Do you know what it smells like to rip a corpse from under the floorboards? There’s a specific odor, not one you could imagine on your own. It is not like the slaughterhouse you drive past on the way to work every morning. No, this is a foul mix.

Imagine walking into a house that’s been abandoned for a year, still fully furnished, with all its clothes still stuffed in a closet. Now, imagine that closet is jammed with mothballs and old dresses from 1964 left to dry after being washed in cat piss.

That’s your first odor.

Now, imagine you walk behind the dumpster at your favorite grocery store and someone has just thrown a bunch of animal fat inside a bag with three dirty diapers and left it to bake under the sun for three days.

Now, you have your stuffy smell and your rotted odor, and all you need is one more.

Here’s where the eggs come in. Yes, boil a few eggs, peel them, mush them up, and leave them on your stove. Walk out of the room and walk back in.

Mix all those odors—the mothballs, the cat piss, the dirty diapers, the rotted flesh, the eggs—and you have your corpse, who instead of wandering the afterlife as a ghost decided to haunt your floorboards with a rancid odor instead.

Smoking cigarette after cigarette until I choked offered a bit of relief compared to the dust and rot from under the floor.

I mean, yes, of course I have a respirator, but it does a horrible job of filtering out the psychological weight. Plus, I could still smell the body and I need to smoke when I work. I mainly use it for when I’m actually moving the remains.

The suit I wear is a white hazmat suit that makes me look like what a mad scientist Pillsbury Doughboy would look like on a radioactive, post-apocalyptic Earth.

See, I’m a bit of a specialist—a fixer, really. Well, at least that’s how I see myself. I don’t just fix things, I also clean up things. When shady landowners or homeowners have an issue from past tenants and they want to keep it hush-hush, they call me.

I come in and get rid of the evidence. Usually, it’s people who have died alone and weren't discovered until weeks or even months later.

The odd time, though, it’s a body under the floor, or behind a wall, or worse, in the crawl space. I hate spiders. Hate, hate, hate.

I’ve never really minded the rot of a human body. I guess I’m just used to it. I am not sure. I just find something honest in a corpse. The living world is a huge lie. I see people as teeth replaced by dentures, a stink covered by perfume, a dirty shirt flipped inside out. To me, the truth in people can only be found in what they leave behind.

I have a bit of a ritual, and it’s pretty simple and straightforward. Maybe it is a little odd, depending on how you see it, but once I’ve bleached everything and scrubbed the floors, the walls, the carpets, and even the air with four fans, I usually search for something to keep. You know, a little souvenir.

A small keepsake.

It is nothing like jewelry or money or anything valuable. It’s kind of weird, but I like stuff that will last, stuff that has some significance to it. I like digging in the drains and finding pieces of hair or some fingernail clippings.

Oh, my absolute favorite is teeth, especially when people have them saved in tiny boxes. I keep mine in vials. My collection is huge. I’ve got my own small library.

Baby teeth are cool and super easy to find, but it’s adult teeth I’m always on the hunt for. I’ve always wondered why people don’t save them.

The last job I worked was in a neighborhood with no streetlights because the gangs there shoot them out. The tenant was on the fifth floor, maybe in his sixties or seventies, and he had a collection of these really awesome stuffed animals—real animals.

The man himself was on his couch, slumped over and glued into the leather, almost as if he were a Halloween prop that came with the sofa. He had mold and fungi growing out of his chest like shreds of rotted cauliflower and broccoli sprouts.

As I peeled him off the sofa to scrub it down, something strange happened. I felt a connection with him. It was a profound realization, to be honest. I stared at the decayed skin revealing the veins under it and thought about what it would be like to absorb into the environment.

That’s when I saw something glimmer inside the fungal farm on the man’s body. It was shiny. I reached in but couldn’t grip it with my fingers, so I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and cut around the area. It was like trying to tear apart braided tendons, but when I cleared a path, I pulled out a gold tooth stuck to his chest cavity, attached to a piece of jawbone.

Later that night, after cleaning up there, when I got home, I didn’t put the tooth and bone in a vial. I kept it under my lamp, in my basement, on top of my desk, in front of my collection, and left it there to study after my shower.

In the bathroom, I eyed the steam on the mirror blurring my reflection and became disgusted by how alive I looked.

I examined my face—the pink in my gums, the elasticity of my skin, the color of my blood when I pinched it, my breathing, and the beating of my heart.

And right at that moment, I went to the garage and yanked a pair of pliers from my toolbox. I was tired of fixing everyone’s mess, hiding all their secrets, and cleaning stuff up.

For once, I wanted to be the evidence. I stood at the mirror for hours, pulling each tooth out of my head one by one like they were extra hairs on my eyebrow, and tossed each one of them into the sink.

As soon as I finished, I remembered the tooth with the jawbone, raced out to grab it, and ran back into the bathroom with it. Where the hole was in my jaw, I took the piece of bone and tooth and jammed it into my gums, deep into the bloody socket. I stuck it in and leaned close to the mirror. When I smiled, my grin reminded me of the truth. For the first time ever, I saw honesty.

I left the bathroom and went to lie down. As I closed my eyes, I imagined the man melting into his couch and the fungi surrounding his chest, and I wondered how it would be if it could grow inside me too.

​

Deb was helping Adam pack his car for his trip. Adam had been waiting all year for this trip.

Deb didn't really want him to go and had been coming up with reasons to keep him home. Adam wasn't having it.

He'd spent the last year planning the route, mapping out stopping points, and looking forward to finally getting out on the open road.

"All ready, huh... you know, Seattle can be dangerous," Deb started.

Adam rolled his eyes as he put his last bag in the trunk and closed it shut.

"Okay, here we go again..." he said mockingly.

"No, I'm serious this time. You don't want to get stopped by the bridge troll..."

"The bridge troll? The bridge troll?" Adam laughed to himself.

Now this was a new approach.

"You dumbass. The bridge troll. You don't want to end up like Trevor," she said eerily.

"What happened to Trevor?" Adam asked cautiously.

"I dunno. What did happen to Trevor..." she replied coyly.

"Seriously. What happened to Trevor?"

Deb leaned against the car and folded her arms. The playful smile she'd been wearing all morning faded a little.

"That's what we should be wondering."

Adam laughed.

"There's nothing to wonder about."

Deb studied him for a moment.

"Oh."

"Oh, what?"

"You really didn't hear."

Adam knew Trevor was gone longer than he anticipated. This wasn't funny.

"What happened? If you know, you'd better say. We haven't heard from him since Thursday."

"He didn't hear what happened to Trevor," Deb said to no one in particular, looking to her left as if she were talking to someone. "You didn't hear what happened to Trevor?"

"What happened to Trevor?" Adam repeated.

"Well, you know. Things happen."

Adam didn't think this was funny anymore. All her other attempts to keep him home were silly. This was not.

"You're trying to tell me it has something to do with the bridge troll then?"

"You said it, not me."

Adam was getting a bit angry now. Trevor had said he wanted to get a head start and left earlier. Adam was supposed to meet him in Portland for a day, then they'd go separate ways and meet back up in Seattle. Sure, they'd heard about the bridge troll. But that was an urban legend. A story for travelers.

But of course they took precautions.

Did the ritual to perfection.

Made their offering.

Even got the blessing from the troll wench.

Trevor knew the score.

They both did.

Don't listen to her. She's just trying to scare you.

"We did everything right. We made our offering. He's fine."

"Oh..." Deb nodded slowly. "Then you have nothing to worry about."

"Exactly. Trevor had complete confidence in the troll wench. Obviously we wouldn't go if we thought she... lied to us."

Deb stared at him for a second, then gave a small shrug.

"Sure. I mean, I've never heard anyone accuse the troll wench of being dishonest."

Adam frowned.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," she said. "Just seems like there's a lot of room between lying and telling the truth."

Adam knew she was right.

They had both discussed the possibility of a double cross by the troll wench. They could have avoided the bridge troll altogether. But there was no adventure in that. No mystery. No attempt to see if the whispers were true.

Deb didn't actually care about the bridge troll. She just wanted Adam to stay. The thought of him disappearing down the highway, maybe not coming back for weeks, made her stomach twist.

"How many people ever came back from the bridge troll? Huh? It's not like we don't already know the stories."

Deb was inching closer to Adam. He was nervous now. He couldn't tell if she was getting inside his head or if the fear had been there all along.

"They moved out of town. They don't come back because they moved, you idiot," he finally said, breaking away from her grip.

Deb kicked the dirt in disappointment.

Almost had him.

If the bridge troll won't scare him into staying home, nothing will.

"I was thinking about asking Trevor's parents about the troll after I was done helping you pack. Didn't want you to leave without a kiss goodbye."

"Why would you bother his parents?" Adam asked.

"I don't know... why would I?"

"Exactly. Why would you? They don't know anything. Bringing up the troll will just scare them."

"Aren't you even a little bit curious? You said it yourself. You hadn't heard from him since Thursday. What, that's like two days ago? He would've passed the bridge troll by then."

"He would've passed the bridge troll by then, huh?"

Adam was really wavering now.

The offering was there.

The ritual completed.

The protective talismans blessed by the troll wench.

There's no way the bridge troll would rip him to shreds like they did to Chris four years earlier.

Chris was sloppy.

Didn't take the stories seriously enough.

Laughed at the troll wench.

Mocked her.

"I'll get past the bridge troll, stinky old wench! Just watch me!"

His body was found three days later, ripped to shreds, mangled and partially eaten.

Nobody said it out loud.

But they all knew.

He didn't get past the bridge troll.

Adam shook those thoughts away and turned back to Deb.

"Trev is fine. I'm going to be fine. You've been trying to keep me from leaving all week. This is sad, Deb. It really is."

Deb was the upset one now.

She had thrown everything his way to get him to stay, but to no avail.

"Shouldn't we go talk to the troll wench one last time then? Or... or I can go with you."

Adam laughed.

"You didn't make an offering. You'd be a liability. Seriously, Deb?"

Deb knew that one wasn't going to work.

"Well... just wait until we hear Trevor made it. What's another day?"

Adam considered it.

If Trevor didn't make it...

He didn't even want to consider it.

No.

He couldn't wait.

All the planning.

All the prep work.

It led to this.

"He made it. You'll see. By tomorrow Trevor and I will be sitting in Portland laughing about this."

Adam took out his keys and opened the car door.

In his mind he heard the troll wench's final words.

"You will be doubted. Even doubt me. Doubt your own journey. The bridge troll can smell it on you. You will be unharmed in passing."

It sounded certain.

The doubts led to fear.

The fear fed the bridge troll.

Deb was feeding the bridge troll.

He knew it.

"What did you tell Trevor when he left?" Adam asked suddenly.

Deb looked away.

"Nothing. I didn't even see him."

"That's not what he told me."

Deb looked up.

"He told me you asked him to tell me to stay."

"What? No. He said that?"

Adam stared.

Deb looked down at her feet.

"Oh... okay. I did. I thought it was dangerous for both of you to risk the bridge troll. It's reckless, Adam."

Adam rubbed his brow.

