoke.
“My arms hurt, Frank.”
The second figure remained motionless, though a flicker of expression may have crossed its face.
“Frank, my arms hurt.”
“Damn it, Jed!” With a shuffling of cloth and straw, Frank turned to face his partner. “When they sent you here, they said you was the best choice! You said you knew the rules! Now, shut up before someone hears you.”
Silence returned to the field, broken only by the rustling of currents through the corn. Even a nearby stream, which burbled happily in the hours of daylight, seemed to have hushed itself in preparation for the dusk. This night was an important one, and its task was all but sacred.
“Aw, who’s going to hear us, Frank?”
“S’not the point! What matters is if someone did. We ain’t supposed to talk.”
Jed considered this, though the contents of his head were hardly suited to higher reasoning. “Well, so what? It’s a stupid job, anyway. Ain’t nobody passed yet that hasn’t laughed at us.”
Frank sighed, removed his hat, and scratched at his leathery skin. “Look, Jed, that may very well be. Fact is, it don’t matter one bit. It’s got to be done, you understand me?”
“No.”
“Good, you… what the hell you mean ‘no?’ Ain’t no-one ever told you the story?”
The straw around Jed’s neck made a rasping noise as he shook his head. “Folks keep saying I’ll learn it when I have the need. I’ve been starting to think they don’t know it, themselves.”
“Oh, they know it, alright.” Frank cleared his throat and made a spitting motion at the ground, though his lips remained dry. “They know it, sure as they know their own mamas. Just that… well, it ain’t exactly pleasant talk.” He sighed again, as much from the frustration of having to speak as from the thought of his next words. “See, there was a time, some many years ago, when these fields were beset by a plague. Not a plague of illness, mind… no, this plague came as winged beasts from the sky. Black as night, they were, with voices like something from a nightmare.”
“Crows,” whispered Jed. His eyes scanned what little of the horizon he could see beyond the cornfield. “I’ve heard tell of them. Figured they were a children’s tale.”
Frank shifted his weight, adjusting the rigid stick on which he rested his arms. “That they may be, but there’s truth in the stories. Crows are real enough, even if one scarcely hears of them in anything but legend these days. Back when their terror was at hand, they’d descend on these fields and eat their fill, leaving precious little for the folk who toiled with the seed. It brought a hardship on the land, leaving everyone desperate.”
“My arms still hurt, Frank.”
Frank rolled his eyes. “We’re talking, ain’t we? Have a rest. Hell, sit down, for all it matters now.”
“Thanks, Frank.” Jed dropped from his post and crumpled to the ground, suddenly looking very much like a lifeless pile of rags. “So, what happened?”
Though he opened his mouth to speak, Frank hesitated. On any other night, the words were just a story… but on this night, they might be something more. “You keep a listen for anything amiss, alright?” Jed nodded, and Frank resumed his tale. “It was a dark time, to be sure. Dark enough that some reckoned they might employ a darkness of their own.” He closed his eyes and recited the secret verse, known only to those who stood watch in the field:
Gathered they the walls of green
Left to dry by day
Shaped into a sentinel
In clothing was the hay
Set upon tormented fields
Against the demons’ caw
Given life by darkness
The men of naught but straw
Gave to them the hallowed charge
Upon the darkest night
Paid the price for vigilance
When absent was the light
Gathered they one of the young
For empty demons’ craw
Taken by the darkness
The men of naught but straw
“Straw men,” whispered Jed. “Straw men, like… like us, Frank?”
Frank’s expression grew colder as he shook his head. “Don’t you be thinking that way. The straw men were something… something other than living, Jed. Scared the crows away, they did, but at a terrible cost. They were dead inside, see? Stayed where they were meant to, like statues… save for one night a year, when they’d come alive and have a reaping. Only, it weren’t corn they took away, but a child. One child, left outside past sunset.”
“Children are outside past sunset all the time, Frank!”
“Not on this night!” Frank hissed. He lowered his voice even further. “On this night, the children wear masks! The straw men can’t see those who hide their eyes, not unless they look at the straw men first!”
Jed fell silent, chastised. The sky had darkened considerably, with only the most tenacious rays of the dying light still piercing the walls of corn. Somewhere in the distance, a woman’s voice called out for her son.
“Hey, Frank?”
“What?”
“I still don’t get it, Frank.”
Frank sighed yet again. “Don’t get what?”
“Why we’re out here. Why we got to stand here like this. Why folks laugh at us. I mean… we’re straw men. Right, Frank?” In response, Frank launched a kick at his companion’s leg. “Owwwww! What’d you go and do that for?!”
“If you was a straw man,” Frank said, “do you reckon that would’ve hurt? You’re flesh and blood, Jed, so how can you be a straw man?”
“Well, I mean… it’s pretend, ain’t it? I fill my clothes with straw and play make-believe, right?”
Frank tapped a gloved hand against the side of his hat. “Up here, it might be pretend… but here,” he thumped his fist against his chest, making his stuffed shirt crackle, “it’s all real. That’s what matters, Jed.” He swung his arm wide, gesturing to the fields around them. “You want to know why you’re out here? It’s so that fear don’t come back. Even one child being taken keeps that terror festering, keeps folks in mourning. Might as well have the crows back… but if someone goes to stand watch, then the straw men don’t come walking. They can all rest easy. They can laugh at their fear and get on with their lives. Now do you get it?”
“I get it, Frank,” Jed hurriedly replied. “I’m here to stand watch. I get it.”
“Good. Now, back up on your post. We got a long night ahead.”
Jed retook his position, and Frank readjusted his own. The wind had died with the sunlight, leaving the corn fields completely still.
“Hey, Frank?”
“Shut up.”
“Sorry.” Jed closed his mouth. “Only… what happens to them, Frank? To the children?”
“What children?”
“You know,” pushed Jed. “The children that they take away.”
Frank turned to regard his companion. The poor boy was hardly out of his youth, with only the barest hint of stubble on his chin. Even in the darkness, an earnest innocence twinkled in his eyes. “You sure you want to know, Jed?”
Jed turned to meet Frank’s gaze. “Yeah, Frank. I’m sure.”
As he had done before, Frank reached up to remove his hat… only this time, his entire head came away, leaving a rigid cluster of yellow stemming from his shirt.
“They become straw men, Jed. They become straw men.”
|
I was sitting on some particularly comfortable hallway chairs in this very bare waiting room. The only thing that occupied the room beside me was this clearly fake plant. I had been asked to wait while this particularly clean yet short and stocky man prepared a room for us. After a relatively long wait time the official, who had the appearance of Barney Rubble, came to lead me to where I was going to be spending the next couple hours or so. I followed the cartoon double down a long hallway riddled with doors adorned various official’s names. It was my first time being invited to such a fancy government building with such bland attributes.
He opened a door to a rather comfortable looking room. He had me sit on one of the colder looking chairs on one side of the table. It looked like a generic interrogation room minus the one-sided mirror. I planted myself down completely uninterested in reliving the events that brought me here in the first place.
“Thank you for joining me Detective Buchanan.” Soon enough he sat himself down just across from me whilst placing down a recording device.
“I wasn’t one with much of a choice after such an elaborate invitation.” He was parked outside the hospital I was discharged from and informed me I needed to be at a certain address at a certain time for ‘debriefing’.
“Enough with the sarcasm Detective, I would like you to speak clearly and in great detail about every event of your case.” From the rumble of his serious tone, I decided it was probably against my best interest to continue with my attitude.
“To be honest, this was probably one of the wildest cases I was ever on. Granted, I went in with all my digits, then came out missing one with a severe need for a therapist.” I exhaled, relaxing back into the cold office chair that was provided for me. The man sitting across from me leaned in ready to listen.
“Start wherever is most convenient.”
*****
“Good morning, Jarred.” I waved to my entirely too blonde partner. “Did you lose a bet or something?”
“My son went blonde and got bullied, so I decided to dye my hair, too.” He laughed.
“Fair enough.” I shrugged, “So what’s on today’s agenda?”
“New case. There’s been a disturbance downtown in the apartments by Main and 59th. Get on it.” The short, and slightly pudgy, chief of our office informed us.
“I call shotgun.” I chuckled slightly tossing my keys to my partner.
“Dagnabbit.” He frowned as he followed me out the door and to my car.
It didn’t take us long before we arrived at the crime scene. Upon arrival, we parked nearby and did our usual greetings to the cops who were posted at the scene. They filled us in on what they knew and we went on our way inside. When we entered the apartment it was pretty apparent there was a struggle, no signs of forced entry, however. Whoever came in here was let in opposed to breaking in. There were small puddles of blood across the living room and partially down the hall. As we moved farther down the hall the blood increased in volume. The trail lead to the bathroom and the source of its embodiment. Across the floor laid a relatively aged man in a pool of his own cooled and clotted crimson life. The majority of his body was still in tacked however there were parts of him that were forcefully removed; typical sick psychopath work in my eyes.
“Our victim is 43-year-old Kevin Harper. He is a clearly single man given the conduct of the apartment in addition to the lack of feminine products or a roommate. It was a co-worker that called when he didn’t show up for work. He has been dead for approximately seventy-four hours. Someone tried cleaning him up a bit but stopped midway.” A relatively young looking black man informed us before pulling Jarred off to the side.
Jarred stepped aside to talk to medical examiner better known as Arthur Davis. He had a grim look on his face as he looked back at me, I had a funny feeling I wasn’t going to like this case. He wandered over with half a smile and a lowered voice.
“So, Artie here informed me that the body parts were not severed by any normal means.” He sighed slightly.
“I hope you’re not implying what I think you are.” I felt my stomach churn ever so slightly.
“It also looks like we have pieces unaccounted for. Hank my friend,” He placed a hand on my shoulder. “We can talk to the chief about giving this case up…”
“It’s a cannibal case isn’t it.” I felt the churn worsen and my gut tightens up. He only nodded in response as I held back the urge to retch. After I composed myself I looked him right in the eyes.
“I’d rather not be a laughing stock, besides, the best way to face your fears is by beating it.” I shrugged off his hand.
“Yeah but fears and vomit inducing topics are totally different.” He laughed. I was always thankful of Jarred, he’s had my back since I was first transferred over to the precinct.
“My issues aside, any news on evidence left behind?” I veered away from the body to look at some of the broken furniture just outside the bathroom.
“We have some hair and a strange set of fingerprints but we won’t know anything until we get this to the lab,” Artie smiled waving his hand slightly.
“Thanks, Artie.” My partner interjected before I was able to retort with a smartass remark.
While we waited for the lab results, my partner and I decided it would be a good idea to look more into Mr. Harper. Jarred when to go talk to his coworker while I made a request in with a friend in the precinct. She did some digging for me but came up with virtually nothing. He had an ex-wife and a son who moved to the west coast five years back and had kept a steady office job since the divorce. By the time my partner came back I really had nothing to help lead us anywhere, he regrettably had the same issue.
A few days into the investigation we heard back from the lab only identifying the victims prints, hair, and blood. There was one other set of prints but those were nowhere in our system.
Flustered with my draw to nowhere, I decided to hit the bar with Jarred and a few other coworkers. I proceeded to drink the cases troubles away with some hearty laughter and strong beer. We enjoyed ourselves for a few hours before I got a call from Daphnie wondering where I was at. I laughed into the phone and assured I was on my way. I called a taxi not too long after and made my way home.
*****
“Alcohol is the most commonly used depressant these days.” The agent scoffed.
“Hey, I am not getting any younger. One or two nights out with the guys is all good in my defense. I try not to make a habit out of it. Saw a guy once, drunk himself right into the unemployment line.” I crossed my arms.
“I suppose Daphnie wouldn’t let you do anything like that, now would she?”
I felt myself fall into a bit of a guilt trip, “Yeah, my daughter acts like a parent half the time.”
“She sounds like she has a head on her shoulders, now onward Mr. Buchanan.”
“Just when I thought we were opening up to each other you put that wall right back up. So hurtful Special Agent, so hurtful.” I took a deep breath.
“I was two weeks into that dead end when I got a call that there was another attack much like the one from the first scene. I had hopped into my car first thing and went straight over to the hospital.”
*****
I entered the hospital bumping into a rather pretty fair skinned nurse on my way to the elevator. She looked tired and worried despite her nice soft glow. Just as I was going to ask if she was alright, she scurried off murmuring something about an appointment. I shrugged off the opportunity and stepped into the small metal box. I pressed the fifth floor and up I went.
I entered the hall seeing a cop stationed outside the room where the victim was staying. I saw a fairly old male, clearly he still had some spring in his step but I couldn’t see him keeping up with the cop next to him. His hair was thinned and grey in between his dim brown locks. His skin wrinkled with years of disgust and stress. His body was short, squashed even, but had a good amount of pudge clearly from his lack of interest in fitness. His bandaged hand twitched slightly as it rested on his bed sheets. Some of the blood still seeped from the bandages wrapping his arm and from a patch on his face.
I stood in front of my bed and watched as his gaze met mine.
“Good afternoon.”
“Ain’t nothing good ’bout this afternoon.” He hissed back.
“Poor opener.” I chuckled dryly, “My name is Hank Buchanan, I am the detective in charge of finding the person who did this to you.”
“Now’s the part where you ask them questions….well, get to it.” He prodded.
“So I was informed you were assaulted by a rather suspicious party?” I opened my notebook readily to take some quick notes. This was the first solid lead I managed to get my hands on in quite some time so I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.
“He was a freak! A freak I tell you!” he stammered violently between breaths.
“Sir I need you calm down, please. I want to know what he looked like.”
“H-he had six fingers on each hand.” He lifted his hands as he spoke, “His skin was mixed with these dark brown and white patches all over like a cow. H-he was skinny, unnaturally so…” The man placed his hands back on the bed sheets.
“Anything else? Eye colour? Hair? Any other markings?”
His eyes darted up at me filled with anger I was all too familiar with. “His f-face.”
“Something about his face?”
“Long stitching, it outlined the break between the black skin and white skin on his face. There was just enough space on his forehead to see that it wasn’t a full circle b-but more of a…a smile if you will. Not an expression as much as an outline.”
I saw his gaze lower and the feeling of uneasiness rise. I moved on to asking about the place where he was attacked and if anyone else was there when it happened. He refused to speak to me any further in regards to the man, I at least had something to go on. I gave a call to my partner back at the office and informed him to start a local search for blotchy men with six fingers. At first, he laughed at me, honestly getting a call like that I probably would have done the same thing. After I repeated it a bit more sternly he stopped laughing. We hung up shortly after so I could pick my daughter up from cheerleading practice.
It wasn’t until morning the next day when Jarred got a chance to sit down with me to inform me I hit yet another dead end. There was only one person ever registered with a sixth finger and he went missing twenty-six years ago. He had no known relatives and lived in a foster home that had burned down just a couple years after he went missing. All of the records for the home were gone several bodies were discovered in the building. It was a cold arson case with no known survivors. Honestly, at that point, I needed a miracle.
A few days after I hit my dead end I decided to call it a night. I had spent the last seventy something hours of my life trying to come up with a way to track this cannibal with no luck. I figured a good night’s sleep and a meal with the kids would be a good little break. I managed to beat them both home to bake some chicken and make some steamed vegetables. It was cute the two of them looked so surprised to see me. The little one, Abby, came and gave me a hug when she saw me in the kitchen. I couldn’t help but laugh. Being in my field and them not having their mother makes family dinners hard sometimes.
It wasn’t long before we got a chance to sit down and eat together. My eldest , Daph, often asked me about work. She has shown an interest in getting into my kind of field, so sometimes I tell her what’s going on. She was like my at home helper.
“So what are you working on this time?” She scooped some of her greens onto her fork and ate them.
“I have an interesting case, it isn’t very appropriate for little ears like Abby, so I am not going into detail.” I pointed my fork at her, Abbigale was in the seventh grade so I wasn’t too comfortable with her learning about the dead bodies I deal with.
“Ugh, can you censor it or something! I haven’t seen you in like forever.” She protested pushing some of the food around on her plate.
I gave a deep sigh, “Okay, I can censor it a little. There is a bad guy kidnapping people and then poof they all disappear forever. There was one guy who he left behind and the guy managed to explain the culprit to me but…” I scratched my head.
“You hit a dead end. “ She finished for me.
“Daddy why do people steal other people?” Abby asked, taking a good bite of her chicken.
“If I only knew kiddo, maybe it would help me stop them.” I laughed.
“Sound’s like the guy’s done.” Daphnie shoved another forkful into her mouth.
I paused for a moment and looked at her, she stared at me like I didn’t catch on. For a second, I was confused but that had me thinking. If he had done such a good job with his other victims, having countless times to practice, why did that one man get away? He didn’t look very strong nor did he have any signs of fighting back. It was as if the man that had been kidnapping and attacking people wanted to get caught. But why?
“I wouldn’t know why though, people are crazy. Emotions are crazy. My English teacher told me life is unpredictable and people can go from wanting one thing to another on the turn of a dime.” She shrugged while picking up her glass of water to have a nice long drink.
“Maybe he was sorry for what he did.” Abby added, “I know I would be sorry if I hurt someone.”
Abby was so cute. If all of the criminals in the world acted like her, I think I’d be out of a job. Adorable seventh graders aside, Daphnie really had me thinking. After we had finished eating dinner I cleaned the dishes and tucked my girls into bed. Once I was sure they were asleep I took out my work and set up in the living room. I had brewed a nice cup of coffee and re-reviewed everything I had come across thus far.
Just about all the victims were near the same age. The most that had ever been left behind from the victims were fingers, toes, ears; basically the small parts. Some were cleanly taken off, others were not so lucky. They were all taken in the same five block radius not too far away from the hospital. The only known surviving victim described a man that had been missing for twenty-six years. During all that time there is a possibility that this was not his starting point, and that he presumably had some help. Most likely from someone that knew how to clean up a mess. Everything before hand only left a trail and a hint that the victim was even taken. This last victim threw everything off, not only was he intact ,for the most part, but he was left at the scene. Unfortunately, unless the victim recovers some other memory or a new lead falls out of the sky, I can’t move onto any set of individuals in the hospital.
I groaned leaning back on my couch. The only thing I could really do after this was give Johan Kingston a call and see if he’d be willing to help out any more. Until then I packed up my case and went to bed. I decided it would be a good idea to visit my friend Dr. Peter Totschlag, being a forensic psychologist, he may be able to give me a hand.
During my lunch, I gave him a call to see if he was free. To my surprise. he was and he happily agreed to give me a hand on the case. I met with him at his office after I picked us up come 6 from this cubbyhole joint he fancied.
“Oh, a case, and you actually brought me food? You must be stuck.” he laughed brushing some of his stray brown hair from his forehead.
“Drastic times call for drastic measures, Pete.” I pulled up a seat and handed him his food, as we ate, I managed to fill him in on everything and show him a few images from the crime scenes. Then I told him about the last scene and victim.
“Yeah, that is totally weird.” he slurped up the last of his soda, “Doesn’t sound like the other stuff at all.”
“You wouldn’t believe who got me to look at it this way.” I chuckled.
“Daphnie will be a great detective one day.” He looked at me and pushed some of the photos around. “I have ordered it from cleanest to messiest. Take a look at each of the scenes. Here, all the way on the left, it’s got the tightest job while the far right shows clearly there was no second person.”
“So there were two at the scene.”
“Yes and no. Some of them show there were both, others only one. You said some pieces were prettier than others right?”
I nodded.
“Those were the ones that had two people physically working. As time went on, it does give off the feeling that they were getting tired of doing it.” He picked up the photos of the last scene, “It shows that the killer may have been reluctant to let his assistant help. There could have been a concern that arose or even the killer was just done with her. ”
“Her?”
“Yup, no older male killer would be this caring about another man. Due to the type of crimes and the nature of this killer, there would be a female party or a younger male, I lean toward a female because of this idea of a romantic bridge the killer can construct. He clearly shows some level of acknowledgement of her and as time went on it kinda looks like he gave a damn.”
“Any suggestions of the line of work?”
He let out a rough laugh, “After all this talk of cleanliness you are really going to ask that?”
“I have an idea where she may work, to be honest.”
“Oh?” he leaned back in his chair. “Were you leaning toward hospital?”
“Bingo. All of the abductions were ten minutes from the hospital, if anyone would have the time to step away and come back from a break it would be someone from there.”
“It does make sense I would sug-” My phone cut him off with a loud ring.
“Sorry.” I picked it up and to my surprise, it looked like Jarred was giving me a call, “It’s my partner, one moment.”
I removed myself from the room, he was calling to let me know that the victim had returned to the station and wanted to speak to me. I quickly rushed inside to pick up my file and gave Pete a farewell and whisked myself back to the station. By the time I got back to the station, Johan was already waiting with my partner. Once he had spotted me, he stood using a cane probably provided by the hospital. He grabbed ahold of my arm shaking slightly.
“I heard her Detective.”
“Heard who?” I questioned sitting him down in his chair.
“The woman.” He stammered.
“Mr. Kingston, I am going to have to ask you to articulate what you are saying. I do not want to play the pronoun game with you.” I spoke firmly.
“When I was in the hospital I heard a voice, it was a woman’s voice it sounded like the one I heard before I was attacked by that monster.”
“And she was in the area you were staying at? Did you get any glimpse of her face?”
He shook his head.
“If I could get you somewhere where you could hear her voice, do you think you could point her out?”
“I believe I could.”
I gave a small smile, “Jarred get our warrant.”
It took some time but we managed to get all the women who worked on the floor where Johan was staying. A couple dozen nurses, a few doctors, and one janitor later, we had our line up ready to go.Mr. Kingston was more than happy to sit in, though, there was a mix of fear and rage on his face. I double checked with him to make sure he wanted to do this. He only looked at me for a moment and asked when we could begin. We set up each group accordingly as well as numbered each woman so we could keep track of everyone he thought was the voice from before. After two or three hours, we managed to bring it down to one line of six women. Jarred took care of most of the paperwork while a few other officers dealt with witness statements and escorting the previous ladies out.
“Do you want to take a break, Johan?” I questioned leaning towards the glass to examine the line of women.
“I will take a break once I point out who it was.” He poked back, I gave a small smirk.
