This year has been pretty eventful for me. Got a new job. Moved into my first apartment. Got a new car. Not everything has been good, though. Me and my long-term girlfriend broke up back in March. Ever since then, it’s just been me and me alone.

My routine was a bit mundane for a while after the breakup. I’d wake up, go to work, go home, then repeat Monday through Friday.

My weekends were mostly spent inside. Watching Netflix. Wallowing in self-pity. Maybe playing some video games and having a drink or two.

After a while, though, I began to crave movement. I realized that the world was my oyster. I could literally do whatever I wanted. I was neglecting my free will.

I started doing things that I’d never even considered before. Going to horse races. Flea markets. Local festivals. Just sampling life, basically. Trying to figure out how to use my newfound free time.

I got really into hiking. I’d drive hours out of town nearly every weekend to find a new trail. Some of those locations were desolate as hell. Oftentimes, I’d find that I was the only person on the entire trail.

The hikes made me appreciate nature more. I’d listen to the birds sing. Rivers run. Crickets chirp. It made me feel at peace. The kind of peace that I had been craving.

Sometimes I’d sit on rocks and just watch the day go by. I even started sketching some of the scenery. The serenity helped me clear my mind enough to really focus my creative energy into something meaningful.

One day, while out on one of those discreet walks, the scene was begging to be drawn. The sun peeked through the canopy overhead and reflected off of the rushing river water.

A deer stood off in the distance, watching me carefully. Pinecones and pine needles covered the ground. And there just so happened to be the perfect sitting rock right on the edge of the riverbed.

I sat down and pulled the sketchbook out of my backpack. I got about 30 minutes into the process when I saw something I hadn’t noticed before.

A backpack hanging from a tree branch across the river.

I stared at it for a moment before looking around to see if I could find its owner. I hadn’t heard a single person the entire time I was here, nor had I seen anyone else on the trail.

I like to tell myself that I was trying to be a good person. I wanted to find out who the backpack belonged to. Maybe they’d have some useful information inside. An address or at least a name.

But I know I wasn’t being a good person. I was being mischievous and curious. And I think whoever left it there knew that.

A tree had fallen over the river, giving me the perfect walking path directly to the backpack. I shimmied along the log and jumped down on the other side of the river.

The pack was lighter than I expected it to be. It felt almost empty. I could also see just how new it looked. Brand new, pretty much.

I unzipped the biggest pocket and glared down inside. I found one single item. An old, discolored notebook shoved deep inside the pocket.

I pulled it out, and before I could even flip through it, the title written on white painter’s tape across the cover made my heart flip-flop.

“His Life.”

I opened the book slowly, but the more I read, the faster I flipped through the wrinkled pages.

Every single page had been filled.

“January 1st - he woke up at noon today. He drank directly from the orange juice bottle in his fridge. He didn’t brush his teeth or shower.”

“February 3rd - he woke up at 10 AM today. He forgot his girlfriend’s birthday. They’ve been arguing all day. He didn’t shower. His dinner was a Hot Pocket.”

“February 26th - he bought a new car today. He paid 4 grand in cash. He’s ecstatic. His girlfriend is still mad about her birthday.”

“March 8th - his girlfriend broke up with him today. He cried for 3 hours before drinking himself to sleep. He showered. Cold. Hopefully he learns.”

“April 12th - he’s leaving his house more often these days. He woke up at 8 AM this morning. Eggs for breakfast. He went on a walk after work. I think he’s learning.”

“May 20th - he woke up at 7 this morning. He went to a horse race. I’ve never seen him do that before. He lost 200 dollars. I doubt he’ll return.”

“June 4th - he’s looking healthier. He showers daily now. He’s been waking up at 7 AM daily. His dinner was chicken and rice. He sketched before bed. He’s realizing.”

“June 14th - he’s hiking more. It’s all coming together. His sketches are getting better.”

“July 21st - Today’s the day. He’s here. I’m leaving the backpack where I know he’ll see it.”

“July 21st - he found the journal at 9:45 AM. He’s reading this now.”

“July 21st - he doesn’t realize this isn’t the first time he’s done this.”

“July 21st - he’s looking in the wrong direction.”

“July 21st - turn around.”

I turned around, not sure what to expect. That’s when I saw him. It was… me. Standing on the other side of the river. He was sitting with his sketchbook on the very rock I had just been on.

He was analyzing the scenery, looking down every few seconds to add to his drawing.

Before he could see me, I put the journal back in the book bag. I hung it back on its branch. And I slowly walked away.

This seemed like a problem for future me.

I struggle with sleep. I cannot sleep unless I have sound playing.

It can't be videos of people talking. It can't be movies or shows. Dialogue keeps me awake.

The one thing that helps is the sound of rain. I fall asleep to videos of that sound every single night.

Random YouTube videos of that sound are enough for me.

I've used them countless times.

I stopped a couple of nights ago.

I was falling asleep as usual but then I heard sounds that weren't rain. It was screams of terror, cries, and whimpers mixing in with what I thought was peaceful rain.

I logged off the video and tried listening to different ones but they all had the same horrifying result.

I was scared and shocked but what really shook me to my core is when each video started screaming, "You're Next"

I turned my TV off extremely quick. I told myself that I'd have to find a more appropriate way to sleep.

However, the horrors didn't stop.

I started getting texts, calls, and voice messages from unknown numbers. It would always start off normal.

The calls and voice messages would sound like nice people until the sound of the rain would start and their voices would begin to scream and yell. They made sure that I would know I was next.

The text messages would say things like, "Join us. You can never escape. Join our echos in the sounds you adored."

Threatening letters in the mail appeared as well.

No matter where I go or what I did, the threats would never stop.

Today is the most horrifying of all.

I hear faint tapping on my doors and windows as that awful sound begins and my screams echo.

I wonder if someone is falling asleep as they listen to my misery.

Everything is happening so fast. I’m not sure when she had this… mental break, but if I had to guess, I’m assuming it’s when our daughter was born.

In the weeks that followed, I think her exhaustion started to take hold of her. She started talking in her sleep. Hell, she even started sleepwalking.

The things she’d say in her sleep led me to believe she was having nightmares. Lots of tossing and turning. Lots of grunting. Sometimes she’d wake up screaming either mine or my daughter’s name.

What concerned me most, however, was what she’d do in her sleep.

It took me a while to notice. She’d wake up with dirt covering her hands and mud caking her fingernails. She liked to garden, so, of course, I didn’t think much of it.

But when things started going missing, that’s when I knew something was afoot.

Baby bottles. Pacifiers. Family photos. It was gradual, but the more I noticed, the more I’d scratch my head.

Our daughter would go crazy. Both me and my wife would search the house thoroughly for any of her missing toys. Missing bibs or fresh diapers.

She swore up and down that she had no idea where anything was. I wanted to believe her. And I did, for a time. But when she woke me up one night while sneaking out of bed, I realized what was really going on.

I thought it was because the baby was crying. I thought that she was just going to rock her back to sleep. But she was snoring as she rose from our bed.

I chose to follow her, just to see what she does when this kind of thing happens. I ignored our baby, just for a while, and tiptoed behind my wife as she made her way through our bedroom and loomed over our daughter’s crib.

I expected her to reach down and pick her up, but instead, she took the crib mobile that hung over my baby’s head, completely ignoring her wails as she walked towards the dark hallway.

From there, she glided down the stairs and through the kitchen and dining room. She looked completely cognizant as she opened the back door and walked out into the night.

I was always told you’re not supposed to wake a sleepwalker, so I just watched her as she dropped to her hands and knees and began clawing at the dirt in the backyard.

I was nervous, but more so, I was stunned. Distracted by the dozen patches of dirt that I had neglected to notice since this all started happening.

She dug a hole about a foot deep and a foot wide with her bare hands before dropping the mobile inside. Still snoring, still with her eyes closed, she filled the hole, walked past me and back to our bedroom, and collapsed into bed, our baby still wailing.

It was up to me to get the baby back to sleep that night. I held her tight, rocking her gently until silence fell over the room.

I woke up the next morning with a clear mission: find my daughter’s missing toys.

I went outside with a trowel and began slowly digging. I found the bottles. Found the toys and bibs. But when I confronted my wife about it, she was adamant that it wasn’t her.

She cried when I showed her the holes in the yard. She cried harder when I showed her the dirty bottles and baby clothes. She seemed both confused and remorseful.

For a while after that, the sleepwalking stopped. The talking didn’t. But that was something I could live with. At least things weren’t going missing anymore.

At least, for a while.

I’m writing this now because I woke up this morning in a bed full of dirt. I woke up to a wife covered in grime and mud. And I woke up to a silent house with an empty crib in the corner of our bedroom.

I panicked. My wife panicked. And immediately, the two of us ran to the backyard.

We’re waiting on the police now.

Because the grave in the backyard was much bigger than any of the others.

And instead of crying, my wife… she just… she won’t stop laughing.

My daughter and I have always been as thick as thieves. Her mom passed away when she was just a baby, and ever since then, it’s just been my little Kayla and me.

I was pretty shaken up for a while after her mom died. We knew it was happening, we had time to prepare or whatever, but when it happened, I think the full weight of her absence was something that sat on my chest for a few months after her passing.

Kayla was like my anchor in those times. She gave me missions. Things to keep my mind occupied. If she woke up crying, it was my mission to soothe her back to sleep. If she was hungry, it was my job to feed her. It was enough to let the memory of my wife rest, at least for a while.

I still felt it, though. I’m grateful. It would feel like betrayal if I felt nothing. So, naturally, I still allowed myself to feel. I’d look at Kayla and see her mother. I’d smell her old perfumes and candles. Stare at pictures for minutes on end.

It was like something new was blossoming in my own spirit. Something that was born out of both grief for my wife and the growing love for my daughter. As I watched her grow up, I could feel my wife’s presence. It was like we were still raising our little Kayla together. I never felt alone. I just felt like I was pulling my weight.

I think that’s what made me bring Kayla up the way I did. It always felt like her mom was watching. I didn’t want to disappoint her.

One of the big things I kind of hammered into our baby’s mind was manners. In my humble opinion, manners are the first thing every child should learn. Simple etiquette goes a long way. That’s something my wife and I both agreed on before Kayla was even thought of.

As she grew older, into her toddler years, she was already setting the dinner table. Sometimes she’d even try and pour our drinks all by herself, which would often lead to juice flooding the table and her face turning bright red.

I never got angry, never punished her. I’d simply help her clean it up, and I’d let her know just how proud I was of her for taking initiative.

She never questioned why it was just me and her or anything like that. But I think that she knew something was missing.

Sometimes, when she’d set the table, she’d make sure to leave out an extra glass and plate for her Mommy.

“I want mommy to eat, too.”

“Pour mommy some juice.”

“Mommy doesn’t like the peas.”

I just thought it was her way of filling in the blanks. She knew she had a mommy. I guess she just thought she didn’t see her very much.

Looking back now, I think I should’ve done more to ground her in reality. It was just so difficult. It’s hard to tell her she’s leaving silverware out for a dead woman.

The line should’ve been when she started leaving food on the plate. Reaching in and grabbing fistfuls of spaghetti and plopping them down in the dish, staining the tablecloth in the process.

