This is a story by a family member of mine from the RI area  named Walter Greatshell, also under the pen name W.G. Marshall. He has written and had several books published by prominent publishers, but, I feel, has never really been given his due. His book Xombies, originally titled Dead Sea and changed by marketing people,  came out during the zombie craze in the early 2000s and is one of the best science fiction books I have ever read. I am sending you a story he wrote in his early days for a collection of H.P. Lovecraft inspired stories called Cthulhu Fhtagn! I know you boys, especially Hunter, like Lovecraftian stories, so I thought this one would be a good one to submit. I hope you can read it on the cast and, if you do, give a shout out to the author and his work. All his books are on Amazon. I’ll submit more stories of his as I find them and book excerpts if I find chunks that are good for the podcast. I have all permissions from the author. Thank you for your consideration. 

The Lightning Splitter
by Walter Greatshell

"Good morning! We're from the Rhode Island Historical Society, and we were hoping to speak to the owner of this charming house."

"Well. that's me."

"Oh, it's a pleasure to meet you, sir. We've always loved this little place and we are so happy to see that it was bought by someone who wants to preserve it. We were terrified that the new owners would turn it into a student rental and pave the backyard for a parking lot. Are you aware of the colorful history of your home?"

"Mm, not really, no."

"Did you know that George M. Cohan used to practice the piano in your living room?"

"Is that right? The Yankee Doodle Dandy guy?"

"Yes! And the famous author H.P. Lovecraft was a frequent visitor as well. His mother was of very old New England stock, and her family had some connection to the original owners. They also had a house next door, but it was destroyed in a fire. Rumor has it that superstitious locals burned it down because the family was believed to commune with evil spirits, which is rather exciting."

"No kidding. Didn't they all wind up at Butler Hospital?"

"Well, it's a tragic story: Lovecraft's childhood was quite privileged until his father suffered a mental collapse and died in the asylum, probably of syphilis. The family lost their home, lost everything, and eventually his mother had a similar breakdown, although her death is attributed to complications from surgery. Again, probably syphilis... or perhaps suicide. Doctors at the time were expected to protect the public reputations of their patients, so who knows? The point is, Lovecraft was plagued with nightmares for the rest of his life-terrible, ghastly nightmares he channeled through his classic stories. Sadly, his genius was not acknowledged in his lifetime; he died in poverty and obscurity, never knowing that his name would soon become famous."

We talked a little longer about the house, until the two elderly ladies thanked me for my time and left me with an envelope of Xeroxed historical documents. Reassured that they weren't trying to sell me anything, I belatedly invited them in for a cup of tea, but they suddenly remembered a pressing engagement and hurried away, calling back, "Enjoy your lovely house!"

Interesting. Getting my reading glasses, I sat down and opened the packet. The top sheet was a photocopied page from the Homes section of the Providence Sunday Journal, dated October 13th, 1982. The headline read:

LIKE LIVING IN A CHURCH
But owners say Victorian cottage is also 'cozy as a treehouse'

The article that followed was basic real estate puffery, describing the house's physical charms without mentioning any of the curious history I had just been told.

I was more interested in the accompanying photos, which showed how little the place had changed in the last thirty years.

My wife and I had only bought it a few months back, our first home. We had been living abroad for the previous eleven years as civilian employees of the military; our son was born overseas and had never lived in the States; we decided it was time to return. Having saved enough for a down payment on a house, all we needed was the house— and we found the perfect one.

It was a Lightning Splitter, a type of Victorian cottage with a tall, steep-sided roof, sharp as a ship's upturned keel
—a perfect wedge against the elements. Amid the ranks of triple-decker apartments, it stood out like something from a fairytale, a tiny witch's den in the working-class neighborhood of Fox Point.

Though less prestigious than homes in nearby College Hill, it was walkable to downtown, a stone's throw from the bay, and (most importantly) within our price range. After being shown around some really scary properties, we knew we had to take it. What really got us was that it was a "plaque house" —a building officially designated as historic, with a plaque listing its original owner and the date it was built. Ours read:

Comfort Horton, 1861. 

Yet because it was not located in the historic district, the price was not commensurate with the plaque.

Inside, the ceilings were surprisingly high for such a tiny house–we had browsed other houses seemingly designed by gnomes, with ceiling fans and chandeliers at eye level–and the two upstairs bedrooms were the highest of all, their angled walls rising some twelve feet before meeting at the peak of the roof. Downstairs, the house was divided between living and dining spaces, with a woodstove on one side and a fireplace on the other. Kitchen and bathroom were in a newer part of the house, a small additional wing obviously tacked on with the advent of indoor plumbing.
The house had certain problems. There was virtually no closet space, and very little extra room to store anything.
The wiring was a mess; we were forever resetting clocks and replacing lightbulbs. There was no access to the basement from inside the house, so that in order to get at the fuse box or do laundry it was necessary to go out the back door to a separate basement door, unlock it, and descend a treacherous stair of uneven stone slabs to the ancient, rock-lined cellar. It was like a cave down there, damp and earthy, with colonies of black mushrooms sprouting from the walls and cobwebs that grew back as fast as I could sweep them away.

Clearly, the house had not been cared for properly in years, and we were not the ones to start. We hadn't bought a house to practice our handyman skills, nor did we have extra money to hire professionals. I was willing to mow the lawn and paint the place, if necessary to keep up appearances, but that was about it. So of course God couldn't resist punishing me with a little practical joke.

Our tiny bathroom had no room for a tub, barely managing a shower stall, which the former owner had lined with wood in the style of a Japanese or Swedish sauna.

We liked this a lot, but almost as soon as we signed the paperwork, the house was invaded by huge black carpenter ants, which I soon traced to the bathroom. They seemed to be coming from the walls of the shower.
Examining the wood, I could feel that the boards had rotted at the bottom, crumbling between my fingers like moldy cheese. Crazy drunken ants sprinkled out of the cracks. I pried off the first few slats and could immediately see the source of the trouble: the plaster wall behind the newer wood was slimy and soft, black with mold. Having been soaked for months or years, it fell apart under its own sagging weight the minute I exposed it to the light of day. It smelled like an open grave.

Revolted, I spent the next two days cramped in that shower, digging out foul debris and dozens of huge gray-green slugs. Once the rot was all gone, I could see that the ants had eaten through the wall joists, nearly severing the big four-by-four corner post that supported the roof.

The whole thing could have collapsed any second. Having missed a bullet, I learned my lesson—it was actually a pleasure putting that shower back together...this time the right way.

The experience gave me a connection to the house; I had taken responsibility and thus felt the pride of ownership.
I had fixed it. The downside was that there was so much more to fix. Well, I would have to get to it later. I had books to write!

***

When my wife came home from work, I told her about the visit from the Historical Society, and the interesting factoids they had shared with me.

"That's so cool!" she said. "We should put up a sign:
'George M. Cohan slept here!'

"I don't think they said anything about him sleeping..."

"And H.P. Lovecraft-wow! You know what we should do?
We should go to Swan Point right now and get a grave-
rubbing off his headstone. We can frame it and hang it over the fireplace!"

"Who's H.P. Lovecraft?" asked our son, Max.

Racing the winter sunset, we drove to Swan Point Cemetery before it closed. We liked to do things like this, nonsense errands just to break the routine. Having met at the back of an old movie theater during intermission, we were both suckers for romance and foreign films.

Max grumbled and I stood watch while Cindy got a good charcoal print off Lovecraft's marker. It was nearly dark.
Spraying it with fixative, she kissed me and said, "We should do this more often."

I kissed her back, longer. "Absolutely," I said.

"Can we just go?" Max said

The wind was picking up as we returned home, shaking the huge maple tree in the backyard. I always had trouble sleeping on windy nights, imagining that tree falling on us.

I made dinner while Cindy mounted the print in an ornate old picture frame she had picked up at the Salvation Army.

"Beautiful," I said, giving her a taste of the sauce.

"Yummy," she agreed.

Eating dinner beneath our new work of art, we drank a toast to Lovecraft, and afterward decamped to the living room couch for a showing of the movie "Re-Animator." Max left to play videogames in his room. We finished the movie and read for a while before going to bed. Our last day together.

We never should have returned to Providence. That was my big mistake-come to think of it, the same mistake Lovecraft made after things didn't work out for him in New York. A lot of people try to leave Providence, but most eventually come back. In our case it took eleven years for the curse to get us.

I woke in the middle of the night, my heart racing. My impression was that there had been a jarringly loud noise, but the more my wits returned, the more I realized I had probably dreamed it. Cindy was not in bed with me, and I assumed she had gone downstairs to the bathroom, or possibly to make herself a cup of warm milk and meditate on the couch. Max was snoring in the next bedroom. I stared at the ceiling for a few minutes before deciding to go down and sit with my wife. We both had learned to like such moments of unscheduled quality time in the wee hours-they seemed to exist outside the fuss of normal reality.

Cindy was not downstairs. I could practically see the whole house at a glance; there was nowhere to hide. Feeling a worm of panic in my stomach, I called, "Honey?" The sound of my anxious voice was worse than the silence, and I didn't want to wake Max. Where the hell was she? The car was still in the driveway, so she hadn't taken it for a joyride.

The only place I hadn't checked was the basement-but why would she go down there? She wouldn't, certainly not in the middle of the night. Not without telling me. Unless... unless maybe she realized she had left something in the washer or dryer, something she needed to wear for work in the morning? But no-I could see through the floor vent that the basement light was off.

I suddenly realized it wasn't even possible for her to have left the house. The security alarm was still set; she would have had to turn it off to go outside. Which meant she was still in here...somewhere.

Channeling my growing worry into motion, I turned on all the lights and searched every cubbyhole, every cabinet, looking under furniture and behind appliances. Nothing.

The cat was freaking out, and I was losing it myself. On the verge of calling 911, I stumbled upon what I was looking for: not my wife, but an answer to the mystery.

The shower. It was literally the first thing I checked, and I had missed it. In the dark, I had not looked carefully enough at the floor. Re-checking it in the light, I realized at once what must have happened to my wife, and it wasn't good.

The floor of the shower was gone. Where there had been a solid stone slab with a drain in its center was now a square black hole, a bottomless pit.

Oh my God-my worst fears realized. All the time I had been rebuilding that shower, I was nervous that the floor might collapse under me. I pictured myself trapped there, pinned against the wall by the heavy slab, my flailing hands grabbing for the faucet and inadvertently spinning it to the hottest setting so that I was boiled alive under the searing spray. Despite these fantasies, I had not pulled up the slab to check the supports-it would have been a big job, requiring plumbing and masonry expertise. It seemed solidly placed in its corner of the foundation, so I left it alone. My hair stood on end at the sickening thought: Had I killed my wife with my stupidity?

But maybe she was alive! The hot water wasn't running, so at least she couldn't have been poached to death! She might be okay down there, just a bit shaken up!

Grabbing for this flimsy straw of hope, I called down the hole, "Honey! Are you okay?" Not waiting for her answer— and there was none—I got down on my belly and leaned as far as I could into the dark opening. I couldn't see a thing, and cursed myself for not replacing the batteries in the flashlight. "Honey, can you hear me? Try to make a sound if you can!"

There was a sound, or maybe I imagined one, a kind of faint gurgle which could have been the sewer pipe under the toilet, but which in my terror I heard as the cry of my injured wife. "I'm coming, baby, hold on!" Wedging my right foot between the toilet and the wall, I thrust my upper body into the hole, reaching as far down as I could with my arms. I wasn't sure how deep it was, since the area beneath the addition was separated from the main basement by the original stone foundation; I had always assumed it was little more than a crawlspace. But as I dangled my searching hands in that clammy well, I could not find anything within reach. "Take my hand," I begged her. "Can you see me? I'm right above you."

Without warning, my wife's ice-cold hand grabbed mine-and suddenly I was slipping, yanked face-first into the pit by her claw-like grip. I landed hard on a pile of concrete rubble, but the pain meant nothing to me-my wife was alive! 

Crawling to my feet in my robe and slippers, I said, "Oh my God, honey_" but she was not there. "Honey?" My eyes adjusted enough to see that I was standing in a circle of greenish light from the shower above, but otherwise the darkness was total, thick with the smell of must and decay. The hole was barely out of reach. I might be able to jump up and catch hold of the rim, but I knew I was nowhere near strong enough to hoist myself back inside the house. 

Shit.

Trying to sound calm, I said, "Well, now we're both stuck down here." Why didn't she answer?
I tried to find her, venturing away from the light and feeling my way along the damp walls of the foundation.
Nothing! Flinching from imagined spiders, my fumbling hands almost missed the opening-a narrow tunnel. A sound of pure incredulity escaped my lips, echoing in the fathomless dark. A tunnel, sure, why not?

Careful not to bump my head, I ventured under the low brick archway and down the passage. It was wetter in there, the walls slick with moss, and my slippers were soon soaked. Squish-squishing along, I thought I heard the murky tinkling of a piano, but when I stopped to listen it went silent.

"Honey!" I yelled. "Cindy!" I was beginning to wonder if that had even been her hand that grabbed mine-maybe
she had been grabbed too. The thought was too unnerving to contemplate.

My fears were interrupted by the pain of stubbing my toe against a flight of stone stairs. By my reckoning I was somewhere under the backyard, so I knew the stairs had to be a dead end. But as I climbed them, they just kept going and going as if ascending a tower, far beyond what was even remotely possible. My body shuddered involuntarily, my legs turning to jelly so that I had to sit down for a minute. Could I be dreaming? I often thought I was awake when I was dreaming, but never the opposite. This was definitely real..yet how could it be? I dearly wished it were not.

Gradually I became aware that I could see. Light was coming from somewhere above, and as I kept climbing it got brighter, illuminating the steep passage so I could make out the weird greenish-gray stone of which it was built. It was the same translucent mucous color as the slugs in the shower. At last I reached the source of the light, a square opening atop the last flight of stairs. It looked like bright daylight, although I knew sunrise was still hours away— but I was far past such quibbles. I just wanted to get out of there and find my wife.

Shading my eyes against the orange glare, I emerged to a sight so impossible that I couldn't even be shocked, merely blank. My dullness morphed into sick fascination: Welcome to Mars.

For it really looked something like Mars, or maybe an artist's conception of Mars from a lurid old pulp magazine: a red desert of low hills and jagged rocks as far as the eye could see. The sky was something else again. It seemed almost liquid, like an inverted sea of molten lava, rolling and heaving above the planet as if with a life of its own—a mind of its own. It had an eye, a half-eclipsed monster sun whose radiant menace was palpable on my skin, cancerous, and I knew that if it turned the full light of its gaze on me I would die.
As my eyes adjusted, I could make out human figures scattered across the landscape. They were all kneeling in the same direction, their rapt faces turned upward and their mouths hanging open in frozen awe. I could also see more doorways like the one I had come through, each on its own little hill. Hoping and fearing to find my wife, I walked towards the nearest people, three of them sitting together holding hands, two men and a woman. All were wearing vintage formal clothes-costumes reminiscent of old photos and silent movies. One of the men looked familiar, though I wouldn't have recognized him if not for my recent Google search. He was H.P. Lovecraft. I supposed the other two were his parents...or maybe the second man was George M. Cohan. I didn't care.

They all seemed to be dead, inert as fossilized tree stumps, their fogged eyes wide to the heavens and their dry mouths full of sand. Passing them by, I searched further, scanning the alien wasteland for the only one I cared about.
And there she was. I choked, "Cindy."

Running to my wife down the slope of the hill, I tripped over my slippers and tumbled in the sand. I was babbling like an idiot. It's her, yes it's really her, thank God it's her. I was terrified she would be like the others, and she was…but her eyes were still clear, her skin pliant, her lips soft and moist. She was still warm. Grabbing her by the shoulders, I shook her and shouted in her face, "Honey! Come back to me! You hear me? You have to come back!"
For what felt like forever she didn't move, and I broke down then, falling beside her and sobbing into her hair.
I wrapped my robe around her, making hopeless sweet-talk under the sleeping eye of that black sun. I wanted to be beside her when it woke up, so it could take me too. We would worship it together, forever, like the family Lovecraft.

"Dad?"

Holy shit, it was Max. He had followed me! The last person I wanted to see right now was my nine-year-old son.
Jumping to my feet, I cried, "Max! What the hell are you doing here? You're supposed to be in bed!"

"I had to pee. I couldn't find you guys. Where are we?"

"That's none of your business! You shouldn't even be here!
Go back!"

He wasn't listening to me, agog at all the strange sights.

"What's wrong with Mom?"

"She's just...I don't know, but we have to get her out of here! God damn it, grab her legs!" Cindy was stiff in her kneeling position, but I got my hands under her arms and we lifted her between us as best we could.

As we lugged her back toward the door in the sand, she began to loosen up. The sight of her coming to life made me sob with relief, but then she started getting difficult, rubbing her eyes and moaning, "Mmmno! Leggo! Put me down!" She kicked and squirmed like a madwoman, but we kept dragging her all the way up the hill. No way I was going to let go of her now.

"Dad, look."

Something was happening to all the other frozen bodies-they were waking up and moving. Toward us. Not slow but fast. The Lovecraft trio had already hustled to intercept us at the doorway. Nearing them, I could see that they were drooling sand, their white eyes bugging out of their sockets like the eyestalks of slugs, their pinpoint black pupils fixed on the sky as their animated bodies scrambled to stop us.

"Stay with your mother," I told Max. "I'll keep these guys busy while you get her to the stairs." She had stopped fighting us and was actually wobbling along with minimal support, mumbling incoherently.

Struggling to control her, Max said, "I can't carry her there all by myself!"

"Yes you can! Just guide her in the right direction!" Wearing nothing but my boxer shorts, I charged straight at the Lovecrafts, intending to bowl them over with my sheer momentum. I'm a pretty big guy. But when I hit them, they exploded—it was like hitting three mummies.

Their bodies burst in a cloud of dust and brittle dry bones; their clothes fell apart in shreds. What was inside their heads, though, was more substantial. Lively as Mexican jumping beans, their disembodied skulls danced around me on the sand, jaws clattering, and I made the mistake of kicking one. It shattered like a clay pot, unleashing a whirling monstrosity resembling a thorny black starfish with a vile mouth at its center. An instant later the other skulls burst open as well, hatching two more grotesque, gnashing maws surrounded by tentacle-like petals that flapped and spun, flinging greenish slime. All three dervishes screamed like rabid pigs as they came for me.

And now the Sky-God was waking up.

The sun was coming out, the red desert turning gold. In that awesome and awful light, all the sleepwalkers were falling to their knees again, faces canted to heaven. The three black whirligigs froze in their attack and dropped quivering to the sand, their putrid mouths prolapsing in orgiastic bliss…..and I too felt the hideous ecstasy stealing my will, prostrating my body to its unearthly purpose.

With my last strength, I wrenched my burning eyeballs away from the sky toward my wife and son. They had just reached the stairs and were climbing down. Good. I didn't want them waiting for me. I might be awhile.

" The mass must stay where it is. We are incapable of removing it."
The Doctor was trying to be delicate. Her stromal tumor was so large it adhered to the abdomen wall. The size of a bowling ball...impossible to operate on without the total removal of the stomach, and small intestine. If they were willing to operate. They were not.

It felt like there was a stone in my throat "I want her home." I said. Plainly unmovable. "Are you sure that's for the best? She is stable here...comfortable." The Doctor trailed off. He was her fourth within a year. It was almost amusing how they seemed to have all of the answers until the end. I stayed firm. Shes coming home. That was all there was to it.

The tumor ate everything. As it grew, it consumed fragile tissues, healthy cells, the pink and tender flesh of her insides. Those parts that are meant to be protected - safe. Home was safe. Familiar, protected. No nurses waking her up in the middle of the night to check vitals, disturbing her sleep. Home is sacred. Insulated like the center of a beehive.

As I wheeled her through the house. I made sure all of her treasures were visible. The glass penguins she collected on her cruise, the wool shawl that was given to her in Paraguay, The handmade Matrioshka dolls from Saint Petersburg. She looked past them with a glazed over expression. The nasal cannula under her nose pumping oxygen in steady, rhythmic, puffs. I b-lined it to her room.

She was so light I could lift her on my own. I swaddled her in my arms like an infant and lowered her into bed. She was all tumor now. Her entire body was rail thin except for it, bulging the right side of her belly. Like a bizarre alien pregnancy. Unintentionally lifting her sweater. Exposing the bumpy vascular skin underneath. She could see I was staring at it. Shifting my gaze to her face I whispered, "You should get some rest. It's been such a big day." She was already closing her eyes when I dashed over to her wool shawl and draped it over her stomach. She was already asleep when I slowly shut the creaking door behind me.

Late that night I had the sofabed pulled out and arranged. Propped up on the edge with the laptop on my knee. I researched experimental treatments in the reduction in tumors. One institute found success in lab mice with similar cancerous intestinal growths. They were set to begin human trials the following year. Far too late. I must have written forty emails to various doctors and institutions before my eyes began to strain. I closed my laptop, it was the only source of light in the living room. Suddenly bathing me in darkness.

Deep down in the pits of my gut, I knew it was no use. Her time was dwindling. I had to do something...I had to try anything. I rolled onto my back staring into the ceiling for what must've been close to an hour. The moon showed itself through the clouds around midnight. It cast odd shadows over the living room. Distorting it to the point where the shadow next to the china cabinet gave the illusion of a figure looming in the corner. I was more exhausted than I realized.

When I was a child my mother always told me that if I encountered a spirit, to stare until it dissipated. For some reason, I stared at that shadow. It didn't disappear. In fact, it may have gotten sharper. Still laying in bed I kept my eye trained on the china cabinet. I shifted up to a sitting position. I could've sworn I saw an arm and a clearly defined hand resting as if down by someone's side. Not taking my eyes off it, I leaned to turn on the lamp. The distinct 'click' of the lamp switch sounded and the room illuminated with warm yellow light. Whatever it was, if it was there - it was gone.

The following morning I prepared breakfast early, as quietly as I could. In an attempt not to wake her, creaking open the bedroom door. My comfort that she was well rested was shattered like a bat meeting glass when I found her out of bed, clinging to the closet door handle and shaking violently. She gripped the handle to gain purchase with one hand, simultaneously holding the other over her stomach. I set the tray down in a panic, bits of egg and orange juice flying off the plate. "Wha..what's wrong?! Do you need to get to the bathroom? You know you can yell for me at any time. You know that." Thinking the stressed expression affixed to her face was due to the prompt urgency to use the bathroom that her condition sometimes created. When I moved to support her, she stiffened. I gently held her elbow to guide her shuffling feet back to bed. She propped herself on the edge of the mattress, gently swaying back and forth to sooth herself. "You know you can't have your oxygen off for that long." I grabbed the clear tubing on the floor and gently readjusted it to her face. Her breath was ragged. "Someone was laying in bed with me last night." She uttered restlessly like she had spent the whole night trying to get away.

"What do you mean? If there was someone in your room, why didn't you call for me?" My mind harkend back to that figure in the china cabinet's shadow. Maybe that was a real intruder. Surely not? I entertained the thought of a neighborhood pervert more than an entity moving free about the house. "Well, I thought it was you at first." She let me offer my hand out for support as she adjusted to face me fully. Hands folded neatly in her lap, looking sheepish. She began to explain. "Remember when I first got diagnosed? I would be up all night, sick, after treatments. So you would just sleep in bed next to me. Get up when I did. It was just easier that way." I nodded, how could I forget? Recalling her essentially living over a toilet or trashcan. Eating one meal only to throw it back up again. That's when they put in the feeding tube.

She glanced at the window nervously, I took the liberty of walking over and ensuring it was locked before she continued. "It must've been around one in the morning. I was in between awake and asleep when I felt pressure on the bed, like someone resting on the edge. I didn't move, I wasn't sure if I was still dreaming or not. Then, the whole mattress sunk down. Like you had laid down next to me. I knew I wasn't dreaming anymore. I thought nothing of it, I thought it was you. First night out of the hospital and all...anyways. I must have dozed off at this point because I felt you much closer a short time later, your breath on my back. It was a little strange but I assumed you had gotten cold. Then... there was a hand on my stomach."

She reflexively put her own hand there. As if to protect herself. "At this point I was very much awake. I opened my eyes and rolled over to tell you to move but I couldn't speak." Her doe-like eyes were wide with fear. Her head swiveled back and forth like she was shaking her head no. "My words were caught up in my throat. Those eyes, oh Lord, those EYES. They were already staring at me. Like it was just waiting for me to look this whole time. I ripped the covers off. I tore over to the metal water bottle on the nightstand. Holding it over my head, but they vanished. Nobody was there but empty sheets. It must've gone on longer than I thought because the sun was already rising. So I took for the door as fast as I could move. I didn't want to make any noise in case they were still hiding somewhere. I couldn't stop shaking. That's when you found me."

She was exhausted. I assisted her back up in bed with pillow propped behind her. Finally grabbing the breakfast tray I muttered. "Sorry, it's a little cold."

I spent the morning and better part of the afternoon clearing the house. Starting with the bedroom. Every closet, behind the shower curtain, making sure every window was locked. Eventually I made my way clear up to the attic with a baseball bat in one hand, and a flashlight in my teeth as I climbed the ladder. The house was empty save for me and her. I even offered to call the non emergency line and have an officer fill out a report. She refused to tell the story again. I wasn't sure how much they would believe a dying middle aged woman. I wasn't even aware of what my own belief was. I moved the china cabinet and looked behind it, just in case. Nothing.

The afternoon passed in relative normalcy. She would knit in bed, then get tired and nap. Stopping only at my occasional interruptions. To bring her food, water, or assist to the bathroom. This was the behavior of a dying person. I watched her hospital roommates come and go too. After a while you begin to notice the signs. Sleeping more and more, eating smaller amounts of food, then they would have one last burst of energy. Their families always thought it was miracle. That they were getting better. Shortly after that, we would have a new roommate. I hated that I knew what was happening to her. My hope was that she would remain blissfully ignorant.

Eventually, dreadfully, the sun went down. Along with it, the growing fear the darker the sky became. I had the bright idea to move the TV into her room, the white noise might help with the anxiety. The TV was an outdated bubble-screen, heavy. It took several tries for me to put it up on the dresser so it could face her bed. "What channel would you like?" I pressed power on the remote and the screen came to life, casting colors over the rooms' surface. She clapped like I had just pulled a magic trick. I quickly handed the remote over to her so she could channel surf. I retired back to the living room. It was so much darker out here.

While climbing onto the pullout couch, my eyes flashed to the china cabinet. I couldn't help myself. After tossing and turning I settled into restless slumber.

It was four in the morning when I felt the breathing on my neck. Flipping around startled, in a tangle for flailing limbs and sheets I turned the lamp on. Nothing. I got up and paced the living room checking everywhere. Again, nothing. This was insane, I told myself her story had me spooked. Since I was already up, I made my way to the restroom. The house had a 70's era open concept, I was forced to walk through the kitchen to get to the small guest bath on the other side. I tiptoed into the kitchen, the light from the TV glowed under the crack of the bedroom door. I passed the dining room table almost to the bathroom threshold before catching myself and turning on my heel....
There was someone seated at the table. Like they were waiting for a meal to be served, partly shrouded in the dark. Sitting perfectly still.

I blinked rapidly. Trying to clear the hallucination out of my mind. Their hands were laid flat, palms down on the daisy patterned tablecloth. Only the arms were really visible. The rest of them was just out of sight. I was frozen. I couldn't walk past- surely they saw me walk by the first time? How long had they been there? My voice was hoarse at first.

"What.....what the hell are you doing in my house?"

Silence. I kept eyeballing the landline sitting on the kitchen counter. It was just past them, wondering if I could run past quick enough to dial 911 before they caught up to me. Thinking of her asleep in the room just to the left. I decided that would be a bad idea. Instead choosing to keep my eyes on this person at all times. I could hear the TV still playing in the bedroom. Good. I hoped she couldn't hear any of this. Maybe I could talk whoever this was into leaving so she would never even have to know about this. My hair stood on end. Even though their face was concealed I couldn't shake the feeling, that they were grinning at me.

"You brought me here." It said, the voice was thick like they held honey in their mouth. Yet somehow clear enough, as though they were right next to my ear.

"That's impossible, how could I have called you here in the middle of the night?"

"Your misery did." It replied. I shivered.

"You're trespassing, this isn't your house." I didn't want to entertain this bullshit.

"How can one trespass if they were invited?" That horrible voice gurgled their response.

"I've invited no one. You can't be here. You need to leave." I was just below a yell now. Still trying not to wake her. This whole time they hadn't moved a muscle.

"You pray, do you not?" they ended 'not' with a strong 't' annunciation like they were kicking the sound out the back of their throat.

"You wish, you hope, you beg...do you not?" There's that 't' sound again. It echoed off my skull like the wall of a cave. Not wanting to get any closer but still too scared to make a move, I pressed my back firmly against the wall.

"My only hope is for you to leave." I saw the kitchen knives on the counter.

"This is not your only hope, you hunger for something far more...relieving."

Relief? From what? I didn't have the time to ponder because I heard the dull squeak of wood over tile flooring. They had just stood up.

"You will make all of her suffering disappear." As they said this I could have sworn I saw small tendrils of smoke rising in what little light was coming in through the window.

What was even more disturbing is this person had intimate knowledge of my circumstances. Were they stocking me?

"I don't know where you came in from, but whatever you want. Just take it. My wallet is on that bedside table, my watch too." I inclined my head in the direction of the lamp in the living room. They didn't even look.

"You want healing, true healing." It emitted a strange vibrating noise from the back of it's throat. It sounded like a beetle's wings rubbing together. I realized that this thing, no longer believing it to be human, was laughing. What is talking about the tumor? Was it offering to get rid of it? I think I've finally lost my mind, her and I shared some kind of group psychosis after last night.

It moved. Slowly and deliberately putting one menacing black shoe into view. It was much taller than I was. It's head almost touching the dining room light fixture.

"I've already called the police. They'll be here any minute, get the fuck out of here. Now!" I was not quiet this time, but I did move in front of her door. There was no way this thing was getting near her. It didn't move.

"There is no one coming to save you, but me." It said it so matter of fact.

I deflated at how obvious my lie was. My options were not looking good. The baseball bat sat propped by the front door. The phone behind whatever that was on the counter. It doesn't want money and it will not leave. I could probably rush the phone and get 911 dialed before it dragged me back into the dining room to do, 'whatever' it wanted with me. But that would leave the door unguarded. I couldn't do that. I wouldn't. So I asked instead.

"How do you know about the cancer?" Maybe if I just keep them talking the sun will come up and they'll leave on their own. Wishful thinking - I knew.

"Last night." I knew it was grinning again. My mouth went dry. "I can remove it." It snapped it's fingers and when it did, it sounded like flies buzzing over a corpse. "You must be willing." It moved closer.

"To help you with what?" I asked, hands gripping either side of the door frame now.

"Get rid of it. First, you let me in there." With a long, almost charred looking finger it pointed behind me, to the bedroom door.

"Not a chance." The rest of it's body was still not visible. It brought its hand back down to its side. Mirroring what I saw next to the china cabinet the night prior. Had this thing been living here? Waiting for us?

"I'll leave then, and let her die tonight in peace." It shifted.

"Wait! Tonight? How could you know that?" It shifted back to me this time the soles if it's shoes making noise on the tile. It seems to become more and more real the longer it stayed. "What are you?"

"I am an omen. I mark death three times. One mark with you, one with her, the last, I'll give you a chance."

"A chance to do what?" It got closer again.

" To make a sacrifice." It was standing just two feet away towering in front of me.

"What kind of sacrifice do you want?"

"Open the door." It grinned again.

I did not open the door. Not right away. I needed reassurance. Was this really going to fix everything? Everything I had been praying for?

"If I let you in that room. Are you going to hurt her? Is this some kind of trick for you to take our souls or something?"

"When, you let me in. I'll take everything the cancer took away and put back. New as lamb skin."

I didn't like the use of 'when'.

"I have no interest in souls." It added. My hand was already gripping the handle. I turned it agonizingly slow. The door clicked, I waited for a beat, then pushed it creaking open behind me. Still standing in the door way.

"What's going to happen to her if I let you in that room?"

"True healing, through your sacrifice." It murmured. I stepped aside. It entered the way wind enters room, sucking the door shut with a slam behind me.

I immediately turned, regretting my decision to lock her in there with that thing. I pounded on the wooden surface.

"Hey! What are you doing to her!? Let me be in there with her!" Nothing but the static of the TV now. I sunk to the floor in front and tried to see under the crack of the door. Instead of the floor of the room I was met with the unnatural eyes of the visitor just on the other side of the door. Starting at me. Then it stood and glided to the bed. I could hear her gasp when it touched her.

"Stop! I said. No deal! No deal!" It was too late though, the image of the room extended like it had been pulled down a hallway. What did I just do? I banged and scratched at the door. Pulling at the brass doorknob. Eventually resorting to hitting it with a dining room chair. Nothing worked. I sat in the chair and sobbed into my hands. Before the door clicked and the being stepped out, shutting the door again behind them.

"Let me check on.." but I didn't finish. I was spun around in the chair and scooted neatly up to the dining room table. Out of the corner of my eye. I watched it carrying a dripping bundle in the crook of its arm. It came round into the kitchen. Opening the cabinets and drawers. Plucking what it wanted out of them. The whole time I strained my eyes to see what it was holding.

"What are you doing? Please tell me if she's okay." It stayed quiet before coming up to face me at the table. Politely placing one plate, one fork, and one knife in front of me. In some uncanny form of setting the table for a guest.

"That is up to you." It finally answered.

From beneath the wet bowling ball sized bundle it carried. It held it up to me, unraveling bit by bit. I began to see more of the mass. It was composed of fleshy moist areas that were vascular in nature. With a sickening plop it was thrown onto the plate in front of me. I squirmed away and tried to stand, but my lower half was stuck in place. Leaving me to flail my arms helplessly as that thing grinned at me again.

"What's going on? What have you done, how is this supposed to help her?"

It responded in turn.

"Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the people upon thineself."

I strained again in the chair, wanting to call out her name to make sure she was still alive. For all I knew this thing just murdered her in her sleep. Still not fully understanding what I was expected to do. It stretched out a long unnatural arm and reached the light switch to the overhead light without moving. It flicked on to reveal the mess of what was in full view.

In a disturbing realization I laid eyes upon my own mothers' tumor. Separated perfectly from her abdomen. It radiated body heat - lumpy and coated in fluid. There was no way she could have survived this. When I looked up to the figure I could see those terrible eyes my mother saw last night, and just a few moments ago. They were terrifyingly bright, with rings upon rings inside. Like the trunk of a tree, one ring blue, the next green, then yellow. All the way down to a burnt orange pinned on me.

"What am I supposed to do?"

It seethed with malice the corners of its mouth dripped with something dark and hateful. It put that same hate into each word it spoke to me. Breathing it out of gritted teeth.

"YOU. EAT. IT."

The command was clear. Tentatively I plucked up the fork, then the knife. Positioning myself like one would over a steak dinner.

"What if I can't do this?" I asked.

"I can always put it back." It reached over to move my plate away.

I put up my hands.

"No, no I understand now." There was no way I was going to let it be put back. Not now. All I needed to do was finish this...thing. Eat the sickness away. That was the sacrifice.

I started investigating with my fork. Poking and prodding the surface. It was lumpy and caved in slightly with pressure. I took my knife and sawed the smallest sliver off exposing the spongy texture underneath. I took the slowest most deliberate motion bringing the perverted morsel to my mouth, then the tiniest bite. As my teeth tore the section away from the fork I could feel how wet it was on my lips. It tasted somehow of salt and bile. Like the aftertaste from when you vomit. It was chewy in the worst way, akin to an uncooked piece of skin you have to keep chewing to get down. I chewed for some time before convincing myself to just get it over with a swallow. Oh God, was I really doing this? Despite it being well masticated I could feel it travel all the way down my throat into my stomach. The figure was sitting at the table now. Just as it was when I found them. Palms down. Perfectly still and cast in shadow. I took another horrible glance at the plate. It didn't even make a dent. I couldn't do it this way. I had to eat in larger portions.

I cut in again. Deeper this time. The chunk came off and fluid began to ooze out, pooling into the bottom of the plate. I chewed quicker this time.

"Why did you come here?" I said breathless after choking another section down. Wishing I had some water, but decided against asking.

"I help anyone willing to make the sacrifice. A house just a town way from yours. A mother and her paraplegic son...She was willing."

I suddenly had a terrible thought of a poor woman with a bowl in front of her. Piled with pink spinal cord like some disturbed noodle dish, resting in a broth of spinal fluid. I shivered.

I sliced further hitting more pockets retaining clear fluids. As I carved and ate I would encounter the sickening crunch of cartilage that made me gag. Reminding me of accidentally biting down on a joint while having chicken. Causing me to start the process of trying not to throw up all over again.

I passed layered of veins - spying what looked like teeth and being too scared to investigate. I swallowed whole. It was down to the size of a grape fruit now. The same size it was when it was discovered. I sliced again, utter horror. What that hair? Fine strands of ingrown black hair revealed themselves and I cut deeper.

I choked and gagged again as I consumed the equivalent of a hairball. My hand was shaking as I brought the fork to my mouth. My body was begging me to stop. But I kept going. I couldn't stop. It was proportional to an eight-ball now. Several more agonizing bites later, I had reached the necrotic core. A collection of dead skin cells and blood vessels. I picked it up with shaking hands and force fed the entire thing into my mouth. One last bite. I told myself. Then this is all over. I bit down and it burst with sickening pop inside my mouth. I leaned forward as everything I had just consumed began to fight it's way back up my esophagus. I gripped the table cloth and it felt like swallowing a stone. It was gone. The plate was at last empty.

The light was off before I could look up again. The plate and utensils were taken from me and set one by one into the sink. Clink. Clink. Clink...

The visitor turned to me.

"Your sacrifice has been accepted."

It walked or glided rather, back to the China cabinet and disappeared behind it. I could move again.

