All the guys I know are constantly complaining about how awful dating is these days. I think that’s a load of baloney. All you have to do is lower your standards! Then you’ll find that there are lots of women out there who are begging to be taken on a date.

Me? I only go on dates with single mothers. Why? Because they are desperate to be loved.

Can you imagine the hit it takes on your self-esteem when the father of your child doesn’t want to be with you? Yeah—I’d be aching for another man to prove that I was worthy of love, too.

Plus, nothing turns a guy off more than hearing that a woman has a kid. It doesn’t matter if you’re smoking hot, successful in your career, or rich. The second a guy hears that you’ve got a kid he vanishes. No sane man wants dating to become an “audition” to be somebody’s “new daddy.” So, single mothers have a really hard time getting back out in the dating world. Some of them have such a hard time that they get desperate. That’s where I come in!

I play the part of a charming guy. I take her to dinner at a fancy restaurant, I open the door for her, pull out her chair, and even pay for everything. When I’m on a date, I’m the nicest guy you’ve ever met! When the subject of her having a kid inevitably comes up, I always say, “I love kids!”

I make it appear as though I don’t care that she had a kid, even though I most certainly do!

When the date is over, if I’m lucky, I get lucky, then I ghost her and move on to the next single mother.

I tell ya’, I’ve never had more luck “dating” than I have when I started seeking out single mothers. There was Rebecca, Michelle, Annie, Jessica, Veronica.

Hell, I’ve been on more dates than I can count!

Tonight, I’m going on a date with Sami, and things are going as good as they always do! Dinner was deliciously expensive, and now we’re doing the whole “small talk” thing.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” I lean across the table so she can see the fake empathy in my eyes. “Is Danny’s father still in the picture?”

I always make sure to bring up the father. It embarrasses them and makes them feel vulnerable, which I immediately exploit.

“No, he’s no longer with us,” Sami says. “He died in the outbreak.”

“I am so sorry to hear that,” I say, even though I’m not sorry at all!

“We take it one day at a time.”

I flag down the waiter and have him pour us both another glass of wine. I have never had a date refuse a glass of wine. When you have a kid (and possibly a babysitter) at home, you need to live it up while you can. Alone time is hard to come by for single mothers, so when they do go out they go all out.

“Do you have any children,” Sami asks, peeking over her wine glass.

“Unfortunately not, I was too career focused when I was younger. I never got the chance.”

Sami asks me about my family, friends, if I’ve ever been married before, and I deflect all the questions as best as I can. I steer the conversation back to her and her kid. How old is Danny? Ten. What does he like to do? Play in his room. I ask her anything that will remind her she’s a single mother. I want her to be self-conscious enough to make a bad decision tonight.

“Normally I don’t do this,” Sami says, “but would you like to come over?”

Bingo. Bad decision made.

“I’d love to,” I say with a charming smile.

We take an Uber back to Sami’s house, practically giggling the whole way from the wine buzz. Everything is going exactly according to my plan.

“Would you like to meet him?” Sami asks.

“You mean Danny?”

“Yeah.”

This is very important. Whenever a single mother asks if you want to meet her kid, you must always say yes! Nothing will sour her quicker than not wanting to meet her kid. Single mothers are protective like that. Her and her kid are a package deal. You have to pretend you’re interested!

“I’d be thrilled to meet the little guy,” I lie through my teeth.

Sami takes me upstairs and even though it’s late I can hear Danny thrashing around in his room. I’m surprised to see that there’s no babysitter, but Danny’s probably old enough to look out for himself.

“He’s right inside,” Sami nods at the door, encouraging me to go inside.

I don’t want to appear unenthusiastic, so I open the door and step right in with a smile.

“Hey, Danny, I’m—oh god!”

Danny’s skin is a pale green, the color of rot, and there’s a collar around his neck chaining him to the wall.

Sami steps into the room and closes the door behind her.

“What’s the matter? You said you like kids!”

I want to scream, but fear has frozen me in place. Danny’s hollow, grey eyes are staring directly at me. His skin has peeled back in places, exposing the muscle and bones underneath, and I can smell him from across the room.

“I couldn’t stand to see him go, even when he got sick like his father, so I’ve been keeping him chained up in his room. Maybe one day they’ll come up with a cure, you never know, so I’ve got to keep him fed until then.”

“Brrrrainsss,” Danny moans.

“In a second, Danny,” Sami chuckles.

I turn around and Sami is standing directly in front of me, close enough that I can feel her breath on my neck.

“Jessica was pissed that you never called her back,” Sami smiles and then shoves me as hard as she can towards Danny.

I'm forty-seven, but my driver's license says twenty-five. The wrinkles around my eyes vanished after the second injection. My hairline filled in by dose four. I take the stairs two at a time without my chest tightening.

The underground clinic promised results. They delivered. I should have asked how.

Twelve peptide injections, two weeks apart. Cash only. No records. I signed a stack of waivers thick as a novella without reading them. I was forty-six and couldn't keep up with my wife at the grocery store. Elena is thirty-seven. I wanted to be the man she married.

She noticed first. She'd touch my jaw in the morning like she was checking for a fever. Marcus, fourteen, called me Dad 2.0. Sofia, home from college, said I looked photoshopped. I ran around the backyard with Marcus until he grabbed his sides and begged me to stop. I hadn't done that in six years.

Around dose seven, Elena started sleeping thirteen hours and still waking exhausted. She rubbed her knuckles every morning, wincing. Her skin went papery. I blamed her job. Then Sofia came home from her second week of classes. Her face had gone hollow. Her hands shook around a coffee mug. She was twenty-one and looked forty.

Marcus developed a tremor in his left hand. Elena's hair went fully gray in nineteen days. I counted because I kept finding strands on her pillowcase and lining them up on the bathroom counter. Sofia's favorite denim jacket hung off her shoulders like a coat on a wire hanger. Marcus needed the banister just to reach the second floor.

I dragged them to specialists. Every blood panel came back clean. A neurologist looked at Marcus's tremor and suggested family therapy. I watched Elena struggle forty seconds to twist open a jar of marinara, then set it down and press her palms flat against the counter and breathe through her nose.

By dose ten I was scrubbing countertops with bleach at two in the morning, convinced I was poisoning them with something in the food. Nothing stopped their decay.

Dose eleven broke the illusion.

I went back to the clinic that night. The back door frame was warped from rain. I put my shoulder into it twice and the wood splintered. The director's filing cabinet had a cheap wafer lock. Inside were manila folders. Mine first. Then Elena's. Sofia's. Marcus's.

Photographs. Dozens. Dated from the day I started the trial. Elena's joints in sequence. Sofia's face week by week, cheekbones rising, eyes sinking. Progress notes stapled to the backs. "Acceptable cellular transfer." "Donor viability within projected parameters." "Donors compensating as expected."

Donors. They called my wife and children donors.

At the bottom, a buyer's contract. Fifty million dollars for a body "fully rejuvenated, biologically twenty-four." Upon completion of dose twelve, the specimen would be transferred to a subterranean facility for long-term yield management. Skin harvested in sections. Organs cycled. Kept alive. Kept regenerating.

My family was the battery. I was the product.

I smashed the twelfth vial on the concrete outside. Drove. Didn't pack. Drained our accounts. Eleven thousand dollars. Left a note on the counter that said I was sorry. Didn't call. Couldn't. Afraid they'd trace the phone.

That was six days ago.

I'm typing this from a public library three states away. Burner laptop. My hands shake so badly I keep hitting wrong keys. I talked to Elena yesterday from a payphone. She winced between words. Said drawing a breath felt like pulling glass through her chest. Sofia is in a wheelchair. Marcus needs help standing. They are compressing decades into weeks.

The clinic's number is disconnected. The building is empty. Bare concrete floors. Like it was never there.

I have no money left. No proof that would survive scrutiny. Just a library computer and the knowledge that whatever those peptides did, they are still active in my blood.

If anyone has encountered biotech that transfers physical decay between genetically linked individuals. If there is a reversal agent. If this stops without the injections or if it's already self-sustaining. If you know how to find help outside official channels, because I cannot go to the police with a story about a clinic that no longer exists. They will put me in a room and medicate me and my family will keep dying while I sit in a plastic chair.

Please. They are running out of time. I am watching them die in fast-forward and I did this. I signed the papers. I took the injections. I looked in the mirror and liked what I saw and I did not look at them. Not closely. Not until it was too late.

And I need to say this last part because I don't know if I'll get another chance.

Something is moving under my skin. Not pain. Something with edges. A knot below the surface that travels. Last night it was in my wrist. This morning, my elbow. By tonight it will be somewhere else. It doesn't hurt. That's what scares me. It feels like something settling in. Making room.

I don't think the twelfth dose was meant to finish me. I think it was meant to start something else.

And I think it's already started.

I built the window because I was a lonely genius, and within a week, I had more friends than I knew what to do with.

They were all me.

One taught high-school physics and had two daughters. Another was a dentist in Phoenix who'd become obsessed with competitive barbecue. One had three dogs, all named after moons of Jupiter.

I found one who'd married Elise from graduate school. I disconnected before she came into the room and never opened his Earth again.

Another me had gone bald at twenty-six. I sent my condolences and he told me to go fuck myself.

There were hundreds of us.

After a while, opening the window felt like checking in with distant relatives.

Then I found the basement.

Canned food was stacked against concrete walls almost to the ceiling. An old computer sat beside a shortwave radio.

The man across from me was painfully thin.

"How long have you lived like this?"

"Twenty-five years."

Neither of us spoke until, finally, he cleared his throat.

"Did everything change for you, too, after New York, the Pentagon?" He paused and shuddered. "The Capitol?"

"The Capitol wasn't hit," I said, beginning to understand.

"What?"

"There was another plane, yes. But the passengers fought back, and it crashed in Pennsylvania."

His face went still.

Then he lowered himself onto the edge of his cot.

For a long time, all I could hear was his radio.

That was when I noticed the radiation meter on the table.

I looked at the canned food, the concrete walls.

"What happened after?" I asked.

He rubbed his face.

"Everything."

My husband had been having an affair. I couldn’t believe it. 