We went through the routine one last time and he was able to narrow it down to two women. One was a nurse by the name of Mabelyn Peterson; the other, a janitor named Margaret Coleman. Both women had a very close speech pattern and vocal tones so I could see why he couldn’t point one out over the other. I thanked both him and the ladies for their time, and sent them on their way so we could begin our investigation on the women.
I returned to the office with the new information and sifted through all the clues again… not that there were many to go through. Both women worked at the hospital. While it was likely that the nurse had the medical expertise, that didn’t necessarily rule out the janitor. I must have gone over the evidence four or five times, and each time, I hit the same dead end. I had to get a warrant for the ladies’ records. In the meantime, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to call them in for an interrogation.
I filed for the search warrant and found Jarred. “Looks like we’re going fishing,” I said.
“Catch and release?” Jarred asked, eyes wide with excitement. He enjoyed interrogating suspects.
“Catch and release… for now,” I replied. “All the evidence adds up to these two suspects, but we need something more conclusive.”
“You did remember to let the Chief know, right?”
“As far as you know,” I told him. “Hey, you’re the interrogator this time, you have no reason to look a gift-horse in the mouth.”
Jarred decided to shut his trap after that…
A few hours later, I stood behind the two-way glass, watching Jarred play with Margaret. I could see that he went with the “We Know All” technique of interrogation. The tactic wasn’t doing any good, though; either she was really good at playing dumb, or she really didn’t know what was going on. I considered going in to interrogate Mabelyn, but there were a few problems. For starters, her record was squeaky clean; nothing I could use to intimidate her. That meant we had almost no tactic to use, and going in with a bunch of questions can always be misconstrued by the defense as coercing a confession… which means the case gets thrown out. I’ve always been a little hesitant during interrogations; that’s why I usually let Jarred handle it. In the meantime, however, I did peek in on Mabelyn through the glass, and something about her… it just got to me. She had this peaceful, serene look on her face, as if she didn’t have a care in the world… which was weird, considering that she was sitting in an interrogation room. Even people who are completely innocent will show some level of apprehension. Not one look of nervousness betrayed her features. She was just not right. I mentally scolded myself for letting my biases get in the way.
Jarred came out of the interrogation room. “If we didn’t have so much evidence against her, I’d say she was completely innocent,” he replied, with a puzzled look on his face. “I still have to question the nurse, but that’s just a formality right now. If I was the janitor, I’d plead insanity.”
As he walked away perusing the folder, I went to see the Chief about the status of those warrants, though I probably should have told him about this whole ordeal sooner. I knew he was going to ream me a new one yet again.
As soon as I set foot into the Chief’s office, I knew my partner had ratted me out. “We’ll talk about your lack of communication skills later,” he said, clearly annoyed, but used to me keeping him out of the loop.
“Yeah, well… speaking of communication,” I awkwardly transitioned, “Got any word on those warrants?”
Chief shook his head. “You know how the judge is about warrants,” he replied. “If I had known what you did behind my back, for the fiftieth time, I would’ve told you to hold off, or do more legwork, or something.”
“Great,” I murmured. “Best news on this case, yet.”
As I left the office, I heard Chief yell out, “Next time, be sure you keep me in the damned loop!”
Any investigator, regardless of organization or position, will tell you that busywork is the worst. It’s that stuff you do between hitting a brick wall in a case, and finding that one clue that ties it all together; that’s what I got stuck doing. I grabbed some coffee and went back to my desk. I worked on the board where we laid out all the different clues and tried to tie them together. I went back to my desk and listened to the recordings. I looked back through all of the evidence we gathered – even the stuff we originally thought was useless to the case- and got more coffee. All the evidence still said Margaret was the perp, but Mabelyn’s interview and her attitude before the interrogation, were so…off. In such an investigation, it’s always been my experience that innocent people don’t act so nervous, or so calm; only guilty people hit either of those extremes. Fidgeting, losing eye-contact, stuttering, problems working through timelines… on the other hand, staying completely still, glaring, a stone-faced expression, speech that sounds rehearsed, timelines that fit together too well… each extreme indicates something different, and you can just guess which extreme fits Mabelyn’s performance. Worst of all, there were the subtle cues, the microexpressions, which seemed to show that she had a feeling of serendipity; almost like you’d see in a woman who was covering for someone she loved. Going back through Johan’s story, it was clear that this was a two-person team. It made sense… but then again, the evidence was completely against it. It was like a criminologist had gone through the evidence, and Mabelyn’s record, and sterilized both.
We still had nothing clear enough to hold either of them. At least I could take my suspicions to the Chief and explain to him why I was against what the evidence had to say. First, however, I had to get a more authoritative voice on the subject, and I knew just who to consult…
Harrison was a friend of mine since college. He had been my Criminology professor, before the F.B.I. decided to call him up, and I joined the local P.D. He worked for the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, profiling psychos for a living. These days, he’s a child psychologist. I hadn’t seen him in forever – between work and family, I had zero time – but this was as good of a time as any.
I pulled up to his house/office, located just five minutes from the police station, with my notes at the ready. It was a beautiful, old Victorian; must have cost him a fortune, especially in the Historic District. I buzzed the intercom at his door and looked at the camera. “Come on, Harry,” I murmured.
“So impatient,” Harrison’s voice spoke from the intercom. “You’re lucky I’m not busy with a client.”
The door buzzed. I took that as my cue to walk in.
Harrison had an affinity for taxidermy and masks. I knew he wouldn’t have any of those decorations in his office, considering his clientele, but I wasn’t surprised to see a few tastefully mounted heads in the parlor, and several masks lining the hallway going upstairs. Many were colorful and garish, ranging from kabuki masks to a few cheap masks he had gotten from his Mardi-Gras vacation, but there were a couple that stood out. These were old, wooden masks, which looked like the kind they featured in old movies about Voodoo and zombies.
Harrison met me at the door to his office. “Admiring the decor?” he asked, with a slight smirk on his face. He seemed to have aged pretty well, for a man in his fifties. The grey streaks in his hair made him look distinguished, and he had just a few lightly-etched smile lines on his face. I patted him on the shoulder as I shook his hand. “Particularly those Voodoo masks,” I replied. “Think you have the time to help with a particularly tough case?”
Harrison’s face suddenly hardened. “I had hoped we could converse under more pleasant circumstances,” he said, in that passive-aggressive way of his. He had quit the B.A.U. during a case involving the ritual murder and cannibalization of ten young children. That was five years ago, and the look in his eyes still screamed that he wished he’d gotten that one profile right. In spite of all the other profiles he had gotten almost perfect, that one case both ended his career busting the worst criminals in America, and took a piece of his soul.
“Harry, you know I wouldn’t bother you with this unless it was important,” I tried to reassure him. “You’re the most experienced person I know when it comes to this sort of case. I’d hate to sound like this is some kind of story or something, but lives are, literally, on the line.”
Harrison rolled his eyes at my choice of words. “Alright,” he conceded, “Let’s have a look…”
A few minutes later, Harrison and I were both pouring over my notes. He shook his head. “My professional opinion?” He said. “I think this Mabelyn Petersen is your accomplice. She’s smart, dedicated, and shows signs of sociopathy.”
“So, why does she work for somebody else?” I asked. “I thought psychopaths were-”
“Times have changed, Hank,” Harrison replied, cutting me off. “Take a look at the newest issue of ‘Psychology Today’, and you’ll see that there is a technical difference between psychopathy and sociopathy. For one thing, psychopathy is generally believed to be hereditary, due to an underdevelopment of loci of the brain that control emotional and ethical development; sociopaths are made by a variety of childhood trauma. Furthermore, while psychopaths are meticulous in their actions, and detached from emotional states, sociopaths can form emotional attachments, even going to obsessive extremes; the only thing that doesn’t fit is, sociopaths are generally disorganized and erratic while psychopaths are accurate and detail-oriented.”
“So, what are you saying?” I asked. “Is she a sociopath, or not?”
“I believe she has formed an emotional attachment to a sociopath,” Harrison deduced, putting down the notes and moving towards the window. “She, herself, is not a sociopath; she’s found a way to rationalize her role as the sociopath’s accomplice. He may have manipulated her into falling in love with him, which would cause a strong emotional attachment so strong, she might be willing to do whatever it takes to make him happy.”
“Why a cannibal, though?” I asked.
Harrison stroked his clean-shaven chin. “I’m reminded of a case that, believe it or not, was featured on ‘Maury’,” he said. “There were two young boys who were severely abused and neglected by their parents. They had been forced into a diet of dog food to survive. A couple of years later, the Department of Children and Families took the boys out of the home, but for an entire month, they had to be slowly weaned off of the dog food and reconditioned to eat a normal diet. Their systems had become so accustomed to dog food, it was impossible for them to stomach too much of a typical human diet at any one time. It caused them to vomit whatever they ate.”
Looking back, it seems like an oddly specific thing to say, but at the time, I thought nothing of it. I did, however, take Harrison’s statement back with me. Chief would have a lot to complain about, but it would be worth it…
I decided to look in on the interrogation of Mabelyn again. This time, I could see that my smooth-talking partner was really laying on the charm. This was another technique in which you make a personal connection to the suspect. Make them like you, make them trust you, make them identify with you, and they might just be talked into opening up more; maybe, even relying on you to save them, which, of course, requires that you tell them the truth about everything. The only problem was, Mabelyn was really good at playing dumb… or maybe, she really was that dumb. Then again, how would a nurse, with all that medical training, be stupid?
Chief called me into the office shortly after I returned from taking a glance at Margaret in the interrogation room. Just outside his office there were two cleanly dressed men, they had the aura of ‘I’m higher up so back the fuck off’. He sat me down and gave out a rough sigh.
“Hank, I know you saw the two men outside.” He waved his hand in their direction, “I’ve been informed the kidnapping case we have you on will be given to those two.”
“Wait…wait, what? Why now? I am so close to finding this guy!” I protested. He gave another sigh as he picked up his coffee.
“I am not doing this because I want to Hank, they came to me about what you are working on. I was just picked to let you know. Please leave all your information with them and take the night off, you look like you haven’t slept in ages.” He took a sip of his coffee.
“I will have a new assignment on your desk when you come in tomorrow.”
Angrily, I stood and left his office. I walked over to my desk and packed everything into a manila folder for the two fantastic parties taking the case I’d been slaving over. Once everything was packed away, I happily handed over my work and left to go find some drive-through on the way home.
I sat in my c
|
The river is deep and dark, and it holds many secrets. At least that’s what they say, and recent events have left me with a completely unshakeable belief that what they say is entirely true.
There’s a river that runs through the part of the city that I live and work in. It’s got a proper name, but everyone just calls it ‘The River’ anyway. Originally it was outside of the city limits, but as the city grew the boundaries pushed ever outwards, eventually spanning both sides and beyond. My part of the city has a lot of steel, glass and concrete used in the construction. It was built during a fairly soulless period, architecturally speaking. There are a lot of high-density apartment blocks in my area, and I live on the middle floor of one of them. The apartment has a view of the river from the window; sometimes I’ll sit and look out at it, wondering what’s going on under that deceptively calm surface. I never look for too long, the river has a peculiar way of being able to give you chills. The river isn’t that wide, but it’s deep and has strong currents, especially near the bottom. Nobody swims in it, the current makes it too dangerous and the water is very, very cold; even during the hottest of summer days.
My work is in one of the office buildings on the other side of the river from my apartment. It’s close enough for me to walk, and there’s a scenic riverside pathway that the City Council built during the expansion, envisioning a bustling riverside precinct. This didn’t happen. People avoid the river if they can at all help it, but when quizzed about it nobody really knows why. You’ll get the odd tourist going for a walk alongside it, but they never linger for long. Even the ducks and other waterfowl seem to avoid it.
My walk to and from work would be probably ten minutes quicker if I went along the waterside, but I cut through the city streets where there are people. The only part of my walk where I get close to the river is where I cross it, walking quickly along the utilitarian concrete bridge as traffic passes. The drivers always have their eyes set dead ahead of them; nobody ever looks at the water. I tend to speed up as I cross the bridge, it’s not particularly high and there’s a well-sized concrete guardrail, but I really don’t like being above the water if I can help it. If you look over the side, sometimes the surface seems so dark that it’s almost black, and it’s impossible to see the bottom. If you really look closely, then sometimes you’ll see dark shapes moving rapidly through the gloom of the water, but it’s impossible to see if they’re just big fish or something else.
I live a fairly quiet life, all things considered. I’ve got good friends, a girlfriend, and a steady, fairly well-paying office job. I like my apartment, I like my friends, and I like the city I live in. I have no problems with the way things are going. All in all, I’m a fairly normal guy. But I don’t like that damn river, not one bit. I’ve never felt comfortable near it, and things have been a whole lot more unsettling since that night.
I’d stayed late at work on a Friday to finish up on some stuff I’d been putting off. Normally I’d have been outta there at 5 pm and off to meet my girlfriend for date night, but she was out of town for the weekend, off to stay with her parents. The plan was to pick up some pizza or some Chinese on the way home and to settle down on the couch for a relaxing night watching crappy horror movies.
I leaned back in my chair at work, looking around the empty office. I’d just finished up the last of my paperwork, so I shut down my computer, and glanced out the window, catching the flickering of the streetlights as they came on outside. The sun was just on the verge of setting, so you could see the harsh artificial light from the streetlights in the half-darkness. I was trying to decide between pizza and Chinese on my way down the lift, and settled on a large pizza to myself as an acceptable option, making a mental note to do extra cardio at the gym the next day.
I stepped out of the lift, shouldered my bag and headed towards the building exit, wishing the night security guard a good weekend as I went. Making my way out onto the street, I took a moment to appreciate the fresh, cool air that comes with the evening of a day that’s had fine weather. I called ahead to a pizza place near my house as I headed towards the bridge, placing my order for pickup (large meat-lover’s pizza, double meat, extra BBQ sauce). I figured I’d have maybe 5 minutes to wait at the pizza place before the pick-up, and then I could head to mine and settle in for the night.
All was well as I wandered along the street, taking a left after a few blocks and heading towards the river. I noticed that I was the only person who seemed to be out and about, the entire area seemed pretty much deserted. Not entirely surprising, given that it was probably 7 pm on a Friday night and I was in the business area of town, all the bars and restaurants are across the river on the side that I live. The night air was still and cool, and the sky was rapidly darkening; the sidewalks lit by the bright, harsh light from the streetlights above.
My pace quickened as I took a left and headed towards the bridge. The streets were still deserted, but I could hear faint noise from the restaurant precinct across the river. I kept my head down as I stepped onto the bridge, intently staring at the pavement as I made my way across. As I reached the halfway point, I felt a chill settle over me, and I froze in place. The noise from across the river had stopped. In fact, I couldn’t hear anything in the way of street or bird noise, I couldn’t even hear the buzz of the streetlights any more. The only thing I could hear was the water of the river rushing around the pylons of the bridge, and then I heard what sounded like a sob.
I looked towards the other side of the bridge, and then back towards the home side of the river that I was heading towards, when I caught something in my peripheral vision. I turned towards it, and took an involuntary step backwards in shock when I saw something I’d swear hadn’t been there a second ago. There was a girl sitting on the guardrail, facing towards the river, feet dangling off the side.
“Shit…” I said to myself quietly, breathing deeply and trying to slow my suddenly racing heart. “Man, you scared me! Sorry, I completely missed that you were sitting there”. I took a step towards her. “Are you okay?” She had long, dark hair that seemed to wet. It hung down over the side of her face, hiding her features. She was wearing a simple white dress that ended at her knees, and I could see through gaps in the concrete railing that she had bare feet. Her hands were resting on the rail she was sitting on, and they too seemed to be damp, putting some moisture onto the concrete they were placed on. I couldn’t see her face because of the hair, but her shoulders were hunched forwards, and seemed to be shaking slightly; as if she was holding back tears. I couldn’t see her face to tell for sure if she was young or older. I could tell she had a slim build, however, and I figured she was in her mid-20s at the most.
I took another step. “Miss?” I asked, reaching out a hand to touch her shoulder. She stopped shaking, and I stopped moving forward before my hand could touch her. She was… cold. So very cold that it seemed to be radiating out from her, and I drew my hand back with a shiver, grabbing it with the other hand to warm it up. She seemed to notice my presence, and straightened up, turning towards me as she did. I tensed with apprehension, suddenly worried about what her face might look like, but relaxed as it came into view. She was a pretty, normal-looking girl in her late teens or early 20s, and the only out of the ordinary thing I could see was that her eyes were red, I assumed from crying.
“Are you okay?” I asked her again. “Do you need any help?” The corners of her mouth curled up slightly in a sad, wan smile. And then she turned back, looked down at the water, gave a little hop and jumped off the side of the bridge.
I stood there for a second, completely dumbfounded. Then I heard a splash from the river below, and it snapped me out of my stupor. “Jesus!” I exclaimed, throwing off my satchel, and running towards the edge of the bridge. I looked over the edge towards the water, but I couldn’t see the girl, she must have gone under already. Placing both hands on the guardrail, I vaulted over it and plunged into the water below.
The river was cold. So icy cold that the shock of it drove all of the air out of me as I hit the surface and went under. I came up, gasping for air and treading water, and looked for any sign of the girl. I noticed that with some luck, the spot I was in seemed to be a fairly dead spot for the current, but I could still feel the pull of the water as it dragged me downstream, taking me under the bridge. I took a deep breath and dove under the water as I was taken under the cover of the bridge, and everything went dark as the light from the streetlights above was cut off by the shadows of the space under the bridge.
I could barely see anything as I swam around, in what I was by that point assuming was a futile hunt for the girl. To make matters worse, I could feel the current strengthening, and all of a sudden I was swept sideways as the river eddied around one of the supports of the bridge. I slammed into the support, the air driving itself from my lungs once more. The current spun me around and pinned my back to the support, my shirt snagging on some protrusion from the concrete. To my horror, I realized I was stuck fast, the freezing water rushing around me in the darkness.
“I’m going to die here.”
The thought entered my brain, and I began to panic, struggling back and forth, but the current was just too strong. I was going to drown, and I couldn’t even help the girl who’d gone in before me. I could see the glow of streetlights dimly above me, but I was too deep under for the light to really penetrate the water, and I could feel blackness closing in from the corners of my vision as my empty lungs began to take in water. It felt like a fire in my chest, and I coughed underwater, but instead of the air I desperately needed all I got was more water. Even worse, I could make out shapes in the darkness. They swirled around at the edge of my vision, pressing menacingly closer, and I could feel their malignant presence. I knew that whatever these things were, they would do me harm if they could. I closed my eyes, and the darkness turned to black.
With the last of my strength, I reached up behind me and felt around for where I was snagged. With what felt like a superhuman effort, I managed to tear my shirt away from the pillar and get my feet up under me against it. I pushed off, driving myself towards the surface, reaching out above me as I traveled up. As I flew towards the surface, I opened my eyes and saw a flash of white down low ahead of me, but there was no time to think about that.
My hand broke the surface first, and I coughed and vomited water as I gasped for air, struggling to stay above the surface. The current had me once more, and I could feel myself being dragged downstream. I could hear shouting from the shoreline downstream, but again didn’t have time to focus on it. The freezing water was fast sapping what little strength I had left, and I was still spluttering, trying to get the last of the water out of my lungs. I once again took a deep breath, and dove under the surface, heading for where the flash of white had been as I’d come up the last time.
Swimming down, I was struck by the thought that this was an incredibly bad idea, but I felt I had to at least try. Looking around, I tried to spy where to head for, but all I could see was the inky murk below me. Just as I was about to give up and resurface, I spotted the flash again! I kicked hard, fighting the current, and spotted the girl, floating face-up in what must have been a dead patch of water as the river didn’t seem to be moving her downstream. Worryingly, the dark shapes I had spotted in the water earlier seemed to be circling ever-closer, just out of my field of vision but close enough for me to catch near-constant flashes of movement. I tried to ignore them and swum for the girl.
As I got close, I felt the current grab me again, sending me quickly towards her. I could see I‘d overshoot her, so swam as hard as possible and reached down, managing to snag a grip on her arm as I went past. I pulled her to my chest as I swam upwards, and caught sight of her face, which was pale against the darkness, but looked surprisingly peaceful. We traveled towards the surface together and my heart sang to see I was only a couple of feet below the surface, and then we came to a dead stop in the water. Lungs aching by this point, I looked down to see what had stopped us, and saw her eyes snap open and look at mine. They were full of terror, and I could see her lip shake as she looked down at her right shoulder. I followed her gaze, and saw that the shape of a hand upon her, grabbing her tightly; the arm extending into the blackness that all of a sudden pressed in around us.
I stared in horror at the hand. It was the same darkness as the water and gloom that was pressing in on us, and I could see the figure that it was attached to looming behind her, but it was too murky to make out any details. I could feel its presence and I could make out a vaguely darker shape in the blackness, but that was all. The girl looked back at me, grabbing me by the upper arms as she did, and opened her mouth as if to say something, but then suddenly gripped harder; almost causing me to cry out in pain which would have wasted the ever-diminishing last of the air in my lungs.
The black hand had dug its fingers in, and I saw what can only be described as corruption flowing from it. The girl’s flesh turned grey and started to slough off, ever-widening holes in her skin exposing clammy muscle tissue and stark white bones. Within seconds, she looked as if she’d been in the water for months. I looked in horror at her face; her skin coming away, hair falling out in clumps, eyes widening and then seeming to burst, leaving empty sockets. Her lips came away and teeth became visible, and then came apart as her mouth opened in a silent scream. I realized by this point that I too was screaming underwater, the last of my air clawing its way from my lungs.
I looked at the dark hand and then into the gloom behind the girl, and saw what I could only describe as a grin in the blackness, but caught only a glimpse as the hand gripped even harder and jerked the girl from my grip, her hands torn away from my arms with the force of it. She was pulled away into the inky water, quickly disappearing from my view. I thrashed about in the water, trying to get to the surface. I felt something grab me by the scruff of my neck, and promptly passed out from a combination of fear and lack of air.
I came to on the shoreline, a young couple next to me, one pumping my chest and the other breathing air into my lungs. I sputtered and once again vomited and coughed up water. I could hear sirens in the distance getting closer as I struggled to sit up.