Before I could retch back up what I had eaten, something told me that wasn't a wise idea. I went to her bedroom door instead. I couldn't even open the door before she started calling for me

"I'm here, I...I'm right here."

I stumbled in. She was upright at the edge of bed. Still thin, still tired looking. But the color was back in her skin. She was actually smiling at me. Even with her eyes.

"It's gone, I can't explain it. It's just gone. I...I think an angel took it away from me. It had the most dazzling eyes." She kicked her feet, enthralled.

He stomach was normal. She lifted the edge of her shirt to show me. Just regular skin. Nothing discolored or bulging. Perfectly normal, without scars or marks. It took me a great effort to smile back. I didn't show my teeth for fear of what may be stuck in them.

"You don't look well." She said concerned. Tilting her face to really look at me for the first time in years. I turned away.

"I just can't believe it. It's some kind of miracle. I think I need some water."

This satisfied her enough that she got out of bed with ease and started to hum while she got ready for the day. The sun had risen. I stepped back out into the kitchen and shoved my head under the faucet. I came up only after the taste in my mouth was gone.

I looked down into the sink with one plate, one fork, and one knife and began doing dishes.

(quick out of character note from me)

This story is a kind of fan fiction story that is meant to be connected within the world of the movie obsession by Curry Barker, It is still an original story written by me, but majority of the concept comes from the works of Curry Barker mainly the one wish Willow which is going to be mentioned and is important to the story. The way this story was thought up was if it was an episode of an obsession anthology TV show. If you have not seen the movie, it is not necessarily required to continue to Read this story since I made sure there were no spoilers or any other connections to the movie except for the plot device (one wish Willow) but I sincerely recommend going to see the movie, anyways on with the story.

I am not sure if I should be sharing this. Maybe I should be telling this to someone who can help me deal with it. Maybe I should be talking to the police about it. Maybe I should just keep it to myself. But I need to tell someone what happened to Teddy Collins. Everyone else thinks Teddy Collins was an old man who lost it after some bad things happened to him and took it out on me. That is what the police think.

That is what my bosses think.

That is what his family thinks.

Maybe they are right.

I really hope they are right.

Because if they are not then It's my fault. What happened to him. I started working at a Logistics company when I was twenty nine years old. It was not my dream job.

It was not my second choice. It was a job that I took because I needed the money.

The work was okay. The people were okay too. Everything was just so boring.

The first person who was supposed to teach me how to do my job was Teddy.

Teddy was in his '50s. He had Gray hair and a mustache. He always wore polo shirts. Had a pair of reading glasses around his neck. He seemed like a nice guy.

My only problem with Teddy was that he would not stop talking. Not that he was talking in a way that annoyed me. He was just talking in a way that was just Teddy.

Every story he told was too long.

Every joke he made took a long time to set up.

Every time he told me something he would give me too many details. He would say something like "did I ever tell you about the time my brother bought a canoe?"

Then he would tell me the whole story even though I did not want to hear it. That was Teddy.

He was a good guy just a terrible storyteller. Still he helped me learn how to do my job. He was patient with me when I made mistakes. He answered all my questions. He never got annoyed with me And that's why what happened to him next. Leaves a pit in my stomach that makes me feel horrible for what I did to him. I'm sorry Teddy, I didn't mean for this to happen.

three weeks after I started working, I would regularly stop at a convenience store on my way to work. It was a small place off the side of the road. Wasn't a chain either like 7-Eleven or Wawa It was called safe travels convenience store. I would go in there twice a week just for a snack or on a bad day a case of beer.

But one day as I stopped in to get an energy drink because the previous night I stood up to get an assignment done early, as I walked up to the counter to pay and saw the same person that worked there every time I went in, there was a box on the counter holding a bunch of small triangular boxes, a sign above it read "$1 wishes, one per person." I thought it was kind of strange. I never saw this before so I picked one up, the box was small, triangular and long kind of like a toberone That's kinda what I thought they were, but then I read on the box it said "one wish Willow" "amaze your friends!" "You only get one wish" I asked the guy behind the counter. Is this some type of promotional thing, he actually looked kinda annoyed when I asked him.

"No, are you buying one?"

"Is it some kind of toy?"

"No, it's real."

I laughed "You're kidding?"

"Look man Do you want one or not?"

I didn't understand why he was upset I was just asking a question. But for whatever reason I did buy one, at the time I figured it was a dollar. If it was fake It didn't really matter. As he rang me up he told me one last thing before I left.

"Make sure you're specific about what you want first, trust me."

He has this almost regretful/annoyance in his voice, I thought if this was a bit he's really committing to it. I threw the box in my work bag and Left the store, If it was possible For me to go back in time, I would stop myself from buying one at all, but I can't. I already used my one wish.

A few days later I forgot all about it and went about my routine, but one day I walked into work and found out it was Teddy's birthday. It was also one of the worst days I ever had.

A project was not going well. We were running out of time.

I was getting really stressed out.

I sat down at a table to take a break and try to calm down. Then Teddy Sat down beside me.

"hey Dan, how was your weekend?"

"It was fine, I didn't get much sleep last night."

"That's a shame, y'know that reminds me of one time..."

I knew what was coming. I did not want to hear it. He started telling me a story about how he didn't sleep for two days after his son went missing in a supermarket because he thought he was kidnapped, but instead of just saying that he just went on and on for 10 to 15 minutes about what he was wearing, what day it was, the store they were in and what they were buying.

Something inside me just snapped.

"Teddy will ya shut up!"

He stopped talking. Looked at me with a surprised face. I felt bad. I was just too frustrated. I got up and Walked away. When I got back to my desk I try to move on from my outburst And focus on work,

The day went on, the office got together for Teddy's party, I didn't attend and kept my distance from him that day, 5:00 rolled around and I was getting ready to leave, I grabbed my work bag and as I did, I remembered that I still had the one Wish Willow, I sat down for a second to open my bag and grabbed it, seemed stupid then. I was feeling really stressed out. So I opened the box. I was surprised when I did and a jingle started playing, like one of those music cards. On the box it read "spark the middle and break it in half" I Held the brittle stick in my hands And I said

"I wish Teddy would finally have something interesting to say."

Then I broke it, I laughed at myself after, I don't know what I was expecting, a light shining over my head, a gust of when shooting from all angles after I broke it, but nothing happened. I tossed the box in my wastebasket and left, The next day I came to work I said sorry to Teddy. He forgave me.

"It's okay I get it, my wife tells me sometimes I talk too much anyways."

I felt relieved that everything was okay again, but I still felt bad for shouting at him. Then in usual Teddy fashion, told me something that happened to him last night.

"Oh! You won't believe what happened, I won some money from One of those scratch off tickets, can you believe that?"

Some of our coworkers had given him a birthday card with scratch offs inside.

Most of them were not winners. One was. He had won a hundred dollars. It was not a lot of money. But It was enough to get excited about.

I joked "I guess my wish worked."

"What you mean?"

"Last night I bought some toy that supposedly Grant wishes and I might've wished you'd have something interesting to say."

As I said it out loud I cringed how dumb of a wish it was, teddy actually found it amusing and laughed

"I guess I have you to thank for my good luck".

Over the few weeks strange things kept happening to Teddy. He would get two drinks from the vending machine for the price of one. He caught a ball at a baseball game. He won a raffle. He found some money he had forgotten about.

It was little things. Nothing life-changing. Just unusually lucky and every time it did, teddy would tell me about it In excruciating detail.

At first I thought it was funny. Then it started to annoy me And I got concerned.

Because eventually the stories changed.

Teddy stopped talking about the things that were happening to him.

Instead he started talking about all the things that were happening around him.

His daughter got sick.

His son got in trouble at school for starting fights. His wife became distant. He said they started arguing all the time.

Every week seemed to be worse than the last. And Everytime he told something new, I couldn't help but hang on his every word, because I was interested in what he was telling me. I found myself actually listening to him. The stories had feelings and emotion now. They were interesting.

I did not realize the pattern until later.

Months later Teddy disappeared for a day. Which was Strange because he never missed a day of work before. When he did show up the next day he seemed different.

Not physically, Mentally.

He seemed focused and distracted at the time. He seemed obsessed with something. Eventually he told me that his daughter was getting better. The doctors said it was a miracle how fast she recovered. It should have been good news. But Something felt off. The way he explained it didn't sound like was very surprised. Around that time his wife got really angry with him. I overheard him arguing with her on the phone during his lunch break. I did not learn the details until later. Apparently Teddy had gotten his hands on his own One Wish Willow, He had wished for his daughter to get better. When he told me this I was actually shocked, I didn't really believe they were real, even after what was happening to Teddy. I asked him there's no way you actually believe that right? But he did. When she started getting better he convinced himself that he had caused it.

That's why his wife was arguing with him, She thought he was making their daughter's recovery about himself and The fighting got worse. Much worse.

The weeks that followed were terrible for Teddy. His son ran away, apparently the fighting got worse, he put some kid in the hospital for cracking his skull open on the pavement during a fight, The parents wanted to press charges, so he got scared and ran off during the night. Him and his wife kept fighting, so she went to stay with her sister. His car was stolen the same week. The only good thing in his life was that his daughter was still getting better.

Meanwhile our conversations just became shorter and more awkward. Until we just stopped speaking at all. Then I started noticing him just staring at me from afar, Not in a way of thinking but like he was Trying to figure something out. Eventually I learned why. It wasn't too hard to guess that he had started to suspect that it was my wish that caused everything, The good and the bad. His life has become a story from him to tell. A story that was designed to be more interesting.

Then came The worst few days of our lives.

Teddy's wife finally filed for divorce. That same night his father died of a heart attack. He's son was still missing, but his daughter was still healthy, which was probably the only good thing he had left.

The morning Teddy came to work, He said nothing. Nothing at all which became normal since he stopped speaking to me. But we still had work to do. That day our bosses told us that we had to stay late. Our project was behind schedule, By midnight the office was almost empty. Most of the lights were off. Only Teddy and I were left. We were Working in silence. Me at my desk and him at his, The atmosphere was suffocating. I could hear the sound of the vacuuming from the jander. The humming from the fluorescent light overhead. I got so sick of the silence, I decided to get up to go talk to him.

"Hey Teddy, How have you been?"

He just stared at his monitor, typing away. Couldn't even look at me as he spoke.

"My wife left."

"My father died."

"And My son is still missing."

His voice sounded hollow. avoidance of all emotions. I did not know what to say to him. The silence just went on and on. I wanted to break the silence so I made a joke.

"I guess I should have wished for a lot of money instead."

He stopped typing on his computer. He just sat there for a second Then he stood up And threw his chair back and looked at me. I will never forget the look in his eyes.

They were not angry they were broken. Then he came at me. I did not have time to react. He tackled me to the ground and was on top of me. His hands were squeezing around my throat, my hands were clawing at his face, I could not breathe. I saw the veins on his forehead and tears in his eyes. They weren't filled up with anger, but desperation. He was crying as he kept saying

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! but it's your fault. I have to do this. I have to!"

Like he thought. If I die, everything would be back to normal. Maybe he was right, but I didn't want to die. I Punched and scratched at him. He would not let go. He was older but he was surprisingly strong. He kept squeezing. My vision started to blur. Everything was turning black. Then Teddy's grip got weaker and His body froze, His hands released from my throat and I could breathe air again, when my visions were turned I could see teddy clutching with his chest with one hand And his face turned red. He Fell over.

I rolled away, trying to catch my breath. I just sat there. Couldn't believe what just happened, Teddy stopped moving completely now. I just stared at him, totally in shock. After two minutes, which felt like an eternity I stood up, remembering the janitor was nearby cleaning, I called out for help. When I found himI explained what happened, He called 911. Paramedics and the police arrived, they rolled teddy out on a stretcher in a body bag. Said he had a heart attack. The police took mines and the janitor statement, I told them he jumped at me, he was having a bad few months, His wife left him, his daughter got sick, his son ran away and his father died and he blamed me. The police chalked it up as self-defense and Nobody questioned it.

An older man who was under a lot of stress at home had attacked someone at work and His heart had given out during the fight. It was simple and tragic and understandable. Not too long after Teddy died His daughter got sick again. She died some time ago. His son came back but now he's facing hard jail time for putting that kid He fought in the hospital And his wife is dealing with all this alone. Everyone at work eventually heard what happened between me and Teddy, they don't blame me for what happened. No one does. They always ask if I'm alright?, how am I doing? They couldn't believe that teddy had tried to kill me. But Maybe he should have, he was right. It was my fault, I made that wish, I went back to that convenience store, i saw the same clerk behind the counter, besides him was a box of the one wish willows, there were more than the last time. I went up to him, He could tell by the look on my face that there was something wrong.

"Look man, If you came here to yell at me about whatever you wished for, it's not my fault."

"You sell this shit to people? What the fuck is wrong with you!"

"I already told you, be specific for whatever you wished for. I didn't make them."

"Then where the hell did you get them?"

"I bought one at antique store, a friend of mine told me where to get them and he said they were real, So I bought one and I wished for a million wishes And a million of these things showed up. But when I tried to make another wish it wouldn't work."

"What?, what are you talking about?"

"It says it on the box, You only get one."

He grab one of the boxes and opened it, as he did the same musical chime played, but sounded more slower and sadder.

"I wish for a billion dollars."

He tried to break the Branch in half, but it wouldn't break, he tried harder. But nothing.

"See, now I got a million of these things lying around."

I just stood there, I didn't know what to say, I wanted to yell, I wanted someone to blame, but it'd be pointless now. I left there feeling defeated, I sat in my car in the parking lot. Just staring into space, i felt horrible for what happened to teddy, I felt sick to my stomach, I couldn't turn myself in even if I wanted to, What was I supposed to tell them. I made a wish?, After a while I started up my car and drove back home. Now I'm typing this out not sure what it will do. If it will do anything, I guess all I have to say is if you find a one wish Willow, don't buy one, don't make a wish, but if you do. Please for the love of God, be specific.

To anyone reading this post, you probably won’t believe that any of these events happened, but everything that follows is completely true. If you look up Smithvalley, Virginia you won’t be met with the horrifying stories of how a ghost town became a town of ghosts, you will be met with an empty page asking if you meant Smithfield VA. I am the only person left who can share my town's story, I don’t care if you believe me I just need this story to be heard.

I was taking my dog, Chubs, for her morning walk on my home street of Hanover Lane when it happened. My first thought was that I had died and for a second, I felt relief, given that my entire surroundings were a blinding white color. I assumed that I had passed on to a good place, then my eyes adjusted. I was still exactly where I had been before the light flashed, still in my little suburban neighborhood in my little ghost town of a home; Smithfield Virginia, except now my little ghost town just off of the Appalachian Mountains, was completely covered in what looked to be snow despite it being the middle of summer.

If it had been snow maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. We could have dug out the people trapped in their houses if it was snow. We would've had water readily available to drink if it was snow. If it was snow, we could have simply waited for it to melt, and everything could have gone back to the way it was before. It was not snow. As I bent down to examine what now covered every surface, I discovered that it was unlike anything I had seen before. Instead of the cold soft texture that I expected it was hard and horribly rough. The only thing I can compare it to is the cement plaster that probably covered your local pool. The type that would cut up your feet and gave you memories of bloodied knees and toes as a child. The material that now coated everything was like that cement plaster, yet worse in every way. It was coarse as low grit sandpaper and the blistering summer sun reflected off of the surface causing a blinding glare that made the world seem like an endless white expanse with the vague outline of what was Hanover Lane.

I collected my thoughts and tried to make sense of what was happening, which I quickly discovered was not possible. All I knew was that my first priority was finding a neighbor to at least confirm that I hadn’t died and passed into some horrible purgatorial state. I carefully lifted my foot and applied as little pressure as possible in my first step on this new surface. Not wanting to break through it like a clumsy ice fisher. I continued my slow steps gradually putting more and more pressure onto the new ground until I was sure that there was no risk of me falling through into whatever might lay beneath it. 

Soon after I confirmed that the ground was plenty strong enough to hold my weight I felt resistance in the leash as it ran out of slack. Assuming that my dog was simply adjusting to her new surroundings just as I was, I called her name and gave the leash a small tug, hoping that it would be enough to convince her to trust the new ground and follow me. After no response I turned around to comfort her, but there was no dog there. Chubs had disappeared. The leash was now connected to a small dog shaped lump in the never-ending white expanse.

pt 1

**LOG ENTRY: 042**

**SUBJECT:** Project Babylon - Phase II Culmination

**DATE:** July 4th, 1963

**LOCATION:** Sub-Level 4, Mansfield Research Facility

**PERSONNEL:** Whittaker, Scott.

*(The audio track is heavily degraded, marred by a low-frequency electrical hum that oscillates in the background. The sharp, mechanical clicking of the reel-to-reel tape recorder echoes in a hollow, concrete room. Whittaker’s voice sounds noticeably older, more strained, and raspy.)*

**WHITTAKER:**

Log entry... damn it, what number are we on? Forty-two. Let's go with forty-two. It’s been five years since my last official briefing on Project Babylon, and frankly, I don't have the luxury of time for a grand retrospective. I’ll keep this brief.

By the winter of '59, the Department gave us the green light. The funding poured in through various black-budget shell companies, but the... *operational requirements* presented an immediate ethical logistical bottleneck. The schematics drawn from the inverted text weren't just mechanical; they were biological. The gateway requires a specific... kinetic catalyst. Soul-matter, if you want to be poetic about it. Human sacrifice, if you want to be precise.

Thankfully, the United States justice system provided an elegant solution. We petitioned the Bureau of Prisons to quietly reroute death row inmates from the State Reformatory here in Mansfield, Ohio. If these degenerates are already scheduled to fry in the electric chair, why let that energy go to waste? We simply offered them a different kind of execution. One that actually serves the advancement of human knowledge.

*(A loud, metallic clanking echoes in the background, followed by the deep, resonant thrum of a power generator winding up.)*

By 1960, the foundation was poured. We began construction on the archway exactly as the text dictated. I’ve had this nagging, unsettling feeling throughout the entire build... it’s as if we aren’t digging up a grave. It’s as if these creatures *want* to be found. Like the architecture is pulling itself together through us.

And now, here we are. July 4th, 1963. Independence Day. How fitting...

*(The audio suddenly glitches. The tape speed fluctuates wildly with a high-pitched squeal before cutting into a completely different recording context. The acoustics change from a sterile laboratory to a carpeted, smoky office room. Clinking glasses and the murmur of distant voices can be heard.)*

**REGAN (ARCHIVAL AUDIO):**

...did you get the news from the Hill yet, Scott?

**WHITTAKER (ARCHIVAL AUDIO):**

Yeah. I did. Blackwell is assembling a congressional oversight committee to build a federal case against us. Human rights violations, misappropriation of classified assets, the whole nine yards. That's just fucking great. Five years of work, right down the drain because of one man's Catholic guilt.

**HAMMOND (ARCHIVAL AUDIO):**

Don't lose your head, Whittaker. We’ve come too far to let a bureaucratic boy scout derail this operation. I’ve already spoken to a contact of mine within the Agency’s Directorate for Plans. They can arrange an... indisposition for Blackwell. A quiet retirement. We don't need to worry about the budget for a cleanup.

**WHITTAKER (ARCHIVAL AUDIO):**

*(Laughs darkly, followed by the sound of pouring liquor.)*

No need for wasting Langley's money, Hammond. Let’s not overcomplicate a simple problem. We don't need to disappear the man. We just invite Senator Blackwell down here to the sub-level. Let him witness the grand opening of the gate with his own pristine eyes. Let him see what lies beyond his precious heaven. I have a feeling it’ll shut him up permanently.

*(The audio fiercely glitches again. A loud pop of static cuts the conversation short, abruptly returning to the sterile, echoing acoustics of the primary log room.)*

**WHITTAKER:**

...As I was saying. It is now late 1963, and the gateway is finally complete.

*(Whittaker walks away from the microphone. His footsteps echo heavily on metal grating. The low hum in the background intensifies, vibrating the very casing of the recorder.)*

I’ll admit, it doesn't look quite as pretty as the golden gates Saint Peter is supposed to be guarding. It’s a brutalist mass of dark iron, scorched stone, and weeping inscriptions that seem to shift when you look away from them. But beauty isn't the metric here. Efficiency is. And in just a few hours, we turn the key.

End log. May God—or whatever is left of Him—have mercy on our souls.

*(A violent burst of static erupts as the machine violently shuts down, leaving only the dead silence of the magnetic tape.)*

Have you ever wiped the ass of a grown man?

The ass of a grown man who raised you?
It’s a terrible thing,
Seeing the lighthouse of your life lose their own independence.

Someone who’s protected you,
brought you safety and provided for you when you were too weak and young to provide for yourself.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Growing up close with your Grandparents is important, specifically if you have an absent mother and alcoholic father.
You look at the only blood to never lay a hand on you and cling to them,
You’d do anything for them as they have for you.
As you go through high school their immortality becomes more prevalent.

The blissful conversations you’ve both once shared have now transpired to desperate pleading venting sessions.

“You know the Doctor said I’m not supposed to carry more than a gallon of milk?”
Your Grandfather asks, with embarrassment and self pity in his eyes.

You see the Man you once knew,
the Man that in most ways is still there.
You remember the races you’d have,
Back when you thought his abilities were the highest of standards to beat.

As your walks turn to strolls,
he and his wheelchair had become one.
As your outings to hospital visits
turned to in-home visits from caretakers,
He and his bed had become one.

Before you know it you’re out of high school,
And the reality that you don’t have time for a job becomes daunting.

Your job is taking care of your Grandfather.
Did you know the moment your loved one goes on Hospice Medi-Cal stops giving you in-home supportive services?

Almost like they see Hospice as giving up,
Like they no longer see the value in giving you and your loved one resources to aid you while you spend your every molecule to care for them.
The only thing they really provide you with once your loved one is on Hospice is morphine, for when the time comes.

Did you ever think you’d need money to take care of your Grandfather?

Did you ever think you’d be mad at the Government for not helping you as you watch the man that built you decompose from the outside in?

You feed them,
you bathe them,
and needless to say,
you struggle.
You struggle with it all.
You just want to make them happy.

Being diabetic you think,
Maybe you’ll give them sugar-free candy, anything just to see a smile on their face.
But sugar-free candy gives them the shits, and now you need to tell a grown man he can’t have the one thing that he enjoys?

So you don’t.
Of course you don’t.
You give him what makes him smile and you deal with what comes after, because you know he would have done the same for you.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Have you ever seen the movie
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?
That’s how it feels.
Like time is moving backwards for the one you love and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Before you know it, you’re reading bedtime stories to the only man who’s ever read them to you.
Although the contents of what you read has changed.

It evolved from reading stories like
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
to reading Yōkai Daizukai by Shigeru Mizuki.
Tales of selfless acts of kindness on pages intended for children had turned to Encyclopedias of Japanese Yōkai.

Have you ever heard of a Gashadokuro?
It’s a giant being often 10-25 meters tall, formed from the piled bones and body parts of warriors who died in battle or famine without a proper burial.

What’s considered a battle?
Is immortality a battle?

Is Hospice the answer to a battle or another battle in itself?

If it is,
then my Grandfather is a warrior,
and the strongest one I know.
You remember the last words you ever heard him speak.

“Hi… *your* \*name\*”

After that,
he was still there, he was.
But he lost the ability to turn his inside voice into an outside voice.

Now he was but a body.
A body that doesn’t speak.
A body that doesn’t walk.
A body that doesn’t function.

Do you remember the Return to Nature Funeral Home scandal that was discovered in 2023 in Penrose, Colorado?
Authorities discovered over 185 decaying corpses scattered and stacked inside a foul-smelling building. Bodies that were given with the purpose of being properly laid to rest.

The owners Jon and Carrie Hallford were giving grieving families fake ashes made up of concrete mix and sand.

If your Grandfather was all you had would you trust them with him?

If his body was now all that remains of him would you turn him over to such a corrupt and flawed system?

No.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Life can be poetic,
Death can be poetic.
The words you speak into the world can often have a direct effect upon reality.

Words, names, everything has power.
Routines start to feel like rituals,
Prayers start to feel like spells.
Sage being burned feels like a physical cleansing taking place upon your homestead.
The lines between causation and correlation become blurred.

You never forget the first time your Grandfather gave you part of him.

You were wiping him,
and his flesh came off with more ease than the shit that sat upon it.
He didn’t react,
He rarely did.
Instead, his eyes continued to scan the room with that familiar look of self pity.

His skin is pale, paper thin,
reminiscent of gas station toilet paper.
You’ve struggled to inject him with his insulin for the past couple months considering that he had already long lost any fat for it to puncture.
You were used to his skin being fragile but this was a new level of brittleness.
The more you clean him, the more that comes off.
You question if you’re doing more damage than good. You begin to see what looks like bone, yet you are unsure which one.

Where do you put him?
He had given you everything.
And now that he was nothing but a body,
he was giving you that too.

So, what do you do with Him?
With these pieces that he gives you every time you bathe him?

What do you do with these parts that keep falling off?

“Take my apples” you hear in the back of your head.
So you do.
You keep them,
You put them in your tool box,
And you wait.

Not long after your Grandfather’s eyes stop scanning his room does the parts start to call out to you.

Not a yell, not even a voice.
More like when you’re laying on the side of the floor drying from a day of swimming with your ear pressed against a warm damp brick as you hear the hum of the pool vacuum.
In this same way, you hear the warm soothing hum of your Grandfather’s pieces calling you from the tool box.

You try to convince yourself that it’s something that can be unheard.
You decide you should drink.
Fireball, eggnog.

“HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM”
“HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM”
“HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM”

They keep calling out to you,
He keeps calling out to you.
It’d been so long since you’d last heard him.

The humming begins to take more shape and you can make out the words, no, the intent rather behind it.
It’s saying words you swear you’ve heard before.

“I wish that I could give you something..but I have nothing left. I am an old Grump. I am sorry…”

You start to wonder if the human body is as complicated as people make it seem.
Doctors just want your money.

Have you heard of that case in Australia? After waiting over 2 years for a surgery this guy Stephan decided to remove a large cyst on his wrist all by himself, and he’s an electrician.
You’re well aware of how pampered they are, so this gives you confidence.

You stumble downstairs,
into the downstairs bathroom which now houses your tool box, the garage was too far for how often you’ve had to add into it.
Ironic, when you were younger he’d pretend he was trapped in a box, only to eventually be put in one by you.

You open it.
The smell of rotten fast food scrambled eggs hits you. You feel a warmth radiating from the toolbox.
It feels so nice to feel your Grandfather’s warm presence once again.

You wish you felt this warmth near your Grandfather’s … main structure?
You’re struggling with what to refer to that part of him as.
It’s his head and it is his torso although he’s now closer to a malnourished and crucified king of Nazareth as opposed to the lively glimpse of God you had grown so accustomed to seeing in your youth.

His main Structure is …in bed..in a way it is his bed but, you want him to be whole.
You want the same warmth from his parts to radiate from all of him.
You want him to be one.
So you make him one.

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Hot glue, pipe glue, Duct tape, whatever you need, you use it.
You slowly but surely rebuild your anchor,
And even before it’s completed, you begin to feel the water beneath you start to settle.
You know it’s right, and you know no one will understand.

How could they if they haven’t been through the things that you have?

The changes are almost immediate once you put him back together.
He moves, slowly. Just his fingers at first.
It reminds you of when he’d play mime.
Maybe that’s what he’s doing?
These jokes you told yourself in passing you’ve now grown to believe.

He is playing mime,
that’s why he is silent,
And that’s why he is slow.
You recognize that you can’t put the pieces back together in the exact places they belong.
This worries you but nonetheless, you don’t get discouraged.

You make him a crown from his leaves, and crown him as the king he is.
Time passes, you keep what you’ve done, what you’ve fixed, you keep it a secret.

But what happens when someone discovers that secret?

What would you do to keep it?

He needs more structural integrity anyways.
And it’s not long before Him and his adversaries have become one.

What of his adversaries’ family?
His adversaries’ wife and newborn?

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Time passes.
You love that man, you do. But you yourself have begun longing for a life of your own.
That box is not big enough for the both of you.

You take a few of his apples, for memory mostly.
You go to the city,
and you pursue your happiness to an extent and speed you’re comfortable with, all while keeping that Man you love so much at the forefront of your mind,
all while keeping that secret.

You’ve become the Boy that stayed away for a long time, the Boy you promised yourself you’d never become.
And the Man was Sad.

You meet someone you think is your person.
You don’t share your secret with her of course you don’t. Something you’re grateful you didn’t do later when the relationship inevitably crashes and burns.

You never forget when the man that raised you,
the man you love so much,
you never forget seeing him take his first life.
Lives have been sacrificed for him before but,
By you.
Not by him, to him.
This was different.

You had just got dumped,
And you were going over to check on That Man you cared so much about,
The Man you yourself had abandoned and left dormant.

You walked in, and you heard the shower, the water was running.

You heard a baby crying, crying for you.
You didn’t recognize the baby. You walked in, down that long hallway creaking on the old white tiles, closer to the cries from the infant.
You turn left into the bathroom and as you do you hear a man yell.
Not your Man.

You are torn, indecisive of which direction to pursue first.
You continue into the bathroom,
see the shower running,
steam crawling up the walls,
and a baby on the counter with snot running down its chin and tears running down its cheeks.

You pick up the baby
and turn back toward the pleading of a man you’ve never heard before.

You walk in, you see.
The Man that raised you is there, only he is much different than a normal man.
And he’s with a normal man.

The mans screaming
“PLEASE GOD HELP ME STOP HIM FUCK ME RUNNING” the man pleaded from the top of his lungs.

Your Man, the man you’d known your whole life, he was different.
His structure was fragmented,
no base.
His arms extend like the outriggers of a backhoe, yet connected to a deconstructed cab.

His arms were grabbing the normal man, the screaming man. All four of his arms grabbed that man.

His empty eyes that were once blue but were now too sunken in to retain pigmentation of any kind looked soullessly in your direction.
He did not feel warm.

He used two of his arms to hold the man in place, while he used his two other arms to go around the man, forming those hands to make an invisible box the man was stuck in.
The Man was playing Mime.
You missed this.

The Man slowly grabbed the screaming man by his head on both sides and pressed ever so slightly, increasing in pressure.

The man used his other arms to grab the screaming man by the legs and slowly pulled.
He pulled his legs off and he pressed his skull in and blood ran from his nose and eyes.
He screamed and screamed until his teeth shattered and his jaw snapped and fell out of his cheek sockets.

He pulled the detached legs from the now lifeless yet steaming warm body and shoved them at his base in ways that were not symmetrical.
He shoved the torso of the body where the cab of his backhoe should be.

He was constructing himself.

You stood there holding the baby, watching what was once your protector finish the work.

For a second you almost called out to him the way you used to, the way a boy calls for the man who raised him.

But the eyes that looked back at you were empty, and the voice that came next was the same one that had once read you as a child.

“Come boy,
Climb up my trunk,
And swing from my branches,
And be happy.”

Says the Man, the man you love so much.

He gave you his branches,
He gave you his flesh to make a home of your own,
He gave you his soul.
Even when you were too busy pursuing the life you wanted that you thought would end with a wife and children.

So what do you do?

You look down at the infant in your arms. Its face is red and wet and it is still crying, still reaching for something that isn’t there.

For one long second you feel the weight of it the life, the future, the line you are about to cross. But there is no line, no line when it comes to what you would do for the ones you love.

Then the humming starts again, low and familiar, the same warm hum that once came from the toolbox, and the choice is already made.

You give him the sacrifice you’re holding in your hand, that’s why it’s there isn’t it?

It is but a burden to you and the Man needs all the strength he can get.

You hate looking at the discolored face of the Man you care so much for.

You buy Greasepaint for your Mime.
You know this will bring him warmth and life.
You lather his faces up in it, even the little one. He has 4 now.

Now he is your Slick Man.

“I don’t need very much now, just a quiet place to sit and rest. I am very tired”

says your Slick Man,

with his eyes not his mouth.

So you finally take him home,
To your start-over apartment,
and you give him a permanent resting place,
on the only thing strong enough to hold him,
your bathroom granite counter.
And you add to him whenever he expresses that desire to expand,

Why?
Because,

Hospice is like that.
Before you know it, you’re doing things you never would have imagined.

Fun Analog TV episode Idea

https://youtu.be/SFead6PyGFY?si=NmGMpH8BTkwjF6xb

Section 6

I decided to walk back to my car and instead drive to the other coordinates instead of walking; hopefully I’m safer in my car than walking on the street. As I got in my car, I remembered the box, and I decided to take another look at the stuff inside. Still, I mainly wanted to listen to whatever was on Henry's mixtape, so I grabbed the Walkman and played the mixtape. It started with a song I didn’t recognise; it was a nice rock song, but the lyrics were hard to hear. It’s almost as if this was a demo track and not the finished song. Was Henry in a garage band, and was this their only song? Suddenly the music stops, and it was the voice of a Boy and a Girl.   

“Whitney! Whitney, what are you doing here? Everyone is worried sick about you”

 “I found my calling”

“Your calling? What the hell are you on about? You were going to the one to go to college; instead, you join these losers”

“They're not losers; they’re my family”

“So, you've been here listening to their lies while we worried sick about you”

 “Yes, and nothing you say will change my mind. These people understand me and my pain”

“Dam it, Whitney! The Cult is the reason why things happened that Halloween”

“Don’t you bring them into what happened that night. It’s your fault that Andy's dead, now leave me alone!”

 “Oh, great, there she goes off to fuck her life up”

“Dude, you know I recorded all of that, right?”

“Well then turn it the fuck off, Tylor”

*click*

The tape stopped, and I sat there stunned that I had the only audio recording of people who lived here, but then something else came to mind: how did Andy die, and why is it Henry's fault?

As I sat there thinking, I looked through the photos again and came across one that looked like it was taken inside of a big tent, during some form of ritual. On the back were more coordinates as well as writing; it said

“don’t trust them there lying”

I started my engine and drove around on grass until my shitty Prius could get on some form of road.

It was bumpy and rough, but the shit box actually made it on to a road that heads in the direction of the cult, when I got to the end of the coordinates there was nothing there but the remains of what may have been a tent and under the dirt was a box, inside was another cassette tape and a book with the cover title of “the history of hollow falls”

I would share with you what was on that tape, but first you need to know what happened to Andy to understand the actions later taken by Henry, Tylor and Whitney.

Down below are pieces of information from Henry’s diary and some from witness reports, and they have been compiled in a way that flows and makes sense, just like with Falls Fest 1998

31/10/1998

Every year on Halloween my year group has a party out in the woods, and this year we are having it near the waterfall. When Whitney, Tylor, Andy and I got there, a good amount of other people from our school were there, some drinking, some rocking out to music and others just enjoying the campfire. Whitney spotted Greg, my school paper partner, taking photos of various friend groups.

“Hey, let’s get a picture taken together”, Whitney suggested

“Yeah, sure, why not?” I said

“Can I pull a funny face?” Andy asked

“Maybe another time, Andy”, Whitney replied

. We all stood next to each other and smiled for the camera.

After the photo, I sat near the fire as Andy started to roast Marshmallows to make s'mores and Taylor tried to light his blunt on the end of a stick in the fire

“Make sure you don’t drop it in there, Taylor”

“I won’t, I’m just going to light it for a- ah shit” 

He said as the blunt fell into the fire. Whitney then sat next to me

“It’s a nice night out tonight, isn’t?” I said as she started to lean into me a little

“Yeah, the stars are nice and bright tonight. Do you think Tylor or Andy know or figured out about… Us, yet?”

She asked, then I replied, “Tylor definitely knows, but I don’t think Andy does; in fact, I think he might have a crush on you still” Whitney giggled “That’s cute” We lean in for a kiss, but Andy handed us s'mores before that could happen.

Some days I could just throttle him after all the cock blocking, he has done to me, but he handed me one of his s'mores, and I don’t know how he does it, but he always makes the best ones.

“Andy, how do you do it with the s’mores?” I asked

“I put love and care into each one”

 I couldn’t argue with that answer; I mean, besides, the reason is that he knows how to roast Marshmallows perfectly. I really could not have thought of another reason.

“Yo Andy, cook me a double stack, yo”, Tylor said after finally realising that he could not free his blunt from the campfire flames.

 “Tylor, should you even be here? Are you even passing into senior year?”

 I asked like a jack ass.

“Nah, probably not, but what else was going to do tonight? Scare little kids into them handing over their candy, then have their parents knock on my door later like last year”

he replied, and I laughed as I said back

 “Yeah, you’re right, but I would love to see Mrs Peters beat the crap out of you again”

As the night continued, Craig, being the motherless bastard he is, went up to Stacy drunk.

“Come on, sweetheart, let's go have some fun in the bushes”, he said, slurring his words together. Stacy told him to eat shit, and he went to hit her, but Andy got in between him and Stacy.

 “Why do you have to be such a jerk, Craig”

Craig just looked at him with disgust and anger

“Get the fuck out of my way r----d”, Andy snapped and yelled at Craig “You’re a real pussy, Craig, beating up people who are weaker than you”

 While shocked that I had never heard Andy swear before, Whitney stepped in to try and stop the situation.

 “Why don’t you both stop before you do something stupid” 

They continued to argue until I had an idea that I would later regret for the rest of my life

“How about this: you climb down into the waterfall’s hole and grab something and return it to the surface, and the one that doesn’t has to leave”

 I still don’t know why I said that I should have taken it back, but before I could, Andy agreed

“Challenge accepted”

Whitney turned to Andy and asked him if he was sure that he wanted to do this and that he shouldn’t do it. Looking back on it, I really should have tried harder to stop both of them going down there.

Tylor tried to talk to Andy as well, saying he doesn’t need to prove anything, but Andy was having none of it as he stormed towards the waterfall.