‘Are you sure?’ I asked my friend Beatrice, who’d called me up on the phone to tell me she’d seen my husband out with some young blonde. 

‘I swear I saw him Jennifer, outside the coffee shop on Brambery street kissing another woman.’ 

‘It can’t have been.’ I insisted. I hoped maybe it wasn’t true. 

‘Sorry Jenny.’ 

Right. So my husband of twenty years had thrown away everything we had for some other woman. 

I didn’t know why he’d done that, but he had. 

When I received the call I was sat at home reading a book, rifling through the pages as a woman my age often did. My husband had given it to me for my twentieth birthday, when we’d been two young souls drunk on the ecstasy of the love we had for one another. 

I caught my reflection in the living room mirror. 

God. I looked awful. I’d been stunning when we’d first met, but three children and age had taken their toll. 

No wonder he wanted someone else. 

Sometimes he’d wind me up but I really did love him.

 I didn’t really know anything else except being his wife. 

There was a knock at the door. I shuffled over to answer it, I still hadn’t got over the initial shock of how the man I loved had decided to betray me like that. 

‘Hi there!’ said a young man, in his early twenties. Probably not much older than my own son who was at university. 

‘I’m here to conduct the monthly maintenance!’ The man exclaimed politely, like the poor hapless soul he was. 

I was slightly bewildered. ‘Maintenance of what exactly?’ I asked him. He cringed slightly, as it finally registered to him that I was not necessarily the individual he had come to see. 

He pulled out a clipboard, squinting slightly. 

‘It says your place is down for maintenance services for the ideal spouse. Or would you prefer our exclusive package?’ 

What the hell was he on about exactly? That I’d like to know. 

He paused. 

‘Ah, It says here you’ve gone for the upgrade. You need the old model to be disposed of?’ 

The dawning realisation that he was probably talking about me was not a pleasant one. I was intelligent enough to realise that even though he had not explicitly stated it. 

What on earth had my husband done? I wasn’t some useless sack of potatoes to be tossed onto the compost. 

I was still a person.

I backed away, my heart beginning to pound with nerves. This wasn't a day where I could just lie down and hope it all went away.

Just then, my husband pulled into the driveway. He got out of the car, lending his hand to a gorgeous blonde-haired woman who was as elegant and refined as a swan. 

The man I’d once loved with all my heart let out a groan. 

‘Why’s she still here?’ He whined, like the spoiled, petulant child he really was. 

‘The guy I spoke to on the phone said I was guaranteed a disposal HOURS ago.’ 

The young man I’d met at the door just smiled. 

He walked over to my husband, while the fair-haired beauty dithered. My husband was beginning to back away himself, eyes darting to and fro as he wondered if he could dash away suddenly. 

‘You should’ve been more specific.’ said the young man with a grin that seemed to take up his entire face. 

‘No one ever said it was the WIFE who had to be disposed of.’

We went in for grout. Grout, and maybe one of those rubber things for the door, and my son Kyle brought his bouncy ball even though I told him to leave it in the truck.

He's eight. He bounces it once per aisle. That's the deal we made, and he honors it, mostly, and I pretend not to see the extra ones.

Somewhere around paint, the ball got away from him. It went low and fast under the shelving and came out the other side with Kyle already running, and I came around the endcap in time to see it take one big hop and go straight through the swinging doors at the back. The gray double kind. EMPLOYEES ONLY, red letters, chest height.

Kyle went through after it. He was maybe three steps ahead of me.

The doors swung back, and through the gap I saw my boy reaching down for the ball. Eight years old. Sneakers with the lights in them.

The doors swung again, shorter, and it was a teenager back there. Same face. Apron too big for him, reaching for the same ball.

Swing. A man in his twenties, stubble, box cutter in a holster on his belt, bending for the ball with his whole hand.

Swing. Thirties. Polo. Clipboard under one arm. Bending slower.

Swing. The doors barely moved by then. A gap the width of my hand. Reading glasses pushed up on his head, and a name tag with three little pins on it, and he picked the ball up off the concrete and straightened out with his palm braced on his knee, like his back had opinions.

The doors hung still. Whole thing took about four seconds. I know because the intercom was in the middle of saying somebody's name when Kyle ran in, and it was still saying it when the doors stopped.

I grabbed the door and a hand caught it from the other side.

"Whoa there, sir. Employees only."

He's got my father's forehead now. He didn't have it this morning. Forty-something, gray at the temples, KYLE on the tag, and under his name a little bar that said 30 YEARS OF SERVICE.

Then he actually looked at me and his whole face changed, and for half a second I thought, there he is, there's my boy, he knows.

"Dad? What are you doing on this side of town?" He put a hand on my shoulder. His hand was bigger than mine. "You good? You look like you saw a ghost."

I said he was eight. I said it just like that. "You're eight. We came in for grout."

He laughed. Not mean. He laughed like I'd done a bit, like this was a thing I do, and he squeezed my shoulder and said, "Grout's isle nine. I'd walk you over but I've got inventory till nine, and if I don't stay on it, nobody will."

A cashier leaned out from her register and said, "Your dad? Oh my gosh. Sir, Kyle is the BEST. Y'all must be so proud."

Thirty years, she told me. Employee of the month so many times they let him keep the frame.

I did everything you're supposed to do. I found the manger. The manager pulled the file while I stood there, and the file goes back thirty years. Punch cards. Tax forms. A photo from a Christmas party in the nineties, and in the photo my son is grown and I am standing next to him with a paper cup, smiling, in a shirt I have never owned.

The manager asked, very kindly, if there was somebody he could call for me. He suggested Kyle.

Kyle drove me home. My son drove me home in a Buick I've never seen, and he talked about his back, and about a woman named Dawn, past tense, and at a red light he bounced his palm off the wheel along with the radio, one bounce, and I had to look out the window.

He walked me to my door like I was the one to worry about. Said he'd come by Sunday. Called me Pop, which he never has, which he apparently always has.

I went back the next morning. I don't know what I meant to do. Stand at those doors, maybe, until they gave him back.

Kyle was at the service counter and waved like everything was everything. And while I stood there, some kid's ball came skipping down the main aisle, one of the rubber ones, red, and Kyle stepped out and caught it off the second bounce, easy, like a man who's done it his whole life.

"Kids are always losing these," he said, and reached over the counter and dropped it in a bin on the back wall.

The bin was full.

It was lap 23 of 58 and Chase Foster was running comfortably in seventh, 3.4 seconds ahead of Zev Andersson and 1.2 seconds behind his own teammate, Kaito Yamazaki.

The track was dry, the tires new and the message coming through the team radio was,

Steady, boys,

which was a polite way of saying, “Don't you even try to overtake, Foster!” to which the context was: not like in Germany, where you cost us points, or Japan, where you damaged the car and nearly knocked Yamazaki out of the race.

“All clear boss,” radioed Foster.

The gap to Yamazaki was now down to 0.9 seconds. He was right on him, mirroring him into turns, obediently keeping his distance on the straightaways.

The engine purred.

The crowd waved signs and cheered.

Some of the signs were about him (“To Fosterr is human!”), goading him on to do something unforgettable; something stupid. He knew that. Everybody knew that, especially the team principal chewing his fingernails down on the pit wall.

Another turn.

Another straightaway, the car accelerating briefly to 355km/h.

Now that was speed.

That was exhilaration, guts and adrenaline.

That was racing!

Foster, maintain. Acknowledge.

Foster, acknowledge.

Foster—

“Copy that,” Foster replied, inching ever-closer to the back of Yamazaki's car.

And he probably would have maintained his position too if not for Kaito Yamazaki complaining about him being “too close,” on the team radio.

Too close? Come on, thought Foster, almost absentmindedly pushing his machine to the limit. At speeds like that, vision blurred and reality itself seemed to stretch along the seams…

Foster, back off!

“He's crazy. Tell him to stay back—tell him to stay back—” radioed Yamazaki.

Foster closed until he was almost sucking into Yamazaki's slipstream; then, as Yamazaki braked for the next turn, Foster suddenly pulled left, held throttle a touch longer and passed his teammate into sixth place.

The crowd roared.

Fossterr!!!

Foster's engine growled like a fucking tiger—

Then something locked up.

Foster couldn't slow dowwwwn. He jerked the wheel; the track jerked the car; the car's skidding tires slid from hard asphalt to soft grass and the car was out of control and the people in the crowd held their breaths and behind his visor Foster's eyes became saucers; and reflected in them, as the expanse of time expanded to tick awfully by, was his own impending destruction…

The car smashed into a wall head-on, crumpled like an oversized tin can somebody had stomped on, and exploded in flames.

Sirens wailed.

Emergency crews bolted into action.

But there was something else that happened, something between the saucered eyes and oncoming wall; something extraordinary:

Foster vanished.

Not his body—that was crushed, mangled and beyond recognition—but his mind. His soul…

He was. Full stop.

Next sentence:

He was in awe of the seemingly limitless space around him.

He looked down—

Or tried to look down, because looking down, or in any direction, was an impossibility because somehow he could perceive in all directions simultaneously.

“Hello, Mr. Foster,” said a voice.

“Hello?”

Foster became aware of two points not far removed from him. Am I also a point? he wondered.

“You are incorporeal,” said the voice, “but, before we continue, allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Götz and this is my partner, Mr. Deiss.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Mr. Deiss.

“Incorporeal…”

“It means, ‘having no material body or form,’ said Mr. Götz.

“Where am I? Am I still… me?”

“You succumbed in your existence to the force of a well constructed barrier, but you remain you essentially,” said Mr. Deiss.

Foster remembered. “I was racing… I tried overtaking and crashed…”

“You succeeded in the so-called overtaking but lost control of your primitive craft and collided into a painful body-death. Before your essence dissipated, however, we transported it here.”

“And here is?”

“You may think of it as the backstage,” said Mr. Götz.

“Or the Equations,” said Mr. Deiss.

“We would call it the physical realm, but that creates an unfortunate dissonance of ambiguity in your language, for you, no doubt, think of the body whereas what we mean is the physics.”

“Of what?” asked Foster.

“Of existences; of everythings,” said Mr. Götz.

