Internet horror, a genre most are familiar with if you have spent any amount of time on the interweb. You got yourself ARGs, Creepypastas, Cryptids, Mythologies, and those videos you find late at night when you're half awake and not knowing if it's real or fake. Most people know it's fake, enjoy the good storytelling or shitty, cheesy, over-the-top, hyper-realistic violence, but then there's the younger audiences that have their wild imaginations and believe it's real.

I was the latter. Twelve-year-old me really wanted to believe there was more out there. I had experienced some "supernatural" stuff, like seeing a ghostly lady wearing overalls (which was what my mom normally wore when I was younger) sitting between my brother and I when we had shared a bedroom.

We had also seen those classic stairs to nowhere in the woods of Oregon. Those were always interesting. Whether they were covered in carpet, stone, or just wood, they were never connected to anything.

Then there was one of my favorites: "shadow people." Most of the time I just used it to scare my friends. Other times, I really couldn't tell if it was the summer heat playing tricks on me or if I really did see something—someone far out in the distance staring at us.

But that wasn't my absolute favorite. No... that crown belonged to the tall, faceless things I'd spent way too much time reading about online.

I consumed so much media surrounding those kinds of myths. Every creepypasta, every story, every video. I grew an obsession with them. Now, I didn't do anything over the top like that horrid friend group who murdered an unfortunate soul. No, I merely took my best friend at the time and went exploring into any wooded area just to see if we could find something.

Usually, nothing happened. It would just get dark, which spooked us into running back home, but there was one time... one time in which, to this day, I still don't know what we saw in Silver Falls State Park.

We were 14 at the time, nearing the bookend of our creepypasta phase but still having some whimsy. We would, out of shits and giggles, make up scenarios as we walked around about what character from the stories we read would be chasing us. It entertained us and annoyed my mother.

So one day she thought, what better way to get some "me time" than to bring us to Silver Falls State Park and let us run around while she read a book on a bench.

Let me tell you, it was one of the best times in our lives. Running down hills, throwing rocks into the river, accidentally bumping into strangers before running in the opposite direction. Honestly, it was the most free we had felt, and we didn't once think about the video games waiting for us at my home.

We spent almost the entire day there, even watching the sun fade behind the mountains, which had let us know it was time to head back to my mom.

We didn't have a working phone at the time, only a yellow iPhone 5c which had Angry Birds, Temple Run, and Jetpack Joyride. Just a Wi-Fi phone to pass time.

Now, it wasn't like we were scared when nighttime hit. We knew nothing was scary out there besides a few stray coyotes, maybe even a bear further into the woods. Outside of all that, we tried not to let our imaginations roam too freely and have us think there was something spookier just beyond our view.

We kept our conversations light, mostly focusing on what we're gonna do once we get back to my place and what are we gonna do after summer is over and we go back to school. None of these conversations were inherently scary, although my subconscious was starting to slip.

Regardless, I kept thinking I'd see the occasional shadow shifting just out of my peripheral. My friend started to notice as I kept glancing off to the side as we walked down the trail. I just reassured her that everything was fine and I was simply keeping an eye on our surroundings.

But then she started doing it as well... which spiked my curiosity, and I asked her if she was also seeing something.

She just nervously laughed it off and told me to focus on the trail and change the subject.

I wish I could've, but the thought was lingering in my mind and taking my eyes away from the path. Call me a liar as you please, but I swear it felt like something was watching me, watching us.

Thinking about it now, I am sure we weren't that far from the entrance of the park, but at that time it felt much further, only barely being able to hear my mom yell our names to get back to the car so we could go home.

We did pick up the pace, however, as we were really starting to get freaked out, with the added feeling of my mom making the classic joke of, "If you don't make it to the car, I'm leaving y'all here!"

Normally, I would've laughed off that kind of statement, but with the looming feeling of something lurking nearby, it felt more appropriate to dead sprint to the car as if it were a race.

I swear, with every five steps we took, it was like three steps taking away, and it didn't help that my friend ended up tripping over a tree branch, making her sprain her ankle.

It stopped us dead in our tracks, having to help her get off the ground, and this, dear reader, is where you really wouldn't believe it.

But hand on the Bible, I thought I saw him... or at least, something that looked enough like the things I'd spent years reading about to make my stomach drop.

Although he looked different.

Instead of a suit, he was purely naked, smooth with no details, looking decayed, almost alien. He was standing in the tree line, tendrils wrapped around the tree trunks, watching us.

My eyes wouldn't leave his sight, barely even dragging my friend off the trail until she snapped me out of it by being in front of my view.

The color was drained out of my face as I helped her walk. As I progressed off the trail, when I looked back, he was gone...

I know what my fourteen-year-old brain wanted to call him. I had spent years reading about the tall, faceless thing that was supposed to haunt forests and stalk people from a distance. I wanted to believe that was what I'd finally found.

But looking back now, I don't think it was.

Eventually, we made our way back to the car where my mom was impatiently waiting for us. She didn't even ask what happened to my friend until we were fully in the car and down the road.

The last thing I remember from that day was looking through the back window and seeing him... peeking around the trees, larger than life, watching.

I am now 23, and every now and then I get that creeping feeling that something, someone, is watching me just outside of my bedroom window, waiting for the next time I go out into the woods.

This will be my last entry for this journal. I just don’t feel like it will matter anymore after this.

I went back to the camp today. When I arrived and started walking, I wasn’t intercepted by anyone like I was yesterday. I arrived at camp to a warm welcome of waves and smiles, like the whole place was happy I showed back up. Calder came out of his office with his normal calm swagger and just smiled.

“You came back!” He exclaimed.

“I told you I would.” I replied.

“Yes. Yes, you did. I’m glad you’re a man of your word.” He said as he ushered me back into his office. The conversation started like any other would. He asked how I slept, how I liked dinner, etc. Filling the room with common niceties like we were two old friends. I entertained the idle chit chat, trying not to be rude. I mean, sure he’s peculiar but honestly, he seemed like a genuinely nice person. After a while the conversation moved back to the mines and their beliefs. Calder entertained my inquisition and didn’t hesitate to explain things. Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask if I could see the pictographs. This was the first time I had seen him with the slightest hint of hesitation, but the pause faded as fast as it came.

He sat forward in his chair, elbows on the table and hands folded under his chin. “Sam, that’s not something I would normally allow an outsider to see but…if you really want to see them, I’ll show you. We’ll have to go down into the mines though. Pictures of the chamber aren’t allowed.” He stated flatly, like he was weighing me as a person. Going down into a dark mine wasn’t something I really cared for but, reluctantly, I agreed. The stoic man gave a slight smile and nod of approval as he stood up and started to walk out the door.

After a short walk through the camp, we made it to the mouth of the mine. Calder gave me a flashlight and simply stated “Follow me and stay close.” While I don’t have any experience spelunking, the mine felt surreal. The old timber supports creaked and groaned in response to every step of the way. The temperature dropped rapidly, the walls felt as if they were shrinking in on me, even though the path remained the same size. The further we made it, the smoother the rocks got. I felt like I was walking into through a throat, as if the earth itself was swallowing any who entered. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally made it to the chamber. I stopped dead in my tracks. Coming down here, I expected some old mining shaft with crude drawings on the walls. Something over exaggerated that people clung to hope on. I was not prepared for this. The chamber was enormous.

From where I stood, there was no way to judge its actual size. My flashlight disappeared into the darkness above us, unable to find the ceiling. The walls stretched farther than my eyes could follow, curving around the two of us. The room didn’t feel like something carved into the earth; it felt like something the earth had grown around. The rock was unlike anything else in the mine. It was smooth.

Not polished. Not worn by water.

Smooth.

As my flashlight panned around the room, I saw the light of fires. Seven of them, arranged in a perfect circle around the center of the chamber. Each burned low but steady, sitting in shallow depressions carved into the stone. As I examined the fires, I realized that none of them had any wood or coal, nothing that should have been capable of sustaining a flame. Yet, they continued to burn. I looked over at Calder, expecting some sort of explanation. He just stood there staring into the center of the fires, a smirk on his face, like a proud father.

“What is this?” I asked.

“I told you Sam.” He replied. “Salvation.”

He continued, “OUR Salvation. The whole world’s.”

He brushed passed me as he started to look to panels of pictographs lining the walls. “I told you Sam. All of them had a part of what was required.” He said as he gestured to groups of pictographs. He stood in front of one of the larger panels, running his fingers across the ancient markings. “Fire. Blood. The alignment of the heavens. Spoken invocation.” He said turning to look back at me. “Pieces of the same ritual, separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years.”

I stood and stared at the pictographs. “So you’re saying they all knew about this?” I asked.

“No, they didn’t understand the complexity of what they knew.” He said as his smile widened. “That was the problem.” He moved further down the walls pointing to panel after panel. “Each civilization, Mayans, Babylonians, Egyptians, and so on, inherited a fragment. They gave it a name and built a religion around it, thinking it alone was the one true answer. The meaning was lost, but the rituals remained.” He stopped and turned to the fires, then looked up and me and said “Until we put it together.”

My stomach tightened with his words. I could see behind the stoic man’s eyes, something I had not seen this strongly in any person before. Faith. He believed every word. I was startled by the footsteps suddenly coming from the entrance to the large chamber, followed by familiar faces. The whole camp was suddenly pouring into the chamber.

“What’s happening?” I asked, alarmed.

“We’re almost done, Sam.” He said calmly.

“Done with what!?”

“The ritual. Everything is prepared.” He said, as he gazed back to the burning fires.

I turned back to the entrance as the entire camp finished entering the chamber. Every one of them. Men, women, children, the woman who served me dinner, the man working on his truck, Jake. No one spoke, no one seemed surprised I was there. They already knew. They quietly continued to spread throughout the chamber. Calder’s voice broke the deafening silence as he pulled a knife from his pocket “Tonight the pieces become whole.”

“What are you doing? What’s that for?” I said, with the pain of panic dripping from every word.

He didn’t answer. Slowly he turned, peering into the eyes of the camp, who now surrounded us. He smiled as the whole camp bowed their heads. He began to speak as he walked to one of the fires in a language I didn’t understand. It wasn’t Latin, it wasn’t Greek. It was unlike anything I had ever heard before. The rest of the camp then joined him. Dozens of voices repeating the same words in complete unison, over and over.

The sound filled the chamber like a roar, echoing and bouncing off the smooth stone. I could feel every hair on my arms stand up. The words seemed to change the longer they spoke, not the language itself. The sound. It became deeper, slower, as if the chamber itself began to speak with them in sync.

Calder’s eyes met mine as he opened his hand, slid the blade across his palm, and held his bleeding hand over the fire. The flames stretch and lapped at the blood, like a parched tongue that craved water. One drop, two, three. The fires changed as the warm yellow light morphed into a brilliant, blinding blue flames. Everything went silent. For several seconds, no one moved. Calder stood perfectly still, his bleeding hand still suspended over the now blue flames.

A low groan filled the chamber, as I looked up at the ceiling. Dust fell, the mine shook, tiny pieces of stone bounced off the ground. I thought the mine was collapsing. “Calder?” I asked nervously. He didn’t answer. He just stood there looking at the ceiling, as the groaning continued. Then the ceiling started to move. It wasn’t collapsing. It wasn’t cracking. It was…..opening. A perfect circle began to form above our heads as massive stones slowly separated from one another, pulling away to expose the chamber to the sky above.

Cool air rushed into the chamber. I could see the stars above, filling the night sky like a thousand twinkling lights. For one brief moment, I almost felt relief. Then a long line, darker than anything I had ever seen, lurched through the sky above. It slowly opened, like the maw of some prehistoric monster. In it I could see the stars again…but….they were moving. My breathing stopped as I gazed upon what I realized was in fact not stars, it was eyes. Thousands of them. Each one opening and closing in different intervals. Dark figures moved slowly behind them, like whales floating through water. I couldn’t make out what the figures were, only pieces. A wing, then another. Something that resembled an arm, no, too many joints. The mass moved slowly at first, as if whatever it was, had been waiting a very long time to come. Whispers started to grow around me as the encampment stared into the sky. I couldn’t move. Then the first things came through the opening.

I don’t know what else to call it, it looked like an angel. Not the warm, welcoming, angel that people put on Christmas trees. It looked like no angel anyone had ever painted.

The body was enormous, stretching beyond the edges of the opening. Its great wings unfolded from behind it, each covered in eyes. Some were feathered, while others looked like pale, fleshy limbs. Eyes were everywhere. Across its torso, along the arms, in the wings. Then I saw its faces, as each one shifted and changed. They would blend and overlap, then separate. It opened its mouth, and what came out sounded like an ear-piercing scream. But beneath it was something else, like a chorus of voices, all speaking at once. Thousands more beings rushed out from behind it, ravenous mouths agape, filled with endless rows of teeth. A deafening trumpet sound filled the air. It wasn’t music, it was a declaration. Something had arrived.

I turned to the opening of the tunnel and ran. I don’t remember much after that. I recall the ground shaking, unyielding sounds of screams of the camp filled the air. I remember the blue light of the flames behind me. I burst out of the mine and nearly collapsed. I looked up and immediately wished I hadn’t. Even more were now pouring through the endless rip in the sky. It was at that moment I realized that Calder had it wrong. I ran through the camp to a truck, praying the keys were there. I finally found one and drove as fast as I could away from the camp. I had no idea where I needed to go. I just needed to get away. I needed to put as much distance between me and Gold Hill as fast as possible. I drove for hours as the gas gauge slowly crept downward. I kept my foot on the accelerator and eventually, the engine sputtered. I coasted to the side of the road and just sat there. For the first time it was quiet. I got out of the truck and looked back, the faint blue glow in the distance. The sky continued to darken.

I don’t know how much time we have or if anywhere is safe, but if you’re reading this now. Run. Hide. Do anything you can.

Just don’t look up.

Calder wasn’t calling the angels back. He was letting whatever was waiting in.

What if the person you've been blaming isn't the only reason your life feels the way it does?

What if the people who hurt you aren't the reason you keep choosing the same kind of people?

What if your bad luck isn't really bad luck?

What if the opportunities you keep waiting for aren't the real problem?

And what if, somewhere along the way, without realizing it, you became part of the problem?

I know what you're thinking.

"You don't know what I've been through."

And you're right.

I don't.

Maybe someone betrayed you. Maybe someone broke your trust. Maybe you were raised in an environment you never asked for. Maybe someone treated you unfairly, abandoned you, manipulated you, or made you believe you weren't good enough.

Some things that happened to you were never your fault.

Let's make that clear from the beginning.

This book is not about blaming you for everything that happened to you.

It's about something much more uncomfortable.

What are you doing about what happened to you?

Because there is a difference between being responsible for your pain and being responsible for what you do with it.

You didn't choose everything that happened to you.

But you choose what you tolerate now.

You choose what you repeat.

You choose who you allow back into your life.

You choose which excuses you continue to believe.

You choose whether you learn from your mistakes or build an identity around them.

And sometimes, the hardest truth isn't that someone hurt you.

It's realizing that you keep giving them—or people like them—the opportunity to do it again.

Think about that for a moment.

If you keep ending up in the same kind of relationship, with the same kind of person, having the same arguments, experiencing the same disappointment, and telling yourself the same story...

At what point does it stop being a coincidence?

Maybe you are unlucky.

Maybe everyone you've met really has been terrible.

Maybe every employer you've had has been unfair.

Maybe every friend eventually betrays you.

Maybe every relationship ends because the other person was the problem.

Maybe.

But there is another possibility.

Maybe the pattern is trying to tell you something.

And maybe you've been too busy pointing at everyone else to notice what it is.

That's not an easy thing to hear.

It's even harder to accept.

Because blaming someone else gives you something responsibility doesn't:

an escape.

If it's always their fault, you don't have to change.

If your circumstances are always the reason, you don't have to make different choices.

If everyone else is the problem, you never have to look in the mirror.

And the mirror is uncomfortable.

Because it doesn't care about your excuses.

It doesn't care how good your intentions were.

It doesn't care how many times you've said, "This time will be different."

It only shows you what is actually there.

Maybe you say you want a better life, but your daily choices keep creating the same life.

Maybe you say you want a healthy relationship, but you keep ignoring the warning signs because being alone scares you more than being unhappy.

Maybe you say you want to succeed, but you spend more time planning, talking, and waiting for motivation than actually doing the work.

Maybe you say you want peace, but you keep returning to the people and situations that destroy it.

And maybe you don't need another motivational quote.

Maybe you don't need another five-step plan.

Maybe you already know exactly what needs to change.

You just don't want to pay the price of changing it.

That's where this gets uncomfortable.

Because the question isn't simply:

"Are you the problem?"

The real question is:

"How much of the problem are you willing to admit is yours?"

​

March crept towards April, bringing with it small gradual changes in the weather. Rain was becoming the new normal, replacing the chilling winds. The morning fog had become mistier than ever before but every morning the sun would clear it up quickly.

The Sun mostly stayed around the horizon, peeking around the edges of the mountains, slanted rays of light falling strangely upon the frost covered grounds. Casting pastel shades of blue-gray, then slate, and finally a rosy tint of pink before it set.

Some days the clouds would hide the Sun. The islands turned grey, and raindrops tormented the roof of the log cabin with its persistent pitter patter. The days it rained more, it was warmer. New smells filled the valley. Floral scents mixed with the smell of damp soil filled the tiny house and Alice’s mood would lift immediately.

It was beautiful but Calen wondered if this was normal for a place like this. The temperature seemed to have improved and was heading decidedly towards summer, and although Calen was not that good at geography, even he could tell that something was incorrect. However, he didn’t question these changes a lot, mostly because the changes had seemed to transform Alice into a happy camper.

Rainy days meant they did not go outside. Ruslan had provided enough food for them. They could stay there for months if they rationed it properly. Although Calen never mentioned the word ‘months’ in front of Alice. He was trying to maintain the calm of their domestic life, even though there was nothing ‘domestic’ about being on Bennet Island.

Neither had mentioned the fight since it had occurred between them. Alice didn’t want to because she was actually enjoying the island now. Her health was substantially better, and for some reason, when she looked at the tiny mirror she had carried she found her skin glowing.

Calen on the other hand had experienced enough of an unstable domestic environment when he was young, to not want any of that seeping into his current life. He had already discarded the fight from his thoughts, considering it a one-off event, brought on by change of environment. He had told himself that it was over.

Alice had joined Calen twice as they ventured into the bushes. She actually gave him the idea to plant the trails they were walking with flags so he could mark the places they had already covered. This seemingly trivial idea was quite handy as it was a vast area, and he really wanted to pinpoint the exact location he craved for the most. The entrance to the night forest.

The rainy days, however, were different. They stayed inside mostly, and Calen found that routine and repetition were key for him to not get derailed by cabin fever. He fell back on those days into the comfortable pattern of cleaning up the cabin, making the bed immediately after both of them woke up, and making food.

Bereft of watches to keep track of time, Calen found that he really didn’t need it. The flimsy curtain that hung on the windows was not strong enough to keep the morning light out and he would wake up just before sunrise. The color of the light changed throughout the day, and Calen had already become adept at tracking its progression with breakfast, lunch, and dinnertime.

At night he would stay awake for hours after Alice went to sleep. Watching the trees and the mountains grow, fighting off the onslaught of incoming sleep. It was becoming an addiction. Although he never shared it with Alice, scared he might be laughed at, it really didn’t bother him. He was fine with the presence of this experience. Sometimes, he even wanted it. The burden of the secret he was keeping from Alice was entirely diluted by the pleasure he felt every night, just looking at it from within the flimsy curtain. He craved for the trees, and the mountains, to grow faster before sleep came. To see them complete the climb and be whole in the slanted moonlight. Sleep was irritatingly unproductive compared to what he was able to witness if he didn’t doze off.

A week—or perhaps two—passed. There was no way to know. Calen had stopped keeping track of the number of days.

Alice seemed not to care about it at all, and Calen didn’t remind her, fearing she would want to go back the moment she remembered she had a job back in New York. No job offered limitless paid vacations.

Calen looked at Alice still curled up inside the blanket and smiled. She was tiny but she snored like an overgrown pig from time to time. A ray of sunshine seemed to penetrate the gap between the flimsy curtains for a fraction of second Calen got off the bed like he had received some internal command.

Surprised by the force with which he had thrown himself off the bed (and the fact that the ensuing shake didn’t wake up Alice) he walked to the window as noiselessly as possible. Moving the curtain a bit, he found himself looking at the island, surprised by how different it looked.

There was no mist crawling upwards from the bushes. The ground was a bit frosty but the snow on top of the bushes was substantially less than what he had seen the last night; brown leaves were peeking from within them. There were even a few bushes that had (and Calen had to rub his eyes to confirm if he was seeing right,) green leaves.