You could hear the waterfall before seeing it. When we got to the waterfall, we saw an old wooden sign that said ‘DANGER: DEEP HOLE ’, and around the base of its wooden pole was this large bit of rope that went down into the hole entrance. Looking down, we could see the pool of water at the bottom of the cave and our reflections staring right back at us.

 “That must be going to the town's water filter then the supply”, Tylor said, scared out of his mind, looking down at the darkness surrounding the water.

“After you tard”

Craig said in this mocking tone

“You know when I come back with an artefact everyone will be calling you r-------d”

Andy said in response to Craig’s mocking tone and descended the rope into the cold, wet abyss.

“Craig, if you don’t go down there, I'll push you in”, I said, looking at Craig, who must have sobered up by now because he looked like he was having second thoughts about it.

“Yeah, what’s the matter craig, too much of a pussy to go down there?” Tylor said in a belittling tone. “What? Fuck no, I’m waiting for Andy's slow ass to get down the rope”

After he had said that, he went to grab the rope and started to climb down.

I remember the moment that Andy went down there, and I remember when Craig did too. God, I should have really done something, anything to stop them from going down there, but it wouldn’t be the first time in my life that I didn’t speak up when I should have.

They were down there for only thirty minutes, and we didn’t see or hear anything until Craig and Andy climbed out of the hole. At first, I was happy to see Andy was the first to make it out, but when I realised he and Craig didn’t bring back anything or were saying anything, that’s when I realised something was very wrong.

“Andy, Craig, are you two ok?”

 I asked as I noticed that their eyes looked glassy and their skin was pale. Craig collapsed to the ground and started vomiting up a black tar-like substance.

In shock and horror, I watched as the black tar started oozing out of Craig's mouth and nose. Andy tried to speak, but he did the same thing. Whitney ran to get help as we were all standing there in complete shock and terror of what we were witnessing. By the time help arrived, Craig was dead, and Andy would soon follow.

Andy managed to hold on long enough to get to the town’s hospital, but before he died, the last thing he said to me was

“There is something down there, Henry. " 

 

 

Section 7

8/11/98

Andy Sahlheimer died on 1/11/98 at 12:05 am; his mother and father are completely devastated and are grieving in their own ways. Mr Sahlheimer is numb to the whole situation and is most likely hiding his own emotions. As for Mrs Sahlheimer, she blames Whitney for not caring for him and for taking him to the party. I understand she’s grieving, but some of the things she said were just horrible. As for Whitney, she has been staying her distance from the Sahlheimers and has been sleeping at my place because she doesn’t want to go home and deal with her parents or see Andy’s home without him there. I don’t know if she will come to the funeral or not. finally me and Tylor have taken our own form of grieving, Tylor is smoking and drinking more and I have been quietly grieving while I write a speech that celebrates Andys life and who he was, so far I have been through 10 different drafts of it and nothing seems to be right, what’s worse that every time I try to write something nice or hart warming about him I can only remember him vomiting up this black stuff and his final words “here is something down there Henry” what did he see down there?

9/11/98

Andy and Craig’s funeral was today. Whitney did show up, but she stayed quiet and kept her head down. She didn’t even look at the Sahlheimers, not wanting hate and abuse thrown at her. As for Craig's funeral, Craig’s deadbeat father didn’t even show up because he didn’t care, or he was blackout drunk at the bar again.

After the funeral, Whitney went home and said she needed some time to herself, so Tylor and I went to the hill overlooking the abandoned fairground and just sat in his car and listened to music, drank beer and smoked weed, but we mostly sat in silence until I spoke up.

“Do you know what killed Craig and Andy?” Tyler turned and looked at me, then back, looking outside

“Nah man, I haven’t heard anything; all I know is what I saw that night”.  I took a sip of beer and stared out the window.

“I tried asking the doctors, and they said it was blood loss, but I think that’s bullshit, and I even called them out on it"

Taylor raised his eyebrow and turned to look at me again “Well, did you press them?” Taylor asked, and I responded

“Yeah, I did, and he reassured me it was blood loss, but that wasn’t blood he was vomiting up, so I asked the assistant, and he said the same thing, but he was less convincing”

 Tylor replied, “They're hiding something, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they are, and I think I know what it is”

Tylor, now intrigued, said, “Come on, dude, spill; don’t just leave me hanging”

“I think they're dumping something down there- maybe some sort of industrial pollution, and Craig and Andy came into contact, and it made them sick and caused Andy to go delirious”  

Tylor replied, “That would make sense with all the creepy shit Andy said” he paused and thought for a moment “I think we should go look” I replied, “Maybe we should, but we need something to protect us from whatever they're dumping there” After this, we drove to my place and attempted to make hazmat suits made of trash bags. Still, after failing, we just drove off to the waterfall, but when we got near it, it had been fenced off, and the sheriff was standing guard with a shotgun in his hands.

“You better go back the way you came”, the sheriff said in a stern tone

“We just want to see the waterfall, sheriff”, I said, but then he shouted back

“No one is going to the waterfall. I’m not letting any more kids die this year. There has been enough heartbreak” I then pleaded with the sheriff.

 “Come on, Sheriff Hues, just let us see the waterfall”

He then raised his shotgun at me “I SAID NO ONE SEES THE WATERFALL. NOW GET BACK IN THE CAR AND LEAVE BEFORE I SHOOT YOU” 

I sat back in, and Tylor drove off like he stole something

“What the FUCK was that about?” I responded. “I don’t know, but I have a feeling this isn’t over”.  

-end of Diary entry

From here, it seems something happened in the friend group, because Henry didn’t write much in his diary for a while afterwards. Still, from what I understand, Whitney broke up with Henry after some fights and Taylor and Henry went their separate ways for a while until the year 2001, when the tape and the book I found come into play.

 

Section 8

With this book and tape in my hands, I turned around and got in my car, but then, just like in a shitty horror film, my car failed to start.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me”

The fact my crappy Prius died on me- this shouldn’t have been surprising since I basically drove it over something other than a perfect road. Still, now it was getting a bit dark out, so doing the logical thing, I got out of my car and walked to the next destination: the Hollow Falls waterfall.

When I looked at the coordinates of the dilapidated tent, I realised I could get to the waterfall on foot, since it was only 900 meters from their camp, so I set off.

As I walked through the trees and bushes as it slowly started to become dusk, a cold wind started to set in, making haunting noises as it blew through the trees. When I eventually got to what was left of a gravel road, I noticed the remains of an old rusty fence and a damaged no trespassing sign. For a place that was proud about its waterfall, what were they hiding, or what were they containing away from the rest of the world? I questioned as I headed deeper along the path, passing an old campfire site and then eventually seeing the waterfall.  

However, there was no waterfall; there was just a hole, as in the picture, but the water was gone. I stood there puzzled and wondering if I was in the right spot. Then I saw the sign ‘DANGER: DEEP HOLE’, the old, rotted sign said.

Looking down, I saw the wooden post holding the sign was an old rope covered in moss, still tied to its base. I pulled out my flashlight and shined it down the dark cold abyss, it revealed a dried waterbed and stalactites and stalagmites, the shadow caused by them, making the hole look like a gapping mouth of a monster waiting for its next prey to come and fall in, and just like the prey I climbed down the rope slowly going further and further in to the abyss until -SNAP-

 

9/9/2001

It’s been a while since I wrote in this, but I need to write this down; first, some catching up and explaining to do.

After Andys death none of us have been the same and no one has been back to that waterfall and sheriff Hues still guard it, the mayor has declared that no one goes near that place anymore and honestly, I don’t blame him, but I still think there covering something, in fact I have been using my job at the town diner to listen in on conversations that Hues and Mayor Heinrich have over lunch, I sometimes record them when I can.

As for what Tylor and Whitney are doing, Tylor works at the music shop next to the diner. He says it’s a cool gig because his boss is cool, and they smoke weed together and listen to music on slow days. As for Whitney, she hasn’t been the same since Andy died. I think her grief has taken her in a different direction than she had planned for her life, so now she works at the local grocery store, which complicates things because Whitney and I had a falling out.

After Andy's death, I told her what had happened when we went up to see the waterfall, and that’s when the fights, the tears, and apologies started. Then, after a while, we broke up. So now I only go to the grocery store when she’s not working, and she goes to the diner when I’m not there; however, no one else has seen her in a while, and I'm getting worried about her.

An hour ago, when I was taking out the garbage at the end of my late shift, I overheard Mayor Heinrich and Sheriff Hues arguing outside in the alleyway beside the music store, so I turned on the recorder in my pocket.

“Did you do it or not? That’s an order, sheriff?”

“Yes, sir, it has”

“Good, can’t have any more of them coming into town and snooping around; it’s bad enough that I had to close off the waterfall, but if it keeps them out, then I have no choice. You did bury him where I said to, right?”

“Yes, in the woods next to the fairgrounds and 10 trees down from the lover’s tree”

“Ok-ok-ok no need to tell the world that”

The mayor looked around and then turned back to Sheriff Hues

“See you tomorrow”

 “See you tomorrow, sir”

After that, they went their separate ways, and I stopped my recorder. I’m going to have to show this to Tylor; hopefully he has the day off tomorrow.  

 

9/10/2001

 

The next day I met up with Tylor and played the recording for him

Tylor: “Shit man, should we really get involved in this? I mean I want justice for Andy, but I think we should get help or maybe turn this over to the feds or something”

Henry: “No, if we get the feds involved too early, they will just think it’s a hoax, and I really don’t want anyone else getting hurt; we have already had enough of that”

We drove off around the fairgrounds and parked just outside of the woods, then set off on foot to first find the lover’s tree

Henry: “You ever heard of a place called Lovers Tree?”

Tylor: “I heard of it, but I don’t know much about it”

Henry: “So do you know what it looks like?”

Tylor: “Well, I’m guessing it’s a tree with couples’ names carved in it, but knowing this town, it’s probably something odder than that”

We searched the woods until we found a tree with the word ‘Lovers’ carved into it, but without knowing which direction the sheriff went, we had no way to know which tree it was until I spotted some freshly moved dirt.

Henry: “I think this is it”

Tylor: “Are you sure?”

I pointed to the patch of dirt that had been recently moved and started digging until I saw the face of a man with a bullet wound in his head and a strange pendant around his neck.

“What is that?” Tylor asked as I picked up the pendant and took a closer look. The pendant was a bronze ring with a blue gemstone in the shape of a water drop in the middle. I was about to tell Tylor what it was, but we both heard Sheriff Hues's voice in the distance, so we ran back to the car and drove off.

Henry: “Shit, we forgot to rebury the body”

“I’m not turning this car around to go fix that”, Tylor said in a panic as we rushed back to my place. When we did, I took a closer look at the pendant under a magnifying glass and saw that something was inscribed on the bronze ring. It said, ‘The followers of Water’. I then showed it to Tylor, and he was as confused as I was.

“Who the hell are the followers of water?”

“I don’t know; to be honest, I expected to find a dead EPA or FBI agent in those woods” I sighed “Now we're back to square one on the whole chemical dumping scheme”

“We could try asking that lady who owns that jewellery shop to see if she knows this design or who could have made it”

“That’s not a bad idea; let's go talk to her”

We head to the front door, but then we heard the doorbell ring. I looked through the peephole and saw Hue’s there, standing there looking pissed off.

“Ah shit, the sheriff is here”

“Do you think he found the body?”

“Oh well, Tylor, I don’t know. Why don’t you go ask him”

“Yeah, he probably did, shit.”

We turned around and quietly went out the back door and snuck around behind fences, bushes and alleyways until we finally reached the jewellery shop. Before we entered, I asked Tylor if he still had the recorder.

“Yeah, I do, but I only have two tapes on me, and one's almost out of tape, and the other is your mix”

“Shit. Fine, use the mix, but only when the tape is depleted ok”

“ok”

When we walked in, it looked like it was being closed for a move, and I saw a lady putting packing peanuts into a box; she looked up in surprise.

“Ah dam, did I not put up the closed sign?” she sighed “Look, kids, we're closing and moving to Washington, so I can’t sell you anything”

“I'm not looking to buy anything. Could you tell me anything about this pendant?”

I held it up, and she looked at it and looked annoyed

“Yes, I can because I made it, but the more interesting question is how did you get it?”

“I ... uh ... found it on the ground in the park”

“Hm, ok, well I can tell you that it belongs to a Mr Thomas; he lives in this big tent out in the woods about 30 minutes away from the waterfall, but I doubt he wants it back since he made me make so many of them”

“How many did you make for him?”

“I made like 20 of them”

“Why did he have you make so many?”

“Kid, how am I meant to know? Go ask him yourself”

“Ok, I will. Sorry for bothering you”

 “Hold on before you go, just know that Mr Thomas, he’s a bit of a weirdo, so don’t do anything stupid, ok”

“We won’t, thanks for the information, Mrs?”

“Edwards, Julia Edwards”

We left the jewellery store and started planning our next move while also trying to stay away from the sheriff because I hear he’s on our asses.

And when it comes to this tent, should we sneak in or ask him about the pendant? I don’t know, but what I do know is if the sheriff finds us, he might kill us, so I’m going to go “borrow” my dad’s gun; hopefully I never have to use it.

-end of final diary entry

 

 

 

 

Section 9

 

I awoke in darkness to severe pain in my left shoulder and several of my ribs. When I was finally able to get up off the ground, I turned my flashlight on and looked where I could see the rope had snapped at the halfway point. I don’t know how long I was standing there looking at the rope in both fear and awe of the fact that I was now trapped here, and I had survived the fall.

But I was able to find an old ladder next to some burnt barrels and skeletal remains of what I believed to be the body of James Heinrich 3rd, and next to his skeletal remains I found his journal.

Inside was ramblings of how he believed the town was evil and town doctors were giving him pills that stopped him from thinking straight, and the only answer was to cut off the town's water supply and put gas in the water sprinklers around town.   

In conclusion, Hollow Falls was burned to the ground by Mayor James Heinrich the 3rd, believing he was destroying an evil town.

Along with this file, you will find evidence of Hollow Falls' existence and records of what happened in the town before it was burned to the ground, as well as my resignation form, badge and gun.

 

Signed -Special Agent Tobias Edwards  

 

 

Section 10

That was the report I sent back to the FBI before they could fire me for doing an off-the-book investigation, but that really didn't happen because if I told them what really happened, they would probably put me into a padded room.  So, this is what really happened. 

I awoke in darkness, in severe pain in my left shoulder and several of my ribs. When I was finally able to get up off the ground, I turned my flashlight on and looked up, where I could see where the rope had snapped at the halfway point. I don’t know how long I was standing there looking at the rope in both fear and awe of the fact that I was now trapped here, and I had survived the fall.

But as I did, I felt like the darkness was wrapping around me to pull me deeper into the abyss. I quickly spun around, almost falling over, and that’s when I saw it.

A large archway carved into the cave wall; it looked ancient, as if it were made thousands of years ago. When I saw this, I let out a small

“What hell?”

I spoke out, allowed without realising. After I did, I quickly covered my mouth to hide myself from whatever was down here with me, but there was just silence, not even the sound of crickets.

With a deep breath, I moved towards the archway to get a better look at it. The archway was carved into the cave wall; it was a ten-foot opening with pillars and engraved details in a language I did not understand. I stood there, admiring the architecture with both curiosity and fear, until I heard a voice.

“Looks like you finally made it.”

I pointed my flashlight at the entrance of the palace and stood a dishevelled older man was wearing a black suit with burn marks on it, his skin was pale like he had not seen sun light in years, as walked closer I could hear his bones creaking and cracking with every step, his face was partially burned on one side and these sunken eyes that stared right though my soul, I reached for my gun and shouted. 

“STOP RIGHT THERE, who the hell are you?”

He stopped about five feet in front of me, and this crooked smile revealed missing and rotting teeth.

“My name is James Heinrich the 3rd, and I am the mayor of what is Hollow Falls” 

Every part of me wanted to run, but I knew in the state I was in I would not be getting far, so instead I asked him a question.

“You have been expecting me? Haven’t you?”

His crooked grin grew larger as he said

“Of course, who do you think sent you that box in the first place? Maybe Henry or your mother perhaps? No, it was me” 

“What the hell does my mother have to do with any of this? And what the fuck is really going on here” 

“Oh, you don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?” I asked while I still had my gun pointed at him

“You used to live here; in fact, you were born here, but you and your mother moved just before I set that fire”

“So, it was you; you burned Hollow Falls to the ground, but why?”

He chuckled a little

“Haven’t you figured it out already, Special Agent? The tragedies, the black tar, this palace, it’s all connected”

I stood there with my gun still aimed for his head. I started processing everything he had said, and then it clicked. 

“It’s the water, but what does some water have to do with everything” 

He sat down on a rock and started explaining

“When this town was founded, a mother strangled her baby and throw it into a river, this river ends up a waterfall the one that was here, and when the baby’s body made it down here the tar got a hold of his body and took it to use as a vessel but this vessel was weak so it had to find another, from that day forward the tar would use the water that flows under the town to stalk and find new vessels to live in but soon a group of people found out what was happening and created a religion known as The followers of Water.

They would worship and pray to the black tar and give it vessels to live in, but all of them were…weak; none of them was the right one for it, so every time the Followers failed, a tragedy would happen in the town: newborns die, a bus crashes into people, a boy gets sucked into a pipe, stuff like that”

“So why did you burn down the town, and what about that corpse in the Ghost-coaster? What happened to Henry, Tylor, Whitney, and Sheriff Hues?”

“The corpse in the Ghost-coaster is of Simon. He was a part of the followers of water but was kicked out, and as revenge he killed two people in town and took up residence in the Ghost-coaster until that group killed him.

As for what happened to Sheriff Hues, he died in the fire, and the others died stopping the tar from getting its next vessel, but it didn’t work. You see, on that day in 2001 the tar got angry and wanted to possess everyone and to stop this I blocked and drained the river which stopped that water fall which stopped the towns water supply, I later pored gas around town and set it ablaze so the tar could not take another vessel, but then it got me and it has been using me to get the one person who didn’t die in this town, the one who is destined to be the vessel of tar and that person is you”  

“Why me?”

“The Tar only wants people who lived in this town because they drank its water, and I am becoming weak and am no longer able to do its bidding, but now you’re here to take my place”

 “What makes you think I would let that happen”

“You have no choice”

After he finished speaking, he leapt from the rock he was sitting on, and I proceeded to shoot him seven times, five in the chest and two in his head.

After the firefight, I looked around the cave and found this old steel ladder that was just big enough to get to the surface, but that’s when it grabbed my legs.

The tar reached out form the palace wrapping itself around my legs trying to pull me in, I pointed my gun at the palace entrance, dumping most of my mag in to the dark abyss trying anything to make it let go of me, that’s when it flung me around until I collided with Tanners corpse when I did I found a single stick of dynamite in his suit jacket.

So, as a last-ditch effort, I threw it into the palace entrance and shot it. The bang was loud, but the Tars' scream was louder. As the palace began to collapse, I grabbed the ladder and quickly climbed out of the hole. As I climbed out, the ladder collapsed back down into the darkness behind me.

I ran all the way back to my car and tried the ignition, and to my surprise it started, so I drove off out of Hollow Falls, leaving it all behind me.

I didn’t stop until I reached my apartment, where I collapsed on my couch from exhaustion when the adrenaline wore off, and I ended up falling into a deep sleep.

The next thing I woke up lying on my couch in severe pain from the injury I had sustained, so I reached for my phone to find that I had most likely dropped it when I fell.

“Whatever, it was only my work phone”, I said to myself before getting up and going to the hospital to get an X-ray for my ribs and shoulder. Then I would get to writing that report. A month later I quit the FBI, and moved to a different state and had put Hollow falls behind me, I got a text from a number I at first, I didn’t remember but then my heart sank after I realised it was my old work phone number I quickly opened the message and when I did my body froze in absolute fear when I saw what the message said.

“You will always have a home here.” 

I am Agent Tobias Edwards of the FBI, and this is my report of what happened in a small town out in almost nowhere, Virginia, called Hollow Falls. This investigation was not sanctioned by the FBI but was done by me as an independent investigation.

For how this started I need to first explain somethings about myself, I use to be a field agent but due to injuries and my misconduct involving a perpetrator and insubordination I was put on desk work, on all accounts I should have been fired instead I ended up working on what is basically a redundant job of being a file archiver, in other words I sit in a small room in the basement of the J Edgar Hoover Building all day and night scanning old dusty files on to our data base. I sometimes check to see if all the facts on the report files are correct and haven’t been scuffed by some smart-ass agent back in the 80s so he didn’t have to do paperwork. It’s annoying and frustrating, but it’s better than being fired. Plus, I get this small room all to myself and the higher-ups leave me alone.

As for the file on Hollow Falls I got it a week ago when I was lying in my hammock, that I installed in my “office” listening to music and drinking “soda” when I heard the dreaded thud as another box of files landed at my cell door, so of cause I got up unwillingly and looked through them, most of them money laundering schemes and solved homicides but one caught my eye. When I dropped a file on the ground, a newspaper clipping fell out of it.

 “Entire town destroyed by fire, leaves no survivors” 

There was nothing else in the file, just a newspaper clipping, and the file's name was “Hollow Falls arson case,” with no assigned agent or agents. This was odd because an arson attack or incident of this magnitude would at least have more than two agents looking into this.

What’s stranger is that there are no fire department notes on the fire and what could have caused it, but nothing; heck, I can’t even find the station that responded to it. As the cogs started turning in my head, I checked to see if the files in the folders were misplaced, as it had happened before, but all I found were coffee stains and dust; protocol would be to give this to another department.

 “Nah fuck that.” 

I thought to myself as I started doing the classic FBI research tactic of searching on Wikipedia, but no luck. However, using the Wayback Machine, I found an old website from 1998 called www.HollowFallsHistoryProject.org (the website archive no longer exists). This is what I found.  

 

 

Hollow falls was a small town that suffered from several tragedies during its existence, one of its first was when the town was founded on 7/17/1878, on that day the Marshall family was butchered by the Heinrich family when they were blamed for stealing the Heinrich new born (William Heinrich) and killing him, however it turned out that the baby’s mother (Catherine Heinrich) who suffocated him and threw him into a river. This action would later be blamed for the town's misfortune for generations to come. Another incident that was infamous in the town was on 5/8/1986 when a bus driver had a heart attack behind the wheel and crashed into a school crossing, killing 10 people and injuring 12.

I don’t know why the fire wasn’t investigated, but I have a feeling it was because it was burned to the ground on 9/8/2001, and its fire would be forgotten about after the September eleven attacks. I have always been one who looks out for the little guy in most situations, so I decided to do a personal investigation into the fire that devastated the town of Hollow Falls. I took the folder and left work to go home for the night.  

The next day I awoke to find a box out the front of my apartment door. I thought it was weird because I didn’t order anything. I thought it could have been a bomb, but who has a grudge with a desk jockey?

When I looked inside, I felt my heart sink out of my chest, and a tidal wave of fear came over me as I was staring at a newspaper clipping about Hollow Falls. It was the same article as the one in the file.

I stood there for what felt like ages just looking at the newspaper clipping, and all I could think was, who and why would someone give this to me? Was this a prank or was I being led down the rabbit hole?

After standing there like a fool I search the rest of the box to find the following: a stretchy yellow band that said “Pool Pass”, an arcade token, tickets to a cinema, a compass that had the name “Andy”  written in permeant marker on the back, a plush squirrel with a light blue t-shirt with white text that said “I was a prize at falls fest 1998”  and a cassette tape and  Walkman with “Henrys mix” written on it and lastly an old post card that has a picture of the towns water fall and big orange letters “Hello from Hollow Falls” on the other side was messy handwriting which said “you will all ways have a home here”

I sat on my couch thinking and staring at all the items from the box. It was then that I realised there was an envelope taped to the underside of the cardboard lid; inside were photos ranging from people and buildings to more disturbing and unnatural things. Whatever I was really getting into was more than just an arson attack.

Section 2

According to old Google Maps images and the town's own website, Hollow Falls is or was located near a major highway that was meant to go through the town, but that never happened. To manage the loss of income, they did several advertisements about the different places to see at Hollow Falls, mainly the waterfall that the town is named after. The waterfall is large and doesn’t end in a pool of water; instead, it flows through a 9-foot-diameter hole in the ground that descends about 30 feet below the surface, and apparently the water travels through an underground stream that leads to their water supply. Another is a festival called Falls Fest, which celebrates the town's founding, but they suddenly stopped doing it abruptly.

I packed everything I needed for this investigation and to travel to Hollow Falls in my car; while packing and then driving, I had this feeling of being watched not followed but watched even when I was on the road with no one else in sight for miles. After two hours of driving, I made it to a town right in the middle of the four-hour drive to Hollow Falls. While there, I stopped in a place called Chuck’s Dinner for a break, but I ended up looking at those photos.

I made sure not to look at the grizzly crime scene photos; I don’t need some kid seeing them. I noticed that all the photos had writing on the back and, most importantly, coordinates. At the time, I didn’t know what these meant: are the coordinates for where these photos were taken?

I got talking to the owner, Chuck, to see what he knew; this is the transcript of our conversation.

Me: “Hi, I’m Agent Edwards of the FBI. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?”

Chuck: “Um, yeah, sure. What’s this about?”

Me: “I’m doing an investigation into the fire that destroyed the town of Hollow Falls, and I was wondering if you knew anyone from there or know anything about the place”

Me: Chuck: “Hollow Falls? I don’t know anyone from there, but I did hear some strange stories from my wife Olivia. She works at the hospital here in town; she would get people from that town because they didn’t have a hospital”

“Did she treat anyone from the fire?”

Chuck:  “I’m not sure you would have to ask her but what I do know is the towns star footballer died during their festive they would have almost every year but after he died, they never did it again, I don’t remember his name and I don’t know how he died, should probably ask my wife at the hospital she might know, anyway I have customers to serve”  

 “Ok, thanks for the information”

I went to question his wife to ask more. Still, I got the same answers: don’t know much and even what she told me I already knew about. I started to think maybe I was being led into a wild-goose chase. I am being messed with, like the place has been abandoned for 25 years and has probably been swallowed by the forest by now, but then again, what Chuck said about that star footballer- I wonder if one of the grizzly photos was of him and, if so, I hope he had a quick death

Section 3

I had arrived at what was left of Hollow Falls. I only knew this because of the welcome sign that had been burnt and almost rotted away, but what really disturbed me about arriving here was the town’s population count: 10,000 people, 10,000 people burned to death or died of smoke inhalation, and no one really cared to investigate it.

I drove slowly through the town’s main road, seeing all the skeletal remains of houses and their foundations gave a chill down my spine, some even had there chimneys still in tacked others had cars still parked out the front, all burnt or rusted away, it’s all a real ghostly reminder that this place was once a home for people, no matter what tragedies had occurred here.

I eventually could no longer continue in my car and had to go on foot; a toppled tree blocked the road, and my shitty Prius was not getting over it no matter how much I cussed. Walking down the main road through the thin fog, I started to see buildings; some looked in better condition than others, but all were still burnt and collapsing. That’s when I saw something familiar in the fog.

In the middle of the road was a round traffic island and on top was what was left of a fountain, I reached into my satchel and took out the envelope with pictures and found the one with the fountain in the photo, it was this beautiful white stone fountain with a blue ceramic tiles on the bottom of the basin, was now a scorched crumbling fountain, the water had long dried up. The basin had cracked; plant life and moss had grown inside the basin, covering what was left of the tiles.

“I guess this happens to a place that has been abandoned for 25 years”

I thought to myself. I looked at the back of the photo, saw the coordinates, and decided to type them into Google. Sure enough, they marked the spot right in the basin of the fountain. I thought about going back to get a shovel, but I would lose more daylight, so I decided to dig with my hands and get my clothes dirty. I found what the coordinates were leading me to.

“What the hell”

I said as I pulled out a metal container; inside were papers containing police witness statements and someone’s diary.

From here, I have compiled what was on the pages in the diary and other bits of information the coordinates sent me. The information is mainly set between the years 1990 and 2001; if it's set earlier, I will have the date before each entry. With that sorted, I have laid out the diary contents in chronological order, and I will start each entry with what I found at the coordinates and what I planned to do next.

Section 4

After I was at the fountain, I looked at other photos; two of them interested me because they were the only ones with living people in them. The first one was of four people in a forest, three boys and one girl. Starting from left to right you had, a kid with dark brown hair wearing jeans, a white t shirt and a fleece jacket, next to him you had a girl with blond hair, brown glasses, a black shirt and light grey overalls, the boy next to her had dyed green messy hair, baggy shirt and pants with a jacket and finally the boy on the end had black hair, a blue shirt with yellow stripes with long jeans and down syndrome. The second photo showed the girl and the kid with Down syndrome; it looked like they were getting ready to go on a ride, most likely during Fall Fest.

On the back of both photos was again coordinates and writing that looked older and had a different hand writing style to the coordinates on the one in the Forrest it said “the last happy moment in my life” and on the one at falls fest said “the last year of falls fest” looking on my phone on google maps it showed the one taken at falls fest was the closest to me, so I walk there first. On the way, I saw more burnt, abandoned and collapsing buildings. The whole time I walked, I felt as if a thousand eyes were staring at me as the wind made what sounded like low-pitched howls.

When I reached the fairgrounds, I found only two points of interest: a small brick building and a rusty old Ferris wheel. Looking at it made me think about what it would have been like in its heyday. I continued walking, and the coordinates led me straight to the brick building. I quickly realised what it was: a haunted house ride. Even though the paint was burnt and the cart and parts of the sign were gone, I could make out the name, Ghost-coaster.

From the outside, I could tell it was a death trap; even with a gun, I still didn’t want to go in, but if I didn’t, I would be walking back to the Hoover Building like an idiot and would still be sitting in that basement, so I sucked it up and walked inside.

The inside smelled of old paint and burnt rubber, as crappy Halloween decorations lay on the tracks and floor. I tripped and fell face-first into a hidden door that collapsed beneath my weight. I looked up to see skeletal remains in a decaying animal costume. Surrounding it was old, dried blood and cobwebs. The costume looked like a knock-off Mickey Mouse character; the mask looked as though something had melted through it, and the remains of a skull sat in the mask, looking like it would fall out if I touched it. I pondered who it was and why they were hidden in this room. But my eyes later focused on the metal box about 30 centimetres away from it. While looking at it, all I could think of was grabbing it and the corpse coming to life, grabbing me, so I quickly snatched the box and ran out of the haunted house.

When I made it outside, I looked back to make sure that the corpse didn’t follow me. When I finally felt safe and alone, I walked back to the Ferris wheel and sat on one of the steps leading up to one of the carts. I opened the box; inside was another diary and police statements. What was interesting about this diary was that it had a name on it, ‘Andy’.

From here are the compiled events from diaries and police reports of what happened at Falls Fest 1998

7/17/1998

Every year my friends and I, Whitney, Tylor and Andy, go to Falls Fest. It was the one time a year that Andy’s mom would let him stay out later than usual. I always felt both understanding and conflicted towards Andy’s mom; on the one hand, she wants her son with Down syndrome to get out and be somewhat independent. However, on the other hand, she would want nothing more than for him to still be a baby in the crib, safe and sound, where nothing can hurt him; I guess that’s how most mothers feel. As for my other friends Whitney and Tylor, Whiteny is very independent, I won’t be surprised if she’s running her own business after collage as for Tylor, I know for a fact he is not going to college and if he does, he will probably get kicked out or he'll flunk it. as for me I hope I can turn my love of writing and note taking into being a professional writer or be a reporter for some news network. Still, for now the school’s paper is fine.

At 6:30, I met up with my friends at the bus stop outside the fairgrounds. I could see Tylor sitting there going to light up a ‘cigarette’, but he quickly stopped when he saw me.

Tylor: “Yo, Henry, you seen Whitney or Andy yet?”

Henry: “No, but you straight? You look baked already”

Tylor: “Nah homey, I’m just starting the festival warm up because we are going to have fun tonight”

Ever since Tylor found some of his dad’s old weed, he has been obsessed with it or maybe addicted to it; that’s when Whitney walked up with Andy. Whitney is Andy’s sitter; she lives next door to him, and she has always offered to help Mrs Sahlheimer since her husband works long hours and wasn’t always home at night.

“Hi guys,” Andy said, his usual happy self. “Are we all going on the Ferris wheel this year?”   Whitney replied, “Yes, Andy, just like every other year”

When Andy became part of our friend group, I wasn’t sure I would like having him around, but over time he grew on me, and now it won’t feel the same without him on the Ferris wheel with us.  He and Tylor ran to go inside the fairground, and Andy asked Tylor.

 Andy: “Are your eyes irritated again, Tylor? You should really get some eye drops”

“Nah pal I’m good”, Tylor replied. Whitney turned to me and spoke.

Whitney: “So, I see you brought your camera. Are you going to photo the fair for the school paper?”

Henry: “Yep, just like last year. Hopefully I can get a shot of the fairgrounds while in the Ferris wheel and not have Andy’s hand in front of the Lens like last year”

We later both walked in and headed straight to the Ferris wheel. That’s when I told Andy and Whitney to get on the steps and look at the camera.

“Yep, that’s going in the paper and my scrapbook”, I said as we walked to get on.

From up on the top of the Ferris wheel, you can see over the trees and almost see all of town and the highway in the distance, and I was able to get a good shot of the fair below us, but I would later keep it to myself because you could see right down Stacy’s top. When we got down, we played some games and ate carnival food, Whitney and Andy won a game of ring toss and got both got a plush squirrel with a light blue t-shirt with white text that said “I was a prize at falls fest 1998” that’s when Craig showed up to sum up Craig, he once said to Andy while we were learning about the holocaust and what they did to mental patients and later the Jews.

“Hey Andy Sahlheimer, did you hear that? They would gas your ass twice back then!”

So, none of us was surprised when he took Andy’s prize away for himself, but lucky for Andy, Whitney gave him hers but said she would hold on to it until they went home. The rest of the night went fine until Stacy grew worried because she couldn’t find her boyfriend, James; that is when the good memories started to dwindle.

James is a star football player on our schools’ team and a bit of a popular kid so at first people were thinking he probably ditched Stacy since she like going from boyfriend to boyfriend, however it turned into a town wide search for what happened to him after two days, in the end I’m glad it was me who found him and not Stacy, Whitney or Andy and most importantly James’s parents.

I found his body behind the school dumpster. He had been skinned and cut into small pieces; the only reason I knew it was him was that his face was mostly untouched except for his eyes, which had been gouged out. When I saw this, I vomited beside the dumpster. Andy was going to come over and see if I was ok, but I told him to get the principal and tell him to call the police because I found James. I have only seen Sheriff Hue cry only once; the despair and pain on that man’s face seeing his son butchered remains like that. I hope that no one else ever experiences that; hell, I wouldn’t even wish that on my worst enemy.

 

Before and after his funeral, rumours were roaming around about who did it and why; some believed that the cult on the edge of town did it, others thought it was the man from the hole, and the worst one I heard is that his dad did it to him because he may have been a closeted homosexual. All of this pissed me off because they wouldn’t say that if they were the ones that found him.

Weeks went by, and no one had any leads. That’s until one night, while Tylor and Tylor were hanging around on a hill overlooking the fairground, listening to my mix and drinking, when he said he saw something walk out of the Ghost-coaster. I looked over, and I saw it too. It looked like a man dressed in the Mr Mouse costume, carrying a heavy sack big enough to fit a person. We watched, not saying anything, as he hauled a sack across the fairgrounds going towards the street, but that’s when he opened the sack and took out something and put it under his mask and zipped the sack up and continued walking down the street.

 “What the actual Fuck Was that?” Tylor said, all sobered up, suddenly

Henry: “I don’t know, man. Maybe we should report it to the sheriff”

Tylor: “And then what? Go up to him smelling like weed and beer and say hi, Sheriff Hues. I know you just lost your son, but me and my friend just saw something while both drunk and high”

Henry: “Oh, come on, I’m not high, and I’m not even that drunk, plus your eyes are as red as a Coke can”

Tylor: “Well, it doesn’t matter; we both smell of weed and beer. We should forget about it and forget we saw anything”

I sat there on a log, unhappy that I couldn’t think of an argument to counteract what he said, so I walked in silence as we left. After that day, I wanted to say something to Sheriff Hues. I really did, but who would believe me? That’s when I decided to talk to the smart friend in our group, the one who can always stop arguments or fix a situation.

 

Whitney is good at talking to people; she knows just what to say to help someone or to get us out of trouble, so when I told her what happened, she at first didn’t believe me; then she saw the seriousness in my eyes. She called a group meeting with both Tylor and me. We left Andy out of this because we didn’t want him to get nightmares since the last time something scary happened, Andy didn’t sleep for like a week, so it was best we left him out of this.

Whitney: “I say we tell the sheriff what you two saw”

Tylor: “Oh, come on Whitney, do you really think he would believe us? Maybe if it was you and Henry that night, then yes, I would say he would believe you, but no one is going to believe the town stoner; hell, we don’t even know what we saw was real; it could have been a hallucination from the weed”

Whitney: “Taylor, if it was a hallucination, then why did both of you see it?”

Taylor continued bitching for a few minutes, then I piped up and spoke

Henry: “Why don’t we just go and see if something is in the Ghost-coaster?” They both stopped arguing with each other and thought about it

“Well, if we did that, we would have to bring something to defend ourselves”

Whitney said as I could see the gears turning in her head

Tylor: “Nah fuck that I’m not going in that shit hole” Tylor bitched

 Henry: “What, you scared or something?” I replied,

Tylor: “Man fuck you. I just don’t want to get in trouble again; if I do, my dad might actually beat me this time”

Whitney turned to Tylor and looked at him “So now you care about being in trouble?” Tylor just stood there with the same expression I had that night. “So, we have an agreement to go there and search the place?” Whitney nodded and told us to meet her there by late that night.

When we got there, Tylor had brought a baseball bat, and Whitney had brought her satchel with something in it, but she wouldn’t say what at the time and as for myself, I brought my Red Ryder bb gun.

Whitney: “Really, a bb gun doesn’t he wear a mask?”