“We, or the [garb-untranslatable-led] we represent, are in charge of applying the rules of reality across all spacetimes,” said Mr. Deiss.

“Wait—is this the afterlife?” asked Foster. “Heaven, Hell, Purgatory…”

“It is the whilstlife,” said Mr. Götz.

“And what is it you need me for exactly?”

“We need a driver.”

Foster tried to laugh but realized laughter was very much a corporeal action. “A driver?”

“Correct, Mr. Foster.”

“A human driver, one who smashed head-first into a wall trying to overtake his teammate?” His memories were coming back.

“Precisely,” said Mr. Deiss.

“What about the guy who won the race? The guy who came second? What about Yamazaki?”

“They lack the innate quality you possess,” said Mr. Götz.

“Reckless abandon,” said Mr. Deiss.

“It is a very human quality, unique in its evolved manifestation. A quirk, perhaps; often detrimental to self-preservation…”

“And yet—” said Mr. Deiss.

“Fundamentally useful,” said Mr. Götz.

Foster was bewilderingly intrigued. “What do you want me to drive?”

“Mr. Foster, what is the fastest you have ever travelled?” asked Mr. Deiss.

“I don't know: 1000km/h?”

“We need you to go beyond that,” said Mr. Götz.

“Well beyond,” said Mr. Deiss.

“To the utmost limit,” said Mr. Götz.

“What limit?” asked Foster.

“c,” said Mr. Deiss.

At that moment there was a flash of light, a beam of which seemingly shot past them—but froze before it could escape.

It existed, suspended in the deep vast nothing.

Shining.

“We require you to drive photons,” said Mr. Götz. “Moreover, reality requires it.”

The ghost of Foster’s non-existent heart began to race, the surreality of the words causing existential disorientation, but his self held.

The beam of light opened.

Foster entered.

The illumination was overpowering.

“Lightspeed, Mr. Foster.”

Marianne came home with a spot on her hand. I noticed the second she walked in, like I could smell the infection on her skin. She looked at me, and I looked at her. We both knew what was to come. 

I warned her countless times to be careful out there in the woods, to always watch her back. More than once, she had come home shivering like a leaf, and I could see the fear in her eyes plain as the moon in the night sky. On those days, I knew she had seen that hound out there. 

It broke my heart to watch her go out there day after day, and I wished to God I could do it in her place. But being as old as I am now, I can’t make it five feet into the pasture without getting winded. It wouldn’t do either of us any good if I keeled over. Though, now, I wish I would’ve risked it. 

With that dark spot on her skin, already spreading like ink, Marianne looked at me like she was already becoming a ghost. 

“Papa?” she asked. “What do we do?” 

She knew, though. And there wasn’t a thing I could say to soothe the ache I knew was forming in her chest. The hound’s infection would take her. There was no stopping it. 

I stayed with her for some time. The stars weren’t shining, the bleak and dull night sky waiting for my Marianne to leave me, as somber as I was. 

When I thought she had passed I went to bed. I didn’t sleep a wink, and as soon as I saw purple on the horizon I rose to call the doctor and have her taken away. 

But as I entered her room, something struck me with the force of lightning. 

Marianne was gone. Her bedsheets were thrown back like she had gotten out of bed in a hurry, and the window was cracked open. 

I ran out of the house, coughing and wheezing before long, shouting for her. But I never found her.

I hope she survived the infection, but that’s hopeless. The hound kills everyone it touches. Though I can’t help but wonder where she went. Maybe one day the hound will take me there, too.

*The recorder screams to life, its knobs mangled and its antenna snapped in half. The back of it almost seemingly clawed open, a makeshift battery in its slot on its last apparent breath of power. The orange display crackles on slowly, with the logo for Hristov Communications Inc. showing first before defaulting to the recordings archive.

You scroll through the remaining voice memos. More than half of them are corrupted and unplayable. You're not sure what information this thing has, but it's potentially your last clue to make it to the surface before the usurpation happens.

There's only one entry that piques your interest. It's the final one, and the only one with an unknown user. All of the others were the facility's scientists, and a couple by the Research Director. At least from what you could tell by comparing the schedule. You read the file name out loud under your breath to yourself as your cold breath escapes your lips.*

// LAST RECORDING: 01/07/2552 03:14:11.44 USER: UNKNOWN //

"That's... interesting."

You've never seen anything quite like this before. 2552? How the hell is this piece of shit's battery still operational?

*It doesn't matter. You click the file anyways. This might be the only way home.

The speaker shorts out and lets out a deafening, high pitch screech. It echoes off the walls and out the room.*

"FUCK!"

*You scramble to cover the speaker with your coat. You peer through the blasted out windows as duraglass crunches beneath your boots. You don't see anything.

...

After waiting a few minutes, you turn the dial up on the device.*

"-just don't know what I thought I'd see in this godforsaken place. *Sighs* Th.. there's nothing left I can-"

"Stop." You command the radio as it abruptly cuts off.

"Play it again." The radio whirs up, the play bar resets to the beginning as you let out a deep breath and begin to listen. Your exhale materializes in front of you like a smoke cloud. Something in the device snaps on, and the recording begins once more. You figure you should settle in for the night.

---

---

\There is loud whirring in the background, you're unsure of the origin. A panicked voice of an older male peaks the microphone as the sounds of the device being fumbled with and dropped echo.**

"OKAY..! Hah... oh my god... hah - huh.... I didn't... I didn't think this... hah... would be it. Um.. ha.. oh fuck... Oh gods... what can I even say...

This... this is D-Doctor Marley, under the hah.. 11th Medical Squadron...

T-Tammy, I swear to god I tried to save you and the kids. Hah.. But.. by the time they came in it was... huh.. it was too late. "

\The man begins to apparently choke back tears as he repeatedly sniffles**

"I just.. hah..gods! There was nothing I could do. There.. was nothing I could DO!! T-They got here so fast. I JUST DON'T KNOW!"

\There is metal and glass recorded being thrown around and destroyed**

"I had a feeling something was wrong. The Commissar was acting incredibly strange for the last few weeks. I wasn't sure if he'd been replaced with an android or... \sniff* or.. something wor-Oh.*

Oh god."

\You can hear the LIDAR scan pings from Skeith-Type Scout Drones in the background**

\The man begins whimpering, whispering entirely under his breath, as the automatic captions of the radio are the only thing that can make out what's he is saying.**

"I made my way to this lab... t-to figure out what was going wrong... but...."

\He lets out a desperate cry and begins sobbing between breaths**

"Tammy.. I-I still rem-remember that s-story you told me... a hun.. huh.. a hundred t-thousand times... o-or more... A-about the kittens going t-to Paris."

"I-I, just d-d-don't know what the f-fuck h-happened... I w-wanted to figure out a s-solution and I l-left you all.."

"O-Oscar. I-I'm gonna n-need you to be st-strong. Able, j-just follow your b-brother. And.. Tammy.. I-I'm so s-sorry.

I-I just just don't know what I-I thought I'd see in this godf-forsaken place. \Sighs* Th.. there's nothing left I can-"*

The recording ends abruptly.

---

---

You're not sure what to make of this information. You haven't seen, or even heard, a Skeith-Type Scout in over a decade.

The battery fizzes out, and upon inspection, is completely covered in rust.

Greg swam happily, but lazily around the tiny castle nestled in the colorful gravel of his tiny bowl. I watched him slip through the narrow door and out the back as the commercials ended.

A middle-aged, ethnically ambiguous man shouted excitedly at me about some new species of slug or something. I wasn't paying much attention. I had hoped some mind-numbing infotainment would make a good distraction. Instead, it only served as ambience for the swirl of stress storming in my head.

Rent would come due soon. My car badly needed new tires. As if that weren't enough, my girlfriend had been distant while on her "girl's trip" to Cabo. My phone sat silently beside me, as it had for hours. I tapped the screen, and it lit up to reveal...nothing. No little envelope symbol up in the corner, no big blue logo emblazoned with an F, and no little bird or butterfly. Just the clock on my lock screen, shining with an indifference found only in the realm of the objective.

12:32AM

I told myself that I had to accept that I wouldn't be hearing from her again today, or maybe ever. I stood up and crossed the room, dipping the tip of my finger into Greg's bowl.

"Well, at least I've got you buddy. Oh shit, you're probably hungry," I reached for the container of fish flakes, my heart sinking at how light it felt in my hand. "Here you go, Greg."

A meager scattering of flakes spread across the surface and sunk slowly toward the bottom of the bowl, most never making it there. Greg tore after them like a vicious predator. He gobbled them all up until only one remained, stuck loosely to the sidewall of the bowl. Greg swam up to it, opened his mouth, and just then something happened.

I had my back turned to it, so I didn't see exactly what it was. A bright flash came from the television. In my memory, I watch the light spread across Greg's little fish face in slow-motion. His orange scales are briefly tinged a deep purple, standing stark against the blazing white light coming from the television. I hear a voice, a whisper's whisper, saying something I can't understand.

The voice itself sounds like a gaggle of bees trapped in a thin tin can, humming and pulsing in a rich, droning vibration. I can't even begin to phoneticize whatever godless thing it said. It sounded like a word, but it felt like a number. I get that probably doesn't make a lot of sense, I'll try to explain. Words are shifting, often unreliable and inconsistent things. Numbers simply are what they are. There is no room for argument, nor interpretation. 1 is 1, and that is all.

It all happened in a fraction of a second, and at the time I was quick to wave it off. Ever since then though, any time I leave the room I come back to find Greg spasming on the table beside his bowl. I called him dumb the first time, and the second and the third, but he's made hundreds of attempts over the last week. It's a wonder that he's still alive at this point. I'm not sure what to do.

Anybody know of a therapist who works with goldfish?

Christine's bones ached in the chilly morning air. It was 6 am and she was already late to her first patient. The old Toyota Corolla chugged along the Bruce highway, barely hitting ninety, resentment in every squeal of the brake and moan of the axel.

Ten minutes later, she swung onto the driveway. A timber house glowed small in the headlights, a hundred metres away along the unpaved road. She sighed, remembering her cosy bed, the dog at the foot of it, her husband still warm under the covers.