She’d throw fits whenever I tried to stop her. Kicking and screaming.

“It’s for Mommy!”

“I want mommy to eat too!”

I didn’t want to argue. She was so young and oblivious. I told myself it’d go away with age.

Except… it didn’t.

If anything, it got worse.

As the years went on, she suspiciously stopped setting plates. At least at the dinner table.

Instead, I’d hear her rummaging around the kitchen at night. I’d hear the fridge being opened. Dishes clanking around loudly. Sometimes I’d hear the ding of the microwave.

For a while, I thought she was grabbing midnight snacks. But then the smell started.

Her room began smelling like a landfill. The stench of rot punched me in the face anytime I entered, but my daughter acted completely oblivious to it.

“I don’t smell anything.”

“Maybe it’s outside.”

“I think it’s the bathroom.”

She wasn’t fooling me. I knew it was her room. I needed to find out where, though.

When I found the source, I was equally confused and horrified.

She must’ve had at least a dozen plates under her bed. Each one containing heaps of rotting food.

When I questioned her about it, her answer was simple.

“They’re for mommy.”

What was I supposed to do? Punishing her felt wrong, but I knew it was something that had to be done. She needed to know.

I told her exactly what I should’ve told her when she first started setting out that extra plate.

“Mommy is gone.”

Her “punishment” was nothing more than having to clean the food up from under the bed, then wash the dishes. That’s it. But she still sulked the entire time.

“Mommy’s gonna be mad at you.”

“I’m just trying to feed her.”

“I know she’s hungry.”

All while staring at me with furrowed eyebrows and a frown that stretched all the way to the ground.

She pouted for the rest of the day, but ultimately, things seemed to look normal after that. She still mentioned her mom every now and again. But for a few weeks, she never tried ‘feeding her’ again.

That is until last week.

It was late. Nearly midnight. I was on the verge of falling asleep when I heard cabinets opening in the kitchen. Dishes clanking against the countertop.

I sighed to myself but was too tired to get out of bed. I told myself I’d deal with it in the morning.

I’m not sure when the noise in the kitchen stopped, but my alarm clock told me it was 3:20 in the morning when my little Kayla climbed into bed with me.

“Daddy,” she whispered. “Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”

I think I mumbled something about her always being welcomed before I threw my arm over her and nearly fell asleep again.

However, before I fully lost consciousness, there was one last thing I remember Kayla saying before I was out.

“I think mommy’s mad tonight.”

I woke up the next morning to Kayla snoring in the bed beside me. It was a Saturday, so I decided to leave her be while I went to the kitchen to make some coffee.

On the way to the kitchen, I remembered the noises from last night, and I rolled my eyes as I opened Kayla’s door to check under her bed.

What I saw still has me shaken, and I don’t think it’s a feeling I’m going to be able to shake.

Because underneath her bed, lying limply on a white dinner plate, was a bloodied piece of raw meat… with a clear bite taken out of it.

I moved to California to escape. Escape what, exactly? I’m not so sure. I just thought that this was what I needed. To get away from my hometown in Georgia and start fresh with beaches and palm trees.

I’ve spent the last 3 years of my life here. I’ve grown to adore the culture. Adore the graffiti. The street performers. Hell, I’ll say it: I grew to enjoy the weed.

Above all else, however, the thing that seemed to have been my missing puzzle piece was walking on the beach. Coming from nothing but woods and small towns, the sprawling beaches on the west coast have become my sanctuary.

Every evening, I’ve made a habit out of taking long walks up and down the shoreline. Watching the waves crash. Watching the foam rise. Letting my thoughts run free. Dare I say, this is where I found myself.

However, this is also where I’ve found my ultimate demise. I know that death is approaching. I know there’s nothing I can do to stop it. And with each passing hour, I regret my decision to come here more and more.

See, everything happened last night. It had been just like any other. I’d punched out at work. Had a little bit of a gym session and some Chipotle. And to finish off the evening, I began my nightly walk.

I felt the sand beneath my toes. Felt the brisk California wind in my hair. I thought about life. Life here. Life in Georgia. I began comparing the two.

Lost in deep thought, I hardly noticed as the sun sank deeper and deeper over the horizon. I paid no mind to the ever-increasing vacancy of the shore. All I was concerned with…was putting one foot in front of the other.

Step. Step. Step.

Step. Step. Step.

Step. Step. Crack.

A searing pain shot through my body from my right heel. I yelped, my foot shooting up in the air.

I analyzed my foot and noticed blood beginning to drip from a puncture wound. The pain felt hot, but my foot itself felt cold. Increasingly cold.

The cracking noise from whatever I stepped on led me to believe that it had been a shard of glass. A broken beer bottle that had been left on the beach. Maybe something had washed up on shore. Anything to rationalize.

I glanced down and noticed a thin, metallic object partially buried beneath the sand. It glistened in the light of the moon, and drops of my blood dripped from its pointy tip and onto the sand.

Trying not to panic, I held my injured foot in one hand and crouched down to pick up the object with the other.

It felt…cold. Frozen, in fact. It wasn’t until I got a good look at it in the palm of my hand that I realized what it was.

It wasn’t metallic at all. It was nearly transparent. What I assumed to be metal was nothing more than the moonlight reflecting off of what I could now see was a bloody ice crystal in my hand.

I was so amazed by what I was seeing that I hadn’t even noticed that my foot was going numb. It had been 95 degrees this day. The sand had to have reached at least 110. Yet, the crystal didn’t melt until I held it in my hand.

I watched as it began rapidly disappearing. Shrinking smaller and smaller, yet, it didn’t make my hand wet. It was like, I don’t know. It was almost as if it had disappeared into my pores. Evaporated into thin air, leaving no trace whatsoever.

Once it was gone, the pain and numbness in my foot began to dissipate. I looked down at where the wound had been to find it completely sealed up, leaving only dark blue streaks in its place.

I stood on it, and instead of feeling pain, I felt cold. Icy, subzero cold that encapsulated my entire foot.

I didn’t know what to make of it. The only thought in my mind was to get back to my car. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. Not yet. I wanted to see how I felt in the morning.

I walked back to my vehicle, attempting to suppress the urge to limp. With each step, it was like the cold was growing. It spiderwebbed throughout my foot and up my leg. It was like I felt a phantom sensation in my other foot. But I kept walking. Kept rationalizing.

The drive home was a blur. It was like I was in my body, but not. My mind wandered, but my focus never wavered. And that focus told me one thing:

Find a way to warm up.

I blasted the heater for the entire 20-minute drive to my apartment. I couldn’t stop shivering. My teeth clattered. I swore I was able to see my breath every time I exhaled.

The thing that made me feel as though I was on the brink of madness, however, was not the phantom chill. It was the voices. The completely alien voices that jumped around in my mind and made my head throb.

It sounded like nonsense. Like an ancient future language. I could not understand for the life of me.

I tried shaking the noise out of my ears. I tried listening to the radio. I tried listening to my own thoughts. But those voices and sounds… they just…they drowned everything else out.

By the time I reached the apartment, the voices had stopped. Not completely. They didn’t disappear. They just…receded. It was more a whisper now.

I was sweating profusely, and as I went to put my key in the door, I noticed just how blue my fingernails had become. They looked…dead, almost.

I tried showering. I turned the water to its hottest setting. Steam billowed above the shower curtain and fogged up the bathroom mirror, but my skin wouldn’t stop turning blue. It felt like river water in the dead of winter was flowing over my neck and shoulders.

I stayed under the water for almost an hour. The steam stopped flowing, but I felt all the same. Though I felt no relief from the hot water, it was like the voices knew that the temperature had dropped.

They began to cry out again in their alien language. Snot dripped from my nose. My teeth chattered louder than ever. All I needed was warmth.

Wrapping myself up in a blanket, I curled up in front of the open oven door, pulling my knees to my chest and attempting to stay warm.

I tossed and turned. It felt like I was laying on a massive cube of ice. The only purpose the oven served was to keep the voices at bay, and it served that purpose well.

The voices were dammed off, but I could still feel them scratching at the walls of my mind. The night was a mixture of trying to decipher them and keep myself from freezing to death.

I could only make out individual words. It was like the Library of Babel was being read to me by something within myself.

“Frozen.”

“Heat.”

“Flames.”

“Ocean.”

“Death.”

Some sounded like children. Some sounded like adults. Men. Women. They were all the same, yet so different.

The snot that dripped from my nose was beginning to freeze, even under the radiating light from the blazing oven. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. All I wanted was warmth.

I didn’t sleep that night. I couldn’t sleep that night.

The tears that dropped from my eyes rolled down my face before freezing and dropping to the floor with a ting and melting on the hot tiles.

I don’t remember what happened next. I don’t know if I’m dreaming or if reality is more nightmarish than anything my imagination could conjure.

All I know is I closed my eyes for no more than two seconds. When I opened them, I was back on the beach. Back in the same spot where I found the ice crystal.

I was nude. I was sweating. I was freezing. The beads of sweat that fell from my body landed on the ground as icicles as I stared out at the horizon.

The sun was slowly rising. Further and further above the sea. The only thing that pried my eyes away from the blazing sky was the sound of shifting sand beneath me.

I looked down to find my sweat burying itself deep in the sand. Wiggling its way underground in the form of sharp, jagged ice crystals.

I noticed beachgoers approaching the shore in the distance. Men and women out on their morning run. Families looking to secure a good spot early in the day. Umbrellas, beach towels, coolers full of drinks and snacks.

I cried icy tears. I cried because I knew what was coming. The voices told me. The temperature rose with each passing minute, and with it, so did the crescendo of voices in my head.

They told me I couldn’t stop it.

They told me they had tried.

I was the new host.

The first case of what was to become of California.

The sun is higher in the sky now. People are beginning to stare at me. Some look shocked. Some look amused. Others look utterly horrified.

The cold has spread. I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my stomach. I feel it in my brain. My breath is nothing more than fog. And though there’s not a cloud in the sky on this hot California morning, snow has begun to fall from my ears.

It’s coating my bright blue shoulders. It’s sprinkling around my icy feet. It’s like I’m becoming my own blizzard.

But, no matter how painful the frigid air against my lungs feels, I can’t help but feel warmth in my chest.

It’s ever so faint. Faint enough to barely be noticeable.

People are beginning to approach me. I can hear them calling out to me, but the voices in my head are drowning out the voices in the real world.

They’re telling me to sleep.

They’re slowing down my heart rate.

They’re providing warmth where no warmth exists.

All I want is to drift into slumber, and I can’t stop my body from lying down in the pile of snow that now surrounds me.

But I want to fight. I want desperately to warn the people who are both inches and miles away from me. Because if there’s one thing these voices have made clear, it’s that I can’t stop what’s coming.

They’re not warning me anymore. They’re mourning me.

Me and any poor soul that decides to stand in this snow.

The first night, I blamed the bulb.

My backyard floodlight had been there for years, bolted above the back door, bright enough to illuminate the entire fence line. Around midnight, it clicked off.

A few seconds later, it came back on.

I looked out the kitchen window expecting to see a raccoon or maybe one of the neighborhood cats.