“Oh, thank God!” the guy exclaimed. “Buddy, we thought you were a goner!” He took off his coat and wrapped it around me, as I had begun to shiver violently. I’d probably been in the water for no more than a minute or two, but it had felt like a lifetime and was enough to chill me to the bone. “We called for an ambulance when you went in,” his girlfriend said. “They should be here in a minute.”
“Why did you jump in? Do you not know about how dangerous this river is?” he asked, looking slightly incredulous.
Trying to speak between bouts of violent shivering, I looked up at him. “There w-was a g-g-girl,” I stuttered. “She w-w-went in the w-water!”
The couple looked at each other. “….We didn’t see any girl…” she trailed off. He spoke up, and explained that they’d been walking along the waterfront as a shortcut, and had seen me jump off the bridge, surface and then go under again. Luckily, the current had taken me close enough to the shoreline for him to grab me as he went past. He thought he might have seen something dart past in the blackness as he lifted me out of the water, but assumed it was just a fish or a bit of debris. Neither of them had seen a girl in a white dress.
The ambulance turned up and took me off to the emergency room (picking up my satchel from the bridge along the way), where they got me warmed up and released me once they’d made sure I wasn’t hypothermic. They called the police when I told them about the girl and I was interviewed by some officers, but nothing ever came of the police investigation. They had divers in the water next few days but didn’t find anything, and the search was called off due to danger and lack of evidence. My girlfriend was furious when she found out I’d almost drowned, but softened when I told her I’d been trying to save someone. She was still angry at me for taking that sort of risk, however; saying I should have just called the police.
Life returned to normal fairly quickly. I took a week off work before going back, and my life goes on as it always did before that night. I did my own research on the river, and found reports a few years old of some missing persons who had last been seen by the river, one or two of who fit the description of the girl I’d seen, but I couldn’t be sure if it was any of them.
I walk a little quicker as I cross the bridge to and from work, however, often breaking into a jog. Every now and again I’ve heard a sob or caught a flash of white in the corner of my vision, but I just power forward, never breaking stride. And I’ll occasionally see dark shapes swirling in the water from the window of my apartment, but I try not to look too closely. Like they say, the River is full of secrets, and I’m of the opinion that some secrets are best kept.
|
It began about a week ago, as I slept. I was having the most bizarre nightmare I’ve ever had.
I was alone, and surrounded by darkness. I couldn’t see or sense anything. I couldn’t even see my own body. Then something started.
At first it was just tapping, like the steps of a tap dancer. It was a low and quiet noise, so faint I wasn’t certain I had heard anything at all. They came through the pitch darkness from a source I could not see. They sounded hollow and distant, far too distant for such a quiet noise to travel, and echoed despite not having anything visible to make them echo.
Stranger still was the rhythm. The steps bounced and clicked like a tap dancers, but seemed to follow no pattern at all. They came in bursts of inhuman speed then paused at random intervals, following no structure or cadence.
Most unsettling of all, however, was the strange feeling I got when I heard them. The second I noticed the taps everything in me warned me of danger. Though I could never tell you why, I felt disturbed and nervous to a degree I had never felt before. There was a lot that was clearly wrong that I could explain with words. The irregularity of the rhythm, the inexplicable echo, the distant hollowness, the inhuman bursts of speed were all recognizably wrong. But there was something else that was far worse.
It made me think of something I had been told a long time ago. Sometimes we can sense things we don’t consciously notice. If we walk into a room the moment before a fight, we will know, even if we don’t know why. The subtle cues- glares, avoidance of eye contact, tightened fists, barely heard threats- will warn us of the danger. If a wild animal were following us, we may here the noise of sticks breaking or of its breath, and our mind would tell us to run without us knowing why. This, in the wild, was life or death. Most superstitions come from these ancient instincts. We know there is something wrong, but we don’t know why.
And there was something wrong with those steps.
…
I woke to the sound of my alarm. I looked at my clock, which told me it was 7 am. For a moment I lay in my bed. What could have caused such an odd dream? The sounds in it were strange. I had never seen tap dancing before, and the rhythm was impossible for a human to maintain anyway. I looked around my room for something that may have caused it. My bed was normal. The same blue walls, single window and bookshelf as before. Perhaps something else in my apartment caused it, but I couldn’t think of what. I had never had a dream like that before and didn’t know why I had, or why it stayed so firmly in my mind.
I shrugged my shoulders. A dream was a dream, and nothing more. I needed to get to work, and strange dreams wouldn’t be an excuse for being late. I got up slowly, exhausted from a night broken by the unsettling nightmares. I checked myself in the mirror, and the signs of a rough night were clear. My eyes were blood shot with dark circles underneath them, and my skin was haggard, hanging as if it was loosely attached to my bones. Nevertheless, I got dressed, and headed to work.
For the most part my day was normal. I took the bus, paid the fair and said hello to the bus driver. I showed my card at the reception desk and went into the office. I sat at my desk, got down to work, took my breaks, and finished at 4:00 just liked any other day. People smiled and asked how I was doing, work was done, and all went well.
However, it was clear something was wrong.
It took me a while to notice what it was. Like with the tapping, there was simply a general feeling of unease which I couldn’t identify.
It became clear when I was talking to Carla, a middle aged and brown haired woman. We shared a cubical where we both worked at our computer.
“Jerald,” she asked, speaking to me, “did you see where my coffee went?”
I looked around. It was right beside her, within reach of her right arm.
“Yes Carla, it’s right there? Can’t you see it?” I replied.
“Oh, oh jeeze excuse me. I guess I am just a bit out of it today. Didn’t sleep well last night.”
I took in the words slowly, but something about them struck me. Then I realized what it was.
Everyone, from the bus driver to the receptionist to the people at my office, had the same haggard, exhausted look that I had. They all had bloodshot eyes with bags under them. They all moved slowly and spoke in low voices. Not a single person that I saw that day had slept well.
I began to notice small changes in the way people behaved. Things moved slower, people’s voices sounded slightly different. I tried to tell myself that it was all in my head, that I just needed more sleep, but the feeling persisted.
There could be a thousand explanations, I knew. Something on the highway had made too much noise, interrupting peoples sleep. Perhaps there was a storm I missed. Maybe people were kept up by a news report of some violent activity in someplace I had never heard of. Most likely of all, was that it was just a coincidence, and I was tricking myself by making it seem significant.
But the thought still stayed in my head. The more I looked around me, the more I was sure it was true. Something was keeping people from sleeping, and I had to know what it was.
I returned to my apartment and ate a quick supper. I packed everything for the next day, and got ready for bed.
I tried to make sure nothing would disturb me that night. Perhaps it was some outside factor, like a broken pipe or extra traffic that created the dreams and left me awake. I closed my door, and double checked the lock. I shut the window and closed my blinds. Finally, I got a pair of earplugs and put them in. I set my alarm, turning it up so I could hear it with the plugs, and lay down to sleep.
…
The noise was back. However, this time it was louder, much louder. While the night before it had been so quiet and distant I was barely sure I heard anything at all, tonight it was clear. It was the same irregular rhythm, almost inhuman and impossible in its steps, and with no music or beauty. The same echo and hollowness, like something distant in a cave.
I was still surrounded by pitch black. I had no idea what it was that was making the noise. However, each step sent chills down my spine, and came with the same sense of something utterly and inexplicably wrong.
They were getting closer. Each step was slightly louder and sharper, as if the movement of the dance brought the dancer toward me with each step, and the feeling of unease grew and grew. Soon the dancer would be in focus, and I was sure I didn’t want to see it.
…
I woke up to the alarm again, feeling more tiered then I did when I went to sleep. I got ready, and left my bedroom.
I wandered down the street towards my bus stop. The faces around me were more haggard and weary then the day before. People stared at the ground and walked in unsteady paces, not having the energy to straighten up. A traffic cop wandered by rows of cars without checking for proofs of payment. A homeless man with a hat in front of himself slapped his legs and the ground lazily as his eyes rolled back, possibly in a drugged or drunken stupor. The bus driver didn’t check the number of tickets and dollar bills that were handed to him, and I am not certain if I paid the right amount.
I got to work, and did my best to make it through the day. I moved slowly and barely got anything done, but it didn’t seem anyone noticed. All the people around me were absorbed in their own worlds, struggling too hard to complete their own work to pay attention to me.
Carla and I forced some chat between ourselves. However, for the most part we barely had enough energy to even acknowledge each other’s existence. Between to two of us we finished nearly a dozen cups of coffee, which lay piled up in and around the garbage can as the janitor didn’t seem to notice the mess.
There was something else bothering me. If I had been more awake and aware, I may have been able to figure out what it was more easily. As it was, it stayed at the edge of my mind, like a name on the tip of my tongue or a few seconds of a song which was stuck in my head but I couldn’t identify. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Something about that morning had disturbed me greatly.
I took the bus back and went through my nightly routine, still mulling over what it could be. I lay down, still thinking about it. I was at the edge of sleep when the idea hit me, bringing me fully away and conscious for the first time in two days. My heart beat so loudly and quickly I could hear it in my ears and my breathing came in great gasping pants. Instantly sweat poured off my forehead and soaked my bed sheets. I knew exactly what was bothering me.
It was the homeless man I had passed by that morning, the one I thought was drunk. He had been tapping the same rhythm I heard in my dreams.
…
At first I didn’t notice that I was in the dream
I had tried to stay awake. The second I realized what it was I had heard that morning, I had gotten out of my bed and walked into the kitchen. I remember making coffee to keep myself awake.
However, here I was again. The thought that I must be asleep on the ground somewhere, or perhaps passed out on my couch, passed briefly through my mind.
No matter.
I was here, and here I stayed.
The tapping was back. Once again, it was far louder, almost deafening.
But something had changed.
At first it was just a light. That may not be the right word for it, however, because like everything else in this dream it didn’t behave like it should.
Everything around me was still pitch black. If the dream had allowed me to have a hand and I had held it in front of me, I would not have seen it.
However, what I could see was a tiny dot in front of me, seemingly coming over a horizon that was far closer than it should have been. There was just enough light to see it and nothing else.
I watched the dot in horrid fascination. It was clear to me that it, somehow, was the origin of the tapping noise. It gave me the same chills and sense of unease as the sound had, but far stronger now that I could see it.
It slowly grew and grew, becoming the shape of a head. As it moved towards me it also came higher, clearing the horizon until its entire body was visible.
It was at that point I realized that all my horror and feelings of something inexplicably wrong were justified.
It took my mind a moment to comprehend what I saw. I almost wanted to laugh, break down and fall into insanity rather than accept that this was in front of me. This thing broke all the laws of nature I had lived with. It was something that, from what I knew, could not have existed in the same world I did.
But there it was.
I had no idea what it was, but it was not human. It may have had the shape and outline of a human, but it wasn’t.
If it had been human it would have been a tall man with light brown hair and a face I couldn’t see yet. It wore a bright red and white suit, with tight leggings and a chest split down to the belly button. If it were standing still, everything about it would mark it as human.
The way it moved, however, was distinctly inhuman.
The limbs moved randomly about, flailing as it stepped. They bent at odd angles, impossible for any living creature. The spine twisted and twirled into bizarre knots and shapes. The joints would bend all the way forward and continue on past the natural point, looping around in circles they shouldn’t have been able to make. Then they would twist back and in entirely the wrong direction. At times it would bend where no man had joints to bend, with twists occurring halfway up the fore arm or on the shin.
This grotesque, disfigured thing moved toward me at a slow but unending pace. The tapping of its feet continued along with the cracking of its own limbs, still making that disturbing rhythm. The sound was off from what I saw, like hearing gunfire seconds after seeing it happen miles away. Everything about what I saw was wrong.
If I could have closed my eyes, I would have.
…
The alarm woke me up and I found myself lying on my living room carpet in front of the TV, which was turned to the news. It took me a second to realize the alarm may have been going for a while.
I looked at the clock. It was 8:23, and I was almost late for work.
I rushed out of my apartment, not bothering to eat, shave, or even turn off the TV. I ran and barely made the last bus toward my office.
I sat down on a seat.
The air on the bus was thick with anxiety.
Everywhere around me exhausted eyes were kept awake only by terror. People were jittery, glancing around nervously and tapping themselves to stay away, fearful of what would happen if they slipped back into sleep. I swore that every so often someone, in their sleepless absentmindedness, would begin to tap the same irregular rhythm that had haunted my dreams. Though it may have been the exhaustion that clouded my own mind, I am certain that eyes would dart towards them, filled with fearful recognition, until they had stopped the awful sound.
People tried to maintain a semblance of normality. Conversations continued in broken and winding sentences, drifting off into the gibberish of a sleepless mind. All around me was the constant noise of a city. The whine of the bus’s engine, the squeak of tires, and the conversation of countless faceless people in the crowds continued.
But something was different.
Every so often, a noise would come through the endless moan of the city. It was like hearing your name while in a noisy crowd or the phone ring when in the shower- the sounds would meld together to make something they were not.
And that sound was a tapping. But not just any tapping, the tapping from my dreams.
I tried to tell myself it was my own imagination, that a lack of sleep was making me hallucinate. But It seemed that a moment of silence that always occurred after it, or the eyes that darted in every direction when it happened. People had heard it, and were reacting to it. I was certain of it.
I got off the bus and headed straight to work. I ignored the street musicians who, despite having music in front of them, lost track of their place and broke into an all too familiar rhythm.
I got to the office, and did everything I could not to pay attention to anyone around me.
They seemed thankful for my efforts. Everyone around me was too exhausted, and too frightened, to talk. It was on the tip of our tongs and no one wanted to say it. There was something wrong, and we all knew it.
I returned to my apartment that afternoon. The TV was still on, and I went to turn it off. Just as the screen was turning black, I caught the last snippet of sound. For a second, I was sure I had heard the word “Dancer.”
As quickly as I could I turned the tv back on. I had missed it, and they had moved on to another conversation.
However, the signs were all there.
They had the bags under their bloodshot eyes, the lose skin, the sad, dreary expressions that came from days of constant nightmares.
I wasn’t the only one.
If he existed, the dancer was everywhere.
…
Once again I had no recollection of going to sleep. I hadn’t tried to, and would have done everything I could to stay awake.
But there I was. The dream had surrounded me again, and I was trapped inside it until morning.
The taps were louder than thunder. The being, whatever it was, was moving toward me and getting larger. Despite the fact it was clearly getting nearer, the steps still maintained their distant, hollow sound, the echo, and the moment’s pause between the sight of disfigured feet hitting the ground and their noise.
The being was close to me now. It was close enough that, if it had been facing me, I should have seen its face in detail, down to the pupils in its eyes.
However, it had its back turned.
I swayed from side to side in its regular inhuman manner, coming close to letting me see its face. Each time, however, it turned away at the last moment. It was still moving toward me, and if I could have moved away, I would have. However, I could not control my own body, and was stuck in place.
Finally, it began to turn completely toward me.
First it stopped its horrid dance like movement. Then its feet twisted around, facing a full one hundred and eighty degrees from its body. Then its knees cranked backwards, and slowly its entire body twisted, rattling as it did, toward me.
And I saw its face.
…
I awoke in complete panic. The alarm hadn’t gone off, but my own breathing was louder then it could have been. I stared into the darkness around me, almost in tears from the fright. Everything from the clothes I wore to the carpet beneath me was soaked with sweat. I didn’t know what was worse-the image of the face, or the vague feeling that it was somehow familiar.
In the pale light of an early morning sun I could make out that I had once again collapsed in my living room. I got up and ran to the nearest light switch and flicked it on. Light flooded my room, only relieving my fright slightly.
I looked at my clock. It was 5:45, and on a normal day I would have gone back to sleep. Today, however, the thought of even maybe seeing that thing and its awful face again kept me awake.
I got ready slowly. I was grateful for the extra time, as every movement took twice as long as it normally did. I fumbled with my buttons, and cut myself twice while shaving. Every time I paused for even a moment, I slipped slightly towards unconsciousness and the horrible, inhuman rhythm filled my ears.
I drank as much coffee as I could and headed outside.
On the bus, all semblance of normalcy had collapsed. No one attempted regular conversation or bothered to hide their terrified jittering and glances around the bus. The sound of the tapping still came at times, and now the reaction wasn’t even subtle. The entire bus would turn and stare off in its direction with worried eyes, wondering when it would stop.
The bus driver, just as exhausted as everyone else, could barely work. He swerved left and right, and almost collided with a tree. Finally I hit the button and got off, deciding, as many had, to walk the rest of the way.
The first thing I noticed was an artist, offering sketches for five dollars. He had a customer, but seemed to be struggling to make the face look right. He kept trying over and over again, and finally threw the paper down on the ground in front of himself. I saw the edges of the half drawn face, and tried to tell myself they didn’t look like the disgusting creature I had seen the night before. The artist, as well as his customer, stared at it in horror.
The second one came from a group of children playing by the road. They ran around and flailed their arms, playing and kicking dirt to make lines on the ground. I watched, knowing I would regret seeing what I saw but unable to turn away. It wasn’t long before my horrible suspicions were confirmed, and the lines took shape. Slowly, it became the rough outline of the same face from the dreams. The children didn’t seem to notice, and continued playing, still jumping around and flailing their arms. I became nauseous watching, and for a moment I was certain one of the children was imitating the inhuman dancing that I had seen.
At the time I still wasn’t convinced it was real. It seemed like all the signs were there, but it may have been my imagination. Perhaps I was looking too far into things. Perhaps I was even going insane. That was almost a welcome thought at this point. Even telling myself this was all a hallucination, and that soon I would be tied in a madhouse until it stopped, was better than accepting it.
But all thoughts in that direction ended that afternoon.
I was working at my desk when I felt something hit me from behind.
I looked over to see Carla leaning over me.
“Oh jeeze, I’m sorry Jerald” she said.
“What? Did you trip?” I asked.
“No, I think I just fell. I’m sorry, I’ve had trouble sleeping. Its that god damn dan…..” she stopped as if she suddenly realized she was saying the wrong thing, and looked away.
I sat up straighter and looked toward her. “The dancer,” I said in a calm voice.
She turned toward me, a look of horror in her eyes. Every hand in the office stopped talking and everyone stopped working. Faces in the office turned toward me, filled with fright and exhausted helplessness.
“The dancer,” she replied.
“You’ve seen it took. That… that thing from the dreams.”
“Yes,” she said, and others around the office nodded.
“Do you… did you see what it looked like? What its face was?” I asked.
“Yes, just last night. I… I’m not sure if I remember it clearly.”
“Maybe we can figure this out. Get out paper, let’s see if we can draw it.”
Right now I can’t tell you why I said this. Looking back it was ridiculous, even insane to try something like that. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep. Perhaps it is just hindsight. Or perhaps it made me do it. But at the time, no one seemed to object. We took out a piece of paper, and someone from the office I hadn’t seen much before but claimed to be able to draw started working on it.
We all started describing what we remembered, like witnesses describing a criminal to a police artist. None of us could remember it exactly, but we recognized parts of it. And image began to form, and it was one we all knew.
On the piece of paper was the most terrifying face I had ever seen. Its features were sharp and clear. Its cheekbones poked out of its skin and its cheeks were sunken in like a skeleton. Its hair was parted on the right side, with a long lick of it extending halfway down to its left eye. Its eyes were narrow and deep in its skull, but blazed with the look of mischievousness and malicious intent. Its ears were thin and pointed, almost to the point of being inhuman. But worse of all was the cruel, toothy grin that it flashed as if baring its teeth to bite. The grin was far too wide, with its lips extending too high for any human.
We all backed away from drawing.
It was a face we had never really see before, but all recognized. It came in a thousand names that repeated again and again throughout history and in the subconscious of every human. Children today were afraid of the boogey man. Earlier it had been Spring Heeled Jack, the Black Horseman, the Wendigo, Beelzebub, Loki, Prometheus, the Titan, Lucifer. Its limbs were shattered and tortured, as if it was flung from the heavens and shattered on the ground or tied to a rock to be tortured over and over again, immortal but unable to stop the pain or repair its devastated bones. If it was the origin of the old names, or had taken them afterwards to feed on the fear on the fear of its victims, was unclear.
But every man knew it. Madmen knew it better, it was what haunted their visions and nightmares. It was the face of fright that every man knew in the deepest reaches of his mind but couldn’t bring out clearly. It was a face scrawled on the walls of madhouses, and painted into scenes of torture. Something we all told ourselves didn’t exist and created a thousand explanations for throughout history.
And it was here now, in our dreams.
I began to hear a noise.
We all heard it, though at first we all denied that we had. No one wanted to acknowledge the sound.
But it was there.
I prayed for a moment that I had slipped into a dream again, but I knew the truth. This wasn’t coming from a dream. This wasn’t random noise combining into a bizarre semi-hallucination. This was real.
All around me was dead silence, except for that tapping of that thing.
It was clear and precise. Gone was the hollowness or semblance of an echo. Whatever was making the noise was in the hallway outside the front door of the office.
And it was getting closer.
I began to back away slowly. Others did the same, staring toward the door and the origin of the noise.
It was getting louder and louder. From the sound, it should have been just outside the door.
The doorknob turned, and I screamed. I turn and ran as fast as I could along with everyone else in the room.
I didn’t dare to look behind me. I ran out the back door of the office, down the stairs and toward the parking lot. Behind me I could hear the screams and cries for help of people who knew they faced death. I didn’t turn back. There was nothing I could do, and I knew it.
I ran as fast as I could. The streets were empty. No cars were moving on the road, and nobody was walking on the side walk.
Miraculously, there was a bus waiting for me at the stop. Though there was no one waiting beside it, the door was open, inviting me forward.
I ran toward the bus, then stopped.
The driver was exactly the same as always, except for a horrid, impossibly long grin on his face. He extended an arm forward. The limb twisted and creaked in impossible angles and beckoned me inside. I shook my head, and kept running.
I ran as fast as I could. I passed by the same field I had seen the children in earlier. They were still there. Or, what had once been them was there. They were all staring at me with the same expression as the driver. None of them moved from the spot they stood on, but all of them extended their arms towards me, beckoning me with broken joints. I looked away, and kept running.