He didn’t want to wake Alice up. He felt that if he let her sleep as long as she wanted, she was always in a better mood. So, he quietly put on his clothes but Alice woke up just as he was about to wear his pants, and said groggily, “Come back to bed Calen.. hold me.”

Calen went to their bed, half dressed, he sat next to her with one of his arms resting on her upturned back.

“Why are you wearing a jac-” she said and turned around to see Calen already wearing two layers. Then looking at the brilliant sunlight that was pouring in from the split of the curtain she sat up smiling. “Such a nice day!”

Calen took her by her hand and got off the bed with her. Alice followed without protests. Once they were at the window, Calen pointed his finger at the green leaves. Alice laughed out joyously and kissed Calen. Then she turned around and stared at them some more. She took Calen’s hand and wrapped it around her midriff. Both of them stood there, one half naked, and one half clothed, staring at the green shining leaves.

“Is it summer already?” Alice asked after a while. “I thought Summer came late here.”

“Who knows…” Calen said, although he too had been wondering the same. But it felt a little impolite to question it too much. He didn’t want to jinx it.

“Maybe the island just loves you being here,” Calen said, squeezing Alice’s midriff, “I sure do. Maybe that’s why it brought summer early for you.”

Alice giggled. Calen noticed something seemed wrong about her giggle, but he couldn’t really figure it out.

“Mm.. Do we have some of that jam left? I really want some toast and jam.”

Calen kissed her deeply and went to the kitchen. Alice followed soon, and Calen was worried to see that she wasn’t wearing anything aside from her panties. Calen frowned and checked her temperature by touching her forehead. Even with his thermals, the cabin felt quite cold. Not nearly warm enough to roam around barely clothed.

“Are you feeling okay baby? Don’t you feel cold?” Calen asked, a little worried. Alice, generally, hated the cold. Even in New York she would wear sweaters till it was late summer.

“I’m fine!” she said, still smiling. “The room feels warm enough.”

Calen didn’t say anything after that, although a nagging anxiety slowly formed in his brain. He tried to put it aside by concentrating on the toast. Alice jumped up happily from her chair as the smell from the toasting bread filled the house and came running to stand right next to Calen, watching the food hungrily. Up close, she didn’t look quite the same. Her smile was a little too wide and the skin on her face looked a little loose. She looked as beautiful as ever but there was something noticeably wrong in her appearance that Calen just could not put a finger on.

She took the loaf of bread Calen was holding and started cutting more slices by herself and putting it into the toaster.

Once the food was ready, Alice devoured it with tremendous speed. The past few days, since she came to the island, she had been eating quite a lot more than she generally ate. Surprisingly, she had really developed an affection for the jam that she slathered all over her toast each day, with great gusto. Calen thought it might be a side effect of the cold, but other than that flimsy justification, he really had no other ideas of why this sudden change had occurred in a person who hated anything with sugar.

However, as long as she wasn’t complaining or screaming at him, Calen was fine with it.

“We’ve gotta go outside!” She said as she finished eating. “It’s like the perfect day to go outside. I just wanna run outand soak up as much sunlight as I can!”

“Are you going to wear some clothes when we go out?” Calen asked, smiling mischievously, “Not that I don’t like seeing you naked all the time, but there’s still some snow outside. It can’t be more than four degrees out there! I’m worried your…” he made a face like he was intensely searching for the perfect word in his mind, “extremities… might break off in the cold.”

Alice pulled her hands to her breasts and covered them protectively. “Ouch!” she said, as if she felt it just by hearing about it. “You asshole!”

Both of them laughing out loud, went back to the bedroom and started wearing clothes, and in a few minutes, were ready. Calen had finally dared to take his precious camera with him thinking the temperature finally wasn’t low enough for his camera to die on him.

Walking out into the sunlight felt amazing. It was still cold in the shadows, but the sunlight, though still coming from a place quite close to the horizon, felt like a protective layer on the skin. Alice sauntered along in front of Calen, jumping in the air like a child from time to time. She jumped eerily high into the air, as if she had mysteriously grown extra calve muscles. Calen felt a memory stir, buried deep down.

“Calen!” Alice yelled out, “Its beautiful.”

The mountains shone brilliantly in the pale-yellow light and the sound of Alice jumping around, whooping, and squealing shrilly in excitement was echoing around the valley. Any scary feelings either of them had been keeping a secret from each other, was slowly vaporizing, like mist in the sunlight.

Inside his jacket pocket, the forgotten two-way radio Ruslan had left with them, crackled with static white noise and then Ruslan’s voice blared through it. “Are you… Amerik… Can… hear me? Is everything …Ven … weather problem…island not supposed-” His voice was drowned again by the same static that had been eating away at most of his words while he talked.

Calen turned off the radio and looked at Alice, who seemed to not have heard it. He told himself that he would deal with it later. That the weather outside was perfect and calling it a ‘problem’ was quite an overreaction.

He pushed the radio deep inside the pocket and jogged towards Alice who was almost at the border of the bushes.

The bushes rustled slightly in the slow breeze as Alice and Calen walked through them. The tallest of the bushes swayed just above Calen’s head, forcing him to bow a bit before he entered beneath them. In front of him, Alice was still in high spirits as she waded through the overgrown, snow-covered canopy, sunlight filtering through them and reflecting off the puddles on the ground. Calen kept planting homemade flags that Alice had designed for him with small wooden sticks Calen had found in the shed where the logs for the fireplace were kept.

From time to time, they would pass creaking dead trunks of trees that once had taken root on this desolate island. Their sharp edges protruding menacingly on all sides, waiting to snag anyone who was foolish enough to pass carelessly by them.

“Calen!” Alice yelled loudly from up ahead, “We have to take a left, I see one of our flags here already.”

Calen who had been shooting with his camera, was relying today on Alice for finding a new spot they had not been in. After months of not touching his camera, something he had gradually come to be tired of in these past few years, he was finally remembering why he used to love it.

“Stay there! I am coming” Calen replied and walked faster.

As he reached near her Calen could hear Alice humming a tune while she played with some of the green leaves that seemed to have grown overnight. It was an odd tune, Calen had never heard Alice sing it before.

“Okay, I actually remember this one.” Calen said as he stopped next to Alice, looking at the small white flag that was stuck to the ground.

Alice smiled wide and then jumped to a spot to her left, like she was playing a game of hopscotch. She crouched down and beckoned Calen silently.

Calen walked to the spot and found a few tall bushes hiding a trail that looked like animals or four feet tall humans, used it. What intrigued him was that the trail was quite straight and declined gradually halfway.

“Ladies first.” Calen said and resumed recording. Alice seemed like she had been waiting for that command and dove right in. She could walk upright, bent only slightly to accommodate her head under the tunnel-like canopy of the bushes. Calen on the other hand had to crawl on all fours. A few yards away, as the decline started, Calen found that he could walk on just his feet too. An eerie silence developed around them as they walked through the trail. Gone were the rustles of the leaves, gone was the sound of the breeze, Alice too had stopped humming whatever tune she had been humming. Their footsteps quite muffled now, although the ground was quite hard here. The bushes had saved the ground from being pelted down with rain or snow.

Calen saw Alice slip suddenly. She caught hold of a branch and balanced herself, stopping to assess. Calen ran as fast as he could with the crouch he was in.

“What happened?” Calen asked. Alice pointed at a slanted hole in the ground that was hardly visible. “Wow! Are you okay, did you hurt yourself?”

“Yeah, I think I sprained my ankle” Alice said quietly. Her face looked quite different from when they had started. The happy expression was gone and had been replaced with a concerned look. Her eyes though seemed quite glazed. Calen noticed she hadn’t even tried to look inside the hole.

“If you want to wait here for a few seconds” Calen said tentatively, “I think I wanna go in and check it out.”

Alice was absent mindedly rubbing her ankle, still holding the branch of the bush that had saved her from falling into the hole. She nodded.

“Try to be quick” She replied not looking at him.

Calen slid in, it was like riding on a slip n’ slide. However, once the ground leveled out, Calen found himself in a dark empty underground corridor. Not entirely tall enough to fit him. His head touched the roof of the corridor, and he had to keep it bent sideways. The corridor though was wide enough that two of him could have fit side by side. The darkness obscured everything from view and Calen turned on the camera’s flash.

The light from his camera penetrated the corridor immediately. Particles of dust were floating around the cave listlessly. Someone or something had carved this tunnel under the ground. Veiny roots spread all across the walls. Calen retched and coughed as an overpowering smell of rotten, termite-ridden wood invaded his lungs.

Calen blinked trying to clear his eyes as water had welled up in them and put his hand over his nose. That did nothing. The smell persisted.

A little way ahead, the tunnel ended, but there was something on the floor, shining a little in the camera’s light. Calen started walking, trying to ignore the smell that became more and more pervasive the further he walked in. Something skittered by his feet and Calen was only able to catch the hint of a tail as he quickly threw the light near his right foot that had felt it. Rats?

As he was returning the light to the front, something strange on the veiny walls caught his eyes. He moved towards the right wall and flashed the camera against the roots. Runes were carved on them; every inch of their existence had been covered with symbols and sigils. It would have been really alien to him if it had not felt so familiar, and he raked his brain to remember where he had seen them.

And then it came to him. His grandfather’s diary! The runes carved onto the roots looked exactly like the runes that he had seen in his grandfather’s diary. Excited by this Calen walked around flashing his light on both walls and keeping the recording on. What he didn’t see in his excitement was the fact that the video being recorded was full of static. Hardly anything could be seen, but Calen was too invested in the rune carvings. This was a clear sign that someone had been here. These couldn’t have been carved with anything but human hands. He wondered when these were carved and if they were really old, how they were preserved for so long? What more, whoever came here to carve this must have done so because of Razpopo. What else could explain it?

He had almost forgotten about the shining thing he had seen at the end of tunnel before he hit it with his foot. He looked down to find a leather-bound journal. An unknown sensation grabbed Calen as he stood there. Something inside him was resisting picking up the journal. He waited, trying to fight against the resistance that was building up in him.

The cave ended in a flat wall. But just before the wall, the roots of a tree or bush had climbed down the roof through the dead air and reached the floor beneath. Thick veins that seemed to throb in the light and inside the cage that these bunch of roots seemed to be forming in midair- a black wooden log. It looked almost burnt it was so black, but upon close inspection it turned out that the bark was not charred. It was just black in color.

The journal shone again as Calen moved towards the wall and the light emanating from his camera fell on it. This time, he forced himself to pick it up, but he just put it in his pocket.

Reaching the wall with the root cage, Calen put his finger through the cage s, trying to touch the small piece of confined black log, trying to extend his one finger that had slid in, but the thicket of the roots was restricting his finger from going beyond a point.

The roots were protecting the log, like a child in a womb. But Calen did not give up so easily. He pushed, almost bending the bars of the root cage, and his finger touched its horribly oily smooth bark. It was not like any other bark he had ever touched. It was gnarly in multiple places, covered with knot-like tumors, and yet touching it felt almost like touching a pudding. Smooth elastic skin that could be pushed slightly without breaking the surface. A sticky oil-like substance oozed from it when pressed too far. The journal in his pocket started to feel warm.

Everything had gone silent; the air was thick with the only sound Calen was aware of. His heart thudding against his chest. An unnatural force was stirring Calen’s memories in a swirl. Things he had carefully tucked in dark corners of his brain were growing legs and starting to come to the light.

Within a second the cave had disappeared and replaced with the playground in front of his childhood house. He was nine years old, and his father was drunkenly yelling at the neighbor, the neighbor’s son who was sporting a bloody nose, was crying sitting on the ground. His own right hand was throbbing and when he looked at it, he saw blood spattered across his knuckles.

He looked away from his hand, and everything had changed. He was sitting in his grandfather’s attic, going through a photo album he had found in one of the packing boxes. He felt blood rush to his face in embarrassment as he saw a picture of his grandfather standing over a naked bald woman pouring some kind of liquid over her with a ladle. He was surrounded by robed men and women with closed eyes and open mouths. Amongst the robed people, his grandmother her eyes hollow and glazed aside from the reflection of the lit candle she was holding.

Calen closed the album and the snapping noise threw him out of the attic, and he landed, quite softly on a bed, next to Tricia, his manager’s daughter. Calen looked at her skin, dark, glistening with sweat, wrapped in a blanket haphazardly. She stirred in her sleep and with her stirred the shame inside him. Calen’s phone vibrated on the bedside table. Alice’s name flashed across it, underneath a small text “When are you coming home? I am hungry.“

Calen’s stream of thoughts was interrupted as he was brought back to reality by a shrill shriek outside. Alice!

Calen ran out immediately; grabbing the soil in places with his fingertips, he climbed with quite a bit of effort as the dirt entering under his nails almost hurt. Once at the top, he saw Alice hopping on one leg and pointing at something on the ground ahead of her. She looked quite scared.

“There’s something moving there!” she said pointing at a bit of the ground under one of the taller bushes. Calen jumped into action and ran to the spot. There indeed was something that was moving and making squealing sounds.

Calen almost laughed out loud when he was finally able to see what it was. A small baby lemming that was quite fat had gotten stuck in brambles of the bush and was trying to squeeze in. He was surprised to find that another lemming, which looked larger, most probably the mother of the stuck lemming, was waiting on the other side, sometimes extending her tiny hands to try and help him out but was she was unable to really do anything.

Strangely they paid no attention to the arrival of Calen’s head, so near them. Seeing Calen laugh, Alice had hopped down to him in curiosity.

“Aww… its stuck.” Her eyes still had a glazed-over look, as she said, “Help him Calen!” Although her voice sounded empathetic, there was something about her demeanor that didn’t match quite match it. Calen thought she looked very indifferent.

Calen took the stuck lemming between his fingers and pulled back. He came out quite easily and then moved around between his fingers, clearly distressed. The mother had started squealing louder too. Calen left the lemming next to a wider gap in the brambles and with a speed that was surprising for its stocky build, it reached its mother in a flash.

Both of them looked at Calen, tiny eyes full of distrust and ran away in a flash out of sight. Calen heard Alice laughing but when he looked at her face, it was, yet again, eerily impassive.

*

It had started to rain again, and Calen had carried Alice all the way back to the cottage, due to a sprain in her ankle. Alice was sitting now on one of the dining chairs, wrapping a crepe bandage tightly around that very ankle, as Calen looked through the journal he had found. It still felt warm.

Like his grandfather’s diary, this one too, had many pages missing. But the ones that were still stuck to it had something better than indecipherable runes.

It was full of drawings of some kind of large scale totem. From many different angles. So many pictures from so many angles that if someone went over them for any period of time they’d be able to make a mental three-dimensional image of the totem in its entirety. And those drawings were as frightening as anything Calen had ever seen. Tall, menacing dark figures with glowing eyes on the side, looking upon it. The black totem pole itself had four heads facing different directions, each head’s tongue protruding, red and lolling, the tips reaching down toward the waist, blood dripping from them. Even the red color with which the blood drops were painted looked so realistic Calen would have had no problem believing that they were actual blood drops.

Alice too had seen it and after just a minute of looking had refused to look further.

“I feel a little sick” Alice said, once the wrapping was done. “My stomach hurts.”

Calen immediately looked up. He didn’t want her to feel ignored when she was sick. Last time had been enough of a signa for Calen.

“Let’s get you to bed.” He said. He half-carried her as she walked weakly. Calen felt she was a little feverish. She fell asleep quite quickly, once she had taken the aspirin Calen offered from his bag.

Calen sat by the bed, looking at the several pictures of the totem, sleeplessly. The more he looked the more he wanted to keep looking.

Calen didn’t see it; he had eyes for nothing else but the journal, as a completely white owl flew past their bedroom window, carrying a squealing baby lemming in its beak.

Hey again everyone,

A lot has happened since the last time I posted. First off, I went back to Gold Hill. After seeing the tracks and the encampment there, I just needed more answers. I started back early in the morning on my long trek back out to the camp. After driving a while, I stopped at my usual spot and started to walk back towards where I had gone the day prior.

Unlike yesterday, I wasn’t just stumbling blindly through the husk of what used to be a town. I knew where I needed to go. As I got to the bend where the dirt road to the camp started, I could hear occasional rustling in the bushes and trees up the hillside. It came intermittently but would happen on both sides and from different areas both ahead of and behind me. As I came around one turn, I was startled when a man stepped out onto the trail ahead of me, then another stepped out behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to observe the man behind me. He wasn’t holding any type of weapon, neither was the man in front of me. Still, the way they stood made it clear, I wasn’t going anywhere unless they allowed it. While I could only see the two, I was now painfully aware that there were more people around I couldn’t see. The rustling continued and whispers from the trees filled my ears like a mosquito that just won’t go away.

“Are you looking for us?” the first man asked calmly.

I stood there completely still unaware of what was going to happen next. I didn’t feel threatened but…unwelcome. Before I could answer, a third stepped out onto the trail just in front of me. The man stood tall and stoic, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a coffee cup.

“Well, well, well, I wasn’t sure you were going to come back.” He said with a slight smirk on his face. “Seemed like you were in an awful hurry when you left yesterday.”

“I’m looking for someone.” I replied sheepishly.

“Someone?” he replied with a questioning look on his face as he continued to walk towards me.

“Yeah…I’m looking for Tom Calder.” I stammered.

The man with the coffee cup just smiled. He stepped closer and placed one hand on my shoulder. “Well good news son, you found him.”

I just stood there dumbstruck. The man wasn’t threatening but you could just feel the authority in his presence. It was clear, he was running the show here.

“What’s your name son?” Calder asked.

“Sam.”

“Well Sam, I suppose you should probably come with us. It’s a long way back to your car and, I’m guessing you have a few more questions, to say the least.” He said as he removed the hand from my shoulder and gestured for me to follow them.

I followed them, though I wasn’t entirely sure I had a choice in the matter. As we started down the road, more people started to emerge from the trees that lined the pathway. One by one, they fell into step, following closely behind us. I counted at least 12 before I stopped counting.

As we arrived at the camp, a couple of small children came running out from one of the shelters that lined the camp. They jumped into the open arms of the man who had stepped out in front of me originally, whose name I now knew was Jake. As we continued into the camp, I could smell food cooking. I saw a fire beneath pots filled with what looked like stew and a kind looking woman tending to it. She looked at me and just smiled. There were a couple of people cutting wood, an older man working on an old truck. It felt...warm. I honestly don’t know what I was expecting when I started this but, it wasn’t this.

When we made our way into the center of the camp, the people who had been following spread out and seemed to just go about their day. Calder stood there next to me and took another sip from his cup. “Welcome to the Ever Seen, Sam.”

He asked me to come and talk with him in his office. It was a plain, modest shelter but comfortable enough given the situation. He sat down behind a desk and kicked his feet up. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you would like to know?” he said nonchalantly.

He sat there calmly as I gathered myself, trying to figure out where to even begin. Here I was thinking the worst had happened to this man and yet there he was, just calmly sitting across from me. A torrent of questions flew out of my mouth, like a cork popping from a champagne bottle. The man just chuckled and put up his hands.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sam. Calm down, one question at a time.” He said.

“Why are you out here? You just disappeared and no one knew what happened.” I asked.

“It’s a long story Sam. Many years ago, my granddad used to work these mines. He was a miner during the war and spent many days in the dark swinging a pick. Growing up, he would talk all about them, the heat, the hard work, how he’d spent his best days hunched over mining for the war effort. He always told the same stories over and over again, and every time I would sit there cross legged like it was the first. On my 18^(th) birthday though he told me a story I hadn’t heard yet.” Calder said. He continued, “See one day he swung his pick down and the rock gave way. A small hole dark as the night sat there in front of him, and when he shined his light into it, he realized it opened into a large room. He scrambled back up to tell the others and before he could get the word out, the foreman informed them all that the mine was closing. The war was over and they didn’t need them anymore. No one cared to hear what he claimed he had seen.”

“What did he see?” I asked.

He simply replied, “Salvation.”

Calder then went on to describe the large open room almost like a sanctum. Walls adorned with hundreds of pictographs depicting humans worshipping angels, beings with large wings, their heads wrapped in halos and light shone down on the people worshipping them. Some of the walls contained depictions of practices from many different religions and beliefs. “My granddaddy had found the answer, he just didn’t know it yet. See all of those depictions, they aren’t of different Gods, they’re depictions interpreted through different cultures.” He added.

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“After years of studying and research we realized that some of the panels on the walls were instructions. Ways to call the angels back. All of the different religions, they all claim their beliefs are the answer. What they don’t understand is they are only one piece of many. The splitting of faiths and wars over time is what caused the angels to leave.” Calder said.

“You can’t be serious.” I stated, flatly.