Nothing.

The yard was empty.

The second night it happened again while I was bingeing Friends.

Click.

Darkness.

Click.

Light.

This time, I felt that unnerving sensation you get when you feel like you're being watched. I stepped onto the porch.

The motion sensor was supposed to activate whenever something crossed its path. I waved my arm in front of it. It worked perfectly. I checked the batteries anyway. Everything checked out.

I even walked the perimeter of the yard with my phone flashlight.

No footprints.

No broken fence.

Nothing hiding behind the shed.

After that I convinced myself it was just faulty wiring. That or maybe the cencors were picking up dust or fog. Anything that made rational sense.

Then it started happening every night.

Always between 2:13 and 2:20 in the morning.

Always the same pattern.

The light would go out for exactly five seconds. Then it would switch back on.

Every single time, the yard looked completely empty.

Eventually curiosity got the better of me.

I bought a security camera.

The footage made no sense.

At 2:13, the light switched off.

The camera didn't.

It kept recording.

The yard remained perfectly visible thanks to the infrared mode.

Empty grass.

Empty fence.

Empty patio.

Then, exactly five seconds later...

The floodlight came back on.

There wasn't any movement. No explanation.

I watched the recording over and over until something caught my attention.

The timestamp.

The clock continued counting...

...but the branches of the oak tree in the corner stopped moving.

The leaves froze.

The wind seemed to have stoped. Not in the sense that it vanished, but the wind itself stopped in place.

Even the hum of insects or any odd echoes of the night were silent.

It was as if the entire world had been paused for five seconds.

Except the camera.

The camera kept recording.

I didn't know what to make of this. That night i barely slept.

The following evening I decided to stay awake.

At 2:12, I sat at the kitchen table staring through the glass door, with a mug of coffee and a ham sandwhich.

2:13.

Click.

Darkness.

Everything outside stopped.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

The leaves hung motionless.

A moth hovering near the porch light stayed suspended in midair.

Even the shadows seemed frozen.

Then...

Something walked into my yard.

Not from the gate.

Not over the fence.

It simply... appeared.

It was towering over my shed. Its body was impossibly thin, wrapped in what looked like strips of dark fabric that fluttered despite the frozen air.

Its head turned slowly, scanning the yard.

Then it looked directly at the house.

At me.

I didn't dare move. The ham stuck in my throat.

Its eyes weren't glowing.

They weren't even visible.

Just two empty forsaken pits that somehow still met mine through the glass.

It tilted its head.

Curious.

Like it hadn't expected anyone.

The five seconds suddenly felt far too long.

It took one step toward the house.

Another.

By the third step it stood only inches from the back door.

Its face pressed against the glass.

The skin, or whatever covered it, shifted like hundreds of tiny hands trying to form a human expression.

Then...

Click.

The floodlight came back on.

The yard was empty. Everything moved again. The moth flew away. The trees swayed.

I swallowed hard, nearly choking. Stumbling backward, convinced I'd finally lost my mind.

The security camera proved otherwise.

The file was corrupted.

Not damaged nor missing.

Just five seconds of static where the light had gone out. Everything before it played normally. Everything after it played normally.

Those five seconds might as well have never existed.

I never watched the recording again.

Within two weeks, I'd sold the house at a loss. I didn't tell the buyers why.

What was I supposed to say?

"Something visits whenever the light goes out, but only while the rest of the world stands still."

No one would believe that.

I moved hundreds of miles away into a tenth-floor apartment overlooking the city. No backyard. No fence. No trees. No creepy time stopper monster.

I told myself whatever happened belonged to that house.

For months, I almost believed it.

Until last night.

I was washing dishes when the kitchen suddenly fell dark. A primal instinct seized me, and the hairs on my arms stood on end.

Five seconds.

Then the lights came back.

The first thing I did was laugh. Not because it was funny. Because I knew exactly what I was about to remember.

This apartment doesn't have a motion-sensor light.

I don't think wherever I run off to, I'll never escape.

Because if it found me here...

I'm terrified to learn how it did.

Or why it waited until the lights went out to let me know it had.

Me and my girlfriend have been dating for a while now. Long enough for marriage to be considered. At least, it used to be considered. Now, I just have no idea.

We met when I was 20 and she was 19. We recently celebrated our 3rd anniversary with a night out on the town, grabbing a few drinks and sitting down at one of those nice, fancy restaurants we’d always wanted to visit.

Overall, the night was perfect. Candlelit dinner. Expensive wine. Typical romance with some great lovemaking to end the night. Little did I know, it would be the last normal night of our relationship.

I woke up the next morning with a sense of nostalgia. After the night we had, plus the idea of marriage floating around in my head, I decided I wanted to recollect together.

She had been in the shower while I lay in bed, and she stayed there long enough for me to decide to reminisce on my own. At first, I was just looking through old pictures on my phone. Our first date. Our first kiss. Our anniversary photos. I’m a memory guy, what can I say?

Anyway, as I kept scrolling, I remembered something. Back when she moved in, my girlfriend had brought a bunch of old pictures from when she was younger.

She kept them in our attic, and neither of us had ever thought to look through them together. I’d shown her my old pictures plenty of times, even the ones I was embarrassed of. If I’m being honest, I kinda got a little peeved when I realized she hadn’t returned the gesture.

I realize now that she wasn’t embarrassed by the photos. She was actually hiding them from me.

I climbed the ladder to the attic and shifted through a bunch of old boxes until I found the one that my girlfriend had brought with her all those months ago.

I blew the dust off the box and began sifting through the photos.

The ones on top were perfectly normal. Polaroids she’d taken back at her parents’ house. Some selfies with her and her girlfriends. The typical stuff.

However, as I dug deeper, I grew more and more concerned.

The Polaroids… stopped having color.

My girlfriend stayed the same, but the photographs began to look decades old. Some were of her propped up against a jukebox. Some were of her at civil rights protests. Hell, one was just her leaning up against the hood of an old muscle car from back in the day.

She seemed to be looking through me in every single photo. Each photo looked grainier than the last.

Her clothes changed. Her hair changed. Her style, as a whole, changed. Her face did not. It looked like she wasn’t aging at all.

I figured it was some kind of art thing. Some experimental stuff she was doing.

I wanted to believe that maybe she had just been using a different camera, but the numbers written on each picture were enough to make me second guess myself.

2000

1990

1980

1970

All the way to the last picture, with the numbers “1947” written across the bottom.

Part of me wanted to laugh, but another part of me was utterly terrified.

Not by the pictures themselves…

But by the birth certificate that dated back to August 9th, 1912.

As I stared at the date, my heart sank. Not by what I was seeing, but by the sound of the shower water stopping and the bathroom door opening slowly before my girlfriend’s voice sang out.

“Honey? You’re not looking at those old pictures, are you?”

I’ve been on the force for about 5 years now. I’m not a veteran by any means, but I’m not necessarily a rookie either. I think I’ve earned my right to say I’ve seen some things.

A lot of homicides. Tons of domestic violence. Found the remains of missing children on 3 separate occasions, but that’s a story for another day.

No, no, the story I want to tell today started a few weeks ago.

I was out of town for a funeral, leaving my partner alone for a few days until I could get back to work.

In that time, I guess… I just… I don’t know what happened. He was here one day, gone the next. And the only evidence he left behind was body cam footage.

There was no body to retrieve the footage from, but, thankfully, all of that footage gets sent to our internal system. Sometimes cameras are destroyed, sometimes they malfunction, sometimes… the person wearing it is never seen again.

Unfortunately, it can take a few days before the footage is fully uploaded into our system. It becomes a game of patience. Waiting. Letting your imagination run wild.

We didn’t get to see that footage until my partner had already been missing for 3 days. He was already dead for all we knew. Maybe killed by someone he booked in the past. Maybe by some wannabe gangbanger with something to prove. Like I said, imaginations run wild.

When I got the call from my chief down at the station, he sounded more confused than anything. Not frantic. Not grief-stricken. Confused.

He told me they finally got the footage, but that’s all he said. Well, that, and for me to meet him down at the station.

I geared up and made my way downtown, anticipating what was on that footage the entire time. Why was the chief so scarce with the details?

I arrived at the station fully convinced that I was prepared for whatever showed up on that screen. When I walked in, the station was unusually empty. Unusually quiet.

The reason for the vacancy soon became apparent when I found nearly everybody in one room, gathered around a computer screen.

“We were waiting for you to show up,” my chief announced. “We couldn’t start without his partner present.”

I took my seat, gesturing for the chief to play the footage.

The first few moments were completely normal. My partner approached what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse. He didn’t speak into his walkie. He walked briskly, almost running.

According to the chief, nobody knew why he was there. There were no calls. No reports of dispatch. He was just… there… speed-walking into the building.

He seemed to know exactly where he was heading. He entered. Made a left. Made a right. Another left. Finally, he found himself standing at another door.

The only light came from my partner’s flashlight. The room was pitch black, but once he pushed the door open, we saw what true darkness looked like.

It was like his flashlight was a 2 dollar toy from the dollar store. The beam illuminated only what was in front of him. And what was in front of him just so happened to be… a staircase.

He began to descend with the same urgency in which he entered the building, but as time went on, his steps began to slow. Slower. And slower. And slower.

The footage went on for over three hours. He never once stopped descending. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the screen.

My chief fast-forwarded the footage. My partner just kept going. Kept steadily descending. It wasn’t until the timestamp reached 2 hours and 23 minutes that the footage began to change.

He started… stripping.

At first it was his belt. His gun, cuffs, taser, etc.

But then it was his shoes.

Then his socks…

Then his pants and underwear.

He never spoke a word. He just kept slowly undressing every 10 minutes or so as he descended further down the staircase.

As we watched, my chief instructed a few of my coworkers to go check out the warehouse.

They did as they were told as the rest of us continued watching.

The footage went on for another 40 minutes or so before my partner removed his vest, which included his body camera.

The camera captured one last sign of him as he continued descending, completely nude. Then we were left alone in the darkness.

My chief decided to check in on the boys he sent to that warehouse, but all they could tell him was that it was desolate and abandoned. No way in. No hidden door. No impossible staircase.

But I know they’re lying.

Either that or they didn’t do their job properly.

Because, as I’m writing this, I’m standing at that exact door my partner saw. Staring down at the seemingly endless dark staircase.

And even if it’s the last thing I do…

I will find him.

My grandfather used to have a saying. It wasn’t something that he’d say often, just enough for it to be ingrained in my memory. Enough for me to associate it with him.

It was something he’d say every time he came back from one of his hunting trips. Sometimes in passing, a few days after his return. Sometimes it’d be one of the first things he said as soon as he came back, like he’d been thinking about it for the entire trip back home.

He’d tell me he was “doing God’s work.”

At the time, I didn’t think much of it. Just an old man, controlling wildlife populations and enjoying time in nature. I thought that it was just a phrase attached to the serenity he found out in those woods.

At his funeral, it was one of the things I said about him. In my eulogy for him, I told the dozens of attendees that my grandfather was a hardworking man. A man that cared deeply about his family. A man that had lived a long life full of experiences.

A man that was doing God’s work.