Everywhere I went it was the same. No one moved, at least not enough to leave the spot they stood on. They all stood staring at me with horrifying grins and waving me towards themselves with arms that twisted in wrong directions. I did everything I could to ignore them, and finally made it home.
I locked all my doors, shut my windows, and sat down.
I had no idea what to think, or what to do. I wasn’t sure if I was safe. Something had happened to all those people out there. That, or it had happened to me. It occurred to me that it was still entirely possible that I was insane. This could all have been a hallucination, or a horrid dream. What a welcome thought it was, and one I vainly wished was true.
But as much as I tried, I couldn’t convince myself it was.
The day wore on, and became night. I drank all the coffee in my house, trying to stay awake. But I knew deep down it was impossible
…
The sound was in my ears, as if it was mere meters away. At first I thought it was the dream again.
But I was wide awake.
It was the middle of the night. I had passed out on the floor just like each night before.
Unlike those nights, however, I had been woken up by a noise before the dream started.
The footsteps were inside my apartment.
I got up and bolted for the door. I didn’t bother to look around the room, fearing what I would see. But out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the pointed ears and the terrible grin.
I ran out of the now empty apartment building and into my car, which I kept stored for long trips and emergencies. I got inside and drove. I had no idea where I was going, as long as it was away.
I sped down as fast as I could. The streets were completely empty, as nothing moved. I ignored all the faces on the side of the road, knowing full well what they would look like and what expression they would have. Once I had left the city, I saw no one and passed no vehicle.
I drove all day, siphoning fuel from a side of the road gas station that was as empty as everything else I passed, then kept driving.
The world began to seem different. I am not sure if it really looked different, or if it was more of a sense. Things were darker. Light wasn’t as light as before, and the sun wasn’t as bright. Even in the middle of the day, when the sun was right on top of me, everything seemed dim and cold. The little light I did see appeared a more reddish colour, like rust.
Or, though I fear to say it, like blood.
The sky itself begun to look different. It changed in an odd way, something like an optical illusion. If I looked at the sky, trying to see it, it was normal, blue with white clouds. But whenever I caught a glimpse of it randomly or saw it out of the corner of my eye, it was different. Much different. The clouds became darker, almost black, and the sky a deep red color like the light I saw all around me.
Soon it was nightfall, and once again it was different. Even the dark was darker than normal, and the black was blacker. There are no other words for it. It was more of a sense, an inexplicable feeling rather than outright site. But I knew it was true.
I began to feel my eyelids grow heavy. I knew that if I kept driving, I would fall asleep at the wheel, just like I had collapsed on the ground the nights before.
I pulled over. I had put a few hundred miles between myself and that thing, hopefully that was enough.
I fell asleep.
I awoke again in the morning. The first rays of a dim sun were shining through my windshield. At first I thought I had survived. I looked at the road, and considered what to do.
Something caught my eye. A distant speck appeared for a moment in my mirror, and began to get larger and larger. Something was coming toward me, and it didn’t take long to figure out what it was.
It was there. I could see it clearly now, and even at the distance, it was unmistakable. The random motion, the impossible twitches, the horrid, offbeat dancing, and worse of all the inexplicable sense of dread were all the same. I could hear its footsteps and the cracking of its bones in my ears.
I put my foot on the peddle and drove as fast as I could. I pushed my car to its very limits, trying to get away.
That night I stopped again, knowing I was going to pass out. I wished with all my heart I could stay away longer, but I knew that vicious spell would fall over me and I would collapse soon.
I barely made it through half the night. I awoke when it was almost pitch black. Slightly dazed, I wondered what woke me.
I heard a tapping.
Right outside my window was the grinning face of that horrid thing. It was tapping a finger on my window in the same irregular pattern I had heard in my dreams. It danced toward me, never breaking eye contact, never releasing its smile. It reached toward the handle of my car door.
I drove away.
Every day and every night it was the same. I moves as quickly as possible, siphoning gas and pushing my car to its limits.
And every time I checked the mirror, it was there in the distance.
Every time I stopped, it was closer than before.
Every time I fell asleep, I woke up after a shorter interval to see it standing there and hear its awful sound. I tried to stay awake every night, but somehow sleep always overcame me, and I would pass out without realizing it.
I became more and more exhausted as my intervals of sleep became shorter and shorter. My car, too, began to wear down. I had gotten lucky in the first few days, always finding gas stations when I needed them. Gradually they became further apart and harder to find.
Finally the engine huffed, and it ran out, the final fumes burning out of my car’s engine. I sobbed hopelessly. Night was drawing in, and I knew that no matter what I did, the unwanted sleep would come again.
This time I barely slept a minute when I woke up.
I felt something on my cheek.
Its finger was running down my face, caressing it.
I looked over. That thing was sitting in the seat beside me, grinning at me. I didn’t have the energy to scream, but I felt the tears run down my cheeks.
I got out the door and ran. After weeks of barely any sleep my body could barely move and objected to my commands, but I did what I could. There are few better motivators then mortal fear.
I ran as fast and as far as my body would allow. I didn’t bother looking back. The entire time I ran, I could hear the tapping of that thing’s feet coming up behind me. No matter how fast I moved, they never seemed to get further way. However, every time I stopped, they got closer with frightening speed.
Finally I found what seemed to be an abandoned house. It was a small, single story building, with only one window and one door. It was more of a shack then a house really, or maybe a hunting lodge. It had come out of nowhere, the only building after miles of road and forest.
For a second I doubted if I should go in. This could easily be a trap of some kind, set up by that being, whatever it was. But I had no other option. I was out of breath, and my legs ached and could barely move.
I stepped inside, and locked the door.
There was only one room, which contained inside it a bed, dining table, kitchen, and desk.
I locked every window and covered them with furniture and objects I found around the house. The footsteps were getting louder, and I would put anything I could between myself and them. I grabbed a knife, from the kitchen, not knowing what I would do with it when the time came. I am not certain if it will even work against whatever that thing is.
It is outside my door now, hammering at it. The pounding is rin
|
If there was one thing I knew for sure it was that the moment our new neighbors moved in next to us, things in our quiet little suburb seemed to fall out of place. Now don’t get me wrong, the walls of my house didn’t start to bleed or anything, but, something just changed.
The first day the Smiths moved in, my mom made it her goal to make the new foreigners feel welcomed in our little covenant controlled community. My mom, although she was a flight attendant and was often out of town, liked to welcome any new comer to the neighborhood, which sadly involved her dragging me, her awkward seventeen year old daughter, to welcome any new family.
The Smiths, if I could describe them in a word, seemed very…. strained. The couple both had a set of dark circles under their eyes, and after flashing my mother and I with an exhausted smile, they introduced themselves and their baby, whose name seems to have escaped me. It’s understandable that having a screaming, pooping hellion roaming around one’s house would increase the levels of stress, but these people looked like they had been through an uphill battle. Several things betrayed the normality of them, like the bandage wrapped around the husbands hand, or how the wife seemed to cling just a little too close to her baby. After giving them a batch of slightly burned cookies and saying our goodbyes, my mother and I took the unbearable 20 second walk back to our home.
“Well,” My mother started, “They seemed like a nice couple.”
“I just hope that we won’t be able to hear that baby screaming at ungodly hours of the night,” I mumbled, instantly getting scolded about how I needed to be more friendly. Easy for my mom to say because she would be out of town most of the time and didn’t have to deal with whatever obnoxious family moved in next.
It was actually was a couple of weeks before anything strange started to happen. Between school and my mom heading out to catch her next flight, I didn’t really have time to add two and two together about what was going on. At first it was only little things, trash cans being knocked over, mail scattered out of our mailbox, keys being misplaced, and even finding my toothbrush knocked off the bathroom counter. But nothing that made me think something malicious was taking place.
One thing that did raise my suspicions was when I was home alone (nothing new to me) and had just returned from school. I walked into my kitchen and looked out the window over the sink, which, much to my dismay, looked right through the backyard and into the kitchen window of our new neighbor’s house. Whether they were home or out, the Smiths always had their blinds shut, but when I walked up to the sink to wash my hands, I saw what looked like someone parting the blinds and looking straight at me. Feeling slightly taken back, I quickly gave them a short wave and turned away. I mean, both of the couple’s cars were in the driveway, maybe one of them was looking out into their backyard for something. I didn’t realize that the eyes from behind the window kept watching me until I disappeared down the hallway to the bathroom.
Sitting at the kitchen table and dining on the cheapest Chinese take out I could order, I strained to finish my math homework. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a crash from my garage, accompanied by my dog barking like an idiot.
“Kimbo!” I yelled, throwing open the garage door, looking accusingly into the dog run, trying to get a glimpse of the clumsy canine. However, Kimbo stood innocently in the center of the caged enclosure, but stared intensely at the once neatly stacked pile of wood. Walking into the cold room and flicking on the light, it looked as if someone had pulled out the bottom of the stand the wood had once sat on, leaving all of it to topple to the floor. I sighed and lazily nudged the wood into a makeshift pile, not feeling motivated enough to re-stack it all. But as I reached the back of the pile, which had the highest stack of wood on it, something shifted under the wood and moved deeper into the garage.
Jumping back out of surprise and fear I let out a yelp, nearly tripping over my makeshift pile. We’ve had mice and what not living in our garage before, but never something that big. Was it possible that a rat or even a possum had made it’s way into our house to escape the bite of the winter cold?
Not wanting to mess with any rabies infested rodent, I let Kimbo inside the house, but left the doggy door leading to outside of the garage open, in hope that what ever crawled in would crawl right back out.
Finishing my sub par dinner and settling down for bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about what was in the garage. I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever was in the woodpile was something… more. It was like that unsettling feeling when you think you’ve left the oven on, you suspect that something is wrong, but still try to brush it off.
I tossed and turned all night, waking up at the sound of the heater turning on or hearing Kimbo shift in his sleep. But whenever I thought I was finally drifting to sleep, I could’ve sworn that there was something standing on my bed, close enough to me to where I could feel the added pressure… but never close enough to confirm that it wasn’t just my imagination.
After facing another sleep deprived day of school, I didn’t even have time to think about the events of the other night. Until I got home.
I was greeted with the smell of rotting food and a plethora of torn paper plates. The black trash can that normally resides in the corner of our kitchen was toppled over, it’s contents spilled across the once clean wood floor. This isn’t right.
Peeking my head out of our back door I noticed Kimbo lazing around on the grass, gnawing on a raw hide. Walking back over to the garbage heap I noticed the plastic bag looked like it went through a blender; long tears and holes were torn through the white plastic. Feeling unsettled I picked up the trash and did my best to sprint into the garage to dispose of the war zone. As I heaved the bag into the can, I saw something skitter in the corner of my eye. That’s right, something skittered, like a spider running from the judgement of a shoe heel.
Whipping around I caught a flash of pinkish grey flesh disappear behind a folding chair.
What the hell was that.
With every horror movie resurfacing in my mind I shakily grabbed the fire poker by the wood pile and inched closer to the chair. There was no was I was going to miss school and be sent to the ER to get a rabies vaccination just because some rat, or whatever that thing was, decided to call my garage its home. Clutching the iron poker I slowly moved the chair, getting ready to book it back into my house at any moment. Slowly, I inched the chair over, until suddenly the chair slipped and came crashing down to the floor, a sharp hiss rang out through the garage.
Where the chair once stood, crouched and cornered, sat what could only be described as what looked a hairless cat by first glance. Upon further investigation, I realized that I was wrong.
That… thing, had black beady eyes that popped out of it’s head that seemed to have no end, there was no neck to determine where the chest began and where the chin connected. A tail flicked behind it, hairless as well and had the texture of a rat’s scaly appendage, but attached at the end was a snaggled, dirty, curved claw that looked like it would be better suited on a velociraptor. But that wasn’t the worst part, no. The part that sent chills up my spine was when that thing hissed at me again, revealing rows of needle thin, sharp, and unorganized yellowing teeth. Like how a shark has extra rows of teeth, it had at least two rows of snapping teeth on the bottom part of it’s jaw. It lurched up on it’s spindly, long emaciated looking legs and it’s abdomen stood at least one foot off the ground. At first I thought it was just baring its teeth at me, telling me to back off, but then I realized that it was… smiling.
Grinning, skin stretched out to expose it’s slimy teeth and lizard like tongue. When it smiled, I knew. I knew that this wasn’t just some freak of nature, some mutated sewer rat that crawled out from the city. This thing knew what it was doing, it knew I was afraid, it had a some kind of thought pattern, because I have never seen any animal, crazed or afraid, with that kind of evil intent in it’s eyes.
I couldn’t help but let out a scream, stepping back and holding the fire poker with both hands. Trying to inch my way back to the door, but the creature wasn’t planning on letting me go.
It bolted towards me with unimaginable swiftness on it’s twig like legs, but as it leapt into the air I swung my foot out and sent it flying back, further into the garage. Without looking twice I slammed the door behind me and turned the small lock, frozen in place as I heard a shrill squeal through my only barricade, followed by a loud thump. That thing was throwing itself against the door, albeit it wasn’t doing much good, each thud reverberated in my bones.
I don’t know how long I stood there, pressed against the door with tears streaming down my face, but when it finally stopped, I ran to grab my cellphone off of the couch.
At this point, I didn’t care that I was in hysterics when I got my mom on the phone, trying to explain what happened through sobs and heaves. But by the time she had managed to hear the full story, she was instantly irritated, thinking that I had let my overactive imagination get the best of myself. But, none the less, she said that her flight had just landed back home, and would return in about an hour.
By the time she actually came back, I had locked myself and Kimbo in my room, huddled in a corner with my night stand blocking the door. She hesitated when she saw how scared I was, still shaking and as white as a sheet.
My mom made me go back into the garage with her, I was so close to just grabbing my car keys and going to my friend’s house, but if that thing was still I couldn’t just leave her in the house alone. She led me into the cold and disheveled room, poking through the pieces of wood and various other objects that lined the car less garage.
It was gone.
There wasn’t even a trace of the terror that nearly… nearly did what to me? That thing certainly wasn’t some friendly forest creature, but was it out to kill me?
My mother by this time was angry and tired, and told me to get some rest. That’s the cure for anything, isn’t it? Just go to bed and in the morning everything will be magically fixed. Before I had gone to bed, she told me this, “You can’t just let those little things freak you out like that. It’s always the little things.” She was referring to how stressed I was about school and finals, but I still wasn’t persuaded.
As if I need to say this, but, I didn’t sleep at all that night. I wasn’t going to risk letting whatever that was crawl into my room and attack me in my sleep.
But, the next morning my mom continued to tell me that I had just scared myself, and honestly, I believed her. That was the easy way out, to avoid conflict and just go to school like normal. And it worked, though I always had that incident in the back of my mind, I found myself too busy with finals at school and finishing projects. It really worked too, until school got out and I was left alone in the house for winter break. Mom promised me that she would be back by late Christmas Eve, saying that a last minute flight had come up and the other attendant couldn’t make it. As much as I wanted to beg and cry for her to stay, I just let her go, it wasn’t worth arguing over something like this with my mother when she had a predetermined ending in her mind.
I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t scared, but the first several days of break passed by without a hitch. I had Kimbo at my side 24/7, and made sure I was always within an arms length of the fire poker I had managed to hide from my mom. I may have been on edge, but really… nothing strange happened. It was like everything returned to normal.
I felt like I could finally relax, December 24th was here, and I had decided to just spend the rest of my afternoon watching cheesy Hallmark movies and eating popcorn. Before I knew it the sun was setting, even though it was only about six, one of the disadvantages of winter. It was perfect, I had a nice fire going, Kimbo was curled on the couch with me, and my mom was going to be home in a few hours.
Then I heard it. That sound that made all of the fear, and panic, suddenly resurface and settle into my gut. That skittering sound, getting louder, and closer, with each passing second.
But it wasn’t coming from the garage.
It was coming from the hallway beside me, next to the end of the couch.
The light from the TV and fire was enough to partially penetrate the darkness of the hallway. And I pray to whatever god is up there, that it hadn’t.
That thing was coming towards be, barely shrouded by the darkness, but the last time I had seen it move it was in a short and fast burst. No this, this was something else altogether. The thing pranced as if it was a puppet being controlled by a toddler, it’s twisted gait heaving itself up and down on spindly legs. It didn’t stop smiling, not even when I screamed louder than I ever have, throwing myself off of the couch and reaching for my fire poker.
Before my hands could even brush the cool iron of my closest weapon, I felt something latch onto my calf, what felt like hundreds of needles piercing my flesh and sinking in deeper to the soft muscle. Letting out a cry of agony and looking back, I saw that it had sunken it’s rancid teeth into the back of my leg. It was faster than I thought it could be. I felt paralyzed, frozen in time as I tried to reach for the poker, but to no avail.
In my panic, I didn’t hear the loud snarling and growls as Kimbo launched himself at the monster, sinking his own teeth into the hairless flesh of the beast.
It screeched, like a pig and a cat crying out in agony at the same time, as my dog got a hold of it, but it wasn’t to be beaten that easily. It’s tail lashed out, cutting Kimbo down along his side, and slipped out from between the canine’s jaws. Letting out a whine Kimbo backed off, but the creature skittered off to the nearest doorway; the basement.
As quickly as I could I pulled myself up and grabbed the fire poker. Words cannot describe how badly my leg burned, I never imagined the pain would be like this, and was always under the impression that adrenaline would cover up any injury. Not only that, but the bite was deep, and blood was already seeping through my pant leg. I knew that I couldn’t focus on that now though.
That monster had waited for me to let down my guard, it watched and waited since it last attacked me. I won’t let it win, I can’t let this thing hurt me, or my mom, or Kimbo. I had to kill it.
Wincing as I stood up, I turned every light on in the living room and kitchen, grabbing a can of oven spray, skipping over the knives. There was no way in hell I was going to get that close to that things just to cut it.
Shakily standing at the top of the stairs I let out I hushed whimper. It just had to be the goddamn basement. The one place that only had one exit. I flipped the light on at the top of the stairs and slowly made my descent, making sure not to let my leg give out from under me.
What a joke. A 5’5 teenage girl limping down the stairs with a fire poker and a can of oven cleaner, if I wasn’t ready to wet my pants I might have been laughing.
When I reached the bottom, I scanned the room. Couches lined one wall, facing a TV, and a pool table lied on the other side of the room, but the creature wasn’t there. I turned around and peered into the darker corner by the end of the couch, still shaking, and realized that when my mom came home she would kill me when she sees all of the blood on the carpet.
Then it hit me. This thing wasn’t just playing some sick and twisted game of hide and seek.
It wanted to kill me. Tear me apart, drive me insane, that’s why it let me think I was safe, it made this entire hunt more exciting. It was always waiting for me to let my guard down…
I turned suddenly hearing feverish tapping coming towards me from the laundry room, of course! The one place I hadn’t checked. I had barely lift up the poker when it came flying out at me, screaming, anger burning in it’s beady eyes darker than the moonless night sky, looking for compensation on the bloody teeth marks that were engraved into it’s back.
Out of reflex I swung the iron rod at it and found purchase in the thing’s side, sending it into a nearby wall. I couldn’t hold my ground down here, if I got cornered it would be game over.
Turning heel I began to sprint up the stairs, but almost immediately fell flat on my face when my leg gave out under me. I could hear the skittering getting closer, and I dropped the poker to grab the can of oven spray, hands shaking so violently I almost dropped the cool black cylinder down the stairs. As the monster reached my feet I unleashed a cloud of suffocating and stinging spray from the can, making sure to aim it right into it’s black unblinking eyes.
If it wasn’t angry before, it was furious at this point.
I took the opportunity to climb up the stairs as the beast screeched and whipped it’s head around, feeling the chemical blend seep into it’s sensitive flesh. As I finally reached the top I felt light headed and dizzy, most likely due to the wound in my leg that was still bleeding. I leaned on the counter in search of a new weapon. But this monster had no intention of giving me even a second to spare. It threw itself up the stairs, not trying to achieve speed or stealth, but instead was in such a murderous rage that it’s only goal was to reach me.
By the time I had reached the knife rack, I turned to see it barreling towards me, I held my right arm out in self defense as it jumped, but to no avail. I only succeeded in giving it a new piece of flesh to sink it’s stinking teeth into. I hadn’t noticed until now, but there was an intense stench of rotting eggs being emitted from the thing’s mouth.
I cried out as it bit down harder, hearing flesh splitting. I smashed it down onto the granite counter top, only making it bite down harder. I can’t say that I yelled or cried, but I let out the loudest, longest scream I could as I felt the bones in my arm begin to split and crack. I needed to stop it before I lost my entire arm.
I stumbled to the end of the counter, this hell-spawn wasn’t going to win, I won’t die from some ugly, foul, demented cat sized hairless mole.
Grabbing onto the monster with my left hand I finally smashed it down onto some glasses that littered the counter top. As it opened it’s wretched mouth to screech, I grabbed it with my uninjured left hand, summoning every ounce of strength to keep my death grip on the back of it’s head. Letting out a cry of anger and pain, I threw it’s ugly little face down into the blender next to the broken glass. Smashing my wounded hand into the power button, the whir of machinery and the symphony of cracking bones filled the air. It was still kicking it’s thin wiry legs, and lashing its tail which left thin slices on my stomach. The clawed appendage then dug into one of the teeth marks on my forearm and dug down. But before it could do anymore damage, the nightmarish and hellish creature went limp in my hand. By now the blender was smoking, I quickly unplugged in and painfully lifted the creature out of it’s tomb.
It’s entire head was gone, turned into a chunky mush at the bottom of the kitchen appliance. Only a glimmering section of spine and organs drooped out of the now dead nightmare, save for the collection of chipped teeth that jammed the blades.
I dug a kitchen knife into the remaining mass of flesh, not taking any chances and collapsed to the floor, holding my arm and letting sobs wreck my body. My arm seemed to hurt even more with each passing moment as that adrenaline wore off; I thought I could see a piece of white bone through one of the bite marks.
Who knows how long I stayed on the floor, but when my Mother finally came home, she screamed when she saw what had happened in her home. Kimbo, laying on his side with a long gash on his side, whimpering in pain, the still smoking blender that reeked of rotting eggs and had unidentifiable chunks of meat in it. And then there was me, her daughter curled up in the corner, dripping with blood and rocking back and forth.