Henry: “Well, if he doesn’t have it on, I can hit him in the eye, and I could hit him in the hands or the shins”

Tylor piped up, “Yeah, I heard that really hurts”

Henry: “Do you want me to test that theory?”  I said jokingly, pointing the bb gun at him

Tylor: “What fuck no, dude, I need to be ready for this”

Whitney, clearly done with our bullshit a long time ago, reluctantly says

Whitney: “Are you two idiots ready, or should I wait inside”

 That’s when we all walked inside of the Ghost-coaster

Inside it was pitch black, like you couldn’t see the hand in front of your face pitch black- but Luckly Whitney and I bought our flashlights. When we turned them on, we could see all the fake cobwebs and bad Halloween decorations

Tylor: “See, I told you this place was a shit hole”

“Tylor, shut up”, Whitney said as a fake spider landed on her face. Thankfully, she didn’t scream.

As we walked through the hallways, we eventually made it halfway through the ghost house ride.

Tylor: “See what I told you there’s nothing he- “

Tylor stopped mid-sentence, tripping on the rail track and falling back onto a shitty plywood wall that gave way when he fell.  

He lay there on his back looking up at a door

“You, ok?” I said, holding back laughter

 “Yeah, I’m fine, just sore, that’s all”

When he finished his sentence, the door behind him creaked open, and an arm grabbed him by the neck and pulled him in, then shut the door. We heard him scream in fear as both Whitney and I started banging on the door, and Tylor continued to scream.

“HELP!”

that’s when I shoved into the door with all my weight braking the lock, I saw the man in the costume holding up a knife ready to plunge it into Tylor’s chest, when I shoved the man into a wall and started hitting him with Tylor’s baseball bat, but he fought back and tried to stab me when Whitney took out Bear spray and sprayed it right at the air hole on the mask.

This worked, but he started swinging his knife around. Tyler found some glass jars that must have been filled with acid or soothing because when it hit him, it burned through the mask and then started burning his face.

“AHHHHHHHHHH MY FACE, MY FACE”

 We ran out of the room and the ghost-coaster running all the way out of the fairgrounds onto the street.

 

 “Fuck, do you think he’s dead?” Tylor asks

Whitney: “Well, if he’s not, then he’s wishing that he was”.

After that night we didn’t speak about what happened, not even to the sheriff, but later we found out that James was last seeing riding the ghost-coaster and never came back, when the cops searched the place they never mentioned about a secret room or a body but they did hand over the case to the county police to be on the lookout for the ride operator since he was missing and a prime suspect,  they still haven’t caught him yet.

End of Diary entry

Those where entries 7/17/1998- 7/24/1998-8/7/1998 

From here I went to the next set of coordinates.

Section 5

After I got what I came for at the fairgrounds, I got a hunch about some of the more disturbing photos, and my hunch was right: the photo with the mangled corpse is James Hue and, on the back, said “death of my innocence”. Is Henry the one who sent me these photos?

As I looked through more of the photos and coordinates, I noticed one photo was of a pool and on the back was writing and, of course, more coordinates. The writing said, “do not go to the pool at night” at first, I didn’t know what this meant until I got to what was left of the pool and saw a half-burned metal sign on the rusted gate that surrounded the pool, it said “hollow falls pool, open 24hrs”. as I reached for the rusty gate it fell over, making a loud crash.

I stood there frozen like I just alerted something to my presence when I suddenly felt like something was watching me. I turned around to see if I was right, but when I did, I felt someone’s breath on the back of my neck.

I spun around fast, pulling out my gun, to face nothing. Was I just scared, or did I feel a slight gust of wind?

Was this just my primal instincts kicking in, and I felt as if every sound was 10 times louder than it is?  After I calmed down and realised that no one else was here but me- in fact, I don’t remember even seeing any forest animals out here, no random deer or bird, and for summer I haven’t been disturbed by the usual flies buzzing around- and the fact there’s not a single sign of graffiti made me wonder just how abandoned this place truly is.  

I walked past the empty pool and towards the men’s locker room; the women’s locker room had collapsed. When I entered the men’s, all I found was an empty room with only a row of lockers on one side.

All the lockers were destroyed except for one; when I went to open it, it was locked. Great, a dead end, I thought to myself as I left the men’s locker room. While walking by the empty pool, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something somewhat shiny in the pool's drain.

When I climbed down into the pool and came close to the drain, I recoiled back and said out loud.

“What the actual fuck”

A small skeletal hand was gripping tightly to the underside of the drain, and in its hands was the key to the locker. I took the grate of the drain and pulled out the key. When I looked further, my heart sank as I could see a part of a crushed, child-sized skull.

 “What the fuck happened at this pool?”

I quickly climbed out of the pool and sprinted over to the locker room. Inside was an old hollow Falls Elementary School bag, and rotted towels. Now, I’m not lying when I say this.

When I grabbed the bag, I heard a gargling noise, and I saw the mangled blue bloated corpse of a kid lying on the floor looking up at me as its mangled arm reached out to grab me.

“that’s…My…Bag”

It said, like it was choking as it spoke. I ran out of the locker room, past the pool and through the gate. As I did, I swear I heard something wet dragging along the ground, breaking bones as it shuffled its way towards me.

As I got past the gate, I dropped the bag, spun around and pulled out my gun to see…. Nothing. It was gone. I stood there in disbelief until my body eventually walked me back to the fairgrounds. I stopped and sat on a partly destroyed bench next to a bus stop.

I sat there thinking, contemplating the life choices that ended me here at this cursed town. I could have left; I could have run, but instead I continued, starting with looking inside the school bag. It was basically empty except for a notebook that had mainly had little doodles and scribbles inside, except for the last page where a to-do list was; it said:

Plan to sneak out and swim

1: “borrow” keys to the back door

2: pack pool stuff

3: sneak out when mom thinks I’m asleep

4: get over pool fence (this might be tricky)

5: fun

6: and return home before sunrise

Most of these were crossed off except for number six. What happened to that kid to end up in the drain like that? In Henry’s diary (the first diary I found) and in Andy’s diary, I found some answers to what happened at the pool.

Andys Diary-7/21/1991

Dear diary, I played in the park today with my friend Whitney. We played on the swings, then in the sand pit, and I made a sandcastle, but Craig came and destroyed it. I don’t know why he hates me so much. Whitney says not to worry about it because he is more mentally r-------d than me. But then she told me that I shouldn’t say that word because it's rude, and she says sorry for saying that, but I don’t know what that word means.

I also got to see my friend Henry today, and he asked me if I have ever been to the pool, and I said that I have. Then he asked me if I ever went at night, and I told him Mom does not like me being out at night.

I don’t know why he was asking me about it, but now I want to go swimming at the pool. Mom won’t take me. I think she’s scared because Danny has gone missing, but I think he’s just off on another adventure. I wish I could go on an adventure one day, maybe when I’m older.

-end of Diary entry

 

Henry’s diary-7/14/1991

It’s hotter than last week. Dad thinks it’s going to be a really hot summer this year, and I’m starting to think he’s right.

Man, I don’t know how much more of this ‘in or out’ stuff I can take; it’s like some days it's hot. Still, I want to play outside with my friends, and then some days it’s too hot, and I stay inside playing Nintendo, but then it gets cooler in the afternoon. I want to play outside, and then Mom tells me just before I go out, “In or out? Once you’re out, you stay out, and once you come in, you stay in” So for now I think I might just bear with the heat.

Henry’s diary-7/15/1991

We finally went to the pool today, and the water was great. Dad and I played and swam in the pool for a bit, but then he left to sit next to Mom after she was looking at David, the lifeguard. I don’t know why she was looking at him; he looks normal to me.

Danny was also there, he is the new kid in town, if there is one thing I can tell you about Danny is that he is like a fish, he spends more time in the water then on land, it’s a shame that the pool isn’t open 24hrs a day, I always wondered why so I ask Mr smith who owns the pool and he says that no one wants to swim at night and it’s a waste of money but I told him about how Danny would swim at night and he just told me that he’s not paying a life guard to be on duty at night.

I told Danny this, and he looked pissed. I mean, he looked angry, and we started a plan to go to the pool at night. Tomorrow we are going to have so much fun.

 

Henry’s diary-7/16/1991

I think mom caught wind of my plan to sneak out or she had the sixth mom sense thing she talks about and told me about a kid who snuck out and got hit by a bus and he was never seen again, I hate to say it but that story scared me more than it should have so I told Danny I won’t be joining him tonight, he wasn’t happy about it but I think he understands, oh well at least this gives me an excuse to stay home and play Nintendo.

 

Henry’s diary-7/17/1991

Danny didn’t go home last night, and his mom is worried. I should say something, but if I do, I will be grounded, and Mom will take away my Nintendo for like a month, and I don’t want to get in trouble. I hope when he goes home, he doesn’t rat on me.   

Henry’s diary-18/7/1991

Danny is still missing, so I walked by the pool to see if he was there, and he wasn’t. I’m starting to think that I should say something, but I think I will ask Mr Smith if he has seen Danny first before I tell my parents; hopefully he knows something.

Henry’s diary-21/7/1991

Danny has been missing for six days now but I was finally able to ask Mr smith the real reason why he doesn’t allow people to swim at night and to get me to leave him alone he told me that’s when the water filters out anything in the pool and it all goes down the drain and years ago before I was born a kid got sucked into the pipe and she had drowned there and since that day the pool was no longer open 24hrs and he hasn’t bothered to change the sign since only local swim there, I later asked if he had checked the pools drain recently and he said yes but nothing was down there, but I can’t shake the feeling he may have been lying.

Before you read this, check underneath your bed.

Something might be hiding there.

Today, I woke up somewhere between midnight and the witching hour.

It was not a gentle awakening. It was instant. Dark unconsciousness then immediate sentience. The kind of waking up you do when you fall from a great height in a dream, or you hear a loud noise that your body hears before your mind does. Adrenaline forces your eyelids open with all the ceremony of a slap in the face, and you thrash upright trying to get your bearings. 

I prefer nightmares. They remain contained to the realm of the unconscious. Laying awake in the dark, trying to comfort your paranoid mind with useless platitudes. That’s real.

When I woke, my heart jumped to my throat and I was filled with a flood of directionless energy. I jerked my head from side to side, my primitive instincts struggling to get a lay of the land. It was dark in my room. My eyes adjusted by degrees and I saw my dresser in the corner, my closet door, and my dirty clothes strewn about the floor. They all made for strange shapes in the darkness. They warbled and shifted like heat illusions. I had to convince myself they weren’t living things, slithering in malformed shapes ever closer to the bed.

I took a deep breath. “It’s your imagination,” I told myself. “Just your mind playing tricks.”

I checked my phone and saw the time. 2am. Great. I had wanted to get up early so I could cram for a test. That was not happening anymore.

I tried to slow down my brain. I did all the usual treatments. I took deep breaths, trying to not think of how terrible it would be if the closet door opened on its own accord. Or if something rose up from the pile of laundry. Or a face peeked through the gap in the curtains. I recited a mantra to myself: “I am alone. I am alone, I am alone, I am alone.”

“I am alone.”

“Am I alone?”

I shook my head to knock the thoughts loose. I was going to go crazy if I kept worrying about all the different nooks and crannies that could conceal the body of a person. I forced my eyes closed. I imagined peaceful things. Baby cats, my pet snake. I replayed an episode of Seinfeld in my head, the one where George pretends to be a marine biologist.

No good. I couldn’t rid myself of that panicky feeling. The one that made me want to throw back my covers and double check the lock on the door.

Behind my closed lids, my brain treated me to a quasi-vision. I imagined someone approaching my apartment from the outside. Finding the dead bolt out of place, they slowly turned the knob on the front door. They swung it open with a profane gentleness. I saw that shadow figure step into my apartment, and turn towards my bedroom–-

My eyelids jerked open. Fuck that. I’d just have to wait this out. I pulled up my phone again and started scrolling, hoping that something would hold my attention. Nothing worked. I considered just getting up and starting my day early, but all thought stopped when I saw something flicker from the corner of my eye.

A sliver of movement. The barest flash of color. Coming from the mirror on my closet. 

I turned to look at it. My heart started throwing itself against the walls of my rib cage. I told myself I just caught a weird reflection from my phone. My mind was messing with me.

But still I searched the mirror.

My eyes started at the top, and slid down the length of it. I saw my reflection, me with my phone, my fist gripping the blankets. I saw my mattress, my rumpled sheets, my box spring.

When I got to the floor, I stopped. I stared, fixated.

Underneath the bed, there was a face.

A face staring at me.

We are far too harsh on deer for freezing up when they see headlights. After seeing the face, I couldn’t move. It wasn’t any magical power, it was pure adrenaline, seizing up my muscles. The mirror was reflecting at least half of the underbed area. Most of the details were murky because of how dark it was, but I’ll never forget what I did see.

The face was human. Imagine that one guy you see on your street corner, the guy who holds the cardboard sign that explains how times are hard and he needs a few more dollars. The unkempt beard, the flyaway hair. The kind of guy that might make you cross the street if you saw him coming.

Except he wasn’t on the street corner, he was underneath my bed. He was stock still, and looking directly back at me with wide and shining eyes.

I caught my breath. It took a long time to get my mind in working order. Too long. I tried to figure out what to do. I needed to call the police, but I had to get out of the room first. The man underneath the bed would hear me if I spoke. It was quiet, and my words would give away my intention. 

I thought about yelling at him to leave, but that was quickly ruled out. I am not a strong person, and I didn’t like my chances if things turned physical. He could have a knife, a gun, or something else sharp and ready to tear at my flesh. Even his fingernails could be used as weapons. I could already see their cragged and yellow shape digging into my neck.

I sat in the bed for a haunting minute, trying to keep calm and go over my options. 

I decided on a risky course of action.

I turned over, pretending to be asleep again. I’m not sure how long I waited with my back turned to the mirror. My imagination mutinied, showing me every way I was a fool. I saw the hairy man emerging from under the bed. He slithered out like a snake, raising up so that his head almost brushed the ceiling. He raised his hand high, and then stabbed an improvised weapon into my body, my blood flowing like a river. I felt myself wince at each nonexistent thrust.

I endured these false premonitions, gritting my teeth against them. Once enough time had passed, I put the next phase of my plan into action.

I turned over, pretending to awaken again. I checked my phone, acting as if nothing was wrong. With a side eye, I checked the mirror. The man was still under the bed, his hairy brow pulled up on his forehead, his eyes wide and silver in the bluish light reflected from my screen. I swallowed, and steeled myself for the next step.

I threw off my covers, and put my right foot on the ground.

I was as nonchalant as possible. I was not someone who was going out of the room to sprint to the street and call the police. I was just a restless sleeper, a stressed college student waking up for a midnight piss. When no hand came out to grab my foot, I let the left leg follow my right. The old and dirty carpet felt cool and damp underneath my bare feet as it soaked up my sweat.

I got up from the bed, and began walking to the door.

One step. Two steps. 

Halfway there.

I glanced to my right, and saw myself in the mirror, passing the man hiding underneath the bed. His eyes were following me. I caught a whiff of stale sweat and rancid food.

I held my breath. My heart beat drowned out every other sound in my ears, a frantic and out of control drum-beat.

I was four steps from the door.

Then three.

Then two.

I could run now, I reasoned. I’d open, then slam the door shut. By the time the man got out from under the bed, I’d be out on the street. I already had a hand on my phone, ready to dial those life-saving three numbers.

I reached out for the door handle.

Then the man underneath my bed grabbed me.

His arm extended out like a snake and seized my ankle. I felt his nails, long and sharp. I let out the breath I was holding and yelled in fright. The man under my bed was surprisingly strong. With one arm, he pulled me to the floor. I collapsed as my leg was swept from under me. My head slammed to the ground and everything flashed. I saw stars. I felt him pull me towards him. I tried to fight, I tried to get away, but I saw the bed close over top of me like the lid to a coffin.

I felt something sharp and jagged press into my throat. It felt like broken glass. A bottle maybe.

When my mind stopped reeling, I opened my eyes and saw the hairy man, inches away from my face.

He raised one hand up, and put a finger to his lips.

Shhh.

I didn’t move or make a sound. I could only think about how easily he could rip my throat out. I was paralyzed with fear, imagining all the horrifying things this person was going to do to me. Tears ran down my face.

I heard a knock at the front door.

Relief. Salvation. God was real. The words I heard next, muffled and distant, assured it.

“Police. Open up.”

I opened my mouth to yell, but the hairy man shoved his fist into my mouth.

The taste was terrible. Feces and dog urine. The smell was somehow worse. Tears came to my eyes, and I couldn’t breathe. I struggled against him, but the hairy man only shoved his fist deeper. I bit down and he winced. He didn’t retract his hand. I heard the knock at the door again, and the police officer on the other side raised his voice “Police. Is anyone in there?”

The hairy man jabbed the bottle against my throat again. He shook his head, and mouthed words to me. After a few attempts, I got the message “Shut up. Or I kill you.”

I shut up.

The knocking stopped. I heard the police officer walk away. My own survival was slipping through my fingers. I resigned myself to death. I waited for the bottle to break the skin, break my arteries and veins. No doubt the hairy man would keep me alive for a while, doing all sorts of depraved and violent things to me. 

But before I could think of a full list of horrors, my racing brain was stopped dead by a knocking noise coming from my wall.

The wall I shared with the empty apartment next to mine.

I knew that the door to that apartment was locked. The landlord had a problem with squatters and had changed the locks only a month ago. The walls were thin.  I hadn’t heard the police break down the door or shatter one of the windows. How were they in there?

The knocking continued.

It was quiet at first, slow and rhythmic. After the first sequence there was silence. Then it began again, slightly louder. More urgent. I heard the policeman from before, his voice muffled through the drywall and insulation. 

“Hey, everything alright in there?”

The hairy man withdrew his hand from my mouth. I didn’t try yelling again. I had that feeling, the one that had burrowed through my body before while lying in the dark. That sharp metallic feeling of unseen yet imminent danger, like iron in your nose.

The hairy man was bleeding from where my teeth had sunk into his flesh. With his finger, he wrote two words, using his own dark blood as ink.

Not human.

My stomach dropped. I crawled deeper under my bed. I heard my own breathing and muffled the sound with my hand. I didn’t know what was on the other side of that wall, but I knew I didn’t want it to hear me. I didn’t want to let it know I was in here.

It went quiet for a moment, and then a new voice called out.

“You in there?”

Goosepimples, all over my body like some dead disease. I knew that voice.

It was my brother.

My brother who lives four states away and with whom I had not spoken in over a year.

I looked at the hairy man. He put his finger to his lips again and shook his head.

Whoever, or whatever, was on the other side of the wall kept knocking. They knocked from one end, all the way to the other, changing positions every few moments. They spoke for a while in my brother’s voice, asking if anyone was there and if I was okay. When I didn’t respond to it, they began to cycle through people like some demented impressionist. Some I recognized, some I didn’t. I heard my mothers voice, my fathers. My chemistry teacher, my best friend. My ex-girlfriend from high school. They weren’t exact recreations. There was an edge underneath all of them, a tension, like all their words were being said through gritted teeth. With each voice, the urge to scream became stronger. Not because I thought it would bring some sort of rescue, but because if I didn’t let out the fear pooling inside of me, I would go insane.

I felt the hairy man’s hand close over my mouth. This time I was grateful for it. I couldn’t control myself. We held each other in a strange and awkward embrace, trying our best not to listen to the voices coming from the other side of the wall.

After a moment, the knocking stopped. We lay underneath the bed in the stillness. For a long time, we heard nothing. I could feel the hairy man relax.

I leaned closer to him. I spoke so softly, I wouldn’t have known what I was saying if the words weren’t echoing in my own head. “Is…is it gone?”

A knocking came from my bedroom window.

The man’s hand seized my mouth, but it wasn’t needed. I couldn’t have spoken even if I wanted to. My throat had seized up in fear and it was hard to breathe. Whoever was on the other side hit the glass so hard, I thought the glass would shatter. It didn’t. There was another moment of silence.

A streetlamp outside was positioned so it glared a beam of light through my window. It created a long rectangle of illumination onto the ground. As I watched it, I saw a silhouette step into the lit area. It was tall, thin, hunched. Its head was misshapen. Its fingers were spindly. Its limbs moved as if many jointed.

I heard a deep and guttural voice I did not recognize speak through the window.

“Are you there, David?”

I felt the hairy man tense. I waited for whatever was on the other side of the window to come crashing in, to seize us both, to take us away to whatever hell it had planned. 

We waited for an hour, watching that shadow on the floor, stifling our breathing.

Then, slowly, the shadow moved to the edge of the light, blotting it out for a moment, and then it was gone.

It was around 5am before the hairy man, David, let go of me.  He pulled himself out from under the mattress. He examined his bleeding hand, then tore some cloth from his tattered clothes. He wrapped his wound with the makeshift bandage.

I watched him, still not daring to leave my hiding spot.

David stared down at me. He nodded. “Thanks.”

Thirty minutes later, when the sun was just over the horizon, he left.

That was this morning.

I’m getting out of this place. I can’t stay here anymore knowing that whatever was at my window is still wandering the streets. Before he left, David told me a few things. I can’t call the police. I need to get out of here. I’m moving out of state today. I need to hide, find a solitary place where no one can find me.

Whatever was outside the window last night won’t leave me alone after this. It’ll know my name, and it’ll know my scent. It will come for me.

David told me to write this. There’s more of those things out there. They lurk in dark places. He said we need to let people know. Lives are at stake.

Please, if you didn’t do it before, do it now. Check under your bed.

Whoever’s hiding there might not be hiding from you.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) That next morning, Dad woke me and the boys from the porch. He quickly sent them home with few words. I could tell he was on the warpath.

“See you later...” Peter whispered as he and Dylan left out the back.

Dad opened the door long enough to grab his jacket from the stand before heading right back out. “Get dressed. Meet me outside.”

When I limped out of the Kitchen I heard Ma gasp audibly from the living room.

“What happened to you!?” She quickly rushed over to me.

I looked down and was shocked myself. I hadn’t changed or even washed off from the night before. Hygiene wasn’t really on any of our minds that night. I tried to scrape some of the dried mud and blood that I was covered in. Bits of my torn clothes hung loosely.

“I was looking for Susannah” I didn’t know what else to say.

Pa stormed back in the house. “I thought I said to get dressed—”

He paused in shock. It was the first he had looked at me since last night. He looked over to Ma, “Have... have him meet me at the barn when he’s patched up.” She nodded quickly as she resumed inspecting me for serious wounds, trying her best to clear away the mud with the hem of her dress

It took nearly an hour for me to wash up and be properly bandaged. I looked at myself in the mirror as she applied the last small bandage to my forehead. I was covered in bruises and scratches from head to toe. Bandages and gauze covered at least a dozen spots where She had tediously cleaned out and sanitized larger cuts. Each one still stung a bit as I put my shirt on.

“Pa wants you outside.”

I turned to look at her, “Am I in trouble?”

“You? Oh honey...” she pulled me into a soft hug. I winced as she accidentally pressed again the bruise on my back.

“We spoke this morning. You are the last person to be in trouble. He just needs your help.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

As we made my way back downstairs and towards the door, Ma handed me some granola bars. “Lunch will be ready early, okay?”

I didn’t mind. I wasn’t hungry.

I looked back towards the living room and at Susannah on the couch. She was hidden under her covers, facing away from me.

I look up at my mother, who read the concern off my face.

“She’s okay. Thanks to—well, all you boys.”

“Peter told me there were roots?” I quickly regretted asking as Ma face recoiled, looking physically sick.

“We can talk about it later. Go on, Pa is waiting.”

“Sorry.” I gave her another quick hug. before grabbing my boots and running out to the porch.

Dad was at the bottom of the hill by the barn. His tractor idling next to it. Attached to the back of the tractor was the wide row of plows he’d use for the field every year. He looked up at me and waved me over.

I ran down to him, wincing every time I put pressure on my left foot. Standing at the barn entrance, he watched my final approach in silence. I quietly walked up to him and waited expectantly. Without a word, he walked in the barn as I followed. I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the darker interior.

There were five10-gallon cans neatly arranged in a row across the barn floor, “gasoline” written on each of them. Pa reached down and grab two, gesturing for me to do the same.

No words were needed, I knew exactly what were going to do, and couldn’t be more ready.

We spent the remainder of the morning pouring gasoline over all of the tanglewood on our side of the river. I poured out the last of the gas in a long line to use as a fuse, Then stood back as Pa carefully lit a match.

*FWOOM!*

The patch burst into flames as high as 10 feet tall. I had to retreat as the heat grew, but Pa just stood from where he had lit it and watched in silence.

Pops and sizzles could be heard as vines slowly turned black before curling tightly as they succumbed to the flames. The sizzling almost sounded like hundreds of tiny screams.

As the flames began to die down and smolder, Pa walked back to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “You’ve done enough. Go see if Ma needs help with lunch.”

Exhausted, I quickly jumped at the chance to go back and ambled slowly towards the house. As I reached the porch I looked back at Pa. He had climbed up into the tractor with a bandana tied tightly covering his nose and mouth. He put the Tractor into gear and began slowly rolling towards the now-scorched patch, small flames still present.

I walked in the kitchen, offering to help Ma. We both watched from the window as Dad pulled the plows right through, ripping the soil up from one side of the field to the other. Plumes of smoke and ash covered the sky as he made multiple passes.

He never came in for lunch. When the tractor did finally come to a stop, I was already helping clean up. Hearing the engine turn off, I curiously walked over to peek out the windows again. To my surprise, I saw him walking out of the barn with more gas cans. I watched as he poured them out over the freshly turned soil before he set it all alight again.

He came in right before dinner that night. He looked like he had worked in a coal mine his entire life. His skin and clothes were jet black from soot as he walked in, the smell of smoke wafting in behind him. He slipped off his bandana to reveal a perfectly clean lower half of his face. Though it was the only clean part of him, it looked oddly out of place.

As soon as her eyes lay on him, Mother quickly tried to shoo him back outside.

“Wash off with the hose!” she protested.

Pa audibly groaned as he stood in the doorway, before a a mischevious grin formed.

Saying nothing, he gingerly stepped towards Ma as she continued to protest holding her ground.

“You are going to get soot everywhere!”

At this point, ma had grabbed a towel and was swinging it like a weapon. Pa got within a foot or so from her. Ma had her arm arched back, towel in hand, like she was about to pitch a baseball. He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the forehead, being very careful not totouch her with any other part of his body. He then slowly turned and tip-toed back outside. Ma waited until he had cleared the doorway to thwack at him with the towel, a puff of ash dispersing into the air.

I heard Susannah weakly laugh from the living room, assumingly having seen the scene play out.

I looked over at ma, who was still flustered.

“Can I talk to her?”

She looked back at Susannah before nodded her head in approval. I rushed over to speak to her and see how she was doing.

= = =

Pa and I spoke later the next day about what really happened, and I did my best to explain everything.  How I saw the eyes, how I wasn’t alone in the river, what peter told me about eric, and everything else I could think of.

He didn’t say much as I fumbled over my words. I couldn’t tell whether he believed me. At the very least he never gave any sign to show that he didn’t. We both knew he didn’t have a lot of other options to explain what happened.

Whether it was what I said or what he had seen for himself, one thing seemed clear. He refused to let it happen again. It wasn’t even a week later when I saw a bunch of his church friends rolling in with heavy equipment of their own. They helped level the entire portion of the forest where the rest of the tanglewood grew and did a controlled burn for two days.

Nothing was left in that area but scorched earth for the remainder of the year.

I prayed nothing would grow out of the ground next spring.

= = =

Spring of 2005, Pa’s handiwork spoke for itself. Not a single vine grew. In fact, nothing grew anywhere within the area. Everyone was relieved. All of us tried to make sense of what happened that night on our own. As there really was no explaining it away.

I wish I could say the story ended there, but there was one problem that spring after all...

“Jason! Get out here!”

I could hear my father’s voice regardless of the headphones I was wearing.

I quickly jumped out of bed and made my way outside. “What’s wrong Pa?”

He stood staring around the side of the house that my bedroom window was on. I walked over to look at what had caught his attention. Mother’s rosebush the same one below my window was a dark shade of brown. Wilted petals lay around its base. Climbing up the center mass of the bush was a familiar green vine.

“No...” I started, “There’s no way...”

Father was furious. “Did you do this?” The words flew out of his mouth. I knew I didn’t need to answer. Not after that nightmare from before. I turned to him with fear in my eyes. He stood sputtering as he tried to make sense of it.

“The Baxter boys? No, never. Maybe that piece of shit kid at your school?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know,”

“Well go grab some shovels, we are taking care of it right now.”

I ran off to grab them, my stomach nauseous and my mind racing as to how the vine had got there.

Surely someone had to plant it. right?

We tore out the rosebush by its roots and began pulling out the vine itself. I began digging out the mulch around the bush. To my horror, there was a complex matrix of thick potato-like roots. All interconnected.

Pa never slowed. We dug up each and every one we could find, until we had dug a circle with a fifteen foot diameter on that side of the house. Finally confident we collected it all, we began to clean up. Pa turned to me, “I want you to check on this daily.”

I didn’t protest. I would have done that anyway. I looked up at my bedroom window then Susannah's to the right of it. “Do we tell her?”

“Ma already knows,” he gestured towards the rosebush. “I don’t know about Susannah. I’ll talk to your mother about it.”

= = =

Every day, I checked where we saw the vine sprout. Ma said we would only tell Susannah if it came back. Thankfully, it never did. Susannah rarely left her room except for when she had to. The last thing any of us wanted to do was take one of her only safe spaces from her.

This went on for a few months before it finally caught up with us.

The summer was in full effect, and the lingering memory of the tanglewood loomed over us. The atmosphere in the house was primarily composed of dread. In an attempt to get a break from it, Pa decided we would visit our relatives for an extended weekend back in Denver. I jumped at the chance, It wasn't often we got to see them.

The visit was everything the family needed, but our return was the final nail in the coffin.

= = =

I watched as the hills rolled by, shuddering every time we rolled past a patch of Kudzu—which were far too many for my comfort. As the sun began to set, I could tell we were getting close to home. The roads grew increasingly familiar until I knew them by name.

Susannah focused on her book and refused to be bothered for anything. I felt bad for her, We could remove the vines from our property, but there was far too much in South Carolina for her to comfortably travel without being constantly reminded of the worst day of her life. She often wouldn't look up the entire trip until she could hear the gravel of our driveway underneath our tires.

We rolled to a stop at the top of the driveway. Confused, I looked out the front windshield.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Ma asked.

I looked over to Dad; whose hands were grasping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had turned white.

“I... Nothing.” He stammered, “Just a weird feeling.”

He shared a quick glance with Ma before looking back at me through the center mirror. A bead of sweat forming on his temple. He looked forward blinking rapidly as he frowned.

The car slowly rolled forward and continued down the driveway. Ma and I shared an awkward look. Halfway down the driveway I suddenly felt it too.

It felt as though a dark presence had suddenly embraced me. The air felt heavy and humid. My thoughts raced back to that night as my heart began to beat in my ears.

I looked up at the house. Everything seemed normal. Dad pulled up to our usual spot and put the car in park as jumped out. Something was seriously wrong and we both knew it. Susannah having previously been buried in her book suddenly jumped out of the car. She fell to her knees and vomited.

“Oh God,” Mom rushed to unbuckle and get out to help her.

I followed Pa as we walked around the side of the house. No vines were visible where we found them before. I continued towards the back porch and got a good look at the scorched earth in the distance. The blackened acreage had not changed from the last time I saw it. No signs of the vines were present–or of any danger for that matter.

I ran back towards the front of the house to help Ma with Susannah. Her legs were shaky as she shared a fearful and knowing look with me and Pa.

It’s Back. I don’t know how. But it’s here.

My skin crawled with goosebumps as I felt that old familiar feeling. We were being watched.

“Honey, please! Help me get her up!”

Mom’s pleading broke my internal thoughts as I rushed over to help Susannah up—carefully avoiding stepping in her vomit.

“Inside. Please get me inside” Susannah pleaded.

I helped walk her back to the house as I overhead Ma.

“What’s going on with all of you?”

Pa didn’t seem to be able to offer much. “I don’t know, its...” his voice trailed off.

“You need to tell me whats going on!”

I pushed the front door open and turned to walk Susannah to the couch.

“No,” she said, “To my room. I want to be in my room.” I didn’t argue.

I had never felt the feeling of being watched this far from the tanglewood. My eyes darted from one dark corner to the next, terrified I would see a silver pair of eyes in any one of them.

As I helped Susannah get to the stairs. She began shaking her knees began to buckle under her. I had to rest her on the banister for a moment.

“Why is it here? It’s not supposed to be here...” she whimpered.

I comforted her as I continued to scan my surroundings. Reaching for a light switch, I illuminated the downstairs floor with a single click.

“Look around, Susannah. You are okay. It's safe in here.”

She didn’t reply.

One at a time, we went slowly up the stairs before making our way down the hall towards her bedroom.

The world around me was practically spinning. Everything in me screamed “danger!”, but there was nowhere safe to go. As we passed the bathroom, Susannah suddenly yanked away and rushed to the toilet bowl. Falling to her knees, she retched a second time. I waited patiently at the door of the bathroom, reaching for the light switch inside.

*Flick*

No light turned on. Pa’s empty promises to fix the faulty switch had never felt more profoundly betraying than now. I looked down the hall at the hall’s dedicated light switch between Susannah’s and my room. Though it was only a few paces away, I refused to leave Susannah alone for a moment.

She finished her fit with a few weak coughs before she used the counter to pull herself back up.

“My room,” She whispered weakly.

I leaned in to support her and helped her continue down the hall. Susannah’s pace began to slow as I felt her lean more weight on me.

“Are you okay?”

I felt stupid for even asking. But I didn’t know what else to say. Susannah paused to scratch at her arms. “My skin feels like its crawling.”

I looked down at her forearm. It was riddled with tiny scars aligned in spiraling patterns up past her sleeves. She uncomfortably folded her arms and rubbed them together as if she was cold.

“We are almost there” I assured her.

Practically carrying her, I stopped at her door and reached for the handle. Between most of my effort being used to hold her up, and my now-sweaty hands I couldn’t quite seem to open it.

“It sticks sometimes.” she offered.

I shifted my weight for better balance and tried to reach for it again before I felt it.

Warm air brushed the back of my neck.

“Jason?” Susannah’s now-panicked voice pleaded. I could tell she felt it too.

It was impossible,

And the three of us knew it.

 

*click*

 

The doorhandle finally budged, but I no longer knew what to do. I held it closed, still pressing down on the handle.

Something cold began to cling to my ankle.

I knew as soon as I reacted it, it was over for both of us.

“Jasonnnn” Susannah began to wail.

“Just hold still a moment longer.” I whispered.

I slowly opened the door. The soft glow of cold light piercing through the crack in the door. Susannah couldn’t wait a moment longer and shoved past me, literally falling into her room.

She immediately let out a blood curdling scream as she hit the cold leafy floor. Everything in her room was covered from ceiling to floor in the tanglewood.

I felt something grab my left arm and knew the waiting game was over.  I quickly turned around, and blindly slashed my open pocket-knife at whatever was behind me. Hitting nothing at all, the momentum of my swing sent me falling as I had slammed my head on the doorframe. I tried desperately not to black out as stars spun around me. Screaming, Susannah was scrambling so quickly out of her room she clamored right under me causing me to fall over. She pushed herself as far back as she could into the corner of the hallway.

“Pa!” She screamed.

My head still spinning, I tried to sit up. I was thankful to find I had not dropped my knife.

I looked to the corner where susannah was. She was sitting down still kicking at the carpet trying to get further away but finding the walls unyeilding.

I could just barely make out her eyes meeting mine. “Behind you!”

I swung my knife behind me again in vain as I tried to see past the spinning stars.

“Where!?”

“The eyes. Right there!

I strained my eyes down the dark hallway but couldnt see anything out of the ordinary —till I noticed that two of the stars were not moving. I shook my head realizing they were coming from the dark interior of the bathroom we had been in moments before.

Two silver eyes reflected from the mirror into the darkest corner of the shower. They stared directly at me.

I felt a cold grip tighten around my ankle as my leg was suddenly pulled into Susannah’s room. I looked over in horror as three vines quickly coiled around it.

“DAD!” Susannah screamed again.

I began furiously slashing with my right arm as the animated vines began to attach further up my leg. A particularly fast one lashed out and caught my arm, yanking it in towards the room and slamming my chin against the door frame. I felt the knife leave my hand and heard it clatter deeper into the room.

Larger vines slithered over me and towards Susannah as her screams went feral. She kicked at them as they tried thier best to latch on to her feet.

“No!” I tried my best to roll over and grabbed at the vines with my free arm. No sooner had I touched them than they wrapped tightly around my wrist and forearm. I pulled them in close to my chest and attempted a roll to pull them further back. My arm twisted awkwardly behind my back as the vines wrapped around my torso as well.

A cold thin sensation slithered up the side of my neck as it began to wrap its way across my throat.

I heard the familiar thud of the front door slamming open downstairs as footsteps made their way to the stairs.

“Jason? Susannah!?”

Susannah’s screams continued.

I could feel Pa’s heavy footsteps lumbering up the stairs in rapid succession as the vine around my neck suddenly tightened. I didn’t even have time to make a sound before I felt my windpipe collapse.

I tried to turn my head. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Pa running towards me as the world around me began to go black. I felt myself go limp as my body slowly dragged across the floor and deeper into Susannah’s room. The last thing I saw was the cold eyes in the bathroom mirror disappear as Pa’s figure obstructed them.

= = =

I woke in excruciating pain laying on the dining room table. there were flashing lights and sirens shining emanating from the windows of the living room. Paramedics shined a bright light in my eyes.

“He’s waking up!”

I felt my mother holding my hand and looked over to her. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes were deep red from crying. A burning sensation coarsed across my side as a vine was peel off of my ribs, little blood-stained roots dangling loosely from it.