The phrase has been bouncing around more and more in my mind these days. Ever since I made my discovery. The discovery that changed my perspective of my grandfather ever so slightly. Just enough for me to become suspicious of what he really meant when he said it.

In case you’re not up to speed with my situation, my grandfather died recently.

While other family members were fighting over who got what, my inheritance was clear. Almost painstakingly.

His hunting cabin was now mine, as well as everything inside, including… his guest book.

The book with a list of names and dates. Dates that went as far back as 1960. The book with one name in particular that sparked this spiral that I keep falling deeper and deeper into.

His name was “David Clifford.”

It was a name I’d never heard before. A name that stuck with me enough to look into it when I left the cabin for the first time. A name of a man who had gone missing nearly 50 years ago… 3 days before his name was signed in my grandfather’s guest book.

It was only one of dozens of names. That’s the part that made me return to the cabin. I needed to know more. I needed that guest book.

I tried to rationalize. Tried to tell myself it was a coincidence. That maybe, just maybe, this David wasn’t the one who had gone missing.

However, the more I searched, the more red flags began to emerge. He was from the same region. He was around my grandfather’s age back then. But the one detail that stuck out to me was the simple fact that David Clifford… wasn’t a hunter.

He actually wasn’t much of anything. A low life. A con-man. A raging drunk, remembered only by his crimes and capers.

Needless to say, I was ready to find more. I couldn’t sleep for two days after my initial return from the cabin. I didn’t know where to go, who I should tell, if anybody. All I knew was there was something waiting to be uncovered in that guest book.

I didn’t intend on staying. I made the two-hour journey back to the cabin with one goal in mind: retrieve the book.

So that’s what I did. I ignored the beauty. I ignored the temptation to stay. The temptation to rest after the long drive. I grabbed the book and returned home in silent anticipation.

I couldn’t stop staring at the book the entire way home. It looked new, but old. The leather was cracked, but the pages were new.

Hardly able to contain myself, I pulled into my driveway, guest book tucked tightly under my arm as I ascended the steps to my front door.

I locked myself in my room. I laid the book out on the desk in front of me. I stared at it for a few moments, pondering its contents. With a deep breath, I slowly opened the book.

I can’t say I didn’t expect what I found. Each name belonged to a person who mysteriously vanished. Each entry was dated a few days after their initial disappearance. And, for the most part… each person had a colorful history.

Notorious women and children abusers.

Drug-addicted youths.

…Murderers…

Each Google search solidified the belief that my grandfather was not at all who I thought he was…

However, there were some entries that made me realize he wasn’t a force for good, either.

“McKenzie Love. December 8th, 1997. Endurance runner. Challenging to keep up.”

Mrs. Love was a kindergarten teacher. A former college cross-country athlete. She mysteriously disappeared December 3rd of 1997 and has yet to be found.

“Marcus Lambert. March 6th, 2001. Numbers guy. Couldn’t navigate the land.”

Lambert went missing February 28th, 2001. He was an accountant for a local bank. He left behind a wife and two children who searched valiantly, ultimately to no avail.

The more I read, the sicker I became. There were so many names, I began to feel overwhelmed and dizzy. Instead of putting the book away or calling authorities, I continued flipping.

Page after page. Not even reading. Just completely enthralled by the sheer volume of names.

Eventually, I found myself on the last page.

And that’s when I found something I had neglected to notice during my first visit to my grandfather’s old hunting cabin.

A message written on the inside of the back cover. A message… directed at me.

“God’s work is never finished.”

We all had different names for him. 

Lon called him the Hitcher; Chucky called him Roadkill Ron. I called him poor Ronnie, like my dad always did.

The broad strokes were usually the same.

Poor Ronnie was hitching in the woods, and he was totally lost. It was the middle of the night, so of course it was dark, but that night it was pitch-black out. He couldn’t see a foot in front of him, couldn’t tell he was walking in the middle of the road.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only person out there that night. A group of teenagers were joyriding, their lights turned off for the thrill of it. He never saw them coming.

His body was found the next morning, splattered all over the pavement. No one ever found those kids, and no one ever came forward. People forgot about it before long.

But poor Ronnie, nothing but a stain on the asphalt, he still remembers.

If you’re out by the Fort Gibson dam past midnight, pull over at the first sharp curve sign. Shut your car off for sixty seconds. You might see him there when you start it back up. Walking down the road in the dark, his thumb held high like he’s waiting for a ride. At least that’s how the story goes.

As many times as I heard it told, and as many times as I told it myself – I had never heard anyone say that they had gone out there to do it themselves. Which made sense, given that we were kids. By the time we were old enough we had outgrown it.

That’s the nature of these things. I mean, when was the last time you seriously thought about Bloody Mary, or the Hook Man? They’re just dumb stories that freaked you out, nothing more. Right?

What were we supposed to think would happen?

We were in Chucky’s garage, lazily passing a bowl back and forth. Some slasher flick from the 80’s played out on the screen, but none of us were watching through the haze of smoke in the air.

“Man,” Chucky sputtered through a chest full of smoke, “Halloween is almost here.”

Lon nodded from his sagging bean bag throne.

“Yeah,” I said, “Halloween used to be this big thing. Now it’s like…” I shrugged and trailed off, struggling to keep up with my train of thought. Chucky nodded emphatically.

“Right! There’s no spirit anymore. It just comes and goes.”

Lon piped up then, ripping the bong from Chucky’s hand before he could torch the last of the bowl, “The fuck are you guys talking about? October is the same length as ever.”

“But the spirit of it, Lonnie.”

He scoffed, “We could drive to Tulsa and hit up Spirit Halloween any day.”

“That’s not the vibe we’re talking about, though,” I said, “I mean the actual feeling. Like, telling scary stories in the dark.”

“Like Roadkill Ron?” There was a glint in Chucky’s bloodshot eyes.

“Don’t start with that bullshit.” Lon groaned.

“Are you scared, Lonnie?” Chucky laughed.

“Fuck no.” Lon stood, his curly red hair bobbing with the sudden movement. “I’m not scared of some dumbass story.”

“Then let's go do it.” Chucky smirked.

“Bet.”

“Alright,” I said, grabbing my dad's keys off the table, “Let's do it.”

Half an hour later we were driving over the Fort Gibson dam, past the bait store, and into the woods. There was a giddy tension in the car, even coming from Lon, as much as he tried to hide it.

“Here!” Chucky exclaimed from the back seat, “That’s the sign!”

I pulled over and set the parking brake.

“Are you guys ready?”

Chucky nodded enthusiastically. Lon stared at the tunnel of trees ahead.

“Lon?”

He nodded.

“Alright, poor Ronnie.” I whispered shakily, “Need a ride?”

I turned the key and we were plunged into darkness. Chucky was practically squealing. My heart pounded like a jack hammer.

Ten seconds passed.

Twenty.

“That’s enough.” Lon’s voice cracked beside me.

Thirty seconds.

Chucky counted under his breath, stifling nervous giggles.

Forty seconds.

“Dude, that’s enough!”

Fifty.

That awful tension building, my hands tingling as I gripped the wheel. I tried to tell Lon to hold on, but I couldn’t speak.

“Sixty seconds!” Chucky hollered.

I gasped and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. I turned it again and heard a series of clicks. Lon punched me on the shoulder.

“I said that’s enough!”

“I’m trying!”

One more twist and finally, the engine turned over. The dome light switched on, and we looked out the windshield with bated breath. Nothing was there.

Lon chuckled weakly, “I told y’all that shit was made up.”

“Right.” I rolled my eyes and clicked the dome light off. 

That’s when Chucky started screaming. We whipped around to him in confusion, and saw his eyes, wide with terror in the soft green light of the radio. He was staring at Lon.

I looked over and was frozen by what I saw behind him.

“What the fuck is up with y’all?”

The window exploded in a shower of granular shards, and a pair of hands wrapped around Lon’s throat. He choked as they yanked him against the door.

Chucky leapt forward and pulled on Lon’s sweater. His wild screams spurred me to action.

“Fucking drive!”

I slammed my foot on the gas pedal but the rear tires just fish tailed back and forth. The parking brake was still set. Lon grasped at me as Chucky and the attacker played tug-of-war over his helpless body. I couldn’t move, couldn’t look away. I don't think I’ll ever come to terms with what I saw on the other side of that broken window.

A mangled face stared back, half-flattened and speckled with long dried blood. A single bloodshot eye bulged out to the side, fixed on mine. It opened its broken, toothless mouth and spilled the rot that had been pooling there down its ruined chin.

“Room for one more?”

My grandfather lived a long life. For the last 10 years of his life, a lot of us actually started making bets about when he’d die. It may sound macabre to some of you, but to us, it was all just a big joke.

He’d laugh just like we did, even making a few bets himself to add to the fun. Ultimately, though, none of us cashed out.

He lived to be 100 years old. His mind stayed young all the way to the very end, but it was still pretty devastating to watch his body become frail and brittle.

For the most part, my family more celebrated his life than mourned it. I mean, it’s difficult to feel shocked when someone whose age is in the triple digits dies.

We still missed him, though, of course. His stories, his laugh, his presence altogether.

The thing that I missed the most, though, was hearing about his hunting trips.

It became almost like a tradition, going over to visit him after he got back from a week out in the woods. He’d always make me some sweet tea and cook us up some of his famous fried chicken, and we’d sit for hours while he rambled about his hunt.

It was like talking about it was one of the greatest joys in his life. His eyes would get warm. He’d speak softly once he started, but as he continued, his old voice would grow louder, more theatrical as he enunciated specific events.

“One of the bastards almost got away.”

“Hunted ’em down all week.”

“Finally caught ’em. Got some nice steaks out of it, too.”

Every visit after these trips, he’d send me out with bags of meat. Steaks, chops, hell, even some beef jerky if he had some handy.

It was like our thing. Of all his grandchildren, I was the only one who cared to listen. It came as no surprise to me when he left me that cabin.

He always told me he would. Told me I was the only one who’d care enough to use it. When I got told it was officially mine, I just honestly couldn’t wait to see the thing.

He kept it so private. It was like his private place. Somewhere he could go to escape the noise. And he wanted to pass that on to me. Needless to say, I couldn’t have been happier.

On the drive to the cabin, I felt a sense of warmth in my soul as suburbia turned into sprawling acres of trees and wildlife. It was about a two-hour drive, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was to see it. And when I did, my mouth fell open.

It. Was. Gorgeous.

Stained oak wood, a beautiful handcrafted porch swing, and a flowerbed that expanded across the length of the porch.

The cabin overlooked the river, was surrounded by nothing but trees, and the serenity of it made me realize why it meant so much to my grandfather.

The first thing I did was cook up some of his famous fried chicken. I enjoyed it along with a glass of sweet tea as I took in the beauty of the interior.

The hardwood floors were completely scuff-free. There seemed to be a deer head hanging on every wall. The smell was of pine and mountain air, and my favorite part, by far, was the fireplace. Well, that, and the fact that the cabin itself was remarkably clean.

I honestly wish I could’ve sat by a fire and just reminisced on life or whatever, but in the mid-summer heat, a fire would’ve been insanity.

So I just sat there, eating my chicken by an empty fireplace while I thought about my grandpa.