By the time she had taken me to the hospital and Kimbo to the vet, the police had been called, finding my blood on the couch and down in the basement. But the real kicker is that, even after I told them what happened in excruciating detail, showing them my bite marks, they didn’t believe me. They told me that it was some, wild, mangy animal that had crawled out from the forest and found itself in my house. Whenever I asked them what kind of animal it was, they just brushed me off.
After that my mom decided to move us closer to the city and her work, getting intentionally further away from the forest. When we had left, the Smiths came over to wish us goodbye, and both of them looked like they finally gotten a full night’s rest. But, when Laura, I believe that was her name, saw the cast on my right and bandages around my calf, she seemed taken back. They asked me what happened and if I was okay, but when my mom told them her version of the story, which was that a wild animal had snuck into our house and attacked me, Laura broke into hysterics. She nearly ran back into her house, her husband telling us that, he was sorry about his wife, and chased after her.
We left without another word.
Years later, when I moved out to college and was living in a dorm, I had decided to procrastinate on studying and surf the internet. I tried my best to leave behind what happened, but the scars would always literally be there, and the Smiths still stuck out to me. I decided to Google the wife’s name, since that was the only one I remembered.
Surprisingly, even with such a generic last name, I found a news article about our old neighbors, and had to read it twice to believe it.
Laura and James Smith originally had twin daughters, and lived about five hours away from our neighborhood. The news report stated that Mrs. Smith had woken up in the middle of the night to hear her two daughters crying, so she decided to go check on them at an unusual hour of the night. When she arrived at their room, she had been horrified to find that someone, or something, was attacking one of her daughters.
The article didn’t touch on any gruesome details, but it was recorded that by the time Laura had taken a nearby lamp and hit the thing off of her daughter, it was too late. She was dead and completely torn apart. The report states that police were called onto the scene but hadn’t found any evidence of a break in, and the case went cold. If I can recall correctly, judging by the time the Smiths moved in next door to us, it had already been three months after their daughter was murdered.
A chill ran up my spine; it was like every puzzle piece fell into place.
The memory of walking into my kitchen that one day to find someone, something, looking at me from the Smith’s window was clear. It was the monster. It had followed the Smiths into their new home to assumably finish what it had started, but then it saw me.
It left them for someone more exciting to play with, and that had just happened to be me.
Whatever that thing was, a demon from hell, evil itself, it had planned to kill me that night, and if I hadn’t killed it there is no doubt in my mind that it would still be after me. And judging by how lucky I had been on that night, I get the feeling that it would’ve succeeded.
Just remember this; sometimes when strange things start to happen it may be a simple coincidence. But if it’s not, if things keep getting worse, and you can feel something off in your gut, know that it’s always the little things that sneak up on you in the end.
Credit To – AMXH
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I suppose I should start with the basics. My name is Taylor Sant, I’m English of Cameroonian descent, aged 32, and I’ve been mining helium for the Hummingbird Corporation since I left college 16 years ago. My work is pretty exciting on one level – lots of space travel, and the helium platforms are often in some truly epic locations: they’re always positioned just within orbit of the chosen gas giant, and there are usually some incredible views. That’s not to say they’re all great, mind you – I did my apprenticeship on a platform over Jupiter, and between the dull brown clouds and the frequent ion storms it was pretty shit.
The work itself you’ll probably find uninteresting, though. I’m a in maintenance – it’s my job to fix anything that breaks, basically. It can be dangerous, but with health and safety these days that’s rare. There were normally only ever one or two accidental deaths on mining platforms per year, and that’s across the entire of human space.
Anyway, now you know me, here’s the story of why I’ve given up helium mining – and space altogether, really. I never plan to leave Earth again. But anyway, here it is.
Here’s the story of just what happened over Benten.
I was pretty excited when I first heard that was where I was being transferred to. Benten had only been discovered two years previously, and Hummingbird had immediately bought the property rights for the northwest quadrant, and built three top-of-the-range platforms over it. That was great news: the latest model was a marvel of modern engineering, really – comfortable, safe, and it looked awesome – much better all-round than the floating hunks of junk I’d nearly spent half my life on. The planet had a nice name, too – Benten is a Japanese goddess of fortune. The names don’t normally mean much unless you’re superstitious – I spent six months over one called Tartarus, and it was totally fine – but you still sort of feel more optimistic about the ones named after nice things.
And actually, it was all pretty great. I’d been appointed Maintenance Chief, so I got a pay bump. The 24 other crewmembers were fine, the foreman, this big Sikh called Singh, was a real nice guy, the quarters were comfortable, and the view was incredible. I can still say without a doubt that the vista from the landing platform was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The gases were a beautiful pearlescent white, and when one of the other new arrivals said something about how it must be what heaven looks like, I was inclined to agree. I took a photo to show to my wife. I’ve deleted it since.
The new platform was absolutely fantastic – I was used to ones that broke down twice a day, but here I was only needed once or twice a week for anything major. I spent the rest of my time relaxing – an unexpected luxury – or repairing more minor things. One of the main problems on other platforms was the lack of working appliances – the maintenance teams had to spend so much time fixing the platform itself they couldn’t handle every broken dishwasher or entertainment terminal. The first couple of weeks, I was only saddened by the knowledge I’d eventually be transferred away.
Then there was the first suicide.
I was relaxing in my quarters when the machinery all stopped. Immediately I was running for the control room, because there are only two scenarios where all the extractors are switched off – a fatality, or the thing I was more worried about: catastrophic system failure. If the latter had happened, the whole platform was going down with all hands. There would be no time for repairs, or escape. That had never happened before, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t.
This is why I must confess to being slightly relieved when Singh told me that a man had fallen. Apparently Haaning, one of the miners I’d never really spoken to, had been heading along the gantry toward Extractor 03 when he’d just… fallen off. This felt fishy – the gantries all have railings on both sides, and are pretty bloody wide anyway. It was hard to imagine exactly what Haaning could have been doing to go over the side… unless, of course, it was intentional.
Singh asked around, and apparently Haaning’s wife had left him quite recently. The men still seemed pretty surprised, though – he had a reputation as being pretty tough. Still, suicide seemed the most likely explanation.
There was an air of sadness about the place for a while after that, as you’d expect, but it didn’t last too long. There was one small incident that spooked me a little in the days following Haaning’s death. Me and Ken de Groot, this young Dutch lad on his apprenticeship, as I’d once been over Jupiter, were suspended in harnesses over the side of Extractor 02, unjamming a cooling fan. It’s quite scary going out on the harnesses the first few times – after all, you’re dangling over an unimaginably huge drop – so Ken was pretty nervous. No need to be, normally – it’s really safe when you’re somewhere calm, and you couldn’t get more tranquil than Benten. I was just finishing up, when suddenly there was this weird noise. It was like this huge, mournful wail – incredibly deep, and faintly chilling.
‘What was that?’ Ken whispered, before calming himself. ‘Just the machines or something. Sorry.’
‘No,’ I said, looking down. ‘It came from beneath us…’
Ken looked at me, and then looked down as well. Suddenly, the seas of mist didn’t seem so nice. We hurried the rest of the job, and quickly got out of there.
After getting over the initial creepiness, Ken was pretty excited by the noise, and told anyone he could about it.
Most told him he was being silly, and it was just machinery. A couple wondered aloud if there could be something down there. One reaction particularly surprised me, though. Me and Ken were fixing the coffee machine in one of the observation lounges, and we noticed a miner, Borach, had been standing at the window and looking out at the mist the entire time we’d been working. When we’d finished up we went over and joined him, and Ken mentioned we once heard something in the clouds. Borach turned to him.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘There’s something down there, man.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘I can feel it sometimes. There’s something down there. I think I caught a glimpse of it once.’
‘What is it?’ Ken asked.
‘How should I know? But it’s there. Down there.’
A week later I was rebooting one of the control room computers – some idiot had managed to infect it with a virus while on a seedier corner of the internet late one night – when I noticed Singh and some of the other control staff gathering around the main console.
‘Who’s on station there?’ Singh was asking as I sauntered over.
‘Jonah,’ one of the other staff replied.
Singh jabbed the comm button. ‘Jonah? What’s going on down there? Jonah?’
‘What’s happening?’ I asked Prager, Singh’s right-hand man. He was a right twat, but a good friend of mine.
‘Core temperature’s rising on Extractor 01. Guy posted to the local coolant station isn’t responding.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Jonah something-or-other. I don’t know him too well.’
‘You want me to go take a look?’
‘…Yeah, someone ought to. Singh, Sant’s gonna go take a look.’
Singh gave a vague thumbs-up. ‘Shut everything off, see if Borach’s alright.’
‘Borach, that was it,’ said Prager. ‘Jonah Borach. Weird guy.’
I didn’t connect what was happening to the odd conversation Ken and I had had with Borach until after I’d hurried over and shut the extractor down, and saw the open door. The coolant control rooms are about the size of a crane cockpit, and dangle out over the edge of the platform. They’re designed with a door on either end, so that when the platform’s being constructed you can put the gantry leading to it on either side. This means that in most, one door leads onto the gantry – and the other leads to a 10,000 mile drop. It was the latter that was open.
Two suicides in such a short space of time was hugely unnerving – for obvious reasons – but at the same time rationally explainable. No-one knew much about Borach, so he could have been suffering depression. Maybe Haaning’s suicide just gave him the push he needed to take his own life. I’m sure I’d seen the idea of copycat suicide on a cop show or something, so that’s what I told myself. It was what Singh went for too, and the men accepted it. What other reason was there?
As a whole, the platform got over Borach’s death much quicker. He wasn’t as respected or liked as Haaning had been. Singh had given Prager, Doc Bargas (the platform physician), and myself the instruction to watch out for any odd behaviour.
I didn’t see any. That’s the weirdest thing. There was one particular event, a week or so after Borach’s death, that stuck in my mind. It was when I began to realise – to some degree – what was going on.
Me and some of the other maintenance guys had a game of poker in one of the lower observation decks. Me, Ken de Groot, Valya Proskurkin and Yunus Menderes – all men I’d gotten to know very well during my time there. They were good people, skilled technicians, nice enough guys. We were enjoying ourselves. We were happy.
And then Valya said: ‘You know, I saw something real weird when I was working on Extractor 01 the other day.’
‘Really?’ asked Ken. ‘What?’
‘I was in harness, doing the usual thing. Jammed fan, you know. And I fucking dropped my spanner – I hate it when that happens.’ We all nodded, sharing his feeling. It wasn’t just the irritation of having lost a tool. Whenever you dropped anything, you couldn’t help watching it fall. And that got you thinking about how high up you were. I’ll admit, I’ve had panic attacks over that in the past. Most men in my profession have. Anyway, Valya’s story:
‘Anyway, so I’m… so I’m watching it go down,’ he was saying. ‘And then…’ He breathed.
‘What, man?’ said Yunus. ‘Come on.’
‘Something moved. In the clouds. I saw something moving down there.’
Me and Ken looked at each other.
‘What was it?’ asked Yunus.
‘I don’t fucking know. But it looked pretty big. Moved like it was alive. You think something could live down there?’
‘I guess something could. But you’d think they’d have picked it up when they were surveying the planet.’
‘Yeah, you’d think. Maybe it was nothing.’
Neither me or Ken mentioned that Borach claimed to have seen something too. I can’t speak for Ken, but personally I just didn’t want to spook Valya. He seemed to think it was exciting, more than anything else. I am certain he was not thinking of killing himself any time soon.
And yet, the very next morning, he went out and – in full view of the control room – threw himself over the side.
‘So no-one has any bloody ideas?’ Singh shouted, pacing up and down in front of the platform’s remaining crew. He seemed angry, but I think he was scared. I was.
‘He didn’t seem depressed,’ I said. ‘He seemed the same as ever. I played poker with him last night.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Yunus. ‘He even… I mean, when we were going back to our quarters, he mentioned something about how he couldn’t wait to get home. Why would he say that if he was going to… you know?’
Ken tapped my shoulder. He was too nervous to speak up about it himself.
‘There is something else, boss,’ I said. ‘I mean, it might be a stab in the dark, but…’
‘What?’
‘Before Borach killed himself, he mentioned to me and Ken that he’d thought he’d seen something… in the clouds.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Prager.
‘He thought he’d seen something moving down there.’
‘I remember,’ said Doc Bargas suddenly. ‘He asked me if I thought something could be alive down there.’
‘And could something?’
‘In theory, yes, but it would have been picked up when they were surveying the planet.’
‘Right,’ said Singh. ‘And what you’re saying is, Proskurkin had seen something too?’
‘Yeah,’ said Yunus. ‘He did.’
‘… Right. Fuck.’
There was a silence.
‘Okay,’ Singh continued. ‘Has anyone else, uh… seen anything.’
Very slowly, a man at the back raised his hand. ‘I, uh, think I did.’
‘Okay, Nakao. Anyone else?’
No.
‘Right, you can all go. Doc, Prager, Sant and Nakao, I need to talk to you.’
We waited for everyone else to file out.
‘I think some of them were lying,’ Doc Bargas said. Singh’s face twitched.
‘You can understand why,’ I told the physician.
He grunted in agreement, and turned to Nakao. ‘Genjo, have you had any suicidal thoughts recently?’
‘No, Doc, I swear.’
‘How long ago did you see it, whatever it was?’
‘A couple days. I’m certain it was something, not just a trick of the light. I saw a solid form. And there was this noise. It was… I guess it was like whale-song.’
‘Huh,’ I said. ‘Me and Ken de Groot heard something like that a while ago.’
‘I think I’ve heard it too,’ said Prager. ‘I assumed it was just machinery.’
‘Well,’ said Bargas. ‘I have no idea what we should do. I don’t think we’ve got enough evidence for the company to accept there’s any danger. I’m not fully sure I accept it myself.’
There was a pause.
‘I guess we have to wait for something to happen.’
Doc Bargas placed Nakao on a suicide watch, which Nakao seemed thankful for. He definitely didn’t want to die.
The day after Singh addressed the crew, a miner jumped. It was Woods, one of the ones Bargas had thought were hiding having seen anything. After Woods’ death, two more miners approached Bargas and admitted to having lied the day before.
Two days after that, Singh disappeared.
It took a while for anyone to notice, everyone simply assuming he was somewhere else on the platform, but after a quick scan of the platform it was clear there was now only 20 living people on board, all of whom were crew, four crewmembers registered deceased, and one crewmember unaccounted for: Foreman Singh.
‘Okay,’ Prager said once I arrived in the control room the next day. Bargas couldn’t come because he was still watching over the other three to have seen the thing below. ‘I’ve contacted the company, and they’re going to send people to investigate. Until then, we have to keep working – they were damn hard to convince. Also, I’ve been looking at Singh’s logs. Here are the ones that stand out.’
He turned the monitor to me.
FOREMAN’S LOG – CYCLE 3E012, ORBIT 0003 – EARTHDATE 03/08/2368
Two deaths in such a short space of time. Fuck, that’ll look bad on my record. If they really were both suicides, though, I might just get away with it.
Everyone still slightly on edge. Told Bargas, Prager, Sant to keep eyes out for anyone else thinking of jumping.
Thought I saw something while I was inspecting Extractor 01. Something in clouds. Probably trick of light. Looked pretty solid though. Could something live down there?
Fan jam on E02, sorted. One broken key on E01 coolant terminal keyboard, not yet replaced.
‘That’s when he saw it,’ Prager said. ‘Here’s the one from yesterday evening.’
FOREMAN’S LOG – CYCLE 3E143, ORBIT 0003 – EARTHDATE 15/08/2368
No major incidents. Bargas says men on suicide watch are still normal. I feel fine. Company finally coming round – four suicides too many to not be suspicious. Sant’s theory disputed – they say they would’ve picked up any life forms ages ago. I agree.
Broken microwave in Lounge 04, sorted. It screams. Mariani dropped a screwdriver over the side, accepts liability for costs.
‘Seems normal,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ Prager replied. ‘Except that.’ He tapped the screen, and I read the sentence he pointed at: It screams.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think I want to.’
The next morning, I was doing my exercises in my quarters when Doc Bargas ran in in a panic, his nose bloody.
He’d gone into the med-bay at about 5 AM, to wake up his three wards – they were all on an early-morning shift – and found one of them missing. The other two men didn’t realise he’d gone. Bargas was embarrassed when he told me this – he had cameras on their room, and should have noticed one of them get up in the night and go outside. But he hadn’t – Dahan had killed himself. He was still talking to the other two when something seemed to come over them. Before he knew what was happening they made a break for the exit. Nakao managed to make it, and went over the side as well. Bargas grabbed the other, Vilmos, who managed to punch him in the nose but was held down by two other miners who’d heard the commotion and sedated. As soon as he’d been restrained, Bargas had run to wake Prager and myself.
This was it – a chance to find out what was going on.
Prager had called the company again, and they’d agreed that seven suicides probably meant there was some external factor causing them, and that the platform would be temporarily shut down. The shuttle to evacuate the remaining men would arrive that evening. In the meantime, we were going to talk to Vilmos.
He was frantically struggling against his restraints when I got there. It was quite terrifying – he was clearly insane. I don’t think anyone in their right mind could show such ferocity.
‘We tried asking him stuff,’ one of the two miners with him said. ‘He won’t say anything.’
Bargas sedated him again, and the struggling stopped.
‘Vilmos,’ said Prager. ‘What’s going on?’
Vilmos didn’t respond.
‘Why do you want to kill yourself?’
Vilmos opened his mouth. ‘… I don’t.’
‘What? What do you mean?’
He didn’t respond. Prager shook his head.
‘Do you know who you are?’ asked Bargas.
‘Yes.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Rajmund Vilmos.’
‘Where are we?’
‘Benten, we call it.’
‘What do you mean, ‘we call it’?’
‘Benten is not its name.’
‘What is its name?’
‘It hasn’t got one.’
‘… Okay.’ Bargas looked at me. Apparently it was my turn to try and get some sense out of him.
‘Alright, Vilmos,’ I said. ‘In his log, right before he jumped, Singh said something about it screaming. What…?’
‘It does!’ shouted Vilmos, interrupting me. ‘It screams!’
‘What screams?’
He looked at me, but did not answer.
‘What does it scream about?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Why do you want to kill yourself?’
‘I told you, I don’t.’
‘Well, how come you want to jump over the side then?’
Vilmos sighed. ‘How come you don’t?’
That was it. He stopped speaking altogether after that. I don’t know what happened to him – they put him in a separate compartment on the shuttle, and when Prager last emailed me he said he couldn’t find any information on a Rajmund Vilmos anywhere after that day. As the shuttle pulled away, I breathed a sigh of relief, and looked at the disappearing form of the platform. Without thinking, I looked down at the clouds. There was something moving down there.
I still don’t know what happened on Benten. Prager emails me a lot – him, Doc Bargas, Ken de Groot and one or two of the surviving miners are still trying to find out what happened there, but getting nowhere. Apparently every other platform on the planet was shut down about a year later, and Benten was declared a no-fly zone. I don’t know why. I don’t know what happened.
But that’s why I’m never going into space again. There are too many unknowns. Some people like that – I once did, back in the days when they were constantly discovering these new, incredible things: I remember the pictures of planets made of diamond, planets with seas of liquid metal, and other astonishing, unbelievable things. There was a real beauty to the universe, and that’s what people think of nowadays when they think of space travel.
But there are other things, the things that can’t be explained. There’s reportedly a system on the outer edge of Chinese space which no ship has ever returned from. There’s a planet in Orion’s Belt where the colony had to be abandoned after consistent reports of “whispering” in the night, and poltergeist-like occurrences. And then there’s a planet named Benten, where seven men jumped to their deaths after seeing something in the clouds.
These things terrify me more than you can imagine.
Credit To – George Sherlaw
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Part 1
Transferring to a new school in the middle of the semester really sucks. First off, it’s a logistical nightmare jumping into the thick of seven new classes and getting caught up with all the material that may or may not have been covered in your old school. More importantly for a slacker like me, it makes developing a successful social life virtually impossible, at least for most of the remaining year. Everyone already knows each other and has formed up their little separate cliques… the school clubs and activities are running full steam and not really gunning for new members… and then, of course, there’s the omnipresent fact that you’re the freaking “New Kid” and everybody knows it. Yeah, mid-semester transfers can be pretty crappy.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter. When you’ve gotta move, you’ve gotta move, and I definitely had to move. So here I was, walking in to my first day at Black Creek High School in middle-of-nowhere West Virginia… in the middle of freaking February. I stepped off of the bus into a blast of freezing air that made me miss Atlanta more than ever, and made a beeline for the front door. Despite the cold, a fair amount of people seemed to be socializing on the sidewalk in front of the school instead of taking it indoors, and even in the roughly twenty-second span of time it took me to cover the distance from the school bus to the building, I felt several pairs of eyes turn to look me over.
Fantastic. This was a decent-sized school, so I’d hoped the presence of a new face wouldn’t attract much notice, but apparently I was wrong. Then again, I suppose I shouldn’t have been all that surprised… it was like this every time I transferred. Somehow, no matter how much I tried to keep my head down and blend in, people always noticed me. I let out a small sigh and tugged my scarf up higher around my face as I reached the front entrance and slid gratefully into the warm hallway. I could already tell that my first few weeks here were going to be a veritable purgatory of social awkwardness, but hopefully after a month or two I’d be able to settle into a relatively normal teenage life. Hopefully…
I did my best to avoid everyone’s eyes and ignore their whispers as I picked up my new locker number and combination from the office and headed there to put away my coat and backpack. It took me several tries to figure out how to work the combination lock correctly, and I may have slightly damaged my first impression with my new classmates by pounding on the door and yelling a few obscenities after the sixth try. Still, they could have lent me a hand instead of just standing there staring until I finally managed to open the thing on attempt number eleven. Given the delay, I barely managed to make it to my first class on time, sliding into a seat in the far back corner of the room just as the bell rang. To my dismay, instead of taking the obvious hint that I’d rather be left alone, my new homeroom teacher decided to greet our session with: “Class, today we’ll be welcoming a new transfer student to our homeroom. Mister –” he glanced quickly at his class roster – “Thompson, would you like to come up to the front of the class and introduce yourself?”