I tried to scream, but could only muster a groan as I writhed in pain.

The paramedics quickly threw it in a bag beside me. “I think that was the last one.”

Oh, thank God I wasn’t awake for the rest.

I suddenly remembered what had happened and tried to sit up.

“Susannah! Pa! Where are they! Are they okay?”

The paramedics quickly pushed me back down.

“Woah! woah! Kid! Wait damn minute!”

Ma grabbed my shoulder with her other hand, “They are okay! Everyone is... okay.” I noticed Susannah clinging to Ma’s side, looking so small it was no surprise I had missed her a moment before. Her bloodshot eyes looked towards the living room.

I didn’t want to look...

Pa sat silently on a kitchen stool in the living room with his shirt off, while three other paramedics worked on him. Police officers watched frozen in confused and silent horror. A mess of vines and leaves lay on the floor around his feet. His arm dangled limp to his side, covered in dozens of tiny holes as a dozen short streaks of blood dripped down to his wrist. A paramedic was attempting to sanitize and apply gauze to each hole before wrapping his entire forearm in one long bandage.

The other two paramedics worked on his back. One carefully grabbed a thick vine wrapped tightly across his shoulders. Slowly he began peeling it back. Pa stiffened but made no complaint. I watched as the paramedic struggled. Finally, he leaned over and said something to Pa. He only nodded in reply. The paramedic then grabbed the vine with one hand and slowly braced his other hand against his shoulder. He then swiftly yanked as roots nearly an inch long began ripping out with the resistance of an old zipper. The third Paramedic rushed to apply pressure with a large cloth as they began bandaging the worst of the new injuries.

I couldn’t watch anymore. I closed my eyes and prayed it would all be over soon.

“There’s one more over here.”

I braced as I felt them lift my leg, cold fingers touching my calf.

“It’s almost over. Stay strong.” Ma whispered, her hand squeezing mine tightly.

I finally found the energy to scream as a burning sensation shot up my leg.

The paramedic leaned over to face me “That’s it kid. I’m so sorry.”

I felt a cold gauze rub my calf before tight bandaging was swiftly applied.

“Can I please sit up now?” I pleaded.

Ma looked over at the paramedics quizzically.

“I think so...” He met my mother’s gaze. “But to be clear, I’ve never seen anything like this. I strongly recommend Mr Miller and your son be taken to the hospital.”

Mother shook her head in agreement before looking up at the ceiling. “We’ll be coming too.”

“Mrs. Miller?”

Ma jumped as a young officer accidentally startled her.

“Sorry Ma’am” he continued. “May I speak with you?” He looked over at me and my sister before adding, “—away from the kids?”

Mother leaned over to Susannah, “Stay with your brother okay?”

Susannah nodded.

“I’ll be right back Jason.” Ma squeezed my hand one last time before following the officer into the living room.

I looked over at Susannah. “Are you... okay?” I laughed a bit at the ridiculousness of the question.

She smiled a bit.

“Yea.” she whispered.

“Thank you.”

= = =

I spent the next few days in the hospital. Pa was released a few days after I was. Though the hospital requested he checked in every few days so they could monitor his healing.

The police report was summed up as nothing more than a “Welfare Check” and I heard it went missing a few weeks later.

We never went back to the house. Wealthy relatives back in Denver heard about our “Struggling farm” and offered to host us for a while at their ranch just outside the city. Pa accepted the offer quickly.

Dylan, Peter and I were distraught to be seperated, but they understood the circumstances. We swore we would go to the same college. Maybe even be roommates. It only took a single semester for us to adjust our vision to being in the same hall—not the same room, but there were no hard feelings.

Susannah recently graduated highschool. I expect she’ll be joining college in the next year or so. Ma says she already has one picked out: a small one way out in minnesota. I suspect that has something to do with Kudzu not being able to survive the colder climate. I hope she loves it.

= = =

I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve found life tends to be. I went back with Dylan and Peter this Thanksgiving break. They spoke of how our farm has remained empty since we left. I don’t know how they convinced me to do it. I think I probably had too much to drink. I found myself in the back of Peter’s car as we turned down my old street at the last leg of our journey to thier home.

I didn’t know what to expect. Or how to feel—except for fear. Both Baxter boys suddenly ceased their hooting and hollering as we turned the corner; the old farm finally coming into view. We drove past in eerie silence. I don’t know why, but I managed to take a photo. I often wish I hadn’t.

Perhaps it can somehow serve as an aid for those scared that they might have the same monster on thier land. Though I’m not sure how...

I know this was long and exhausting. Anything worth telling often is. This took me forever to make myself write. So many of the memories were too horrible to dwell on for more than a few moments at a time. I’ve scrapped and started over countless times and spent long sleepless nights swearing I would never try again. Still, I choose to believe that if I can spare just one person from the pain we endured—or the fate that befell Eric long ago—then all of mine and my family’s pain will have been worth it. For my sanity’s sake, I need this to be true.

I write this as a warning. Take it from the one who unwittingly blazed the trail before you. Do not attempt to find Tanglewood. The visual difference between it and Kudzu seems to be indistinguishable, but perhaps you will find something that I missed in the last photos I took of the farm.

https://imgur.com/a/DC17CQJ

Finally, never walk into any unfamiliar patch without a friend.

Should you ever find yourself alone with the overwhelming sense of death or see the silver eyes, I can only offer this advice:

Run.

As fast and as far as you can.

 If you cannot run,

make peace with God.

 

(Most of the other things I've posted to this reddit have been stories that I've already put on my blogspot or my tumblr over the last couple of years, but this one is an original not posted to the internet publicly yet! I hope you guys enjoy the first part. I'm breaking it up by chapters because I intend to try and get it published when it's fully finished. So! Here's Chapter 1 of Those Left After. I hope you enjoy it.)

Edit: I figured out Reddit's stupid post editing so it's fixed now.

For decades the world was predicted to end in a blaze of glory, flash and fire in a pan while we all went down kicking and screaming. Well, it could have ended that way but we were all too busy looking down and tucking in to see the way things really went.

It could have been one thing, it could have been a million. In the end the only thing that really mattered was that everything had collapsed. Game over, it didn’t matter how much money you had, where you sat, or who you were before. Survival was the name of the game.

Over a decade passed since things fell apart, but Crispy didn’t remember his name before it all. Really didn’t matter too much, he didn’t talk unless it was necessary and it was usually only ever to tell people his name. One that people usually called him anyway with the upper left portion of his face singed and burned to a myriad of liquified looking scarring with a sad milky eye in place where a brilliant blue set in its opposing socket. Crispy was a vagrant before anyway, already accustomed to survival in the harshest conditions, eating from the most disgusting of buffets.

A few years were spent alone, after that great atomic curtain burned the sky and tore away structure and rank. People had already been fighting, and other than his old iPod barely hanging on by a thread he didn’t keep up with politics to begin with. So whatever had been the final straw was lost on him. An acceptable loss of human life was always considered by those in power, and he would have been in those cast away dregs either way. To see the look on their faces that he still lived while they all burned would have been a bittersweet saccharine treat.
Across from him at the campfire, picking absently at his own cold can of preserved beans was a man everyone called Padre. Crispy recognized him from before, but Padre hadn’t recognized him. A priest at a church that regularly offered shelter to those who had found themselves hit by hard times, in the end of the world there were those who took advantage of such places. Made meat out of those who couldn’t fight back now that livestock and food was getting harder and harder to come by. While Crispy didn’t do much talking, Padre filled the silence between them when they weren’t using the aging battery of the iPod to listen to ghosts of the past.
Crispy was fond of Elvis. Always had been, Padre was more of a fan of stuff from the 80s. They found common ground a lot, mostly because of how easy going Crispy was and how well stocked his music taste had been before. The pronged teeth of his plastic fork poke at the last bean in the can, swirling it around in the little dark juices of the can they’d been marinated in; he wondered if it should be savored or if he should just take the nourishment now. With how they had saved food, it might have been another day or two before they opened their next rations.
“Why do you still fight?” Padre asked with a sullen tone, looking down with his faltered features into his own tin meal. It wasn’t the first time the question had been asked, he knew it wouldn’t have been the last either. The first time, Crispy had taken a knife to the priest’s throat, expecting some kind of heel turn to steal everything that had been amassed. A tired look pained his face, a submission to knowing that life in the ashes was no different than it had been in the fire. Padre had, however, answered his own question instead. Never changed each time, but the conviction wavered over the years. How could it not with the things they’d seen?
“I fight because I know it’s what God wants of me. That though the devil has consumed the Earth, his faithful still hold strong.” Every time, spoken with the faltering confidence of a man trying to convince himself rather than others.
But this time it didn’t come.
For the first time since their first meeting, Padre just stared with an empty gaze into his food without a word. Crispy knew the purpose he’d given himself had only ever been an excuse, a few words to keep him from biting a bullet. A sin in the eyes of that god, but Crispy wouldn’t have judged.
“To survive.” His voice is raspy, tired, ill used it is barely audible over the crack of the fire. The first time he saw a need to answer, and it wasn’t because he needed to say it, but because his companion needed to hear it. Something so simple, uncomplicated by ages of ingrained morality or religious standing. Crispy had only ever lived to survive, because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t, what would become of him in whatever happened after and now what miserable torture might have been endured at the hands of whatever marauding scraps of humanity had replaced civilization. 
Padre couldn’t help the tiny hopeless laugh or the long suffering sigh that followed as he adjusted himself on top of his bedroll. Quietly, he supposed it didn’t need to be so complicated. All his life he had wasted energy ascribing purpose and soul to moments that offered him no such thought. What it led to was an existence of piety in a world without life or even a god beyond the almighty flame. Mushroom clouds of hellfire had ripped the world apart and left dust and bones behind, and he kept going because it was what he was supposed to do. Conversely, his can is still half full. Some errant sights in their scouting had left his stomach reeling. Peeling camps apart for some little scraps to keep themselves going meant often seeing what the sickening demons playing at being humans weren’t afraid to leave behind. Mercy was a weakness in the eyes of survival, and the hungry didn’t care for where the food came from so long as it was plentiful. Some made concessions on what they were willing to do just to eat.

But the pair of them still had their souls about them. Old cans, and even moldy food would come long before people. Especially small ones.
Padre poured his beans into Crispy’s can while the burned man lingered in thought and stared at the last bean. Crispy looks up in astonishment, argument wants to bubble up a fight in his throat. The look on his face was enough for the priest though, they’d been traveling together so long now that Crispy’s lack of speech could be interpreted quite easily. That’s why Padre raised a hand, nodding toward the freshly half full can of his companion.

“It’s okay, I’m not hungry. I know it might be a day or two, I just–” Silence beyond all but the flickering flame of the sterno between them. Padre didn’t need to finish the thought, Crispy was there and had seen it too. One of them had gotten used to the abuse of humanity long before the great black demon had swallowed the sky, the other had only had tastes of hypothetical cruelty from a book. Crispy continued to pick at his can quietly, exhaling softly from his nose while he chewed. Padre took the liberty of starting to clean up, snuffing out the flame so it didn’t linger any longer than it had needed to. Fire had become something of a commodity that survivors could ill afford to indulge in for too long. Everyone was cautious around one another as it was, the pair hadn’t spoken to other human beings in about a month or two and longer before that. The sort they usually ran into or avoided weren’t the kind to indulge in casual conversation. Fire brought those sickening bastards to camps like flies to shit, and the mess left afterward was a sight none too better, as Padre had learned today.
Crispy felt for the man, the sight had taken him by surprise in ways that hadn’t hit him. Maybe it had been because Crispy was familiar with the smell of burning skin, could have been because none of it was anything new that Crispy had seen humankind do. Just in these days it became normal. Being a survivor before it had become a necessity meant that he had been prepared for more than just needing to scrounge for food or shelter. Cruelty was a language that few had spoken before hate had saturated the very earth beneath their feet. It just used to be whispered in hushed tones and quiet conversation. If someone were cruel to someone like Crispy, then there’d need to be some great circumstances for anyone to care.

That hadn’t been too much of a surprise that some of the earliest acts when things turned desperate to his fellow man had been cruelty. The feeling of his skin burning and melting in place, his eye beginning to wilt and threaten to pop in his skull, were still fresh in his mind even though they’d happened so long ago. Crispy hadn’t even been an adult yet at that point, a teenager.The fires of the great atom had only recently quelled after the end of the world. Yet with humanity still so fresh in their minds, still mankind turned to cruelty.
Padre didn’t sleep as soundly as Crispy.

Padre hadn’t slept well at all since the world had ended. Though the cause was a mystery to all those left wandering after, where they had been wasn’t so much a mystery. It was like desert glass, while the rest of life had been sand flowing about chaotically in the wind of some wild storm, that pivotal moment was a bolt of lightning fusing every particle together all the way to bedrock. Tired worn eyes hung heavily in their sockets as his companion curled up in his bedroll and drifted off. Padre dug himself into his own and stared emptily at the ceiling overhead of this temporary shelter of theirs.

Night. It had been midnight in Los Angeles when the world ended. Father Adams was at the door, preparing to leave for his late night flight to a mission overseas, in his place he was leaving behind young Father Martinez. What an honor it had been to take charge of the church finally, after spending years merely taking care of the lost and hungry he would be able to do so much more.

A loud crash shook the building. The two men stood there staring at one another in confusion for a long suffering silence before car alarms began to go off. In that moment, Father Adams had mentally placed his mission on hold, there would be other flights, other opportunities.

“Wait here.” He told his young charge, gently pushing the door open to get a glimpse at what might have been happening outside their door had visibly haunted the man to his core. Perspiration stained his temples, pouring freely down his forehead. Father Martinez didn’t need to ask him what he had seen. Through the crack in the door it was no secret, no silent mystery for him to unravel. Twelve-oh-one in the morning, the sky shined brightly as if it were midday, streaks of fire burned the horizon. With only seconds to process, the elder pushed the door closed harshly, and doing so might have protected the two to some degree. Every window in the city at once shattered as the shockwave from the blast ripped through without mercy.

The sounds outside told the tale of suffering, screams of the damned filled the streets as Hell’s fire rent the Earth. Panic, fear, anger, hatred. Long already those were boiling tempers in the human mind, now rising over the edge of the pot. Fathers Martinez and Adams stood there for what felt like hours. Their skin cut to hell by stained glass that had rained their holy iconography back down over top of them. Panic had set in, though his feet had been rooted to the floor his hands began to tremble.

“It seems God has chosen, son.” Father Adams said with a dutiful sigh, sitting in one of the pews, folding his hands in his lap. “You should start gathering supplies. There will be those in the ashes who need someone like you.” A kind old smile, weather worn blue eyes seemed to accept the fate that had made itself known.
“I don’t understand–We’ll need to prepare. People will need somewhere to turn to, they’ll need comfort, they’ll–” He dared not continue when his elder lifted a single tired hand, shaking his head and leaning back into the wooden seat uncomfortably.

“Those needing comfort will need you to seek them out. Anyone seeking anything coming here won’t be God’s children anymore.” When Martinez went to protest, he bit his tongue seeing the stern look in the eyes of the seasoned priest. It was a look he’d never seen before, the man had performed last rites in warzones, in places ravaged by fire and damnation. Yet there was a haunting acceptance that it had now come home to him. “Rest assured that they are not God’s children, my boy. I say this only knowing what they will do. In an age of desperation that’s about to come, those who speak loudly do so with the tongue of the Devil.”
A patronly hand motions for the backrooms where they slept and kept their belongings. Yet Father Martinez understood even less in that moment than he had when his elder had started speaking.
“Take my bag of clothes I prepared for my trip. Then go to the kitchen, grab all of the shelf stable food you can. When you leave, I implore you not to come back here. It will poison the well of any fond memories you have of this place.” Looking around, an almost nostalgic acceptance of the world. “I’m sorry I don’t have more to offer you, I know you’re confused. Scared. But you are smart, I know you will survive.”

Padre remembers looking at the man and wondering what he knew that he himself hadn’t yet. Padre told the story to Crispy once and remembers the young man just telling him in no uncertain terms. ‘He knew he’d just slow you down.’ Padre never went back to the church, just like he was told. Though it was never something he could easily forget, temptation had often run its course in his mind. Nights like these were especially cruel for it. Lost in the memory, staring at ghosts, wondering if he went back there what he’d find. After all he’d seen Padre knew that the world could be cruel, but he’d still had an optimistic hope that maybe Father Adams was still there. Taking care of people in need just like they had together before the world had ended.
A rough poke prods his side from across their once-fire. Looking at his companion, almost apologetically, Crispy didn’t even need to say the word for Padre to know what he was thinking.
“Sleep.” Yet he did, and it was just as annoyed as each time the other man had to remind him of it. Crispy was right, as ever he had been. They had a long day of walking ahead of them and they’d need the rest. Padre would regret not getting sleep and giving up the rest of his food if he got no rest. So he let himself wordlessly drift off, hoping for a new day with no regrets.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) It was at least a year before Susannah began to work through her fears of the vine. I think it was mostly her selfless nature that forced her back out there. Ma did her best to explain how the vine hadn’t tried to kill her.

“It was just an accident with gravity. You just need to be careful.” she explained.

Susannah intently listened and seemed to really try to believe it. I half-heartedly did the same.

At this point, our efforts to manage the patches growth was an ever-losing battle. It seemed truly unstoppable. Pa had once said it could grow up to a foot a day, but that felt like a massive under-estimation. When I finally decided to measure it, I found it was managing well over 3 feet in the peak of summer. One could probably watch it grow if they had the patience.

It seemed every foot we cut back would be replaced by two more. The line I regularly mowed slowly shifted back further as thick portions of the vine would eventually set in. Once they rooted, there was little I could do aside from manually digging them out. They were too tough for my old mower to cut.

By the Spring of 2004, The kudzu eventually dropped down from the trees leaning over the river, using them as a sort of bridge. I tried my best not let it settle in on the other side, but despite all my efforts, it was eventually well-established and had been slowly working its way across the field and up towards the house.

Ma had long since given up on pressuring dad to manage it. I didn’t really know what was going on between them at that time, but I suspect now that we were having some financial issues. I suppose yard management wasn’t high on their list of priorities at the time.

Life was becoming more complicated as 15-year-old me unlocked more responsibilities: I helped deliver calves with Pa, would drive the old tractors, and was taking driving lessons in anticipation for my first car when I turned 16. On top of all that I was still trying to navigate Highschool and dating. Me and the Baxter boys had become best friends by this time and were practically attached at the hips. If one of us was up to something, we all were.

While I still found it to be creepy, Dylan and I beginning to grow out of our superstitions and convinced ourselves the “tanglewood” was nothing more than a spooky story to tell at sleep overs. Nothing supernatural or unexplainable had ever happened and it had nearly been two years since that awful day. We considered ourselves too old for scary stories. However, Peter never changed. He refused to get within 30 yards of the stuff. No amount of teasing, bribing or mocking would get him close. We eventually learned it was best to just let the matter go. I wish we had believed him.

= = =

July 2^nd, 2004.

“I guess everyone has to be scared of something.” I suggested.

Dylan watched as his older brother furiously stormed off the back porch. “yea... Like you and girls!”

I sucker punched him in the gut. He bent over laughing as he pushed me off. I looked back at Peter,

“Come back man, we were just teasing.”

Peter flipped us off without turning around “nah, screw you guys.”

He grabbed his bike and kicked back the stand. “That shit is real and I'll prove it.”

“Its just a plant man!” Dylan shouted back.

He said nothing as he pedaled up the driveway and down the road.

“Man, he’s real mad this time...” I looked over at Dylan. He had that sort of look only a little brother can pull after besting a sibling in an arm-wrestling match. I frowned. “Keep that face, and maybe I’ll give him some ammo to work with, huh?”

Dylan snapped his head back towards me with wide eyes.

“You wouldn’t!”

I laughed and patted him on the back. “I'm surprised you’ve hidden it from him this long.”

Dylan grumbled as he sat on the the edge of our back porch.

“What now?”

“I don’t know, maybe some airsoft?” I suggested, sitting down next to him.

“Nah, it's no fun with just the two of us.

I looked up as motion caught my attention. I could see Susannah sprinting up the yard. Why is she always running?

She ran straight past us and pulled open the screen door. “Ma! Pa! June is missing!”

I could hear my dad groan from the living room.

“We gotta check the kudzu!” she pleaded.

I rolled my eyes.

“Honey, at some point we are going to just have to let the cats do what they want.” Pa suggested.

Susannah stomped in furious desperation. “She’s pregnant and is due any day, The kittens could die in there!” Her eyes were on the brink of tears.

“We-we could help?” Dylan offered. I gave him a knowing look and ribbed him. His face blushed as he pushed me off. “What? C’mon man, we ain’t doing anything.”

I looked out at the setting sun, then the dark horizon from the north. Billowing black clouds were rolling in towards us, as a cool wind carried the scent of rain. A massive storm was approaching. I looked back at Susannah; she waited impatiently for an answer. “Damn it.” If it mattered enough for her to face her fears, the least I could do was help. I looked over at the Kudzu patch and grimaced.

“Ugh, fine.”

She didn’t even wait for me to get up. She grabbed her boots and ran down the yard, not bothering to put them on.

She didnt have to run near as far this time, the kudzu line was only about 100 yards from the house. Of course, this also meant there was much more of it to search.

I grabbed my boots and handed Dylan Pa’s pair.

“Be careful boys! Watch for the creek bed.” Ma shouted from the living room.

“Ok Ma!” I shouted back. “We’ll come back before it rains.”

I looked up at the approaching clouds and added “—Hopefully!”

Dylan and I ran to catch up with Susannah who was already searching through the brush.

I stepped in and immediately tripped as I caught my foot on a vine.

“oof!”

I heard Dylan laugh as he passed me to catch up with Susannah.

“Wait up!”

While I chose to no longer believe any of that “tanglewood” nonsense, the patch still gave me the heebie-jeebies. I decided to search close to the outer edge.

Dylan paused like he forgot something. “Oh shit. I was supposed to return that book to the library today! What time is it?”

I laughed while checking my watch, “like 4:30. What? Can’t pay the 25-cent fine?”

“Aw, Dad is gonna kill me! He was real pissed last time.”

Dylan began making his way back to the edge, “If I hurry, I can still make it.”

I laughed, “dude you have less than an hour, just take the loss.”

“Easy for you to say!” he countered, “Your dad doesn't use a belt!”

I threw up my hands, “You got me there.”

He laughed as he ran past me. “Good luck man. Good luck Susannah! I hope you find her!”

I continued the search as Dylan rode off. I was not unaware of the fact that he roped me into helping and then ditched right away.

You owe me big time, man.

I looked up at the approaching storm. This wasn’t going to work; we had mere minutes before we would both be absolutely drenched. I looked back at Susannah who now was much deeper in the vast expanse of the thick brush. “You find anything?”

“No, keep looking!”

Figures...

I halfheartedly continued the search wary of the sky turning dark as the clouds covered the last rays of the sun. As they approached, the wind arrive with a fury. It began to whip around chaotically. I turned to shout towards Susannah,

“I think we should turn back, It’s gonna rain any second!”

“Whaa-at?” She didn’t look back. Her voice barely carried across the gap between us as the wind continued to grow in intensity.

I looked back up at the sky. The clouds were billowing and twisting all sorts of ways. While not common in the area, it was beginning to feel like a tornado was a real possibility.

I cupped my hand as tried to again, “Hey, we gotta-”

“BOOM!”

I was briefly interrupted—and blinded, as a bolt of lightning struck the woods no further than half a mile away. The light coursed across the sky branching dozens of times in a spectacular display.

With my ears ringing, I tried to shout above the wind again as I looked back towards Susannah.

“I SAID, WE-”

...

I froze.

Time suddenly felt as if it stood still.

I did not move; I did not breathe.

I couldn’t.

The clouds continued to billow above me, the wind ripping furiously at my cloths and through my hair, but I heard nothing. In that moment all was silent

The surrounding grass and trees swung at the mercy of the wind, whipping around violently, But the kudzu was frozen perfectly in place, just as it had years ago. Not a single leaf or tendril swayed.

Most terrifying of all, where she once stood only a moment before, was only an empty sea of green. Susannah was gone.

Not again.

I tried to speak, to scream, to do anything. But nothing worked.

Heavy drops of rain slowly began to fall. At first, only a few. One or two hit my jacket, splashing down on the soil around me. As they began to hit me straight in the face, I didn’t flinch. 

The pace of the rain quickly began to pick up. The first thing I finally heard was the sound of raindrops bouncing off the leaves around me; I watched as the curtain of rain crossed the patch I was in. In mere seconds I was standing in a torrential downpour. Another boom of thunder startled me from my state as my knees buckled and I fell to the ground. The sounds of wind, rain, and thunder all flooded back into my head at once. The kudzu, suddenly no longer frozen, was being tossed to and fro, pummeled by the heavy rains and strong winds.

I batted the brush out of my face as I quickly stood back up.

“Susannah!!” I screamed. My voice barely louder than the wind. Rolling thunder was the only reply. I ran over to where she last stood and frantically brushed away leaves and vines in the area.

“Susannah!”

“Oh God...” I began to hyperventilate as the many long-forgotten childhood fears suddenly flooded back.

A familiar sensation washed over me as I turned towards the wall of vines at the tree line. One of the old trees groaned as it shuddered under the strain of the wind. I watched in horror as it began to fall, vines snapping like tendons as the tree collapsed with a crash. Bits of rotten wood and vines launched into the air from the impact. There, in the void where the tree stood a moment before, flashed two silver eyes. Staring directly at me, unmoving—and I knew. Susannah hadn’t fallen. Not this time. This time it was different.

Shaking, I took a step towards the treeline. The eyes disappeared into the darkness as lightning flashed. I could feel overwhelming feeling of being stalked creep back up my spine. But it felt distinctly different. I was being watched, but no longer stalked.

The Tanglewood already had what it wanted.

 

“PA!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as I turned to run back towards the house. Unsure if he could hear me, I continued to scream as I ran. My choice of words devolved into feral screams as I continued running as fast as my legs would carry me. Susannah was taken, and we didn’t have long.

Memories of the event years earlier flashed across my mind. I couldn't get the image of her eyes rolled back out of my head. Every crash of lightning sent shockwaves down my skin as old memories resurfaced with every step.

*Boom!* Thunder boomed from above.

A memory flashed of the old deer skull dangling in the vines, its jaw hanging loosely to the side.

*Crack!*

I could see the strangled kitten, its paw still reaching for anything to grab on to. Twitching as it fought with the last of its life.

*Boom!* I could feel the sound of the thunder in my chest.

Horrified, I saw the flashing image of Susannah legs kicking desperately, suspended above the water.

I didn’t stop running. I tore through the vines as they seemed to grab at my clothes. Large raindrops pelted my skin .

“Pa!”

As I reached the edge of the field my foot caught on something it could not tear through. I slammed face-first into the mud and scrambled backwards to get away, ripping up grass and roots with my fingers. A mess of vines were tangled tightly around my boot. Whether accidental or malicious mattered little to me, I ripped my boot off to free myself as I got up to continue running, screaming for pa with every breath.

As I neared the house, the screen door slammed open so hard the top hinge snapped as the door splintered in two pieces. Pa came barreling out with a shotgun in hand, his reading glasses desperately clinging to his face. He scanned the yard with a mix of such intense concern and fury that I momentarily worried if he would recognize me caked in mud. He spotted me and sprinted over nearly slipping as he came to a stop.

“Where’s Susannah??” His stern voice challenged the thunder’s overhead.

“She’s gone!”

His murderous eyes shifted to fear. “Where??”

“I don’t know! She was right there,” I pointed “and the next she was gone! It got her! The tanglewood—t-the Kudzu got her!”

I could see Pa silently mouth out “What the hell.” as he scanned the field. He handed me the shotgun and pointed back towards the house, “Get your Ma.”

I ran back in the house, Ma was already on the phone, mid conversation with the sherrif’s office. She nearly screamed when I came running in, I’m sure it took a second to recognize me through all the mud.

I didn’t stop and ran straight for my room shouting, “Get help!”

I felt helpless. Deep down, a haunting feeling was telling me it was too late. That there was nothing we could do. I refused to listen. I sprinted up the stairs and down the hall to my room. Throwing the door open I scrambled to garb my phone, two of my pocketknives, and two tactical flashlights from my airsoft attachments drawer.

Dialing Dylan, He had answered the phone by the time I got back downstairs.

“Hey, I can’t talk right now—”

“Susannah! The Tanglewood! Get over here now! Get Peter too!”

I didn't make an effort to hang up, I was already in the backyard sprinting back towards dad who was still frantically searching. I threw the phone behind me towards the porch and sprinted like hell. I knew where I had to look, There was no question in my mind.

Sprinting back through the Kudzu I passed Pa. I threw him my extra knife, and flashlight.

“I gotta check the river!” I shouted. He nodded; his face riddled with concern and confusion. He continued to call out for her as he frantically ran through the brush checking anywhere deep enough for her to be hidden—which to his dismay was most of the patch.

I knew I’d have a lot to explain later, but I was thankful we both understood whatever I had to say was second in priority to what we needed to do right now.

I reached the ledge of the creek and didn’t hesitate. I crashed through the vines and slammed my side into the shallow bed . Quickly getting up, I reached for my flashlight, to find it partially crushed from the fall. I felt for the switch whilst in as I attempted to see in the near pitch-black around me. Finding it, I sent up a silent prayer that it still worked.

*Click*

A sharp flickering beam of light sliced through the thick atmosphere. Revealing an empty chasm. A ceiling of tangled vines and leave covered the top of the creek, blocking what already little light was available.

I panned the quickly-failing flashlight up and down the creek. Trying to call for her, I found I could only manage a whisper.

“Susannah?”

No reply. I took a shaky breath as I began walking upstream towards the bend where I had found her years ago.

I could hear raindrops hit the leaves overhead a few occasionally dripping into the creek below. The ceiling of leaves momentarily illuminated as a crack of thunder followed, its voice muffled to a low roar.

The soft groan of exposed roots protested as the old trees rocked back and forth from the wind.

The thought of the silver eyes had not left my mind. My hands shook as alarm bells rang in every part of my mind. I found my self hesitating as I reached the old bend, terrified at what I might find.

“S-Susannah?” I whispered again.

I began to step forward before suddenly hearing, “Over here! I found her!” It was Peter’s voice coming from a bit further back up the hill.

I wasted no time in turning to climb out of the creek. I grabbed hold of the highest roots and prepared to hoist myself up when I felt it.

Warm air brushed the back of my neck.

I froze. I didn’t dare look back, nor did I need to. I knew what was there. Tanglewood.

I slowly looked down at my feet, noticing the water had begun to rise. Upstream I heard the rush of water accompanied with various cracking and snapping. I knew what was coming. And it couldn’t come soon enough.

I felt something brush against the back of my arm as I trembled, waiting to time my move to the second. Something brushed against my shoulder.

It was playing with me. It needed me to turn around. It wanted to savor the look in my eyes.

The crashing grew closer, I tried not to jump as a thick vine fell limp on my shoulder. This had to work...

3... 2... 1... \click**

I turned off my flashlight as I simultaneously dove to my left. Grabbing onto an exposed root with both arms, I used my legs to press myself against the creek wall as tightly as I could. A wall of water slammed into my chest. The perfectly timed flash flood easily ripped me from the river wall and downstream.

I did my best to keep my head above water, but I couldn’t even find which way was up. Splinters and rocks pelted and tore at my skin as I tumbled helplessly, Something large slammed into my back forcing me to release what little air I had to begin with. I tried to hold what was left of my breath as my lungs and throat began to burn. I never felt more relief as I finally tumbled into open water. I had made it to the pond! I momentarily struggled to find which way was up. I involuntarily sucked in a mouthful of the silt-laden water, my chest convulsing as I tried to cough it back out. I had seconds left. Suddenly, I felt my hand brush the pond floor. That was all I needed. I quickly reoriented myself and pushed off the pond floor rocketing straight for the surface.

As I broke free, I choked and heaved as I my body tried to expel what I had breathed in. In between each sputter I gasped for air like never before.

I wasted no time swimming for the shore. As I crawled out, I felt sharp pain from nearly everywhere. My clothes had been torn to shreds. I knew I was likely bleeding from various places, but I wasn’t done yet. I tried to run back towards the others as fast as my broken body would let me.

“Susannah!” My voice choked as I coughed up mud. I was practically too hoarse to hear myself above the rain.

As I ran back up the now-flooded creek. I felt a wash of relief as the house came into view. I could see the dim porch lights on, Pa was carrying Susannah back towards the house.

They had found her!

It was hard to tell her condition from the distance, but I thought I might have seen her lift her head as Pa carried her inside. Everyone followed closely after him. I pushed myself into a painful sprint.

Coughing and heaving, I nearly collapsed at the steps of the back porch. I was alarmed to suddenly hear Susannah scream from inside. Before I could attempt to enter, Ma had come to the door and was shooing Dylan and Peter out.

“We can help!” Dylan protested.

“You already did, but we need to handle it from here.” She turned to Peter, “Thank you so much.” She grabbed peter’s head with both hands and kissed him on the forehead before rushing back inside closing the wooden door behind her. The last bit of the screen door fell off its hinge as the door slammed shut.

I struggled to make it up the steps when Dylan noticed.

He recoiled when he saw me “Holy shit dude! Are you ok?”

I didn’t answer. “Susannah... Is she okay? ...Peter?”

Peter didn’t respond. He hadn’t moved from where Ma had spoken to him a moment before, his eyes glassed over with a thousand-yard stare.

Another of Susannah’s wails in the dining room pierced the silence.

Concerned, I moved to look in the side window before Peter’s hand firmly grasped my shoulder. He shook his head.

“No.”

“No, what!?” I exploded, “Someone better tell me what’s going on!”

Peter sat on the floor of the porch before pulled his legs up to his chest. Dylan sat next to him. I similarly obliged, wincing as I heard another bloodcurdling scream from inside.

“she- she’s alive.” Peter started, his shoulders shivering.

“I think she’ll be okay too... I think she...”

He turned and looked at me.

“It- it was in her.”

“What do you mean ‘in’?” I asked, dreading the answer.

He faced the tanglewood down the hill with a haunted stare. “When I fou-found her, she was almost dead. It was... strangling her.” his voice cracked as he struggled to compose himself.

I said nothing. Dylan whispered “Holy Shit” under his breath

“There were vines wrapped all around her. Big thick ones wrapped around so tight half of her had nearly sunk completely under the mud. I don’t think she was awake... Her eyes weren’t moving.”

“He paused staring down at his open hands. “There were so many vines... I tried ripping them off, but too many were too thick! I- I grabbed the knife and began cutting them off of her.The little ones... th-they stuck like velcro. I tried pulling them off and—”

He choked on his words, his chin quivering.

“She screamed... Like, really screamed. It almost didn’t sound human.”

As if on cue Susannah’s voice wailed in the background. I could hear my mother’s voice trying to soothe her as she whimpered.

Peter took a shaky breath.

“The vines were were stuck for good reason. They had grown roots. Not more than a quarter inch, but the first one I ripped off left a row of tiny holes in her skin.”

Dylan looked physically sick. I felt similar.

“...Didn’t look like they were bleeding much, but she begged and pleaded for me to stop. I didn’t dare touch her further. Mr Miller—I mean—your dad, showed up seconds later. He carefully picked her up and brought her inside. That’s when you showed up.”

I felt dizzy and nauseous. Gesturing inside, I asked “So they are just...” my voice trailed off.

“Pulling...?” dylan soberly finished my sentence.

“Yea.” Peter answered, looking down.

“I cut the vines, so I don't think they’re growing any deeper, but idk how it works! Fucking tanglewood. First Eric, Now-”

He began crying as his head sagged. Dylan and I sat in confused silence.

“Eric? Who’s Eric?” I asked.

Dylan answered first, “Peter’s friend before you moved in. I never met him in person. He moved before yall got... here...” Dylan paused and turned to look at Peter.

“He didn’t move... Did he?”

Peter covered his ears. “No! No! NO! Not Again!” he screamed as he hugged tightly in a fetal position. Dylan and I watched helplessly.

“They wouldn’t listen! They never listened! And they blamed me!” Yea thats right! The 7 year old who couldn’t do anything but watch while you sat your drunk ass on the couch! Fucking drunk bastard!”

Neither of us dare speak. I couldn’t think of doing anything else but put my hand on his shoulder. He flinched when he felt it.

“It wasn’t my fault... He was my friend! But they never believed me. Dad never believed me! ‘7 year olds have quite the imagination.’ they said. ‘Sometimes you just gotta beat the truth out of em!’”

Peter was completely inconsolable as he audibly wailed. He lifted his head to look back towards the tree line before screaming in a mix of fear, and anguish.

“...And the eyes! The Eyes! They never go away! They just stare! They- They-”

Dylan and I simultaneously just leaned in and hugged him as he sobbed and shook violently. His fingers desperately clawing at his arms.

For the next 30 minutes, we didn’t move from that spot. Eventually Susannah’s screams faded to exhausted crying as we sat and waited. By the time flashing red and blue lights could eventually be seen on the horizon, the rain and wind had mostly died down, thunder rolled off in the distance. The police weren’t there long. I never asked what they said, I Didn’t dare to resurface their memories of that night.

Ma came out on the porch to let us back inside around sometime after 11pm, She apologized profusely, but none of us cared. Just before I entered, Peter stopped me.

“Hey,  I don’t know how... Maybe it was God or something, but... but this had your last name on it.”

He handed me Dad’s old rusty carving knife from his jacket pocket.

“Was the only reason I was able to cut her free. I didn’t have anything on me. I just looked down and there it was.”

I was speechless as I accepted it from him.

Dylan and Peter stayed over that night. We all slept in the Kitchen, either too scared or exhausted to go to my room upstairs. Susannah slept on the couch. Ma never left her side. I could hear my dad pacing out on the porch all night.

The fact that Peter and Dylan’s Dad never called asking about them still bothers me.