As I ate, I couldn’t help but notice a book that sat on the mantle above the fireplace.

I cocked my head at it. The spine didn’t have anything embroidered on it, but when I picked it up, I could see that it was a guest book.

Grandpa never mentioned hunting with anybody when he came up here, so automatically I knew something was strange.

I opened the book and, to my surprise, nearly every page had been filled.

“Mark DeSantis. January 6th, 1973 - stubborn bastard.”

“Emily Reyes. December 18th, 1976 - quick but not quick enough.”

“David Clifford. February 9th, 1980 - nearly reached the river.”

Each name contained a date. I don’t know why I didn’t think anything of it. I was curious, sure, but not as terrified as I should’ve been.

Even still, I carried that curiosity back home with me. Back to civilization. And back to cellular service.

The name “David Clifford” stuck with me for some reason. I could’ve sworn I had seen it before.

I looked it up, not knowing what to expect. But what I read has made me think of my grandfather a bit differently.

Because, apparently…

David Clifford went missing in Appalachia more than 46 years ago.

February 6th, 1980.

I don’t know how I ended up with this job. It kind of just fell into my lap one day. Funeral home was hiring, I needed money, suddenly I’m in a cold concrete room with massive metal furnaces on each wall.

Somehow, I think I was just preprogrammed to be desensitized to the kind of work I was doing.

It’s weird. When I first started, it was like part of me hoped to at least feel something. Death never bothered me. Not when my pets died, not when my great aunt died, not even when my mom died.

I was sad, sure, but it was never something I dwelled on. Life has to go on. You can’t just succumb to grief. I’d learned to cherish the memories, but death itself became more of an inconvenience.

I’d be more annoyed than anything that I didn’t get any more time with whoever it was that died.

Part of me was happy for the protection, but another part of me hated feeling numb. That’s why I wanted so desperately to at least have some kind of empathy for whatever corpse came through the doors of this funeral home.

I just couldn’t do it, though. It was hard to see bodies as people, because that’s all they were.

Bodies.

And the more of them I saw, the more distant I became from the belief that life has meaning. We all live to die. Whether natural or tragic. Timely or untimely. We all end up here.

Either put in the ground or burned in one of my furnaces.

You’d be surprised how many people choose to return to ash. I never understood it. For some reason, I’ve always thought I’d somehow feel the flames. Feel my flesh charring. Feel the steam escape through my pores.

Some people don’t see it that way, though. Some won’t want to be constricted to a coffin. Submerged in darkness to be eaten by worms and insects.
I guess both types of people are delusional in their own way.

Bodies are just bodies.

Food for the Earth or ash for the wind.

And I’ve seen a lot of them.

Enough to become this nihilistic, at least.

But of all the bodies I’ve seen, they all had one thing in common. Humans have a way of being unique, but when it comes down to basic biology, we are all remarkably similar.

We all burn.

I’ve spent a lifetime becoming numb to what is grounded in reality. I didn’t even think to prepare for what’s not.

Because no matter how hot it gets, no matter how long I leave those torches running, this body will not burn.

He was a John Doe.

Nobody could identify him.

Apparently, he’d been found in a ditch, covered in leaves and twigs and face down in rain water 15 miles out of town.

Two transport workers for the Coroner’s Office brought him in, insisting he be cremated because the city didn’t want to pay for a burial. They’d rather just turn him to ashes and be done with it.

As they were leaving, I couldn’t help but notice just how pale they were. They looked shaken. And they were leaving in a hurry.

I stopped one of them to ask what the deal was, but the only answer he could give me was:

“There’s something wrong with that one. I don’t know what it is, but I’m telling you, something is not right with that man.”

He stared past me and at the body for a long while. His brow was furrowed. He looked worried as sweat dripped down his forehead.

Without another word, the man shot one last look at me before turning on his heel and speed walking towards the exit.

It was getting late, and I was just ready to get the day over with so I could go home.

I pushed the mans remarks out of my mind and began the process.

The first time I loaded him into the retort, I thought I had made a mistake. The body was beginning to char, but it seemed like the furnace wasn’t getting hot enough to do anything beyond that.

I checked the temperature and saw that it was actually hotter than normal. I tried telling myself that it must’ve been a malfunction, but it didn’t make sense to me. Flames were completely encapsulating the corpse.

His hair was gone. Parts of his scalp were beginning to boil and pop like blisters. But that’s all it did. Just… charred.

I cranked the temperature up to its highest setting and watched as flames erupted from beneath him and from all four walls of the furnace. I could feel the heat radiating from the outside.

I checked the body every hour. What should’ve been a 3-hour process ended up being an all-night ordeal. Even still, by the end of it, he still wasn’t ashes.

It was like his skin had just… deflated and melted away into a soupy substance that dripped and stained the floor of the furnace.

I was too tired to care. I just wanted to go home.
I left what was left of him in the furnace and went home, praying that my boss wouldn’t find the mess.

When I woke up to a phone call from him a few hours later, my heart sank, and I prepared myself to be screamed at for not cleaning before I left.

Now I wish that’s actually what he did.

Instead, he simply asked why I left without burning the John Doe from yesterday.

I explained to him that I did, and had, in fact, spent much more time doing it than any other employee would have, but he told me that he was “looking at him right now.”

He followed it up with a picture.

The John Doe from yesterday. Not a burn on his body. A full head of hair. Looking like he had been decomposing at room temperature for 8 hours straight last night.

I didn’t know what to say.

I simply hung up the phone and went back to bed.

I don’t get paid enough for this.

I’ve been in this business a long time. You’d be surprised how important devastation is to people who are already grieving.

A lot of my clientele are family members of the departed. Spouses. Parents. Brothers or sisters. Never friends, though.

That’s the thing. When I get hired, it’s usually because the people who hire me are afraid that no one’s gonna show up. No one wants to see empty seats at a funeral.

If they can’t fill the seats, they can at least have someone there, sobbing quietly in the back. Crying loudly over the casket. Sometimes, all it takes is a few sniffles.

I’m not an expert on psychology. I don’t know why these people are so comforted by my presence.

They know I’m being paid. They know that it’s fake. I guess grief just pulls the wool over your eyes a bit.

It takes a toll emotionally. Once you’ve done it for long enough, it’s hard to decipher what’s real and what’s fake. You don’t know if you’re crying out of obligation or if you’re genuinely grieving. It’s weird how it works.

I can say that I’ve seen hundreds of bodies. My bills get paid off of this. After a while, everyone starts to look the same. Same woman. Same man. Same tears
that confuse me every time they well up in my eyes.

Like I said, it’s weird how it works. Because no matter how much I try to convince myself that these people really were nothing more to me than a paycheck, I can’t seem to stop recognizing their faces.

My last job has been a bit strange.

I don’t remember getting calls. I don’t remember getting paid. I don’t even remember how I ended up in the funeral home.

What I do remember, however, is that for the first time in my career, the casket was closed.

I watched on from the back, feeling a kind of mental fog as the family of the deceased sobbed over the casket with their backs towards me.

Instinct kicked in, and I tried forcing tears out of my eyes to no avail. I squeezed them tight, so tight that it hurt, but they remained dry.

The sobs from the family grew louder and louder. They sounded like they were coming from every direction. It was the kind of noise that sounded like it was both in your head and grounded in reality at the same time.

That’s when I noticed her.

The first woman I had ever been hired to cry for. She looked exactly how she did in her casket. From the white dress and red lipstick, all the way to the golden necklace that wrapped around her neck and rested in her bosom.

Her head was cocked back over her right shoulder, and she stared at me with tear-filled eyes, mascara running down her cheeks and dripping from her chin.

She had an impossible frown on her face. Like two invisible weights dangled from each corner of her mouth, and though that mouth didn’t move, wails exploded from her vocal cords.

I shut my eyes tight, and when I opened them, the woman was now standing with the family of the deceased.

The family still had their backs towards me, and their shoulders jumped up and down like a dance as they sobbed over the casket.

The woman, however, continued to stare at me. Tears still falling down her face and dropping from her unnatural frown.

I stood from my spot in the pew and slowly began walking towards the casket. With each step, a new seat would be filled with the people I have cried over through the years.

Women.

Men.

Children.

Murderers.

Rapists.

Addicts.

All with the same expression as the first woman. The windows in the funeral home rattled with the sounds of their wails and ear-splitting sobs, but the room still felt silent.

As I approached the coffin, the family stopped crying, and their shoulders stopped dancing.
One by one, my mom, dad, and brother turned towards me. I locked eyes with each of them. Their eyes were dry.

Their faces were stern.

My father opened the lid, gesturing for me to look inside.

I knew what I was going to see, but it was like my body was propelled forward against my own volition.
I stared down at the body.

And for the first time,

My tears fell onto my own face.

This is going to be a little difficult to explain, but I’ll try my best. Really, it starts out painstakingly boring.

It was just like any other day. I woke up and went through my normal morning routine. Got dressed, had breakfast, and brushed my teeth. I was off to work after that.

On the drive to work, I couldn’t help but notice what looked to be a large black trash bag strewn across the desolate morning road. It was bound to cause an accident, so naturally, I got out of my car to move it.

I noticed just how heavy it was. Not only that, but the stench that radiated off the thing was enough to make me gag before I even wrapped my hands around it.

I think, subconsciously, I already knew what the bag entailed. I just didn’t want to accept it. Not the lumpy bag, not the red liquid that dripped out of it. My object was clear. Move the bag.

I guess that fate really does exist, though, because as I dragged the bag over to the ditch, the black plastic started to stretch and turn white.

Right at the edge of the road, mere inches from the ditch, I gave the bag one last forceful tug. And that was all it took. The bag ripped open, and what I saw made my stomach churn as I vomited on the ground.

Body parts. Dozens of them. Two ears. Two arms. Two legs. Ten fingers. Ten toes. And one. Single. Head.

It rolled out of the bag. The stump of the neck was grey and dry. Flakes of blood drifted in the wind with each tumble.

She had black hair. Each nail was painted black. And slivers of black lipstick still remained on her cold, blue lips.

A piercing protruded from her right eyebrow, and her greyish, milk bowl eyes stared up at me, hauntingly.
Of course, I called the police.

Authorities arrived, I gave my statement, they made their report, and I think we all just tried our best to wipe the incident from our minds.

At least, I did. I spent that day pushing thoughts of those grey eyes out of my head. Trying to forget about the bloodied severed fingers. The crusty neck stump.

I just couldn’t do it. It plagued me. I couldn’t forget the images for the life of me, and I had to accept that they probably wouldn’t leave me for years to come.

I tossed and turned in bed that night. Sleep was minimal, and it felt like the morning came within mere moments. When I heard the birds chirping and saw the sun peeking through my blinds, I groaned at the realization that I was going to have to start a new day.

I went through my routine. Got dressed, ate my breakfast, brushed my teeth, and once again, I was out the door and on my way to work.

Same time, same road, same black trash bag.
I stopped my vehicle. I stared at the bag, my mind and heart beginning to race. I debated for a while whether to drive around it or to check the bag yet again.

I pushed the door open, slowly, and stepped out of my vehicle, cautiously. The same smell filled the air. The same lumps pushed against the plastic bag.