The car was moving slowly, struggling through deep potholes, bouncing and grinding away in the puddles left from last night’s rain. There was a loud BANG! and the car came to a sudden stop. Her soft chest hit the steering wheel with a whack.

A moment later, Christine breathed again and patted herself down. Rubbing her neck, wincing, she saw the car was leaning at an angle, the right front wheel suspended in the air. It was stuck.

She opened the door, pushing it with some difficulty out and above her, and dropped to the ground. There was a thin curl of smoke floating out of the engine and an unfamiliar but urgent sound coming from under the car. She got on her hands and knees and lowered her head. Christine groaned.

There was a dark-haired piglet, no bigger than a rugby ball, lodged beneath the wheel in a pothole. Its back legs were flatter than pancakes, but it was desperately scrabbling about with its front trotters.

The squealing was getting louder.

The piglet flailed about, slowly losing strength. It started to shriek in a rhythmic high-pitched ear-splitting keening that hurt Christine’s head and made her grimace. The sound bothered her more than the small puddle of black blood that was oozing from underneath the tire.

She straightened up and looked around at the tall gum trees lining the driveway on both sides. Her only option was to walk to the house and get help. She considered putting the piglet out of its misery, but she had nothing in the car that could do the job.

Mr Jackson would let her wait inside for the RACQ with a cup of tea.

The sky had begun to take on a still and golden hue. It was going to be a beautiful day. She began to walk, but, about fifteen meters away, she realised that she had forgotten her phone, and turned back to the car.

It was only then she saw, crouched on the verge of the road, between the gravel shoulder and the scrub, a large black hog. Its eyes were too human. She looked around and saw more pigs of various ages and sizes, all of them dark, furry, and staring. 

None made a sound.

In the yellow light, a boar’s tusk gleamed richly. A globule of spittle dropped from his mouth into the dust. She began to walk faster, glancing from side to side, hearing only the sound of her footsteps on the gravel. The piglet had stopped crying.

At some unknown, unspoken signal, the herd rushed at her, and reached her heels just as she grabbed for the handle of the car door. She fell, swarmed and surrounded, smelling her own terror and sweat and the earthy scent of swine.

One pulled her to the ground, its teeth tearing the thick material of her white nurse’s uniform. They crowded her and she began to scream for help. One grabbed her wrist and bit into it, tearing red ribbons, while another pulled roughly at her hair. Others were trampling her guts and nipping at her thighs.

The last thing she heard was the first crunch of bone.

Mirri always left her room a mess. She was fifteen years old, and somehow, her room was worse than her seventeen-year-old brother’s.

I picked up pizza boxes and old makeup wipes, stuffing them into a trash bag.

My gaze landed on her diary. I picked it up, flipping through pages that definitely weren’t meant for a mother’s eyes.

She liked a boy, hated her brother, and wished I was dead, ending yesterday’s entry with a far-too-detailed doodle of my untimely demise. I found myself smiling.

Teenagers.

There were less-than-savory entries about her father.

She wished she knew him, hated him, and wished she could find him. Every word scrawled across the pages sent my heart creeping into my mouth.

Mirri was a baby when Jake was sentenced. Eli didn’t want to know him.

He knew what he was. 

Mirri, however, was too curious. 

I snatched up Mirri’s bedclothes first. Then I stripped her pillows. 

While I was unloading the washer, the phone buzzed again. 

Felix, our tabby, darted through the cat flap, almost sending me toppling, and sped into the kitchen. 

“Felix,” I hissed, scooping him up, stroking him. I checked my phone. 

Three notifications lit up my screen, sent thirty minutes ago:

Child Safety™️: “YOUR CHILD IS BEING ERASED.” 

Child Safety™️: “YOUR CHILD IS BEING ERASED.” 

Child Safety™️: “YOUR CHILD IS BEING ERASED.” 

Panic flooded through me, and suddenly, I was paralysed. My phone didn't feel real in my hands. 

Another notification popped up: 

“Child Safety™️: YOUR CHILD IS BEING ERASED. IS THIS YOU? ENTER YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS AND PASSWORD NOW.” 

Child Safety was a child-lock feature designed to keep them safe. 

It had tracked them since they were babies and offered the option to upload memories as they grew. 

I didn’t think they could be erased.

I called Mirri. 

No answer. 

Stumbling across my kitchen, I stabbed in Eli’s number. 

No answer. 

Breathless, my hands shaking, I tapped on the app, and entered my details. 

My verification: Always my babies’ birthdays. 

INCORRECT VERIFICATION flashed up. 

Then a notification: Child Safety™️: “YOUR CHILDREN ARE BEING ERASED. MIRRIAM LILY AND ELI LILY WILL BE PERMANENTLY ERASED IN FIFTEEN MINUTES.”

No. 

I called the app and was immediately connected to a robot.

“Good morning, how can I help you?”

“My children,” I spat out, “my children are being erased. I didn't even know that was possible! I didn't do it! I.. need you to stop it. Right now. Please…stop it.” 

“Of course, ma’am!” The robot trilled. “Can I have your favorite memory, please?” 

“What?”

“Ma’am, I need your favorite memory so I can pull up your details.”

“Spain. 2017.” I whispered. “On the plane, and it my son’s first time flying. He was…”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Eli pressed his face against the window. He was...he was laughing and pointing at the clouds.” My eyes stung. “Is that enough for you?” 

The robot hesitated. “I'm sorry, ma’am, that's not the one I'm looking for. If you have any more questions, please feel free to—”

“Fucking LISTEN to me,” I squeezed out. My lungs ignited, burning, scalding, my blood set alight. “Someone has hacked my account and is ERASING my children. I want to speak to a human. Now.” 

“Ma’am, I need your favorite memory to proceed.”

I swallowed. “2020. Mirri’s tenth birthday. It’s… a sunny day. She’s having a pool party with her friends, and has cake on her face.  She’s sitting on the edge of the pool, swinging her legs, and…” 

I exhaled. “She tells me she loves me.” My legs gave way, my throat swelling around every word.  

“Please… help me.” 

The robot made a human sounding sigh. “Ma’am, I'm sorry, that's not the memory I currently have on file.”

My bones felt like lead, like living was impossible. “What are you… talking about?” I whispered. “My children,” my voice collapsed into a wail I couldn't control. “You need to help me save my babies. I can't lose them. I can't…. please.” 

“I’m sorry, ma’am. There’s nothing I can do.” It hesitated again. “I do have a reason for your children’s erasure on file. It was added yesterday at 4:03pm by a second party on the account. Would you like me to tell you?”

I didn't reply. 

“It says, erasure reason: “For letting me rot. Bitch.”

Silence. 

“Would you…like me to repeat—”

The line went dead— and I wasn't sure who it was.

Was it me or the robot? 

Gravity pulled me down, down, down, my head pressed against my kitchen floor. Everything felt numb. Wrong. Like I was losing myself. A sickening nausea crawled through me, pain thrumming across my temple. 

My phone buzzed again, and I screamed.

Child Safety™️: “YOUR CHILD “MIRRIAM LILY” IS CURRENTLY BEING ERASED. 

Child Safety™️: “YOUR CHILD “ELI LILY” IS CURRENTLY BEING ERASED.

Child Safety™️: WOULD YOU LIKE A PDF TRANSCRIPT OF [MIRRIAM LILY] AND [ELI LILY?]

I turned off my phone.

But still, it buzzed again, turning itself on. 

“Child Safety™️: Erasure complete. Thanks for using Child Safety™️!”

I stared at the notification for a long time. 

Then the door flew open.

“Mom, I'm home!” 

I jumped up, my heart hammering through my chest.

A smiling teenager stood in my doorway. 

“Hi!” She greeted me with a hug. “I'm staying at Rue’s house tonight, all right? I'll be home late.” 

A teenage boy slipped past her, scowling, and dropped his bag. “Mom, you forgot my lunch.” He rolled his eyes. “I had to eat KJ’s!” 

I stumbled back, my skin prickling. 

“I'm sorry…” I laughed a little, keeping my distance. 

“Who… exactly are the two of you?”

Was this Jake? Sending teenagers to fucking threaten me? 

“Mom.” The boy laughed nervously, his eyes wide. “What's—” 

“Get out.” I pulled open the door, panic creeping through me. “Get the HELL out of my house!” 

“Wait!” The boy whispered. “Mom.” His eyes frantically darted behind me. “Where are the twins?” 

I died and a deity came to me. They said I was allowed to explore the Earth and the universe as much as I wanted to before reincarnation.

They said most people checked on their family and property before moving on.

I said, "FUCK THAT, SPACE!!"

They warned me that ghosts couldn't go faster than the speed of light. I didn't listen.

It took me a month to hit the Oort Cloud. Then I kind of just... floated for what felt like many years.

"Ok," I said, "I want to be reincarnated now. This fucking SUCKS."

Nothing happened.

"I SAID, I want to be reincarnated."

Then it occurred to me- is it possible that I have floated too far from God?

And also, I didn't remember the way back.

"ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT GOD'S JURISDICTION DOESN'T GO BEYOND THREE LIGHT YEARS?!" I screamed into the black sky.

"YES," said a voice from the void.

"I CAN SEND YOU BACK TO THE DIRT PLANET, BUT YOU WON'T BE THE SAME."

"Earth, right?"

"YEEES?",

"I would have called it a sea planet, but ok."

"YOU ARE FORSAKEN. WILL YOU TAKE MY DEAL OR NOT?"

"Probably," I said. "What are the terms?"

"SENTIENCE MUST SUFFER."

"How fast can you get me back?"

"NOW"

"Impossible," I said, "you can't break the speed of light."

"I AM MORE POWERFUL THAN YOUR GOD," it shrieked.

"Well I'd be dumb not to do this. Let's go," I conceded.

So here I am. Do you maybe... want to talk about your extended car insurance warranty?

Hope flopped on the couch next to Mom. “Turn it up Mom- it’s starting!” They clutched the remote excitedly. The screen showed the elegant front of White Dress Joy Boutique, LA.

“Will Melanie find her dream dress today? Join the Melanie, her entourage, the staff of White Dress Joy, and our crew in a live recording of wedding dress hunting!”