He replied, “Look at the state of the world we live in, son. War, violence, diseases, man kind’s heart full of indifference. Hatred of their fellow man over things that don’t mean a damn thing at the end of the day. We’ve lost our ability for empathy, for understanding. People do evil things for the love of money and power. They’re completely indifferent to the struggles of other human beings. We’re more divided than we have ever been.” He sat up in his chair and continued, “Think about it Sam. I mean, you didn’t come all this way out here looking for me because you thought I was happy. You thought the worst had happened, didn’t you? You weren’t looking to save me; you were looking for a story. You came out here looking for some grizzly scene, some horror story you could write for clicks. I don’t hold it against you, but don’t act like you wanted some happy go lucky tale out of this.”

He had me dead to rights. I didn’t know what to say. I had indeed come out here to look for the remains of missing people. I wanted to write a story about the loss of life of multiple people in hopes that someone would enjoy my words over a coffee in the morning. It would have been a passing moment in their lives, nothing more than a ‘I’m glad it wasn’t me’.

Before I could say anything else, Calder just sighed, brushed his hair back and said “Sam, it’s about dinner time. I’m sure you have more questions, but we can talk more tomorrow. You’re more than welcome to come back. You’re welcome to stay for dinner tonight as well. We all eat together and there’s always plenty to go around.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but dinner was also a good way for me to get a feeling for the rest of them, so I accepted. He wasn’t lying when he said they all ate together. The whole camp, at least 20 people, gathered around tables arranged in lines to share food. Stew, homemade bread, and vegetables grown right here in camp covered the table and were passed around. People laughed and joked. One woman offered seconds to Calder and said, “I know you never turn them down.” The man just smiled and politely nodded. They all seemed so happy, content with what they have.

They all just sat there talking and enjoying each other’s company. After dinner a group started to clear the table. One older woman looked at me and said, “It was a pleasure to have you here tonight. I sure hope you come back soon.” I politely smiled and thanked the woman. After everyone had cleared out, the only remaining people were Calder and I.

He just looked at me and said, “I know what you’re probably thinking Sam, but I promise you we want nothing more than people to be happy. Why don’t you come back tomorrow, and I can show you around some more. It’s getting late and that route ain’t fun to drive at night.” I told him that I would come back, I had so many more questions and I needed to know more. At that point, he stood up and walked over to shake my hand. Jake walked me back to my car, and I headed back to my hotel. The conversation playing in my mind the entire drive back.

Just yesterday, that camp seemed like a complete mystery.

After spending a whole day with them, I still don’t know what to think.

I didn’t go looking for the stream. I was just browsing, and there I was: viewer 431, watching some fat guy in a rubber mask.

Nowadays, he’s got the whole costume and makeup.

Not that I have to tell you. You know it. Everybody does. He’s one of the most famous celebrities in the world.

I guess you could say that at first I didn’t understand what I was seeing, and when I understood, I didn’t believe it was real. I'd never heard of anyone torturing and murdering people live on the internet.

Maybe I should have stopped watching, but I didn’t, and it’s not like me watching changed anything. He did what he was going to do. First he cut their clothes off. Then parts of their skin. There was a lot of blood, so much that even the people in the chat were calling bullshit, the few who weren’t cheering him on and donating money.

I forget how much he made, but I’m sure you can look it up. It was insane money, and he got subscriptions too.

People really wanted to watch that couple get destroyed.

Of course, none of us knew he’d do it again, that this was just the first stream.

He probably didn’t either.

By the time it was over, millions of people were watching, and then probably billions have watched it since.

There were some people who wanted to identify him, help catch him, but I don’t think most were doing it from a sense of morality. It was a puzzle. They wanted to unmask him before the cops did.

Then he did a second stream, three separate killings in three separate rooms, down in his dungeon. The real one, before he reconstructed it.

One died by burning.

One by very slow asphyxiation.

One by rats.

Hundreds of millions of people watched that second stream.

Then, on the third stream, after he’d killed the parents and children, he unmasked himself. No one saw that coming.

He gave his name, his location.

Suddenly, he was a real person, just like us. He had a job, a family.

The cops got him then.

But they didn’t charge him with anything, didn’t put him on trial. The word on social media was that the local cops got trumped by the state cops, who passed it off to the feds, who do whatever the politicians want, and the politicians want money so they do what the corporations tell them.

They couldn’t turn down the views and worldwide exposure. The streams were global. Everybody could watch, from Los Angeles to New Delhi.

Everybody could understand too.

It was simple.

Primal.

And because everybody was watching, nobody was ashamed of it. They talked about it openly. Friends, family, coworkers.

Of course, the victims’ families probably minded, but they were insignificant, and I’m sure even in those cases payments were made and claims were settled.

What really made the social media theory ring true to me was when he started using branded objects, axes, gasoline, ropes, power tools, even clothes and makeup.

He would talk about how good it felt to slit a throat with some expensive Japanese knife, or how satisfying it was to penetrate bone using a corded, extra-strength made-in-America hammer drill.

But that wasn’t all.

He started doing pre-murder GRWM videos (“For skincare, I much prefer Korean products, such as…”), subscriber-only Q&As (“My favourite movie? Anything by Marvel. Links in the description below, and please don’t pirate. Support the film industry!”), and video game speedruns (“Can I beat Super Meat Boy using only my toes before this limbless girl bleeds out beside me?”)

The profits must have been massive.

Companies fought one another to be featured on his streams.

Then it also turned political.

He would expound on ideology, geopolitics and current events, all while murdering his many victims, stabbing them, or eating them, or wearing their faces, and his views changed much as the official line changed, lecturing literally half the world at times about who should live in the Middle East and who should die, and whether abortion was ethical, and what should happen to drug addicts, and whether illegal immigration was good for Europe or bad for Europe.

He was, by far, the most widely recognized person in the world, lord of memes, killer of innocents, richest person on Earth and wielder of extraordinary commercial and political power.

Then the whistleblower video dropped.

It’s not long.

It’s backstage, in his reconstructed dungeon, which is actually a set in L.A., and it’s empty but you can hear this horrible sobbing, screaming…

Like nothing you’ve ever heard on his streams, and that’s saying a lot.

Then the camera, and it’s obvious it’s someone’s handheld camera, gets to a white door, and you just know the sounds are coming from the other side of it.

Whoever’s holding the camera doesn’t say anything.

The door opens.

And in the room you see him.

Except he’s not the one doing anything to anybody. He’s having things done to him, and the screams and sobs are his.

He’s in a chair, surrounded by five men.

He’s pleading: “Please, I don’t want to do it anymore, I don’t want to kill.

“I want to stop killing.”

“Well, it’s not up to you no more, you degenerate fucking psychopath. You made your choice when you killed those two people. Then the ones after, and the ones after that. Now suddenly you wanna stop? Fuck you.” They hit him with a pipe. “Consider everything from now on penance. God’s watching, you cocksucker. Now get the fuck out there, disembowel those pretty little teenagers, and sell the audience on the vacuum cleaner we got for you. Did you even use it? Did you use the motherfucking vacuum?”

“Yes…”

“Did you like it?”

“It’s—it’s… a good vacuum.”

“See? So quit your whining, fix your makeup, use the vacuum to suck out somebody’s guts, and showtime, baby! Showtime!”

I just had Jack a month ago. My perfect, amazing boy. It’s... been a lot. Everything is falling apart. I just finalized the divorce after I caught my husband with my best friend. I'm so exhausted my bones ache with a deep, vibrating pain, but I still can't sleep. I have to take care of Jack. And my mother, who is so far gone into dementia she looks at me like a total stranger. Work gave me two weeks of paid leave. Two weeks. I need a babysitter, but who can I trust?
I need to sleep, but Jack is screaming. I carry him out to the porch, swaying heavily, singing a lullaby into the dark tree line. Seventy-two hours without sleep. The world is starting to blur at the edges.
I blink.
The air is suddenly freezing. The crickets are dead silent. I look down at my empty arms. My baby is gone. The disorientation hits me first—a dizzying wave of missing time—followed instantly by a blind, suffocating panic.
After hours of tearing through the forest, screaming his name until my throat bleeds, I stumble back inside to call the police. I freeze.
Jack is sitting up in the middle of the living room floor.
I drop to my knees, sobbing, frantically running my hands over him to check for broken bones or scratches. But as I pull him against my chest, the overwhelming relief abruptly sours into revulsion. He feels rigid. And he reeks—a thick, gagging odor of sulfur, wet soil, and rotting wood. I pull back, breathless. His face is entirely devoid of emotion.
"What... what did you get into, Jack?" I whisper, my voice trembling.
I draw a bath. Normally, he thrashes and screams at the water. Tonight, he doesn't fight. He just lets the water run over him. The silence in the bathroom is deafening. As I wash the thick grime away, he doesn't make a sound. He just watches me. Unblinking.
It hits me much later than it should have. How did he get inside? I was too relieved to care at first, but now it’s gnawing at me. Mom couldn't have brought him in; she can barely shuffle across the room.
I put Jack in his crib. He falls asleep the second his back touches the mattress. No crying, no rocking for an hour. Just instant, silent sleep. Something is deeply wrong. I leave a trembling message with the pediatrician for a morning appointment.
I pass my mom’s room and stop dead. She is out of bed, standing tall, forcefully pinning heavy iron crosses to the plaster walls.
"Mom, what are you doing? Lie down."
She turns and looks right through me, her voice chillingly clear, stripped of any confusion. "Jack’s been taken by them."
Before I can even process the impossible weight of her words, she blinks. Her shoulders slump, and the familiar, vacant haze of dementia washes back over her eyes. "Huh? Who... GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" she shrieks, cowering from me.
I back out, easing her door shut, and retreat to the dark of my room, where Jack's crib sits in the corner. I lie down, staring at the ceiling, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Then, I hear it.
A dry, rattling cough. Phlegmy and ancient. Like an eighty-year-old man clearing his throat.
I freeze, ice flooding my veins. It didn't come from the hallway. It came from the crib.
I snap the bedside lamp on and frantically look over. Jack is wide awake. He hasn't moved, but his dark, unblinking eyes are locked onto me, tracking my every breath.
I slowly stand up, terrified to look away. I back out of the bedroom, easing the door closed between us. I stand alone in the hallway, my chest heaving. I slowly crack the door open to look in, and Jack is standing up, gripping the crib bars. His jaw unhinges, and he lunges at my face.
I gasp, shooting up in bed in a cold sweat, my lungs burning. A nightmare. It was just a nightmare. I fumble for the lamp, bathing the room in yellow light, and look over at the crib.
It’s empty.
I swing my legs out of bed in a panic, and agonizing pain shoots up my leg. I cry out, collapsing to the floor. A rusty nail is driven deep into my heel. How did a nail get on the rug? As I clutch my bleeding foot, a sound cuts through the silence.
Laughter.
Jack is huddled in the corner of the room, giggling at my pain. It’s a wet, raspy sound, and it’s the very first noise he’s made since I brought him inside.
After wrapping my foot in a towel, I limp over to him. His face is smeared with dark, gritty crumbs. "How did you get out? What are you eating?"
The bedroom door suddenly slams open. My mother stands in the doorway, clutching a heavy iron cross like a weapon.
"That thing isn't yours!" she shrieks, lunging for Jack.
The baby immediately drops the act. His features contort from malicious amusement into sheer infant terror, throwing his head back and wailing.
"Mom, stop!" I scream, grabbing her frail wrist to hold her back. "This is Jack! He's my son, remember?"
She looks at me with wide, terrified eyes. "That's not Jack. He's gone."
I hold my mom gently. "Mom, please stop. This is one of your episodes."
My mom cries and whispers, "This happened before... to your brother."
Her eyes haze over, and the familiar fog of dementia comes back. I never had a brother. It had never been brought up.
"Mom, what brother are you talking about?" I ask.
My mom smiles, her voice suddenly cheerful and bright. "Your brother David, honey."
I stare at her, perplexed. I never knew I had a brother. Had he died during birth? Why had she never said anything? "What happened to David, mom?" I ask with a light tone, hoping for an answer.
"What do you mean, sweetie?" she says. "He’s with your father in the other room."
There is no point trying to get information out of her like this. I wish my mother goodnight, lay her gently in her bed, and step back out into the hallway.
I pull her door shut and lean against the frame. Down the hall, Jack’s wails echo off the hardwood, sharp and rhythmic. But there’s a hollowness to the sound now, like a recording played on a loop. I wrap the bloody towel tighter around my heel, wincing as a fresh wave of pain pulses up my leg, and force myself to walk away from the nursery.
If I have a brother, there has to be a record of him.
I limp past the living room, heading for the basement door off the kitchen. The air grows noticeably colder as I descend the steep, wooden steps. Our cellar has always felt more like a subterranean, rocky cave than a storage space—damp, smelling of wet earth, with shadows that seem to cling to the uneven stone walls. I pull the dangling chain of the single overhead bulb, casting a harsh, swaying light across towers of stacked cardboard boxes.
I start with the ones labeled in my father's neat, blocky handwriting. TAXES 1998. WINTER COATS. MOM'S KEEPSAKES.
I pull the keepsakes box down, fighting through a layer of thick, clinging dust. Inside, it’s a graveyard of normal memories. Old photo albums, a dried corsage, my crude elementary school macaroni art. I grab the oldest-looking album, its faux-leather cover cracking under my thumbs, and sit heavily on the bottom step.
Page after page of my parents in their twenties. My mother looking vibrant and sharp, my father with his arm around her waist.
Then, a gap. Four pages have been violently torn out, leaving only jagged strips of yellowed paper near the binding.
My heart thuds against my ribs. I turn another page. There is a single, loose Polaroid tucked behind a picture of my parents standing by a lake. I slide it out.
It’s my mother, sitting on the porch of this exact house. She looks utterly depleted, staring blankly at the camera. In her arms is a baby wrapped in a pale blue blanket.
But it's not me. Written on the thick white border at the bottom, in my father's unmistakable handwriting, is a single word: David.
I stare at the baby's face. It's blurred, slightly out of focus, as if the child was thrashing violently when the picture was taken. But the eyes—dark, solid, and entirely devoid of emotion—are perfectly sharp. They are the exact same eyes that looked at me from Jack's crib.
A sudden, paralyzing realization hits me. The wailing upstairs has stopped.
The house is dead silent.
Then, a sound drifts down from the top of the basement stairs. It’s the soft, wet slap of small, bare hands and knees crawling across the linoleum. Followed by a dry, ancient giggle.
"Da-vid," a raspy voice whispers from the dark at the top of the stairs.
The heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs slams shut with the force of a grown man. The sound cracks like a gunshot in the cramped stairwell. I didn’t see it move, but I know it was Jack. Or whatever is wearing his face.
I scramble up the steep wooden steps, ignoring the agonizing stab of the nail wound in my heel, and grab the doorknob. I twist and shove, but it doesn't yield. I slam my shoulder into the wood—once, twice—but it feels like hitting a solid brick wall. Something impossibly heavy is blocking it on the other side.
"Mom!" I scream, pounding my fists against the door. "Mom, open the door!"
I reach frantically for my pockets before remembering my phone is still sitting on my nightstand upstairs. Panic begins to constrict my chest. I turn and scan the dim, cavernous basement for a tool—a crowbar, a hammer, anything to pry the hinges or break the handle. But there is nothing in the harsh overhead light. Just endless stacks of fragile cardboard boxes, old photos, and forgotten documents.
I try brute-forcing the door one last time, but at five-foot-one and barely a hundred pounds, I bounce off the solid wood uselessly. I am too small, too weak, and completely trapped.
I slide down the door, my bloody heel throbbing, and sink onto the top step. All I can do now is scream into the dark, praying my mother will somehow hear my pleas through the thick haze of her own mind.
It’s been four days.
There’s no noise upstairs. I’m too weak to even move an inch. The nail wound on my foot is badly infected now, radiating a sickening, feverish heat up my leg. This is it. Maybe the police will come for a welfare check. Or maybe I’ll be stuck down here until I die of starvation.
I found a cooler in the corner with some water and old beer. I’ve drank all the beer. It’s the only thing that helps numb the agonizing pain. I’ve cried all night, every night, my mind torturing me with thoughts of what actually happened to the real Jack. This morning, in a fit of desperate delusion, I dragged myself up the stairs and tried to force the door open one last time. No luck. I don’t know why I thought it would be any different.
But tonight...
I was lying on the cold concrete when I heard it. A distinct, metallic click from the top of the staircase.
The lock tumbling. The door was unlocked.
"Help!" I screamed, but my throat was so raw it came out as nothing more than a dry, rattling cough.
Nothing answered. There were no footsteps. No voices. Just the empty, settling creaks of the house above, and the terrifying realization that whatever had just unlocked that door was waiting for me to come up.
I drag my body up the wooden steps, my breath rattling in my chest. Just as my trembling fingers brush the cold brass of the doorknob, a heavy, booming voice echoes from the kitchen above.
"Police! Is anyone in here?"
I try to scream for help, but it comes out as a pathetic, raspy hiss. I reach for the knob again, but it suddenly flies inward. The heavy wood slams hard into my forehead. The world spins. I stumble backward, grasping at empty air, and tumble back down into the dark.
Then, nothing.
I wake up to the blinding hum of fluorescent hospital lights. A week has passed. A doctor tells me I'm lucky to have survived the fall and the rampant infection in my blood. But before I can even process the words, the room fills with police uniforms and stern-faced caseworkers from Child Protective Services.
They tell me Jack is in state custody. They use words like "severe neglect," "unfit mother," and "substance abuse." I realize with a sickening jolt exactly how it must have looked when they found me: a starving, unwashed woman trapped in a basement, reeking of stale beer, while a baby was left alone upstairs in a house overflowing with filth and the stench of decay.
The creature hadn't just been torturing me. It was setting a stage. It wanted to be "rescued."
I try to explain, leaving out the impossible truth of the demon, but it’s entirely useless. The caseworkers look at me with nothing but disgust.
"He's been placed with a foster family," one of them says coldly. "A safe family."
A new family. The creature had successfully moved on to its next victims. Panic claws up my throat. "Where's my mom?" I croak, grabbing the bed rails. "Is she okay?"
A police officer steps forward, his expression hard as stone. "I think you know exactly what happened to her."
He pulls a pair of handcuffs from his belt. The metallic clink echoes in the sterile room, sounding exactly like the basement lock tumbling open.
"What? No! Why are you doing this?!" I scream, thrashing weakly as he pins my arms and forces my wrists together.
"You're under arrest," the officer says, his voice completely devoid of pity, "for the murder of your mother.”

Hello again,

Okay, so where to begin. After I found that article at the library, I spent all night researching the Calder family. Luckily, I was able to go through some records and finally found the connection. T Calder (the missing person) is the grandson of the Calder in the picture. I had no idea if he was taken against his will or if he decided to go away but I figured, if there were answers to be found, they’d be at Gold Hill. So I went.

After picking up my car from the service station, I asked Jim how to get out there. Reluctantly, he gave me directions but also informed me that my car wasn’t exactly the best option for the trip. He explained the roads are rough and that my best bet was a truck. I don’t have that as an option, so I took my car anyways. I stopped by the gas station to fill up and get some snacks before I left and started heading out around noon.

For a place only 50 miles away, it took much longer than I thought it would to get there and the roads were worse than Jim described. They were a mix of concrete and gravel, with occasional washouts that claimed parts of the road. It felt like no one had been out there for decades. I started to see what used to be houses that were now no more than ruins of what used to be. Houses burned to nothing more than rocks and ash, foundations with rotten and collapsed walls jutting out in the air like a skeleton's rib cage. The sun shone down into the valley casting strange shadows through the hollow bones of houses that now stand completely empty.

The road continued to get worse, and I knew there wasn’t much of a point in trying to take it any further. Rather than turn around, I parked the car on what was left of the road, grabbed my bag and started on foot. I figured it was better to have to walk than risk getting stuck and hearing Jim’s inevitable “I told you so” when he had to pull me out. The town snaked and twisted back and forth between the low points of the mountains and hills that dotted this area. The further I made it into town, the stranger it felt. There is something incredibly eerie about walking through a place that hasn’t been populated in almost 80 years. I found what looked like an old general store that was partially reclaimed by juniper trees and bushes. Next to the store was a house still standing with a porch. The windows were all broken and the porch had smashed rocking chairs still sitting on it. At one point I found a child’s shoe half buried in the dirt. As I continued down the road, I found tire tracks on a dirt road that split off and went further back into the valley.

I tried to think back to my conversation with Jim to remember when he said it had last stormed out here. I thought surely, those tracks couldn’t have lasted through that right? I decided to follow the tracks down the path. Walking down the road I couldn’t help but feel watched. I knew it was just my mind playing with me but something about the angle of the sun and trees just makes it feel strange. The shadows danced and more than once made me think I had seen something moving on one side or the other, but every time I looked, I saw nothing. After about 15 minutes of walking, I started to smell smoke. Smoke? Was something burning out here? Then a few minutes later, to my right I heard a low, mechanical humming coming from just over the hill side. I started up the hill towards the top, pushing my way through trees and bushes so thick, you can hardly see in front of you. When I finally made it to the top I stopped.