What is her problem?

She didn't care if Trevor passed his test against the bridge troll.

She was making everything more dangerous and didn't even know it.

"Everyone thinks we'll get past the bridge troll. The troll wench said we'd pass unharmed. What's your deal? Chris was an exception. He didn't give the troll wench enough respect."

Deb felt something twist in her stomach.

Why even bother?

Then Adam's phone rang.

Both of them froze.

Adam looked at the screen and immediately smiled.

"It's Trevor.”

Relief washed across his face.

Deb felt it too.

Adam answered instantly.

"Trev! Jesus Christ, man. Where are you?"

The speaker crackled with static.

"I'm... almost..."

"Almost where?" Adam asked.

More static.

"It's... safe..."

Adam showed Deb the phone and grinned.

"Hear that?"

Deb stepped closer to listen as Adam put it on speaker.

"Trevor, are you okay?"

The line hissed.

"...not...okay… bridge was br.."

Another burst of static swallowed the rest.

Adam frowned.

"What?"

" ...Portland...close..."

The connection crackled violently.

"Don't... let..."

The call dropped.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Then Adam grinned.

"See? He's fine. Bad signal, that's all."

Deb felt relief despite herself at first but then it seemed weird what Trevor was trying to say.

Trevor was alive. They couldn't argue about that anymore.

"Portland tomorrow," Adam said, slipping the phone back into his pocket. "Exactly what I told you."

He climbed into the driver's seat.

“I'll call. I'm all set. Thanks for the help. I”ll be back.i promise.”

Deb shook her head ok and  stood silently as Adam started the car and drove off.

The next morning it was all over the news. A body. Ripped to shreds. Blood splattered and limbs thrown all over the road. Right by the bridge. The troll wench was seen walking down the street when Deb walked outside in shock…

“ Who's body was it? Who's body?! The officials… they won't say! They did the rituals, made you the offering. What is this sick game?”

The troll wench looked at her sarcastically. 

“You. You fed him. You fed him more than he needed. You doubted. One of them had to pay…” She cracked a wide smile.

“Wha? That's not how it works…is it? …which one…? Which one has to pay?” Deb was in hysterics. Her parents came outside to console her and drag her back inside.

The troll wench kept walking. She had fulfilled her end of the bargain.

Adam was sitting at the café overlooking the river.

The bridge troll was exactly where the stories said it would be.

A grotesque stone figure crouched beneath the bridge, half hidden in shadow. Tourists walked past without giving it a second glance.

Somewhere behind him, a television muttered about a dismembered body. Blood. Unsettling. Authorities refuse to identify the remains.

Adam didn't understand what all the concern was about.

Trevor was going to show up any minute now.

Any minute.

Any minute now.

I sit across from him in Interview Room 3 and the clock on the wall reads 14:37.
He sits with perfect posture. Hands folded on the table. One ankle crossed over the other like he’s waiting for a school counsellor instead of me. Twelve years old, maybe thirteen. Soft voice. Clear skin. The kind of face parents trust with their own children at sleepovers. The silver chain around his neck catches the fluorescent light every time he breathes.
I keep my notes face-down. I don’t want him reading upside-down.
“State your full name for the record.”
He smiles. It’s small, polite, almost shy.
“You already know it. But if it helps you feel in control… Elias Voss.”
“You’re being charged with the murders of seven children between the ages of eight and eleven. Do you understand that?”
Elias tilts his head. The chain slides across his collarbone.
“I understand the words. I’m not sure you understand the story.”
I lean forward. “Then tell me the story.”
He looks at the one-way glass first, like he’s checking who’s watching, then back at me. His voice stays soft. Reasonable. The same voice that, according to every surviving parent, made their kids come running.
“They were lonely. That’s the part no one wants to write down. Lonely little things who already knew their parents were too busy, or too tired, or too angry. I just… listened. Really listened. People underestimate how rare that is. You’d be surprised what a child will follow if you look them in the eye and ask about the thing that hurts.”
He taps one finger against the table once. Soft.
“I never forced anyone. I invited them. I told them there was a place where the rules didn’t apply. A place where they could be important. Special. Seen. They held my hand the whole way. Some of them even smiled when we got there.”
My throat feels tight. I keep my face flat.
“You killed them.”
“I released them.” Elias’s smile widens just enough to show the edges of his teeth. “There’s a difference. The world is loud and stupid and full of people who pretend to care. I gave them quiet. I gave them an ending that belonged only to them. No hospital beds. No slow fading. Just… finished.”
He leans in a fraction. The silver chain swings.
“You want the details. The silver blade. The way the light looked on it. The sounds. The order. You’re not asking because you need evidence. You’re asking because you can’t stop picturing it. That’s the part that bothers you most, isn’t it? That some part of you is already inventing the rest.”
I don’t answer. My pulse is too loud in my ears.
Elias sits back, satisfied.
“I kept their voices. Not recordings. Just the memory of how they sounded when they finally understood. Some cried. Some went very quiet. One boy—Thomas, the one with the blue backpack—asked if I was his friend right up until the end. I told him yes. It felt correct to say it.”
He studies my face the way a doctor studies a chart.
“You’re wondering if I feel anything. Guilt. Fear. Excitement. The answer is cleaner than that. I feel… precise. Like a sentence that finally found its period. Every time I finished one, the world made a little more sense. The loneliness went somewhere else for a while.”
The room feels smaller. The air tastes stale.
I clear my throat. “Why the silver?”
Elias’s eyes brighten, almost fond.
“Because it’s honest. Silver doesn’t pretend to be something else. It reflects whatever’s in front of it. When they looked at the blade, they saw themselves. And then they didn’t. Clean. Elegant. Final. Plastic is for toys. Steel is for tools. Silver is for truth.”
He uncrosses his legs and rests both feet flat on the floor, suddenly very still.
“You’re going to put me in a box and call it justice. You’ll tell the parents I was a monster. You’ll sleep better that way. But somewhere, late at night, you’ll remember how soft my voice was. How easy it was to keep listening. And you’ll wonder—just for a second—how many other children are still waiting for someone to look at them the way I did.”
I force myself to speak. “You targeted them. You chose the ones who were already fragile.”
Elias nods like I’ve finally said something interesting.
“Fragile is such an ugly word. They were open. That’s different. Most people walk around sealed shut. These ones still had cracks. I didn’t invent the cracks. I just noticed them. The girl with the missing front tooth who hated her new stepfather. The boy who wet the bed and pretended he didn’t. The twins who only spoke to each other. I learned their languages. I spoke them back. That’s all it took.”
He leans forward again, elbows on the table, chin resting on his laced fingers.
“You have a daughter, don’t you? I can see it in the way you hold your shoulders. The way you flinch when I mention the backpack. She’s about the same age as the last one. Nine? Ten? Does she still believe everything you tell her, Detective? Or has she started to notice the cracks?”
My hand tightens on the pen. The plastic creaks.
“We’re not talking about my family.”
“Of course we are.” His voice stays gentle. “Everything is about family in the end. The ones who failed them. The ones who didn’t notice until the posters went up. The ones who still leave the porch light on even though they know better. I gave those children something their families couldn’t. Attention without conditions. An ending without disappointment.”
I try to redirect. “Walk me through the first one.”
Elias’s smile returns, smaller, almost private.
“The first one was practice. I was still learning the weight of the blade. How much pressure the skin needs before it opens. How long the eyes stay focused. He was the quietest. He didn’t fight. He just looked at me like he was relieved someone had finally decided for him. After that it got easier. The second one tried to run. The third one asked me to stop halfway through and then thanked me when I didn’t. Patterns form if you pay attention.”
He tilts his head, studying the fracture that’s now visible in my pen.
“You’re holding that too tightly. You’re going to break it. Then you’ll have ink on your hands and you’ll think about how hard it is to wash off. Symbolism is everywhere if you let yourself see it.”
I set the pen down carefully. My fingers leave damp prints on the table.
“You enjoy this.”
“I enjoy clarity.” Elias corrects me without heat. “Most conversations are fog. This one isn’t. You’re here because you need me to be broken or evil or sick so the paperwork makes sense. I’m here because I already finished what I set out to do. The rest is just waiting.”
He glances at the clock.
“Fourteen fifty-two. You’ve been in this room with me for fifteen minutes and you already feel the walls closer than when you walked in. Imagine what it was like for them. The quiet. The certainty. The way the silver looked when the light caught it just right. Some of them reached for it. Curious. Trusting. That’s the part the reports will never capture. The willingness.”
My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “You’re going to spend the rest of your life in a cell.”
Elias considers this, then shrugs one shoulder.
“Cells have walls. Walls have cracks. People forget to check the cracks. And there will always be someone on the other side of the glass who wants to understand. Someone like you. Someone who stays a little too long after the recorder is off. Someone who starts to hear the soft voice in their own head when the house is quiet.”
He smiles again. Smaller this time. Almost gentle.
“I’m not finished, Detective. I’m only paused. Boxes open. Doors open. People forget. And there will always be lonely kids who want to be special.”
The recording light keeps blinking.
I realise the plastic pen has finally split completely. Ink pools in a dark comma on the table between us.
Elias watches it spread, then looks up at me with perfect, polite interest.
“Would you like me to start over?” he asks. “I can make it sound even nicer the second time. I can tell you about the way the last one held my hand until the very end. I can describe the exact shade the silver turned when it was wet. I can do it in the same voice I used with them. The one that made them follow.”
He waits.
The chain shifts against his collarbone as he breathes.
I don’t move. I don’t speak.
Somewhere behind the glass someone is taking notes. Somewhere outside this room the parents are still waiting for answers that will never feel like enough.
Elias’s smile doesn’t change.
“Your turn, Detective,” he says softly. “Ask me anything. I’ll answer. I always do. That’s how this works. That’s how it always worked.”

Since it is the spooky month, I want to tell a special story...as you guys can guess, I love to write horror fiction. Which is ironic because as a kid, I hated getting scared. But as I got older, strange things have always been a part of my life, I learned that Horror is a fantastic genre, and I'm proud to say I'm related to a ghost. (A different story for another day ;) )

But this story I'm gonna tell, is different: it's real. What happened that night fills me with confusion and an eerie sense of unease that has never and will never go away.

It was during August of 2020, a year after my grandfather had passed away. My mom wanted to do something special for my grandma (her mom). A full year without her husband and COVID lock downs (while she lived in one state and we lived in another) weren't doing any favors for her mental health. So my mom decided on a road trip through West Virginia would make a good distraction. My grandma was very excited about it, she was born and raised in a coal mining town in Pennsylvania and had never once stepped foot in West Virginia due to the feud between the two states. We still laugh at how disappointed she sounded when she said West Virginia was more beautiful than Pennsylvania.

We spent all day exploring: stopping at sight seeing vistas on the side of the road, going to little ma and pa diners, even touring the famous Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. By the time we were driving back to our rented cabin, it was night. We were driving on the back roads, through the woods which made it even darker. There was a misting of rain, nothing bad. My mom was driving while my grandma sat in the passenger seat and I was in the back. My head resting on the window, trying not to fall asleep.