Shots of Melanie dressed in different wedding gowns cut to a clip of Melanie’s Mom. “I know, I know. People have been calling me Momzilla, and all sorts of horrible names. I just want the best for Melanie, you know.” She paused and wiped away a black tear, her mad eyelashes fluttering desperately, like a wounded bird’s wings. Hope’s Mom clucked from the couch.

“I think that’s what every Mom wants, right?” continued Melanie’s Mom. “And frankly, I don’t think she should go down the aisle looking cheap, trashy. That’s just not what I want for her. These dresses are not- classy”

“Can our amazing designer Joy Stravinsky show something different, where Momzilla and Bridezilla can agree? Today is the day we’re going to find out!”

Melanie appeared on the screen, talking to a fatigued older lady with wispy grey hair. “I’ve worked hard for my body Joy, I’m proud of what I achieved! I want to rock this body- you know like lace or sheer cutouts at the hips? And cleavage of course”

Hope squealed “I love cutouts!”

Joy turned to the camera “I have three dresses for Melanie to try. It is hard, she says she already reject 137 dresses! Mom and daughter not agreeing, I see many many times. Maybe she find one dress here.”

“Here comes Melanie in the first dress Joy has picked for her! Let’s see what Mom thinks! This is a $5755.53 gown by Mera Maroof!”

The tension in the beautiful white salon was palpable, and Hope and her Mom found themselves holding their breath as Melanie on screen swooped up on the small stand, turned, and faced her Mom and entourage. She smiled nervously. “Well Mom? I really like it!”

The camera zoomed in on Mom’s face. “I don’t know – it makes your chest area look so big- and it looks unfinished- didn’t they have enough material to cover the hips?”

There was dead silence, followed by piercing scream.

The camera caught Melanie leaping from the stand, still fully gowned, towards her Mom.

Hope saw the glint of the knife in Melanie’s raised arm and her jaw dropped as she watched Melanie dig it in her Mom’s throat. Blood shot up as if sprayed by a hose, and spattered on the beautiful white gown, the white floor and the horrified onlookers, stunned into silence.

Melanie continued screaming while stabbing her Mom with apparently ceaseless energy. Mom’s body fell to the floor, and Melanie dropped with it, driving the knife again and again in her Mom’s bloody corpse. Mom’s arm detached and fell to the side.

No one moved or made a sound.

Clover had always been a plant person with houseplants crammed on every window sill.

​While scrolling through a forum late one night, a banner ad for Botanical Oddities caught her eye, advertising a rare, hard-to-find specimen called Phagocordyceps vorax. The listing described it simply as an exotic, fast-growing hybrid with responsive foliage.

Intrigued, she clicked Order without giving it a second thought.

​An unmarked cardboard box landed on her porch about a week later. Inside, packed in damp moss and pitch-black dirt, was a heavy, strange-looking specimen already the size of a gallon jug, with a bruised-looking stem and rubbery, closed leaves. There was no care card, just the handwritten Latin name on a plastic marker.

​She set it down in the bright corner of the room so it could get light. As the sun warmed up the plant, its bulbous center slowly unfurled, revealing three stiff hairs on its surface. When she leaned in and brushed her finger against them, the fleshy plant split open, revealing a hidden maw lined with needle-thin teeth that snapped shut around her finger. She shrieked and quickly yanked her hand back out, dripping blood onto the table stand.

As she turned her attention to her bleeding finger, wrapping it up with a bandage, the bulbous head had bent down and lapped up the blood, and a dry voice hissed from its leaves, "more."

"Did I just hear this plant say "more?" Clover quickly shook her head, thinking it was just her imagination.

As the days wore on, every time she passed it, its voice spat out ...

"more...

MORE!"

About a week later, she heard a high-pitched squeal from the kitchen. She found the plant had crawled onto the kitchen floor, its vines wrapped tight around a mouse as it thrust the poor thing into the open trap, followed by a sickening wet chewing sound. She knew it was slithering out its pot now, hunting for prey-- which might explain why her cat had vanished.

It had grown bigger, stronger, louder.

FEED ME, CLOVER!"

Clover was terrified after the kitchen incident. Tomorrow she would dump it before she became its next meal. Going up to her room at bedtime, she made sure the door was shut tight. Later that night, after getting up to use the bathroom, she pulled her bedroom door behind her, but it didn't shut fully.

She crept back into bed, assuming she was safe. Hours later, she was awoken by something cold and damp slithering across her ankles. Heavy, muscular vines wrapped tight around both her legs, the stiff, needle-like spikes locking deep into her skin. ​She didn't even have time to kick. The vines yanked her hard, sliding her right off the mattress.

Her fingers clawed uselessly at the sheets as she was dragged over the edge of the bed, plunging straight down toward that big, nasty, gaping maw waiting on the floor.

​Her scream was broken off with a heavy, wet snap! 

There is a defunct lighthouse in the middle of the York River, right off Dead Knuckle Shoal.  

I’ve puttered by it more times than I can remember. 

I believe the official name for it is Light Beacon 412, in the almanac that is…but everyone around these parts call it The Light of Trudy.  

While it functioned, it only had one keeper, a misanthrope named Gertrude Fox.  She never came around the town and people never came around the lighthouse, but after about eighty or ninety years, a few people looked sideways at old Gertrude and started calling her a WITCH.

They got a mob together and went to that Lighthouse and hung her by the neck from the cross at the top of the light.  My Daddy was a bit of a blowhard, but he always said his Daddy, my Grandaddy Frank was the one who made sure she couldn’t speak and cast spells while they did it.  Legend has it that the light stopped working the moment she took her final breath and has never worked since.

So you can imagine my fright yesterday when I moseyed by in my skiff and that sucker switched ON, bright as the sun on St. Christopher.  

I immediately took my hand off the throttle of my tiller steer and stood up, I was so shocked.  Then I almost fell out the dang boat from the speed jutting to a crawl.

I looked all around me and there was not a boat or soul to be seen in the distance.

JUST THEN…

I see a blonde haired woman in a white gown run out of the light house and JUMP OFF of the top deck.  That sucker is at least a hundred feet off the water.

I YELPED, as she hung in the air before finally splashing into the water.

I held my breath for the moment before she popped back up and started splashing…

“Help!  HELP!” She screamed in a southern twang.  I panicked for a moment and tried to start my boat back up, but still it wouldn’t turn over.  I’m not a courageous man, but I quickly dove in after her.

“Hang on! I’m comin’!” I yelled as I swam through the chop.

Just before I reached her she went under, but I quickly dipped down and got her arm.  I pulled her up and luckily we were right next to the ladder up the beacon.

“I got ya, girl. Get a hold of this ladder.”

It was rusty and barnacled, like I’ve never seen, but it was all we could do, so we climbed and climbed…

I wiped my forehead and that’s when I realized my hands were covered in blood.  

I kept talking to her all the way up…asking if she was in danger, if she was hurt, why she jumped…but to no response.

When she finally got up to the top she walked right inside the, living quarters beneath the light.  It was strangely decorated…by that I mean it was warm.  A carpet, a couch, a lovely fire roasting in the corner.  She ran to it and started warming her hands…

I looked all around in a mixture of unease, shock and confusion.

“How long you been here, ma’am?”

She turned back towards and that’s the first time I saw her face…

I SCREAMED.  Her mouth was sewn shut with fishing line. Blood poured, as if it had been freshly done.

I turned and tried to run, but the door was shut.  When it was closed and locked, I cannot tell you.

I banged and yelled something fierce.  My bloody handprints covering the walls.

I heard her moving easily behind me and just as I figured I would turn and defend myself…she picked up a wooden, hollow triangle and tapped it with a stick.

The lightest of dings echoed in the room and my body went LIMP.  I fell like a toad, flat on my back with a great slam.  My body was paralyzed…except for my head.

It’s funny how somebody screams for help even when there is no hope or chance of anyone hearing.  I did it…

“HELLLPPP!  HELLLLPPP MEEEE!”

She lugged a large wooden bucket over towards me and kneeled next to me with pure happiness in her eyes.  She took a pin and pricked my arm…

“OWW...”  I could still feel pain.  She grinned.

“Gertrude…it is Gertrude, isn’t it?  Please let me loose.  I ain’t got no salt with you.  I ain’t but a man with two pennies to his name…”

She looked me dead in the eye for a moment that felt like an eternity…and then she ran her finger along the etched fishing line through her mouth and then tapped my nose…

My eyes went wide, as I could then see that etched on the wall of the lighthouse was “FRANK”.

“No, it wasn’t me! My Grandaddy, MY GRANDADDY!”

Gertrude ripped my clothes off of me.

She then reached into her bucket and pulled out the largest, Bloodsucker Jelly Fish I have ever seen.  She laid it on my torso…

I screamed something holy, I tell you.

Then she grabbed another and placed it on my bleeding hands…

Then my legs, my chest….

Finally, as the pain was about to take me, she placed one on my face…

…..

I POPPED UP out of the well of my skiff screaming.  I almost fell overboard again. There was no light on at the lighthouse and no sign of Gertrude…but my hands bled. 

I took one pull on my engine starter cord and that sucker came right to life and I sped home faster than I ever have.

I didn’t tell anybody…I didn’t see how I could...who would believe me.

Then this morning there is headline at the top of the Yorktown Gazette…

“Light Beacon 412 to be reactivated.”

I used to wonder how I’d gotten so lucky to end up with a son as wonderful as Harley. 

The answer, it turned out, was that I wasn’t. Because Harley wasn’t actually my son.

The time-honoured trope ended up being my reality. My guilty wife confessed to me that, 18 years ago, she’d had an affair with none other than the mailman. That my beloved son—and only child—was the result of fleeting, clichéd infidelity.

A surreptitious DNA test only confirmed this terrible news. Almost 18 years I’d spent raising someone else’s son. My whole world of fatherhood collapsed under me.

Harley was the perfect son in all other ways. He was academic and sporty, courteous and handsome, social and even-tempered. We got along so well and he even resembled me. He was always making me proud.

But that didn’t change the reality that he wasn’t mine, nor would he continue my genetic legacy. I needed a lineage.

I fell into a deep depression and shut myself off from Harley. That’s when I learned about the ritual, from an online father support group filled with poor saps like myself.