…Seriously? Of course I didn’t want to introduce myself! What teenage kid actually WANTS to stand up and talk about himself in front of a room full of other teenagers he doesn’t know? But when a teacher asks you if you’d like to do something, they’re never actually giving you a choice in the matter, so instead of saying “no” I got up and shuffled perfunctorily to the front of the classroom, trying not to glare at Mr. Socially Oblivious as I did so. I stood in front of the whiteboard, faced forward, and gulped quietly. The entire class was staring straight at me like a bunch of owls. Judgmental, hormonal, cliquish owls. Cliché as it was, I tried to imagine them all in their underwear, but I was never really an imaginative sort of guy, so that didn’t help very much.
“Uh… hello,” I finally managed to force out, “I’m Zach Thompson. I, uh, just moved here from Atlanta, Georgia, and, um… yeah, nice to… meet you,” I finished lamely.
I then proceeded to stand there in complete silence for a full ten seconds as everyone continued to stare at me like they expected me to say something else, though I had no idea what else to say. Then the teacher finally cleared his throat and said, “Well, it’s very good to meet you too, Mr. Thompson. Welcome to our school. If you need anything, feel free to come talk to me any time.”
Yeah, I’d definitely be doing that later – not! I nodded stiffly a couple of times and scuttled embarrassedly back to my desk without being excused. For the remaining twenty minutes of class, I kept my head down and pretended to read my syllabus, ignoring both the occasional curious glances my classmates threw back at me and whatever relentlessly boring school crap the teacher was droning on about. I was out the door almost as soon as the bell rang; I didn’t try to talk to anybody and nobody tried to talk to me.
To my horror, I was put through the same awkward, humiliating introduction ritual in each of my next three classes – though luckily, aside from that, all of my teachers seemed relatively nice (if a bit distant), and I understood most of their lectures about as well as I ever did. When the lunch bell rang, I was half-relieved that I wasn’t being shuttled off to another meaningless intro-session, but mostly nervous about being thrown into the social jungle that was the high school cafeteria. Lunch this afternoon was the exact opposite of appetizing for me – the little round cafeteria pizzas looked like white rubber melted on cardboard and probably tasted about the same, while the salad bar was nothing but wilted lettuce and little packets of half-calorie salad dressing. Still, I stood in the lunch line with everybody else… it was at least something to do besides hover around awkwardly waiting for someone to talk to me, and besides, it would look weird if I didn’t get any food.
After about fifteen minutes of silent waiting, I was passed a tray and a little bottle of water and carried them over to the end of the most deserted lunch table I could find. As I sat there, sipping water and pushing piles of lettuce around my plate with my fork, plenty of people glanced over at me, pointed, or whispered, but no one came over to talk to me or even sit anywhere near me. This, too, I was used to… you know how some people have that kind of weird magnetism that draws others around them in a crowd, making them the center of attention without really even needing to say anything? Well, I had the opposite of that. Sometimes I felt like I was walking around with “Socially Awkward” stamped on my forehead – although, I suppose everybody feels that way now and again, especially when thrown into a new place. This was why I hated moving. I sighed heavily and started clumsily trying to fold my napkin into an origami crane to pass the time. I was just about finished folding out the wings when a perky, female voice suddenly addressed me.
“Hey! You must be the new boy! Zach, right?”
I looked up, surprised and pleased that someone was actually talking to me – let alone a girl – but my heart sank just a bit when I saw her. This girl was obviously the school weirdo, or at least one of them. Her hair was the sort of really dark black you could tell instantly was fake, with several shocking pink streaks in it, and it was held into shoulder-length pigtails by a pair of grinning cartoon skull barrettes with pink bows. Her skin-tight black t-shirt bore an image of a freaky-looking patchwork teddy bear with a grinning sewn-together mouth and x’s for eyes, head tilted to the side, holding what looked like a bloody scissor blade. She wore a pink and black plaid schoolgirl skirt hemmed so short that I was surprised the dress code allowed it, with knee-high black and white striped socks and big black platform boots. She carried her backpack with her, a black messenger bag absolutely covered with various patches, pins, and keychains displaying the sort of cartoony, pop-artsy kinds of characters that are somehow nauseatingly cute and genuinely creepy at the same time. She also wore a fair amount of jewelry with the same theme, and her eyes were surrounded by heavy black eyeliner and sparkly pink eyeshadow. She was really quite cute, don’t get me wrong, but she came on way too strong with the… would that be goth-lolita?… sort of look, which made her weirdly intimidating.
“Um, yeah… hi,” I finally managed to stutter out, after staring at her for a few moments too long to be polite.
“Mind if I sit down?”
“Uh, sure, I guess,” I responded, though she’d already slid into the seat next to me before I even finished my sentence. Pushing her tray away a bit, she propped her elbow up on the table, rested her chin in her hand, and just stared at me in awkward silence, a bright grin plastered across her face. Thoroughly weirded out, I sat blinking at my uneaten lunch for almost a full minute before I even thought to ask, “So, uh… what’s your name?”
“Emily Jackson. You can call me Emi, though!” She paused for a second, then said, “And YOU’RE a mysterious transfer student.”
“I… what??” I responded, thoroughly confused.
“You’re a mysterious transfer student! You know, in books and anime and stuff, whenever anybody transfers to a new school at a weird time, they’ve always got some kind of secret or special powers or something. Nobody knows you, you showed up out of nowhere in the middle of the semester, so it’s mysterious! You could totally be anybody!”
I get it, she must be some kind of hardcore geek, or something, I thought. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m just a normal kid,” I responded, trying to laugh off a little bit of the awkwardness of the conversation.
“Why’d you transfer here, then?” she asked with a playful grin.
“My dad had to move here for his job,” I answered promptly. That wasn’t really the truth of the matter, but the truth of the matter was none of her business, and it was easier to lie than to withhold information – especially from nosy, gossipy teenagers.
“What’s he do?”
“He works at the chemical plant in Charleston,” I responded. I had done my research.
“Oh,” she responded, “So not a spy or an assassin or anything?”
“Definitely not,” I agreed.
“Well, that’s disappointing. I still like you, though! I bet you’re interesting,” she said with a smile.
I just shrugged and poked at some lettuce with my fork again. I didn’t feel interesting, and I honestly didn’t really want to be interesting. I just wanted to be a normal, relatively happy high schooler.
“Why aren’t you eating anything?” she asked.
“Not hungry,” I replied, “Big breakfast. Cafeteria food sucks, anyhow.”
“Want something sweet instead?” she asked brightly, pulling a large candy box out of her backpack. She opened it up and I peeked at the contents – a half-eaten array of obnoxiously bright multicolored candies shaped like happy skulls, broken hearts, and kitty faces.
“Sorry, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth,” I responded politely, though I honestly thought the candies looked like something that might have been barfed up by a unicorn. I felt a little sick just looking at them.
“Suit yourself,” she answered, popping a candy skull in her mouth and chewing. She grinned a little as she swallowed, and whispered under her breath, “Mysterious…”, then dropped me a quick wink. I pretended not to notice. “Sooooo, where are you from?” she asked next. I seized onto the relatively normal question and started telling her all about Atlanta. We spent the rest of the lunch period having a pleasant and only slightly odd conversation, by the end of which I felt I was actually starting to like her despite the less-than-ideal first impression. I was even a bit disappointed when the bell rang to return to class, a feeling which Emi seemed to mirror.
“Oh, drat!” she exclaimed. “Well, it was really great getting to talk to you, Mr. Mysterious Transfer Student! Let’s totally do it again soon. I hope we’ll get to be really good friends.”
“Oh, uh, me too,” I replied as she got up and headed for her locker. After she got a few feet away, to my surprise, she turned back, blew me a kiss, and called loudly across the room, “Bye, Zachy!”
I grimaced a bit. Zachy? That was going to need to stop. I hoped not too many other people had heard it. With a sigh, I picked up my tray and headed to the trash can to throw away my uneaten lunch. I couldn’t believe the day was only half over; I already felt completely drained. I passed through the rest of my classes in a bit of a daze, each one having basically the same good and bad points as my morning classes. I was really relieved when the final bell rang to end the school day. Following the crowd of my seemingly equally relieved new classmates toward the front doors, I decided I’d just walk home today instead of taking the bus. It had gotten much warmer now that it was the afternoon (though not nearly as nice as Atlanta), and I felt a walk would give me more opportunity to relax and think than being crammed on a bus full of loud strangers. My place was already a ten-minute walk from the nearest bus stop, anyway. I was just setting off along the sidewalk when I heard a voice call out from behind me.
“Zachy!!”
I turned to see Emi bustling towards me at a half-run, her impractical T-shirt and miniskirt now buried in a long black trenchcoat. “You live out this way, too?” she queried boisterously as I stopped to let her catch up. Then, before I even had the chance to answer, “Want to walk back together?”
“Um, sure, I guess,” I responded blandly, not quite sure whether I wanted to or not, but unwilling to just flat out refuse. “How far are you going?”
“Oh, my house is right out behind Valley Park!” she replied, “What about you?”
“A bit further down the road,” I said, glad that I’d get some alone time for at least the last leg of my walk.
“Cool! So how was your first day? I think we’re in the same science class in the morning, but I came in late today so I don’t think you saw me… Mr. Michaelson, right? What do you think of him? I think he’s a jerk; he’s got this horrible monotone and he flips out whenever anything interrupts his jabbering…”
We walked for about 30 minutes passing similar conversation, her doing most of the talking, me listening and occasionally getting in a comment or two when she stopped for breath. Honestly, after a while her voice just sort of turned into white noise and I just smiled and nodded, hoping she couldn’t tell that I was spacing out. Eventually we turned a corner onto a residential street, and she exclaimed, “Welp, this is my stop!” She gestured at a large, well-kept red brick house with a nice front yard and an attached two-car garage. I couldn’t help being a little jealous when I thought of my lodgings. Without warning, she playfully threw her arms around me in what was probably about the most awkward hug of my life so far, though I kind of doubted it was the most awkward of hers. After around five seconds, she drew back, beaming at me, and said, “Hey, I know! Let’s exchange cell phone numbers! Want to?”
I actually had to think about that for a second. I mean, Emi was nice and all, pretty too, and most guys would probably jump at the chance, but she was already seeming a little bit… clingy… for my taste, and I got the distinct feeling that getting too involved with her would be social suicide – or at least a great way to pigeonhole myself as a weirdo for the next two and a half years of my life. A second after this thought crossed my mind I felt disgusted at my own shallowness. She was the only person at that school who had been willing to give me the time of day, and here I was worrying about what everyone else would think if I was friends with her. She was probably just a little bit overexcited because she didn’t have many friends of her own, either. “Sure,” I responded firmly, digging my phone out of my bag.
So, we quickly exchanged contacts, and she trotted back to her house with another blown kiss and exclamation of “Bye, Zachy!” Crap, I’d forgotten to tell her to cut that out. Oh well, there was always tomorrow. I waved back with a smile and then headed back up the opposite side of the road towards my place, which was still a little bit of a trek away. I’d barely gotten five steps before my phone buzzed in my pocket.
EMI: heya, zach!! this thing working?
“Yep,” I texted back succinctly, tugging up my scarf against a brisk breeze carrying the calm, mineral-heavy scent of wet soil. I had a pleasant, relaxing walk the rest of the way home despite the cold, and despite the fact that I received no fewer than fifteen additional buzzes from Emi on the way, most of which I ignored. I tried to get some catch-up homework done when I got home, but really couldn’t work up much motivation, so I wound up spending most of the evening playing games on my old GBA until it ran out of batteries. After that I decided to hit the hay early, texting Emi goodnight so that she’d know why I was about to stop responding to her steady stream of text messages. Damn, that girl could talk… I put my ringer on silent, set my alarm, then rolled over and slept like a log for the next nine hours.
When I woke up the next morning, hair in disarray and still wearing the clothes I’d fallen asleep in, I checked my phone to find no fewer than 75 new text messages from Emi, along with three missed calls. Blinking and rubbing my eyes in drowsy disbelief, I quickly scrolled through the messages to see if she’d been trying to communicate anything important:
EMI: hi zach! what color you think i should paint my nails 2nite? purple or green?
EMI: hey zachy! i’m marathoning season 2 of kuroshitsuji. bassy is soooooo hawt <3 do u liek anime?
EMI: what’s ur favorite color? mine’s a tie bt/w red and purple lol
EMI: science hw’s a total bitch, mr. m is such a tool!! what’d you put for #6?
And so on and so forth. She hadn’t stopped texting me until 3 o’clock in the morning. I rubbed my face in exhausted bewilderment, unable to quite muster the desire or the energy to respond. I stumbled through my scant morning routine on autopilot, waking up little by little as I went, and barely got out to the bus stop in time to catch my ride. It seemed Emi must ride a different bus, or get dropped off by her parents, because the bus never picked her up. I honestly felt a little relieved about that. I passed the bus ride in silence, drowsing against the hard brown vinyl seat until we were dropped off into the cold at the front entrance.
Emi accosted me almost as soon as I stepped into the building. She was dressed even more ludicrously than yesterday, in a bright orange ruffled blouse bearing a grinning jack-o-lantern face, with a tight black corset laced over the bottom half. Her legs were covered by a voluminous ankle-length layered skirt, mostly bright orange like the top but striped with black ruffles; a pair of high-heeled boots peeked out from under the skirt. All of her accessories seemed to be jack-o-lantern based, up to the orange beret perched on her head like a pumpkin cap, complete with brown stem and green leaves. Even the streaks in her hair were now Day-Glo orange.
“Good moooorning, Zachy!” she greeted, rushing up to me and favoring me with some kind of awkward running hug-tackle that practically caused me to lose my balance and fall over. My face burned as I felt – not just saw, but felt – several pairs of eyes stop what they were doing and turn to stare at us openly.
“M-morning,” I choked out, trying to pry her off of me as gently as I could.
“You get my messages last night?” she asked brightly, finally pulling back and beaming at me intently. The avid intensity of her stare was… a little bit disconcerting, to say the least. Like that picture on the “Overly Attached Girlfriend” memes. Had she looked at me that way yesterday? I couldn’t quite remember clearly. All I knew was that now I couldn’t quite meet her eyes as I shuffled my feet and muttered: “Well, yeah… I mean, I saw them this morning, but… I was kinda, um, asleep when I got them…”
“Oh, that’s okay!” she shot back perkily. “Hey, want some of my breakfast burrito? School breakfast sucks, so I got some fast food before I came in!” She proffered me the half-eaten roll of junk food. Grease dripped from the (now undoubtedly cold) mixture of rubbery-looking scrambled eggs and unidentifiable pinkish lunch meats crammed into the cheap flour tortilla. That plus the fact that someone had already taken a few bites out if it was enough to make the thought of doing so myself mildly nauseating.
“No thanks,” I responded with a gulp and a quick shake of my head. “You can keep it.”
Emi shrugged and took another bite. “Hey, what did you think of that science homework last night? You manage to get through all of it?”
“Oh, shit, that was due today? I’ve barely even started…” Way to get off on the right foot at my new school.
“That’s okay, Zachy, I’ll let you copy mine! I’m getting a B in science!” she announced proudly, digging around in her messenger bag for the homework papers.
“Thanks,” I responded, actually feeling pretty relieved by the help. I felt a little bad about how quickly I’d been judging her a few moments ago. I even let the whole “Zachy” thing slip again for the moment as she drew the worksheets triumphantly from her bag and I sat down at the nearest table and began copying furiously (though some weird, paranoid little part of my mind seemed to whisper to me with dismay that we owed her now…). I noted vaguely that her handwriting was very loopy and she dotted all of her i’s with little hearts.
Somehow, even with her gossiping into my ear the entire time, I managed to get most of the work copied before the bell rang for homeroom. Emi and I went our separate ways (though not without a half dozen perky exclamations of “bye bye!” and “see you later!” on her part), and I actually managed to get my locker open in only five tries this time. Morning classes were relatively uneventful, except that now I knew I was in the same science class as Emi. She took her seat right behind me, utilizing the position to pass me several notes during the class period – one of which featured a very unflattering depiction of Mr. Michaelson, which I promptly crumpled up and shoved into my backpack to avoid the possibility of having it confiscated.
I didn’t really feel like facing the lunch line or the staring, whispering crowd of my peers in the cafeteria that day, so when the bell rang for lunch break, I headed for the library instead. It was quieter and much more sparsely populated there, and most of the occupants seemed to be sort of nerdy, introverted kids like me. Besides, I actually did like to read, even if it was usually comic books or fantasy/horror novels aimed a little below my age group.
I sighed with relief, feeling myself relax a bit for the first time that day, as I lazily browsed the shelves of the fiction section. I actually found a fairly nice, if small, assembly of R.L. Stine books on the bottom shelf of one of the racks. I picked out a couple of Goosebumps stories and rose from my crouching position – at just the right moment to knock into someone behind me carrying a huge stack of books. The person was only knocked a little bit off-balance, but the books went flying, dropping to the tile floor with a series of loud thuds. I immediately started apologizing profusely, dropping to the floor to gather the books before even getting a look at the person who had been holding them. After a couple of seconds I became aware of another small, dark pair of hands gathering the books as well, and another voice speaking in a quick, embarrassed manner:
“No, no, it’s fine… totally my fault… wasn’t watching where I was going…”
I stopped apologizing and looked up at the person crouching next to me. By coincidence, she looked up at about the same time, and I found myself staring into a pair of large, soft brown eyes. I dropped my gaze again quickly and blushed, returning to what I had been doing. “Yeah, I wasn’t really being careful either, though, so…” I muttered, trailing off without really finishing my sentence. After what seemed like forever but was probably only ten or fifteen seconds, we finally managed to gather all of the books off of the floor and I sheepishly handed my stack back over to her. There were about nine or ten titles in all. I noted authors like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Madeline L’Engle among them, which made me feel a little bit embarrassed about my own choice of reading material… hold on, where were my books? Oh crap, had I dropped them, too…?
“Um, here, I think these were yours,” the girl said, confirming my fears by handing back the pair of battered Goosebumps to me.
“Uh, yeah, thanks,” I said glumly, blushing again. I got a better look at her as I took back the stack of books. She was a short, petite young woman with a cute round face, a crooked smile, and just the lightest dusting of freckles across her nose and dusky cheeks. Her frizzy black hair was tied back into a thick braid that fell to her shoulder blades, and she wore a fuzzy grey sweater and faded jeans. All in all, I thought she was really pretty, not to mention nice and obviously smart, and I felt like a complete dunce for both bumping into her and getting caught reading kiddie horror while she was delving into Asimov.
To make matters worse, she had obviously noticed: “So, Goosebumps, huh? Gosh, I used to be obsessed with those when I was a kid. I didn’t know the library had any.” I was glad to hear that she’d liked them too, but the addition of “when I was a kid” made my heart sink into my shoes. Then she lifted my spirits back up a bit by adding, “I’d kinda like to re-read a few when I get the chance!”
“Yeah, they’re… pretty, uh, nostalgic,” I said with a forced grin and chuckle, trying and probably failing to sound cool and unconcerned.
“Oh, my name’s Aliyah, by the way. What’s yours?” she asked.
“Ah, Zach,” I responded. “Thompson.”
“Oh, you’re the new guy, right?” she queried. I grimaced involuntarily, and she quickly added, “Sorry, you must be pretty tired of hearing that, huh?”
I just shrugged and muttered, “Yeah, well… it is what it is, you know? No problem. I really am the new guy, after all.”
She smiled and responded, “Good! Well, it’s really nice to meet you Zach. I hope it isn’t too weird adjusting to Black Creek. There are a few jerks around here, like at any school, but mostly I think everybody’s really nice. I’ve gotta go meet with some people about a class project right now, but I’ll definitely see you around, okay?”
“O-okay,” I stuttered back shyly. “See you.”
She turned around and headed to the checkout desk with her books, and I collapsed backwards against the bookshelf, weak-kneed and grinning stupidly. Maybe my first few weeks here weren’t going to be so bad after all. At least I’d met someone nice, and she actually seemed to kind of like me…
“Do you like that girl?”
The voice, only a few inches away from my ear, took me completely by surprise. I jumped involuntarily, barely holding back a startled yelp, and whipped around to face the speaker. It was Emi. Damn, how could somebody wearing that much Day-Glo orange be such a freaking ninja? She had somehow gotten right behind me, within a couple of inches of the back of my head, without me even noticing her.
“Well, do you like her?” she asked again.
Her tone was pleasant and conversational, and she was wearing her usual sunny smile, but her stare was more disconcertingly intent than ever. “I, um, well, she seems… nice,” I stuttered nervously, feeling oddly like a cat that had been caught in the canary cage, or a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. Cut it out, I thought to myself, There’s no reason to get all defensive. It’s not like you’re going out with her or anything. Shit, you just met her yesterday afternoon, and now you feel like you’re – what? – not allowed to talk to other girls? That’s ridiculous, right? …Right?
“Yeah, but do you, you know, liiiiike her?” Emi queried, leaning closer and dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“I, ah, wasn’t really… I mean, we just met, so… I wasn’t exactly, uh, thinking quite that far ahead?” I finished, my inflection turning the intended statement into a question. “I just think she’s a nice person, is all,” I added a bit more firmly.
Emi gave me a sly smile, like you might give someone when discussing a shared secret or an inside joke. “Oh, I’m sure she is. She lives alone with her grandparents, you know. Nice little house a bit out of the way up in the hills, ‘cause they like being close to nature. She has to walk five or ten minutes from her bus stop just to get home. Usually takes the late bus, too, on account of after school band practice, so this time of year it’s getting dark by the time she’s walking up through the woods to her house.” Emi paused for a moment, and just as I was starting to wonder exactly why the hell she was telling me all of this, she dropped the bomb into the conversation:
“I bet it would be pretty easy for her to just disappear on that walk one night.”
“Whoa, wait – WHAT?” I replied, confused and now just a little bit freaked out. “Where did that come from?”