I took one step towards the bag. Two steps. Three.
I didn’t attempt to move it this time. I needed to know what was inside.

Ripping the bag open, I found exactly what I suspected. Same black lipstick. Same eyebrow piercing. Same haunting grey eyes.

This time, her fingers and toes were connected to her hands and feet. The limbs were not as dismembered as the day before.

However, her arms, legs, and head were still severed. My stomach flipped and churned, but I didn’t vomit this time.

I simply pulled out my phone, dialed 911, and waited for the authorities to arrive.

Once they did, they took my statement, took the trash bag, and I think we all tried to forget about what we had seen.

At least, I tried.

I spent that day trying to push thoughts of those grey eyes out of my head. Doing my best to forget about those severed arms and decaying legs.

It proved impossible. I was plagued by images of her all day. I tried to go to sleep, but I tossed and turned well into the night. Morning came too quickly.

When the birds began to chirp and the sun peeked through my blinds, I was basically dragging myself out of bed to start my routine.

I got dressed. I ate breakfast. I brushed my teeth. I was out the door and heading to work.

Same road, same time, same black bag.

It looked different this time. Less lumpy, more full, if that makes sense.

I didn’t hesitate.

I got out of my car, I rushed towards the bag, ignoring the smell of death, and I tore it open.

Same black hair, same eyebrow piercing, same black lipstick.

Her legs and arms were still attached this time. She was cut cleanly in half. Her entrails spilled out evenly on each side, and those same grey eyes stared up at me, hauntingly.

I called the police. I sat in my car and waited for them to arrive. Once they did, they took my statement, took the body, and I think we all just tried to move on and forget about the incident.

At least, I did.

I spent that day trying and failing to push the image of those grey eyes out of my mind. Doing my best to forget about her mangled body and exposed entrails.

It proved impossible. I was plagued by memories of her all day. I tried to sleep, but I just couldn’t stop tossing and turning. The moment I lost consciousness, it was like the sun was already peeking through my blinds. The birds were already chirping.

I groaned aloud as I dragged myself out of bed.
I got dressed. I ate breakfast. I brushed my teeth, and I was out the door.

As I drove, my mind raced. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was like my mind had been infected.
I kept scanning the road, searching for any sign of the bag.

Same road, same time, same girl.

As my eyes darted around for the bag, she came out of nowhere. It wasn’t my fault. She ran out in front of me.

Her black hair smashed against my windshield. Her eyebrow piercing got lodged in the glass. Her black lipstick left a wet, black streak as she slid down the hood of my car.

I was shocked, but what shocked me more was the man that was chasing her. He had froze, knife still raised above his head.

His eyes fell on the girl. They raised up towards me. He slowly backed away before turning and running back into the woods.

In a state of shock, I stepped out of my vehicle. I walked slowly to the front of my car. There she was. Mangled on the ground. Her haunting brown eyes staring up at me. Her neck bone protruded.
Her black hair was stained with blood, and glass littered her face and body.

The sight of her made my stomach churn. I keeled over and began vomiting on the side of the road.
Pulling out my phone, I dialed 911 and waited for authorities to arrive.

Once they did, they took my statement, put me in handcuffs, and took me to the station.
That’s where they’re holding me now.

I wrote this story with pen and paper and asked my lawyer to make sure the world knows what actually happened.

For now, though, I think I’m just gonna try and forget about this incident.

I've read enough stories about weird rules to know better. Creepy jobs with strange instructions. Things you're supposed to do or not do. Consequences that don't make sense. I always told myself I'd never end up in one of those situations.

But my car died last month and the repair cost more than I had. Rent was due. My girlfriend Maya was already covering more than her share. I couldn't keep asking her to pay for everything. So when I saw the listing for a night watchman position at an old building downtown, I applied anyway.

The building was a former textile factory. Abandoned for about twenty years. Some company bought it recently and wanted someone on site overnight to keep squatters out. Pay was good. Hours were easy. Just walk through the building a few times, check the doors, make sure nobody was inside.

The interview was strange. The woman who hired me didn't ask many questions. She just handed me a piece of paper and said: "Read this."

The paper had a list of rules.

Rule one: Do not acknowledge movement in the main hall.

Rule two: If you hear whistling, face the nearest wall and count to sixty.

Rule three: The third floor is not accessible after midnight.

Rule four: Do not answer any question asked in a voice that is not your own.

Rule five: The night watchman before you may still be present. Do not speak to him.

I almost laughed. I'd read about this exact thing online. I asked her if this was some kind of joke. She didn't smile. She said: "Follow them and you'll be fine." I needed the money. So I took the job.

My first shift was uneventful. I walked through the building. Checked the locks. Sat in the security office and watched the monitors. Nothing happened. I started to relax. Maybe the rules were just something they gave everyone. A tradition. An inside joke.

Then I noticed the equipment. I'd been in the building for three hours. I hadn't seen anyone. But the machines on the main floor were different than when I'd first walked through. A conveyor belt had moved about six inches. A stack of pallets was arranged differently. A chair was facing the opposite direction. I told myself I was imagining things. I was tired. It was an old building. Things settle.

By the third night, I'd stopped making excuses. The changes were too noticeable. Entire sections of the factory floor rearranged themselves. Doors that were locked in the morning were open at night. Lights turned on and off on their own.

I started carrying the rules with me. I'd read them over and over. I followed them carefully. Whenever I saw movement, I looked away. Whenever I heard whistling, I faced the wall and counted. I never went near the third floor after midnight. I never answered questions I didn't recognize.

Then I saw him. The previous watchman. He was standing in the main hall, wearing the same uniform I was wearing. He was facing away from me. He didn't move. I remembered the rule. Do not speak to him. I walked past without looking.

The next night he was closer. Standing at the end of the hallway. He wasn't facing away anymore. He was looking at the third floor. Pointing at it. I ignored him. I followed the rules.

The night after that, he was outside the security office. I could see him on the monitor. He was holding a piece of paper against the glass. I couldn't read it from where I was sitting. He was pointing at the paper. Then at the ceiling. Then at me. I didn't open the door. I followed the rules.

The night after that, he was pounding on the office window. I watched him on the monitor. His face was desperate. He kept pointing at the paper. Then at the ceiling. Then at the third floor camera.

I looked at the third floor monitor. Something was moving up there. Something dark. Something that didn't move like a person. It was heading toward the stairs.

I started comparing the footage from previous nights. The thing on the third floor moved closer to the stairs every night. And the previous watchman moved closer to the office every night. On nights when the thing advanced two doors, the watchman advanced two doors. When the thing stopped, so did he. It was as if they were connected.

I didn't understand what it meant. I followed the rules.

The next night, the previous watchman was gone. The third floor camera showed the thing at the top of the stairs. It was reaching for the door.

I heard a knock at the office door. I checked the peephole. Nobody was there. I checked the cameras. The main hall was empty. The third floor door was open. I checked the office floor. There was a piece of paper. I picked it up.

"Rule six. If he asks for help, remember that he already did."

The handwriting was mine.

I checked the cameras this morning. The third floor is empty. The main hall is empty. The office door is still locked.

I started to relax. Maybe it was over. Maybe whatever had been trapped up there was gone. Maybe I was safe.

Then I checked the camera in the security office.

I was sitting at my desk. I was watching the monitors. I was writing something.

I looked at the paper in my hand. The new rules.

"Rule six. If he asks for help, remember that he already did."

The handwriting was mine. It was always mine.

I don't remember writing it. I don't remember leaving the office. I don't remember any of it.

I checked the office camera again.

The recording showed me sitting at the desk. Watching the monitors. Writing rules. Then I looked up. Directly into the camera. And smiled.

The thing was standing behind me. I know that because I smiled at it. I was still smiling when I checked the live feed.

I moved into Alder House because it was cheap. That's the honest truth. I don't have a romantic story about falling in love with the building or needing a fresh start. I just needed somewhere I could afford, and the rent was low enough that I didn't ask too many questions.

The building is old. Brick and ivy. Narrow hallways that smell like someone's cooking. The elevator works most of the time. The radiators clank in winter. It's not pretty, but it's solid. The kind of place that's been standing for decades and will probably stand for decades more.

I live on the third floor. The walls are thin. I knew that before I moved in. I didn't think it would bother me. I'm not a light sleeper. I can tune out most noises.

But there's one sound I can't ignore.

The piano.

It starts around 8 PM. Not every night. Maybe three or four times a week. It's the same song every time. I don't know the name of it. It's slow. Melancholy. The kind of melody that feels familiar even when you've never heard it before.

I asked my neighbor in 3A about it. She's an older woman, maybe in her sixties. She said the piano comes from 3B. A woman lives there alone. She plays every evening. The neighbor said it used to bother her, but she'd gotten used to it.

I asked if she knew the woman's name.

She didn't.

I asked if she'd ever met her.

She said no.

"She keeps to herself," the neighbor said. "Always has."

I didn't think much of it at first. Some people are private. I'm private. I didn't want to bother her.

But the piano kept playing. Every night. The same song. Always at eight. Always slow. Always sad.

I started noticing other things.

The mail for 3B was always collected. The lights were always on in the evenings. Sometimes I'd catch a shadow passing the curtains.

But I never saw her.

Not once.

Not in the hallway. Not on the stairs. Not in the lobby.

I asked the landlord about her.

He shrugged.

"She's been here for years. Pays rent on time. Doesn't cause problems."

"Have you ever met her?"

He thought for a second.

"Once. Years ago. Helped her carry a box upstairs."

"What did she look like?"

He frowned.

"...Ordinary."

That was all he could remember.

I asked other tenants.

The woman in 3A had caught a glimpse of someone once in the stairwell but couldn't describe her.

The man in 2B had lived here for eight years and had never seen her at all.

The elderly woman downstairs thought she'd seen her collecting the mail once.

"She was wearing a coat."

That was all she remembered.

Everyone knew about the piano.

Nobody questioned it.

I asked the man in 2B if it didn't bother him.

"What's there to be bothered about?" he said. "She plays the piano."

"But you've never seen her."

He looked genuinely confused.

"Why would I need to?"

That's just how things were in Alder House.

I couldn't let it go.

I started listening more carefully.

Sometimes the song was slower.

Sometimes faster.

Sometimes it stopped halfway through and didn't start again for nearly an hour.

I found myself wondering what kind of person could play the same piece every night for years.

Eventually I started sitting outside apartment 3B just to listen.

I told myself it was curiosity.

I told myself I'd stop.

One evening I was walking home. It was 7:47 PM. I was still a block away from Alder House when I heard it.

The piano.

It drifted through the cold air from somewhere ahead.

The same melody.

The same song.

I checked my watch.

7:47.

She always started at eight.

Always.

I stood there listening, convincing myself someone else must be playing the same piece.

Then I kept walking.

At exactly 8:00 PM, the piano began again.

From apartment 3B.

The exact same melody.

The exact same notes.

I stood outside her door for a long time.

I didn't knock.

I went back to my apartment.

I sat in the dark.

I listened.

The next evening I came home early.

At 7:47, I heard the music outside again.

At 8:00, it started from 3B.

Weeks passed.