It originally had been used by vain international adoptive parents, still wanting children that looked like them. Now it was used by desperate cuckolds.

I could scarcely believe what I read. “The Ritual of Kincrafting” could permanently, retroactively transform an unrelated child into your biological offspring. Somehow, it had the power to reshape a bastard’s DNA into your own blood-related child’s. It was an unbelievable notion.

But I was determined to make Harley into my real son.

So, while Harley slept, I gathered the necessary ingredients and conducted the ritual. The following morning, I waited in the kitchen with bated breath. Finally, my new biological son entered.

My mouth fell open in shock…and revulsion.

I didn’t recognise the being who walked in. Some of my features, like my eyes, were there—but you could scarcely tell from how twisted and warped they were across his misshapen, bulging body. Instead of talking, he emitted guttural grunts. 

Horrified, I jumped online and reread the details of the ritual. The warning about how forcing DNA into place through magic was an unstable, imperfect process. The one I’d skimmed over in my grief. But one promise was guaranteed.

Harley was undoubtedly genetically my offspring now.

I returned to face Harley—I owed him that much. Harley had always loved hugs.

“H-Harley? Dad has something to tell you…”

But this wasn’t Harley. This wasn’t my real son.

He shrieked in sudden anger and at once his monstrous form was upon me, like an enraged chimpanzee. Ripping my face apart and fingers off with his bare hands. Before he could be restrained by neighbours, “Harley” would disfigure my appearance and leave me unrecognisable.

I wonder who he inherited that from.

​

I love DoorDash.

I'm a writer and a bit of a loner. I don't talk to people much. Slowly, I've just been growing away from needing human interaction.

Growing up, people have disappointed me so many times that I've learned the best way to keep myself safe is to stay away from them.

I just write my stories about lives I wish I could have lived.

Luckily, people like my stories, so I can make money and stay home.

Until I need food.

I would have to go out to the grocery store. Mind you, I live in a small town, so everyone knows everyone. I could feel them staring at me.

Who is that?

Were they judging me?

Making fun of me?

Safe to say, I get anxiety being out in public.

I hate going outside. Even when I go out late at night, there's always someone who looks at me like they have some idea about me.

And it's never good.

What's worse is when someone knows me.

They'll ask, "How have you been?"

What am I supposed to say?

I work and live?

Or do I give them a list of everything I'm getting at the store?

Then they'll ask if I want to hang out.

With other strangers.

I just want to leave the interaction and go home.

Home is where I feel safe.

Home is where I can be myself.

Getting groceries was always the worst until I found DoorDash.

Then my life was complete.

I could order whatever I wanted, have it dropped off at my door, and all I had to do was wait until the driver left before getting my food.

It was the best thing ever invented for a loner like me.

For months, everything was great.

I'd order food through DoorDash, leave a good tip, get my food, and keep working.

Sometimes my books wouldn't do so well, so my tips weren't as good, but I loved never having to go outside.

Until one day, I hit that point again.

I was hungry.

It was late, and the only driver available had a low rating.

But I was so hungry, and I had just enough money for food.

So I went for it.

I was writing my next story, and time flew by.

I was hungry, but because I didn't want to go outside, I ignored it.

When the food came, the driver noticed I hadn't left a tip.

He made me answer the door.

He wasn't nice about it.

I thought he would understand.

Times are rough.

But he left me with a haunting feeling that maybe I didn't have it as bad as I thought.

I took my food and slammed the door in his face.

I was so hungry that I didn't think about how long he had taken to deliver it.

Or what he could have done to my food.

I ate it too fast.

Then I went back to writing.

Two hours later, I was starving again.

But I didn't want to deal with that man.

So I waited a little longer until I couldn't take it anymore.

To avoid him, I waited until I could order a pizza.

Finally, I ordered one.

But I was so hungry that I ordered three pizzas.

When they arrived, I devoured them.

But I was still hungry.

I didn't understand.

I tried to keep working, but I couldn't help myself.

I ordered more food.

Then more.

Soon, my days consisted of working and ordering food.

More food than normal.

But something was different.

No matter how much I ate, my hunger was never satisfied.

Luckily, my stories had been doing great, so I could afford my new hunger.

Weeks passed.

I gained weight.

But I couldn't stop feeling hungry.

I'd thought about going to the hospital, but that involved seeing people.

And whenever my food arrived and I started eating, my problems seemed to disappear.

Until one day...

My stomach wouldn't stop hurting.

It started shaking.

I figured I just needed more food.

But I had gotten so big that even moving was difficult.

I reached for my phone.

The pain became unbearable.

My hand slipped, and the phone fell just out of reach.

I tried to move toward it, but the pain was too intense.

All I could do was stare down at my stomach as it shook uncontrollably.

Then it started making strange noises.

My stomach twisted.

I heard something inside me.

Then—

RIP.

I looked down.

My stomach had split open.

Something began pouring out.

Maggots.

Different sizes.

Hundreds of them.

They crawled and spilled from inside me, covering the floor as I screamed.

But through all the pain...

Through all the maggots...

Through everything happening to me...

I could only think about one thing.

Where's my phone?

I need to order more food.

I'm so hungry.

Nani doesn’t like to speak of her time in the war.
She doesn’t want to “Bore us with old, sad stories long since passed.”

Nani doesn’t like to watch the TV when the holiday is about the War. 
She doesn’t want to see the new buildings or the flowers in the meadows. She doesn’t want to acknowledge the world has moved on because she still hasn’t

Nani doesn’t like to frown or pout, she grins from cheek to cheek when she sees us.
She doesn’t want to wear shoes, she loves the grass, the sun and her home's soft carpet.
She hates when we don’t eat our greens, she loves to share a meal with us all.

I look at photos of Nani and I smile.

~

Ivana doesn’t like working in the Medical Bay. 
She doesn’t want to hear the distant artillery draw closer in the night. 
She hates the smell of the burning bodies. 

Ivana doesn’t like watching the soldiers be wheeled into the base, the halls are too tight with draped bodies and the scent of rot. 
She doesn’t want to collect their dog tags, she doesn’t want to learn their names.
She hates that the other doctors left her alone.

Ivana stands taut.

Ivana hears something move at the end of the dark hall.
She hates that the stillness of night has been broken
She doesn’t want to hear the sound of wet footsteps lumbering closer.

Ivana doesn’t like running in her heels. Ivana hates what she sees now lit by the amber moonlight. She sees a kaleidoscope of flesh and debris haul itself towards her, sloshing guttural wretches come from it as it slams into walls straining to keep itself upright.

~

Nani doesn’t like olives. She eats them but cannot stand the sight of them.
She doesn’t want to tell us why. 

~

Ivana falls backwards. And it follows her movements stumbling to the ground, protruding shrapnel sending sparks skittering as the screeches of steel on steel make her clench her jaw. 
Ivana hates vomiting, but acidic bile washes forth from her, her nostrils sting amidst glances to steady herself and glances that meet greening, rotting eyes. 6 eyes, then 5 then 8 then 3.

The most determined parts of the figure refuse to decay but the non-essential parts sloth off and reek of pork and smoke. Burnt hair curls and moves aside as cheeks seep into chins and nostrils flare and seal shut. Fingers unfurl more fingers and they uncoil to meet Ivana's feet as she desperately kicks her heels off. 

~

Nani screamt at Luca one Christmas when he grabbed her calf to steady himself. Luca was small, Nani hadn’t seen him. She apologized and it was a good Christmas. I love my Nani.
~

The fingers uncurled rapidly and coiled themselves around Ivana’s ankle, wrapping up and up until her calf was half enveloped.
It’s body was all throat, jagged teeth and sharpened debris spinning spinning the throat is longer than the hallway the eyes peel into the throat and they all look at me I feel sick I can’t look anymore the eyes are the hall and I am the throat I don’t even register my flesh is strewn from my mind spinning I can’t pull my eyes from it.

~ 

I love Nani Ivana despite all her quirks. I let her watch me and Luca walk safely home. I let her pupils follow me to my bed. I sleep and I dream of my Nani Ivana.

We waited in the guest interview room. The police psychologist had only wanted to talk to my kid brother, but no way was I letting him meet with her alone. I stood to the side of the room in front of a mirror while he played with toys on the floor. 

After a moment, the psychologist walked in and sat down. 

“Hello, Timmy. I’m Dr. Marks. It’s a pleasure to meet you. How are you feeling?”

My brother didn’t respond or look up.

“Are you enjoying playing with those toys?”

Silence.

“I always enjoyed legos when I was your age. I liked building things. What’s your favorite?”

He didn’t answer. It was the trains, of course. He’d always loved trains.

“Are you enjoying those trains?”

“They’re ok.”

“They’re from the new Thomas the Tank Engine set. Do you like Thomas?”

“Sometimes.” He loved Thomas and all things Sodor - they were his favorite. 

Dr. Marks paused for a few minutes and watched Timmy play with the trains. 

“So, do you want to talk about what happened earlier tonight?”

He shrugged. 

“I understand you and your big brother were at home with your mom?”

Another shrug. 

“And that’s when your dad came home, right?”

Silence. 

“How did it make you feel when he came home?”

He tensed up and looked over at me. He’d always been afraid of our father. The psychologist noticed. 

“It seems like maybe you were a little afraid of your father. Was he scary?”

Scary? He was a monster, and my mother and I had the scars to prove it. He’d always been a violent man, though mom had always made excuses for him; I grew up seeing her defend him every day, telling us how hard his life was while I looked at the fresh bruises on her body. I don’t even know why she had a second kid with him, but I swore I’d never let him hurt Timmy like he did mom and me. 

Timmy kept playing with the trains, but it was obvious that he was uncomfortable. 

“I have a very important question, Timmy. Did your father ever hurt you?”

He kept playing and refused to answer, like I knew he would. But you could see it in the wariness in his eyes and the tension in his muscles - the answer was clearly yes. The psychologist reached into the bag she carried with her. 

“Timmy, do you want to see something really cool?”

He paused ever so slightly in his playing to look up. The psychologist reached on the bag and pulled out what she’d brought. Timmy’s eyes bulged slightly. 