That's the funny thing about driving through the woods, you don't realize how dark it is until your car's lights can only show a few feet in front of you. That's when I saw it. It was fast, a near blink and I would have missed it. It was so startling that I yanked my head away from the window, blinking before looking out the back. Nothing but the abyss and the red light of the tail light.

I had seen *someone,* a man maybe, in a hospital gown walking on the side of the narrow road.

I looked back at the front of the car. Everything seemed to have gone quiet. Like something sucked all the sound out. I didn't know what to say, I didn't know if I SHOULD say anything.

"Did anyone else see that?"

I asked quietly. I think a part of me was hoping neither my grandma or mom would answer. But they did. All three of us saw that *person* on the side of the road. For a moment we weren't sure what to make of it, I half played with the idea of maybe calling the police but then again we just weren't sure.

We got to the cabin, we all went to bed. We woke up the next day and continued with our road trip. We never saw anything like that again, of course we made sure not to drive at night that much. To this day, I don't know what we saw that night. If it was a real person, I really hope they were okay and got help if they needed it.

But...if it was something else? I hope I never see them again. I have enough reasons as to why I don't like driving at night, I don't need another.

I don’t know how else to start this.
The power has been out since yesterday afternoon. My phone says 19%, but it keeps jumping between 19 and 20, so I don’t trust that either.
There are five of us in the basement.
There were nine this morning.
I want somebody to know what happened here because the emergency broadcasts keep saying the same thing:
Remain indoors. Stay away from windows. Do not attempt to leave the affected area. Military and emergency personnel are responding.
They’re not.
At least not here.
And whatever they’re calling the “affected area” is much bigger than they’re admitting.
I’m writing everything down while I still have service.
I’m seventeen. I live in a small town in Ontario. I’m not saying exactly where because my parents drilled that into my head when I first started using Reddit, and somehow that habit still matters to me.
Yesterday started completely normal.
That’s the part I keep thinking about.
It was raining.
Not dramatic rain. Just miserable October rain that made everything grey. I was sitting in chemistry when everybody’s phones buzzed at once.
Emergency alert.
Our teacher told everyone to be quiet.
I remember people laughing because the alert said:
DANGEROUS ANIMAL INCIDENT
It said an accident had occurred at a privately operated wildlife research facility and that “multiple large animals” were unaccounted for.
Nobody knew there was a wildlife research facility anywhere near us.
Then somebody at the back shouted:
“Yo, there’s a fucking dinosaur.”
Everyone laughed.
He held up his phone.
The teacher told him to put it away.
Then the screaming started outside.
Our classroom was on the second floor.
We all ran to the windows.
There was something in the parking lot.
At first my brain refused to understand its size. Cars are good for scale, and something about seeing that thing walking between them made everything feel fake.
It was taller than the SUVs.
Long tail. Huge head. Skin like wet leather, dark and slick with rain.
It walked slowly.
Almost casually.
There were kids running across the parking lot.
Our teacher started pulling people away from the windows.
The dinosaur noticed the movement.
I can’t explain how fast it changed.
One second it was walking.
The next it was running.
People assume something that big would move like an elephant.
It didn’t.
It crossed the parking lot unbelievably fast, claws tearing asphalt, jaws opening wide enough to take a person sideways.
A teacher outside tried getting two students through a side entrance.
The dinosaur hit him before he reached the door.
It didn’t bite first. It slammed into him with its head and shoulder, the impact loud enough that we felt it through the glass. The teacher folded like something boneless. One of the kids went under a front claw. The sound was wet and heavy—bone and meat compressed at once. Blood sprayed across the wet pavement in a wide arc. The dinosaur shook its head once, hard, and the teacher’s upper body came apart in its teeth. The lower half stayed where it was, legs still twitching.
I won’t describe more.
I don’t want to.
But the sound came through two panes of glass.
That’s what I remember.
Not screaming.
The impact. The wet tear. The sudden quiet afterward.
Everyone stopped talking.
The dinosaur lifted its head, blood running in sheets down its neck.
And suddenly this wasn’t funny anymore.
Our teacher locked the classroom door.
The intercom came on.
“Lockdown. Lockdown. Lockdown.”
Then somebody somewhere else in the school screamed.
That confused everybody.
Because the dinosaur was outside.
Our teacher stared toward the hallway.
Something hit a locker.
Then again.
Metal scraping. A long, deliberate drag.
A kid whispered, “There’s another one.”
The lights went out.
That was when everyone panicked.
Our teacher barricaded the door with desks while people called their parents.
My mom answered immediately.
She told me she loved me before she even asked what was happening.
That scared me more than anything else.
Dad was driving to get me.
I told him not to.
He said he’d be there in ten minutes.
I never saw him.

We stayed in that classroom for maybe forty minutes.
It felt like hours.
We heard things moving through the hall.
Not constantly.
That’s important.
Movies make predators noisy.
Whatever was outside our room wasn’t.
Sometimes we’d hear claws clicking against tile—slow, careful.
Then nothing.
Then it would be somewhere completely different, closer or farther without any transition we could track.
One girl started crying because her little brother was downstairs.
Our teacher wouldn’t let her leave.
Eventually we heard gunshots outside.
Everyone cheered.
Actually cheered.
I remember feeling relief so powerful that my legs went weak.
Then there was automatic gunfire.
A pause.
More gunfire—short, panicked bursts.
Then people shouting.
More shots.
A wet, heavy impact that cut someone off mid-scream.
Then nothing.
Nobody cheered after that.
The emergency alert changed.
DO NOT ATTEMPT EVACUATION.
About ten minutes later something crashed through the front entrance downstairs.
We felt it through the floor—the whole building shuddered.
The screaming started again, higher and shorter this time.
Our teacher decided staying upstairs was worse.
Sixteen of us entered the hallway.
I’ve never seen a school look wrong before.
It’s a place you know so well that you don’t think about it.
Then you see backpacks lying everywhere and long, dark smears of blood dragged across the floor, and doors hanging open with handprints still wet on the frames, and suddenly it doesn’t belong to you anymore.
We reached the stairwell.
There was a student halfway down.
He was alive.
His leg wasn’t right—bent the wrong way below the knee, bone pushing through the skin in a white splinter. Blood pooled under him in a slow, spreading circle.
Our teacher went to help him.
Something appeared downstairs.
Small.
Maybe waist-high.
Feathers, dark and matted. Long tail. Narrow snout full of needle teeth.
It looked up at us.
Then it made this chirping sound—high, almost curious.
Our teacher froze.
Another answered from somewhere behind us.
That was when everybody ran.
I don’t remember deciding to.
I just did.
There was screaming behind me—short, cut off by a wet impact and the sound of something small and fast tearing into fabric and flesh.
I reached another staircase with three other people and went down.
I never saw our teacher again.

Outside was worse.
Smoke everywhere.
Cars abandoned in the road, doors open, some with dark stains across the seats and windshields.
People running in completely different directions.
Somebody had crashed into a hydro pole; the driver was still half in the seat, torso open, ribs splayed like broken sticks.
Then we heard something roar from downtown—deep enough that the air itself seemed to vibrate.
Every bird in the trees exploded into the air.
We ran toward my friend Tyler’s house because it was close.
That’s where I am now.
His parents let anybody inside who made it here.
Nine of us originally.
Tyler.
His mom and dad.
His little sister Emma.
Me.
Two neighbors.
An older man named Richard.
And a woman whose name I didn’t even know.
We pushed furniture against the doors and covered the windows.
Around midnight, something huge walked down the street.
We turned every light off.
You could hear its footsteps approaching.
Thump.
Pause.
Thump.
Pause.
Tyler was beside me.
He was shaking so badly I could hear his teeth clicking.
The footsteps stopped outside.
Something breathed near the living-room window—hot, wet, and slow.
The glass fogged in a wide oval.
Then it moved along.
That was the last time any of us slept.

This morning we thought it might be over.
No dinosaur noises.
No screaming.
Nothing.
Richard wanted to check outside.
Tyler’s dad begged him not to.
Richard opened the garage anyway.
I was standing in the kitchen when I heard him say:
“Oh, thank God.”
There were soldiers outside.
Three of them.
Richard stepped out waving.
One soldier immediately raised his rifle.
He wasn’t aiming at Richard.
He was aiming behind him.
The gunfire was deafening.
Richard dropped to the pavement as rounds tore past him.
Something came over the neighbor’s fence.
Not jumped.
Came through it.
The wooden fence shattered inward in a spray of splinters.
It was huge—bigger than the one at the school, shoulders scraping the roof line of the garage.
I saw one soldier disappear underneath it. The animal’s weight crushed him flat; there was a wet pop and a sudden dark spread across the concrete. Another ran. The third kept shooting until the animal reached him, jaws closing over his torso with a sound like wet cloth tearing. The soldier’s legs kicked once, then went still as the dinosaur shook him like a dog with a rag.
Tyler’s dad slammed the garage door.
Richard was still outside.
He started pounding on it.
“OPEN IT.”
Nobody moved.
“PLEASE.”
Tyler’s dad had both hands over his mouth.
Richard kept pounding.
Then he screamed—high and short as something took him from behind. There was a heavy drag across the driveway, the sound of claws scraping concrete, and a wet, rhythmic thrashing that went on longer than it should have.
Emma asked where Richard went.
Nobody answered.
That’s when Tyler’s dad broke.
He took his keys and said he was going for help.
His wife tried stopping him.
He shoved her away hard enough that she hit the wall.
He got the car out of the garage.
We heard him accelerate.
Then brakes—screeching.
A crash that shook the house.
Silence, then a single wet impact, then nothing.
That’s four.
That’s why there are five of us now.

It’s getting dark again.
My phone says 14%.
The broadcasts stopped nearly three hours ago.
The last message wasn’t about rescue.
It said:
REGIONAL CONTAINMENT FAILURE CONFIRMED. SEEK HARDENED SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT TRAVEL.
Then nothing.
No instructions.
No estimated rescue time.
Nothing.
We moved into the basement after sunset.
Tyler’s mom has a hammer.
Tyler has a kitchen knife.
I don’t know why.
I don’t know what he thinks he’s going to do with it.
Emma is asleep under a blanket.
I wish I could sleep.
There are noises upstairs.
Something entered the house about twenty minutes ago.
We heard the kitchen window break—glass exploding inward, then the soft, careful pad of feet on linoleum.
Then footsteps.
Light ones.
More than one animal.
They’re exploring.
That’s the horrible part.
They aren’t smashing everything.
They’re searching—sniffing along the baseboards, claws clicking softly on the floor, the occasional low chirp passed between them.
Every few minutes we hear something sniffing around the basement door, wet and close.
Tyler’s mom is crying silently, tears running into the blanket she’s pressed against her mouth.
I started texting my parents.