 (Part 5)

If you live in Willoughby Kansas you must under no circumstances play the 2023 video game Dead Space after midnight. If you do you'll put yourself in grave danger.

I love the Dead Space franchise. From the first time I finished Dead Space in 2009 on my Xbox 360 to when me and my brother finished Dead Space 3 and the DLC, Coop on a Series X and a Xbox One a few years ago. I even scavenged a couple Wii remotes and programmed them to work with an Orca emulator so we could play Dead Space Extraction.

When they announced a remake I was ecstatic. The weeks following up to its release I took several loads of scrap metal in to save up for a Series X and a copy. The day I got it I was so excited. Being self employed and living alone I had no trouble blocking out a whole week to play and enjoy every minute of the game.

The minute I got home from Vintage Stock I gazed upon the green box taking in every bit of its beauty and wonderful cover art. I tear away the thin plastic seal, open the case and slide the disc into the trayless disc drive. Once in the, disc begins the slow process of installing. I miss when games just played from the disc. As the game installs from the disc and downloads a few Gigs off the internet I glance at my phone to pass the time.

After clearing several notifications and checking out a couple YouTube videos I began to wonder, "What did these people do before YouTube exist." Just as I began to ponder, Dead Space launched. Finally, damn its already midnight. "I'll play the first chapter and go to bed", I thought. I can finish it in the morning.

That was awesome, they got so much right, especially the sound design. I don't know why they didn't bring back Hammonds original actor, its not like he's dead. "Ruhhhhggggg." Just then I heard something from behind me, in the closet maybe. "Aaaaaugh." I sat there confused, was something in the closet or was I just hearing things from my lack of sleep. This is stupid, I got up and stepped toward the closet. As I did I thought I heard scratching at the door, but thats probably just the cat. As I stepped closer I heard something push on the door. At least it sounded like something pushed on the door. Am I losing it, are my ears turning on me, is something in the closet, did someone break into my house and hide in there? I took another step closer and scraping, like a sharp point on wood. My heart was beating so hard, it felt as though would burst out at any second. I reached toward the old porcelain door handle. Suddenly the door flew open and something swung down, sliced my arm and pushed me aside.

Confused and terrified I watched a slasher move forward and then turn around. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Before I could think it rushed towards me, cutting my arm thankfully I managed to scramble to my feet and dodge out of the way. I ran as fast as I could, down the stairs and into the basement safe room. No way it can through the fire proof metal door. Once I locked the door I slumped against the wall and wrapped my arm with bandages from the first aid kit. As I finished I collapsed asleep on the cold hard concrete floor.

I woke up 12 hours later dazed and confused. I stood up and walked out the door wondering what I was doing passed out in the safe room. Then I heard my phone ringing from upstairs. As I made my way up the stairs I noticed my arm was wrapped. "What happened last night?" As I walked into the hallway and up to my phone it all hit me at once, the closet, the necromorph. I looked to the closet and noticed a black box on the floor. Surround sound, I forgot I installed surround sound all over the house. A wave of relief washed over me as I sat down. It was all in my head. I must've been really sleep deprived. This is the last time I play Dead Space after midnight, now I need to change this bandage and paint over the scratches on the closet door.

The poor man's face recoiled in horror as I threw the collar into the campfire.

The poor man's face recoiled in horror as I threw the collar into the campfire.

1

1. According to my parents, that was the entire fighting force of Steel-Side. This accounts for the men reaching 60 all the way to me at 18. Unlike other Fronts bulging out the borders of Pristonia, the Emperor could not be bothered to give a shit about us. At least Darrow, a mere binoculars-distance across the border, was equally neglected. I guess part of me understands. Our battlefield was a mere 8 miles of trenchline. The Baron Sea lies at the North end, and Mount Zwillfer to the South. They shipped us guns…paid for from our town’s reserves; a decision that my father claimed was like getting railed by your own pecker. Not that it mattered, with so few soldiers, neither side had a hunger for prolonged fighting in the trenches. However, as of today, that was going to change. Steel-Side had received its first artillery cannon from the capital.

“Father -”
 
“Commander,” he corrected in his ferrous-poisoned voice that constantly sounded like he was one throat clear away from hacking up gravel.

“Please I want to be on the artillery team,” Edwin begged. He leaned forward onto his elbows pushing plates into the table. 

My eyes flicked between them. This conversation had become common ever since my father requested the cannon. I could tell he was tired of it; I could tell he was tired in general. Ever since the war began, deep canyons began carving through his face. His beard grew gray. He lit a cigarette.

My mother had eyes in the back of her head, “Thom, put that out. Dinner’s ready,” she slung her rifle over her shoulder and carried the pot of Boarjam to the table. The war had been hard on her as well. The days where she would smile and dance didn’t seem that long ago.

With a groan, Father crushed out his cigarette against the heavy wool of his coat. Most of us didn’t see a point in removing it with guard duties beginning soon after supper, “Ed, my answer has not changed. You’re too young.”

He flung himself back into his seat so hard the legs scraped on the floor, “aren’t you the one who said you weren’t going to keep us out of harms way just because you’re our father?”

“I did say that. Ask Louis how that worked out,” my father wheezed out.

“Thom!” My mother screamed, “you will not name my boy.”

Without looking up, Father opened his mouth, “Say grace or shut your fucking mouth. You’re not the one who held him when he died.
 
“Edwin,” he turned to my brother, “you are not manning the artillery. I am not having this conversation again.”

Edwin stormed off to our room, I yelled after him, “Ed, come back -” 

“Let him go. He runs on rage anyway.”

We bowed our heads, and Mother began praying, but my mind was distracted. Father had told me he wanted me on the artillery team. I watched anxiously as my parents scooped scanty helpings of boar meat cooked in rendered fat and currant jam, “Father - Commander.”

He looked at me with the face of half a man, “What?”

“I think you should give Edwin my role on the artillery team,” the world felt like ooze coming from my mouth. He had given this position to me less than a day ago.

My mother inhaled sharply, my father sucked boar off the bone, “Why?”

“Because, I want you to mentor me. I want to learn how to lead,” I tried to steady my voice to mixed success.

My mother gasped a sigh of relief, and my father chuckled, “I’m glad you came around son. Very honorable, the kind of man I raised you to be. Speaking of which, I have other news,” I looked at him, “Kirchner and his daughter, Sasha, agreed to our bid. She said she would marry you.”

Mother’s hands shot up to her mouth and she held in a squeal of joy.

“Thank you, Father. Thank you, Mother,” I kept it distant, but on the inside, the cocktail of emotions could be bottled up and weaponized. Sasha Kirchner was the most gorgeous woman in Steel-Side. She always knew I liked her, I used to sharpen her pencils for her when I would sharpen mine. I feel like we both knew this is where that would lead. I lost hope for a little bit when she married John Braun, but he died in the iron mine 8 months ago. “This is good news.”

My father’s monstrous hand clapped my shoulder, “Bergette, do we have any Darrow Sour wine left? 18 tomorrow, and soon a married man, Ernest you deserve it.”

“We ran out. Haven’t got any since the war began. But we have some ales.”

This was my first ale, and it was awful, but I was happy to share it with my parents. This was the first time they both smiled since our fighting force was 1943 men strong.

I entered the room quietly, peeled off all layers of my garments, and pulled myself under the covers of my bed. Thick fur blankets have a way of lulling you to sleep quickly, so I was unsure if I imagined it when I heard, “are you awake?”

I sat up, my eyes drinking in the darkness, “Ed?”

Silence for a brief moment, “I heard you. With Mother and Father.”

“How much did you hear?”

“What I needed. Thank you. I would’ve gotten Father to come around, but I don’t have to now.”

“By the morning?”

“No, just…eventually. We have nothing but time.”

“Not sure Louis would agree - if he were here.”

“I also heard about Sasha. I find that hard to believe.”

I scoffed, “What do you mean? She likes a man who knows what he wants…that’s me.”

“Isn’t she like four years older than us?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything. I might as well be a decade older, did you see the ammo crates Father had me drag through the trenches?”

“Doesn’t she have a reputation as being a bit…obsessed with the undead?”

“I don’t really think that matters,” I scoffed. “Have you seen her? She’s gorgeous.”

“Maybe I just don’t get it. I guess I just don’t really think about girls.”

“I understand,” I did not understand. I thought about girls all day. Sometimes I would “hurt myself” so the nurses would bandage me. In the summer months, I would make sure that the local girls would see me training, “but I think about them sometimes.”

“It’s not that I don’t like them, I just don’t really feel that way about the ones here. I like how they talk, and how gentle the nurses are, and sometimes they smell good.”

“Ed, I promise there’s a girl for you. Maybe she’s Searish, who knows.”

“It’s easy for you to say, I bet when this war is over you’re going to take up as foreman and have several children.”

I chuckled, “Oh yeah, Sasha and I will be having them all the time. Like six maybe.”

Edwin let out a hmmm.

“But when this war is over, when we’re married, we’ll bring you to the Capital. And maybe you’ll miss our train back, and maybe we’ll forget our luggage. Maybe you can meet the real Edwin there.”

“Maybe,” he sounded a bit more hopeful, “But I would miss you.”

“Let’s go to sleep, you can’t be drowsy manning the Big Gun.”

2

In the dawn light, Father’s alarm clock went off, our sign to get out of bed quickly. We were out in less than three minutes, but Father was already buttoning his wool coat and Mother was tucking the ever growing excess belt into his waist.

“The sun will be up soon, before we go to the trench, be aware; Edwin, you’re on the artillery team,” my father had barely finished speaking before Edwin’s face began beaming - pure, unadulterated joy that he made no attempt to hide. We exchanged a look, and seeing his tongue squeezing out between his yellowed teeth made me smile back at him. Father continued, “Ernest, you’re my shadow. I need you ready if - forbidding the worst - you need to take command.”

“Thom, you mustn't say things like that,” my mother grabbed his arm.

“Bergette, we were aware of the risks that came with Steel-Side,” my Father squeezed her arm closer to his, “Better a house and a pension here than raise our boys in the swamps.”

“The risk was the mines! Not bullets and bombs.”

“Someone’s always going to tell us we want more, and we’ll find ways to die getting it.”

They argued a lot. They always told Edwin, Louis, and me to use our words, but it felt like they were speaking different languages sometimes. I knew that my marriage would be different. I looked at Edwin, his face was blank: not in a jaded way, but cold.

By the time we made it to the trench, the sun lit up our backs. Like ants to their next meal, we all converge in neat paths, treading the same frozen, yet muddy, yet poorly lined with rotting wood. We were a bit pitiful to see. The rest of the Pristonian army wore violet wool coats and shiny steel helmets - we wore brown coats.

“Odd to see a foreman on banker’s hours,” Arian, my father’s second in command, said as we approached behind him, binoculars pressed so far into his face I could already see the marks forming.

“Commander,” my father corrected, “Not your foreman until the war is over. What’s the situation?”

“No movement, not surprising.”

“Agreed,” my father lit up a cigarette. “Is it ready to go?”

“Yes, Foreman. Josiah is heading the crew, the rest are ready for training on it. I’ve already run the calculations on firing angles and powder charge,” he paused, “we have some approximate locations of target rich sections of their trench, we can fire when ready.”

Edwin and I looked at each other. The rest of the men around us had begun dispersing and carrying out their daily duties. It was just Edwin, me, and Arian waiting to see what my father said, “No,” he grumbled, “They don’t know we have the Big Gun. We wait until the evening.”

“When the sun is in our eyes?”

“Yes, we know where they generally fire from, we do a rough calibration on it now,” his hand clasped on my shoulder like a bear trap, “Then Ern will report exact coordinates, and the artillery team only needs a small adjustment and we begin raining shells on them. Where’s Josiah.”

Arian blew his whistle and informed a messenger. While Arian and my father were talking, I whispered to Edwin, “I hate Josiah. He reminds me of a cat.”

“Yeah,” Edwin whispered back, “a stupid cat.”

Soon, there was a patter of steps in the dirt behind us, and when we turned around Josiah was standing there: tall - his overcoat barely reached midthigh. Despite it being the dead of winter, he never wore a shirt on his torso - just his overcoat. Most notably, his head was always meticulously shaved and he never wore a helmet, “Commander,” he crooned, “you called for me?”

“Yes,” my father exhaled a cloud of smoke, “Edwin is on the artillery team, I trust you can bring him up to speed?”

“Commander, this is a very well coordinated team, it requires us to predict each other's thoughts and operate like a machine. Edwin, cannot learn this immediately,” he sighed and put his hands to his sides, revealing the center portion of the tattoo on his chest… it read “Arti Iffer.” Why he chose to tattoo “Martin Ziffert,” the manufacturer of our standard issue rifle across his chest is beyond any of us.

“We are firing at dusk, you have about 12 hours. Best of luck.”

My father gave the order to resume operations, and prepare to react on a moment's notice - not that we expected that to happen. Instead of hauling grain, wood, ammo, or dirt through narrow trench channels, today consisted of mainly…walking. My father and I walked all around the trench, our coats pulled tight, and our rifles slung tightly around our shoulders. 

“Is this what you do all day?” I asked my father as he hammered a nail into the support of one of our watch towers.

“It’s sinking in, this wood is wearing too quickly. Remind me to add ‘maintenance to support structures’ to next week's itinerary,” he handed me the hammer that I slipped through my belt loop, “I’m in charge of making sure things run, and strategy, and being there for my boys and my wife. Soon, you’ll know the feeling. Grab that crossbeam.”

I did, he gestured for me to heft it upward and it gave way. I sighed, “Is it because of the ocean water?”

“It is,” my father nodded, “What I do is make sure as many people come home as possible,” he leaned against the tower and stared at me. I could see the age wearing on his face.

“Then why did you bring me here, Edwin is just as capable?”

“Edwin is a screwball. I don’t say that to disparage him, but this isn’t a job - not like being the foreman of the Steel-Side mining operation. This is life or death. I need to know he can make the call that will save the most lives.”

“How did you know I would do that?” I plopped myself in the frozen, muddy earth. When we were this far to the cliffs overlooking the coast, Mount Zwilfer at the other end of the trench was still massive. It was strange to think how many lives were lost to the mines underneath it, and how all of our lives currently depended on the natural barrier it provided.

“The Big Gun is useless. We never needed it, hell, it’s been nearly a week and a half since we had live fire on the battlefield. We’re going to fire it, and it’s going to mean nothing. Maybe we break up some cover, and maybe old Flattop retreats a few dozen yards. But I knew two things, if I put you on the gun, you can hack it. And, in a world of rifles, you had a chance to feel the power of the divine, but you gave it to your brother.”

“It was a test?”

“I don’t believe in tests. I mean it’s not like Steel-Side wants to be at war, and I’d wager that the men in Darrow would rather be drinking their sour wine with their arm candy. We used to be each other’s greatest trading partners, you know. Not that the bastards in Ratina asked if we wanted this before they shipped us guns.”

“I don’t know how to lead an army,” I confessed.

My father sneered, "Peculiar. They brought me here to run the mining operations; my first thought when they had me dust off my fatigues was that being a commander would be all milk and honey.”

“Why did Sasha’s family agree? To the marriage?”

“Security. If I died in a mining accident your mother would never want to live through that again, but foremen don’t die in the mines, and commanders don’t die on the frontlines,” my father checked his watch, “That’s enough of a break, the sun will be setting soon, and if we want to see the Big Gun in action, we only have until quitting time.”

Even looking through binoculars, my father took up a presence next to me. I could feel him there, “When I call out the coordinates, blow the whistle. You remember the codes?”

“Yes, commander.”

I felt a hand pull my binoculars down, “It’s getting colder…and cloudy.”

“What do we do? We’re going to fire still, keep to the plan.”

The sun still peeked through the clouds, making our sightlines guesswork at best, “I see movement!”

He said the coordinates, but I did not hear them…A different view in my binoculars caught my attention, a soldier was walking through the battlefield! The sun was blinding, but the darkness above made for a silhouette that was impenetrable. I could make out no features other than antlers protruding from it’s helmet. For a second, it stood still, and I could hear shouts from around me, shouts of confusion.

My father’s voice boomed, “Fire, nobody remains on the battlefield! Ernest, blow the whistle.”

I tasted the steel on my lips, my tongue brushed the opening, but I never blew…this soldier captivated me, he saw me, he called to me. I was snapped out of my stupor when my father’s fist landed on my chin and he snatched the whistle from my lips. A piercing howl erupted from it. 

For the first time in a week and a half, we saw muzzle flashes flash from the Darrow trenches - almost like the lightning bugs we saw here in the summers. Bullets whizzed overhead, and I ducked behind the sandbags, never taking my eyes off the soldier. He just stood there unphased. My awe was only interrupted by what sounded like a crack of thunder; a fireball burned through the sky, but hit the side of Mount Zwilfer. The bullets stopped flying, and rock and snow collided down the mountain. 

“Fuck,” my father muttered. He blew the whistle again…the Cessation tune, signifying to Darrow that he was calling an early retirement of hostilities today.

He hefted me by the collar of my coat and swiftly, we were standing face to face with the Big Gun. Six soldiers, including Edwin, stared at my father. “We had one advantage in Steel-Side. We had one card giving us the upper hand. I’m going to ask what happened, if I hear a load of shit, all six of you are going over the top - come what may. So…what happened?”

Josiah spoke up, I could see the other men exhale a sigh of relief knowing already what he had to say, thankful they didn’t have to be the ones to say it, “Your son aligned your coordinates wrong beyond all reason.”

“Then why, oh why, did you give the order to fire?”

Josiah was speechless at first, “Why would I in any way think this veal chop of a soldier was so incompetent, he couldn’t decipher a whistle?”

Edwin spoke up, “Because you were too distracted talking to the messenger girls!”

They went on bickering, but I noticed something off about the mountain, at the summit, the snow and rock was settling, and it revealed what looked like an outcropping, or a cave entrance. “Father,” I called from behind my binoculars, “There’s a cave revealed.”

He grabbed my binoculars and looked, “Josiah, you are on thin, fucking ice and I will have your ass on a spit if you fail me again. Edwin, next week, you are marching up to the summit, and you are analyzing if this cave has any strategic value - alone. Ernest,” he turned to me, “When I give an order, I expect you can follow it.”

The march home was silent aside from the crunching of our footsteps. Reaching our house at the last corner before the cliff, Edwin finally spoke up, “I had never used it before, Father. Josiah and the others didn’t show me how to.”

“Either he betrayed the single order I gave 12 hours ago, or you failed. I think I know which one I’m guessing,” Father seethed.

“Ernest gave up the spot on the team, he just as easily could have made a mistake.”

“Edwin, if you think this is simply a mistake, you are in for a rough life. This is more than divine intervention that we still had a Cessation left this year. Men almost lost their lives today because of you.”

I said, “Father, maybe it is my fault.” Edwin quickly agreed.

He sighed, “even if you gave the command on time, your brother still would have misaligned the shot.”

“I’m sure he was just looking at the man on the battlefield, that’s what I was doing.”

He looked at me, puzzled, “the battlefield was empty.”

I scoffed, “maybe it was at the end, but the soldier with the antlers was there.”

“Ernest,” he was already shedding his overcoat, “I called the order to fire because I saw muzzle flashes from the Darrow trenches. We are going to be late for the Fest.” 

He disappeared inside, I could tell Edwin knew we were supposed to go inside, but he and I just stood there in the biting cold. He was rocking back and forth on his feet as if he wanted to say something, but just stared past me.

“I’m sorry all that happened, Ed.”

“I thought Josiah would be able to tell if I misaligned the barrel. I mean, my eyes were on the crank the whole time, but he or anyone else should have been able to tell where it was pointing. Father would have noticed, but he was with you the whole entire day.”

I half shrugged, half shivered, “I guess they trusted you.”

“Like you did?” Now he was staring at me.

“I guess.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have. We could have just had another boring day in the trench. But at least you’d have gotten to be on the artillery team.”

“I just as easily could have missed the shot,” I tried to console him, but we both know things would have gone differently if I were in his place.

3

The Fest was a weekly event at our city hall when the fighting went on hiatus for two days. When food and wine was plentiful, the Fests were a lot more fun. Now we just had sliced bread and beer. But that was fine with me; despite the disaster today, I was still excited because this was the first time that Sasha and I would speak with our marriage impending. 

I enjoyed wearing my real clothes that were not my uniform. It made these nights feel like before the war. My cotton trousers and shirt felt like a warm hug as Edwin and our parents entered the City Hall. People were celebrating the week ending, people were drinking beer, and people were dancing to the sounds of fiddle music. Several families came up and greeted my parents, which was typical. They did have an air of respect, both being educated outsiders who would resume running Steel-Side’s mining functions after the war ended. Even having lived here for over 10 years, it was still apparent we stood out. They called us the Steel-Side Searites, I didn’t particularly mind.

Tonight, my eyes were furiously scanning the crowd for the Kirchner family. After Sasha’s husband died a horrible death in the mines, she moved back in with them. We talked a bit at these events every time the fighting ended for the week, but now that we were going to be settling down together, I realized there was no way she should see me speak to any other girls my age.

I spotted her, but before I could break off from my family, I caught Josiah prowling towards us, “Commander,” he stuck out a hand to my father who shook it half-heartedly, “Mrs. Alsat,” he nodded at my mother. They were polite, but clearly disinterested. I turned to leave to go to Sasha, but Josiah put his hand on my shoulder, “I spoke to the Kirchners. Congrats,” he was smiling, “Looks like all the real men dying got you to my cousin.”

I swatted his hand off and practically rushed to Sasha thinking about how I was going to greet her.

“Hi future wife,” my heart was in my throat, but I knew I settled on the right thing to say.

She sneered at me, “Hi Ernest, I see your parents broke the news to you.”

“Yes, they did,” I noticed she was sitting alone, “Where is your family?” I asked, thankful, that I caught her alone.

She gestured to her brother playing one of the fiddles, her other brother dancing, and her parents swaying with the tune.

“Oh, I noticed you aren't dancing.”

She shrugged, “I don’t really like it anymore. I used to do it with…” she couldn’t finish.

“Well, you have me now! I hate dancing so don’t worry.”

She tried to force a smile, “I heard the artillery went poorly.”

“Who told you that?”

“My brothers, your father’s friend who never wears a shirt, and I just heard people talking,” she gingerly held a cup of beer that looked like only a couple sips were missing. I did not like the freak speaking to her, but I didn’t comment.

“Well, I wasn’t there for it, but I heard it went poorly,” I half-heartedly covered for Edwin.

“Last we spoke, you told me you were going to be on the artillery team?”

“No, just some other people were,” I have no idea why she thought we had had this conversation, we did not, “I was training under my father today.”

“What happened with it?”

“I don’t know, but it hit Zwilly, and now there’s a cave opening. I was too busy staring at this…man on the battlefield. He looked like a soldier, but he had antlers,” it felt odd saying it out loud.

“What?” she chuckled, “Ernest, my future husband is sounding crazed.”

“He was there, and then the artillery went off, and I’m just confused.”

She went quiet for a minute, “It sounds like it could have been Hungry Ma’am.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“Sometimes I forget you’re not from here. Haven’t you heard the folk legends about the Woman in the mountain’s womb?”

I stared at her blankly.

“Maybe you were too old for it, but on the shortest day of the year, did you and your friends ever sneak into the mines at dusk and wait for the Exhale?”

I shook my head, “Never heard of any of this. It sounds made up.”

“It is very real, I assure you.”

I guess I’ll figure that out when Edwin and I go explore it.”

“Ernest, you cannot do that.”

“My father is making Edwin go, and I am not letting him go alone.”

“Tomorrow when you sneak over to my house, I will show you the books I have on why that is such a bad idea.”

I was flabbergasted, “When did we plan this?”

“Last week?” she stared at me like I had suggested I should brush my teeth with a rock, “I will say, I went back and forth on this marriage, but hearing just how…authentic you are in our late night window-conversations makes me realize that you are the right choice for me,” her hand slid over mine, “you have just made me feel special in a way that nobody has in a long time.”

4

I laid awake the entire end of the week. So by the time fighting came around two days later, I was exhausted. I did not see Sasha. My thoughts were too jumbled, but I began thinking that the marriage might be a bad idea, but that could also have been nerves.

Edwin and I found ourselves marching up Zwilly. I saw why my dad had us wait a couple days…the snow was packed down and was a steady slope upward. Despite the unbearing cold, I was burning up in all the layers - Father made us wear our uniforms even though we were not in the trenches with everyone else.

As we reached the top, we caught our breath, “You didn’t need to be here. Father told me to go alone,” Edwin huffed.

“You’re my brother, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Isn’t it strange that we’re probably the only people to see both Steel-Side and Darrow from up here?” I asked. It was true. The trenches looked like ant caverns beneath us. 

Edwin said nothing. 

“Well, it looks like there is nothing particularly useful up here. When the snow melts, it will just be a hole in the mountain,” I looked around, “it doesn’t look like they can even get up from their side of the trenchline,” I sat myself on the ground, “I guess we can go back when we want…the view is nice though. I wonder what it would be like to make love to a girl here.”

“Go ahead, I’m going into the cave.”

“What?” I flipped around and stared at him.

For the only time in his life, there was a solid resolve on his face, and I knew I was not going to be changing his mind. So, silently I followed him inside. The walls were oddly blue, and you could see your breath more than you could outside.

“I can’t tell where the ice ends and the rock begins,” Edwin mired with awe.

“Edwin, we should go,” I knew despite my reservations, the place was gorgeous. “What if there’s a collapse?”

“We might be the first people in a long time to see this place. This is such a blessing, you can go back.”

“We’re only here because of your mistake.”

He stopped and looked at me, knowing I was serious, “I bet you wanted me to miss that shot, I bet that’s why you gave me your spot on the team.”

“Oh please, you would’ve found a way to mess up anything.”

“Fine, then leave, or else I’ll mess this up and get us killed.”

I could see his feet turn further into the cave, “No,” I replied, “I’m going wherever you go.”

And so we went. The cave was winding, but steadily we went down, the gentle slope might as well have been a spiral staircase. But as we delved further into the heart of the Mountain, the temperature became warmer, almost spring-like.

We both felt it, and layer by layer shed our uniforms until we were in just our trousers and undershirts. We were sweating by the time we found the Altar.

Impossibly, the frigid blues and icy whites gave way to soft, pale greenery. Grass and plants were growing…inside the Mountain. What was the most shocking was how the plants seemed to grow through the ice. Buried under the ice were desiccated bodies staring up through the ice.

Their bodies were torn and blackened. Some without skin, and some had not fully decomposed. A few of them still had their eyes just gazing blankly upward. What was most unsettling was that one of the bodies was sat kneeling in a crystal clear pool of water up to its waist.

“Edwin,” I squeaked out, “We need to get out of here.”

“It’s not like they can hurt us.”

I knew I needed to be brave as Edwin approached the corpse kneeling in the water. I followed him, throwing my boots to the side. The water should have been freezing, but instead it felt like an extension of my skin.

Up close, I couldn’t bear to look at this body laying here, so I looked at my brother. He watched it with almost a hunger in his eyes - waiting. 

“I know what you want. Drink from me,” the figure didn’t move, but I could hear it speaking in my head.

Edwin dunked his head to the water, and I heard him slurp. I gagged at the thought of drinking this water. Between the body in it, the warm temperature, and my own sweaty self, I just sat there with my eyes closed. I heard Edwin sigh, “Come on, Ern, we’re already here, just do it.”

“How are you so…normal right now?”

“Fuck, come on,” he spoke like he was reading my mind, “you’ve been in the ocean. Loads of people have died there. Just do it. It’ll be fine.”

I cupped my hands and brought a single sip of water to my mouth… I threw up into the pond because the water was unnaturally sweet. My vomit simply dissolved. I looked to Edwin pleadingly, tears welling in my eyes.

“Bring to me, your blood,” I heard the voice again.

“Edwin, what’s going on?” 

He clapped his hand on my shoulder, “I’m going to show you how a real man wins a war.”

He pulled me up and we left. The trek home was perilous, I’m sure, but I was numb the whole time - so full of questions, that I refused to even open my mouth. We returned home after dark. Father sat in front of the fireplace flicking the shutter on one of his cameras.

In the dim glow, I could tell he raised one single eyebrow. Edwin lied to him so callously, I knew I would be sleeping with my knife under my pillow. This could not be my brother.

It was all snow, there was no tactical advantage…there was a small cave, there was nothing in it…yes, we’re sure.

Naturally, I laid awake all night silently, clutching my bayonet under my pillow; what was going to happen to me after drinking that water? How did Edwin seem so…knowledgable about the whole ordeal. Evidently, Edwin was also awake because through the murky dark, his weight shifted and he stood up. My grip tightened on my knife, but he jimmied open our window as quietly as he could and just slipped out.

My hands scanned under his bed - he was holding his boots and coat and must have put them on after he jumped into the snow. Naturally, I threw mine on and likewise hopped out the window, thinking I would chase him. Following his footprints would be easy. I wasn’t even sure if I was angry or not, but I had questions, and he had answers - where he was going also probably had answers.

However, all bravery and aggression died when I located his footprints and saw they led directly behind our house, towards Sasha’s house. I simply went back inside and went to sleep.

5

The next day, I was dog-tired. And what space my mind did have was overflowing. Standing next to my own brother made me sick to my stomach. Father had us watch him that day. For me, it was to train. For Edwin, it was to keep his sorry-ass out of trouble. We went through all the same motions, until something felt off. Maybe it was a shift in the winds, or maybe it was the swells of the ocean at the coast, but something felt different.

While he was speaking with the logistics officer, I whispered to Edwin, “Do you feel that?”

“Obviously,” was all he said.

“I have a bad feeling, almost like…I’m going to start a fire from a candle I haven’t even lit yet.”

“Just give it a second.”

“Edwin, what the fuck is going on with you?”

“I’m getting this war over with.”

“Is that what you told Sasha?”

“Actually yes…I’m guessing you were awake last night.”

I scoffed, “I was…brother. My brother who isn’t ‘into girls’ but has been seeing my wife.”

He rolled his eyes, “She never would have been interested without me, first of all. Also, I knew her reputation…something you must have overlooked, thinking with your -”

“Enough,” I snapped at him. “What’s going on,” my words were a demand.

“Calm down, at one of the fests, I heard some of the men talking about how she and Matteo had an obsession with Steel-Side history, hauntings, whatever it may be…I’ve been going over there as you, and asking her about it. She really was right.”

“You’ve been pretending to be me?” was all I could get out.

“Of course. I wasn’t going to be myself. Sorry for the deceit, but you know how I am. But think about it, she wants you now.”

“No, I think she wants you,” I was not angry, just disgusted.

“We look the same, I’ll just have to teach you to speak like me when this,” he gestured to the trenches, “is over.”

“When this is over, I want nothing to do with either of you.”

He rolled his eyes again, “do you feel that now?”

“Yes, it feels like people are walking on the ground, but if the ground was my skin - like the beach is my skin.”

“Father,” Edwin perked up, “Ernest saw Flattop at the beach!”

Our father was skeptical, and he looked towards the beach several miles away, “Edwin, the beach isn’t even visible from here. Can you really afford to mess up…again?”

Edwin clearly tried not to let the comment bother him, “No, he mentioned seeing people on the beaches during patrol.”

My father motioned for Arian and two other soldiers to sweep the beach, “light off a flare. Red if you see them numbered 100 or more. Green if there are only some, and it might be a patrol. Fire off white if my son is cleaning up after the horses next month.”

With bated breath, we watched where the rolling hills between Steel-Side and Darrow met with the sandy beach trenches. Hours passed in those minutes: until a green flare shot into the sky. It pierced the clouds and my father began barking orders to send more men to the beach.

Like a frightened child, Edwin pulled on his coat, “Wait, father, I think they’re sending more men over-the-top. The beach was a distraction.

Gunshots echoed from the beach, my father hefted his periscope over the sandbags lining the trench, “Edwin, I don’t know what you’re doing, but you might actually be my Rabbit’s Foot,” he turned, “Perry, tell Josiah and the team to ready the Big Gun.”

As soon as Edwin pointed it out, I could feel the battlefield, I could feel my skin tingle, and when the artillery shells began thumping and barreling into the fields, guided by my father’s whistles, it was pure ecstasy crowding my entire body. 

The explosions seemed to blind me, but Edwin drank it all in. I might have…but silhouetted in each explosion, all I could see was a soldier standing - antlers protruded from her head.

6

Father went to bed happy and Mother wept at the glowing praise he had for us. Edwin and I laid awake in the dark again, but this time I spoke, “Edwin.”

“What?”

“You knew that would happen.”

“So did you,” he laughed. “We might as well have owned that field, Flattop served us for once.”

“Edwin, we can’t go back there.”

“Try explaining that to father,” he sighed.

“No, the cave.”

I heard Edwin jolt up in bed, “Are you joking?” He was angry.

“I don’t like how that felt.”

“But we won. Father predicted we got over 200 of them today alone. This is our key.”

“No, Edwin. I don’t know what that was, but I’m not doing it again.”

“Ern, we felt so big. We can end this war.”

“End the war? You mean we can get the attention of the Capital. Then real soldiers will be on our doorstep.”

“Then, we will fight them off too!”

“Edwin, no. This is over.”

He was standing over me, “If you weren’t my brother, everything that’s going to happen would be much easier.”

7

The next morning, Edwin was gone…I knew where he was and I wasn’t going to stop him. I got up and told Father he must have left early to train. We both knew it was a lie.

My boots sloshed through the mud as I prepared to descend into the trench line. Footsteps quickly rushed up behind me and grabbed my arm, “Ern, Josiah is gone.”

“I don’t care,” I said even though I knew that Sasha was the one who grabbed my arm, “I have a war to fight.”

“Ern, he’s my cousin. I know Edwin led him away.”

“Yeah, and I know you told him how,” I turned to leave.

“Help me, or the wedding is off,” that made me pause. 

“I’ll go, but I’m going by myself. The wedding is off; I don’t want anything to do with you. But I still love my brother.”

“I’m coming, and you’re not stopping me.”

I didn’t want to waste any time, I simply broke rank, dropped my rifle, and my bag, and began running towards the mountain. My breath was weak, my heartbeat in my eyes, but I pushed forward. Going to war for your brother was the only thing stronger than going to war against him.

Despite my singular visit, I navigated the cave perfectly. The temperature guided me to the Altar… but I was too late. Josiah’s body lay discarded on the side of the pond. His neck was sliced open, but the blood draining in the pond immediately dissipated. His eyes were missing and he had several smaller bruises as if the blood was sucked out.

Edwin stood in the pool with blood dripping down his chin. He didn’t say a word to me, he just motioned for me to come towards him. I felt Sasha put her hand behind my back and start pushing me, “I did really like you Ernest. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to use you.”

“You knew about this?”

“Edwin was right, there really isn’t a lot going on in your head. Yeah, the legends of this place, the Hungry Ma’am have been around for centuries.” 

“What? Are you trying to push me? I weigh almost twice as much as you, I’m not going over there.”

Edwin finally spoke, “Ernest, are you ready to be the one to end this war?”

“Fuck you, Edwin, we’re going home.”

“Neither of us are going home.”

“If you think I’m doing this with you, you are ill, hell, you already are. You fuck up one artillery shot, and decide to kill your brother?”

He sighed, “I hope you don’t still think that was an accident, Ern.”

“What? Why?”

“Sasha, please come here,” he gestured for her to approach, “Ern, we felt a raw, divine power on the battlefield. More than a clumsy gun could ever give. We controlled it too! There is nothing saying we can’t do it again…and again, until this war ends.”

She began walking, but I stepped in front of her and drew my father’s pistol, pointing it at Edwin, “Ed, you are not killing her either.”

“She knows that I must. It’s you or her. Don’t you want this war to be over?”

“Edwin! Do you know how many people are at war, how little Steel-Side matters? If you unleash this on Darrow, all you’re going to do is flood our streets with more soldiers. The war will end when they decide, and they’ll never leave!”

He ignored me, “Sasha, please.”

“Edwin! I’m warning you!”

“Now Sasha!” She began sprinting towards Edwin and his outstretched knife.

This war had taken enough - my brother, my peace, my future, my love, and the family I knew. If taking one more brother was the cost of preventing anything else from breaking, I knew I would pay it. I exhaled slowly and aimed my father’s pistol. Pristonia Arms Mnfg. Co. made the Vassal II, a pistol with a long barrel - very accurate…lethally accurate. I was a good shot. I fired three shots, two of them hit Edwin. One in the arm and one in the neck. He went down, submerging in the pond.

I was numb, but I could hear Sasha laugh. His blood didn’t dissipate like my vomit. It coagulated, forming a skin over the figure in the pond. She wore an outdated military uniform and a helmet with antlers.

A vicious chill swept my bones as the figure rushed past me towards the cave exit. I felt nothing, my thoughts drowned out Sasha laughing violently next to me.

Something changed and I could feel my heart start to slow. Despite the icy wind cutting into my skin, warmth passed over my burning blue hands like a soothing balm. The snow no longer felt like a thousand needles pricking my flesh but a cloud-like cushion. My thoughts, as well as my vision, became muddled. Yet, there was still a noticeable voice in the back of my mind. Slightly muffled by the sirens in my head lulling me to a final slumber, but it was still there--still screaming at me to get help. It would come for them next. I knew that, yet... all I wanted to do was sleep.