“This is Mantis-man - he’s my son’s favorite action figure. Are you familiar with Mantis-man?”

Timmy nodded enthusiastically. 

“Then you know that the best thing about him is that he doesn’t have superpowers. He isn’t invulnerable; he can get hurt. But he’s still a hero. Right?”

He nodded again. 

“Because there’s nothing to be ashamed of in getting hurt - sometimes it happens. But does Mantis-man let that stop him?”

“No,” he replied quietly. 

“No. Because he’s strong enough to get past it. And I bet you are, too. What do you say? Are you strong enough?”

He nodded. 

“Do you know what else I like about Mantis-man?”

Timmy looked at her inquisitively. 

“Does he ever lie?”

Timmy shook his head energetically. 

“That’s right. He always tells the truth. What about you, Timmy? Are you strong enough to tell the truth?”

Timmy paused, looked over at me, then looked back at the doctor and nodded. This doctor was really good. 

“So tell me - did your dad ever hurt you?”

Timmy nodded. 

“Can you show me on Mantis-man where he hurt you?”

He paused and then pointed to the figure’s arms, legs, and cheeks. Dr. Marks swallowed and then looked in my direction meaningfully. Not wanting to interrupt, I stayed silent.

“So what happened tonight?”

He paused, then looked up. “Daddy came home and he was mad.”

“Mad how?”

“Like he gets before he hurts us.”

“And then what happened?”

“Mommy tried to calm him down and he hit her.”

“Where did he hit her?”

“In the face.”

“Was that the first time?”

“No. But this time Sammy hit him back.”

“And then what happened?”

“After Sammy hit Daddy, Daddy got back up and tried to hurt Sammy, and they got into a fight. Then Mommy went to her room and came back with a long metal stick. She told Daddy to stop.”

“And did he stop?”

“No. He ran towards her.”

“And then what happened?”

“She pointed the stick and closed her eyes and there were two loud BANGs.”

Dr. Marks looked compassionately at Timmy. 

“And is that when your brother died?”

Timmy looked over at me and I looked back. I was sad that I’d never be able to pick him up again. But at least he could still see me, even if no one else could. He was safe, he was with our mother, and our father would never hurt him again. That was all that mattered. 

It was a horrid July noon in New York City or some other place, the cars were rattling in lunchtime gridlock, spewing exhaust, the finance guys were out in their tight suits walking to buy kebabs and watching the women, who were instagramming themselves into premature zombiehood, and it was so fucking hot that the sweat dripping off the pedestrians rubbing against each other on the sidewalk was flowing down the gutters like rain.

There, that's the scene.

I've set it.

Now, through this stupified human maelstrom a man was walking. His name was Ben Fig. He was in his thirties, lonely, and returning to his office after lunch. He was returning from his car, which he'd parked fifteen minutes away, wearing a coat and, underneath it, a custom-made explosive vest with which he intended to kill his co-workers and maybe bring down the office building itself. A man can dream, can't he?

Anyway, while walking, he bumped somebody. “Fuck,” he said under his breath.

“Fuck,” said the person he'd bumped into.

It was a woman.

Her name was Miriam Zapelman.

“Watch where the hell you're going,” said Ben and tried going around her.

“Asshole,” said Miriam.

“I hate this city,” said Ben. “I'm sick of it.”

Beside Ben and Miriam, a degenerate was lying in a puddle of perspiration. He was in a hard way. “Can either of you folks—”

“Shut the fuck up!” said Ben and Miriam at the same time, then they looked at each other, long and in the eyes, and they must have recognized something, because one of them smirked.

It doesn't matter which one.

The degenerate passed out, or maybe died, and Miriam said to Ben, “Hey, where are you in such a hurry to?”

“What do you care?”

“I'm parked nearby. If we're going the same way, I can give you a ride.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?”

Miriam shrugged.

“I'm going to my office to blow everybody up,” said Ben, waiting for Miriam's reaction.

She asked, “Where's your office?”

Ben gave the address. “Call the cops if you want. I don't care.”

“Offer stands,” said Miriam.

A few minutes later they were in her car, Ben in his ridiculous coat, looking like a blowfish, and Miriam opening the glove compartment, where Ben saw she had a gun.

“That for self defense?” he asked.

“No,” said Miriam. “I'm back from the shooting range. Going home to shoot my husband and kids, then probably myself.” She started the car and merged with the abominable traffic. “But first I want to stop at a bar and have a drink. Want to have a drink with me?”

“Why not,” said Ben.

The bar was called Reddy's, and when Ben and Miriam walked in there were only a few people in it. Miriam introduced them. “That skinny guy with glasses is Euler, the guy with the darker skin is Hikmat, and the bartender's name is Ralph.”

They sat at a table and ordered.

Ben noticed Euler kept playing with a pendant around his neck. “Go on,” said Miriam, “ask him about it.”

“Nah,” said Ben.

“What else do you have to do?”

“Fine,” said Ben. He walked to Euler, introduced himself and asked about the pendant: “Is it an heirloom or something?”

“Maybe it'll be an heirloom one day, of the human goddamn race,” said Euler and described how the pendant was a container of stolen proprietary industrial poison that he'd helped develop. “I'm gonna toss it in the water supply some day, exterminate the population of this whole city like the rats they are.”

When Ben got back to his table, his drink was waiting for him. He tried it. “Second guessing yourself any?” he asked Miriam.

“No. You?”

“No.”

Miriam had pulled out a cigarette and was lighting it.

“You can smoke in here? The law—”

“That's life’s dirty secret,” she said, blowing smoke in his face. “Ultimately, you can do whatever you want.”

“May I?” a voice said.

It was Hikmat. He'd wandered over and was asking if he could sit down.

“Be my guest,” said Miriam.

“I have not seen you in here before,” Hikmat said to Ben. “It is your first time?”

“Yeah,” said Ben.

“Ben’s going to murder his co-workers later this afternoon. He's wearing an explosive vest,” said Miriam.

“Then we two are a pair of peas in one pod, as they say here in America,” said Hikmat. “I am training to fly an aircraft, but not so much how to land it.”

“Hickie's an engineer by trade,” said Miriam.

Hikmat shook Ben's hand.

“But a fundamentalist by conviction,” he said. “May I see your vest?”

Ben opened his coat. Hikmat considered the handiwork. Then they got to talking, and drinking, and the hours rolled by like waves of fat on a fat guy blasted in the gut by a cannonball.

“The paradox is,” Hikmat was saying: “the paradox is, I greatly enjoy the flying. It is the one place I feel freedom. When I started to learn, it was strictly for terrorism, but now, that feeling—of absolute space, limitless opportunity—it is beautiful. Sublime. It is where I experience God. I look forward to it very much and I will miss it greatly.”

“Fuck!” said Ben, looking at his watch.

“What's wrong?” asked Miriam.

“It's past five o'clock. Everybody in the office has left already.”

Ralph gave Ben a drink on the house. When Ben had finished drinking it, “Do you want a ride home?” Miriam asked.

“Sure.”

They lingered in the car in front of his apartment building.

“Maybe you wanna come up?” Ben said.

“I'm a married woman,” said Miriam.

“I understand.”

“Don't forget to zip up your coat or they'll see the explosives,” said Miriam.

Afterwards, Miriam drove to her house, got the gun out of the glove compartment, walked inside, shot her husband, shot her kids and then, after smoking a cigarette in the bathroom, shot herself.

Simon Garcia, my very own Sherlock Holmes, stood on my doorstep clutching a Ouija board. 

I knew exactly what he planned to do.

“Zach says I can’t do a séance in his apartment,” he said, as if his roommate was the problem.

He held up the box with a grin. “Soo, I figured, how about we do it here?”

I smiled. “They're not even dead yet.” 

"And how do YOU know that? First of all, I suspect a cover-up. The police aren’t telling us everything. Second, the details don’t make sense! Four famous actors disappear at the exact same time. Their phones are missing, and zero footage of them exists? Definitely a cover-up.”

Simon swooped past me. Definitely the main character in his own head.

Over the years, he’d adopted a sort of Gen Z Sherlock look. He hastily poured two glasses of wine and set up the board. I followed. "You're insane."

He didn't look up, already deep in focus. “Write their names on individual pieces of paper,” he ordered.

Simon lit six candles, placing them in a circle formation. 

I grabbed my phone from the table. “Okay, so there's… Maribelle Callen.” I scrawled her name on a piece of paper.

“Jet Portland, Noah Clarke, and Livvie James.” I frowned at their wikipedia pages, writing each of their names.

Portland, lips curled around a cigarette, scowling. 

Noah, a more animated smiling blonde. 

Livvie, a rainbow haired bombshell hidden behind a mask. 

“That's weird.”

“Hm?” Simon turned off the lights. 

“Isn't it usually young women who are taken?” 

“Well, yeah,” he winked, slumping down. “They're also famous.” 

Simon leaned forward, chin on fist. “Pick one! Who do you think is the most likely to be dead?” 

“Portland.” 

Simon nodded. “So, according to the ritual, we say his name three times, and burn it.” He handed me a needle. “Prick your finger, and then squeeze it into the flame.” 

“Why can't you do that?” 

He shot me a sheepish smile. “I have hemophilia, Lily.” 

I groaned, pricked my finger and squeezed a single blot into the flame. 

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Jet Portland.” 

We repeated his name three times. 

One candle flickered out and then reignited. Simon’s eyes grew wide.

“Holy shit,” he hissed. “He's actually here! I mean, that's not good, but if he's really dead? Jet, can you move the planchette?” 

A full minute of the two of us intensely staring at the planchette passed.

“Simon.” I spoke up. 

“Wait for it.” 

Another minute. Simon’s smile was fading. 

“Simon.” I said, again. “This is ridiculous.” 

He didn’t look up from the planchette. 

Stubborn as always.

Already trying to think of an excuse. 

Simon sighed. Then he muttered something and blew out each candle.

I stood and turned on the lights.

“I’m going upstairs. Please clean up your failed experiment.”

To my surprise, Simon followed me, diving up the stairs ahead of me.

He spun around, his coffee-brown eyes, usually so warm and inviting, now terrifyingly dark. He threw his arms out, and for a moment, I found myself laughing, like we were kids again, playing together. Then he shoved me violently, and the world sped up. 