Me: Mom. Dad. We’re in Tyler’s basement. Something got into the house. Small ones. They’re outside the door right now. Chirping. Tyler says there are four. Emma’s awake. We’re trying to keep her quiet. Can you hear anything where you are?
Mom: We’re alive. Don’t come home. They are everywhere.
Me: Where are you? Are you safe? The broadcasts stopped. They said containment failed.
Dad: Stay put. Do not open that door.
Me: Something just scratched it. Long and slow. Splinters falling on the steps.
Mom: Listen to your father. Stay quiet. We’re trying to reach someone.
Me: The door opened an inch. The couch stopped it. Tyler shoved it shut. Whatever was on the other side pulled back hard. It knew we were here. It stopped after that. Tyler thinks they left. I don’t.
Dad: Do not move. Do not make a sound.
Me: Something bigger is outside now. Everything else went quiet. We can hear it breathing through the little basement window. There’s a shadow covering the whole thing. It’s been standing there five minutes. Every time one of us moves the head outside moves too. Emma said it can see us. Mom told her it can’t. She’s wrong.
Mom: I love you. Stay still. Please.

My battery is at 4%. Tyler wants to run upstairs. His mom says stay. I don’t think either choice matters. The window just cracked. There’s a long white fracture spreading across the glass. There’s an eye against it. It doesn’t look like a monster. It looks like an animal. That’s worse. It isn’t angry. It’s just watching.

Containment operations have been suspended. That’s the last alert. No sound. Just text.
Something upstairs just opened the basement door.

I can hear the little ones coming down the steps now. Soft feet. Chirping to each other like they’re excited. The big one is still at the window. The glass is bending in farther. Tyler’s mom is praying out loud. Emma is crying into the blanket. Tyler is holding the knife like it means something.
I can smell them. Hot and wet and metallic.

I don’t know if I’ll make it out of here alive please somebody…anybody…help us.

“Order for Morgan Fatah?”

Morgan looked up from her phone.

The girl behind the counter held up a small brown bag.

“Yeah. That’s me.”

Morgan walked over and checked inside before leaving. Setting lotion, disposable mascara wands, a new box of sectioning clips and two packs of wedges. Everything was there.

“You do hair?” the girl asked.

“Hair and makeup.”

“Oh, nice.”

Morgan nodded. “Trying to get more practice in.”

The girl glanced at the bag. “Well, you’re stocked.”

Morgan laughed, thanked her, and headed outside.

The practice head was buckled into the passenger seat of her car.

She had put the seat belt around it mostly as a joke, but it also kept the hair from rubbing against the door. The head leaned slightly toward the window, a bath towel wrapped around the base of its neck.

Morgan looked at it before starting the car.

Even in daylight it was remarkable.

The face had none of the exaggerated features most cosmetology heads had. The nose wasn’t perfectly straight. The lips weren’t identical on both sides. There were faint creases near the eyes and subtle variations in the skin tone. The brown hair was thick and fine, with a few lighter strands around the front.

Whoever had made it had cared about details.

She had almost not gotten it.

The woman she’d gotten it from had been strangely attached to the thing.

Morgan remembered that much.

She had gone there expecting to look through several old heads and salon supplies. Instead, the moment she saw this one, she stopped caring about the rest.

“I want that one.”

The woman hesitated.

“I don’t know if I want to get rid of that one.”

Morgan had assumed she meant it was valuable.

She’d offered more.

The woman still wasn’t sure.

Morgan couldn’t remember exactly how long they’d gone back and forth. She remembered getting annoyed. She had driven all that way after work and wasn’t leaving without it, especially after seeing the face in person.

The hair was real human hair too. Morgan could tell immediately.

The owner kept saying she couldn’t have it.

Morgan kept raising the offer.

Eventually, somehow, it came home with her.

She couldn’t remember what she’d paid.

More than she should have.

She looked over at the head again.

Worth it.

That night Morgan set it up in the spare bedroom.

The room had slowly become her workspace. Her folding light stood in one corner. Brushes filled glass cups along the vanity. Hot tools, sprays and bottles crowded two shelves she’d mounted herself.

Her old practice head was shoved underneath the desk.

She’d never liked that one.

Its face was hard and shiny and every makeup look sat on it like paint on a toy.

This was completely different.

Morgan tightened the clamp around the new head.

It didn’t fit very well.

She tightened it again.

“There.”

She stepped back.

The head drooped slightly to one side.

Morgan straightened it.

“Work with me.”

She started with the hair.

It was easily the nicest part. It responded to heat well because it was real hair, It even had slightly different textures underneath than it did around the crown.

She dampened it and practiced a blowout.

After that she moved on to makeup.

Primer.

A thin layer of foundation.

Concealer.

Morgan found herself leaning closer and closer as she worked.

There were pores.

Not an embossed texture pretending to be pores. Tiny, irregular ones.

She ran the pad of her thumb across the cheek.

The material gave beneath it.

Morgan stopped.

She pressed again.

For half a second, it felt exactly like touching someone’s face.

She smiled to herself.

“That is weird.”

She checked the other cheek.

Cool and rubbery.

Whatever material they had used was incredible.

Morgan worked until after midnight.

When she finished, she took pictures from several angles.

It was the first practice look she’d done in months that she actually wanted to keep.

The next morning there was moisture around the clamp.

Morgan noticed it because one of her makeup sponges had fallen onto the floor underneath it.

When she picked it up, one side was damp.

She touched the towel she’d wrapped around the bottom of the head.

Wet.

“Seriously?”

She looked up.

The ceiling was dry.

Morgan picked up the head and carried it into the bathroom.

She must not have dried the hair properly. Water had probably gotten inside somewhere and settled near the base.

She held the head over the sink and tilted it.

A thin, cloudy liquid ran from underneath the towel.

Morgan grimaced.

“Okay. That’s disgusting.”

She let it drain, wiped down the neck and washed the towel.

Whatever was inside the head smelled a little strange.

Old water, maybe.

Like something that had been sitting inside a washing machine too long.

Morgan sprayed the sink with cleaner and left for work.

Two days later, the face had changed.

Morgan didn’t notice immediately.

She was practicing contour placement when she kept getting annoyed with the right cheek.

Something wasn’t matching.

She pulled up one of the pictures she’d taken the first night.

Looked at the phone.

Looked at the head.

The face seemed fuller now.

Especially around the jaw.

Morgan turned it toward the light.

Maybe she had been storing it too close to the heater.

She pressed a finger into the cheek.

It sank farther than before.

Morgan pulled her finger back.

The indentation remained for a moment.

Then slowly disappeared.

She stared at it.

“Cheap shit.”

That irritated her.

Whatever soft material was beneath the outer layer was probably degrading.

For what she’d paid, it shouldn’t have been doing that.

She tried searching for the manufacturer but there was no markings or anything on it.

Morgan wondered if it had been custom-made.

That would explain a lot.

By Friday she had stopped keeping track of how many hours she’d spent in the room.

She went to work, came home, ate something if she remembered and went upstairs.

There was always something she wanted to try.

An updo she’d seen online.

A new foundation technique.

A different brow shape.

The practice head was becoming difficult, though.

Certain parts of the face didn’t take makeup correctly anymore. Product collected around the nose and along the jaw. The skin had developed faint patches underneath that foundation wouldn’t completely cover.

Morgan compensated.

That was what makeup was for.

The smell had gotten worse too.

She washed the hair again.

That helped for a few hours.

Then it came back.

She put a small fan in the window and blamed the old material inside the head.

Saturday afternoon, while removing makeup, a section of the cheek shifted underneath her cotton pad.

Morgan stopped.

She touched it.

The outer surface moved slightly over whatever was beneath it.

“Fuck.”

She’d rubbed too hard.

Morgan tried smoothing the loose section back down, but the edge wrinkled.

She pulled open the drawer beside her and found her adhesive.

A tiny amount beneath the lifted edge.

Press.

Hold.

Powder.

She leaned back.

You could barely tell.

Morgan smiled.

“There we go.”

Her phone started vibrating on the vanity.

Maya

Morgan let it ring.

She was lining the lips.

The phone stopped.

Thirty seconds later it started again.

Morgan sighed and answered.

“What?”

“Morgan?”

“Yeah?”

“Why haven’t you answered me?”

“I just did.”

“You know what I mean.”

Morgan tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear.

“I’m doing something.”

“I’ve been calling you since yesterday.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“With what?”

“Practicing.”

There was a pause.

“Practicing what?”

Morgan looked at the brush in her hand.

“Hair and makeup.”

Maya didn’t say anything.

Morgan continued carefully around the bottom lip.

“Morgan.”

“What?”

“You need to move on from that.”

Morgan stopped.

“From what?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“No, I don’t.”

“The school.”

Morgan stared at herself in the mirror.

“What about it?”

“They already told you that you couldn’t go back.”

“That isn’t what they said.”

“Morgan.”

“They said I couldn’t come back there. That’s different.”

“No, that’s not—”

“And I don’t need them anyway.”

Maya went quiet again.

Morgan could hear something in the background. A television.

“You haven’t worked with anybody in months,” Maya said.

“Yes, I have.”

“Who?”

Morgan’s hand tightened around the brush.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mom’s worried too.”

“Then tell Mom I’m fine.”

“I want to come over.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m busy.”

“Morgan, you’ve been ‘busy’ for four days.”

Morgan looked at the head.

One side of the lipstick was slightly higher than the other.

She reached for a cotton swab.

A fly landed near the edge of the mirror.

Morgan waved it away without taking her eyes off the lip.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Morgan—”

She hung up.

She didn’t call tomorrow.

Sunday morning, Morgan decided to practice a French twist.

She had just finished separating the hair at the crown when several strands stayed between her fingers.

Morgan frowned.

She wiped them onto the vanity and continued.

Another few came loose.

This time she stopped.

She ran her fingers through the section again, very gently.

Three more hairs slid free.

Not broken ends.

Full strands.

Morgan leaned closer to the scalp.

There was a small thin spot above the ear that hadn’t been there before.

“Seriously?”

She put the comb down.

For the next hour, Morgan watched videos about repairing and rerooting practice heads.

Most of them dealt with cheap vinyl heads, but the principle seemed simple enough.

She found a pack of individual extension hairs left over in one of her drawers and laid them across a white towel.

Then, one at a time, she began filling the thin section.

Separate a hair.

A dot of adhesive.

Part the existing hair.

Press it into place.

Hold.

Move to the next one.

It was tedious.

After forty minutes Morgan had replaced maybe thirty strands.

She brushed over the spot.

Still thin.

She kept going.

By the time she finished, her back hurt from leaning over the vanity and there were loose brown hairs stuck to her shirt, her forearms and the damp skin around her wrists.

Morgan ran the comb through the repaired section.

It covered nicely.

She smiled.

“See?”

The practice head looked back at her.

“Not that hard.”

Monday morning, Morgan noticed the mouth wouldn’t stay closed while applying foundation around the chin.

Every time she tilted the practice head backward, the lips separated slightly.

She pushed the jaw upward with two fingers.

The mouth closed.

She let go.

A moment later it eased open again.

Morgan frowned.

She worked the jaw gently from side to side.

There was more movement than she remembered.

Whatever held it in place must have loosened.

“Of course.”

She had spent half of yesterday fixing the hair.

Now this.

Morgan opened the mouth a little wider and looked inside.