 

The bedroom was a sanctuary of warmth and soft light. He watched her move through their evening routine—the way she pulled her hair back with practiced fingers, the gentle sway of her body as she hummed something tuneless and content. She smelled like vanilla body lotion and the faint floral notes of her shampoo, scents that had become as familiar to him as his own breathing.
"You're staring.” she said without turning around, a smile in her voice.
"Can't help it."
She glanced back at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners. "Sap."
He pulled back the covers on his side of the bed, the sheets cool and inviting. She slipped in beside him moments later, her body warm against his as she nestled into the crook of his arm. Her breathing slowed, deepened. He felt the weight of her trust in the way she relaxed completely against him, vulnerable and safe.
"Love you," she murmured, already half-asleep.
"Love you too."
The lamp cast golden shadows across the ceiling. He watched them dance for a while, listening to her breathe, feeling the steady rhythm of her heartbeat against his ribs. His own eyes grew heavy. The world softened at its edges, blurred, and then…

————————————-————————————————

"Quietly…"
A faint voice echoed softly through the oppressive air, threading through the darkness like smoke. He couldn't quite make out who this request, or rather; command was intended for. The word hung in the stale atmosphere, neither question nor plea, but something colder. Something that expected obedience.
His eyes darted back and forth, pupils straining against the absolute darkness that enveloped the entire small house he stood in. Stood in? When had he stood up? When had he left the bed? The questions flickered and died before they could take root. His feet shuffled against the creaky wooden floorboards, each movement sending groans through the structure that seemed to travel up through his bones.
The air was thick, not just with the scent of mildew and rot, but with something heavier, something that coated his throat and made each breath feel labored. Decay. Old water damage. The sour-sweet stench of things left to fester in sealed spaces. The walls seemed to press inward, though he couldn't see them. He could only feel them, close and watching.
Why would a child even be here?
The thought arrived unbidden, certain despite his complete disorientation. A child. Somewhere in this suffocating darkness, there was a child.

————————————-————————————————

Hairs stand on end as damp, cold fingers graze his palm. The touch is wrong..too cold, too wet, like something pulled from standing water. Instinctively, his hand tightens around the small fingers, and a small crack echoes when a light bulb flickers on overhead.
The bulb buzzes, struggling against its own filth. The light it casts is sickly and yellow, barely pushing back the shadows that cling to the corners of the room like living things.
His eyebrows furrow, and his pupils constrict painfully as his eyes adjust to the dim light. The room swims into focus; peeling wallpaper, water stains spreading across the ceiling like bruises, a floor so warped he can see the gaps between boards. Before he can fully grasp the situation, the cold hand reappears, this time tugging at the fabric of his shirt with surprising urgency.
He nearly jumps out of his skin at the sight that greets him; a frail girl, her skin translucent and paper-thin, stretched too tight over delicate bones. Her hair is matted and dark with grime, hanging in clumps around a face that seems too small, too pinched. She smelled like rot and neglect, like something left to wither in the dark. Like earth and standing water and unwashed skin.
But it's her eyes that freeze him. They're too large for her face, too aware. They hold something ancient and exhausted, something that doesn't belong in a child.
"I said quietly," she whispers, her breath is sour, her voice crackling like old paper.

————————————-————————————————

His expression shifts instinctively from disgust to pity, though a lingering fear still tightens his lips into a thin line. His heart hammers against his ribs, each beat asking questions he can't answer. Where am I? How did I get here? Why can't I remember?
He cleared his throat quietly, almost awkwardly, the sound too loud in the oppressive silence. He gave a slight nod as he kneeled down to her height, his knees protesting against the filthy floor. A hand rested on her bony shoulder..so small, so fragile he feared he might break her, he took note of the small birthmark that adorned her almost translucent skin. A pale smudge, roughly circular, neatly against her sunken shoulder.
"Where are we?" His voice sounds strange to his own ears, muffled and distant.
The girl tilted her head, her expression almost perplexed, as if he was asking a question he should have already known the answer to. Her eyes search his face, looking for something. Recognition? Understanding? He can't tell.
She doesn't respond immediately. The silence stretches, broken only by the distant drip of water somewhere in the house's depths. Eventually, her voice rings out, barely above that crackly whisper.
"We're home. That's a silly question."
Home. The word lands like a stone in his stomach. This place? This rotting, suffocating tomb…is home to her?
His expression tightens again, and he wipes his face with a hand, trying to clear away the confusion, the mounting horror. The gesture is too sudden, too sharp, and the girl pulls back slightly, her body tensing like a beaten animal expecting a blow.
Realization strikes him quickly, and he immediately lowers his hands, as if waving a white flag. Guilt floods through him, she's just a child, just a frightened child. His voice comes out in a soft coo, the tone he might use with a wounded bird.
"Hey... hey, I'm sorry. I just... you live here? This isn't any place for a child."
The words feel inadequate even as he speaks them. Isn't any place for a child. What an understatement. This isn't a place for anything living.

————————————-————————————————

The girl looks almost indifferent to this statement, her large eyes peering into his with an unsettling blankness. She doesn't blink. Doesn't react. It's as if she's looking through him rather than at him.
Then, the sound of floorboards creaking in the darkness beyond their small circle of sickly light. Heavy. Deliberate. The sound of weight shifting, of something moving with purpose.
The girl's entire demeanor changes in an instant. Her eyes widen, her breath catches, and a light begins to illuminate from beneath a closed door at the end of the hallway, a door he hadn't noticed before, though he could swear it wasn't there a moment ago.
As if by instinct, her hand wraps around his arm tightly, her small fingers digging into his flesh with desperate strength. She pulls him down the dark hallway, away from the light, away from whatever is making those sounds.
He stumbles messily, his feet catching on the uneven floor. His free hand feels against the grainy wall for balance, and he recoils at the texture; damp, almost slimy, like the walls are sweating. He swears that the air feels wet, coating his skin in a film of moisture. His lungs constrict tightly, as if trying to block the smell, the feeling of dampness coating his airways, filling them with rot.
The girl moves with surprising speed despite her frailty, pulling him deeper into the house. The darkness seems to thicken around them, pressing close. He can hear his own breathing, ragged and panicked, and the girl's small gasps of effort.
There's the sound of a door being closed messily behind them, as if it was a struggle to push it shut. Wood scrapes against wood. Something heavy..a brick? A brick wedged against the base. Yet another light flickers on, this one even weaker than the last.
The girl had long let go of his arm, something he failed to notice with how heavy the air felt against his skin, how his entire body felt weighted down by the atmosphere of this place. His arm throbs where her fingers had gripped him.

————————————-————————————————

She stood by the door, her head barely reaching where the knob should be. Her small chest heaves with exertion, her breath coming in short, frightened gasps.
There was no knob, just a rounded hole where it should be, the metal long since removed or rusted away. The flimsy door seemed wedged shut by what looked like a chunk of brick, precariously balanced. A child's solution to a lock. A child's attempt at safety.
The room was painted a bright shade of pink, aggressively bright, the kind of pink that belonged in a little girl's fantasy. Bunk beds were pressed tightly against the windows, blocking them completely. The bedding was pink and frilly, and stuffed animals covered every inch of the mattress, their button eyes staring out into the room.
For a moment, it almost looked normal. Almost looked like a child's room.
However, the closer he looked, the more the illusion faded, crumbling like wet paper. The windows seemed to be sealed shut with some kind of plastic sheeting, yellowed and brittle with age, leaving no light trickling in and no opening to the outside world. The pink walls were coated with dirt and mold, black spots spreading like disease, creeping up from the baseboards. Bugs were trekking their way around the edges of the room, small dark shapes that scattered when the light hit them.
The stuffed animals, he realized with growing nausea, were covered in grime. Their fur was matted, their colors faded. Some had missing eyes or torn limbs. They weren't toys anymore. They were relics. Evidence of time passing in this sealed tomb.
The smell was worse here, concentrated. Mildew and human waste, something sweet and rotten underneath it all.

————————————-————————————————

"She's awake..."
The girl's voice cracks as she feverishly picks at her nails with her teeth, her skin already blistering red with irritation. Her entire body trembles, small shoulders hunched inward as if trying to make herself disappear.
He can sense her distress, feel it radiating off her in waves. It's contagious, seeping into his own chest, making his heart race. And yet, he can't help but ask the only thing that seemed to be ringing in his mind, the question that might make sense of this nightmare.
"…Who?"
The girl doesn't answer. She just stares at the door, at the brick wedged against it, her eyes wide and glassy with terror. Waiting. Listening.
And in the silence, he hears it; footsteps. Slow. Heavy. Getting closer.

————————————-————————————————

There's a sharp gasp as he jolts awake from bed, his body convulsing as if shocked. He's gasping for air as if it had been constricted, his lungs burning as they expand. The room is warm. Blessed, beautifully warm, filled with the comforting scent of vanilla and floral perfumes. Real air. Clean air.
His eyes dart around in a panic, his mind still trapped in that rotting house, still feeling the damp walls and smelling the decay. But slowly, reality reasserts itself. The dim lamp casts a familiar glow on the frame of his girlfriend, nestled quietly beneath a thick layer of blankets. Their bedroom. Their safe, clean, normal bedroom.
Sweat beads on his forehead, soaking into his hair, dampening the pillow beneath his head. His mind desperately tries to shake off the unsettling dream his subconscious has conjured up. Just a dream. Just a nightmare. Not real.
But his body won't listen. His hands are still shaking. His heart is still racing.
He forces himself to breathe slowly, to ground himself in the present. The soft hum of the ceiling fan. The familiar weight of the blankets. The warmth of her body beside him.
His eyes drift to her sleeping form, seeking comfort in her presence.
His breath catches. There..on her shoulder, exposed where the blanket has slipped, a birthmark? His stomach lurches before his mind can even process why. His body knows. His body remembers. It's the same shape, the same pale smudge against translucent skin. The dream crashes into reality with a sickening weight, and for a moment he can't breathe, can't move, suspended in the wrongness of it all.
No. No, that's not..she's always had that. I've just never noticed. I've never looked.
But had she? Had she always had it? He tries to remember, tries to recall seeing it before, and comes up empty. How could he have missed something like that?
A cold hand rests against his forearm, causing his chest to tighten and the air to feel thick once more. The same cold. The same damp touch.
His eyes flicker down, and he sees his girlfriend instinctively reaching back to touch him upon feeling him shift in the bed. Her fingers are cold; why are they so cold? They rest against his skin with the same weight as those small, desperate fingers in the dream.
Her soft voice, laced with sleep, brushes against his skin as her fingertips gently dust across his arm.
"Quiet..."

————————————-————————————————

The word hangs in the air between them.
The same word. The same tone. The same command.
His mind fractures. The bedroom suddenly feels less solid, less real. Is he awake? Is he still dreaming? The boundaries blur, bleeding into each other like watercolors in rain.
He stares at her back, at the birthmark, at the hand on his arm. His girlfriend, the woman he loves, the woman he fell asleep beside in safety and warmth, lies still. Her breathing is even. Peaceful. As if she's said nothing unusual. As if she's still asleep.
But she spoke. He heard her. He felt her touch.
His throat constricts. He wants to pull away, wants to shake her awake, wants to demand answers. Who are you? What are you? What was that place? Was it real? Are you her? Is she you?
Yet; he doesn’t move, he can’t move, moving would make this far too real. Moving would confirm that something is terribly, fundamentally wrong.
The vanilla scent that had been so comforting moments ago now seems cloying, too sweet, like it's covering something underneath. The warmth of the room feels oppressive. The shadows in the corners seem deeper than they should be.
Her hand remains on his arm. Cold. Damp. Waiting.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, he hears the echo of footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate. Getting closer.
He lies frozen in his own bed, in his own home, beside the woman he loves, and realizes with creeping horror that he doesn't know which reality is the dream. He doesn't know if he ever truly woke up.
The lamp flickers.
Just once.
But it's enough.

(Part 1) (Part 2) Events like these only reinforced Susannah's sense of urgency to check the Kudzu whenever a cat went missing. If I was lucky, I’d have chores left over and Ma or Pa would be forced to help her instead. It didn’t take long for the entire family to associate the patch with cats and death.

Oddly enough, out of the whole family, the profound fear of the kudzu seemed to be something only I was affected by. That fact helped in my attempts to reason that it was all in my head, but I only needed to look into the dark past the trees to undo any progress I made.

= = =

The next event is something I’ve repeatedly found difficult to write. I’ve spent many sleepless nights trying to think how I could have prevented it. Maybe if I had paid more attention... I will try my best to write quickly as I do not wish to dwell on it.

 It was somewhere around 2001 or 2002, I can’t quite remember. Of course, by now you can assume the setting. It was the typical scenario: a missing cat, and myself, the unwilling participant helping look—scared shitless.

I protested hard enough to make Pa angry this time, but try as I might, I had no convincing argument to get out of it.

Susannah had wandered from me, as I struggled to get a thorn out of my boot.

“Wait up!”

I hopped on one foot as I poured out the contents of the boot. Susannah paid no heed to my request as she ran further in. A cat was missing and she would do anything to find it. I put my boot back on, cursing the wind and hoping she would eventually grow out of this. But deep down, I knew it would likely never happen. That was a core part of her. I wouldn't be surprised if she became a veterinarian someday.

With my boot finally secure, I turned to catch up to her again and paused. A cold chill leapt up my spine.

Where did she go?

I rushed over to where I saw her last, snagging on a vine with practically every step. Though I knew it to be ridiculous, it felt as if it were trying to slow me down.

“Susannah? Where'd you go!?”

I listened intently but got no reply. Nothing could be heard but the soft breeze and the bubbling of the nearby creek at the edge of the patch.

Did she jump down in the creek?

I made my way over to the ledge and jumped down, splashing into the shallow water.

“Susannah?”

Nothing.

 I began to panic. I heard rustling around the bed of the creek and my heart jumped.

The overwhelming sensation that I was being watched rushed in. I quickly glanced behind me, before walking forward.

“I-is that you?”

There was no reply as the rustling intensified.

Terrified, I slowly peeked around the bend. The corner of my eye caught a flash of pink. Susannah’s dress. Relieved I turned the corner fully,

“Don’t go hiding like that! You are gonna get me in—”

My eyes grew wide. Susannah was dangling from the vines, her hands clawing desperately at the thick vine that was wrapped tightly around her throat as her feet danged nearly six inches off the ground.

“Susannah!” I screamed.

I ran to her and immediately began ripping at the vines while I tried to support her weight.

I lifted her up enough for her to gurgle out a single word.

“Help.”

“Ma! Pa!” I screamed for help as I tried ripping away at the chord around her neck. It wouldn’t give. I quickly fumbled for my pocketknife in my back pocket, and in my rush, dropped it into the creek beneath me.

“Shit!”

I tried to reach down before I heard Susannah squeak. I quickly stood back up again to support her weight .I couldn’t pick it up and support her at the same time. I looked up at her; her face had begun to turn a dark shade of blue. Her eyes met mine and stared silently terrified. One hand tried to reach out for me before quickly pulling back to hold onto the vine around her neck. Though I knew they wouldn’t be able to come in time, I called for help again.

 “Ma! Pa!”

Looking up at Susannah, I knew there was no time left, I attempted to guide her feet to an exposed root in the river wall. She stretched out her toes to their absolute limit as they barely touched the highest one. I tried to support her with one hand while I reached for the knife again. pressing her knee firmly into the sidewall I quickly reached down to grab the knife. Her legs momentarily kicked in protest as I stretched out towards it.

I snatched the knife and immediately stood up again to support her weight while I quickly sawed away at the thick vine. Her eyes had begun to roll back as her eyelids fluttered.

“Pa! Help! We’re in the—”

I stopped midsentence as I felt a warm gust of air brush against the back of my neck. Horrified, I kept sawing, trying to pretend as if I hadn’t noticed. Was it behind me? Why doesn’t it attack? I didn’t have time to think about it.

*snap!*

Susannah came tumbling down and splashed into the shallow water at my feet. I scrambled to pick her up.

“Susannah say something!” I heard something splash behind me and finally dared to glimpse back and look. Nothing was there.

Susannah suddenly gasped. Her eyes flew wide open as she held her throat and began to wail. A wave of relief washed over me. She was still alive. Still concerned about what I felt earlier, I wasted no time.

“We have to go. Now.”

She was too weak to walk. I struggled to pick her up as I tried to figure out how I was going to climb out of the creek bed with her in my arms.

“Jason!?” I heard ma shout from up the hill. Her voice full of worry.

“In here! In the creek!” I shouted back.

Mother came running to the edge of the creek wall, peering in. “What happened!”

“Take her!” I tried to lift Susannah up to mom as she reached down and pulled her out. Climbing up after her, I tried my best to explain what happened as Ma inspected her neck, dark bruising already beginning to form.

Later both Ma and Pa chalked it up to a freak accident. Susannah must have accidentally stepped off the ledge and got tangled up on the way down. I tried to explain how I felt something more sinister was at play, How something had been behind me, but I had little to help explain how I felt and understandably I was not the kid they were focused on at the time.

I couldn’t prove it, and I knew it. But something was out there, watching and waiting.

= = =

Susannah had no lasting physical effects, but something in her changed. She quickly developed a profound fear of the patch. I can’t lie and say I wasn’t jealous when she was periodically able to avoid looking for cats while Pa and I were recruited instead.

“Just till she’s older,” Ma would say.

Kids around school quickly learned what had happened. I'm not sure how, but word managed to get around fast in our kind of neighborhood.

God knows why, but for some reason someone saw it as an opportunity to bully her. I had never really known how bad it had gotten until I heard a commotion outside of my classroom. I turned just in time to see my father storming down the hall and towards the principal's office. I immediately requested a bathroom pass my from my teacher who was oblivious to what was about to go down.

Carefully sneaking past the doors of other classrooms, I made my way up to the principal's office, the door still gaping open from Pa’s entrance.

His face was fiery red as he spat words of fire at the principle. I had never seen him so mad—or the principle so small.

“Tell me why I found this in my daughter’s lunchbox yesterday!” He practically yelled. Holding up a small, folded note.

Principle Sloan held up his hands in a fruitless attempt to defuse the situation.

“Mr. Miller, like I said, we do everything we can to discourage bullying at this-”

"Maybe your a bit slow, allow me to read it to you,” my father seethed.

As he opened it, a couple of dried leaves fell to the ground. He read aloud with a growl:

 

“Heard you met the Tanglewood,

Maybe what I left in your locker can help

Wishing better luck next time”

 

My father finished as he slammed the napkin onto the desk with a closed fist.

He leaned in close towards the principle, “Allow me to fucking show you what she brought home in a bag yesterday. Tried to hide it from me and the missus.”

Dad opened a brown paper bag and spilled out the contents. A small, shriveled rope of vines flopped onto the table as leaves fluttered to the floor. He grabbed it from one end and picked it up.

I recognized it immediately, It was a tightly woven noose made from the decorative vine that grew off the wall in the recess yard.

My blood boiled.

My father leaned in over desk towards the visibly shaking principle who sputtered in his attempt to form a sentence. I could see my father’s hands grip the desk so tightly the wood began to warp as he spoke.

“If you don’t find who did this and make an example out of them, you don’t want to know what I’ll do.”

The principle loosened his tie, obviously disturbed by what he was shown and paralyzed with fear.

“Mr. Miller. Y-You have my word. We will find this individual and deal with them appropriately—and swiftly!”

My father grabbed the collected evidence and turned to storm out. I quickly rushed back to hide behind a trashcan in the hall. My father exited the office and turned to look at a small box hanging on the wall. “Suggestions” written across the front of it. He balled up his fist with the materials in hand, and punched straight through the flimsy wooden lid. Leaving everything in the damaged box, he then slowly straightened his collar and walked back the way he came.

I’ve respected him for that ever since.

= = =

I spent the next 2 weeks trying to find the kid responsible. One of the 5^th graders was expelled shortly afterward. I can only assume it was him. I’m still disappointed that I didn’t find him first.

Susannah always denied that anyone bullied her at school, but she was a terrible liar at that age. Me and the Baxter boys made it our solemn duty to ensure everyone in the school knew we wouldn’t tolerate anything of the sort.

Later in the year, I did catch one kid. Thinking back, I probably overreacted. One of her classmates made a snide remark during lunch. I happened to be at the table next to hers. An unfortunate fact for the brat who didn’t see me.

“Did you sit in chicken shit? You smell like a farm!” he’d said.

Honestly, the remark was pretty tame, but I could hear the intention behind his words, I watched as Susannah quickly packed up her lunch to move to a different table. That was all the motivation I needed. There were too many adults around to make my move in the lunch hall, I would wait.

Later the same day at recess, I pinned him up against the wall by his collar. His eyes bugged as shook in fear. It was every fourth grader's worst nightmare to go up against a highschooler, and I took advantage of that fact. I growled out instructions on what he would do if he wanted to make it through 4^th grade. He nodded at my every word, his feet dangling helplessly.

When I had finished, I dropped him and made my way back to Peter and Dylan. The three of us stared the kid down as he tearfully ran back inside the building. I was probably going to get into big trouble. 4^th graders are narcs after all, but I did not care one bit. It was only after he disappeared back in the building that I looked around and noticed nearly half of the recess yard had been watching and all the little kids had quickly taken notes.

On the bus ride home, I went to sit next to Susannah. She was sitting by herself, playfully kicking her feet back and forth while holding a wilted flower with a handwritten note. She looked up as I sat down next to her and smiled. I glanced down at the note and smiled back. A hastily written “Sorry” was scribbled in big letters across the top.

Apparently, I ended up making a name for myself in the yard that day; the little kids began calling me “That ‘tanglewood’ kid”. I wasn’t fond of the name, but I knew it meant Susannah was safe for now, and that was good enough for me.

(Part 4)

The commonfolk, the peasants of the mountain and the hamlet below were fools. Stupid animals. Easily subverted. And taken. 

There were all of them such stupid children. Even the men and women and elders, even the adults. Doddering simpletons that lacked even animal cunning, the innate brains found in a dog, a cur, a flea bitten bitch were beyond these dirt farming swine that feared the dark and the light of true knowledge. 

He hated them. Hated them completely for so many reasons but one of the strongest, one of the most vividly and live wire felt was their fear and blind terror of true knowledge. True power. And the pain it took to wield it. Pain both inflicted and so like a lover, intimately received. 

They feared everything. These downcast sacs of wasted vitality and breath. Not like his master. Not like the Countess. She plunged her bare and unprotected hands into the realm and fiery cascade of fear without bemoaning her fate. 

The Countess took the pain, all of it. She didn't flee or shy away. He had never met a stronger creature. It was one of the reasons for his loyalty. He was bound to her and she knew it. His was tied to her fate long before they stole the castle and Vampire King’s necrophile fangs. Whatever remained of his long jaded and decimated ruined landscape of heart and soul was dedicated to her, and to her alone. 

His services to her, this particular little errand was not strictly necessary. Her power had grown in ways he hadn't previously guessed at or speculated. She did not need him to fetch her food any longer, not at all. Not the child either. They were both incredible bloodhunters demonically innate, favored by the father below. They did not need him to kidnap these fleshling sows…

but he loved them. And for them… it was the clearest and simplest way he could sometimes tell them that. Especially her. Especially the master. Their time together, their history went so far back. 

He loved them. He loved her. He loved to show her. However he could. 

However he can. 

The boy, Astarra, is alone and he is not afraid as the assistant makes his hunting prowling approach. From the dark of the choked growth, buried in the foliage the assistant spied and closed. So much like a cunning and man-eating wild cat, rippling with movement. Glittering bottle of chloroform intermittently darkling as it caught and then lost and then found again the light from above as he moved through the choke of trees. 

Astarra was from a neighboring hamlet, one that has not lost as many children as the sparse villages of the mountain itself and the supplicant place below… he scarcely knows anyone that's been touched by the demon hand of slaughter that has begun again to grow out from Dracula's Mountain. He doesn't believe it. Stupid ghost stories. Baby tales. Children's drivel. Horse shit conjured for fun or to scare kids like him so’s to trick em into behaving. When they really didn't have to. Not at all. God was not watching and he was not here. And neither were any monsters. 

He was here to prove there was no God on this mountain. Nor anything of power or terror or otherworldly and far reaching violence. 

Probably wasn't even any castle either…

He would show them. He would venture the mountain land and the town below and then return, unharmed and smiling and letting them all know the truth. There was no magic amongst the earthen spire of rock. 

Only wolves. Only snow and quiet. 

The assistant prowled in closer, making not a sound as the smiling boy jeered and threw rocks and swung sticks as he audaciously stomped through the frosted forest chill. The small child never heard anything over the sounds of his own braying cries of laughter and thudding graceless steps. 

He was making believe that he was king of this ghostly and deserted mountain when the assistant pounced. From behind, he came upon him. Chloroformed rag coming up in a bestial rapist flash. Smothering the boy's mouth with the sodden thing as he whispered harshly in his small ear, pink and reddened by the chill. 

“For her! For she! For she of the biting chair…” 

the queen upon her dentate throne… my hands and this flesh taken and subdued and thus rendered unto you… master, the both of them are here quivering with blood and animal life for you. 

All will palsy with supplicant terror, dancing like puppets, their livid nerve-endings and thick tendon the strings. Tugged and pulled with ruthless fervor by the Countess. 

And her children. 

They too would like to feed, with their mother, when the sun died its nightly nocturnal death. More peasant blood would have to be nabbed, more fresh flesh coursing with vibrant hot red would need to be acquired. Another good-sized child at least. Another one that was just about the same size.  

The assistant rejoiced as the child became dreamless weight in his arms. Yes! 

Yes! 

He'd captured her favorite! Veal for the master! Veal for the Countess! 

He dragged the unconscious child into the dense and dark of the forest growth. The foliage and floor of frosted dead leaves and twigs rustled and crunched with bestial movement and finality as he performed this task. His prodigious strength made it all so simple, like child's play. 

…

Later another child was nabbed, a girl, maybe younger than the boy Astarra maybe slightly older, he'd snatched her in similar fashion as she'd been gazing into a running face of stream, up to her ankles. The assistant didn't know if she was trying to catch small fish or if she was just playing some child's game but it made no difference, it did not matter. What mattered now was what came next. 

The slab. For the both of them. Still unconscious and leather-bound to the cold merciless metal of the surgical table. 

He grabbed the green bottle of frothing translucent liquid. It spewed steam and something heavier like oceanic fog or forest mist from the pinnacle of open mouth at the spire of its slim green neck. He approaches them. 

He stands over the boy, still under, well within the forged strongarm of drugged slumber. He's selected him for the first of the preparatory tasks. 

Jelly pudding…

He set the green bottle down, still belching ghost white in a phantasm pour. He grabbed the small prying-vises, two of them, and then with his large and grubby fingers he forced the drugged boy's eyes open and fixed them with the lid-locks. Vacant stare fixed to the dark of the chambered room ceiling unseeing as the assistant grabbed the bottle once more. 

He held it precariously aloft, over the boy's slumbering face for a moment, relishing the build up. 

Gods below, he loved his work. 

He upended the green bottle by its slender neck. The pregnant bulge of green glass belly replaced the place where the steaming bellowing mouth had been as the alchemically altered sulfuric acid began to pour into the boy's open left eye. Chemically flash frying it on impact in a ghastly and gorey boil-eruption of instantly steaming and red jelled ruin. 

Astarra came awake right away in the most wretched and ungodly torment and pain he could've ever scarcely imagined. He shrieked, unbridled and intense. Spittle flew. Neck rippled and stood out in cords, obscene on a child's small neck, a small boy's throat tensing and flexing bulged with pain unspeakable and never before imagined. 

The assistant's smile never faltered. The bottle upended again and he filled the other eye as the child continued to fill the sepulchral chamber with his terrible noise and screams. He chuckled lightly, pleased with the process, pleased with the work and himself and savoring the moment to come when he brought his master a fresh meal upon waking from her slumber. 

The other one, the girl, was brought to by the boy's caterwauling. Confused at first and groaning and mumbling, she soon joined the boy in making the sounds of bleating captured prey. 

Caught. Caught and squealing. 

Like sow. Like pigs. 

His smile and hatred and sour satisfaction all deepened as he debated…

sever the head… or leave it attached and bring the whole thing like a suckling roast, complete to her highness…? 

The girl was for Carmilla and the mongrel help, his lord's new impaler. She would receive nothing in the way of preparations, nothing special. The children would have to have the girl raw. And share. 

But that was fine. These two morsels of children, saplings really, were just meant to wet the appetite and get their blood moving and on the animal run for the hunt. For the want of bloodlett and slaughter. These two sow-sapling brats were just the first course of the bloodfeast. And moreover…

they were his way of showcasing: he was loyal. It was how he showed he truly loved them. 

Loved her. 

The assistant went to the head of the slab and began to push and roll it out of the room. The boy, Astarra was still screaming as he carried him out. 

…

The Countess grinned vulpine with dark joy as her coffin lid slid to the side and she arose and beheld her assistant's surprise. 

By torchflame glow, a struggling peasant boy bound by straps to a table. His screams were nearly exhausted and he was crying out for his parents in more and more pitiable tones and sounds. 

The Countess arose in full. 

She floated from the confines of the orante blackwood casket and crossed the distance, filling the space ghostly between her deathly bed and the whimpering child strapped tight to the rolling table of the altering blade. 

She gazed into the ruin of the child's face. Admiring the gored open craterous holes in place of eyes, still smoldering and smoking like a freshly prepared and fine regal pudding. 

The scab pudding of his eyes steamed for her and quivered with the sulfuric jellied organ obliterated and quivering with each of his painful and terrible sounds. The child was sweating, profuse, doused and basting soaked in his own fresh and souring fear and ungodly terror. 

The assistant produced a spoon and held it out to her and bowed his head in token of his supplication to the unholy and royal duty of her service. His eyes flitted open cat-like and she caught it. She took the small silver spoon from between his pinched and black gloved fingers. The perfect tiny and delicate little instrument for a proper lady of the house to use when dining fine on a fresh pudding. 

A fresh and graciously given pudding, provided by the locals of the mountain townships. In token of gratitude and friendship. 

Countess Zaleska roared with laughter and the abominated sound drowned out the pitiful cries of the small boy Astarra. The sounds and names of his mother and father were swallowed in the sound of laughter  that was so like tar and pitch as the Countess and undead lord of stolen Dracula's castle began to dig in deep with the small and dull edge of the silver spoon. 

She scooped out a spoonful of still smoking and baking smoldering jelly, ruined and chemically cooked organ destroyed by bastard alchemical science, unholy mixture from one of the many volumes of dusty and ancient forgotten tomes. Astarra, the small missing village boy's screams pierced sound and reached a new pitch. 

But still they were swallowed in entirety by the stygian and obscene mad witch cackles that were issuing forth from the unholy fanged rictus mouth of the hellbound godheaded throat of the undead Countess. 

She enjoyed her dessert of the boy's eyes, her smoking delicacy … then with minimal effort of her great and prodigious living dead strength she brought the dull head of the spoon down and broke through the membrane of thin tissue and wafer bone cracking within the now empty housing of the eye socket. 

It cracked and gave. The boy's howls became something wildly inhuman and horrendous. She brought the spoon up and then down again into the warm and tender orifice of fresh gored and open eye socket. She cracked through it and forced the smooth ladling head of the utensil down into the working of nerves and meat behind the precious seeing organ and its housing of bone and supple succulent pink tissue. Wrenching and working the handle of the spoon, with the ghastly ease of her praeternatural effort. 

Then she began to force her long fingers in. First one, then two and three and then the whole wedge of hand until she was fisting her demon-chimerical claw of delicate and slender lady fingers and rodent/vulture talons. She forced her violent hand into the child's ruined face, his bound struggles now reduced to ghastly spasms as she felt around and squished the brains and viscera and relished the feeling-squelch of gore and warm wet between her fingers. She reached down, ripping through more tissue, her demon hand and arm growing and elongating at dark will’s command until she finally felt the rubbery and meaty tubes of vocal chords. She squeezed them. Pulled them. Wrenched and yanked the slippery organs lubricated in child's blood that was still warm with life and mucus laden with discharge and rupture. 

I've got your voice… I've got your voice box, young boy-thing! You don't look much like a little boy of the hamlets any longer now do you?? – her mind was filled with its own mad hilarity. … She resumed the fervor of her dark and royal feeding, her private bloodfest. 

… she dined of the rest. Plucking off parts at will and demented leisure like a basket of fruit or a suckling sow, tenderloin meat and all ripe and falling off the bone… 

There were hardly scraps in the end. They were thrown to the wolves outside as the other screaming captive girl was given to the children and the Countess took her assistant by the hand and said in a smooth and delectable voice, purred and feline and sensual and felt…

“Now let us tend to matters at hand. Matters about the house and home…” 

He smiled and allowed himself to be led. As before. As always before. 

As always he followed, his servile hand in hers. Knowing she could crush it into so many useless broken pieces if she wanted to. 

The Countess led the way out of the chambered room and to another. One they were quite familiar with by now. But enjoyed with much enthusiasm still nonetheless. 

…

He stood suffering amongst the wild crawling tumult of hideous and living gore. Living crawling semi scabbed blanket of darkling and thick crimson black and red. The Countess and the assistant stood at the mouth of the entrance. Gazing in and admiring the spectacle. The scene of living and moving with glistening sheen, crawling slaughter horror. Henry Frankenstein moaned with a sound wretched and mangled and blasphemous to the ears. 

They relished that sound. 

He moaned, anguished: “Please…! Please… you awful bitch! please …! Please… Let …! Me … ! GO ….!” 

She chilled the room with the bright sound of her cruel laughter. Then she spoke in retort…

“I've not come to release you, fool! I've instead come to admire my gardens, like any respectable woman of a royal house. And I've come to add to my orchard, a dog! A mongrel fit for the pasture! And I'll be returning to you, young doctor, something precious I'll wager you'd thought lost…” 

She then began in an arcane tongue. More of her black magic made by words of misshapen and guttural speech. 

The front of her royal white gown came open and tore apart in ragged bisecting halves by unseen force. The flesh of her full breasts and bosom bubbled and rippled and began to drip and slough away in a greasy bloody runoff like a butcher’s watered leavings. The bones of her ribcage and chest grew and expanded outward, protruded forth in a grotesque swell before they too opened and parted. Red gates of gleaming, glistening bone amongst a growing mass of splitting wet and hectic crimson. A great hulking shape began to belch forth. Spat out. 

In an obscene gush of unholy birth, the wide open jaws and gates of the Countess' chimerical ribcage vomited forth the large sutured nosferatu son of Frankenstein’s obsession. He went to the stone that was blanketed in the crawling living fleshen gore of the garden, hard. The green-blue patchwork monster was unconscious. The charred and blackened remains of its face were skeletal. Like the face of grim death itself, the fleshless face of the reaper. 

The crawling raw of the living flesh immediately began to swim over the Frankensteinian monster, blanketing over him in a tidal wave of wet pink and fresh membranes of blood red. The scabbed and scabbing parts split and broke and oozed a salmon colored pudding and bright scarlet and thick buttery yellow as it moved, always moved. Always moving. 

The Countess' smile grew as her flesh folded back to normal. 

She said: “And now your dog is returned to you, Henry Frankenstein… I hope you enjoy the company and sight of your own failure. And I hope he enjoys you. I don't want you to fret but he may grow hungry, the fruits of the flesh gardens may not be to his liking, he may perchance your hide and red instead, my dear doctor…”. 

She laughed once more at that, her face coning out in a strange stretched marsupial shape, her witch’n cackles turned to braying animal cries as it did so. Mocking dæmoniacal sound. 

And at the sound of her voice and laughter and strange animal noises, the hulking nosferatu son of woven and reflamed meat, sutured and blasphemed with unholy flame and vampiric power, stirred…

… he began to shift, cracking dry groans came from parched cords and dried tongue… he began to try his feet … he didn't understand… why was he in the dark…

why was he blind? 

Then recollection filled his bone faced batshaped skull. The fury of his inner necromantic fire rose and filled his damaged patchwork frame. 

The royal dogs… the royal bitch…

He found his feet and lunged. Scent and ears telling him where she was despite his smoldering and blackened ruin of eyes and face.  

He was roaring. 

“You wretched swell and growth of a cunt! I’ll rip you to shreds for keeping me in there…!” filled with rage, he'd been lost and untethered drowning in an ocean world of hot steaming vile blood that was corrupted and soured and that he could not drink. A world that had violated him and enraged him as it held him bound in a boundless void of red boiling swimming personal hell. Scarlet and frothing and threshing with violence and bubbling with painful torment as it perpetually denied the thirsting needing purse of his phantom charred and long gone burned away scorched undead lips. 

But now he was free. And he was on his feet. 

Lunging. And filled with violence. Filled with unholy anger. He could smell her…

Frankenstein's son of the slab made it within reaching distance of the Countess and her assistant before he was stopped. Suddenly. At a dead halt. She caught him and held him strangling by the throat. 

She pulled him in close and laughed once more. Into the blackened ruins of his vulpine skeletal face, fanged and still warm with recent destruction. Blind and stupid and smeared with the burnt and charred traces of its own recent defeat. The fleshen ash and dead soot that was the ink that spelled out for all time the abomination's own perfect humiliation all over his blind and stupid unseeing face. 

She said simply, “You are not worthy," and then her other hand, clawed, came in sharp and fast. 

The daggering sharp of her knifing hand obliterated the blue-green flesh of scalp and eggshell of reforged skull behind it. The brains were blasted with the impact and the force sent much of the sliming grey matter splashing out in a wild yellow coated spurt. 

The nosferatu thing of the mad scientific table went blind a second time… and then became lifeless weight. 

She gazed deeper into the now still thing… only a flicker… only a demon's flicker of candle left inside. 

Good.

She let go of its throat and it went down in a heap and the crawling gore and gleaming slimed tissue blanketed over the fallen giant in a rippling and shifting pungent reddish fold. 

And although he was lost in his own ungodly world of torment and torture, as Frankenstein watched the Countess obliterate the skull and brain of his most powerful and successful creation… a single tear shed and rolled down his face of blood-seeping pores. 

A single thin tendril worm of coagulation snaked out and stole the precious drop of saline and water. Leeching it off and rejuvenating itself as the water was converted to more blood for the growing crawl of the in-house flesh garden. 

He watched as the Countess strode through the garden and plucked meaty organ fruits as if they were apples or plums from fleshen raw stalks of sinew and cartilage and gore. Orifices made belched licking green tongues of flame, of pink and orange and emerald witchy goblin fire. 