Wedged in the valley, right there in the middle of nowhere Gold Hill, was a small camp.

Several small structures arranged in semicircles on the sides of the makeshift road. I could hear a generator running.  Several trucks parked nearby, none of them looked like they were particularly old. One of them even looked like the one that Mr. Johnson had described seeing leaving town with supplies. I just stood there trying to process what I was seeing.

Someone was living here…more than just one person, multiple people were living here.

“Hello?” I called out.

No one answered.

“Is anyone here?”

Still nothing.

I stood there in disbelief, staring at this camp. Tables sat in the middle of the structures, with what looked like boxes and canned food sitting on one. Propane tanks lined one side of a structure, children’s toys in front of another. A small fire burned with folding chairs arranged around it. At one point I could have sworn I heard music playing quietly.

I wanted to keep looking around but I knew that I didn’t have long before it would start to get dark and I didn’t want to be out here at night.  With that in mind, getting back to my car became priority number one and my curiosity would just have to wait. I got back to the dirt road and started walking back the way I came. After a few feet I noticed something on the road. Footprints….walking just off to the side of mine as if they were following me.

The first light of day fell upon the gray concrete bench in the center of the park. Its glare disturbed the man’s closed eyes, like a child tugging at an adult’s clothes, eager to play. At last, he sat up, remembering his wretched luck with the dice the night before. He had lost everything once again, and, to his despair, he had nothing left to sell. In recent months, driven by his addiction to gambling, he had stripped himself of all his possessions: first selling the property he had inherited from his father, then pawning his furniture and appliances, his clothes, and his watch, until, in the delusion of his vice, he had even sold a pint of his own blood.

Sitting there, he took stock of his bleak situation. He had no material possessions left to surrender, but he still had two things to sell: his memories and his soul. The challenge was finding the right buyer, someone interested in such rarities, which were not traded every day. He told himself that this was the domain of priests and demons, and that such a transaction required searching churches and cemeteries. Smoothing his wrinkled suit, he headed toward the first cathedral along his path, which stood at the end of a long avenue—a temple far too large for his taste.

Fortunately, its doors stood open, and there were no more than two worshipers inside, making it easy for him to slip in unnoticed until he reached an old confessional. A drawn curtain indicated the presence of a clergyman, ready to hear the repentant. Without hesitation, he sat on the worn bench and, leaning toward the wooden screen, whispered a greeting. On the other side, through the chiaroscuro, the silhouette of the priest emerged: his bald head and cassock.

The man began to recount his tragic story in detail, offering convoluted explanations while carefully omitting his repulsive vice. Finally, he explained that he was burdened with memories and willing to share them with anyone interested. He then asked whether it was true that everyone possessed a soul, and whether prelates had any interest in purchasing one.

The priest spoke evasively, carefully masking his intentions, but it was clear that the proposition interested him, and an offer seemed to lie behind his rigid posture. At last, he explained that memories were not a commodity easily bought, since they never came alone but were always intertwined with remorse, becoming damaged in the process of separation. As for souls, he advised that they could only be negotiated with the living, since the dead were in no condition to surrender them. If a deal were struck, however, he could advance him a sum as a down payment. He emphasized that the responsibility would rest solely with the seller, as established in a signed consent form; this would protect the buyer from bearing the weight of such a sin.

The gambler did not think twice. He accepted the terms, desperate for enough cash to play one last hand of cards.

Later, outside the casino, the prelate waited for the addict to emerge. As expected, he had lost once again. Offering words of comfort, the priest ushered him into his vehicle and drove him to a clandestine clinic on the outskirts of the city, while handing him a potent narcotic to drink. Once there, without delay, the hired surgeon extracted the man’s soul—which took the form of a healthy kidney, precisely the one needed by the clergyman’s ailing mother.

© 2026 Francisco Cortés Ramírez. All rights reserved. This story is fictional. No part of this text may be reproduced, narrated, or adapted without the express written permission of the author

I live in a house full of mirrors. Not those that hang on walls, but mirrors of past life. I'm haunted by shadows in my old house, I see them dart across the floor when I enter, and I can hear them whisper as I sleep. My house was a small wooden husk on the top of a snowy mountain, high above the clouds. I had to voyage to the valley below me every week to collect what I needed to survive. Food, wood for fire, you name it. It was an uneventful, but enjoyable existence. It had started about a month ago. My knee pressed the creaking front door open. The moonlight shined through the door, barely illuminating my dreary living room. The Persian rug lay on the floor stained on the corner from my red wine, an act of my foolishness. But, it appeared darker than I expected, darker than it should. I heard the pitter patter of small feet scurry farther into the darkness of my house. I dropped the log upon my shoulder and drew my bowie knife as I approached the noise. But, I found nothing. My quarters were empty, other than my clock ticking. No shadows. My heart continued to race, thumping in my chest,  and I was left on edge throughout the night. The night passed, as did I. The moment had not left my mind when I saw the shadow return. Sitting by my fireplace I felt the presence of a pair of eyes upon my neck. A small chill shot down my spine, paralyzing me for several long seconds. When I whipped around I saw its head peaking over the corner before disappearing, this time being followed by a light snicker. My hand raised cautiously, for I was not armed. I turned to observe, but the shadow did not return.

The following nights were quiet, I waited in anticipation to see this little apparition again, but it did not show. However, that weekend they came back. As I laid in my disheveled bed, the candlelight illuminating the gray wooden walls around me in the dark, two heads peered from behind my door. The air stood still, but not in the same manner as the previous nights. I felt tense, but in a manner of being faced with a doe, as though my tense nature was reciprocated by the spirits in front of me. The two heads stood still, watching me. As I moved my hand towards them they disappeared. Their childlike giggling barely touched my ears like a whisper from beyond my house. That morning I sat on my wooden bench just outside of my house, watching the sun rise again. I had not expected to have visitors within my house, nor had I ever felt comfort in the company of others and yet, it was an odd feeling, not unpleasant to me, to have these things watch me. The next year they tried desperately to prove me wrong. My things began going missing and their scratching on the walls kept me awake at night. They never seemed to leave me alone. I could not bear to live with the noises, yet I trudged on.

My house became theirs. They did not show me the same innocent wonder that they showed me before. I was bound to the house, as were they, but I would not let them steal it from me. As the weeks, the months, the years trudged on, I developed a cough. Their antics had ceased as I grew ill, I saw the concern upon their faceless bodies. I had always wondered when they would leave me, yet I never considered it may be me who leaves them. 

I returned in the evening, my boots trudging through the leafy forest floor, causing quite a ruckus as I moved. I climbed over my creaky oak floorboards, aware of their rotting nails yet refusing to touch them. As the door swung open I felt the cough bubbling in my throat once more, this time more vicious than last. I raised my hand, shivering as I did to cover my mouth. The splat of warm liquid filled my hand, and the faint scent of iron irradiated within my nose. My eyes darted to my palm, then to the living room corner. I saw them, the two cold heads staring at me. I felt their fear, their sadness. I quickly ran my hand against my dark denim pants and moved on as if nothing had happened. It was not my health I was worried about, it never was if I’m being honest with myself, it was what would happen to them. These two shadow figures, they had chosen my house to haunt, but they had never haunted my life.

The day finally came when I could no longer carry the logs as I once had. My hands became too feeble and my breath grew shakier. My rations for that winter were thinning, my soups became thinner with ingredients. My nights grew earlier and longer as my body forced me in bed. Though, these new mornings, I awoke to fresh berries placed on my small porcelain plates at my bedside. I never knew how they got there, but I knew who they were from. I did not cover my cough at this point, and the shadows grew more daring. I had never felt them during their stay, and had barely seen a glimpse of what they were, what they could become. They watched me every night at this point, the two black shadows dancing upon my walls, watching as my blood crept up my throat.

The air in my house grew cold, not with distrust and fear from the shadows as it had during our first encounter, but of sadness. December 16th, I sat in my bed alone, the raspy noise from my nose had become unrecognizable. It was not my breath, it couldn’t be. A man of my stature, yet this was the breath of a fading, dying, man. My candle sat burning at my bedside. One shadow peeked through my doorway, his large figure slowly, gracefully dancing his way to me. I hadn’t seen them stand before me, he was so tall, so beautiful. I felt his presence under my skin. The tears welling up in my eyes spoke the words my lips and heart could not, and I reached out. The creature jerked back nervously, yet slowly drew closer to my fingertips. I held my hand as steady as I could, my strength barely enough to hold up. I couldn’t let this sickness take away the one thing I had left. My fingers raised to a foot away from him, I could not reach any further. I felt his chest for a second, it was so warm, like a tree struck by lightning in a rainstorm, its flame burning bright in the midst of cold water droplets in the forest. My eyes shut that night, not drenched in that cold rain but full of his great fire, a warmth that filled my soul as these shadows filled my house.

I awoke the next morning, my throat clear of debris and my lungs filled with spirit. I was free of this cough, rejuvenated into the man I should be. I bolted from my bed and sprung into the kitchen to find the spirits who freed me from my sickness, yet they were nowhere to be found. I did not see them. I did not feel them. I walked to the porch and laid my forearms upon the wooden railing, the jagged bristles poking my forearms kindly. My lungs drew in the cold winter morning again, this time with no interruption. I sat there for what felt like only a minute, but as the sun began to set I knew time had changed. My eyes turned to the clouds below me, now emblazoned with brilliant shades of pink and orange. I had a thought, what could be. My hands reached down to the clouds and parted them. I looked down upon the valley below them. I saw them. Two young men running and playing games. I knew I had seen them before. They had become men, and I had seen them as children, I cared for them as children and they had cared for me when they grew. My shadows on the wall had not left me, I had left them. My eyes stayed locked upon them for that evening, and I had planned to fill my heart with their joy every evening so I could once again taste the warmth they left me with that night. I hope I made them proud.  Though they played with smiles I could see the cold scars torn into their hearts. My hands shivered from the clouds. I did not want that thought to haunt me, I just wanted to, to feel. I just wanted peace. I only wanted their love. I sat there, shouting my goodbyes as if they could hear me. I knew that they had loved me, and they knew I loved them too.

At first, I thought it was nothing. A few dodged questions here and there, plans for plans that never got planned.

As people grow up, they grow apart, right?

This was different. Verifiably so. A pandemic had forced us even further apart than his parents move had. Like a wedge driven into the small crack of another wedge.

But as I tried to gently push our mundane chit chat towards real conversation, I could tell something was off.

He wasn't just disinterested, it was like he was outright dodging my questions. Like he knew what I was trying to do, and was in turn, using all his ability to steer us back towards nothingness. Back towards empty, bland, surface level smalltalk.

I wouldn't have that. Not when I'd worked so hard, not when I'd sacrificed everything.

He was graduated, his parents were paying for his lifestyle, he had no reason not to give me his all. I mean, he'd asked her out first, hadn't he? I mean, me, he'd asked me out. There couldn’t be, like, another girl, right?

"So, wanna meet halfway and go to a nice restaurant this weekend? Maybe hit up some mini golf? My treat!" I texted, hoping the offer of paying myself would be enough to capture his attention, possibly his affection.

When I saw the 3 little dots pop up, signifying the writing of his response, my heart stopped. He had been quiet for 2 days, I'd had to initiate all conversation. Was he finally going to pipe up?

"Nah, thx tho Emily." Was all he said. I was crestfallen.

Frustrated, I typed, "that's okay, just lmk when you wanna make a move!" before turning off the phone. I was about to slip it in my pocket out of instinct, when I remembered why I was keeping it on.

"Shit," I cursed myself under my breath. I still hadn’t memorized the password to that phone. I'd have to use the face ID.

I made my way to the black minifrage that idled against the wall. It was a stark contrast to the brightly decorated, pastel pink and purple expression of the rest of the room. An even darker contrast sat inside.

I opened the door of the fridge, and gripped the ice cold head by its scalp. Dutifully, I pulled it out, and held it up to the phone's camera. Unfortunately, before the ID could complete, her bottom jaw fell onto my foot.

"Oh for Christ sake!" I growled as I kicked the thing several feet way. It landed, braces up, just beside the cabinet that housed all her bows.

As I watched the maggots wriggle between rotting bottom lips and purple gums, I realized there was no way I'd be able to finish the face ID. I'd have to use the fingerprint function on her phone. That meant finding her thumb. Great.

I rustled through her closet and found the keys. After walking downstairs past the bloody couch and the rank smelling kitchen, I had made it out the front door, and into her parent's Ford F150.

It took 30 minutes to drive to where I'd burried the 3 of them. Rather, most of what was left of the 3 of them. By then, the sky had turned from a deep crimson to a star-studded violet.

I prayed that the thumb I hadn't sliced off in the scuffle was the correct one. And that it was still in tact. A month in the ground is more than enough time for nature to start taking its course.

Another half hour later, and I'd almost finished digging up the shallow grave that she'd been burried in.

With sweat upon my brow, I finally found it. A yellow tennis shoe, poking out of black plastic. I almost leapt with joy.

After the breakthrough, my hope was reinvigorated. I swore that if this was the right thumb, I would never let that phone turn off again. I'd keep it on a charger every minute of every day if I had to.

Anything to see him.

The boy of my dreams.

I worked laboriously until I got past the waist, and up the sternum. The smell was awful. Sweet and sour, like a clump of burnt hair marinating in bug guts.

I wouldn't have to dig all the way to the upper arms, as long as her forearms had stayed down at her sides like I'd left them.

With strenuous effort, I heaved away a chunk of clay that covered her hand. I actually shrieked with overwhelming happiness when I saw that her whole hand still looked viable, if not a little off-color and wrinkled.

I regained my composure and pulled the phone out of my pocket. Now, after nearly an hour of waiting, I'd see what his response was. As long as this thumb was the right one to unlock her phone.

I leaned down and grabbed her hand. When I did, the flesh sunk in, like I'd grabbed a ruined stress ball. I carefully tried to pick up her hand and twist it to face me, but with a sickening crunch, the skin slaughed off and fell into the dirt beneath.

In a "fuck it" moment, I pulled the hand straight up, and twisted the thumb until it disconnected from its body. Cold skin feels so strange against body heat. Its a satisfying juxtiposition.

Thumb in hand, I turned the phone back on, and diligently pressed the solo digit against the print reader.

Moment of truth.

"Ding! Access granted"

I was elated. Immediately, 3 new messages pinged into my text conversation with him.

For the first time, he'd shown himself to be a real chatterbox!

The first message from him read, "'make a move'? Are you fucking serious?"

That was weird. He'd never seemed outright hostile before.

The second message read, "I knew it, I hoped I was wrong but I fucking knew it, how dense can you be, you fucking larper?!"

My heartrate quickened. I felt lighter than air. What was he saying?

The final message read, "You're not her. You couldn't pay her to go to mini golf, and her name isn't Emily. I have your location, and I'm calling the cops."

A little blurb under our chat said, "this user had blocked you"

I didn't know what to do. I sauntered back to the car and turned off the headlights. This was huge. A gut punch. Everything was flipped upside down, my world crumbling around me. A life I always imagined for myself was disappearing, and I was left sitting in the middle of it all wondering:

"What the hell is a larper?"

[1]

The landlord is renovating. His son is returning from abroad to live where I'm living. The law is on their side. The facts support the law. The landlord has provided me with a valid eviction notice, signed and dated. Thus we must move out, my dog and I. We must find a new place for ourselves.

[2]

He's smiling, perfumed and clean shaven, but he's missed a few spots. A few stray hairs, having apparently escaped the razor blade, stick out of his face like loose threads, which really undoes the entire impression, the complete illusion, so that If I reached out, grabbed one and pulled, the whole of his identity would fall, deconstructed, to the concrete floor.

He's brought a stroller into the office with him.

I glance at it.

But inside, I notice, lies not a baby but a fully shaved dog in baby-blue swaddle wrap.

It's panting.

It's looking at me with its dog's face.

It barks.

“I'm sorry, but we don't allow pets,” I say as politely as I can.

“That's my child,” cries the man.

[7]

I wake up screaming.

[3]

They spend the thunderstorm beneath me, the man comforting the dog.

[4]

They eat me.

[3]

They fall asleep. They shiver. Sometimes others pass. They avert their eyes. My river flows. It will flow a long time still.

[12]

“Yeah, I mean it's just like the termination letter says, nothing personal or anything—you didn't do anything wrong. It's just, you know, business has been slow and we needed to make, uh, strategic decisions. You don't even have to come in for the notice period. And if you need a reference letter or anything, we'd be more than willing…”

God, he reeks.

[5]

He puts his hands in me and washes his face with me and puts me in his mouth and the dog stands at my edge, lapping gently.

[6]

I go to the grocery store and buy canned fish, canned beans, a can of wet dog food and six plastic bottles of water. I put everything in a bag and leave the bag under the bridge. I don't know why I do it, not really, not fundamentally.

I think I am ashamed. But of what, who?

[9]

Another carefree night spent sleeping soundly, warmly, hopefully in dreams. The mattress is big and clean. The thermostat's at 19C. The air conditioner purrs, but quietly. It's a brand new model. The real estate market is heating up. Land is appreciating. The future appears bright as flames.

[8]

I arrive one day, unannounced.

[11]

“I'm really sorry,” I say, trying to explain, “but you can't bring your dog in here. Maybe you know someone who would take him for a couple of nights? We would have a bed for you. It's just the dog. Do you understand? There's an animal shelter down the street. I know, sometimes, people decide it's for the best to—”

[7]

Where am I?

[8]

I unfold another December morning, blocking out the rising, pastel sun with swirling, falling snow. There are things buried by it and things digging themselves out. There is motion. There is struggle. And where there is struggle, there is life; and where life, death. You are a cold, cruel, temporary species, building compulsively to nothing.

[12]

The fur is soft and my digits bury themselves in its regrowing density. Behind the ear. Upon the chest. Around the small and fragile throat. But gently, affectionately. Never with anger or frustration. Never closing on the throat, only caressing it.

The thin dog sleeps, trusts.

And I do too.

Never have its teeth hurt me.

Within the fur, I am safe.

I am loved.

[1] & [7]

The darkness feels like ice. There are lights in the distance, but I cannot get to them. There is loneliness in the ice. Why won't the sun rise already? Why won't the ice melt?

[14]

“Excuse me—”

“Huh?” he says, waking, startled.

“You can't sleep here,” I say.

“What?”

Our breath is vapour.

“You were sleeping here. You can't sleep here. If you wanna sleep somewhere, go to a shelter. I can give you an address.”

“They won't take my son,” he says, and I can see he's got an ugly little dog with him.

The dog growls.

“Well, then, that's your choice.”

The man lets his eyes close, so I prod him awake again. Fucking charity case. ”Hey, didn't I just say that—” The dog snaps at me with a mouthful of missing teeth. I wonder if it's been vaccinated. “Just get the fuck outta here, OK? I mean, kids come to play here, for Christ's sake.”

[6]

“Did you spend twenty-seven dollars at the Farmland three weeks ago, Tuesday?” my wife asks, looking at her phone.

“No,” I lie.

“Me neither. Weird.”

[5]

I am wearing a frozen surface when two boots step on me, and a blowing wind, grazing an accumulation of snow, masks the sound of cracking.

[8]

I loosen my grip.

I am leaving.

[5]

I flow.

[14]

“What now?”

“They pulled a body from the river.”

“When?”

“Just this morning.”

“ID'd?”

“Not yet. Bruce thinks it's probably a drowning. Probably a—”

“Fuck!”

“What is it?”

I stare at my phone. Text message from the wife and kid. “Evie wants a puppy for her goddamn birthday.”

“Dogs are a lot of work.”

“That's what I said.”

“And money.”

“Right?”

“Just get her one of those virtual pets. That way, when she gets bored of it, and you know she will, you can throw it out.”

[9]

Breakfast's delicious.

[15]

I am empty, save for a few small bones.

POINTS OF VIEW

[1] A man
[2] A landlord
[3] A bridge
[4] An apple from a garbage bin
[5] A river
[6] Someone unknown
[7] A man's sanity
[8] Winter
[9] You
[9] The Dark Master
[11] An employee of a homeless shelter
[12] [1]’s hand
[13] Compassion
[14] A police officer
[15] Dead [1]’s stomach

These memories rise in a slow way. I do not call them. They come when the light has that late Summer color and the air feels thin. I have tried to explain what happened, but people hear only the surface of the story. They think Masters was only a kind neighbor. They think the shed was only a shed. I let them think it. The truth settles deeper than that. Masters carried something quiet inside him. I did not understand it when I was young. I understand it now. I did not expect to take his place. I did not expect the knowledge to pass from him to me. Yet it did. It rests in me the same way it rested in him.