Emi just smiled again and said, “It’s true, though! I don’t know why her senile old granny keeps letting her walk that way in the dark. Trees all around to hide in, no place close enough to hear her scream… it would be so simple for somebody to just grab her and make off with her in the night – if somebody were so inclined,” she finished, batting her eyelids innocently.
My mind was reeling trying to catch up to her train of thought. I had no idea how I was supposed to respond to this. “Who would – wait – why would… Why are you telling me this?” I finally managed to choke out.
Emi shrugged nonchalantly. “Just thought you might find it interesting, is all,” she replied in a sing-songy voice. “I’m going to go get some lunch. Coming, Zachy?”
Was she kidding? Eating lunch with her was about the last thing I felt like doing right now. I clenched my teeth and shook my head mutely – the best response I could muster at the moment – and thankfully instead of forcing the issue, she just said, “Okie dokie lokie! See you later, Zachy,” then turned and sauntered away towards the cafeteria, her voluminous skirts swirling around her ankles.
This time I didn’t collapse against a bookshelf, I collapsed right into a chair. My skin felt cold and clammy and my thoughts were whirling around in my head confusedly, generating nothing productive. Was she THREATENING Aliyah? That’s what it had sounded like. Why? Because I had been talking to her? That was crazy! But hell, maybe she was crazy. Was Aliyah in danger? Did I need to do something to protect her? Whoa, whoa, slow down. Let’s not jump off the deep end right away. Emi had already demonstrated that she was weird enough, maybe she was just remarking on it, like she’d gone off on that weird “mysterious transfer student” rant when we first met. Just speculating about the kind of shit that might go on if this was one of her comic books or horror novels. Hell, maybe she was even concerned about Aliyah… no, going that far was just wishful thinking. I knew that much.
But really, even if Emi was making some kind of implied threat, what could she ever actually do about it? I mean, she was a scrawny, sixteen-year-old girl, for God’s sake! This wasn’t a comic book. You couldn’t just go out and kill somebody whenever you wanted to – it took planning, resources, some way to make sure you didn’t get caught. Sure, okay, I guess some people our age do actually snap and find a way to go out and kill people, but that’s only a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of those who have threatened to do it. And I still wasn’t sure it was even a threat.
No… no, I didn’t think Emi would do a thing like that. No need to get all worked up over nothing. Besides, what could I even do about it, anyway? I could just see myself going up to Aliyah and saying “Hey, guess what? You need to start getting a better ride home because now that I’ve talked to you, my crazy sort-of-friend Emi is probably going to try to kidnap you and drown you in a lake somewhere. My bad.” Yeah, that would just do wonders for our budding friendship. Not only would she not believe me, she’d probably peg me as the crazy one and avoid me like the plague until graduation. Nope, better to just never speak of this again and hope it went away…
By the time I managed to come to this conclusion, lunch was over and the bell was ringing to signal our
|
“Swallow something, canned, frozen,
Ungodly festering source.
Dragging and kicking and screaming for more,
That burns, burns, burns, burns.”
– Made Out Of Babies, “Cooker.”
“I’m not going to sleep well,” thought Olas to himself. He was sweating through his shirt to the point where peeling it off would take more effort than was worth the discomfort. He stumbled through the darkness of his warping apartment, arms alternating between leaning on the impossibly distorted walls for support and clutching his abdomen in pain. His skull felt like it was full of butterflies; his stomach filled with hornets. With every step towards his bedroom Olas became more and more delirious, until at last he fell face first into his mattress with only the vaguest of memory as to what had even occurred to make him feel so nauseous to begin with. Olas inhaled deeply, and in the vortex of his mind, the stupor got the best of him. A moment later, all thoughts faded.
It wasn’t the sound that woke him, but rather the smell. The scent of bile assaulting his olfactory nerves as the excess vomit climbed through his nasopharynx startled Olas awake before his own retching entered consciousness. He pushed himself to his knees, spitting gastric juices and wiping his sleeve across his mouth for maybe a full minute before he even noticed his new location. Olas blinked twice, not sure if he was hallucinating or if he was really even awake, but regardless, the sight was unsettling.
It looked almost if someone had attempted to decorate an abandoned subway maintenance tunnel with wallpaper and antique furniture, but never bothered to care about the issue of mold or termites. The tunnel seemed to continue like this infinitely in both directions, lit only by the periodic industrial bulbs and tacky lamps that blended with the steam leaking from a few of the copper pipes that lined the walls as far as the corridor would take them. Olas lifted himself to his feet cautiously and justifiably nervous given the circumstances. He began to walk, not sure as to where or what he was expecting to find. An exit perhaps? Or possibly a sign indicating what this strange place was supposed to be or where. “I’m still dreaming.” He told himself, only partially believing his own words.
Olas walked for what felt like an hour before he began to hear something besides the slow hiss of steam or the ambient hum of the lamps. A meaningless echo of something at first, becoming the distinct noise of a laugh, or what was ostensibly a laugh. Actually, more like two. One the soft giggle of a young woman, the other a deep metallic growl of a large animal. The sounds steadily increased in volume and clarity as Olas continued along his route until finally a door unexpectedly halted his progress. It was a wooden door, the kind found on the interior of a house and juxtaposed to the concrete exposed beneath the peeling wallpaper that had been a constant until now. At eye level, there was a sign that read “Café Eµclid”. The queasy feeling in Olas’s stomach returned, but he shrugged to himself before knocking. As soon as his knuckles connected to the wood, the giggles ceased.
The door creaked open, and Olas couldn’t stop himself from falling backwards in fright. The occupant was an odd sight to be sure, warranting a second glance from Olas. Standing on the precipice of the tunnel and the room behind, stood a small girl, no older than fourteen, with white-blonde hair and wearing a brown cardigan beneath a pine green apron. Unusual, but not inherently disturbing. What had caused Olas to stumble was the fact that this otherwise ordinary girl had eyes of pure black, wide and whiteless like two balls of polished obsidian. The second distinguishing feature was her number of limbs. There were eight in total; two legs, six arms. She smiled down on Olas, reaching out one of her numerous hands towards him.
“Hello there Nicholas!” She greeted in a two toned voice, a doubling effect of entirely separate individuals speaking in harmony. It became painfully clear to Olas that there was only one source for the noises heard earlier. “I’ve been expecting your company for quite a while. Please come in, we have much to prepare before the feast.”
Olas hesitated to respond, needing a moment to recite his mantra that this was all just a dream, a very lucid dream brought on by experimenting with far too many foreign ingredients, the thought of which brought some sense to his current situation. The memory returned suddenly of what had brought him to this nightmarish world. The “Novum Saporem” it was called, or more commonly “Strange Taste,” and to the few who have ever read its pages, it was the Necronomicon of cook books, containing ancient recipes of Egyptian barbeque, to special chemical notations seemingly written in the distant future, to preparation techniques for aquatic species unknown to Earth’s biosphere. Part alchemy, part el Celler de Can Roca, it was occultist cuisine at its finest. The ancient and mysterious grimoire itself was written in 2006 by Josh Wriggly, the mad fry cook of Dino’s Diner, during a state of hysterical vision brought on by huffing too much paint thinner. The resulting hallucination was of arcane glyphs ascending from a vat of chicken gravy.
Olas purchased it for seventy five cents at a Quaker book sale the previous Tuesday. The last recipe he had attempted translated from an alien language had called for a crystal of bismuth, a nine volt battery, a pentagram drawn in snake blood, and one liter of Dr. Pepper. The title of this particular cocktail translated to “A sleepless dream.”
“What are you waiting for silly?” The arachnoid girl asked Olas’s blank face lost in thought. Olas stood up on his own, rubbing his forehead in a futile attempt to relieve his throbbing headache.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” He asked, not sure what else to do.
“My apologies Nicholas, my name is Abigail Von Strudelherst, the demon guardian of esoteric foodstuffs and chief saucier of the Domain of Krivbeknih. You did summon me, did you not?”
“I guess so?” Olas didn’t know how else to respond, and figured it best to simply agree noncommittally until he knew for sure what was happening.
“Oh you guess so?” Abigail continued. “Nobody ionizes that much Dr. Pepper inside of the sigil of pagan nonsense by accident you know.”
Olas shrugged, and beginning to feel oddly relaxed in the demon’s presence, followed her into the atrium of yet an even larger chamber. The atrium itself resembled something between a hip downtown coffee house and a gothic cathedral; pillars of charcoal dark stone lined in gargoyle carvings and comfortable looking upholstery, as well as countless glass counters displaying exquisitely designed cakes and pastries. All of this was secondary however to the Escher esque geometries of the architecture itself, which oscillated with an emphasis on vertical development, the arches and stain glass windows set at angles too impossible to comprehend outside a realm of pure mind. The sheer force of cognitive vertigo elevated Olas to a state of irresoluble awe.
“This can’t all be in my head. Where am I really?” Olas asked in an involuntarily loud voice. Abigail turned to Olas with all six hands planted firmly on her hips and wearing an expression of discontentment. Her twin voices proceeded with an emphasis on the deeper variant.
“I know you’re not illiterate. The sign said Café Eµclid, so that’s where you are. If you mean temporally, then I suppose we’re somewhere outside of the central finite curvature of space. If you wanted an address, we’re just beneath the city of Dis.” The malevolence left her tone, shifting back to an equilibrium of sorts. She jumped excitedly. “We’re going to cook some food! It’ll be great, follow me!” One of her hands grabbed Olas’s right as she began to enthusiastically lead Olas through the labyrinth of tea shelves and altars. Together, they made their way to the double stainless steel doors, passing through into the kitchen of the immense structure.
For the most part, it was a kitchen, the kind found in most standard restaurants with a minimal degree of dimensional anomalies: There were racks of spices, meats, vegetables, and cookware. There were ovens and stoves, blenders and juicers and strainers and mixers, sacks of grains stacked high to the ceiling, sinks and pots and knives polished to a mirrors shine. Typical eatery goods, but also not lacking in the unusual items of interest, such as a device that may have been the product of a fever dream construction between a steam engine and a French press with the aesthetic influence of Nikola Tesla. Also some of the smoked meat appeared to be derived from primate. Olas barely had a moment to let it all sink in before Abigail clapped her hands in anticipation.
“Now, onto the formal introductions in the manner to which I am accustomed.” She began, handing Olas a spotless white toque. “Tradition dictates that the visitor prepares a meal for the host. I will observe your technique and return the gesture in kind.” She stated very matter-of-factly. “You are welcome to any and all resources available, and to a few which are not. Tick tock, I’ve grown quite famished since your… arrival.” She licked her lips and released a single hollow growl.
Olas worked at a hurried pace, tossing selected ingredients into a large brass cooking pot as they crossed his path. A head of cactus from the crisper, a brick of goat cheese, a dozen eggs, badger milk, a sack of flour, baking powder, olive oil, other oil, jalapeno peppers, tequila, bacon, a handful of live scorpions, and million other little things that caught his eye. Taking his supplies to a counter, he expertly began to mix a batter while scooping out the innards of the cactus before tossing it into a bowl of tequila. When the batter was good and thick, the next step was to heat the oil to a low boil while keeping time with which item needed chopping in what order. He started with the scorpions for the simple convenience of preventing them from crawling away, moving on to frying the bacon and peppers once the creature were fully immobilized. After perhaps an hour had passed, Olas wiped sweat from his brow and finally presented his culinary creation to the childish abomination.
“Wonderful,” She exclaimed, “I was beginning to grow impatient.” She inspected the meal briefly, sniffing the deep fried exterior before nodding approvingly. In one fluid motion, she devoured the fire stuffed cactus in a single jaw detaching bite, belching loudly immediately afterwards.
“My turn.”
Abigail raised her arms abruptly, crossing them over into imaginary lines, symbols of chaos and magic. Like the director of a psychotic orchestra in the midst of a lynch mob, she conjured flames and sharpened blades to fulfill her unreal wishes. The kitchen exploded in mad energies around Olas, who fell to the tiled floor in an attempt to avoid the flying hazards that spun wildly through the air. Abigail cackled in her joyous lunacy, turning her attention towards the strange piston device, the very same whose purpose, until now, remained obscured.
“Behold my omnipotence!” She screamed, hands waving in every direction as floating nonsense arranged her prep work.
“Behold my boiler!” The steam gauge assembly groaned as Abigail revved its diesel engine. Pistons blasted heat, compartments and hoppers filled with grains and fruits while tubes pumped miscellaneous fluids past grinding gears and meats that roasted over open flames produced a gyrating prism.
“Behold my flavors!” She demanded, as the finished product was dressed and plated for Olas. It had been a mere twenty seconds since she had started her absurd performance, and the dish served would, under any other circumstance, require a dozen men and at least three months of elaborate planning.
“Frittata?” Olas inquired, hesitant to ingest a single bite after having witnessed the process firsthand. He was fairly certain that ectoplasm may have been used as a dairy substitute.
“Portabella lobster frittata with two ounces of silver-baked caviar, garnished with Phobian whitegrass, seasoned with quadsodiumthantrite and served with a driveling of sauce béchamel, which I altered with addition of basil and ectoplasm as the thickening agent. Also I threw in some leeks just for the hell of it.” Her gaze insisted on her own masterpiece.
Olas took a bite and nearly died of existential ecstasy.
“It’s like there’s a party in mouth and everyone’s a cannibal! This is the greatest thing I have or will ever taste if I live for a hundred billion years!” Olas realized that he was talking instead of eating and almost punched himself for his own stupidity. Abigail waited silently as Olas made alternating sounds of chewing, sobbing, and laughing. A few minutes later, Abigail snapped her fingers, sending the dinning wares off to autonomously cleanse themselves.
“Now that the customary pleasantries have come to pass, we may continue with plans of this fine evening.” The kitchen lights where suddenly darkened, replaced violently with stove flames, throwing shadows across the tiled walls. The mood shifted as abruptly as the lighting. Olas’s face began to crack a look of concern despite the remaining taste in his mouth, but just barely. “You have arrived at a very opportune time young Nicholas. A once in a millennium event actually; The Feast of Beast it is called in your peanut brained language.” She giggled coyly, before noticing the expression of apprehension on Olas’s face.
“Oh don’t give me that look mister. You knew what you were getting yourself into when you opened that dusty old tome. Apocryphal knowledge comes at a price obviously.” A disturbingly wide grin stretched across the little girl’s face. “Plus a twenty percent tip, if you’re classy that is.”
“What does this feast involve?” Asked Olas, quite sure that he wouldn’t enjoy the answer. Abigail maintained her smile.
“Oh, just a bit of garlic, a few chopped carrots, a mortal sacrifice, and a scalloped zucchini or two. You can handle that right?” Olas’s eyes widened, backing away, slowly at first as the image sunk into his mind’s eye, then turning for a run. Before he could even reach the kitchen doors he was caught; ensnared in a roll of cheesecloth in a way befitting Abigail’s arachnidan appearance. He was dragged screaming in fear across the floor back towards the meat locker.
“Stop, please don’t do this!” He cried. “You can take it back, the book. I don’t need it anymore!”
Abigail just laughed in her dueling sinister voice. In her eyes, Olas was nothing more than a slab of meat to be tenderized.
“I will rend your fat human. And it will be delicious.” She stripped Olas of cheesecloth and clothing, throwing him onto a hook as though he were weightless. Olas panted through a clenched jaw as the cold steel pierced his thorax. His breath was dampened by the strain of a collapsed lung.
“Good, very good.” Abigail said, poking at Olas’s abdomen. “Organs fresh as these will cover tonight’s dinner rush.” Olas coughed blood onto her face. She happily licked it from her chin.
“I promise… I promise I won’t cook anymore. For anyone, just let me go.” He begged.
“Ha! I’ll be getting that either way stupid. Now shut up and accept your slaughter little lamb. You’re dying for art. Or gluttony. Whatever.”
Becoming uninterested in the young chef’s pleas, she focused her attention on a rack of utensils.
“Hmm, cleaver…or mallet? Or perhaps something pronged. Serrated? Souffle torch maybe? Rakshasa does enjoy a crispy skin.” She paused a moment in thought. “Ah, of course, the melon baller! How could I forget? Those eyes aren’t going to scoop themselves…and yet…you know what, let’s try them all!” Selecting a different tool for each hand, she returned to face Olas, eager to resume the butchering. Olas knew it was useless to bargain, but tried his best anyway.
“Please, I… I can help you.” He stammered.
“Help me? It took your species two hundred and fifty thousand years just to figure out how to boil water. You’re not even good enough to stir the soup.” A serrated knife embedded itself just below Olas’s diaphragm, twisted, then extracted as quickly as it had entered. Olas’s body convulsed in agony.
“Hey look at that, frittata!” Abigail grabbed a handful of the acid soaked omelet from Olas’s open stomach, shoving it by the fist load into her mouth, unfazed by blood or enzymes.
“Bu… but…” Olas was experiencing such obscene feelings of burning pain that speaking was almost entirely out of the question. No choice but to abandon all hope.
Abigail twirled the melon baller between her fingers.
“Don’t blink now, wouldn’t want those eyelashes getting everywhere.” With a twitch, the blades darted towards Olas’s soft flesh.
“BUT YOU ATE IT!” He screamed as the metal tools approached his face in his final, labored effort to save himself. A knife froze midair, no more than a centimeter from his trachea.
“Y… you ate it. I made it and you swallowed.”
Abigail blinked.
“Yes… and your point is what exactly?”
Olas caught what little breath he could.
“Did you like it?” He managed to ask, after a short respite.
Abigail furrowed her brow.
“Of course I liked it. I would have spat it out if I didn’t. In fact, it was probably the best tequila pepper bomb that I’ve had since Senor Diablo himself graced my kitchen with his cloven pezunas.” She paused once she realized the words she spoke. Olas had managed to prove himself useful, albeit in a small, easily disposable sort of way. She growled in resentment.
“Fine. I’ll grant you a favor. Make it count.”
Olas sighed painfully in relief, and made the obvious request to be returned home, back to a world he could be sure was not part of some elaborate nightmare or metaphysical plane of reality. He expressed his desire, and it was done. Abigail nodded in agreement, set aside the blades and torches, procuring a single onion it their place. She held it up to Olas’s nostrils.
“Peel the onion, and smell the ether. Layer by layer, to taste something deeper.” She chanted as she removed dry skin of pale violet. Olas’s eyes shuddered, his body numbed, and the meat locker faded to black.
Olas awoke in a gasp of terror, still sweating thick rolling beads that soaked his mattress. But it was his mattress, and his bedroom. He blinked once, twice, just be sure that everything was back to the way it should be. He checked his watch, and confirmed the hands by the first rays of dawn that passed through his window. Hardly believing it, Olas took his time standing to his feet, making his way to the bathroom to wash the sweat from his face.
Not knowing what to do after splashing cool water over his head and neck, Olas noticed how the pain in his stomach had been replaced with hunger. He walked to the kitchen.
The sight of cabinets and tile caused his heart to skip a beat, but after a moment of cautious inspection, Olas relaxed. There was no pentagram, or bismuth, or cheesecloth. There was no Novum Saporem: the only book to be found was a tattered copy of Yotam Ottolenghi’s “Plenty”. Nothing supernatural or horrible whatsoever. It was just a kitchen, a simple, familiar kitchen. Olas chuckled to himself in relief. Clearly it was all just a bad dream brought on by spoiled produce, nothing more. He could kick himself for letting it get to him so early in the day. Olas went along and opened his refrigerator to figure out what he should have for breakfast.
At first, Olas was confused. He was certain that he had stocked the shelves of his fridge the previous day, but it was almost entirely empty, save for a single…
His face froze, ice raced through his veins at the sight of a single, half peeled onion. To its side, a small florid note. “Welcome home.” It read. Olas realized his flaw, asking only to be returned back to his apartment, a request fulfilled to the letter. And to add insult to injury, she used the loophole to steal all of his groceries.
He didn’t even have time to scream before the hands grabbed him from behind.
Credit To – Stephan D. Harris
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Did you know that you can always see your nose, but your brain chooses to ignore it? The point is your brain can make you blind to certain aspects of reality. There is a way to see the things your brain ignores. Though, be warned, what has been seen cannot be unseen.
First, you will need a computer; tablets work just as well. After you find yourself a suitable device, you will need a location. It doesn’t have to be a special place, but medium sized houses or apartments work the best. The next thing you will have to do is close every single door in the location. This is why large abandoned buildings don’t work well. When at your chosen location, you must make sure you are completely alone.
Once you enter the chosen location, you can’t leave or you’ll have to start over at a different location. When you’re sure you’re alone and every door is closed, you can perform the next step. You have to wait. No matter what time you entered, you will have to wait exactly twenty four hours and then wait until two thirty in the morning. You don’t have to begin at two thirty, but the ritual will not work anytime before two thirty and after four forty five.
When you feel the time is right, choose a room to start the ritual. Go in and close the door behind you. Sit directly in the center of the room and make sure the door is directly behind your back. Finally, turn on your device. At this point, stopping the ritual will be impossible. There are some things you shouldn’t do:
1. DO NOT GET UP.
2. DO NOT LOOK AT ANYTHING BUT YOUR DEVICE.
3. DO NOT MAKE A SOUND.
As soon as your device is finished loading up, it will automatically go into your web browser and open up a website. The website is always random and is never the same for any two people. The website will only display a play button. You do not have to do anything because the video will play itself. The video does not have a length.
Images and words will appear. The words will not make any sense to you and will seem like gibberish. The images depend on you. Some people see violent depictions of war, some people see places they’ve never visited, some people see distant planets. No matter the subject of the first few images you see, the tone of the images will eventually take on a…darker tone.
No matter how disturbing the images become, you must not look away. Even as you hear the doors in the location opening and slamming shut. Even as you hear the door behind you opening, do not turn your gaze from your device. Act ignorant to your surroundings. Such ignorance will be the only barrier between you and the horrors you have allowed to reside with you.
After an undetermined amount of time, the images and words will stop and a live video feed will play. The video will show your location. The camera will approach the front door and enter. You will hear the front door open and close. Keep watching the feed. The camera will go throughout the building and every door the camera stops at will open.
As the camera makes its way to the room you are currently in, the hair on the back of your neck will stand up. Once again, the door behind you will open and you will feel a strong chill. Your hands will shake as the video shows your back. The video flash to a demonic caricature of your face.