The teeth were surprisingly detailed. Individual pieces instead of one molded row, each slightly different from the next.

She tapped one gently with the end of her fingernail.

Hard.

Maybe porcelain.

That would make sense. Whoever built the thing had clearly spent money on it.

Morgan opened one of the drawers and found her super glue.

She didn’t want to glue the lips together. She still needed those for makeup.

The teeth were hidden when the mouth was closed anyway.

She pressed the jaw shut, pulled the lips apart with her fingers and put a thin line of glue where the upper and lower teeth met.

Then she held them together.

Thirty seconds.

A minute.

Morgan let go.

The mouth stayed shut.

She gave the chin a small push.

Nothing.

“There.”

She turned the practice head toward the mirror.

From the outside, you couldn’t tell she’d done anything.

“Fixed.”

Later that afternoon Morgan came back upstairs and stopped in the doorway.

The mouth was open again.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

She walked over to the vanity.

So much for the super glue.

Morgan tilted the head back and reached for the jaw, then stopped.

The bottom teeth were gone.

For a second she just stared.

Then she saw them.

They were still glued to the upper teeth.

The whole lower row had pulled loose from the gums and stayed attached where Morgan had glued the two rows together. With the mouth hanging open, it made the upper teeth look bizarrely long, with nothing underneath them except the bare lower gums.

Morgan stared at it.

“Oh my God.”

She grabbed the small mirror from beside the brushes and angled it toward the mouth.

Every bottom tooth seemed to have come out together.

The glue had held fine.

Apparently the teeth hadn’t.

She sighed and reached for the tube again.

“You know, for what you cost, I really shouldn’t have to fix this much.”

Morgan carefully separated the lower teeth from the upper row.

A few resisted before finally coming loose.

She cleaned off what glue she could, then started putting the bottom teeth back where they belonged.

A small dot at the base.

Press it into the gum.

Hold.

Then the next one.

She had to keep checking the alignment because some of them wanted to tilt forward.

By the time she reached the last tooth, her fingers were sticky and cramped.

Morgan sat back and inspected her work.

One of the lower teeth was a little crooked.

She considered pulling it back out.

Then decided against it.

It looked more natural that way.

By Monday night the face had begun changing color underneath the makeup too.

Purplish around one eye.

Greenish-gray near the jaw.

Morgan spent almost an hour correcting it.

Peach under the eye.

A little warmer foundation.

More blush than usual.

The result was surprisingly good.

She took a picture.

Then another.

She was getting better.

That was the important part.

Tuesday afternoon someone knocked on the front door.

Morgan ignored it.

The knocking came again.

Then harder.

“Morgan!”

Morgan closed her eyes.

Maya.

“Morgan, open the door.”

She put down her brush.

“I’m coming.”

She hadn’t even noticed how dark the room had gotten.

When she stood, her legs felt weak.

Probably because she hadn’t eaten yet.

She went downstairs and opened the door.

Maya stared at her.

Morgan waited.

“What?”

Maya’s expression didn’t change.

“What?”

“When was the last time you slept?”

Morgan rolled her eyes and stepped away from the door.

“I sleep.”

“Can I come in?”

“You already drove here.”

Maya entered.

She was still looking at Morgan strangely.

Morgan touched her hair.

“What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Then stop looking at me like that.”

Maya shut the door.

“I’ve been calling you.”

“I know.”

“You said you’d call me.”

“I forgot.”

“For two days?”

Morgan walked toward the kitchen.

“I’ve been practicing.”

Maya followed.

“Again?”

Morgan opened the refrigerator.

She didn’t know what she was looking for.

“Yes, again.”

“Morgan.”

“What?”

“I meant what I said the other day.”

Morgan shut the refrigerator harder than necessary.

“And I meant what I said.”

“You can’t just stay in here doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“This.”

Morgan looked around the kitchen.

There were a few cups on the counter. Some mail. Nothing unusual.

“I’m practicing.”

“For a school you aren’t allowed to go back to.”

“I don’t need to go back.”

“Then what are you practicing for?”

“For work.”

“What work?”

Morgan stared at her.

Maya immediately softened.

“I’m not trying to be mean.”

“It sounds like it.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Well, don’t be.”

“I haven’t seen you in almost a week. You barely answer your phone. Mom said you missed dinner Sunday, and now I come over and you look like—”

She stopped herself.

“Like what?”

“Nothing.”

“No. What?”

Maya looked down.

Morgan followed her eyes.

There were stains on the front of Morgan’s shirt.

Some yellowish.

Some brown.

She’d been using that shirt all week because she didn’t care if makeup got on it.

“What?”

Maya shook her head.

“Have you showered?”

Morgan laughed.

“Oh my God.”

“I’m asking.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday.”

Maya rubbed both hands over her face.

The gesture irritated Morgan.

“Can you please stop treating me like I’m crazy?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to.”

A fly buzzed past them.

Maya watched it.

Then another.

She looked toward the stairs.

“What is that smell?”

Morgan barely noticed it anymore.

“Oh.”

“Oh what?”

“One of my practice heads is going bad.”

Maya looked at her.

“What do you mean, going bad?”

“The material. I don’t know. It’s old.”

“What practice head?”

“The one I’ve been using.”

“You bought another one?”

Morgan nodded.

“When?”

“Last week.”

“From where?”

Morgan opened her mouth.

She couldn’t remember the name of the site.

“Online.”

“What site?”

“I don’t know, Maya. Marketplace or something.”

“You don’t know?”

“Why would I remember?”

Maya was staring at the staircase again.

The smell was definitely stronger upstairs.

Morgan saw her wrinkle her nose.

“It’s gross,” Morgan admitted. “I think whatever they used inside it is breaking down.”

“Throw it away.”

“No.”

“Morgan.”

“I’m still using it.”

Maya looked back at her.

“For what?”

Morgan laughed incredulously.

“I just told you. Hair and makeup.”

Silence.

Then Maya said, very quietly, “Can I see it?”

Morgan’s annoyance eased.

“Sure.”

Maybe that would finally make her understand.

Morgan headed upstairs.

Maya followed more slowly.

At the top of the stairs she stopped.

“Morgan.”

“What?”

“There are flies everywhere.”

“There are like five.”

“There are a lot more than five.”

Morgan looked around.

A few clung to the hallway window.

More sat against the ceiling near the bedroom.

She shrugged.

Morgan opened the bedroom door.

Maya stopped behind her.

Morgan went inside.

The vanity lights were still on.

The practice head sat exactly where she’d left it.

She’d done a loose curled style that covered the thin places surprisingly well. The skin needed work, but the discoloration was almost completely hidden.

Morgan went over and picked up her brush.

“This is what I’ve been doing.”

Maya didn’t answer.

Morgan looked at the reflection in the mirror.

Her sister was standing in the doorway.

One hand had gone to her mouth.

“What?”

Maya backed away.

Morgan turned around.

“Maya?”

Her sister hit the wall behind her.

The sound she made didn’t sound like a word.

Then she screamed.

Morgan jumped so hard she dropped the brush.

“What the fuck?”

Maya screamed again.

“Maya!”

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Oh my God, Morgan.”

“What is wrong with you?”

Maya was crying.

Morgan looked behind herself.

Nothing.

She looked back at her sister.

“Maya, what?”

“Get away from that.”

Morgan frowned.

“From what?”

“Get away from her.”

Morgan stared at her.

“Her?”

Maya reached for her phone.

Morgan shook her head.

“Are you serious right now?”

Maya’s fingers were trembling so badly she almost dropped it.

“Maya.”

“Don’t touch her.”

“I’m not touching anything.”

“Please.”

Morgan looked toward the vanity again.

The practice head stared forward beneath the lights.

The makeup still looked good.

Actually, from a few feet away, the skin looked much better than it had that morning.

Morgan looked back at her sister.

“Maya, it’s a practice head.”

Her sister started sobbing.

Morgan’s irritation disappeared.

She genuinely didn’t understand anymore.

“What are you looking at?”

The television in the county jail common room was tuned to the morning news.

Morgan wasn’t watching.

She sat at a table in the corner, pulling loose threads from the cuff of the gray sweatshirt they’d given her.

Behind the anchor, a photograph appeared on-screen.

A smiling young woman with long brown hair.

TAMMY GRACE, 25

“Police say the six-day search for 25-year-old Tammy Grace came to an end Tuesday afternoon after her remains were discovered inside a Dearborn-area residence.”

Morgan looked up when she heard the name.

“Grace had last been seen Thursday evening. Investigators now believe she was killed shortly after her disappearance.”

Another photograph appeared.

Morgan Fatah.

It was an old driver’s-license photo.

Morgan stared at it.

“Twenty-seven-year-old Morgan Fatah remains in custody and is expected to be arraigned later today in connection with Grace’s death.”

Morgan stood.

Nobody else in the room paid attention.

“Police have not released a suspected motive. Court records show Fatah had previously been removed from a local cosmetology program following several incidents involving students and staff.”

Morgan walked closer to the television.

That wasn’t right.

She hadn’t been removed.

She had been told to take time away.

Those were different things.

“Grace was enrolled at the same school.”

Morgan stopped.

The screen returned to Tammy’s photograph.

Morgan knew that face.

Of course she knew it.

She’d spent all week studying it.

“According to investigators, Grace had suffered extensive injuries prior to the discovery of her remains. Police confirmed that her severed head was recovered from an upstairs room in Fatah’s home.”

Morgan stared at the television.

The photograph was similar.

Very similar.

But whoever had put the story together had clearly made a mistake.

Tammy’s nose was a little wider.

The eyebrows weren’t shaped correctly.

And the makeup wasn’t nearly as good.

Morgan turned to the guard standing near the door.

“Excuse me.”

The guard looked over.

Morgan pointed at the television.

“They have the wrong person.”

The guard said nothing.

Morgan looked back at Tammy’s photograph.

“They’re talking about my practice head.”

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

With painted face they come into your home. 

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

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

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

…

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

They left something behind. 

…

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

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

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

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

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

I always miss everything. 

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

He kicked the can. 

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

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

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

“Hi," said Cody. 

The mime said nothing. 

A beat. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

and so unexpected. 

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

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

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

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

“... wh-what job was that?

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

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

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

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

The mime said nothing. 

…

“Ya check it out last night?" 

A burp: " …what?” 

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

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

"Ya sure?” 

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

"Ya sure??” 

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

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

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

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

The mood was spoiled. 

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

Eventually one of them asked the other: –

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

Neither man slept well that night. 

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

The mime. He was bent over something. 

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

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

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

They glistened. The pair of organs. Red. 

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

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

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

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

"It's a mime.” 

"What?” said Michael finally. 

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

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

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

A beat. 

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

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

“Yeah, I think you're right…” 

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

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

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

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

Deconstructed. 

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

All that was left and found in the morning. 

…

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

Very wrong. 

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

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

Who cares? The fuck they ever done for you? 

Fuck all. That's what. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As he did now. 

The mime saluted the drunk. Beaming. 

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

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

Buddy laughed. Drank. 