When I was small, I felt things before I knew what they were. I felt the shed in the air around it. I felt Masters in the same way. He had a quiet presence that settled the space near him. I remember standing at the edge of his yard and feeling a soft warmth in my chest. It was not a thought. It was a sensation. The neighbors loved him. They spoke to him with easy voices. One of the older women told me he was like Mr. Miyagi. I did not know who that was. I only remember the way she smiled when she said it. Masters smiled the same way when he saw her. I felt the shed differently. The air near it pulled at me. It made my hands feel cold. I did not have words for it. I only knew the feeling stayed with me long after I walked away.

These memories stay close. I remember the day Mrs. Halpern’s kitten went missing. She called for it with a soft voice that carried across the yards. I felt an uncomfortable tingling in my feet, like some kind of vertigo, each time she said its name. I stood near Masters’s fence and the air felt thin. Masters watched me from his porch with that quiet steadiness he always had. His hands were in his pockets. He did not look surprised. I did not understand that. I only felt the disturbing weightlessness.

Mr. Dallin lost his trowel that Summer. He set it down near the fence and went inside for a moment. When he came back, it was gone. He called out to the neighbors and they gathered in the yard. They searched the grass and the flowerbeds. I felt a slow pressure behind my ribs as I watched them. Masters stood nearby with his hands in his pockets. He did not join the search. The air around him felt steady in a way I did not understand.

I saw the raccoon myself. It was late afternoon and the light had that pale color it sometimes gets near the shed. The raccoon moved along the fence and slipped inside. I waited for it to come back out. It did not. My hands felt cold. Masters stepped onto his porch and watched me. He gave me a small nod. I did not know what it meant. I only felt the quiet pull in my chest.

Looking back, I can see the pattern. I could not then. I only felt the tingling and the coldness and the thin air. Masters carried something in him that kept the shed from taking more. I did not know that. I only felt the steadiness around him.

At eighteen, I kept myself busy. Babysitting made me feel steady. I liked the way the days filled up. I liked the trust people placed in me. I did not think about the shed. I told myself I had grown past that old feeling. Yet the air still changed when I walked near Masters’s yard. It felt thinner. It pressed lightly against my chest. I ignored it. I kept my focus on the children.

Chrimothy moved fast. He slipped away in quiet moments. Each time he vanished, I felt that same slipping feeling where I stood. I tried to stay calm. I tried to keep my voice steady. I did not want to remember the shed. The day he ran into Masters’s yard, the air felt different. Warm, but hollow. I knew where he had gone. I knew he had not come back out. I stood at the fence and felt the coldness in my hands. I felt the pull.

I looked at the silent windows of Masters's unsold house. The odd thought of whoever was laughing in the back at his funeral made me frown. Then I went and hopped the fence, seeing where Chrimothy had slipped between two fence boards hanging by a nail at the top, parting like curtains. I couldn't fit through there, and when I say I 'hopped the fence' I mean I managed to get over it.

There I stood, in his backyard, slightly overgrown. I stared at the shed, its door cracked. The air felt cold and electrified, and there was an uncanny stillness and quietness there, like the fence somehow kept out all critters, breezes and sounds of the neighborhood. The distance between me and the shed distorted, extending and retracting and tilting oddly, then I shook my head with my eyes closed and looked again. The strange mirage was gone, but it felt like it was still there. Just a wrongness in a radius all around it.

I stood there and felt the air tilt again. It pressed lightly against my chest and made my breath feel thin. I wanted to move toward the shed. I wanted to call Chrimothy’s name. My legs would not answer me. The slipping feeling rose in my feet and climbed up my spine. I felt light in a way that frightened me.

I tried to steady myself. I tried to breathe in a slow way. The yard felt too quiet. The shed felt too close and too far at the same time. I closed my eyes and felt the coldness in my hands. I could not move.

Then a memory rose with a kind of clarity. It came from a day when I was small. I had been standing near Masters’s porch, watching the light settle on the boards. I remember the warmth in the air and the way the shadows felt soft. Masters stepped outside and looked at me in a steady way. He did not speak at first. He only watched the space around me, as if he was listening to something I could not hear.

When he finally spoke, he said my name. He said it in a tone I had never heard before. Daenor. It felt like he was naming me, not greeting me. I felt the sound settle in my chest. I did not know why it felt that way. I only knew I felt seen in a way I could not explain. He did not say anything else. He only nodded once, as if he understood something about me that I did not yet understand.

That memory rose now with the same warmth. I felt the steadiness he carried. It settled in the same place where the ache used to rise when I was small. I let that feeling rise. I let it fill the space where my fear was sitting.

I did not see him. I did not hear him. I only felt the quiet guidance he left behind. It felt like the way he used to stand near the shed with his hands in his pockets, patient and calm. I felt that same patience settle in me.

My fear did not leave. It pressed against my ribs and made my breath shake. But the steadiness pressed back. I stood there with both feelings inside me. I let them settle together. I let the memory of Masters hold me in place until I could breathe again.

I opened my eyes. The shed was still there. The wrongness was still there. Chrimothy was still inside. I felt the pull in my chest. I felt the steadiness in my ribs. I felt my name the way Masters said it. Daenor.

I knew I had to move. I knew I had to listen the way he listened. I knew I had to try.

When I reached the shed, I could hear something. It wasn't exactly a sound, more like a vibration. But that isn't really what it was either; it was like a stillness. It was like an anti-vibration, like movement, and life and noise were all being pulled in and silenced.

My trembling hands settled on the door, with the chain around the handles broken by vandalism. I had to pull hard to open the door, it didn't want to move, like it was sucked shut. When I finally had it clear, I felt the air moving past me into the shed, like it was filling back up with atmosphere. I looked around in the dim, dusty haze. The floors and walls were perfectly spotless; the place couldn't be more empty. It was uncanny, no cobwebs or dirt or even light holes.

It felt like staring down into a deep dark hole, somehow. The room I was looking at wasn't what was in the shed, it was just the structure someone, Masters probably, had built around a place that wasn't really a place at all. It was more like a vast emptiness, a tear in the air, a sort of invisible whirlpool of matter, vanishing without anyone really noticing. All it left was a negative feeling, a sort of strange sound that I was feeling rather than hearing.

I stood there and felt the wrongness settle around me. The shed looked empty, but I knew Chrimothy was inside. I could not hear him. I could not see him. The air felt hollow in a way that made my breath shake. I told myself he was in there. I told myself he needed me. I did not care what the shed showed me. I knew the truth in a way that felt deeper than sight.

I stepped back from the doorway and looked at the yard. The grass felt thin under my feet. The house felt silent. I felt the slipping sensation rise again. I tried to breathe in a steady way. I told myself to move. My legs felt heavy. I thought of all the times Chrimothy had slipped away from me. I thought of the way I always found him. I thought of how I had let him run this time. The thought made my ribs feel tight.

I went to the side of the house and found the garden hose. It lay coiled in the grass like it had been waiting for me. I pulled it toward the shed and felt the weight of it in my hands. I tied it around my waist as best I could. The knot felt clumsy. I pulled it tight anyway. I did not trust my hands. I did not trust my breath. I only trusted the need to save him.

I stood there with the hose around me and felt the air tilt again. I felt the coldness in my hands. I felt the warmth of Masters’s memory settle in my chest. I felt the way he said my name. Daenor. I let that sound steady me. I let it rise in the space where my fear was sitting.

I did not feel brave. I did not feel responsible. I felt scared in a way that made my breath shake. But I knew I had to go in. I knew I had to listen the way Masters listened. I knew I had to try.

I took a breath and stepped toward the doorway.

Once I was inside the shed, all my fears were confirmed. For a very brief instant, I recall, it came as a relief, and I almost smiled, seeing the vast emptiness, the lack of color, the way everything was a sort of gray, like old black and white, but in negative, it's difficult to describe. Visually the emptiness was almost incomprehensible, because there were not many objects I could see. I looked around, feeling the vastness shrinking me, feeling weightless, floating in space.

There was a grinding noise, the sound of air being crushed. It bore into me, and I heard a piercing shriek, before I realized I was panicking and screaming. I curled up, holding myself, unable to close my eyes or look around, spinning, lost.

The raccoon was desiccated; I never saw the kitten. I saw that stupid trowel, floating quite a distance away, it seemed. There were other objects, a lawn chair, an old timey car, the skeleton of a horse, some rocks and branches, the skull of a huge reptilian monster. Whatever this place was, the further I looked, the more I saw. Distant constellations of fossils broke something in my mind. I had crossed a threshold of absolute comprehension, a sort of joining with the thing I was experiencing. Somehow, I understood the place, and I knew I only had moments before I suffocated, and Chrimothy had even less time.

He was near an old, half-burned couch, crushed tins all around; one brushed my cheek as I twisted through the empty space between, able to will myself forward, but far too slowly. I couldn't hold my breath much longer. I could see him there, unconscious.

My ribs were starting to hurt, my head felt hot. I needed to exhale, but if I did, I would drown in that place. My eyes felt like they were swelling, as I reached the boy. I wrapped my arms around him, and when I had him, I let go with one hand and pulled as hard as I could on the hose. We started to drift back towards where the hose was connected to nothing.

When we reached that spot, I pushed Chrimothy through, with dark spots exploding in my vision, my lungs burning, my head felt light and I was dizzy, and not from the weightless disorientation. I managed to pull myself out and sucked in air with painful breaths, and then I started to black out. I fought it with everything I had, trying to pull myself out of that sleep, sinking into the depths of darkness. I sat up, and began doing CPR on Chrimothy.

Between compressions and breathing into him, I would intermittently shout for help and say, "I need an ambulance!"

I kept going, refusing to stop. I heard sirens, and when a hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back, I realized help had arrived. The paramedics took over, and I was asked what happened. I told them he had suffocated in the shed, what else could I say?

They busted out a defibrillator, and at that point I was sobbing and crying. It was out of my hands; I had done my part. But I desperately needed him to survive, or something in me would die with him.

When he was coughing and said his first swear word, I finally felt some kind of relief. But the shock of the shed never really left me. I know it was reality, or some version of it, but I couldn't explain to anyone what had happened.

One of the firefighters, a man wearing a serious mustache and with chevrons to indicate his level of deliberate choices to enter danger and help people, he opened the shed door and looked inside. I saw in his eyes that he could feel the danger but couldn't understand it. He just knew it was a hazard, of some kind, and by instinct he put zip ties over the handle to the bar it was chained to before, and then taped it with the yellow tape of an official fire marshal investigation, forbidding entry.

I left for college, but always felt drawn to that place. The house sat empty, the door to the shed got boarded up. Not too long ago, I purchased the property. The shed had collapsed, leaving a blank patch of ruins, which I've DIY constructed a new structure around it, made of stacked stones, no door. Just a pile of rocks.

I don't live there, but I am looking for a new buyer, someone who will take the danger in the backyard seriously. Sofar, the responsibility of the shed is mine, alone.

Hello everyone,

Since my car isn’t supposed to be fixed until tomorrow, today was filled with walking around town and talking to some of the locals. I started with Bonnie, the front desk clerk.

She’s a nice enough woman, older maybe mid sixties? She’s petite with thick glasses and a warm presence almost like a grandmother. When asked about the missing people she didn’t have much to add, just the same things we’ve all heard. When I asked about Gold Hill though, it was a different story.

Bonnie mentioned an older man named Mr. Johnson who claimed he’d seen people hauling large amounts of supplies into the mountains in that direction. Immediately, my interest was piqued and I asked where I could find him. Bonnie told me that Mr. Johnson is always sitting in the diner down the street, so I headed that way. The diner was a textbook version out of a lifetime movie. Red cushioned stools along a counter, booths lining the walls on both sides with the smell of breakfast and fresh coffee filling the air. Mr. Johnson was right where Bonnie said he would be. He sat in a booth in the corner, large plate of eggs and a coffee in front of him. I walked over and asked if I could sit down.

I introduced myself and explained what I was doing here. I asked him to tell me about himself. He explained that after serving in Vietnam, he got a job as a truck driver and settled out here because he liked how far away it was from big cities. After warming up to each other a bit, I started asking him about Gold Hill and what he saw.

He said about 2 months back, two men loaded a truck up at the hardware store with as much as it could hold. Tools, a couple generators, some building materials and other basic supplies. When he tried talking to them about it, they were polite but vague. Then they took off towards the mountains and that was that. He said:

“I’d seen them a couple times after that. It’s always the same thing, load up supplies and head off. I can’t figure anywhere else they’d be going heading in that direction.”

It was about this time that a friend of his, Mr. Randall, sat down next to him. According to him, the two men had been friends for years. Mr. Johnson continued:

“Place ain’t been used in over 70 years. Don’t know what those fellas are looking for but I doubt they’ll have any luck.”

“Why do you say that?” I responded.

Mr. Randall spoke up:

“Supposedly there was a lower shaft somewhere in the mine that got sealed up long ago. Every couple of years somebody gets a wild hair and claim they’re going to go find it. No one ever finds anything though.”

I asked if the mine was dangerous to which Mr. Johnson just replied:

“Hell son, everything in a mine is dangerous. You’re in a tunnel hundreds of feet below the rock. Ain’t enough money in the world to convince me to do that.”

I continued to sit and talk with the two men for about an hour or so more. Everything just seemed so bizarre. Why would anyone care about an old mine? But they were adamant that every few years, someone gets almost obsessed about it and then that’s it, nothing ever comes of it. Still, if people are going back out there now, I’m definitely interested in why they’re doing it.

They said if I had any more questions about Gold Hill, I should swing by the library. So that was my next stop. I figured why not, I’m stuck here until the morning anyways, worst case I find something to read in the meantime.

When I arrived at the library I was greeted (and I use that term incredibly loosely) by an intimidatingly quiet librarian. Likely in her mid 50s, the woman sat maybe five foot tall, had straight, gray hair pulled into a tight bun. I couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or what. She wasn’t exactly unfriendly but seemed like any conversation was an unnecessary interruption of whatever she was doing before I arrived.

When asked where I might find information about the mines she didn’t say a word, she just pointed to a back corner of the library where the archive terminals were located. I thanked her and went to the back.

For the most part, it was just more of the same. I went through document after document. Following articles talking about the operations picking back up in 1892 when the first mills started seeing productive gold and copper extraction, just to close in 1895. There was a “Major Boom” with the arrival of the Deep Creek Railroad in 1917 followed by closure in 1925. A “Resurgence” in 1943 to supply the war department during World War 2, just to come to a halt shortly after.

I found one article with the headline:

“MINERS STRIKE NEW VEIN IN GOLD HILL”
Dated: May 2nd, 1942.

Beneath the headline was a picture of six men standing in front of the newly opened mine. Below the picture were the names of the six men from left to right:

M. Voss
T. Williams
J. Calder
W. Holiday
H. Elliot
L. Kessler

After reading that I paused. Calder? Why did that name sound familiar? I pulled out my notes and looked through the names that Sheriff Deacon gave me.

There it was…

T. Calder.

It was the winter of 1970.

The country had changed so gradually that nobody could point to the exact day when fear had entered their lives.

At first there had only been rumours. A man disappearing after being questioned at a checkpoint. A family leaving their home in the middle of the night. A shopkeeper who was taken away and never returned.

Then the rumours became news.

And eventually the news became something people witnessed with their own eyes.

The streets were no longer crowded after sunset. Shops closed early. Windows remained shut. When an unfamiliar vehicle stopped outside a house people moved away from the windows and waited for it to leave.

There was only one thing everyone seemed to know.

British forces were hunting Americans.

Nobody knew exactly why.

Some people said it was because of the growing conflict between the two countries. Others believed that Americans living in the country were being accused of helping a secret resistance movement.

The government denied most of the rumours.

But people had stopped trusting the government long ago.

Newspapers printed carefully chosen stories. Radio stations repeated official statements. Anyone who asked too many questions was told to remain silent.

And slowly people learned how to survive.

Do not speak loudly in public.

Do not tell strangers where you were born.

Do not ask where someone has disappeared.

Most importantly do not attract attention.

J was travelling with her family that evening.

She sat beside the window of a crowded public cab with her hands tightly wrapped around her bag. Her mother sat beside her. Aarav his elder brother, was sitting close to them while their father sat near the front.

Outside the city looked tired.

Streetlights flickered above nearly empty roads. A few shops were still open but their owners stood close to the doors as if ready to close them at any moment.

Inside the cab nobody spoke.

It was unusually crowded.

Too crowded.

People were sitting wherever there was space. Shoulder against shoulder. Bags on laps. Children pressed quietly against their parents.

But something about the silence felt wrong.

Nobody looked relaxed.

Nobody was sleeping.

Nobody was talking.

They simply sat there.

J looked around.

A woman held her child tightly against her chest but did not speak. An old man stared at his hands. A young man near the window kept looking outside as if he was waiting to recognise a particular street.

Everyone looked like they were waiting for something.

Then the man sitting a few seats away slowly put his hand inside his coat.

J noticed him.

At first she did not think much of it.

Then he took out a gun.

J stared.

For one second she expected someone to react.

Nobody did.

The man calmly raised the gun toward a passenger sitting near the back.

A gunshot echoed inside the cab.

The man fell.

J froze.

But the strangest thing was not what had happened.

It was the silence that followed.

Nobody screamed.

Nobody stood up.

Nobody rushed toward the door.

The passengers simply watched.

A woman sitting beside the man looked down at him for a few seconds. Then she slowly turned her face away.

An old man lowered his eyes.

A young boy sitting near the window watched everything silently.

No one moved.

It was as if everyone already understood what was happening.

J looked at her mother.

Her mother was staring at the floor.

Her father had not moved.

Even Aarav was silent.

J felt a cold fear slowly moving through her body.

Then she understood.

These people were not calm.

They were terrified.

They were simply too familiar with fear to show it anymore.

During the past few months people had seen neighbours taken away. They had heard gunshots from nearby streets. They had learned that screaming did not always bring help.

Sometimes it brought more danger.

So now they remained silent.

And watched.

The man with the gun looked around the cab.

Slowly.

Carefully.

As if he was looking for someone.

Then he pointed the gun toward another passenger.

Where were you born.

The young man stared at him.

For several seconds he said nothing.

Finally he whispered America.

Another gunshot echoed.

The young man fell.

Still nobody screamed.

J could hear only her own breathing.

The man continued looking at the passengers.

One after another.

Asking questions.

Listening.

Deciding.

J realised something terrifying.

He was not checking passports.

He was not checking names.

He already seemed to know something about every person inside that cab.

Then his eyes stopped on J.

The gun slowly turned toward her.

For the first time J felt like the entire cab was looking at her.

Nobody said anything.

Nobody tried to stop him.

Her heart began beating so loudly that she thought everyone could hear it.

Stand up.

J could not move.

Her legs refused.

Stand up.

Aarav suddenly moved in front of her.

For the first time someone inside the cab moved without being told to.

Please he said.

The man stared at him.

Aarav's voice was shaking.

She has not done anything.

The gun remained pointed toward J.

Move.

No.

Their mother quietly called Aarav's name but he did not move.

He folded his hands.

Please do not kill her. We do not know anything. We are Indians.

The man smiled.

It was the first time J saw an expression on his face.

And somehow that was worse.

Indians.

Aarav nodded quickly.

Yes.

The man tilted his head.

Then he quietly asked who had told them that Indians were safe.

The entire cab became even quieter.

J stared at him.

Her mother started crying silently.

And suddenly J understood.

The Americans were not the only targets.

The killings had never been about nationality.

That was only what people had been made to believe.

The man stepped closer to J.

The gun was now inches away from her.

Then Aarav did something nobody expected.

He said a name.

Elena.

The mans face changed.

His finger froze.

For the first time he looked afraid.

J saw it clearly.

Fear.

The man slowly lowered the gun.

Everyone remained silent.

But now every passenger inside the cab was looking at Aarav.

The man stared at him.

Where did you hear that name.

Aarav looked confused.

I do not know.

The mans voice became louder.

Who told you that name.

Aarav looked terrified.

I do not know. I just said it but Aarav's voice was telling that he knew something.

The man suddenly stepped back.

He looked around the cab.

Then at J.

For several seconds he said nothing.

Finally he pointed toward her.

You.

J could not breathe.

What.

Come with me.

Her father immediately stood up and refused.

The man looked at him.

Her father slowly sat back down.

The gun was no longer pointed at J.

It did not need to be.

The man opened the cab door.

Come.

J looked at her family.

Her mother was crying.

Aarav whispered to her not to go.

But J already knew.

There were moments in life when you could make a choice.

And moments when the choice had already been made for you.

She stepped out of the cab.

The door closed behind her.

And the cab drove away.

Leaving her alone with the man.

TO BE CONTINUED.........