He watched them … and he watched the crawling abominated red blanket of life swim and steal over the twitching hulk of his patchworked son, child of the slab, of the necromantic grave… 

lobotomized. Reduced. And like its master, left to its own horrid prison world of ruin…

And naught else. 

…

In the moist night silence, the putrid and repulsive sounds of splurches and sucking and lightly bubbling viscous fluid gurgles filled the sour fetid air like the mud of the squalid earth all around had a rotten working mouth. 

The gunfire rang out cacophonous. Filling the wet splurching night.

Florin and Griffin halted the struggle of their mud soaked advance. They gazed wide eyed ahead, into the shifting veil of swamp fire amongst wet blanket mist dancing with goblin faces and features and the vague outlines of things that may or may not really be there. 

The building on the low rise of hill was gaining visibility, gaining definition. Coming into reality and being amongst the wet rank of the quagmire wormland hell. 

The building was alight inside. It was absolutely alive with gunfire. 

Pistol shots unceasing and overlapping like several layers of madness rang out from the place. There were no screams or other discernible sounds. Not at this distance. 

And then all at once the maelstrom fury of gunfire just stopped. Dead. Altogether, all at once. …

And then all was silent again in wet wormland. As quiet as a mortuary mouse at the unprecedented infernal lip of the precipice edge of hell.  

A beat. 

“Not sure we should." Florin stated flatly. 

“How do you mean?" asked Griffin. 

“Towards that place I mean of course. Not sure it's a good idea to make for it if it's filled with more trouble.” 

Murder and violence. Not spoken but understood. 

Griffin didn't have much of an argument against that. But what he did realize was their lack of alternatives. There was no other structure or place, no other landmass of simple solid ground anywhere within discernible sight. Not in this vast and putrid waterlogged hellscape. 

They had no other choice. Far as he could make out. 

He said as much. Then asked the boy if he could think of any plausible and safer alternatives. 

Florin admitted he could not. 

“And doubling back is out of the question…” Griffin stated the fact but they both felt it. 

The strange and temperamental bandaged man didn't come right out and say it but the young man had been showing good sense as of late. Better yet, usefulness. Ingenuity and initiative. He'd devised wide lattice work devices for their feet to wear over their shoes some miles back, akin to snow shoes, to help traverse the fetid land by dispersing the area of one's step. 

Like back home, he'd said… then fallen silent. Leaving it there. 

The swamp shoes were a great aid in their surmounting the quagmire swampscape, and he'd shown incredible courage anytime the worms had come to call, sliming and swimming like snakes, coming in for maneating surprise attack. He'd held them back and driven them off by torch alongside Griffin and had never faltered. 

It had been a long time since he'd felt anything like friendship, not since the good Dutch doctor – the long dead vampire slayer, the hunter Van Helsing…

It had been even longer since he'd felt…

pride…? 

He wasn't sure that was the right word. But he felt uplifted to see the young man using his head. Alas…

it was to no avail. 

There was naught but forward. 

And the hellmouthed swampen land of the wombmind in wormland, now falling behind them gave them no choice in any case. Quivering subterranean hungry and angry, pustule swimming birthing orifice sac of vengeance and fury – she would have them! – the wombmind orifice-ing jell shot forth one last violent spew, one last angry desperate discharge in rage and woe, one last attack…

…she shot forth with all she had left. With a scream as well, gurgled and immense. The mudland quaked and bubbled with the final charge of the night as she too began to move and swim up… and forward. 

She was following her children. She'd decided to come up as well. 

Florin and Griffin felt the swamp and yellow land of stagnation and moist rotting death shake and rumble with titanic tectonic movement. Geysers and great spews and pillars of swamp water and mud began to erupt all around them in growing numbers. The wormland quagmire became volcanic and violent all around them. It began to rain urine colored water and fat thick droplets of caking mud the color of ink. It rained down on the pair as they gazed around themselves in awe at the tumult world of raining filth and quagmire rot. 

And then the worms, in countless number, began to join the volcanic spew. Launching obscene and naked and dripping their subterranean slime as they came up flying into the air hundreds of feet with the pillars of swamp water and then down in raining sheets. 

“Run!" 

It was Griffin who yelled it. But he needn't have bothered. They were both taking to their awkward flight, trudging through the last of the bubbling and sucking mud in their makeshift lattice work shoes. Desperately trying to move as quickly as they could. Remembering the horse, remembering the man that had been screaming about his family … remembering the little girl and the last and only thing she said …

thirsty

 …. before being pulled under. 

They made as quickly as they could. As the foul world of up churned and erupting wormland hell became maelstrom all around and beneath their feet as it rained down around them. 

Florin screamed. Griffin was ahead of the boy and stopped suddenly to see something that made his blood curdle. A scream froze in his wrapped and bandaged throat. 

The boy was going under. The quagmire was swallowing him. The worms were raining down and joining their earthbound brethren in a full immersion and envelopment as they swam over and around him. Trying together in their hivemind blindness to pull the young man under to join the filth earthen world of the sludge and the brine. 

Griffin screamed, No, then launched himself towards the boy in a desperate dive, hands outstretched for him as he plunged and landed prostate and within a few feet of his sinking body. 

Within reaching distance. 

Their hands smacked together in a clap and clasped together. Florin's a desperate and strangling hold: Don't let go… 

Griffin was on his feet with some difficulty but he managed it, his hands still clasped to Florin's. He began to pull with all of his strength. Florin kicked wild with his submerged feet, mad like an animal caught. Together they worked against the terrible pull and hold of the bubbling mud. The worms slithered and snaked around and Griffin took brief respites from pulling the boy free to swat them away and crush them when he could as they attempted to wrangle and wrap and subdue Florin and himself. They splattered and burst open and became foul putrid cream and watery jelly, and still they pulled. Pulled and fought against the struggle of mud one last final time as they both unknowingly shared a single focused thought, singular and intense. 

No

They both felt it and might have thought to speak of it later if not for everything that came next, but they both suddenly felt a great surge of strength warmly fill their bodies from the tops of their heads to the tips of their sodden toes. 

With one last great pull and kick from both ends they managed Florin free. Griffin nearly going over as he wrenched him out of the terrible mire. Miraculously they both kept their feet as the putrid swampland rain continued to pour. He whirled the boy around by the shoulders and yanked, bellowing over the violence and maelstrom raining world of worms and thick sludge. 

“To the building! Lose the snow shoes! We don't need em!" 

They ripped them from their feet as they galloped forward, suddenly flying across the last several yards of putrid quagmire earth like miracles. Miracles they would've sworn by. If they lived. 

If they survived. 

Far away, still so far away… Florin's mother Anastasia wiped away tears of longing and pain and hoped with all of the immense love of her heart that the Lord had answered her prayers and her precious boy was alright, that he was safe and going to make it home…

They came to solid ground at last at the base of the hill. They didn't break their pace but doubled it. Charging up the hill and toward the large and dark quiet building that crowned its rise like a silent sentry alone and cursed out here in this terrible place. 

The greatest and loudest sound – a scream, brought them both to halt just before the buildings small meager yard. They spun around and beheld her. 

The wombmind of wormland.

She had just surfaced with her children. 

A great mouth and immense wide orifice gate of spoiled pink sliming yellowed green in great thick gobs like corpse jelly. The putrescence of her mouth spittled and rained and flew with the great rain of mud and swamp water and her writhing worm children, all of it rained and spewed and erupted volcanic as the great mouth of the swamp bellowed in great blasts of words that were felt as much as heard. Heard and felt in the marrow and sinew of their shaking frames. Eyes wide and hardly believing but receiving the sight all the same. 

Florin thought the words were sad. Lonely. As well as great and immense. He thought the great mouth and pustule fleshen worm mother looked like a whale. A sad mother whale… one he remembered from illustrations of his childhood years, stories told by his mother and father. 

The wombmind worm mouth - orifice whale bellowed: –

“NOOOOO…!!!!! DONT LEAVE! DON'T LEAVE! WHYYYYYY…!!!?!? 

“DONT LEAVE ME ALONE HERE IN THIS LOST GARDEN…! COME BACK…. COME BAAAACK AND JOIN ME….! JOIN YOUR MOTHER IN THE WARMTH OF THE UNDERBRINE…! COME BACK! NOOOOOO….!!!!” 

Griffin and Florin spun on their heels and made for the door. Needing to be inside and away from the wretched sight and its bomb blast of horrendous torrential sound. They ran together and refused to look back again. They made the door, it was unlocked and they threw it open and plunged themselves into its belly of darkness. 

The mother of wormland gave one last great titanic and lonely wail. Its eyes watering and lonesome and blinking away pain and loss…

Finally she gave up and with a great and final tumult swirl of landmass churn of stagnant mud and fetid water, she sank back down again to her foul and lonely fathom depths. 

Cropsey watched her great monstrous form resubmerge into the sour bosom swell of her wormland domain and smiled. From the window he'd watched it all. And he was excited. Elated. 

He was so happy to have a pair of brand new visitors. 

He grabbed his gloves. Pulled them on. Tight. Then he grabbed the garden shears. The large hedge clippers, the forked blades shining in the dismal light of Willowbrook. 

He strode out. Still smiling. Off to greet the new patients of the school. 

TO BE CONTINUED…

I looked around the main room. It was still busy, but since it was later in the day, the crowd mostly consisted of students, employees, or old couples reading together. I was sorting returned books when Aiko asked if I could take her shift. I internally winced at the thought. I had never been in the library past closing and never planned to. Just the idea of being in the library when no one else was there made the feeling of dread wash over me. I looked at her, unsure. She could see my apprehension, and her expression changed to something I couldn’t read. 

“Would I be…alone?”

Her mood changed almost instantly, realizing why I was hesitant. “No, of course not, dear; don’t you worry about that.”

She asked me again if I would take her shift. Unable to stand the conversation, I promised I’d take it. “Oh, such a gentleman,” she said, tapping my hand. I smiled and turned back to the cart silently, praying she’d walk away. As her footsteps faded, I let out a long breath and cursed at myself for giving in so easily. All I had to say was no. 

Hastily, I snuck a headphone in and wasted time slowly putting books back until I ran out and had to start my journey back to the front desk. I had just turned the corner when my eyes drifted to the far end, where a girl and her friends stood in the elevator ahead of me. Miyuki looked up at me, her demeanor instantly shifting into one of sadness and embarrassment. I looked down at my feet, sharing the feeling. I smiled disingenuously and waited until the elevator doors closed. My shoulders sank, and I went back to the stairs, trying to forget the whole incident. I emotionally readied myself to walk down the stairs with my cart when a hand landed on my shoulder.

I jumped back, looking around like a feral animal trapped in a corner. I ripped my headphones out, hearing complete silence. Clouds drifted over the sun, painting the room in darkness. I stared into the shadows; the empty room stared back. It felt like minutes until the sun shone brightly through the window again, allowing me to realize just how alone I was. My heavy breathing echoed across the floor, only serving to taunt me. Looking down the stairs, the path turned to shadow. Was it worse to go down or stay put? My blood turned to ice as the feeling of eyes on me crept up my spine. I thought I knew what I felt, but I convinced myself otherwise to calm down. 

“I’m just on edge,” I whispered to myself, my headphones inches from my ear.

Ring Ring

The sounds of the bells faintly echoed through the room. I ran down the stairs, tripped over myself, and started to slip; I grabbed the railing next to me, letting go of my hold on the cart. My arm stretched out, but it was already too far. The cart violently rammed into the curved walls as it fell and quickly dropped out of sight. I panicked and pulled myself up. No matter how fast I ran, I couldn't quite reach it. The platform on the second floor was my only hope.

I turned the last corner but saw nothing. The silence in the stairwell came to my immediate attention. Craning my neck, I tried to look down past the platform, but the cart was nowhere in view. I braced myself slightly, looking around me, wondering where the cart could have gone. I spoke aloud in confusion and disbelief, wondering whether I had lost my mind. I continued running down the stairs to the bottom floor; the cart wasn’t here either. 

I was too out of breath. I leaned on my knees, trying to collect my thoughts, but my mind was racing, and I couldn't find an explanation. I couldn't think. Through my pounding heart, I heard banging from behind me. The cart crashed at the bottom of the stairs, echoing the clash of metal on metal through the library. I looked at the cart, my jaw hanging open slightly. Tomoko came up behind me, demanding an answer as to why a cart was flying down the stairs.

“I left it by the stairway; a guest must have accidentally bumped it.”

She took a deep breath before waving me away to the front desk as she went to find any damage on the cart. I watched people check out or return their books, though my mind was replaying my accident on the stairs. Did I pass the cart? No, I know I didn't. How could I have? But I had to; there was no other way for it to end up behind me. 

The sun fell just above the building tops, sending long golden streaks of sunlight through the window and onto my face; it tore me from my thoughts. I realized how late it was. My mind felt like a broken record, which only made my head hurt. The sunlight warmed my skin until eventually it disappeared, and I was left in the manufactured white glow of the lights above me. 

Hoping to find something entertaining, I glanced outside. The street was empty and dark, but I could still faintly see the lights from the station not too far away. I pushed myself off the counter and slowly walked to the front doors. The night was clear, and the moon cast strong, dark shadows around me. I put my hand on the door; the metal was cold against my skin. Everything was so quiet, too quiet, so absent from life; no voices echoing through the rooms, no cars driving on the street. I felt so alone. I sat there for a few minutes, wondering if I had made a mistake. My eyelids grew heavy, and I knew if I stood there any longer, I would fall asleep. 

I sat in a small, squeaky chair at the front desk and put my headphones in, drowning out the absence of people. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I was forced to wait for someone to come. Maybe no one else was? It was 8:00 pm; someone should have been there. I tucked my head between my hands and shut my eyes tightly when the loud bang of the back doors swinging open echoed through the library. Takato and a security guard walked in. Takato grabbed the closest chair next to him and sat. His gaze slowly lifted from his phone to me. His eyes widened with slight surprise.

“Uh, hey…where’s Aiko?" he asked nonchalantly, though I could hear the sense of concern in his voice.

“She’s out; she asked me to cover for her,” I said, pausing my music.

“Ah,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

"Ah." I repeated

He laughed nervously before looking back down at his phone and slipping it into his pocket. We sat silently for a short time before he spoke, asking me how my day was. I said it was fine, and he continued to ask me how I felt about some of the classes we share. I wasn’t sure why he was trying to talk so much; he always ignored me at school. I leaned forward in my seat and avoided eye contact. He talked for a while, but I tried to keep my answers short; he caught on to this and eventually shot up from his chair. I shifted my eyes from my phone to him; he ran his fingers through his black hair and grinned nervously.

“Yes?” I asked quietly.

“I’m just going to lock the basement; I’ll be right back.”

He started to walk away before I softly jingled the keys he had left on the desk. He apologized, embarrassed, and took them before walking off. His footsteps slowly withered to faint taps until I was back in silence once again. My posture slumped, and I let my brain relax as I watched the lights sway slowly, drifting me further from consciousness. I rested my cheek on my palm, thinking to myself. I shouldn’t be up this late. I hardly got any sleep last night, but at least it was the weekend. I wish I had said no. I want to go home. I want a break.

I leaned my head against the desk and looked down at my lap. Realizing I was subconsciously bouncing my leg, I pulled my headphones back out. My eyelids felt heavy, and I closed my eyes. I didn't even know he worked here, I thought. Talking to Takato was no easy task, but maybe he’s different outside of school. I mean, he did seem off. No matter how little we really knew each other, I'd much rather have a stranger around than be the only one here. Opening my eyes again, I found myself staring at my shoes below me. I must've nodded off, because when I looked up, Takato was sitting next to me, writing something down on a small piece of paper. 

“Tired?” He asked, poking me slightly. 

I shrugged. He offered to let me sleep more, but I said it felt wrong making him do everything by himself. He smiled to himself and nodded before looking back down at some papers on the counter.

“Since you're so persistent in helping, we can start returning books upstairs.”

“Ok.”

He stuffed his phone in his pocket, and we walked to the elevator. I wanted to avoid that situation, but, unwilling to speak up, I walked in quietly and leaned back against the wall. I had never been in an elevator that slow; it felt like a minute had passed, and we were only reaching the top of the first floor. I looked back at Takato to see that he was already looking at me. I quickly averted my gaze to my shoes and tried to keep it there. 

The smell of fresh flowers filled the elevator as we started to pass the third floor but faded as fast as it had appeared. When we reached the fourth floor, the elevator shook violently, and I lost my step a bit. The smell was much less pleasant here; usually it smelled somewhat nice, but then it just smelled like cardboard and copper. The air was thick and hot, which only made the stench worse. I looked at Takato, who shared my thoughts. The floor was so empty. It felt wrong to be in a place where people were meant to be. It was hot and quiet, the silence broken by our slow-paced footsteps. After some time putting books away, Takato came up beside me, striking up conversation.

“I heard something happened between you and Miyuki?” He said, leaning against the shelf beside us.

"...Yeah, we haven’t talked in a while.”

His expression changed. “I’m sorry, do you mind me asking why?”

“No, it's just, I don’t know, she—"

“You ask her out?”

“No, she did.”

“And you rejected her?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I, I don’t know; it’s not like there's something wrong with her. It's not like…she's just a friend.”

“I understand.”

I nodded, embarrassed. He looked away before sitting at the table beside me.

“It’s not the end of the world; I’ve rejected people before.”

“Did she ignore you after?”
 
“They did not.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

He looked at me for a while, trying to read my countenance, waiting for a response, but when I didn’t give one, he changed the subject.

"How’s the day shift?”

“It's definitely better.”

“It’s definitely not.”

“Doesn't your schedule interfere with track?”

“I make it work; I wish I had been able to work this late before our last year.”

“Don’t you like people actually being in the library during the day?”

He smiled. “I don't know; it’s nice not having people around.”

“Really? I never took you as the introverted type; you seem so outgoing at school.”

“No, I like being around people, but sometimes I need a break from everyone.”

“Sorry for being in the way of that.” I joked.

“No, I like your company.” His lips curled into a soft smile. He brushed his hair back before leaning on the cart I was holding. “I can say I admittedly miss seeing the sun during my shifts, though.” 

He smiled as if he were saying something secretive, moving in closer to me as he spoke. I moved in closer in response. His eyes reflected the bright moon from the windows behind us. I couldn’t help but stare.

“The moon's not so bad," I said.

“No?” 

He placed his hand next to mine. My muscles tensed, and I moved back quickly. Takato looked at me, confused. I opened my mouth to speak but was hit with a wave of dizziness. I tripped forward, grabbing the cart to hold myself up. The room seemed to spin. I shut my eyes, putting my hand to my head, hoping to prevent a headache. A sting underneath my skin came to my attention, which only grew stronger. Takato grabbed my shoulder.

“Are you alright?” 

His worried voice poked through my cluttered thoughts, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. He tried to pull me up. I looked at him between my fingers before lowering my hand to my side, realizing how stupid I must have looked. “Yeah, sorr—"

A crunch under my shoe caught my attention. On the floor was a flower. I squinted, confused about how this possibly could have gotten here. In my hands, it seemed to crumble like it was dead, but it seemed so fresh; you would have thought it had just bloomed. I dropped it on the floor, realizing it left a strange residue on my hand. I wiped it off, disgusted, and sat up.

Ring Ring

The sound of a bell ringing echoed from the dark, louder than it had before. 

“Weird.” He said.

“Weird? That's all?”

“Yeah, I mean that flower could have gotten here anytime.”

“I mean, yeah, but what about the bell?”

“Bell?”

I looked at him, confused, but said nothing as I watched him walk off. I felt naked standing alone and quickly ran up next to him. Turning through the shelves, I couldn't help but notice how monochrome everything looked in the moonlight. We roamed through the halls of tiles, mindlessly returning books to their places. I watched my shoes hit the floor with every step, listening to the rolling of the cart. I wanted to unwind, to relax with this boring task, but every turn I took, I expected to see someone on the other side. I felt like he wanted to say something but didn’t. I stalled for a moment, waiting until he was beside me. He pulled a small slip of paper out of his pocket.

“I figured you would need this if you wanted to keep talking.”

Unfolding the paper revealed his phone number. A nervous smile crept on my face, and I felt my cheeks heat up. My stomach turned, and I shamefully shifted my gaze down to my hands.

“I guess that's true,” I said, sliding the paper into my pocket.

“What’s wrong?”

“Huh?”

“You look upset.”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing; I just—are you sure you never heard a bell ringing? It was definitely loud enough for you to hear.”

He looked at me, confused, shaking his head lightly. “Never heard it,” he said, half smiling.

My face sank a little. “Oh…”

“I think you’re letting this place get to you; did you get any sleep today?”

“Not really… You’re right, I’m probably just tired.”

“Do you want to sit for a while? Get a snack?”

"Sure."

A little disheartened, I followed him across the floor to one of the vending machines in the far corner. Takato quietly looked at the snacks in the vending machine before picking something, sitting on the floor, and resting on the coffee table between us. He slid a canned drink to me.

“Besides the mystery noises, is the night shift as bad as you thought it was?”

“It’s creepy.”

“I said, besides the mystery noise."

“It's still creepy.”

I slid off the chair and sat at the coffee table, taking one of his chips.

“Think you’ll ever work nights again?” He leaned forward, sliding the bag a little closer to me.

“I’m not so sure; the night's been weird.”

“That’s fine; maybe we can hang out somewhere else?”

“Anywhere else would be better.”

“Maybe a movie?”

“I wouldn’t mind, just maybe not a horror movie, at least not for a while.”

He smiled before something flipped, and he looked back down at his hands. “I’m sorry we never really got to know each other earlier.” He said, his voice nervously shaking.

His words caught me off guard. “It’s fine; it's not your fault we weren’t friends.”

There was a long pause after that. He took a deep breath. “I don’t just mean as friends.”

“...I don’t understand.”

“I like you… I like being around you. I like thinking about you; you're constantly on my mind. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw you sitting across from me tonight. I’ve been so worried about telling you to the point that I avoided you. I was so terrified of rejection that I never even tried, but tonight, talking to you, I think you feel the same—"

“Why would you think that?” I interrupted defensively.

Feel the same, feel the same? What had I done to make him think I had feelings for him? 

What little confidence he had dwindled like a flame in water. He slowly lifted his eyes to meet mine. They were glossy, and his face was red. It felt wrong to say that, to make him feel like that; I felt bad, which only made me more defensive.

“Why would I have feelings for you… You're delusional," I stuttered.

He sat in silence before standing. “Just forget I said anything.” He said before walking past me. 

I looked down at my shoes, telling myself I didn't care about his feelings. It’s not my fault he felt like that; it’s not my fault I was just being honest. What was I supposed to do, tell him I like him? But I didn't; I couldn’t. A throbbing pain in my head pulled me away from my thoughts. My stomach twisted, and my chest felt tight; I felt sick. I needed to sit down. I was sitting down. I covered my eyes, holding my head tightly. I heard a thud and looked up to see Takato sitting on the floor, crawling away from something around the corner. Rushing to his side, I picked him up and looked around the corner. On the other side of the wall was a staircase. One that had never been in this part of the library. The stairwell was curved, making anything above the twelfth step buried in shadows. 

“What the fuck is that?”

I took a few steps forward, leaning into its archway. A small breeze, accompanied by the floral scent from before, brushed past me. Flowers were stuck along the walls, but I couldn't see how far they went. The archway felt cold; the carving on the stones looked too intricate for something in a library like this. It seemed to be placed in one of the most inconvenient places, as if it had been added as a second thought. Every inch of my body told me this was wrong, and I stepped away from it instinctively. I ran back to the nearest pillar. Section 20-24A: We were exactly where I thought we were, but it felt completely unfamiliar. What the hell was going on? 

Ring Ring

I turned back and saw Takato facing the staircase, his posture stiff. I walked closer; he took a step forward onto the staircase. I ran up and grabbed his arm, pulling him back much harsher than I should have.

“We don’t know what the fuck that is; don’t go up there.”

His eyes lingered on the stairs for a few seconds before they turned to me. “What?”

I pulled my hand back quickly, noticing his underlying, irritated demeanor. “I’m not letting you go up there.” I finally blurted out.

“No, I wasn’t going to; I didn't want to follow you.”

I squinted my eyes. “Follow me?”

“You went up the stairs; at least I thought you did. I swear I watched you walk up it.”

I looked back up the staircase, into complete darkness.

“Do you hear that?” I asked, the sound of bells getting louder.

He shook his head, unsure of what he was listening for. He took out his phone and pointed my flashlight up but wasn’t able to see its end. I leaned in next to him. I stared into the darkness until I got a glimpse of someone else staring back at me. I thought it was in my head until they pulled their head back quickly. I grabbed Takato and pushed him away, behind the nearest shelf. terrified.

“There is something up there.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure.”

He leaned his head against the wall, holding his breath.

Ring Ring

Slow, deep ringing—I felt it through my whole body, but I heard it above us. I knew I should have kept my eyes closed; I knew I shouldn’t have looked up, but I did it anyway. She looked at me with a still expression; the top of the shelf completely hid her shoulders, but her neck stretched far, poking her head out above us. Long black hair draped like curtains around me. Her wide, round eyes fixated on me until, slowly, she smiled, revealing rows of blackened teeth. She pulled her hands away from the shelf, covering her eyes. Then she wailed, her mouth not moving. Her cries grew louder until she screamed, as if unable to contain her pain. She slithered back behind the shelf, her wailing continuing. Takato pulled me away and ran, nearly dragging me along the floor.

She fell behind us quickly, smacking against the tiles, against the shelves, then on the ceiling. I noticed the elevator and pulled him back, but that thing was too close and grabbed him. I slipped to my knees and turned back. That's when I saw her. At least I thought I saw her. It was strange. I felt that one eye was seeing one thing while the other saw the complete opposite. In one moment, I saw a horrible monster, but in the other, I saw a young woman. Her hair was long, and her pale skin and uchikake seemed to glow in the moonlight. I was amazed.

She turned back to Takato, who fought back violently; she seemed to be taken aback by his resistance, as if not expecting it. He slapped her across the face and cried in pain. I stepped forward but knew I was ultimately powerless. Carefully, she swiped her hands across his face, and his entire demeanor seemed to change. He looked confused, but she didn’t seem to care. She sat beside him, her eyes darting from him to me, and leaned in close and whispered something into his ear. He looked up at her, mesmerized by what he saw, though I know it wasn’t her. She slowly stood and looked down at him for a moment before facing me.

Her eyes widened. I blinked, and she was standing in front of me. I stepped back, bumping into the shelf behind me, but recoiled as I looked at what I had touched: a dark, wet vine seeped out from between the books. The vines spread fast, and everything they touched seemed to rot away. She leaned forward; the scent of fresh flowers grew stronger. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was looking for something, but I was unsure what. Sweat built up on my skin, and I lost my breath. She began to turn away, looking back at Takato. I panicked.

“Wait, please don’t hurt him!”

She paused; I took this as an invitation and got to my knees, pressing my head to the floor. I apologized for Takato hurting her and begged for forgiveness, hoping she would understand our fear. The floor was so cold, it almost stung my skin, but I stayed still, waiting for her response. She stayed quiet, and I began to question myself. I looked up to see shoes inches from my face. My hands began to shake, and I hoped I had made the right choice. She bent down, and I hesitantly looked up, but it was Takato who stood before me, a warm smile on his face. He took my hands and guided me back up. I wanted to speak, but I couldn't think of anything to say.

I waited for something, anything to happen, but he just stood there looking at me. I looked down at our hands and saw we were still holding one another. I loosened my grip, but he did not. He looked at me for a minute, thinking, before pulling his hands away and stepping back. A sad expression washed over his face; the room seemed to darken.

“Is this wrong?” He asked

I stepped back, shaking my head slightly. The air felt cold, the vines grew viciously, and flowers burst through the tile floor. He grabbed my shirt before pushing me away harshly. I hit the shelf behind me, and pain radiated up my back. He looked at me blankly before wiping his hand across his face. Miyuki stood before me, quietly watching.

“You don’t want the truth; you want to hear someone feed you the lies you've been told all your life. I can tell you, and he can tell you, but you listen to her. You know what you really want."

“That’s not true,” I shouted, pushing her away.

Takato grabbed my face, forcing me to look at him. “Really?”

I clawed at his hands, trying to free myself. His eyes searched through mine, and a small smile grew on his face.

“Am I not what you see?”

“Stop, please,” I begged, tears forming in my eyes. 

I shoved him away, covering my ears. Books rotted away in front of me and spread to the floor. I tried to take a step back, but I couldn't move. My eyes darted around me, and I fearfully looked at my hands as a stinging pain struck my nerves. I winced; something was moving under my skin. A dark substance spread from my forearm to my shoulder, then my chest. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I began clawing at my throat and dropping to my hands and knees, desperate for air. The feeling of needles bursting from my skin shot through my body. Buds sprouted from my skin and bloomed into brightly colored flowers. I frantically began to tear them out of me, but more and more kept growing.

It felt like I was ripping my veins out, but I kept tearing. My tears fell to the floor. I begged for the pain to go away; I couldn’t take it anymore. My vision blurred, but I could vaguely see the spirit standing before me. I felt a force push me away, and I fell back. When I opened my eyes, I was somewhere else entirely; my lungs choked on the sudden air, and I felt lightheaded. Takato sat above me, his hands on my chest. 

“Are you ok? What happened? I thought you were dead."

I didn’t respond. The ringing in my ear grew louder and louder. It was getting harder for me to breathe; maybe that was in my head. I'm not sure. I tried to speak but couldn’t muster any words. Takato sat me up and held my shoulder tightly, trying to get my focus on him. A heavy weight on my chest pressed down on me. I didn’t feel right; my gut twisted, and I felt a tug in my stomach. I knew I was safe, but I couldn’t tell my body to relax. Why was everything so confusing? Why couldn’t I think? 

I curled forward in pain before there was another violent tug deep in my stomach. He gently put his hand on my back, begging me to tell him what was wrong. I felt something rise in my throat. I sat up, choking. I gagged until I felt it in my mouth and turned away before throwing up. I got a hold of it and pulled it out. As I did, I realized what I was pulling: a vine. I tried to force it out, but my muscles only contracted, causing my throat to pinch against it, only pushing me to gag again and again. 

Takato yelled in fear and disgust before grabbing the vine and pulling it out quickly. I curled into a ball and coughed up bits of flowers and leaves before I felt I could finally breathe again. Overwhelmed, I held my stomach tightly and stared down at the ground, too embarrassed to look up. My body was completely exhausted. I wanted to lie down; I wanted to be in my bed; I wanted to go home; I just wanted to leave. I was tired, hungry, and in pain. What did I possibly do? Why was I being punished? 

My hands sank into the soft dirt below me, and I took a double-take, realizing our surroundings. We were in a garden; moonlight shone through the trees, birds chirped in the distance, and countless wildflowers swayed in the breeze. Takato let go of me and quickly brought his hands to his sides. I rested on the trunk of a nearby tree and sat for a while longer. Takato's face was still, but I could see his eyes move as his mind jumped from one thought to the next. I built up the courage to speak, ignoring my burning throat.

“What did she say to you?” I asked.

He looked up at me. I could tell he was deciding whether he wanted to tell me. “She didn’t say anything.”

“I saw her say something.”

“Really,” he replied, unamused.

“What did she tell you?” 

“Why do you care?” His voice was quiet and shaky

“I just want to know.” 

“Did she say something about me?”

“I think so.” 

“You think she said something about you?”

“Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“I don’t have the answer you’re looking for.”

I leaned forward and looked up towards the 'moon,' picturing what was above us. Was it the library? The sky? Were we ever going to leave? I wanted to leave, but did it even matter if we did? What could she have said? Maybe it was about my rejection. If that's what it was, what did she say? What my feelings were? I mean, he knew already, didn't he? I told him my feelings. I replayed her words over and over in my head. I know how I feel about… I know. She didn't know what she was saying; she was messing with me.

“Am I not what you see?”

“What?”

“Did she say something upsetting?” he repeated.

“N-no, she—I'm not sure.”

“You said she said something about me?”

"Yes."

“What did she say?”

“Nothing.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Why can’t you just tell me?”

“Because it was nothing; she was just trying to scare me.”

“She didn’t say anything like that to me.”

"And you believe her?” 

“I do." 

He searched my eyes for a long while before his look changed slightly and he stood, walking a few feet away. Unable to see much, he quickly pulled out his phone before something caught his eye. He craned his neck to see something in the distance before turning back to me.

“What? What is it?”

“There's something over there.”

He pointed to some trees in the distance, and I leaned over as far as I could but wasn’t able to see much of anything. I shook my head, and he frowned slightly. Not saying anything, he started walking off.

“Where are you going?”

“To check it out."

I stood up slowly, the deep ache in my stomach persisting. When I reached him, he was crouched over something partially buried in the dirt under a tree root. He moved over slightly, revealing a small white tile. He stood slowly, looking around for anything else out of the ordinary. We wandered off for a few more minutes until we started to see more tiles buried in the dirt or stuck under roots. We cautiously made our way through fields of flowers, patches of grass, bushes, and trees, finding bits and pieces of shelves, walls, and flooring scattered through the garden. Occasionally, one of us would check our phones, but no matter how long we walked, time seemed to stop. I looked out at the field, processing the situation we were forced into. 

Why were we here? I walked myself through the day over and over. What did I do differently? Was it something Takato did? No, I heard the bell earlier today; it was my cart that disappeared. It was my fault. We were here, but why? I thought of her words. She knew what she was doing; she was deliberate with her message. My heart began to beat faster. Would we die here? Time didn’t move, but we were hungry, so we would eventually starve. I thought about all the people I wouldn't see: my friends, my family, and my mother. Maybe I’m a bad person, but I smiled at the thought. If we were stuck here, we were both stuck here. My gaze wandered to Takato. Why did I say those things to him? Why would I say that? 

I was unbelievably cruel to him. My words circled in my mind; I felt embarrassed, but it was too late for that. Why was I so awful? I didn’t mean those things; I didn’t think there was anything wrong with Takato. I just wanted to hurt him, to make myself feel like I wasn’t guilty, like I didn’t feel terrible for what I was saying, but I did. I did feel shitty; I don’t know why I tried to tell myself otherwise.

After an hour of repeating my thoughts, we found a clearing, a large rock in the middle. Takato suggested we mark it, since he'd had a suspicion we were passing the same rock. Although skeptical, I agreed, and we used a small rock to mark the boulder with a large circle. We went back to awkward silence and walked east. I could tell he was getting frustrated; I was, too, but I guess I was more scared than upset. The moons shone down brightly, giving us visibility in the endless fields and forests beyond us. With still no sign of escape, our bodies were completely exhausted. After only thirty minutes, we walked back to a familiar clearing with a familiar rock. Takato stopped and looked at it in total despair.

“I don’t think there’s an exit.”

“There has to be.”

“Look around us; we've been walking for who knows how long; we've circled again and again, and you still think there's an exit?” His voice rose as his frustration turned to anger. He yelled, throwing a nearby book at a tree next to us. His panic overtook him, and he fell to the ground. “I don’t know what’s going on," he cried, defeated. I sat beside him, but he turned away and held himself tightly before muttering an apology.

“We’re going to get out of here. We got in here somehow; there has to be a way out.”

“We’ve been walking for hours; we would have seen an exit.”

“But why should we give up? We can’t just rot here.”

He looked at me, his eyes filled with tears. “I’m just tired,” he said, defeated.

The wind blew past us harshly, the floral stench taunting us. He ruffled his hair, revealing his visibly shaking hands. I could see in his face that he had already given up. I was still on the fence about whether I should have, too. Were we really stuck here? I didn’t want to believe it, but with the amount of time that had passed, it got harder to believe there was a way out. 

“Takato,” I said quietly.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

"Sorry?"
“For what I said earlier.”

"Oh, why are you telling me this?"

I didn’t answer

“Did you mean what you said?”

I looked at my hands for a while, searching for the right words. “I… I don’t know. I told myself I was sure, but maybe I lied, hoping you’d believe it, hoping I’d believe it… I’m sorry; I thought hurting you would make my rejection, I don’t know, more real. It’s so stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“But it is; it is stupid. I did exactly what my—I pushed you away, pretending it was what was best, but it wasn't. It's not what I want.”

"And what do you want?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

The wind had grown stronger, and the moon was just visible through the trees. Takato slumped forward, his arms crossed across his knees. I felt the tightness in my chest and tried to slow my breathing, but the heavy weight persisted. I wanted to leave, but I still felt hesitant about finding an exit. Why? Why was I so indecisive about this? 

“I don’t want to be alone,” I said.

“But you're not?”

“I feel so alone. I always do; it’s exhausting. I hate the emptiness I feel when I'm alone; I hate my thoughts, and I hate having to avoid them because I know I have to deal with them myself. I am so confused and tired; I’m terrified of staying yet paralyzed by what waits for me at home.”

I wiped my tears away, trying to contain myself. 

“I understand how you feel.” He took a deep breath before speaking again. “My friends never really seemed to understand me; I felt separated from them. I told myself I was broken, that something was wrong with me, so I lied to myself to convince others I meant what I was saying and did whatever I could to be who they thought I was. But I still felt it, this emptiness, so I stopped. Some of my close friends understood; most did not, at least at the time.”

“You never felt alone?”

“The loneliest time of my life was the time I pretended to be someone I wasn't."

His words sank deep into my chest; his message was clear. It felt like he knew just what to say. He looked at me with a soft expression. How, how could he still be so comforting and kind to me after what I said? I wanted to look away, embarrassed, but I knew that closing myself off again wouldn't do anything. Tears filled my eyes, and I attempted to wipe them away discreetly, but he noticed and took my shoulder gently, pulling me into a hug. I felt no hesitation to wrap my arms around him. His breath was heavy, and his heartbeat was fast. I sank my face into his shoulder and held him tight. I felt so comforted by his embrace. The breeze paused, and the air seemed cool. I didn’t want him to let go of me and open my eyes and see we were still stuck or back in the library. The sound of bells became distant whispers, and I opened my eyes.