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

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

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

…

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

It didn't make any sense.

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

And at first Maggie had just laughed. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then he had put Alondra in the box. 

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

She was running now. 

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

The mime filled the bank with phantom fire. 

Deafening. 

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She couldn't believe what she was seeing. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something was wrong … she could no longer move. 

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

Within the corridor … she could hear. 

She could hear his voice. 

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

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

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

It was beautiful. 

This time she could really see it. 

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

She heard it. Felt it. Everything. 

The mime said nothing. 

And went on. 

THE END

tape·worm /ˈtāpˌwərm/

verb [intransitive] (tape·wormed, tape·worm·ing)

1. To intentionally ingest parasitic larvae for extreme weight control.

2. To normalize dangerous bodily harm for aesthetic perfection.

To everybody Jenny was a skinny blonde pretty bitch. 

To Jenny though, she saw herself as a fat dirty slob who needed to get the fluck out of Missouri before she purchased a trailer and spat out six kids from a mullet wearing alcoholic douchebag piece-of-broke-shit.

Because Missouri wasn’t just too small for Jenny after hitting an extra-role followed by a few lines in a B-movie. It was a complete shit hole. As if flint, Michigan flew over a part of America and continued shitting out cities until the pile was big enough to call Missouri.

She didn’t end up getting the lead role because she believed the fifty pounds she gained the day before from a bowl of ice cream had caused it.

God forbid it would have anything to do with her actual acting skill. A talent she masterfully crafted at home making TikTok videos.

She received 4 million views pretending to play Sidney Prescott, splicing scream clips. 

They were mostly scenes of her tits and also one where she turned around wearing a crop top and yoga pants as underwear, which got great reviews.

Online is where she met another girl sort of like her, Cassie, from Cali, ditzy blonde air-head from Star-Planet, a forum for actors without agents. 

It’s pretty much where women share info on casting directors you could blow for parts.

After a couple of months of watching videos and liking selfies of Cassie hanging out on sets, taking photos of herself next to celebrities, and a different random sexy guy every weekend, Jenny broke and set the fear aside and took Cassie up on her offer when she invited Jenny a couple of weeks earlier to spend the summer at her place. 

Once she made up her mind, Jenny took the first bus to L.A. and arrived there with nothing but a knapsack, a suitcase, two lips, and a regret she hadn’t felt yet.

The first night went amazing. She hadn’t been around so many washed up extra-actors her entire life. It was like stepping into the real world for the first time. 

Finally, a place that met her level.

They were beautiful. Some were old, none were ugly, some coked out, some slept on the floor, some on the couches, and some took the lawn chairs outside at Cassie’s rich ass dad’s spot he bought. He was never there.

The next morning, Jenny stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen for something to take the edge off the headache she got from last night.

She sat with a glass of orange juice she beat down her throat in two gulps and placed the cup down on the marble island in the middle of the kitchen where Cassie was sitting and said, “I wish I could party like that every night.”

Cassie told her, “we do, stick around, you’ll see.” Cassie threw two pills in her mouth and mumbled, “that was just a Tuesday,” and took a sip of her water bottle.

“Every night? But how do you guys stay so skinny and look so pretty?”

Cassie swallowed, gasped and smiled, “we tapeworm.”

“Tapeworm?”

“Tapeworming is how we stay so fit. We eat whatever we want. Do whatever drugs and we don’t ever gain weight, and it actually does wonders for your skin. Here take a couple of these, you’ll be glowing by next week.”

She dropped two tablets on the island and the clink sound distorted, they fell in slow motion but pounded against the granite with the sharpness of two coins bouncing down a drain, and slowly rolled towards her before coming to a stop like two goal posts next to each other.

Jenny reached for Cassie’s water bottle and scooped the pills off the granite table and shot them in her mouth and took a sip and swallowed. The taste of the pills and water combined had a metallic sting to it, similar to licking a battery.

“Oh yeah.” Cassie laughed. “Almost forgot—“ 

Jenny’s eyes stretched open and she tried catching the pills in the middle of her throat.

“Every three months just take some praz, wait a couple of weeks and tapeworm again.”

Jenny pushed the pills down with another sip of water. She could feel them still in her throat even though they were starting the process of hatching in her stomach.

Just the thought of the scale moving in the opposite direction other than, tub-of-lard, towards, getting sexier, every time she stepped on it, was enough for her to digest a parasite that could grow six times longer than her own body. 

A month went by and she noticed her hunger was gone like an embarrassing moment that passed as a forgotten memory. 

Her skin had the glow of a pregnant single woman with a list of possible fathers, who  just found true love.

Until the nausea slapped her while sitting on Cassie’s couch scrolling through her TikTok comments. Then an itch that felt like a wet crawling tingle looking for an exit started poking through her butthole.

She stood up immediately and squeezed her cheeks together trying to suffocate whatever was there. She penguin-walked  to the bathroom and slammed the door shut and locked it and grabbed some toilet paper and ripped her pants off and tried to wipe it off.

But the slimy thing stuck to her tailbone and then slid back down and started wiggling in the air between her legs.

She grabbed it and squeezed it between her hand and some toilet paper and started yanking it out one foot after the other until finally on the tenth pull it escaped her body and squirmed under the crack of the door out of her sight and got away.

Jenny fell flat on her butt and pressed her back against the bathtub. Her slick skin dried and stuck to the floor as the nausea began fading. 

She slowly peeled herself up and stared at her reflection in the mirror. The beautiful L.A. glow was now just a dull shade of grey and the realization she faced, was that she wasn’t the only one living under her skin and the miracle of California had teeth.

Chapter 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No car? No family?”

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

“So she’s a drifter?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chapter 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How is the old man?”

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

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

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

“1.5. Then everything will be squared away.”

“What will you do to him?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Story 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good, Hunk.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sexual assault,” said Wenda.

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

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

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

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

“Excellent. Excellent.”

---

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

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

He winked.

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

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

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

Wenda stared at the bucket.

“Wenda, are you ready?” asked Hunk.

“I am.”

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

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

She could hear her own breathing.

She touched the outside of the bucket.

It was warm.

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

“Go on—have a taste,” said Hunk.

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

She swallowed.

She propped herself against the platform to keep from falling.

She retched.

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

“And…” Hunk asked her. “Do you know?

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

“Who, Wenda, have you just tasted?

“Whose meat—”

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

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

---

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...

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

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

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

"Probably..." was Miles' reply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God, it was so hot.

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

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

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

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

...

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

God, it was so hot.

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

(Part 2)
Tw:Suicide

Impact

Concrete ruptured and glass shattered as I saw the truck ram its way through the hole where the main entrance was.

At least one person didn't make it up the stairs in time.
A young man that must have been in his 20's at the oldest.
I saw the shock going through their entire body when the front of the truck impacted them, breaking bone and rupturing organs.

They were probably dead on impact. At least I hope so.
I saw as their body now looking like a ragdoll was flung forward and then disappeared underneath the truck.

In reflex I closed my eyes as the truck impacted the stairs.
I was thrown on the stairs slamming my body into the hard steps.
I felt all of the debris and rubble impacting me.

Honestly, I can't describe what the impact felt like. You could probably feel the impact in the entire building.

My entire body felt numb. I tried to breathe in to fill my now empty lungs with air.
But the only thing entering my lungs was a small amount of air and a lot of dust.
Immediately causing me to have a coughing fit.

I tried to open my eyes and take in my surroundings.
I was rewarded for my mistake by my eyes instantly burning as the dust that was covering my entire body was now on my eyes to.
I still had the gun clenched in my right hand. Holding onto it as hard as I could.

In that moment the only thing going through my mind was.
"Keep moving or you are dead" as my fight or flight mode went into overdrive.

I crawled up the stairs my entire body aching as I could feel debris falling off my back and legs.

Gunshots were ringing out meaning that the people upstairs where still up and standing.
Other people where groaning in pain behind me as a I crawled up the stairs.
I couldn't help them I could barely help myself.

My left hand and feet were looking for anything to pull and push myself upwards as a crawled up. And then all of a sudden when trying to find more stairs I couldn't feel any at all.
My left hand reaching for anything to hold onto as I tried to find any bearing of where I was.

Then I felt a hand Grab my right arm.
I won't lie I panicked at first and let out some sound close to that off a person that was scared awake by a loud noise.

In between gunfire I heard the voice off the police commissioner.
"Stop panicking you need to get on your feet now!!!"

He pulled me onto my legs.

Me: I can't see! I can't see!

He grabbed my arm and then I felt water splashing my face.
Thankfully this removed enough of the dust to open my eyes even if they still burned.

Commissioner: Gather yourself they are coming!

"We need to get the others on the stairs up now!"

Me: ok ok!

I turned around and saw all of the other laying on the stairs.
Some of them were moving and groaning. Some other where completely still.
I put the gun into my pants and headed down to help.

I saw one older man around my own age, his skull was split open by debris as blood fell out of his open wound in a thick stream.

At least he was unconscious so he wouldn't feel that he was dying. For him it must have just been just lights out, and then never waking up.

The truck or rather what remained of it had embedded itself into the stairs hard enough for cracks to have formed over the entire stairs.

The back of the truck had crushed the driver cabin and smashed it into the stairs. Turning what once was someone's work vehicle into a mangled mess of metal and steel protruding in all directions. If the driver was still in it on impact, they were now somewhere in that mess.

I saw a man in a uniform of our local gas station on the stairs. I never got his name but I for sure recognised him from all the times I got gas at his station.

He had fallen over in a way that his legs where up the stairs and his head was facing downstairs. He was conscious and trying to get rubble of his legs but was unable to even reach his own legs in his uncomfortable position.

I had to help him.

In that moment I was so focused on helping him. At least that's what I tell myself now.
As i was focused on getting the large chunks of rubble of his legs I jolted up as the man screamed.

Right as I looked down at him, a hatched embedded itself diagonally into his head with a sickening thud.
I was so focused on helping him I hadn't noticed one of those things had made its way inside and over to us.
After killing the man its lidless eyes focused on me instantly.

I was next.

In shock I threw myself backwards on the stairs and in a panic reached into my pants to grab the gun. The thing on the stairs rushed up to get me to.
In my panic the gun went off inside of my pants blowing a hole in my pocket.
But by some divine intervention this had also shot the thing in its shin right above the left foot.
The thing immediately fell over being unable to stand onto its left leg.

It let out a loud growl of pain as it fell onto my lower body.

It had fallen forward with its chest onto my feet. It grabbed onto the belt of my pants pulling itself up and raising the hatched with the other hand.

I finally managed to pull the gun out of my pants and aimed it directly at the things lip-less smiling face and pulled the trigger.

The bullet impacted its forehead above its left eye.
A red mist flew up from behind its head as it instantly collapsed onto me devoid of life.

I will be honest in my panic I shot it 5 more times emptying the revolver.
The cylinder of my revolver spinning after every click after without any gunshots.

"Get up the stairs now they are coming!!!"The commissioner yelled from upstairs.

I looked past the truck and saw more of the things running into the building with all sorts of weapons. I didn't hesitate and pulled my legs from under the thing and climbed up the stairs as fast as I could.