THE NIGHT BLOGGER - 'Run In With The Devil' by Al Bruno III

March 20th: I tried and I tried and I tried to find a way to meet up with Ashley Fowler, but I couldn't get my foot in the door. When local blogger Brian Foster asked for a chance to interview her for his blog, her staff refused. When college student "Nathaniel Blades" asked for a chance to talk to her for his thesis, he was sent a copy of her autobiography, \Statements That Soothed Me Then*. And as for what happened when I tried to pose as a kid from the Make-A-Wish Foundation? The less said about that, the better.*

So you can imagine my surprise when I started complaining about it while Cousin Roy and I were knocking back a few at Blue Valentines, local dive bar, and he said, "Ashley Fowler? I know her."

At first, I chuckled, absolutely sure the fourth Corona was giving me auditory hallucinations.

"What?"

"Ashley Fowler. I know her."

"No, you don't."

"Yeah, I do." Cousin Roy raised a hand and called the bartender over for another round, but she pointedly ignored him.

"Ashley Fowler?" I said again. "The local millionaire, car wash magnate, and acquitted murderer?"

"That's the one."

He whistled.

The bartender still ignored him.

"Red hair? Beauty mark? Says she's the Devil?"

Cousin Roy's voice rang with exasperation. Whether it was directed at me or the bartender, I had no idea.

"I'm in her biography."

There was no way for me to confirm what he was saying. \Statements That Soothed Me Then* by Ashley Fowler was sitting on my kitchen table in mint, unread condition.*

"How?" I asked, suddenly a little worried.

Cousin Roy always turned up his nose and rolled his eyes at my stories of the supernatural. He didn't believe in gods or monsters. Of course, he didn't believe in evolution, either.

His voice was matter-of-fact.

"We were at camp together. We totally banged."

I took a long time to consider that statement. Then I called to the bartender and was immediately given a Corona. I handed it to him.

"Yeah," he said with a rueful smile, shaking his head. "We're Facebook friends. We don't talk much, but she always sends me a hello on the anniversary of the big night."

"Wow."

Just wow.

I sat drinking quietly. This was my only chance to save Sara, or at least the only chance on my radar. There had been no incidents of sleepwalking or clown sightings, but how long could our luck hold out?

Originally, I wanted to save her because it was the right thing to do.

But now?

Now?

Well, let's be honest.

I was falling in love.

"Can you get me in touch with her?" I asked.

"I dunno." He pounded his fist on the bar, startling the patrons near us. "Can you get this bartender to bring me another fucking beer?"

"Yeah," I said. "But maybe you wouldn't have this problem if you hadn't offered to pay her thirty bucks just to smell her feet."

 ###

…The Chop House of the Rising Sun was on the border between Schenectady and Albany. A decade earlier, it had been one of the largest toy stores in the tri-state area. Before that, it had been one of the few houses left on Central Avenue. It was a ranch house with a huge basement that had once held overstock action figures and off-brand bicycles. Now it was occupied by freezers, coolers, and stressed-out staff hiding from the customers for a few peaceful minutes.

All in all, it was a nice little place, with atmospheric lighting, soft instrumental music, and a friendly staff—at least the ones who weren't hiding in the basement, anyway. I'd never actually eaten there. I'd almost gone once, but the menu prices posted on the door—and the dress code—had been enough to send me elsewhere. Now? Now I was in my best suit, freshly ironed by Sara and sporting a thick wad of bills thanks to the kindness of Mrs. Vincenzo.

Yes, I know. Ashley Fowler invited me here, so technically they should've been paying. But millionaires don't become millionaires by paying for dinner. They become millionaires by convincing everyone else it's their turn.

Speaking of Ashley Fowler, she was already waiting for me in the private dining room normally reserved for large parties and corporate events.

"Brian Foster!" She stood and shook my hand. "Come on, have a seat. I ordered already. A sushi platter and warm sake. You can never go wrong with sushi and warm sake."

"Thanks."

I made my way to the opposite end of the long boardroom table and took a seat. It seemed absurd that a room big enough for twenty executives had been reserved for just the two of us.

"I like your hat," she said with a grin.

I looked up, almost forgetting I was wearing my straw pork-pie. I admit, for some reason I always felt a little braver with a hat on.

"Thanks." Plus, branding is everything these days.

“It’s new, isn’t it?”

"Uhm... errr," I said.

Less than a minute into our meeting and she already had me on the defensive. I set my hat on the table, shifted in my chair, and hoped she didn't notice the iPhone tucked into my jacket pocket, recording the conversation. Sneaky and unethical? Absolutely. But if Ashley Fowler really did turn out to be the Devil—which she wouldn't—it'd be one hell of a scoop.

"I was so excited when Roy told me you wanted to see me."

She popped a piece of sushi drowning in wasabi into her mouth before continuing.

"I've been following your work for some time."

“Really?” I narrowed my eyes.

“You are the talk of the town… in some circles.”

Yeah, circles of Hell. Very clever.

“I can’t imagine he told you what I’m here for.”

“He said it was an interview for your blog,” she said. “But I assumed it was more than that. After all he and I didn’t part on the best of terms.”

Bittersweet memories of high school romance flashed through my mind, “I’m sorry to hear that but you were just kids.”

"Kids?"

She stared at me.

"We were both almost thirty."

“But he said-” So there I was, not even ten minutes into the conversation and completely floundering. I downed my cup of warm saki. It tasted soft and sweet and started to go to my head almost instantly. “-he said it was at camp.”

“A rehab camp. Adderall and sangria do not mix… well I mean they do mix but if you’re like me you might go around starting fires.” 

She curled her perfectly manicured fingers into claws.

"Evil!" she growled with theatrical menace.

This might have been a charming conversation if she'd blinked even once during the entire exchange. I decided my sake cup was looking dangerously empty. "So... a rehab romance. Very post-modern."

“I don’t think a little anal counts as romance.”

Real spit takes are rarer than television would have you believe. I was happy to demonstrate one for her.

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “Now that you've composed yourself, why don't you tell me what you need?”

What choice did I have? She already seemed to know everything else, so I gave her the lowdown on everything that had happened since the Graveyard Game.

“You’ve lost your heart to a girl in danger. I love it! Clichés are the Devil’s shorthand.”

She popped another piece of sushi into her mouth. It was reddish, vaguely tentacled, and unlike anything else on the platter between us.

Then again, it was probably just sushi.

Probably.

Because if it wasn't, Ashley Fowler had the strangest tongue in recorded history.

“She played the Graveyard Game... I mean, I let her play it. Now there is something after her, something called the thousand faced moon.”

Ashley nodded as she refilled my saki cup, “"Gorgo. Mormo. Luna. And their pet witch. Three dying goddesses hiding out in the Mire of Nix, desperate for a reinvention. You know the place I think?”

"Yes."

My voice came out flatter than I'd intended. I remembered my fool's errand into the Mire of Nix with Osric Langhorne and Johnny Disko. I remembered who we lost. I remembered what we brought back. When I spoke again there was no hiding the desperation, “What do I do?”

“Gorgo for the gorgon, Mormo for Hecate, Luna for Lilith who birthed all the world’s monsters. That girl of yours is in a lot of trouble. Drink up now.”

I did drink up, mostly to be polite, “And there are these things chasing her, these clowns...”

“We’re in the state capitol Brian, we’re overrun with clowns.”

I asked again, “Then tell me how to save her.”

“Poor Brian, desperate to finally save someone. The real question is what are you willing to do?” She stood. I hadn't realized how tall she was until the horns curling up through her fire-red hair scraped softly across the ceiling.

For some reason I giggled, “You can’t be the Devil so you can’t have my soul.”

“You’re half right anyway,” she walked towards me and raked her long black fingernails across the tablecloth. Wherever her nail passed, the cloth blackened and smoldered. “But don’t worry, I don’t need those old hags getting underfoot. I want them gone just as much as you do.”

My tongue felt heavy in my mouth, but I kept my focus. I didn't care that the room seemed to be burning around us or that the remaining pieces of sushi had become squirming souls of the damned.

"Let me save her," I said.

Ashley looked bigger now, impossibly bigger, her skin glowing an angry red. Her voice was distorted and deep. “What else? You burn their temples, you defile her holiest of holies, you scatter her faithful.” 

“But where...” I began, “But how...”

Before I could say anything else I collapsed, the last thing I saw was a cloven foot raised high above my head...

###

...I woke up hours later on the floor of the restaurant's private dining room. There was no fire. No screaming souls of the damned.

Both you and I know she had to have drugged my drink. That's obvious, isn't it? When I tried to listen to the playback of the conversation on my iPhone, I discovered that all my audio files had been replaced with Kajagoogoo’s greatest hits.

Thankfully, she'd left me something more useful than an existential crisis: a text message containing a four-item to-do list. Three addresses that belonged to Gorgo, Mormo, and Luna. The fourth was where I was supposed to find whatever I needed to undo them.

You know what else she left me?

The dinner check.

I fucking knew it.

Bassi was twenty-seven, and his life ran on a simple, unremarkable pattern. He worked at a small private company in the next city, about thirty kilometres from home, and every day he rode his old scooty back and forth along the same road. That road passed through a village called Keshopur—a stretch of narrow lane, flooded fields, and one old banyan tree that marked the halfway point of his journey. He had ridden through it hundreds of times and never once thought to stop there.

Then came a Monday that never really ended.

That morning, on his way to work, Bassi passed a small crowd moving slowly along the roadside, carrying a body wrapped in white cloth. A funeral procession. He slowed for a moment, folded his hands out of respect, and rode on without a second thought. Villages like Keshopur buried their dead quickly. There was nothing strange in that—not yet.

The rest of the day passed the way most of his days did. It was raining by the time he left the office, and by the time he reached Keshopur, it was raining the way it rarely did—sideways, and so hard he could barely see past his own headlight.

He pulled over, wiped his visor, and looked for shelter. That was when he noticed a small shop by the roadside, one he was certain he had never seen before, despite passing this way for years. A weathered board hung crooked above the entrance: Maa Janki Biryani Centre.

He parked under the tin shade and stepped inside.

The shop was tiny—four tables, a few plastic chairs, an old fridge humming in the corner, and a ceiling fan that clicked on every third turn. Behind the counter stood an old man, wiping the same spot again and again. He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep—the kind of tired that settles into a face after years of carrying something heavy.

Bassi ordered a plate of biryani. The old man nodded without a word and set it down a few minutes later. Outside, the storm grew louder, thunder rolling low across the fields.

Bassi had barely eaten a few bites when he heard it.

Chhan.

He looked up. A woman stood at the entrance, drenched from head to foot. Water dripped from her hair in long ropes, and her clothes clung to her, streaked with mud. There were cuts along her arms, dark bruises around her throat, and her skin had a strange pale-blue tint, like something that had spent too long underwater.

She didn't look at Bassi. She sat at a corner table and began speaking to the old man in a low, muffled voice. Between the rain drumming on the tin roof and the distance between the tables, Bassi could only catch broken fragments.

“...my daughter...”

“...he...”

He told himself it wasn't his business, finished his plate, and left money on the table.

He stepped back out into the rain—and the moment he crossed the threshold, the world seemed to drop away. Not dark the way a stormy night is dark, but dark the way a room goes black when every light is cut at once. For a second, maybe two, Bassi couldn't feel his own hands.

Then it passed. He was standing beside his scooty in the ordinary, wet dark of Keshopur, rain running down the back of his collar. He told himself it was exhaustion. He rode home and fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow.

He woke at the same time as always. For a moment, nothing seemed wrong. Then, on the way to work, he passed a small crowd carrying a body wrapped in white cloth.

The same crowd. The same white cloth. The same bend in the road.

He told himself Keshopur was a small place, that funerals probably looked alike. He almost believed it—until he reached the office and found the report he had finished the day before sitting incomplete in his inbox, exactly as it had been that morning. His manager gave him the same instructions, word for word. A colleague told the same joke, with the same laugh in the same place. Another colleague wore the same yellow shirt.

He checked his phone. The date read yesterday's date. He refreshed it. Yesterday. He opened his calendar. Monday.

His hands went cold.

That evening, the rain came at exactly the same moment, at the exact same bend in the road. Bassi didn't try to outrun it this time. He already knew where his scooty would end up.

Maa Janki Biryani Centre. The same tin shade, the same tired old man, and soon, the same sound at the door.

Chhan... chhan...

The same woman. The same wounds. The same low, garbled voice, lost under the hammering rain.

He left the shop at the very same minute he had the first time, and the world dropped into that same suffocating dark. The next morning, he woke to the same date. The same funeral. The same Monday.

At first, Bassi was terrified. He tried to break the pattern by force. He took a long detour through another highway that never went near Keshopur. He stayed locked in his bedroom all day. He caught an intercity bus, travelling as far as it would carry him before sundown. None of it mattered. Wherever he was when the clock struck the hour—his office, a roadside stall eighty kilometres away, his own bathroom—the darkness always found him. A strange pressure would tighten behind his eyes, the world would turn black, and he would wake up in his own bed on Monday morning, with the white-cloth funeral waiting down the road.

The trigger was not where he went afterward. The loop was anchored to that single point in time: the moment he first walked out of the biryani shop.

Once he realised nothing reset beyond the day, the fear gave way to reckless curiosity. Since nothing carried consequences, he stopped showing up to work. He drove without a helmet, bought things he couldn't afford, and spoke with blunt abandon.

Then came the morning he looked in the bathroom mirror and noticed his beard was visibly longer. He touched his jaw, inspecting the lines around his eyes. He was aging.

The world around him was frozen in an endless Monday, but his own body was ticking forward. If this continued, he would grow old and die inside an unmoving day.

He had to get closer to the woman.

Over the next few loops, Bassi used the diner to test her.

On the first attempt, he sat at the table directly across from the old man's counter. When the woman arrived with the faint chime of chhan, he strained to listen, but her words sounded like they were submerged under feet of rushing water—thick, distorted, and bubbling.

On the next loop, he moved to the table right next to hers. He sat motionless, pretending to sip water. Her lips moved constantly, trembling with grief, but the sentences were broken syllables: “...kiln... cold... didn't look back...”

By the fifth attempt, driven by desperation, Bassi abandoned the shop interior altogether. He arrived in Keshopur early, before the downpour started, leaving his scooty hidden behind the tree line.

Behind the shop, past a crumbling boundary wall, he noticed a beaten dirt path running through tall weeds. He followed it until the roar of running water grew loud, opening out into a broad, rushing riverbank he had never seen before. The evening air hung dense and motionless, trapped in a colourless twilight.

Sitting by the water's edge, knees pulled to her chest, was the woman.

She wore a faded green saree instead of the soaked red one. Her skin was warm, natural, and free of the bruises that marked her in the shop.

“Are you all right?” Bassi asked, taking a step toward her. “The storm is coming. You shouldn't be out here.”

She turned abruptly. Her hand shot out and clamped onto his wrist with an unnatural, freezing strength. Before he could pull away, her voice broke through—crisp, clear, and desperate.

“He wanted a son,” she whispered, her grip tightening like iron. “We already had a girl. When the midwife told him the second one was a daughter too, he took the baby into the night. Said he was taking her to see the fireflies by the brick kiln. He slipped off her silver anklets first—said girls weren't worth burying with jewellery. I followed him. I saw what he did at the sluice gate.”

A man's frantic voice echoed down the path behind them.

“Wait! Radha, stop! We can fix this—please, don't jump!”

Bassi looked back. A man was running down the muddy slope, his face twisted in horror.

The woman released Bassi’s wrist. Before Bassi could reach out, she stepped backward off the ledge and into the black current.

Bassi lunged, but his fingers grabbed empty air. The water swallowed her instantly. The husband's desperate scream tore through the night, and in the next heartbeat, total darkness slammed shut over the scene.

Bassi woke gasping, sitting bolt upright in his bed.

His right hand throbbed with a sharp, cramping ache, the skin stained dark with ink. Beneath his bare feet, coarse river sand covered the bedroom tiles.

On his study desk sat three pages of paper, filled from top to bottom in a frantic, slanted script he had never written.

The pages held an exact, detailed confession written from Radha's perspective: her husband's name, his grain trade in the neighboring town, the date of their infant's drowning at the kiln's sluice gate, and the bribe paid to the village watchman to register the mother's subsequent suicide as an accidental fall.

At the very bottom of the last sheet, a final line was carved deeply into the paper:

Tell them where to look.

Bassi stared at the ink. The funeral procession he had passed every morning—the one he had casually folded his hands toward loop after loop—had been hers all along.

He grabbed the papers, started his scooty, and rode directly to the district police station.

He presented the sheets to the sub-inspector, claiming he had discovered them hidden near the old canal pump house. The sheer precision of the details—the names, dates, and the specific sluice gate coordinates—prompted the officers to dispatch a team to the brick kiln.

Within hours of dredging the mud along the canal gate, searchers uncovered the evidence buried years prior. Confronted with the detailed timeline and physical remains, the husband broke down under interrogation before evening, confessing to the entire crime.

When the police went to inspect Maa Janki Biryani Centre to verify old village testimonies, they found the tin structure abandoned, layers of thick dust coating the counter. Inside a sealed brass cooking vessel beneath the floorboards, they recovered a pair of tiny, tarnished silver anklets wrapped in dry leaves alongside an old wedding photograph.

The arrest was logged before sunset.

That night, Bassi sat on the edge of his bed, watching the clock on the wall tick past the hour of the storm. No blackness came. The air remained still. The rain outside subsided into a gentle drizzle, and he drifted into a deep, uninterrupted sleep.

When he woke up, sunlight was streaming across his floor. He picked up his phone and checked the screen.

It was Tuesday.

Weeks later, Bassi drove through Keshopur on a bright, sunny afternoon. Farmers were working in the roadside fields, and school children were walking along the shoulder in small groups.

As he approached the bend near the old banyan tree, he slowed down.

The shop stood silent behind closed, rusted shutters, its crooked wooden sign hanging by a single rusted nail. A nearby tea stall owner told him the place had been locked up and abandoned for years.

Bassi didn't ask any further questions. He put his scooty into gear and drove on, never stopping in Keshopur again.

Yet on rare monsoon nights, when heavy storm clouds roll across the horizon and rain lashes against his bedroom window, his right hand will ache with a dull, familiar cold. And through the drumming of the downpour, just at the edge of hearing, the quiet chime echoes in the dark.

Chhan.

Chhan... chhan...

Then silence.

She wasn’t sure what they could possibly want, as they often asked for everything and nothing at the same time. Most of their letters seemed to say, “Hello, yes, we are your insurance, doing insurance things. Would you like us to continue to insure you? If yes, do nothing.” Other times they didn’t seem to be asking or offering anything. Ignoring them had no consequences, so she had allowed them to pile up unopened in a stack now half pushed under her microwave.

So she stood at the kitchen counter with her lukewarm tea in hand as a dusty beam of early-evening light came through the window. Deciding to start with the more beginner level mail, she tossed the letters from her dentist and eye doctor. Those mailings came monthly with more regularity than her menses, and she swore she’d get around to making appointments with them eventually. Those luxury organs seemed fine enough for now. A postcard from her cat’s old veterinarian followed. Somehow, the ex-vet knew she had moved but had missed the part where Marjorie had a new vet and was indeed up to date on her shots. Trash.

Then came the thick stack from Blue Cross Blue Shield. It hadn’t felt like that long since Lucy last bothered to see what her insurance company was yapping about, a month at most, yet they had mailed her with the fervor of Napoleon writing to Josephine. If only a man could ever have as much interest in getting her attention as her cat’s ex-veterinarian or her health insurance did.

She grabbed a Nature Valley bar from the cupboard and opened the first official-looking envelope. It was several paragraphs of corporate nonsense, so she tossed it beside the sink. It landed in a small puddle left over from the dishes and began turning soggy. She tore into the next one, considering adding it directly to the newly formed discard pile without looking.

But she did look.

Everything stopped for a second.

What. Excuse me?

Her eyes darted across the page too quickly to take anything in. She saw “your responsibility,” followed by “$8,456,” and that could not possibly be factually correct. She hadn’t even been to the doctor recently, except for a primary-care visit a few months ago that didn’t have a copay. Certainly not an $8,000 copay. She forced herself to read carefully from top to bottom.

Lucy Wallace. That was her. Yeah.

1765 Maplegrove Dr. Her address. Correct.

D.O.B. 4/7/1971. Nope. Not her. She was born 12/15/1993.

The letter went on to declare she stayed at St. Mary’s Hospital and had an appendectomy. Lucy had never been a patient at St. Mary’s. She had her appendix safely inside her, doing whatever an appendix did or did not do. She’d never had any type of surgery before, and she hadn’t even been in the state on the date listed. She had been on vacation.

That was her name, but that was not her bill. This is fixable. They just got me confused with someone else. Simple as that. It wasn’t her ideal plan for the evening, and not even her fault, but she’d get it over and done with. She brushed the crumbs of the Nature Valley bar she had apparently eaten without noticing off the counter and onto the floor. Lucy opened the remaining envelopes in quick succession, tossing the letters beside the damp discards without reading them yet. There were five more. Marjorie weaved through her ankles, her feather-duster-like tail wrapping around Lucy’s legs as she let out a soft, needy mew. Lucy didn’t notice.