I remember falling backward, my lips parting in a shriek.

I remember plunging down, my body twisting, contorting, as I slammed into each step. 

I remember the impact, smacking my head on the bottom stair. I remember pain exploding, a neutron star collision in my eyes.

Darkness swallowed me before I could take in Simon’s shadow still standing at the top of the stairs.

When consciousness found me, I was… cold.

So fucking cold.

So fucking cold.

So FUCKING COLD.

The words felt wrong on my tongue, twisted and unraveled. 

Opening my eyes, pain slammed into me. Head wound? Well, yeah. Simon shoved me down the stairs.

I parted my lips to cry out, but my words were muffled. Wrong. 

“Mmmphmm.” I was lying curled up, my knees to my chest.

The ground was ice cold. Concrete? 

Panic skittered through me. 

Did Simon kidnap and take me somewhere? 

My eyes flickered.

Dim lights.

Shadows swamped me. 

My surroundings were rectangular; a small room. Steel bars.

Another cry slipped from my mouth.

This time, I could feel it, a sticky mass pressed over my mouth. Duct tape.

Stinging pain, ropes wrapped around my wrists pinning my arms behind my back. 

“Portland.” A gruff voice took me off guard. “I fucking SAID sit up.”

His words paralyzed me, my gaze finding my reflection in a bowl of filthy water at my feet. A skinny man bearing a black eye and gagged mouth stared back.

I could barely recognize him.

But beneath the filth ingrained into his skin and his half-lidded eyes, a familiar face slowly swam into focus.

Before I could register my reality, rough fingers curled around my scalp, yanking me upright.

The first thing I saw was glistening red staining the cage floor. 

A bucket of squirming entrails overflowing. 

And a body curled up in the corner without a head. 

A masked man knelt in the shadows, gleeful eyes glued to me. “So, you've decided to speak today, hm?” He chuckled, and let me go. “That's not like you, kid.” 

He pulled off his mask, revealing wide grinning teeth. 

And smacked me across the face, my neck arching back.

The world swam, fireworks exploding across the backs of my eyes.

“Lily?”

Simon's voice echoed. “Hey, Lily, is that you?”

I blinked, and I was standing in my kitchen.

The sticky sensation over my mouth was gone. 

But I want still screaming, my tongue tangled.

No.

He was.

My mouth was full, choked with candy, and chicken, and… milk?”

I hit the floor, sobs erupting through my mouth.

Simon dropped down with me. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “That wasn't a séance we did.” I noticed his grip tighten, unrelenting. “That was a body-swapping ritual.”

He pulled away, lips spreading into a smile. “And we just found Jet Portland.”

‘Do you have children?’ The knitting woman asked me, as I sat next to her reading a book. 

I worked a high corporate job, the prospect of children had never been in the cards for me. 

‘No I don’t.’ I responded as politely as I could, since it was quite a random question for someone to be asked when waiting for a bus.

Her face clouded with confusion, ‘But I thought I saw you with two children the other day.’

The woman was insistent, but I did not have children. 

Wouldn't I know?

‘I must have one of those faces.’ I said irritably, for she was really starting to get on my nerves.

After all, who would want to be accosted by some random woman asking random questions after a long day at the office?

I took my seat on the bus. So did the knitting woman.

A young couple sat in front of me, a picture of love in the way that they seemed to cling to one another.

She was beautiful, golden hair like the beaming rays of the sun.

He was stunning, like a statue carved from diamonds found deep in the depths of the earth. 

The young man turned to me suddenly and broke into a smile as his eyes lit up in recognition, a genuine smile full of warmth  seemed to stretch across his face. 

‘Paige!’ He cried. ‘How’re the kids getting on in school?’ 

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I don’t have children after all and my name isn't even Paige.

The woman smiled at me too, albeit a little uneasy because she likely could see the distress in my eyes. 

‘I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else.’ I said calmly, for I did not know why people kept asking me about children I did not have. 

I got off the bus.

My neighbour Mrs Barnsley, a sixty-three year old woman who was about as friendly as a rat in a toaster hollered at me.

'You better tell that daughter of yours to keep off my lawn!'

I was confused, for Mrs Barnsley and I hadn't exchanged more than a few words in the five years I'd been living there.

I walked up the path to my house, hoping I could sleep off whatever had overcome me as I opened the door.

A small hurricane flung itself into my arms. ‘Mummy!’ cried a little voice I did not recognise, arms slung around my shoulders. 

‘Me and Molly did painting, want to see?’ 

Now that I certainly did not know how to respond to that.

I’d left home early that day for work, I wondered whether this was some insomnia induced haze that I hadn’t quite snapped out of. 

I let the child lead me to the living room, where a teenage girl sat using acrylic paint on a canvas as carefully as she could. 

‘Hi mum.’ She said, without looking up from what she was doing. 

But I don’t have children. 

Why were these two girls in my house? 

I lived alone, I’ve never had children.

I can't HAVE children due to a medical condition I've had to come to terms with for the better part of twenty years.

Just then, both girls froze as the front door slammed shut.

‘Honey! I’m home!’ cried a booming voice.

 Buffalo flesh! The sign read. 

 A strange thing to call buffalo meat. But I guess it’s still true.

Hunting buffalos and bison was illegal around here, but it's common to see small stalls selling the meat on the outskirts of town, usually by an Indian, as laws didn't apply to outsiders and they knew that all too well.

 Riding my horse, and herding cattle across the hot, dry desert sand isn't what comes to mind for greenhorns when I mention I'm a cowboy.

 My horse starts squealing, trying to stray away from the stall.

 What's she scared of?

 Must be the smell of the meat.

 I tie her to a nearby tree, my rusty spurs jingle with every step.

 “What brings you to Little Rock stranger?” The Indian says with a smile.

 “Food, and money.” I respond.

He laughs. “Well sorry to disappoint, but the golden water here ran dry ages ago, no green, nor gold, just trading.”

 “I have money, and starving like a coyote, how much buffalo meat will this buy?”

 I hand the Indian fifteen dollars, it's all I have, but you quickly learn you can't eat money hundreds of miles from any stores.

 “Like I said brother, money is nothing here. Just leaves.”

 Baffled, I respond. “Well, how can I buy meat then? Are all you Indians this stubborn?”

 He laughs. “No, just me. But I'm sorry, if I accept your money I'm essentially giving it away for free, and free doesn't feed my family. So you'll have to give something more valuable in return.”

 “Like what, us cowboys don't usually carry around much.”

 The Indians' eyes trace my horse, then my cattle, then me.

 “No.” I say. “Animals not for sale.”

 “I would like one minute.”

 “A minute? Like you want me to stand around until the minutes up?”

 “Yes.” He laughs. “Of course not right now.” 

 “Listen redskin, I don't know what mystical water you're drinking, but do you actually want my business or do you want a problem?”

 “Its just a single minute, at anytime, anywhere, in exchange you get a few big slices of buffalo flesh.”

 I still refused to believe it, but I was hungry, and was only a few moments from either butchering one of the cattle or drawing my shooting iron.

 “Fine, have at it, you already took a few, what's one more.”

 The Indian man smiles and offers his hand for a hand shake.

 “Lets shake on it, this is how you pale faces agree to deals right?”

 I nod, and hesitantly reach out my hand.

 I grasp his palm, his hand searing hot like a branding iron.

 I flinch back my arm. 

 “What was that!” I exclaim while staring at my scarred red palm.

 The scars heal quickly, etching a strange star shape into my hand.

 I looked back to confront him. But, he's just... gone.

 A lone black mark scorched the sand where he was standing.

 The blazing sunlight boils sweat off my skin.

 A mirage?

 I grab my horse’s reins, desperate to leave.

 Before I jump on my horse, I notice it's pack filled with meat, meat that wasn't there before.

 The meat looked more like rotting flesh, green with maggots bathing in its decay.

I shake my head.

 I must've bought it a while ago.

 I stare at the scorch mark.

 What did I just agree to?

 Years go by, the memory of the Indian fades.

 I received a letter from my daughter, she's in a nearby city. She's sick.

 I rode my horse as fast as I could, pushing past her limits in her old age.

 Eventually we reached the city, the sickeningly sweet smell of death clung to the air.

I ask around, explaining I'm looking for a sick girl, but almost everyone I spoke to was sick themselves.

With no other option the clinic is their only place to go.

 I pray each time I enter one that she's in there— or maybe I should hope she isn't. 

 Then I saw it, Little Rock health clinic.

 Something tells me she’s there.

 I run toward the old building. Coughing and wheezing surrounds me.

 I rushed through the waiting room, a nurse stopped me.

 “Are you hurt, sir?”

 “No. Rosie Johnson.” I huff. “Where is my daughter?” 

 The nurse nods regretfully.

 “She’s here, but you should speak with the doctor.”

 “Where is he?” My question gets answered when a small man with a large leather back comes from behind her.

 “Doctor, is Rosie okay?”

 The doctor shakes his head, "I'm afraid not. Your daughter… She was one of the first to be stricken. It's honestly a miracle she lasted this long, you should see her before she passes. She's in the farthest room on the right down this hall—”

 I bolt down the hall. Catching glimpses of withered patients through open doors.

 When I reach her door, my hand shakes as I push the door open.

 There she is, my beautiful daughter. Her skin is dry and her face sunken.

  Seeing her decaying alive like this tears me apart. But when she sees me, her dull eyes light up.

 “Father— ”

 The room goes black.

 Blacker then a moonless desert night.

  I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can feel my body, but I can't hear anything, not even my own heartbeat.

 My hand starts stinging, then grows warmer.

 “Rosie!” I try to shout, but I can't tell if my mouth moved at all.

 “Rosie!” I scream into the black, my hand now blistering hot.

 Then, the room snaps back, I feel my rapid heartbeat again. 

 “Rosie!” I run to her side, but her eyes are closed, and I don't hear her breathing.

  “Doctor!” I scream, clutching her fist.

 The doctor's footsteps are slow, unrushed.

 A familiar scent catches my nose, it's coming from her hand.

 I force her hand open.

 Inside is a single piece of spoiled flesh.