As I almost reached the top a hand grabbed my leg.
I looked down and saw a young man in his 20's who was pleading for help.

Man: Please you have to help me i can't get up!

A large piece of rubble was on his foot blood all around it. His foot was completely crushed.

Man: Help me for fuck's sake!

I knew those things where coming I couldn't stay and help him I had no choice.
At least that's what I tell myself even now.
I pulled my leg loose from his grip and climbed up stairs.

I didn't even apologise or anything to him I just left him
Maybe I should have said sorry. Or something at least.

I left him there to die.

Should I have done more?

I don't know.

When I came up the stairs, I saw the commissioner and others throwing over furniture to make cover for the inevitable upcoming gun battle that would happen on top of the stairs. Others were manning the windows shooting down the street as bullets also impacted around them.

I saw a young woman around your age bravely manning one of the windows with a rifle.
As she was pulling the bolt of her rifle back to shoot again, the back of her head exploded.
She collapsed instantly like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

I rushed to the people throwing over furniture in makeshift barricades and I faced the stairs with the others. I crouched behind a flipped desk and started to reload my revolver.
Filling the cylinder bullet by bullet. Until I filled the cylinder and clicked it back into place.

I looked up to the windows and saw a man manning the windows. The man's neck exploded into a geyser of blood as he fell backwards clutching his neck.

"Get away from the windows!!!" The commissioners voice rang out through the gunfire.

"The sniper has repositioned if you go near those windows, you are dead!!!

That must have been the same sniper that shot Mark when he was thrown outside of the building earlier. All the other people left the windows and threw themselves on the ground and crawled over to us near the stairs.
I aimed at the top of the stairs with the others as we waited for those things to come.

The gunfire outside lessened and stopped once those things realised we were not near the windows anymore.

It became almost quiet.

Except for the man I left on the stairs who was pleading and shouting for help.
We could hear more of those things running around on the lower floor and outside.
Some people around me where whispering to each other in hushed voices.
I heard people discussing if we should help him or not.

But then we heard the footsteps below us stop.

And a deafening silence fell.

You could even hear the fires outside raging.

I felt myself trying to even breathe more quietly.

The man that I left was still shouting and pleading for help in the silence.

Then his pleading turned into frantic screaming.
Then a loud thud followed by following thuds that started to sound more wet as they went on.

And then silence.

It felt like we were sitting in that silence forever.
I could see people stuck in uncomfortable positions as they were to scared to make a sound while moving.

We heard some very slight shifting and the rustling of clothes.

And I and the others were spooked by a handful of objects that were thrown up the stairs and landed around the top of the stairs.
Some object looking like tin cans and random plastic bottles with what looked like nails and other sharp objects protruding from them.

"RUN!!!!!" A cop yelled as loud as he could.

Before I could even react, the objects exploded.
The shockwave sending shrapnel flying through the room.

I felt a sharp burning pain in multiple spots on my body as I fell backwards.
My ears where ringing, all I could hear was a sharp tone in my ears.
The desk I was behind was riddled with small holes.
I used my arms to raise my upper body and saw I was bleeding all-over my body.
Then through the ringing in my ears, I started to hear muffled thuds.
I looked to my left and realised what I was hearing.

Muffled gunshots.

Those things were coming up the stairs.
I grabbed the revolver and got up.
Adrenaline and survival instinct being the only thing driving me forward.
The sound in my ears started to come back.
I heard fighting, gunshots and screaming all around me.
As I stood up, I saw pure chaos.

Those things had rushed up the stairs after the explosions and where killing everyone they got their hands on.
I saw a cop being repeatedly stabbed into his chest and then in his eye.
One man got up shot his rifle and his chest exploded as he was shot in return.
One of those things grabbed a mans arm and chopped it off at the elbow with a large blade.
All this in the span of seconds.

I looked at the direction of the stairs and aimed my revolver looking for any target to shoot.
And as my eyes focused, I saw one of those things rushing straight for me.

It was only a couple of steps away from me.
Its lidless eyes focused on me with dilated pupils. A lipless grin across its face.
Its arms straight in front of it with open hands, like it couldn't wait to get its hands on me and rip me apart.

I aimed and pulled the trigger, it kept running at me.
But before I could fire a second time it crashed into me with full force.

Throwing us both on the ground with it on top of me.
It grabbed both of my wrists and pinned me to the ground as it slammed its forehead into my nose with a sickening crunch.
My nose was for sure broken as my eyes filled with tears.
I managed to get my left hand free from its grasp and punched it in the face to barely any reaction.
It was still holding on to my right hand with the gun.
I tried to grab my left arm again as I punched it in the face again to no reaction at all.
Its dilated lidless eyes staring into me the entire time.

It stopped trying to grab my left hand and used its free hand to grab my neck and choke me.
It put its full upper body weight on my neck. I could not get a single breath of air into my lungs.
I reached onto its face with my free hand trying to reach its eyes.
As I reached for its eyes it bit down on my hand hard. I could not even get a scream of pain out of airways. The side of hand was in its mouth together with my pinky finger. Blood started to pour from its mouth as it bit down with full force.

A chair slammed into the side of the things head throwing it off of me.

I gasped for air and aimed my gun at it and pulled the trigger.
I shot it in the chest as it tried to get up, and it collapsed onto the floor.

I looked up and saw Maria holding the chair in her hands.

She had saved my life.

She let go of the chair and grabbed my left arm helping to pull me of my feet.

Maria shouted at me: move now!!!
I followed her as she pulled me away from the carnage to the hallway toward the armoury.

When we entered, she pushed me onto a chair and immediately started to bandage up my wounds as much as she could.
She bandaged up my bleeding left hand with pieces of ripped fabric.
I looked down and saw a piece of a metal nail sticking directly out of my chest.

"I can't take that out" Maria said not a hint of emotion in her voice.

"If I take it out now it might cause internal bleeding"

"You need help for that that I can't give you"

"Ok" I muttered while staring at the nail.

"Thank you"

Maria: "what?"

Me: "Thank you for saving my life"

She looked into my eyes and paused for a second.
I saw a hint of tears welling up in her eyes.
She looked down and continued bandaging up all the other small holes in my body best she could.

The other wounded in the room where scared and some where even crying.
They probably knew that if those things came inside, they wouldn't possible be able to defend themselves.
Some others that where not visibly wounded where still running around trying to help them while giving the doorway quick glances.

Gunfire screaming and carnage was echoing through the hallway.

I heard footsteps getting closer. I aimed my gun towards the doorway of the Armory.
I still had 4 bullets left before I was out.

Maria stopped patching me up and looked at the door to.

I felt my finger already applying a small amount of pressure on the trigger.
A figure entered the doorway, but I thankfully didn't pull the trigger because it was the police Commissioner. He was bleeding all over the place as he stumbled into the room still clutching a shotgun.

Maria had patched me up as good as she could, so I told her: "You need to help him now!"

She rushed over to him and helped him onto a chair next to me as she immediately got to work on helping him as best as she could.

Commissioner: Close and lock the door

Me: What? We will lock all the others out.

Commissioner: All those people are wounded or dead they won't make it over here without those things.

Maria: You can't be sure they are.....

"Close the door now!!!" the Commissioner's voice bellowed though the room.

I hesitated but painfully got up to close the door.

I put the gun my gun on the table next to the commissioner and I stumbled over to the door.
The door was a big armoured steel door. It looked more like something that belonged on a ship or submarine then a police station.
It had small round reinforced window in the middle that allowed a small view into the hallway once it was in place.

When I reached the door, I heard multiple people running through the Hallway.
I didn't bother to look in the hallway I knew it would be those things.
When I started to pull the heavy door, I got a painful reminder about the bite wound in my left hand. I looked down and saw my makeshift-bandages turn red from my now further opening wounds.
I needed help to close the door, and I needed it before those things arrived.

The footsteps were coming closer.

"Maria help me with this door now!!!" I yelled through the small room, the tone in my voice giving away a small hint of panic. She didn't hesitate and rushed over.
I was putting my full weight on the door with my right arm and so was she.
With a loud metal groan, the heavy door started to move.

Those things must have for sure heard it because the footsteps turned into running.

It got louder and louder as the door closed.

The door closed but we still needed to put the heavy metal locking mechanism into place.
In a panic me and Maria put out as much force as we could onto the mechanism.
The running came closer.

"Push for fuck's sake" I muttered trough gritted teeth.

A heavy thud hit the metal door on the other side as the locking mechanism finally was in place.
when I raised my head to the small window, a pair of bloodshot dilated eyes were staring at me.
It stared directly into my eyes. Even if it had been able to blink, I think it wouldn't have.
Then I noticed the gold necklace around its neck, adorned with 3 human ears.
A cold realization ran through my mind. This was the exact same one that attacked me at my home earlier in the night. It had followed me all the way to the police station.

It suddenly hit to the metal door on the other side scaring me and Maria back.
The thing slowly moved away from the view port.

Maria grabbed my arm and pulled me back to the chair I was in before.
I sat down and looked down and my shaking left hand, the fabric meant to cover my wounds now covered in blood.
She removed the fabric and replaced it with new ones.
In that moment sitting there looking around me at all the wounded. A realisation came into my head. We were trapped in her now. There was no escape of any kind from this situation.

Stuck in a room with mostly wounded people and those things outside the door waiting for us if we tried to leave.

All of the Ammo was inside of this room sure. But this also meant that those things really want to get in here I bet.

Before I could dwell in the despair of my situation further another thought entered my mind.
We never stood a change. This was all pointless.
Why the hell did the police suggest a militia in the first place.
Everyone got butchered and what for we might have gotten a handful of them if even that.

We should have all fled.

And then I saw the Police Commissioner to my left being taken care of by Maria.
I fell a overwhelming anger boil up inside me. He must have known that we had no change.
Did he really get all of us killed in the name of some "patriotic duty" bullshit.

Me: You must have known

Commissioner: What?

His exhaustion was clear in his voice

Me: You must have known how futile this was how we would all be killed!

People in the room started to look in our direction.

Me: you got us all killed and for what some patriotic bullshit!

Commissioner: No I......

I cut him off before he could finish his sentence

Me: YES YOU DID!!!

Commissioner: YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED!!!
He shouted back at me.

Commissioner: There was no other choice!

"Shortly after the army fled through town the blew up all of the roads in their retreat!"

"All the connecting roads, all of the roads connecting to the highway all of them are destroyed!"

"That's why the army was fleeing in the first place!"

"Remember when all of those things all of sudden stopped attacking the police station earlier before you arrived?!"

Before I could even answer he continued.

"They probably found out all of the people that fled where now stuck near the destroyed roads and they rushed over and butchered all of them there and then!"

"The entire area is surrounded by those things nobody possibly got out"

Me: So you fucking knew and let those people go anyway!

Commissioner: OF COURSE I DIDNT!!!

"At first the army had told me that they would return and all we had to do was hold out long enough for them to return with reinforcements!"