At this point, your eyes will involuntarily shut and you will become immobilized. Footsteps will be heard approaching you. They will stop when they’re directly behind you. After a agonizing minute, you will feel a cold, bony, hand on your shoulder. You will hear a low, rumbling voice speak to you. It will say: “What do you desire most?”
This is a trick question and anything you say will cause you to be disemboweled and force fed your entrails. The only way to get out of this alive is to answer the question with this statement: “I want my eyes to be open.” If you have been sincere in your attempt at the ritual, your body will be under your control again and you will be able to open your eyes.
When you open your eyes, you will be in your bedroom. You won’t be able to remember the location where you performed the ritual, but that doesn’t matter anymore. What does matter will be clear to you when you look out a window; You will now be able see all that you weren’t able to before performing the ritual.
Every horror story you read or hear or see…all of them are somewhat based on truth. Although, the reality is much, much, more frightening. You will now be able to see it all. The stuff of nightmares. Creatures that your brain has been ignoring will be ever so clear. They are the things that go bump in the night. You will be able to tell who else can see. But this is a gift and a curse. They know you can see them now. They feed off your fear…and their hunger is never satisfied.
Credit To – UNIversial666
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I find myself speeding down a road that is, for some reason, both familiar and unfamiliar. The sky arches above me like an ancient and angry sea, grey and melancholy, reaching down to the horizon to kiss the earth. I’m going to fall into the sky, I think to myself. My car will sink down into the clouds like a stone and that will be the end of me. I smile at the absurdity, but grip my steering wheel tighter. The trees, what few there are that I see upon the road, are gnarled ugly things, bereft now of even their autumn foliage in the early November frost. My car is the sole occupant of a lonely stretch of highway, silently bringing me to my destination. “It’s a good day for a wake,” I say to no one, breaking the stillness of the day. My voice startles me and I retreat into my head. I let the yellow lines of the road and the monotony of the scenery hypnotize me, and soon my mind is wandering down familiar corridors. For what must be the thousandth time, I think of him.
Seamus Hagan could pass for a good man when sober. He was boisterous and affable and could talk to strangers as if he had known them their entire life. He would tell bawdy stories that could make men laugh well into the evening, and tell sweet lies that could make women swoon. At parties, he was the center of attention, surrounding himself with members of all social strata. They gathered in their revelry to hear of his outrageous stories and antics, but still, they did not know him. Beneath the thin veneer of personality Seamus Hagan was unhappy. He harbored within himself an unending sadness that always threatened to peak above the surface if he was left too long alone in his own mind.
When I was young, my father looked up to Seamus, I feel like he idolized him in his own way. They had grown up together and Seamus, who could never hold onto a wife for very long, was always traipsing through our home, an unwelcome guest to all but my father. I remember clearly the day I solved the riddle of his being. It was a crisp autumn day, the last of October, and I for my part was dressed as a cowboy. Seamus, who had been drinking again, looked me up and down and said
“What sort of a get-up is that?”
“I’m a cowboy,” I replied
“Are you stupid or something lad?” he said. “You’re supposed to be a monster on Halloween, something scary.”
I grew silent and looked away from him.
“Come here and sit down I’m gonna tell you a story about why you look
ridiculous.”
Seamus was never parted from his drink for long and I could smell the beer on his breath as I approached him. His eyes had grown dim from the alcohol but his voice was as melodious and commanding as ever. His breaths were steady and his pale grey eyes were fixed on me. Obediently, I sat next to his chair at his feet unsure of what to expect from the old drunk. I was at his mercy and he began his tale.
“Now all this business of Halloween that you children get on about is a sanitized, Christianized version of the festival of Sauin celebrated by our heathen ancestors before St. Patrick taught us to fear wrath of Jesus Christ. Now my mother, gone these thirty years God rest her soul, she was something of an expert on Sauin and while she was a God fearing woman she knew rightly that it isn’t wise to completely forget the old ways. You see the Druids knew on Sauin certain doors were opened, temporarily, and the dead could come back for a night. To keep themselves safe, the Druids appeased the dead with certain rituals, some of which have trickled down to us. They’d carve lanterns out of turnips to light the path of the way back to the underworld. They’d dig up the corpses of the newly dead and arrange them at a grotesque feast so that they won’t be hungry on their way. They’d go around through the town and find a little child. Then in the fields that had been left fallow that year they would construct a gigantic wicker man with the help of all the townspeople. When it was complete, the child would be shut up in the head and then the wicker man would be set alight while all the people joined hands round it and chanted to the gods and the dead; one living soul given as an offering to the dead, to ensure their prosperity and leave ‘em alone for one more year. No one went out on Sauin for fear of encountering the dead in their grim procession and being dragged into the nether world. Those travelers that could not help but be on the road would rub chalk on their faces and charcoal under their eyes, or maybe wear some ugly mask so that if they should be questioned by a dead man they met, they could say ‘no sir I am already dead, I am already among the dead.”
Seamus looked around and stood up from the chair. Somehow I knew intuitively not to move yet. He returned in a minute with two beers, one of which he offered to me but I declined. He drained one right then and there and then took to nursing the second. He swirled and churned the lager in his mouth taking in the full breadth of its flavor, trying to decide what to do next. After a moment the alcohol began to affect him and he continued his story.
“Now my mother, God rest her soul, was always beating me senseless when I got to sneaking out at night but that only encouraged me to do it all the more because, fuck her, right? So one night, I was about your age, she says to me ‘Seamus, you have the devil in you and you don’t care one lick for your mother but I’m telling you don’t be sneaking about at night tonight. Tonight is the feast of Sauin where the dead come up from their graves and follow grim Morrigan in procession in search of some living child to drag back into the underworld, for the dead despise the living. For the sake of your mother, stay in your bed tonight.’ So naturally that night when she was asleep I got my clothes on and prepared to sneak out and see what mischief I could get myself into. Now my mother’s stories were rattling around in my head and I must have believed some of ‘em because before I went out I whited my face and blackened my eyes and snuck out a window and set out upon the road.”
Now I recall Seamus paused here again and shifted his glaze uneasily around the room as if checking its dark corners for some unseen stranger. His breathing became deeper and his mind seemed in turmoil. Seamus’s skin turned ashen and for a moment I thought he would vomit. The words he meant to speak next seemed stuck in his throat and he feared to spit them up. He looked down at the beer in his hand, quickly finished it, and grabbed another. Filled with the courage that one often finds at the bottom of a beer glass, he cleared his throat and began again.
“So I went through the town looking for what mischief I could get into but I found no one about and no shop open. I was about to start vandalizing houses when I looked into the distance beyond town and saw a pale orange light flickering in the distance. I thought it must be some bonfire lit by likeminded children and so resolved to make my way towards it. In no time at all I was in the woods outside of town on a narrow dirt path that passed for a road in Ireland in those days. I looked down the road and saw the light moving toward me slowly. I realized what I thought was a bonfire in the extreme distance was actually just some old codger in a car. Determined as ever to make the best of a bad situation I gathered up some good sized stones to throw at the car as it passed by and hid in brush on the side of the road.”
Seamus paused here for the last time though the pause was the longest. He didn’t say anything or move just continued staring off into the space beyond him reliving events in his own mind. Minutes passed and I began to feel uneasy. He began to rock in his chair a bit, and I thought for a moment he was going to have a seizure like someone I had once seen on TV. All at once he began speaking again, as if in a trance, as if no time had passed at all.
“I waited for that damn car to come. Five minutes became ten minutes became twenty. It was moving so fucking slowly I should have known I was no car. I was just about to get up I was just about to leave when I saw this big bird fly over me, it looked like a raven or a crow, but it was the size of a house cat. It perched on a tree just beyond me and let out a screeching cackle that chilled my bones. I saw the road light up and thought that the car had come at last. I crouched down and readied my stones but instead of a car I saw people, lots of people. It was some parade I thought, but as my eyes adjusted realized they were all dead. At the head of the procession was a gaunt man, naked and bone white, carrying a scepter of polished bone. On his head he wore the skull of horse and he urged on the mass of corpses behind him with his hideous gesticulations. Behind him came in no particular order the mob of the dead. Old, young, women, men, it made no matter. Some looked nearly whole and could pass for the living if not for their unearthly paleness. Still others looked as rotted corpses, blood and maggots dripping out of every orifice. Still others were little more than skeletons who wore their flesh like a beggar wears rags on a hot summer day. They shambled along held together by an unseen force. All of them carried small lanterns, some carved from pumpkins, others form turnips, and still others from things I didn’t want to recognize. The parade lasted minutes, hours, years, millennia. Time stood still and yet jumped ahead of itself. It was over before it started, and yet lasted forever, all the while presided over by that grim bird who watched it all with dead and lidless eyes. Eventually the shambling corpses and their unearthly light moved past me. The bird took to the air once again and I was left alone in the brush, gasping for breath as my heart threatened to beat its way out of my chest.”
“I emerged from the brush and looked down the road. I saw the lights of the phantom parade safely in the distance and tried to collect my thoughts, when I heard a twig break behind me. I turned slowly and acted unsurprised, and maybe that’s the only reason I’m still here today. In front of me was a young boy, pale and in tattered clothing. Pieces of his flesh and his face were missing and his throat was cut from ear to ear causing the blood to dribble down his shirt like a bib. In one hand he held a small pumpkin lantern, and in the other a knife. I took only small breaths least he realize I was still breathing and looked deep into his cloudy eyes. He spoke to me in a gurgling voice that seemed more to escape from the bleeding slit in his throat than his mouth.
‘Are you alive who walks among the dead? I’ll carve you up and drag you piece by piece to my home beneath the earth and you shall never see another sunrise. That is a promise I make to you living boy.’ I stood glued to the spot. I thought this was the end of old Seamus, but then I remembered my mother’s stories and I looked at the dead boy and said
‘No sir, I am already dead; I am already among the dead.’
‘Liar,’ said the dead boy, ‘I can hear the pitter patter of your heart it sings to me through the night.’
Again I replied in a steady voice, ‘No sir, I am already dead, I am already among the dead.’
‘I see your chest moving living boy though you try to hide it will you deny that?’
‘No sir I am already dead; I am already among the dead.’ It stared at me for a good long while after that toying with its knife but I matched its gaze as best I could. After a while the dead boy seemed to fade into the shadows around him and then was gone. No long after the sun came up.”
Seamus didn’t say another word; he just stared into the space ahead of him looking like a corpse himself. After a few minutes I got up, and approached the doorway. He shouted at me then “But you don’t understand that wasn’t the worst of it, you don’t understand what I saw in that parade that night, you don’t know who was there,”
“Who was there?” I said
“Everyone”
Seamus never spoke of that day again. Perhaps he drank away the memory. When I was a few years older he and my father had a falling out, I never asked about what, and I never saw him again.
What I partly realized that day and elaborated on upon reflection was that Seamus believed that the fate of all men saint, sinner, and everything in between, was to join that hideous parade. It was their fate to be called down to a gloomy sunless netherworld where an eternity of languished sighs robs them of their minds and their sanities and they die a second death. Their jealousy of the living morphs into a deep well of hatred and every Sauin night they comb the land searching for someone to drag down with them and share in their unending misery. The dread of one day joining that parade haunted Seamus and molded him into a man filled with fear, who tried all manner of diversions to hide from the truth that dogged his footsteps his entire life, that hell was the destination of all men.
I am driving down a road that is becoming more and more familiar. I see before me, just ahead on the dirt path that passes for a road in Ireland these days, the funeral home, not a mile from the house where I grew up. Outside my father waits, beckoning me to come in, it’s a marvel how well death can mend fences. For what must be the thousandth time I think of him. I tell myself he was just an old drunken fool trying to scare me. I say to myself, no man knows what becomes of us when we die, and perhaps that is for the best, for if we knew the truth of the lurking horrors awaiting us on the other side of the horizon line it would drive us mad. This thought too I push from my mind. No living man knows what becomes of us. No one can say to a certainty what, if anything Seamus saw that night, and no one can say what it meant. Whatever demons haunted Seamus in life he’s beyond them now. Whatever waits for us on the other side no man can say but one thing at least is true, whatever waits for us, now Seamus knows.
Credit To – John Fitzgerald
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It started with my 3 year old son screaming in his room in the middle of the night. When I came in to check on him he was in hysterics. Tears ran down his little cheeks as he cried about how the Boogeyman had frightened him. I let him sleep with my wife and I for the night, thinking it was just a bad dream.
The next evening he didn’t even want to be in his room, but I convinced him that the Boogey Man was just a figment of his imagination. I was awoken once more by his screams. I rushed to his room, to find him in tears again.
On the third night I set up a camcorder in his room, in order to show him that there was no monster. That evening there was no screaming and no crying. I was refreshed when I woke up in the morning after having gotten my first good nights sleep in three days. However, my son did seem fatigued. He didn’t even put up his usual fuss in the morning when we got him ready for preschool. When my wife took him to day care, I decided to review the camera’s tape in order to find out how he had slept. I’ll never forget what I saw.
At around 2AM while my son was asleep his closet door slowly creaked open. Out of the shadows crept a pale, naked, veiny, woman with long white hair and solid black eyes. Her body was bony and frail, like that of a holocaust survivor. When she turned to the side, I could see her spine protruding from her hunched back like a dinosaur. She reached into my son’s crib with her unnaturally large hands and covered his mouth. He was trying to scream, but he couldn’t. The palm of one of her hands easily enveloped his head, muffling his cries. She snatched him up with the ease that a person of her frame should not have had, then walked back into the closet with him in her arms. An hour later she returned with what looked like a wriggling maggot the size of a duffle bag and placed it in my son’s bed before retreating once more into the closet.
Over the next 2 hours I watched it twist and writhe while it grew and mutated until it looked just like my baby boy. Once the transformation was complete, it got out of bed and slipped on a pair of his pajamas, then slid back between the covers and waited for us to come in. I don’t know what that thing is that left with my wife this morning, but I know it’s not my son.
Credit To – Vincent Vena Cava
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“There are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them. Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane, sometimes they barely fan one’s cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore.”
― Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle
Do you remember your sixth birthday? You were probably uncontainably elated; diving into a small mountain of delicately wrapped presents, exhuming each and every one with more exitement and joy than the last. Maybe you remember sitting in a dark room, lit only by the faint incandescence of 6 glowing candles, giggling and kicking your feet as your entire family sung to you, before blowing them all out and making your wish. Or perhaps you have fond memories of being chased around the house by a firing squad of party poppers, becoming almost entombed in a cascade of tinsel and confetti, much to your delight. I truly hope that that is the case. If it is, I am happy for you, and I’m glad your early years were filled with happiness. Unfortunately, I remember turning six for an entirely different reason.
Don’t get me wrong, my sixth birthday party was great… Probably. I don’t really remember it, so I can’t tell you. I do recall eating smashed cake from off of the top of my head, if that’s any indication. And it was real windy that day, like, gale force. I guess turning six isn’t particularly memorable for anyone, but it’s almost as if what happened to me that night made the day’s events seem so insignificant that I didn’t commit them to even the vaguest of memories. By shocking contrast, what happened that night is something I will never, ever forget. You see, that was the night that I was… Visited.
Birthday boys didn’t get any special treatment in my household; the “party” was over and I was in bed by 8 o’clock, just like every other night. But this wasn’t at all like any other night. I thought I heard the sound of something scraping against my window, a kind of scratching sound, like an old record jumping. My mother assured me it was a tree branch and, exhausted from my exciting day, I quickly fell asleep.
I don’t know if it was the cold that woke me up, the sound of the wind howling through the open window, or the billowing curtains, but my eyes bolted open and my sheets were stuck to me by a cold sweat. That wind, it was horrifying. It froze me solid, it was so damn cold, and I swear I could hear a thousand pained screams calling out my name, floating on its haunted breath, seemingly a million miles away. A quick glance at my wall clock revealed I’d been asleep for a grand total of 6 minutes. My entire room was covered in a thick frost, and I could see my breath freezing in front of my face. Worst of all, I couldn’t move, not even an inch. I could swivel my eyes in my head, but that was the limit of my movement. All of this on its own, as I’m sure you can imagine, would be certifiably terrifying, especially for a young child. Let me clear a few things up; my birthday is the 22nd of June, there’s no way it was cold enough out for my whole room to freeze the fuck over in such a short amount of time. And why the hell was my window open in the first place? My mom drew the curtains every night and made sure my window was shut tight, it could only be opened from the inside, and yet there it was, opened as far as it would go. Nothing made sense, and I was so petrified. I tried screaming, but I couldn’t make sound. I tried shutting my eyes as hard as I could, as if trying to wake from a bad dream, but this was very, very real. The frost, chilling me to the bone, was real. The baltic wind surging in through the impossibly opened window, whispering my name, that was real. Whatever was holding me down, whatever was stopping me from calling to my mother, that had to be real. That’s when it drifted in through the window. That thing. And believe me, I’ve prayed every night since that he isn’t real.
The first thing I noticed was his head, or what little of it their was. His skin bore the complexion of something dead and rotten, covered in stripping patches and sickly yellow in colour. It was wrinkled and covered in moles, like it had once belonged to an old man, perhaps in his 90s. The skin around its eyes was completely absent, as if it had been gruesomely clawed and ripped away, revealing yellowed bone, despite its eyeballs being completely intact. Its most disturbing feature by far was that its entire lower jaw had been messily ripped off, leaving its dried, black tongue dangling from its mouth. Its head, logically, was then followed by its body… Or at least, what I assume was its body. Around the creature’s veiny, pallid neck was a tattered silk robe, which seemed even darker than the darkness itself. It was covered in all sorts of grime and it even had a few holes in it, through which I could see its dessicated chest; dark, rotting skin stretched tight over broken ribs. The robe continued downwards until it became nothing more than shreds, barely dangling from the main body, and hanging below them, scraping along my windowsill before messily hitting my floor, was a length of black, centipede-ridden intestines. I waited for its legs to follow, but they never did. As far as I know, it doesn’t have any, and it apparently doesn’t need them. It floated further into my room and hovered right above my face, extending a decaying arm, practically dripping with lumps of decrepid flesh, from under its robes and placing it on my shivering forehead. Then it drew its face in close to mine, and I realized the true horror of its visage.
The eyes. Oh god the eyes. They weren’t coal black, like an animal’s, and no, I didn’t see an eternity of endless suffering behind them, or my future, or the meaning of the universe. They were just a pair of perfectly normal, grassy green eyes. They seemed fresh and young, compared to the rest of its body, at least. Almost like a child’s eyes, wet and glistening. That was the most disturbing part. Something so vile, something so rancid and abhorrent, and yet it possessed the most beutiful, human eyes I have ever seen. Something so wicked shouldn’t have eyes like that. It’s just wrong. It lowered itself to my side, producing another arm, this one split directly down the middle as if it had been sawed in half, and placed one bony, feculent hand on either side of my ear. Then it started whispering, in angry, cursing tones, but as gently and as subtly as a gust of wind on a summer’s day. Even without a jaw it could speak, likely in the same way it could move without legs, but I still smelt the sour stench of death on its breath as its ice cold wheeze brushed against my ear. At that point I started to become hysterical. I tried my hardest to scream, I tried to thrash around and kick out my arms and legs, but I was still paralyzed, frozen, under that thing’s will. Then the whispering abruptly stopped. The being floated up from my bedside and slowly began to recede back through the window, the thick layer of ice withdrawing with it, into the night from whence it came. It never stopped facing me, its icy glare never realeased its hold on me, not until its entire body had become invisible in the darkness outside my house. As soon as the final glints from its unnatural eyes had ceased, and the last of the frost had melted away, there was a massive gust of wind and the window slammed shut with enough force to shatter the pane of glass. I suddenly felt sensation in my limbs once more, and I felt the warm rush of blood in my throat.
I screamed so hard I almost burst a lung.
Of course, my mother eventually came, and gave me some comforting words. It was all a dream, she’d said, blaming the broken window on some disrespectful youths who’d decided to vocalize just how lame my party had been with a brick. I didn’t sleep that night. Or the night after. I was just too horrified; I thought that every time I slept, that thing would visit me. I dreaded falling asleep more than anything, I was utterly inconsolable. According to my mom I cried for 2 days straight, refusing to tell her what I’d seen. Really fucking horrifying stuff.
Anyway, that was twelve years ago now. I eventually recovered, but I never truly forgot what happened that night, despite never seeing the apparition again. I’ve been to several doctors, and they’ve all given me the same diagnosis; sleep paralysis. It’s not uncommon to visualize terrifying images while in this state, they told me. For a while I actually believed that it had all been some vivid hallucination, but I know that’s not true. I was also completely unable to recall what the spectre had whispered to me that night. Maybe it was because I’d completely ignored what the fuck it was saying (I was just trying to find a way to wake up from that living nightmare), but some of my psychologists suggested that I had blocked the memory from my mind to prevent my brain further trauma. I even tried being hypnotized to see if I could coax it out from the recesses of my subconscious, but it was all fruitless in the end.
That’s the end of the story, more or less. I’m sorry it doesn’t have a more satisfying conclusion, like the thing snatching my throat out and drinking my blood, or dragging me into the depths of hell. This is something that has seriously affected my life, and I hope you can appreciate that it is something that, to me, at least, is chilling to the very soul. There is one thing, however, that I must add. Admittedly, it’s the reason I took to writing this all up in the first place, I just can’t get it out of my head. When I woke up this morning, this, chant, I guess, was ringing in my head, reverberating in my mind, I was practically singing it in the shower. Only when I stopped to actually listen to what I was saying did it strike me. I can’t prove it, but I know where I’ve heard these words before; that fateful night, twelve years ago…
“Son of Earth, you are yet a child,
and so, too frail for our embrace beguiled.
The cloth pulled down over your eyes,
the lips with which you suckle lies;
We must snatch these sordid things away,
for you to see true light of day.
Still, too young, not ready yet,
To join our most enlightened set.
But when, dear boy, you are a man,
and need no longer of your mother,
we will come for you, my clan,
and, at long last, shall call you; Brother.”
I turned 18 this morning, and all day I swear I’ve heard my name floating on the wind. Closer now, and angrier.
Credit To – Acaimo
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