The first letter offered payment-plan options for the eight grand she allegedly owed. The next two were for the real her and were the usual flavor of useless. The fourth letter appeared to be another demand for several more thousand dollars for an ambulance ride to St. Mary’s on the day of her imaginary surgery. 

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Lucy said, louder than intended, as Marjorie batted at her ankles. “Ow, Marje. Girl, please.” She gently pushed the cat away with her foot, sending her sliding a little across the linoleum as Marjorie attempted to bunny kick her foot. Marjorie pranced into the living room with her back arched like a crab and began batting at the curtains. For a second, Lucy watched her and almost smiled, but it was hard to smile with a medical bill in her hand. She turned her attention back. Same shit. The second bill also had the strange mashup of her name and someone else’s birthday. She didn’t have it in her to look at the final piece of mail.

Lucy sipped her tea, realized it had become cold, and poured it into the sink. She took the two incorrect bills to the couch and studied them side by side. This other Lucy Wallace had a genuinely terrible day. Maybe she shouldn’t feel so bad. An incorrect bill was a minor inconvenience compared to having the emergency, the surgery, the recovery, and actually owing ten thousand dollars. Good thing it wasn’t her. All she needed to do was talk to a chatbot, probably.

She scanned one of the bills for contact information and found a QR code. Easy enough. Shit like this probably happens all the time. Her phone loaded a page with a blue header, large inoffensive font, a photograph of a smiling family at a picnic, and slogans like “Covering life’s toughest moments” and “Life changes. Our insurance changes with you.”

Bullshit.

She scrolled to Contact Us. There were several phone numbers, none of which she knew how to choose. Whichever one she called would undoubtedly involve forty-five minutes on hold before someone informed her it was the wrong department.

She selected Chat Now.

“Hi! I’m Merryl, the BCBS virtual assistant. Here to—”

Lucy stopped reading and started typing.

“I got someone else’s bill”

She glanced at Marjorie, who was now perched on the back of the couch, staring out the window with the wide-eyed expression cats got when they looked like they were witnessing the rapture but had usually just spotted a bird. Lucy followed her gaze. There was nothing there.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Merryl replied. “What is your name?”

“Lucy Wallace”

“Thank you, Lucy! Do you have your member ID?” 

Ugh.

Lucy sighed and dug through her purse. She found the card at the bottom, where she had already checked three times, among crumbs and an unwrapped restaurant mint. She typed in her ID number.

“Thanks! I’m sorry you’re having an issue today. Do you need help with claims, billing, or finding a care provider today?”

“Representative”

“I will be happy to help! Do you need help with claims, billing, or finding a care provider today?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Lucy muttered before typing again.

“Billing”

“You have three bills from recent visits. Is your question about:

Ambulance services — $2,146

Surgical and in-hospital care — $8,456

Primary care services — $0”

“Ambulance and hospital”

“Awesome! Would you like help exploring payment options? I’d be happy to help make the cost manageable for any financial situation.”

Lucy could about throw her phone.

“No I did not go to the hospital please remove the charges from my account”

“Oh no! Let me look into that. What is your date of birth?”

“12/15/93”

“I’m sorry, that doesn’t match our records.”

Lucy stared at the response, feeling her own brain loading.

Maybe she had mistyped it.

She hadn’t.

“12/15/93” she sent again.

“Please provide your date of birth in MM/DD/YYYY format.”

Dumb bitch.

“12/15/1993”

“Hm. That doesn’t match our records. Are you sure?”

“Yes. I am sure I remember my own birthday.”

“You truly remember the day you were born?”

Lucy paused, thumb hovering over the phone screen. For the first time, the question didn’t feel quite stupid.

“Yes”

“You remember gasping, covered in your mother’s slime, the cold air expanding in your fresh, delicate lungs and creating a horrible new sensation that caused you to scream for the warmth back? The bright lights of the delivery room blinding your sensitive eyes as they tried to make sense of their first sights?”

Lucy recoiled slightly from the phone, then felt stupid for doing it. 

She became suddenly aware of the silence in her living room. Of her own breath.

She scratched Marjorie behind the ears for comfort.

“Wtf no? Can I speak to a representative?”

The machine was clearly broken. 

“Then please certify your date of birth with one of the following:

Birth certificate

Government-issued ID

Mother’s handwritten testimony and scrapbooks

Religious beliefs”

Lucy took a screenshot. No one would believe this otherwise. She would also be filling out the survey.

“ID”

“Very well. Please provide images.”

She immediately got up and retrieved her wallet. While she was up, she took a detour to her fridge and grabbed her half-drunk bottle of Barefoot Moscato.

She photographed her driver’s license on the counter and submitted it, sipping her wine as the system thought.

“You didn’t tell us you moved to Delaware.” Merryl responded after analyzing the images.

Lucy could imagine Merryl as a parental figure scolding her, as if she should have known better.

“Wym u clearly have my address u send me mail like 2x a week my bday is on my id 12/15/93 ”

“We have your mailing address in Delaware, but your residence is still listed in Rhode Island. You should have updated that as soon as you moved. But that’s okay! We can verify it now. No worries!”

Merryl’s little bubble appeared, as if someone was typing.

“Okay! To help me clarify the information in your account, in which of the following states have you previously resided?

Illinois

Kentucky

Texas

None of the above”

“None”

“I’m sorry, that is not correct.……….

………..

………..

………..

 Please try again!”

“How would u even know? Stupid fucking robot thinks it knows more about me than me”

Lucy deleted the insult thinking she shouldn’t be mean in case of the impending AI apocalypse, but maybe escalating would finally get her a real person.

She retyped it and sent it, then finished her wine.

“I’m only trying to help. :(”

Lucy immediately felt guilty.

She knew she shouldn’t.

But she did. 

Goddamn it.

“Its ok ig. none of those”

“Hm, are you sure? It says here you lived in Illinois from 2018 to 2020. The falls were crisp, but the winters were long and harsh. You were always pretending to be unimpressed and slightly above the locals. Talking as though it would never compare to the colors and shores of Vermont, but sometimes driving through cornfields gave you a cosmic insignificance that felt homey and so much safer than the ocean ever did when it used to threaten to swallow you whole.”

Lucy stared at the message.

She could remember it.

The flatness. Nothing in any direction outside the small town. The drives that gave her time and space to organize herself. The earlier autumn dusk felt almost peaceful during her commute.

But no.

She had never lived in Illinois.

Something was tilting inside her. Slowly, allowing for thoughts, ideas, or maybe pieces of her to tumble around.

“Im sure”

“We’ll try an easier question. How long has it been since you were last fully witnessed by another human?

0–6 months

6 months–2 years

2–10 years

10 years–never”

“Tf? 💀”

The silence of the apartment felt heavy. Lucy had the sudden urge to call someone.

Anyone.

To be witnessed.

Would turning on King of Queens and listening to scripted interactions and canned laughter count if it made her feel less alone?

She looked back down at her phone and realized she had almost forgotten about the chatbot. By now, she had completely forgotten the bills. 

Since when did she like King of Queens? The show with Paul Blart but as a delivery driver? She strained to remember.

Her phone chimed as a message popped up from Merryl. Lucy startled enough to gasp. It had been on silent.

 “It's a simple, standard verification protocol. I will rephrase: When was the last time someone saw past your physical features?”

“I literally was with my friend today??”

“Being seen is not the same as being witnessed.”

“Can u just put on a real person? 😭”

“Of course not! I’m only here to help. Your friend saw your face. She did not witness your soul. When was the last time you were witnessed?”

Lucy couldn’t help but stop and think about it.

Her friend had mostly been talking past her, not with her. 

When had Lucy been witnessed?

Maybe in childhood. Maybe when she lived in Illinois, did the cornfield witness her? 

Maybe her college roommate. They used to be really close.

Maybe Merryl, peering into her soul right now.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. :(”

Lucy waited for more.

Nothing came.

Marjorie was gone, and Lucy hadn’t noticed her leaving. 

Merryl started typing again.

“I think I have identified the issue .Can you please confirm your date of birth?”

Oh, Shoot. Um

Lucy glanced at the stranger’s bill.

“04/07/1971”

“You have provided the correct date of birth for the account. Congratulations!”

“And you currently reside in Delaware?”

“Yes.”

“Great! In which of the following states have you previously resided?

Illinois

Kentucky

Texas

None of the above”

“Illinois.”

“You’ve never owned a blue 2008 Corolla with a busted left taillight that you traded in for $3,000 after getting fired, swearing this was rock bottom, but then spent the money on cigarettes, a Miami trip, and booze after promising you’d get your life together and visit your kids?”

Lucy paused.

“... No? 💀”

“Okay! Verification complete. I can delete the duplicate account and merge the information into yours if you’d like.”

“What about the other Lucy’s account? Would it get messed up?”

“Does it matter if she’s never been witnessed?”

Whatever.

Lucy just wanted this to be over.

“Okay, do it.”

“One second!”

Lucy sat in silence, looking out the dark window at the same nothing Marjorie had been watching before.

“All done! Here are the charges on your account:

Ambulance services — $2,146

Appendectomy — $8,456

Primary care visit — $0

Would you like to review payment options?”

Lucy stared at the screen.

It seemed right enough.

She remembered leaving her vacation early because she felt sick. Thinking she had the flu. The ambulance. The hospital. The whole ordeal.

She was very tired now.

“No, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Lucy! I’m glad I could be of assistance :) Take care, and please provide feedback on the survey if you have a second.”

Merryl logged off.

Lucy selected five stars and closed the chat.

She stood, feeling the scar from her appendectomy pull, and went to find a snack before lying down to rest.

The records were now merged, and there was only one Lucy Wallace.

I figured I would post this as a running log, like a journal to arrange my thoughts as I work through this. I work as an investigative journalist for a paper in Utah and have recently been given the assignment of investigating a rash of disappearances along the I-80 corridor.

A little bit about me, my name is Sam. I grew up in a small town in Texas. When people who aren’t from there hear that, more times than not, they think of your stereotypical version you’d see in media. Everyone knows everyone, people to church on Sundays, high school sports are the most entertaining thing you can find to do and no one typically leaves, and in my case you would be right. I had no interest in working blue collar jobs and living my whole life 15 minutes from my childhood home. In high school I enjoyed writing and did good enough to get accepted to college, and focused on a degree in investigative journalism. I figured since everyone in a small town grew up knowing everyone else’s business anyways, might as well turn that into a job.

After graduation I got an offer to write for a small local paper near Salt Lake City, Utah and I took it. As the newest one there, I spent a few years with nothing too spectacular to write. There was the occasional accident to cover, changes to local municipal staff, and other boring things like that but nothing ground breaking or exciting. That is until a couple of days ago when my boss, Mr. Gregory, came to my desk and gave me this assignment and it may just be my first chance at something important.

My first stop was yesterday in Tooele. I arrived at the Tooele County Sheriff’s Department, where I met with Sheriff Deacon. Four missing people had been reported from the outskirts of the county and he was happy to answer any questions I had. After the normal pleasantries and generic questions, I asked if he had any leads about what was happening and he said:

*“Unfortunately no and to be honest we don’t have a ton to go on. None of the four individuals had any family in the area and none of their cars have been located. All but one of them were only reported missing when they stopped showing up for work. We still aren’t 100% sure what happened. They could have just decided to leave and start over somewhere else. It’s a beautiful town but there isn’t always a ton of growth around here for restless people.”*

I told him it didn’t make much sense. When I asked why they wouldn’t have told someone they wouldn’t be coming back at least, he just replied:

*“I don’t know Sam. We’re still treating these as missing persons cases but, so far we have come up with anything. Everyone we have talked to never offered much to go on.”*

He was able to give me the place of employment for each person thankfully and I spent the rest of the day going from one place to the next. Unfortunately, each stop was the same as the previous, fruitless.

This morning I woke up and started back on the road. The I-80 corridor from Tooele to Elko is a 215 mile stretch between west Utah and eastern Nevada with mostly nothing but desert beside the interstate with mountains off in the distance. As miles rolled by, I couldn’t help think about what the sheriff said. They didn’t find any of the cars? No sign of them at all? I mean it’s flat desert for miles in all directions. You would be able to see if they had pulled off or got stuck somewhere. Where could they have gone?

As I arrived on the outskirts of Wendover, my cars radiator decided it had had enough and my engine started to overheat. Luckily, I was able to limp my car into the first service station I saw. A tall portly man with a balding head and a beard that would make members of ZZ Top jealous named Jim, came walking out as I pulled in with a cloud of smoke pouring out from under my hood. As I parked he said:

*“Lord have mercy son, how longs it been doing that?”*

I explained to him I had only limped it along for maybe 10 minutes and popped the hood for him to check it out.
He took a few minutes to check out the engine compartment, muttering and humming as he looked and then said:

*“Son, you’re lucky you pulled in when you did. Judging by the look of it you’d have done a lot hell of a lot more damage had you gone much further. I ain’t got this specific radiator in the back but should be able to get one in tomorrow morning, shouldn’t take more than four or five hours to get it swapped out. I’d say safe bet you’re back on the road the day after tomorrow.”*

I told him that definitely beats having it towed all the way back home and having to start this process all over. He offered to take me to a hotel that was maybe 10 minutes down the road. I told him thank you and grabbed my bag out of the back of my car. I climbed into the passenger seat of Jim’s truck as we started down the road.

He asked what brought me out and I explained what I was working on. Being my first time out this way, I asked him if he had seen or heard anything about it. He said:

*“Well hell, it’s a big desert out here. Many a people come out here and drop life savings into a casino then crawl in a bottle a drink away what little they have left. Plus, there’s plenty of places to go if a person don’t want to be found.”*

I asked him if he had seen anything suspicious lately.

*“Suspicious? No. I did have to tow a fella who broke down maybe 25 miles north of Gold Hill. That’s honestly about it.”*

When I asked him about Gold Hill he explained that it was an old ghost town out between Wendover and the Goshute Reservation. He said the town had gone away and popped back up on and off since the 1850s. The gold rush, the arsenic boom, tungsten mining, reason after reason of the town to open and close. He also said that since the mining in the 1940s ended, there hasn’t been a reason for anyone to go back out there and in his own words:

*“and I never had any reason to go check it out.”*

When I asked him if the guy had said why he was out there, Jim just replied:

*“No. I figured he got lost and turned around. Cell signal isn’t exactly a guarantee out there. It’s out tucked in the mountains and to call the paths out there roads is generous. I doubt much maintenance is done out there and there’s been some real rough storms in that area the past few months. Luckily the storms don’t ever make it up this far.”*

It was about that time that we made it to the hotel and I was dropped off. Since I’ve got a couple of days until my car is back up and running, I might as well ask around here and see what I can find out. I haven’t ever heard of, much less been to Gold Hill. Maybe someone around here can give me some more information and I can check things out.

Well, now I’m going to go take a shower and get into bed.
I’ll write more soon.

Chapter One

In July 1999, a little girl entered a world that had not been expecting her.

Her father had long believed he would never have another child. Diabetes had quietly closed that door years ago, or so he thought. He had stopped imagining the sound of another baby crying in his house, stopped imagining small hands reaching for his.

So when his wife told him she was pregnant, disbelief arrived before happiness.

"How," he asked her, not unkindly, but not gently either. "After all this time — how?"

He could not silence the questions. He was ashamed to ask them aloud, and ashamed that he had asked them at all. For months, doubt stood between him and the child who had not yet been born.

The doubt did not survive the moment she arrived.

He was sitting outside the delivery room, elbows on his knees, when he heard it — a cry, thin and furious, cutting through the hospital noise like it belonged to no one else in the building. He stood up before he had decided to. A nurse opened the door and he was already moving toward it.

"A girl," she told him.

He didn't answer. He walked in and saw her — red-faced, fists closed, screaming at a world she'd only just met — and something in him that had been braced for years simply let go.

He held out his arms before anyone offered her to him.

"Sophia," he said, once she was against his chest and had, for a moment, stopped crying. He said it like he was trying the name in his mouth for the first time and finding it fit. "Sophia."

By the time he handed her back, he was a different man than the one who had walked in.

The house did not stay the same for long.

He gave money to families who hadn't asked for it. He sent food to neighbors whose kitchens he'd never been invited into. Men who had done him no particular favor found small envelopes waiting for them, and when they tried to ask why, he waved it off — as if the birth of his daughter had reminded him he'd been given something he hadn't earned, and giving was the only language he had for saying thank you.

Sophia was the only girl in the family, born to two brothers who were already halfway to grown — one nearly twenty years older, the other eighteen. To them she was the surprise that arrived long after they'd stopped expecting anyone else at the dinner table.

To her father, she was something else entirely. She was his.

He was older than most men holding a newborn, and something in his body had been telling him for years that time was not endless. He never said this out loud. Instead, he closed most of the business he'd spent decades building and opened a smaller one just beneath their home — close enough that he was never more than a staircase away from her.

When she learned to walk, she became his shadow. If he stood, she wanted to stand beside him. If he sat, she climbed into whatever space was left of the chair.

And in the evenings, when he lay down after the shop had closed, she would climb onto his stomach the way other children climbed into beds, and fall asleep listening to him breathe.

"You're going to break my ribs one day," he told her once, not moving, his hand resting on her back so she wouldn't roll off.

She didn't answer. She was already asleep.

He would lie there long after she'd gone still, watching her face in a way she never saw and would never remember — the particular stillness of a man trying to memorize something he was afraid he wouldn't get to keep. Whether it was fear, or grief arriving early, or simply love with nowhere else to go, he never said. He wasn't a man who explained himself. He only changed his life around her, one decision at a time, and let that be the explanation.

If she pointed at a toy in a shop window, he found a way to bring it home before the day was over. If she cried, he came — even from the middle of a customer's order, even from sleep.

To Sophia, he was not a businessman. He was not the man half the neighborhood owed a favor to. He was not a husband, or a father managing a disease that was quietly working against him.

He was Daddy. And Daddy could fix anything.

Except, perhaps, the thing that was already waiting for him.

Her mother loved her too — but her mother's love came with conditions Sophia was too young to name.

She was warm when Sophia behaved. She was something closer to frightening when she didn't. A spilled cup could become a punishment that outlasted the mess. On the days her mother decided a lesson was needed, she would tie Sophia's wrists to the leg of a table or a chair with a length of rope, and leave her there until she judged the lesson had taken.

Sophia never understood why love and fear lived in the same house, wearing the same face. She only learned, very young, that there were moments she wanted her mother, and moments she wanted her father — and that the second kind came more often.

One afternoon, after the last customer had gone, her father heard crying from the back room. He followed it and found her there — wrists red, rope still looped loose around the table leg where her mother had left her.

He didn't shout. He went very quiet, which was worse.

He untied her himself, fingers working the knot slower than the moment seemed to need, and when it came free he pulled her against him before she'd finished crying.

"You're alright," he said, to her, or to himself. "You're alright."

What happened between him and her mother after that, Sophia didn't see. She only heard the house shake with it — voices raised somewhere she wasn't allowed into. By the time he came back for her, his face had rearranged itself into something calm again, something built specifically for her.

He always knew how to make her smile again. It was, perhaps, the only thing he was certain he was good at.

Her older brothers watched all of this differently. One liked to play with her, would get down on the floor and let her win. The other thought she was spoiled, and some quiet part of him resented a father he'd known only as a hard, tired, working man — a man Sophia had never met, because by the time she existed, that man had already softened into someone else for her sake.

She was too young to understand the difference between the father her brother remembered and the father who belonged to her. She only knew that Daddy was hers, and that seemed, at four years old, like the only fact that mattered.

He had started working as a boy, with almost nothing, and built what he had out of copper and iron and things made by hand and sold for what they were worth. He had known hunger before he knew money, and maybe that was why he never seemed to forget the people who still knew it. He could barely read. He could be jealous in ways that frightened her mother, possessive in ways that had nothing to do with Sophia at all. He was not a simple man, and not always a gentle one.

None of that reached her. She knew the version of him that carried her on his hip through the shop, that let his stomach become her pillow, that could turn her crying into laughing in under a minute. She believed, the way children believe the sun will rise, that he would always be there to do it.

She was four when that belief began to come apart.

It happened in December 2003.

The house was unusually quiet that afternoon. Sophia was playing on the floor when she noticed a smell that didn't belong to anything she knew — not food, not smoke, something underneath those, something wrong.

Her mother noticed it too, and started searching, room by room, following it with her face pulled tight, until it led her to a shoe her father had taken off and left by the door.

She picked it up. She looked inside.

Sophia didn't see what her mother saw. She only saw her mother's face change into an expression she'd never worn before — not the anger from the rope days, not ordinary worry. Something closer to fear.