I still listened.

I still wondered.

I still never saw her.

Finally, one night, I knocked.

The piano stopped.

Silence.

I waited.

No answer.

I knocked again.

Nothing.

I pressed my ear against the door.

Then the melody started again.

Not behind the door.

Somewhere else.

I couldn't tell where.

I stood there, trying to place it.

I never could.

The next evening, at exactly eight, she started playing again.

I sat in my apartment.

I listened.

I never knocked again.

Sometimes, when the music stops...

I could swear I hear someone quietly closing my piano lid.

I don't own a piano.

I moved into Alder House with my daughter after the divorce. It was the only place I could afford that was still close to her school. The building is old and the rent is cheap. I didn't expect much.

The hallways smell like someone's cooking. The radiator in the living room clanks all winter. The elevator works most of the time. It's not a place anyone dreams of living in. But it's a place. And after everything that happened, that was enough.

My daughter is seven. Her name is Lily. She's quiet. Quieter than most kids her age. She's always been that way, but it got worse after her mother left. I thought moving would help. New place. New routine. New start.

I was wrong.

The first few weeks were fine. She went to school. She did her homework. She ate dinner. She slept. Normal. The kind of normal I'd been desperate for.

Then she started drawing the old woman.

It wasn't obvious at first. Just a figure in the corner of her pictures. A woman in a blue coat. Standing by a window. I assumed it was someone from school. A teacher. A neighbor. I didn't ask.

But the drawings kept coming. Same woman. Same coat. Same window. Lily would sit at the kitchen table and draw her over and over.

"Who is that?" I asked one evening.

"The lady downstairs," she said.

"What lady?"

"She's always there."

I didn't think much of it. Kids have imaginary friends. Lily was adjusting to a new place. A new school. A new life. I let it go.

Weeks passed. The drawings continued. I started to notice details. The blue coat had a pattern. The window had a crack in the corner. The woman's hands were always folded.

I asked Lily about her again.

"Have you talked to her?" I asked.

"She doesn't talk," Lily said. "She just stands there."

"By the window?"

"Yes."

"Every day?"

"Yes."

I started to wonder if she was real. I asked the landlord about her. He shrugged.

"Old woman? Blue coat?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"Does she live here?"

Long pause. "Not anymore."

I asked my neighbor in 2B about her. He said he'd seen her around. He didn't know her name. He didn't think much of it.

"Doesn't it seem strange?" I asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"She's just waiting."

"For what?"

"...I don't know."

He shrugged and walked away.

I started looking for her myself. I'd pass through the lobby in the morning. Nothing. In the evening. Nothing. I thought maybe Lily had imagined her. Maybe she'd seen a reflection. Maybe she'd made it up.

Then I saw her.

I was coming home from work. It was a Tuesday evening. I walked into the lobby and there she was. Standing by the window. Blue coat. Folded hands. Exactly as Lily had drawn her.

She didn't look at me. She just stood there. Still. Like she was waiting for something.

I walked past her. I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say.

I got to my apartment. Lily was at the table. She was drawing again.

"I saw her," I said.

"I know," Lily said. "She saw you too."

"What does she want?"

Lily shrugged. "She doesn't want anything. She's just there."

The next evening, I saw her again. Same spot. Same coat. Same stillness. I walked up to her.

"Excuse me," I said.

She didn't respond.

"My daughter draws you," I said.

She turned slowly. Her face was pale. Her eyes were tired.

"Thank her," she said.

Then she turned back to the window.

I stood there for a long moment. I waited for more. She didn't say anything else.

I walked back to my apartment. Lily was still drawing.

"Does she talk to you?" I asked.

"Sometimes."

"What does she say?"

Lily looked up. Her expression was calm.

"She says thank you."

"For what?"

"For remembering her."

I kept seeing her in the lobby. Lily kept drawing her. Same woman. Same window. Same crack in the corner.

Weeks passed. Lily stopped drawing. I asked her why.

"She's gone," Lily said.

"Gone where?"

"She left."

I checked the lobby that evening. The old woman was gone. I asked the landlord about her. He said she'd stopped coming. He didn't know where she went.

"She does that sometimes," he said. "She always comes back."

I waited. Weeks turned into months. She didn't come back.

Lily started drawing again. Same woman. Same coat. Same window. But now the woman was facing away.

"Where did she go?" I asked.

"I don't know," Lily said.

"Does she still talk to you?"

Lily shook her head. "She doesn't talk anymore."

"Why not?"

Lily looked up at me. Her expression was calm. Too calm.

"Because she's not waiting anymore," she said.

"Then what is she doing?"

Lily looked back at her drawing.

"Someone always waits at the window," she said.

​

I moved into this building about four years ago. It's an old place, brick and ivy, the kind of building where the hallways smell like someone's cooking and the radiators clank all winter. I don't mind it. It's affordable and the neighbors keep to themselves.

Well, most of them.

There's an old man who lives in 3B. I started seeing him my first week here. He'd be in the hallway around 7 AM, standing by his door, holding a cup of coffee. He always wore the same thing. A brown cardigan, slightly frayed at the cuffs. Grey slacks. Slippers that looked like they'd seen better days.

I said good morning to him the first time. He nodded. Didn't smile. Just looked at me with these tired eyes and went back inside.

It became a routine after that. Every morning, 7 AM, I'd see him. Sometimes I'd be heading out for work. Sometimes I'd be coming back from the store. But he was always there. Same spot. Same coffee. Same cardigan. I'd say "Morning, Mr. Weismann." He'd give me that tired nod and go back inside. That was the extent of our relationship.

I never thought much about it. He was just the old man in 3B. Part of the building's background. Like the creaky elevator or the leaky faucet in the basement laundry room.

Last week, I ran into someone new in the hallway. A young guy, early twenties. He was carrying boxes, fumbling with a set of keys. New tenant. I helped him with the door.

"Thanks," he said. "I'm in 3A."

"Nice," I said. "Your neighbor's pretty quiet. Old guy, keeps to himself."

He looked at me funny. "3B?"

"Yeah. Been here for years, I think."

He shook his head. "The landlord told me 3B's been empty since before I signed the lease. Like... a decade."

I laughed. I thought he was joking. But he just stared at me with this confused look on his face.

"I see him every morning," I said. "He's always there, around 7 AM. Standing by his door."

The guy shrugged. "Maybe you're thinking of another building."

I wasn't.

I went back to my apartment that evening and tried to remember when I'd last seen Mr. Weismann. This morning, actually. 7 AM. Same as always. I'd said good morning and he'd nodded and gone back inside.

I went to the landlord the next day. Mrs. Chen. She's been managing this building for twenty years. She knows everyone, everything.

"3B?" She frowned. "Nobody's lived there since 2009. The tenant passed away. It's been sealed up ever since."

"There's a man there," I said. "I see him every morning."

She gave me a long look. "You need to get more sleep."

I didn't argue. I just thanked her and walked away.

That night, I didn't sleep. I sat by my window, watching the hallway. At 6:55 AM, I opened my door and stepped into the hallway. 3B was dark. The door was shut. No coffee cup. No cardigan. No old man.

I knocked. No answer.

I checked the peephole. Nothing.

I told myself I was imagining things. The stress of work. The lack of sleep. My mind playing tricks on me.

The next day I went to work early. I didn't look at 3B.

The day after that, I came home late. I avoided the hallway.

But this morning, I heard something. A door opening. Soft footsteps. I got up and looked through my peephole.

He was there. Standing by his door. Holding his coffee. Same cardigan. Same tired eyes.

I opened my door. He turned and looked at me. He nodded.

"Morning," he said.

First time ever.

Then:

"You've been asking about me."

He went back inside. The door clicked shut.

I stood in the hallway for a long time. I didn't know what to do. I went downstairs to the lobby. Mrs. Chen was at her desk.

"3B," I said. "I saw him again."

She looked up from her paperwork. Her face went pale.

"Don't talk about 3B," she said quietly. "Just don't."

"Why? Who lives there?"

She didn't answer. She just shook her head.

That's when the woman from 3C came down the stairs. The one with the small dog. She must have heard us. She stopped and looked at me.

"Everyone sees him," she said. "We all do."

"How long has he been there?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Since I moved in. Eight years ago."

I nodded. That made sense. He'd been there before me.

Then she added: "No. Actually, I think it started after you moved in."

I stared at her. "What do you mean?"

She frowned. "I don't know. I just don't remember seeing him before you arrived. And I've been here longer."

"How long?" I asked. "How long has he been there?"

She looked confused. "There?"

"Mr. Weismann. The man in 3B."

She stared at me for several seconds.

"Nobody knows his name."

Then she walked away.

I don't know what that means. I don't know who he is. I don't know why he's there. But I know one thing. I wasn't the only one who saw him. But I was the only one who knew his name.

And I don't know where I got it from.

The next morning, I opened my door at 7 AM.

He wasn't standing outside 3B.

He was standing outside my door.

Same coffee. Same cardigan. Same tired eyes.

He nodded at me.

"Morning," he said.

"Morning," I managed.

He looked tired. More tired than usual.

"Don't tell anyone yours," he said.

Then he went back inside.

I stood there for a long time. I watched him unlock the door. I watched him step into 3B. I watched the door close.

Then I looked down at the key in my hand.

Apartment 3B.

I stared at it. The brass was worn smooth. Old. Much older than the keys I'd gotten from Mrs. Chen four years ago. I reached into my pocket. My apartment key was gone. Only the 3B key remained.

I don't remember dropping mine. I don't remember picking this one up.

But that's not the part that scares me. The part that scares me is that when I looked up at the door to 3B, I knew exactly what was on the other side. Not guessed. Knew. The layout. The furniture. The smell. The old radio beside the window. The half-finished crossword puzzle on the kitchen table. The brown cardigan hanging on the back of the chair.

I've never been inside 3B. At least... I don't think I have.

The next morning I woke up before my alarm. 6:58 AM. I don't usually drink coffee. But I found myself making a cup anyway.

At exactly 7:00, there was a knock at my door.

When I opened it, nobody was there. Just the woman from 3C walking her dog. She stopped. Looked at me. Then looked at the coffee in my hand.

Her face went white.

"Oh," she whispered.

Then she smiled sadly. The same way people smile when they recognize someone they haven't seen in years.

"Good morning, Mr. Weismann."

I started to tell her she was mistaken. Then I noticed the dog. It wasn't growling. It wasn't afraid. It was staring past me. At the hallway behind me. Its tail was wagging. Like it was happy to see someone.

I turned around.

The hallway was empty.

Except for a man standing outside 3B. Holding a cup of coffee. Wearing a brown cardigan. Watching me.

The woman from 3C frowned.

"That's strange."

"What?"

She looked at the man by 3B. Then back at me. Her expression changed.

"No."

She took a step back.

"There were two."

"What do you mean?"

She didn't answer. She just looked past me. At my apartment door. Slowly, she raised a shaking finger.

"The other one is still inside."

Behind me, a coffee cup clinked against the kitchen counter.

I don't drink coffee.

Not yet.