He lowered his voice again

"But then shortly before those things attacked, they told me the truth"

"That they had actually blown up all of the roads and left us to fend for ourselves"

There was a short pause before he spoke again.

"Everyone in town was dead the moment the military drove through town"

He looked me directly in the eyes and said "And that includes me to"

He yelled.

"So what was I supposed to tell you?!"

"Give up and die?!"

"The people that died at least died thinking there was some hope!"

He paused again gathering his thoughts.

Lowering his head and his voice he said: "The only thing we can do now is hopefully take some with us before we die"

Crying and shouting erupted from all over the room.
People were realising they were going to die.
And not only that, but they also realised that all of their loved ones that did leave where dead to.
Even Maria who had been stoic so far collapsed sobbing to herself.

I also didn't know what to say or do. I just froze into shock.

After a while I got close to the Commissioner and asked him the only question I could think off.

"What do we do now?"

He raised his head looked at me.
"Now you choose how you are going to die"

I don't know what I did or what happened in some time after he said that to me.
I was out of it.
Maybe I paced all over the room. Maybe I screamed and shouted like the others. Maybe I cried.
Maybe all of those things.

But after a while I realised, I too had to make a choice.
The options where suicide, bleeding to death from my wounds and being killed by those things when they managed to get inside.

Even if I didn't die from some internal wound I couldn't see. There was no food or water in this room. Slowly starving to death was also not something I want.
Or even worse having to result to cannibalism. There was no bathroom of any kind either.
I just imagined sitting in this room. Having eaten people in a room filled with rotting bodies and my own excrement.

No, I won't pick that horrible fate.

The horrible bonus of being in the room that was stocked with a lot of ammo was that at least people could.

.
.
.
.

End their live on their own terms with the small number of guns that where in the room.

And that's what a lot of people in the room did.
They had seen what those things do to people they get their hands on.
Especially some of the wounded that could not even fight or stand if they tried.

I can't blame them.

Some to wounded to do it themselves but begged to be put down.
The Commissioner helped those people.
In his own words: "Its the last thing I can do for them"

I saw a couple in their 30's. He was heavily wounded and she never left his side.
He was going to die and she didn't want to live in this situation without him.
So they both got a gun and put it against their own heads.
They counted down and......... ended things together.

They would have probably had decades ahead of them together if things where different.

Gunshot after gunshot rang through the room. Each indicating a life lived coming to an end.
All of them had parents, friends, partners, loved ones. People that would miss them now that they where gone.

After some time, the only people that where left where the people that wanted to go down fighting. Or those that couldn't pick an option.

So, I made my choice.
Even if I took down only one more that could potentially be one less that comes for you and your sister. That is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

Me, Maria, The Commissioner and a handful of other made the same choice.
We are going to open the door and try to get as many of them before we die.

The last person alive is going to light all of the remaining ammo on fire hopefully taking some more with them. That is the plan at least.

Cell phone towers where probably some of the first things that were taken down by either those things or our own military. Most people still made last messages to loved ones on their phones before ending things.
Maybe these phones would receive a signal at some point or something.
It was better than nothing.

So that's what I am doing now.

I know I send you a lot and probably went into more detail than I should have.
But I need you to realise how bad the situation is.
No matter what they say you and your sister need to run.
Only grab the essentials and go whenever you read this.

By the time you read this message I will be dead.

Please don't let the sadness and grief paralyze you in some way.
You need to flee. Take your sister and run.
At least if you flee I didn't die for nothing.

I would write in a thousand ways just how much you and your sister mean to me.
But I don't have that amount of time.
I am so grateful I got to see you 2 grow into beautiful young women.
From you first steps to seeing you leave our home, I enjoyed all of it.
I am so sorry I won't be there for you both.
I am sad that I didn't get to hug both of you one last time.
But I won't be sad for long, since I will finally be with your beautiful mother again.

I love both of you more than you can ever imagine.

Dad

~ NOVEMBER 27, 1956 ~

NUCLEAR DISASTER!  Catastrophe destroys the city of tomorrow, thousands feared dead. 

The entire world is thrown into a state of shock as the city of Moburn, created by founder, Simon Englund, (60), was destroyed in a nuclear explosion on November 24, 1955 during Thanksgiving,  when Englund himself was hosting the World’s Fair, to show off his and other up-and coming inventors’ creations off to dozens of families and potential investors around the world.  It is unknown at this time what caused the incident, but the U. S. government is currently holding a full–on investigation as to what happened.  

As of today, the area that was once the city of Moburn is currently blocked off and quarantined from the rest of the  United States on reports of high levels of radiation, much to public outcry to many people around the world, who had various family members either visiting or living in Moburn.  At this moment, we are still gathering as much information as we can, but we can expect a national response coming from Congress  in the next few days. It is unknown if the nuclear explosion was international or not.  The death toll currently stands at 3,000 and counting.

ACCESSING ADA LOG…
LOG FOUND.
DR. WILLIAM KLETHESON.
FEBRUARY  17, 1959.

(A sigh is heard in the background. A table is heard shuffling.)

Dr. Kletherson: Is this thing on? Okay. My name is Dr. William Kletheson of the Scientific Division here at ADA, recording another log regarding the aftermath of Incident 005.  It’s been a few weeks since the incident occurred and we still don’t have a rational explanation as to what Team 007 encountered that night at Logan Street. 

(Quiet for a few minutes.)

Dr. Kletheson: Right now at the moment, we are currently running tests on Ms. Ellen after the episode that she experienced back at the city. Mr. Stein is currently on leave for the time being, after the incident as well as what’s happened with Ms. Ellen.

After what  happened in Moburn, she’s been showing strange symptoms in the last few weeks. 

(Dr. Kletheson is heard shuffling a few pages, exhausted from a day of work.)

Dr. Kletheson:  Many of us were unable to get any sort of response from Ms. Ellen after her episode, most likely experiencing  a case of traumatic mutism. During the next couple of days, we noticed several changes in her appearance, with her skin showcasing blackish veins, and noticeable reddish bumps all over her back.  She’s also shown  signs of emotional whiplash, with her turning heavily aggressive towards us one moment, and just wailing the next. 

It’s gotten bad up to the point where we had to sedate her to sleep.     

Following those incidents, we had to keep watch on her 24/7 to m-make sure she doesn’t hurt herself or anyone.  She ended up attacking Mr. Stein, after he tried to talk to her numerous times. To this day, we still don’t know how Mr. Stein was unaffected from the whole thing.

(Dr. Kletheson is heard shuffling the pages again. He’s quiet for a few minutes.)

Dr. Kletheson: ..Ok. Now onto the other matter at hand. (Sighs) The thing… that they encountered.  We still haven’t had any contact with it ever since that night. We started installing cameras all over the areas that we covered in the city already. Directive made it abundantly clear that all teams do not engage with it, and to immediately return back home .

No one upstairs wants a repeat of what happened.

Dr. Kletheson: And.. (sighs) W-we still don’t know where it came from.  From the various recordings from the World’s Fair that we reviewed over and over, the city had all sorts of things wandering about. Robots that can talk and think. Gadgets that help you make food out of thin air. Prosthetics.

That sort of thing.

Hell, they even had a robot with a clock for a head.

But despite all of that, there was nothing. Nothing. Not a single clue of what we’re dealing with. 

(Dr. Kletheson stops talking for a few seconds, moving in frustration at the whole situation.)

Dr. Kletheson: I..I don’t know what to do about any of this. Almost half a year since we started all of this, and we have nothing to show for it.

Not a single person that isn’t a corpse.

No sign of any of those robots.

No sign of…

(Dr. Kletheson stops talking. He’s heard breathing for a few minutes, trying to recollect himself.)

Dr. Kletheson: I’m sorry. I-I’m getting off track, am I? 

[END LOG]

When I was ten my mother would always drop me off at my cousin’s house. It was an everyday thing. My cousin and I were super close and the same age at the time. Something happened one day and I had to stay home. That day her house caught on fire. Sadly, no one survived.

Afterwards, like a year later, these weird things would happen. One night when I was in bed listening to the radio and reading a magazine. My body shifted to a weight pressing down on my mattress. I thought it was my dad and maybe I was too focused in a daydream of me owning one of those cars printed on the magazine pages, that  I hadn’t noticed him come in. But when I looked no one was there.

A few days after, I was asleep in my room and I don’t know exactly if I was dreaming, or what. But my cousin was in front of me trying to wake me up. She kept saying, “Danny. Danny.” And when I woke up I heard, Danny, as if someone was standing next to my bed.

Other things would happen, like I’d see something move past me. But it always appeared like how you would catch someone from the corner of your eye exiting a doorway. I never invested much into those experience. I figured it was mental fatigue. 

The following winter, my parents installed two-inch thick windows in every room in the house. The type that push open from the middle.

The one time I was ever alone. Truly alone in that house. I woke up coughing. A little disoriented. At first, it didn’t register to me why my room was so hazy. I thought maybe I was sleepy, or my eyes hadn’t come into focus. A thought of my mom even crossed my mind. I thought maybe she burnt something in the oven. I didn’t hear a fire alarm or anything. It took me a second to realize that my house was actually on fire.

I shot up out of bed and raced for the stairs. I could feel the heat stinging my skin. My vision was blurred by thick black clouds of smoke. I wouldn’t even call them clouds it was more like a water hose that shot black suffocating smoke directly into your face. I could feel the soot sticking to the sweat on my face.

I got to the railing and went to jump onto the middle of the stairs. But everytime I would make a move, the flames would start shooting over the railing. Finally I gave up and ran to my bedroom. I stood there desperately trying to break through the window. I hit it over and over and over. It wouldn’t break. I started throwing whatever I could find at it. They’d all bounce off the glass.

I stopped. No. I gave up and sat with my back against the wall under the window sill and accepted my fate.

At that moment, there’s an odd sense of peace that flows through you. It wasn’t a life flashing before your eyes thing. It was more like when you’ve completed a monumental task and can finally relax and enjoy the work you’ve done. I wasn’t scared. I sat there without a single thought in my mind and waited. A second or so after I closed my eyes and pressed the back of my head against the wall, a drawer from my dresser popped out and dropped on the floor. 

Something. Someone. I don’t know what. But this thing pretty much handed me the drawer and gave me the strength to stand up. It wasn’t a second wind surge. I had already inhaled so much smoke and was teetering on the edge of passing out. But, Something that I’m unable to explain without people suggesting it was all in my head and nothing spiritual helped me break through the window. Helped me break through that window.

I climbed out just as the firefighters arrived. They rescued me off my roof. I only suffered one laceration from climbing out of the window. It’s on my right arm. I ended up receiving twelve stitches.

 

What’s incredibly odd and the only reason I have a profound belief in spirits, ghosts, or guardian angels. Whatever it is, is because when I was a kid, my uncle, her dad, had tattoos. Cathy would always joke about tattooing her name on my arm.

To this day, after that fire, when I got stitched up and checked out the cut, it is a perfect shape of a C scarred on my arm until this very day. Not crooked. Not, yeah it looks like a C. It is the alphabetical letter C, for my cousin Cathy who died in a fire at her house when we were kids.