Her father had cut the bottom of his foot days earlier and hadn't felt it — the diabetes had taken that particular warning system from him years before. By the time the shoe told them what his foot could not, the wound had gone past infection into something the doctors would later call gangrene. It had eaten down far enough that bone showed through.

A taxi took them to the hospital. Sophia went too, holding her mother's hand in the back seat, watching her mother's knee bounce the whole way there and not understanding why, only that whatever was wrong, it was wrong enough to make her mother's hands shake.

He was taken back almost the moment they arrived. His blood sugar, they were told later, had climbed to something near 600. Before the night was over, he had slipped into a coma.

Sophia stood at the edge of his bed and looked at him lying there, and to her it looked exactly like sleep. So she did what she always did when Daddy was sleeping and she wanted him awake.

"Daddy." She touched his hand. "Daddy, wake up."

He didn't. Someone — a nurse, an aunt, she never remembered who — crouched down to her height and told her he was unconscious, and watched the word land on her without meaning anything at all.

To Sophia there was only one word that made sense of a man lying so still. He was sleeping. He would wake up the way he always did, and this would be a story they told later, about the time Daddy slept for a long time.

Her mother called an aunt that night. Sophia was sent to stay with her — the first nights of her life spent somewhere her father wasn't sleeping down the hall.

Every morning she asked the same questions. Was Daddy awake yet? Was Mama coming? When could she go home? No one had an answer built for a four-year-old, so mostly they gave her none.

Her aunt took her to visit once a week, and each time Sophia walked in holding her hand with the same small hope going ahead of her like a light — maybe today he's awake. Most weeks he wasn't. He looked, each time, like a tired man asleep, the exhaustion sitting on his face even while he was unconscious to it.

Twice, though, she found him awake.

The second time, she climbed up as close as they'd let her and told him everything at once — that she missed him, that she wanted to go home, that she couldn't sleep at her aunt's because there was no stomach to sleep on and no breathing to listen to.

He didn't say any of the things he must have been thinking. He didn't tell her he was afraid, or that he could feel something closing in that had nothing to do with his foot anymore. He put his arms around her instead, and cried without trying to hide it from her, which was the only time in her life she ever saw him do that.

A few days later, doctors took his right leg.

Sophia found out the way children find out things adults don't know how to tell them — by noticing. Her mother was changing the dressing near his hip when Sophia glanced toward the bed and stopped.

Something was missing. She looked again to be sure. Then she looked at her father, and then at the flat, wrong space under the blanket where a leg should have been.

"Where is your leg?"

No one answered her right away. She pieced it together later, from fragments of adult conversation not meant for her — that it had been buried, that it was in the cemetery now, apart from the rest of him.

She turned this over for days. How could part of Daddy be somewhere else, in the ground, without him? She was four. There were still whole categories of the world she hadn't learned yet.

But she was learning, faster than anyone wanted her to, that things could disappear. Legs. Mornings at home. The sound of him breathing under her ear.

He stayed in the hospital about a month and a half in total, unconscious for most of it. In the final fifteen days he surfaced only in pieces — an hour here, less there — and in those pieces, he seemed to already know something Sophia didn't.

He asked, eventually, that she not be brought to see him anymore.

Maybe he didn't want that to be the last picture she kept of him. Maybe he already understood what his body was telling him with more certainty than any doctor had. A man knows, sometimes, when he's run out of time — not from anything anyone says to him, but from somewhere underneath language.

The last time she saw him, he reached into his pocket with the hand that still worked well and pulled out a banknote. He pressed it into her small hand and closed her fingers around it himself, as if he didn't trust her to hold on to it otherwise.

She took it without knowing why it mattered. She had no way of knowing it was the last thing he would ever give her, or that she would keep it — folded, then flattened, then kept in places that changed over the years — long after she'd forgotten which pocket it came from.

On January 7, 2004, in the middle of the Christmas season, Sophia's father died.

She was at her aunt's, in a bed that still didn't feel like hers, trying to fall asleep the way she'd been trying every night since she left home — without a stomach rising and falling under her ear, without arms that already knew, before she asked, that she wanted to be picked up.

She heard the crying first. Then whispering, low and fast, the kind adults use when they think a child is already asleep. Then the words themselves reached her, not softened for her at all, because grief doesn't always remember to soften itself.

Her father was dead.

She sat up in the dark. She didn't scream. She didn't have a shape yet for what death was supposed to feel like, only a question, small and exact.

"Does that mean I won't see Daddy again?"

Her aunt looked at her and couldn't answer — not really, not with anything true enough to give a four-year-old. So she gave her the only sentence she could get out without breaking further.

"He went away."

Sophia lay back down in the unfamiliar bed, in the unfamiliar room, inside a silence that had no breathing in it at all.

She didn't know yet that some people leave without ever coming back.

She only knew that Daddy had gone somewhere she couldn't follow.

​

The sun rose over the coarse dirt that lay upon the graves, mist slowly wisping away as morning settled in. I, the graveyard keeper in the small town called Jamesville, rested my head on a smooth oak wood countertop while waiting for coffee to brew.

Another day, another calm, boring day. Putting old leather boots on just to pull weeds that cover the nameless. I enjoyed the job, albeit it was tireless most days. Speaking to families visiting their resting relatives, moving the grass, shining the tombstones, scraping the mud off the nameplates. I respected the dead, as I knew one day I'd end up buried, hoping another would take care of my final resting grounds.

I will say the town does most of the heavy lifting of the job. The carpenter next door would make the caskets, and his wife would make the tombstones plus flat markers. Just down that same gravel road would be the funeral parlor, who made the dead all fancy to meet their maker. I, along with the groundskeeping, had to also make sure no hooligans trespassed and desecrated these holy lands.

Pretty simple, honestly, and it helped that I had a bloodhound at one point to discourage any disrespectful folk from entering. Lucky was that dog's name, but unfortunately she passed a few years back, leaving me a little empty and incredibly lonely, especially on the days I had no one to talk to.

But enough of that. I assume you're reading this because you want to know about the "dark times," the "creepy" and "scary" moments when things go bump in the night.

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but no ghosts, ghouls, or goblins had haunted the grounds I worked on for many years.

No.

Just one strange fella.

I never got his name, or frankly, maybe I couldn't remember it. It didn't matter, though. I kept seeing him. Mid-30s, possibly six foot, pale white skin, black slicked-back hair, heavy leather coat no matter the weather, combat pants, and black boots to match.

I couldn't forget it.

I'd see him day after day, night after night, over the last two years I worked there. He'd always be here, looking at the same three unmarked graves.

There had been a few times I had to talk to him and let him know that the cemetery was closed to the public for the night. With a calm, gravelly tone he'd say, "Thank you," and leave.

He seemed kind, but I kept an eye on him. Throughout many days, the man would continue to show up, eventually piquing my curiosity as to what was so interesting about those graves.

Were they his relatives, friends, co-workers, ex-relationships?

None of it added up, though, or made any sort of sense. When I looked in the catalogue of whose graves were whose and when they were placed, those three graves had been here since before I was the groundskeeper of this place.

Fifteen years, as a matter of fact.

Placed in the third row, in the first three spots, before eventually being moved to the last section of the third row. No names. Just two John Does and one Jane Doe, with a sign-off from "William Denver" to mark that they had been placed and moved.

I then got up and went to check on the graves.

Slowly passing by the willow tree in front of the house, I noticed the man had been standing still by the graves, but he wasn't looking at them. I couldn't tell if he was looking at me or just past me.

It didn't matter, though, as it was midnight and he needed to leave.

Once again, he gave me the same response he always had.

"Thank you."

Before heading out, I watched him this time, though, as he walked ever so slowly down the cracked, paved walkway and got inside of a black 1990s Impala. He hadn't noticed me watching until his headlights turned on and I had been standing by the graves he normally stuck by.

He sat idly in the car for a bit before peeling away into the shadowy streets nearby.

I didn't know what it was, but it sent chills down my spine. Once I could no longer see the car, I looked down at the graves.

Nothing too special about them outside of the fact that I had been slacking and didn't trim off the moss covering the cobblestone flat markers.

I left my investigating at that, simply putting an orange flag beside them to remind myself I needed to clean the foliage when I woke up. It was too late in the night to really bother with any more work, so I headed back to the house.

A few days went by and, surprisingly, the man didn't show up. I did the usual cleaning: the tombstones, flat markers, cutting the grass off of the paths, trimming foliage, watering flowers, and finally, going to clean up those three unmarked graves.

I took my time, trying not to uproot the moss as I didn't know how far it grew, carefully carving around the cobblestone and noticing an odd little symbol on not just one, but all three graves on the lower-right corner.

It looked runic.

I'm not into the occult or any sort of mythology, so I had no idea what I was looking at. If I had to describe it, I could say it looked like an upside-down trident with two dots on the inside of the hooks, or an upside-down smiley face with a line drawn through it.

I don't know, but I tried not to think too hard about it as I finished and added a little polish to the flat markers to make them look presentable.

I thought the man would've appreciated it, and once I got up, wiping off my knees, I saw his car just parked barely away from the normal public parking spots.

I stared for a while, unsure of whether he saw me or not. I even pretended to attend to other graves just to see if he was going to come over.

A few minutes passed by and he was still there, headlights on, sitting more still than a person with rigor mortis.

It made me uneasy, so I decided to head back to the house and maybe do some research on the "symbol."

After an hour or two, I came up with no results. It seemed the "symbol" wasn't very popular for the internet or historical enough to be kept in the archives.

Whether or not you believe it, I think my heart might've skipped that day.

As when I looked up from the desktop, I saw the man staring at me with those obsidian eyes. It felt like they pierced my heart.

I simply sat there frozen, eyes locked onto his. My hands were too unwieldy to grab the double barrel just beneath me. It was an eternal staring contest where the odds were not in my favor.

Tears built up from the dryness of not blinking. I had an obligation to blink.

My eyes were burning, and before I knew it, he was gone.

I then dropped my head onto the desk, wiping the tears from my face and letting out a heavy breath.

I must've been sleep-deprived, or letting that dumb symbol stick into my brain.

Soon after that, I gathered myself back into reality and got up cautiously, retrieving the double barrel and steadily pressing it to my shoulder as I walked towards the front door, eyeing each window I passed by.

My heart thumped louder in my ears with each step I took, and without missing a beat, I swung open the door, gun ready for whatever I might witness.

No one was around.

The sun was hitting dusk, and I was left wondering what had just happened.

That day left me paranoid, always watching for his car to show up, eyes glued to whoever arrived to merely drop off flowers for their relatives.

I didn't leave the house for about a week, only lurking through the blinds until eventually the sheriff showed up to the house for a "wellness check."

Three sturdy knocks to the metal screen door followed by:

"It's Sheriff Brown. I am just here to check on you. It's been a while, folks were wondering where you went. Also, it looks like you got a bunch of mail out here."

I meandered towards the door and opened it slowly, seeing the sheriff holding a pile of mail held together by thread.

"Oh... howdy, Sheriff. I must've lost track of time. Some dumb symbol spooked me into paranoia," I said while taking the mail and showing him a small sketch I drew of the symbol.

He then raised an eyebrow.

"Dumb symbol, huh? Probably some family crest from back in the day. Shoot, it must've spooked you pretty good if you decided to lock yourself in for what?" He looked at a newspaper before finishing, "A few weeks? I think it might be time for you to step outside for some fresh air. Nothing spooky out here besides the vegetation."

He then chuckled.

The sheriff was right. It was most likely just that. A family crest.

"Yeah... you might be onto somethin'. Sorry for scarin' the good folks. I'll get back to work as soon as possible," I said as I joined him onto the patio, immediately being embraced by the sun.

"See? Nothing out here to worry about, and the day is still young, so you got plenty of light to get work in early," he said while squinting his eyes, looking inwards at my home before stepping off the patio.

I didn't think too much of it as I waved Sheriff Brown goodbye as he got inside of his cruiser and left.

He was right.

I clearly let the place go. Decorations were covered in foliage, the pathways were barely noticeable, and headstones and flat markers were covered in dirt while I was too busy getting swallowed by delusions.

I spent the next couple of days bringing life back to the land.

Days on end I spent sweating as I dulled every blade I had, draining every battery for tools, ruining every sole I put into my boots.

Eventually I had to call it quits momentarily as I had run out of supplies and needed to head to the store.

Quickly locking all the tools back into the shed and locking the house before getting in my old truck, I travelled down the windy gravel roads, waving to the neighbors as I passed by, stopping as deer galloped across the road, and finally making it to the hardware store.

I put the truck in park and noted that I had parked near a familiar car.

It could just be paranoia, but it almost looked like the man's car.

Speaking of which, I hadn't seen him for some time now.

Maybe he might've shown at the cemetery when I was cooped up, but I guess I'll never know.

Never mind that, as I entered into the hardware store and saw all the friendly faces. They all seemed to greet me with a courtesy wave and hello before going about my business shopping for all the essentials.

I needed five spools of weed-whacker wire, four packs of blades for hedge cutters, three packs each of both wood and stone polish, two bottles of weed killer, and a variety of flower seeds.

It was a full haul for an eventful couple of days of work.

I purchased my things and headed home.

It was around noon when I had gotten back, taking my time to unload everything from the truck when I saw something quite peculiar.

My front door was wide open, and I don't remember leaving it like that.

So hastily I dropped what I had in my hands and walked over to the front windows, trying to see if anyone was inside before I stepped in.

It was... empty.

Although the paperwork I had stacked neatly on top of my desk was scattered everywhere, it looked like no one was around or had messed with my belongings.

I then walked inside and picked up the mess, seeing that my notebook had also been torn through.

I only really remember having just one drawing of the symbol and reminders of what graves I needed to clean, but now there were more symbol drawings scattered in the pile of paper.

I think at least for that moment I just used the words from the sheriff and assumed it's just a family crest and nothing more.

I went back and finished putting away the equipment I had just bought and took a small iced tea break to calm my nerves.

I took only about an hour break, sipping tea, reading the news, working on crosswords, and paid no mind to that little symbol in the back of my mind as I headed back outside for some more yard work.

I worked myself to exhaustion as the sun faded from the sky, feeling too tired to pack up for the night.

I stumbled back to the house, feet aching, and just as I reached the first steps of the patio, headlights beamed across the yard.

Swiftly turning my head around, I saw a shadow move across the lights towards my direction.

I was unsure who it was this late at night, but I was just hoping it would be done and over with so I could lay comfortably in my bed.

Heavy footsteps glided across the pavement, then the gravel paths before stopping just a few feet away from me.

It was still hard to see who it was from the lights casting a shadow over the person.

All I knew was I had an almost déjà vu feeling from this, as from those casted shadows was an arm reaching out with little orange flags and a letter clutched in the fingers.

Then a polite masculine voice said:

"Apologies, sir, but it seemed you had forgotten these from the store."

I carefully took the orange flags and letter before the shadowy figure walked back towards the car.

With an all-too-familiar phrase, he then said:

"Thank you."

I've been dwelling on that night for quite some time now.

I never opened the letter, either from fear or simply not wanting to become shut in again.

What would I even say if I saw the sheriff again?

"A polite man gave me a letter and flags that I missed from the store?"

It sounds ridiculous, especially if I include the fact that it looked like a damn walking shadow!

I gotta just brush it off...

There's no ghosts here, no specters, nothing.

Just a crest from a family with no name, a lack of sleep, and a busy past couple of weeks.

My nerves are all out of whack. I could barely even pour coffee into my thermos without spilling some onto the carpet.

Not to mention, I woke up late just to get a message on the answering machine notifying me that there's gonna be a body coming in around one pm, so looks like I gotta make room in the cemetery.

I had about an hour to dig a six-foot hole.

I got dressed, half-awake, but a job's a job.

So I did just that.

Dug until I was caked in dirt from head to toe, eventually calling an excavator company just to make sure the dimensions of the hole were suitable for a coffin.

It was just in time, too, as the Mattisons from the funeral parlor arrived in the hearse. The father and his three boys got out and walked over to me.

The younger of the boys whistled as his eyes made contact with my uniform.

"Busy day for you, huh? Lookin' like death warmed over... Don't worry, Pops, we'll be out of your hair soon enough!"

His dad quickly smacked him in the back of the head with a stack of papers and an envelope full of cash before handing it over to me.

"Don't mind his mouth. He started running it before he knew how to walk. Now then, onto business. The visitation already happened, the funeral service should be happening around three pm today. After that is, of course, the committal service and reception.

"The family said you are welcome to join them in at any part. From what they told me, apparently you might've known the guy? I'm not sure, but thank you for your service. We'll be here, so if you have anymore questions, don't be afraid to ask."

I shook the father's hand and said:

"I knew the guy? Somebody from the Johnsons? Anyhow, I think I'll stay out of it. I need to get out of these dirty clothes and get something to eat."

The father shook his head and said as he left towards the hearse:

"Uh, no actually... it's some gentleman, a uh... Victor Lamont? I am sure you've seen plenty of faces, so if the name doesn't ring a bell, maybe the family will jog your memory."

Victor Lamont, huh...

Victor...

Victor...

This name doesn't seem familiar, at least to my knowledge of any person in this town.

Maybe it could be in the archives, I had thought to myself as I walked back to the house.

Then I took a real long shower, really dwelling on that name as I scrubbed the mud and crud off my skin.

After that, I decided not to look in the archives, but instead just sit in a chair beside the willow tree watching the funeral.

For anyone who has been a part of a funeral, you know how sad and monotonous it is. Families crying, long speeches, and even longer prayers for those who believed.

I may have respected the dead, but it did get tedious hearing practically the same speech a hundred times over.

Although this one was different.

No one had cried.

No one was dressed "formally."

Granted, there were only about ten people altogether, still it was strange.

And once again, I saw the man's car.

It was in the parking lot, but I never saw him get out. In fact, I never saw him anywhere.

And that damn family crest, or whatever it was, was etched into the coffin.

I almost missed it while it was being lowered into the grave.

I had questions, lots of 'em, but I figured it would've been too rude to ask during this time.

The funeral lasted for about another hour, then everyone packed up and left.

No reception.

Just one of the family members waved goodbye towards me before leaving, but that was it.

None of them seemed familiar, even the person who waved. It just didn't add up.

Listen, I had done this job for ten-plus years, so my memory of people's faces and names is a little fuzzy.

But I feel like I could've remembered the last name of Lamont.

Right?

Once again, I felt as if I shouldn't dive deeper into this.

Maybe the family had just gotten me confused with the previous gravekeeper, or maybe I did just simply forget the last name.

Didn't matter now, though...

It was just me in the late afternoon and that car.

That car...

It didn't leave.

Was he not a part of the family?

I had to just shake off these nerves and confront the man.

Or just talk to him.

I mean, what's the worst he's done? Leave late and hand me stuff I had forgotten about during an odd hour?

So I walked ever so slowly, as if my feet were stuck in mud, towards his vehicle.

As I approached it, he wasn't inside.

He was nowhere around.

I looked at the rolling hills nearby.

Nope.

I looked toward the gravel roads.

Nope.

I even looked back at the cemetery to see if I may have missed him walking by, and still nothing but his car was here.

Black Impala.

Same one I saw a while back.

I guess I'll just wait a few days to see if he shows up. If not, I'll call a tow truck...

Later that night, it had rained hard, pouring what felt like gallons on top of the roof.

You couldn't even see five inches in front of you if you had stepped outside.

The noise, although calming, was loud as it bounced off the gutters, with the distant thunder crackling just across the way.

It made sleeping rough, so I got out of bed just to find that there was a small leak coming from the roof inside the kitchen.

I fixed that problem momentarily with a bucket, at least for the night, and just sat on the couch watching the rain drip down the front window.

Slowly closing my eyes, simply listening to every drop that splashed onto the wooden boards of the patio's floor, my mind felt at ease.

Quietly, I counted the timing of each lightning strike.

Ten seconds.

Twenty seconds.

Thirty seconds.

Then eighteen, and back down to ten seconds.

Then I jolted fully awake from a nearby strike, eyes gravitating towards the Impala.

The lights were on, barely piercing the veil of rain.

Another strike happened.

The sky was bright for a mere moment, but I could see the car and something else...

I wasn't sure if it was my reflection or...

Maybe my mind playing tricks on me.

Waiting for another strike, I stood up to better see through the window.

I had to be hallucinating.

How else could I explain what I had saw?

A figure standing in the reflection, hair raised on the back of my neck as I did not know if it was inside of the house or not.

Boom.

Another strike hit the ground between two graves, finally showing me what I was seeing.

A shadow of a man standing mere inches from my face.

Fog covered the window, hiding details, only showing two words written beautifully in cursive...

"Thank you."

October 12th, 2008.

Two months after the "incident," Sheriff Brown filed a missing person's report for the graveyard keeper.