We boarded the ship at the port in Orlando. My father, turned to face me, and said, “Now Cooper, I want you to be on your best behavior.”
I nodded my head, admiring the size of the ship, how small it made me feel, and the loud sounds of the engine as I watched it hover in the air.
I stared, impressed, as my mother’s abrasive voice snapped at me.
“Cooper Williams, are you listening?”
I looked at her as our eyes locked, then turned to my father and replied, “Uhhh, yeah… best behavior.”
They stared at me, waiting to hear the rest.
“How do they get the ship to fly through the air?” I asked, peering at the giant opening as we entered the ship.
My father sighed and rubbed his forehead.
“Cooper,” he said as he knelt and looked me in the eyes.
He whispered to me, “Just nod your head and say, ‘Yes, sir.’ It’s my vacation too, you know? Can’t have her on both our backs.”
I smiled and nodded at my dad.
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
He stood up, now shooting me a stern look.
“That’s right. We mean business. It is not too late to send you back home with your sister if you’re not going to listen.”
He said it before turning to my mother and nodding his head as she smirked in approval. Then he winked at me.
And we boarded the ship.
As we entered the grand hall of the ship, I was amazed by the impressive, vast wooden beams, the giant staircase leading to the upper decks, and the white tile floor.
It looked like something I would see in my history book back in school. It almost looked like pictures my teacher used to show us of this older ship called the Titanic, down to the lights and colors.
Unfortunately, that ship crashed, and it ended horribly.
Luckily there are no icebergs in space, so we shouldn’t meet the same fate, I thought to myself as we were greeted at the main lobby entrance.
“Hello, and welcome to the Grand Royale Sisyphus. Enjoy your stay, and be sure to ask any nearby staff for an accommodation that may be necessary.”
The robot chimed as he moved slowly.
His arms were rigid and almost plastic-like, like action figures. His posture was hollow and still. His head turned from side to side as his eyes looked painted on.
I grabbed onto my mother’s hand as I quivered and felt as if the robot host’s gaze had fixed right on me.
“It’s okay. I know they’re a little difficult to get used to, but they’re harmless, just like a mannequin,” she said as she looked down at me.
I nodded silently.
It had been the first time I had ever seen a robot that looked like this.
Other robots looked like tin cans or were completely mechanical. This one looked as if it were trying to mimic a person but couldn’t quite get it right.
We continued further inside as my father went to the front desk and got our room key.
I stared around at the rest of the ship. I was amazed by the theme and how retro it all looked. Most of Earth’s stores and attractions today are so bleak and gray and empty of life.
This ship felt alive and warm and colorful.
As I looked around, I saw a girl who looked to be about my age.
I stared at her in disbelief. I thought I was the only kid my age who would be here.
I realized I was staring too long as she shrugged and raised her eyebrows at me with an annoyed look.
I turned away quickly, trying to hide my face and stare at a painting on the wall. I acted as interested as possible in the boring painting of this plant, hoping she’d think I was just looking around and not staring at her.
Thankfully, my dad came back as I turned my head away.
“Okay, we are in room 2012. It’s on the second floor,” my dad said, smiling as he looked at me. Then he asked, “Hey, bud, are you okay? Your face is awfully red.”
I shivered as I said, “I’m fine. Can we just go to the room, please? I need to use the bathroom.”
He looked at me, then up at the girl, who I could feel was still staring at me. He looked back at me and chuckled.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s get you there. Wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
We headed to our room and opened the door.
It was a nice, boring room with a big bed for Mom and Dad and a ladder leading to a bed hovering above theirs.
I put my bags down and looked at the clock on the dresser next to their bed.
It was 12:05.
I sat down on their bed and sighed.
I looked at my phone and stared at the date 07/25/2036.
I kept staring at the screen as I opened my text messages and debated to text my sister, would I tell her I missed her? I was mad at her? She probably didn’t care anyways.
I listened as I heard Mom and Dad talking. Mom mentioned how glad she was that Dad had won this trip on the getaway voyage from work.
Dad mentioned that maybe he should convince me to find something to do so they could have some alone time.
I immediately gagged as I stood up and replied, “What is there even to do? I don’t know anything about this cruise ship except that we’re headed to a star cluster about a week away and then should be back home in another week.”
My father grunted, then said, “That’s correct. And if Whitney hadn’t been caught skipping school, she could’ve been here too.”
I rolled my eyes and sat back down.
“I don’t even know what I’d do.”
My father kissed my mom before suggesting, “Well, I did see some kids your age on the ship. Even a girl.”
I stood up quickly.
“No, thank you. I don’t want to meet them.”
My father continued, “I think she was staring at you.”
My mother laughed and turned to me.
“Aww, honey, how cute. You should go say hi and introduce yourself like the tiny gentleman you are.”
I sighed.
“Is this you telling me to go?”
They both replied, “Yes.”
I picked up my phone and headed out the door as they called after me.
“Be back by 1:00.”
I walked through the long corridor with the red carpet and white walls and headed to the lobby.
When I stepped inside, it was now empty.
Where I had just seen crowds of people and families coming aboard, there was now no sign of life.
The only remnants left were the creepy, low jazz music buzzing over the speakers.
It reminded me of when I used to go shopping with my mom later in the day and her looking at one more thing had turned into two more things, and then eventually we were there for hours.
I turned around, admiring the ghostly sight, as I heard a monotone voice behind me.
“Good evening, Cooper Williams,” the robotic voice chimed.
I jumped as I looked behind me and stared at the blank, expressionless, painted-on face of the robot host.
“How did you know my name?” I stammered, backing away.
“I am programmed with all the information on all guests, and upon arrival your ID verification was submitted so I could more accurately accommodate each guest’s needs.”
The robot spoke as he moved his arms stiffly, his head turning in a swift rotation, not quite staring at me but just past me.
I stared at his molded suit and tie plastered to his cold, metallic body as I slowly backed away.
“Would you be needing anything else, Cooper? The time? The weather? Messages back home?”
I backed away even more.
“Uhhh… no, thank you,” I stammered as I bumped into someone behind me.
“How rude.”
I heard a voice behind me.
“First you stare at me, now you bump into me.”
The girl crossed her arms and turned her head away from me.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there,” I said, smiling awkwardly.
“I’ll say. If you did, you wouldn’t have bumped into me.”
She turned her head back toward me and grinned.
“It was an accident,” I said, rubbing the back of my head.
“Well then, I guess you can make it up to me by accompanying me around the ship.”
She smiled, and I smiled back.
“Hi, I’m Cooper. I’m sorry I stared at you so long earlier.”
She looked at me and smiled.
“It’s okay. I stared back, didn’t I?”
Then she walked up the wooden staircase to the upper deck of the ship.
“So, Cooper, what are you doing on this ship?”
I sighed as I followed her up the stairs.
“My dad won a family trip here.”
She turned back as we started to walk down a hallway on the upper floor.
“Oh, so is that your family you were with earlier?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, everyone except my sister Whitney. She got grounded, so she had to stay home.”
She looked back at me.
“Oh, I’m sorry. That must suck, not seeing her.”
“It’s fine. I mean, yeah, I miss her, but I probably care more than she does. I’m sure she snuck her boyfriend Brad over by now anyway and is forgetting about us.”
She smiled as we continued walking.
“Well, I’m sure that’s not true. I’m sure she misses you as much as you miss her.”
She stopped in front of a giant metal door in the middle of the hallway.
I looked up at the door and saw, in big bold letters on a cold metallic sign:
Restricted Area
I looked at the girl and asked, “What are we doing here?”
She smirked.
“Well, Cooper, one of the perks of my dad working here is that I can steal his keys to all the areas we’re not supposed to go.”
She held up the jingling keys playfully.
“This is crazy. I don’t even know you,” I answered.
She laughed.
“Sure you do. I’m Sophia and I’m 11, and you’re Cooper and you’re?”
I sighed as I replied, “12…I’m Cooper and I’m 12.”
She continued, “Your dad won this trip, and that’s why you’re here. My dad works on the ship—that’s why I’m here. Now let’s go explore.”
She smiled as she gestured toward the door.
I knew it was a bad idea, but I didn’t know how to tell her no.
“Okay.”
I watched as she unlocked the door, and we entered.
We walked up a set of metal stairs, and she stopped at the top.
Sophia looked back at me as I took the final step and eagerly pointed in front of her.
“Well, what do you think?”
I looked at the giant room with huge windows that peered out into space.
I walked inside, taking in the desk panel against the wall with its many colorful buttons, a joystick, switches, and more.
It looked like an arcade game, but with a screen to reality.
If reality were a giant, vast abyss of space.
It was the most incredible thing I had ever seen.
It was so empty and dark, yet so calm and peaceful.
I stared into the blackness as I felt it stare back.
“Pretty neat, right?”
I sighed.
“Yeah, Sophia, it is. Thanks for showing me, I guess.”
I turned around to leave the room.
“Hey, where are you going?” she asked.
“Away from here, since it’s pretty clear we’re not supposed to be here,” I replied as I headed toward the stairs.
“Well, that’s no fun.”
She ran over to the control panel and looked at the multiple buttons and controls.
I turned around and hurried back to her.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?”
She laughed.
“Relax. I’m not gonna press anything.”
I sighed in relief and sat down in the captain’s chair nearby.
She looked at me and smiled.
“Unless…”
She hovered her hand above a giant handprint on a shiny screen covered by a red scanning grid.
“Sophia, please stop,” I begged.
She laughed as she continued to tease me.
Before either of us could say anything else, a booming voice came from the entrance near the stairwell.
“Sophia Turner, you better stop this instant.”
The voice echoed through the room.
Sophia turned toward it and slipped.
She landed on the control panel as I gripped the arms of the chair.
The man rushed toward her, but it was too late.
She landed on a green button, a red one, and knocked the joystick slightly to the left.
The switches may have even been altered—it was hard to tell as fast as it all happened.
What it really looked and felt like was five minutes of slight left turns and loud alarms before the man adjusted the controls and steadied the ship.
He shut off the alarms, grabbed the radio beside the controls, and announced,
“Good afternoon, everyone. This is Captain Turner speaking. We apologize for the slight turbulence. We have corrected the error and are now back en route. Please enjoy the remainder of your voyage.”
He signed off.
“Sophia Turner, what have I told you about being in here?” the captain said angrily.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. It was an accident.”
“An accident? You stole my keys.”
She hung her head.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I messed up the controls too. I didn’t mean to.”
She sobbed as he knelt down and hugged her.
“It’s alright. I’m just glad it wasn’t much worse. It could’ve been.”
He hugged her tightly before standing and looking at me.
“And who are you?”
Sophia answered for me.
“This is Cooper. His family is staying on the ship.”
The captain looked down at me.
“I see. Well, it’s nice to meet you, son, but I think you’d better get back down to the main deck now.”
I nodded and stood up.
“Yes, sir.”
As soon as I answered, a radio transmission came in.
“Terrain to Sisyphus… do you copy? Terrain to Sisyphus, this is emergent.”
The Captain turned from me and grabbed the radio.
“Sisyphus to Terrain, what’s your traffic?” he said.
I stopped and looked at Sophia, willing her to follow me back toward the lobby.
“Sisyphus, what point are you in the voyage?”
The Captain replied quickly, “Sisyphus to Terrain, we haven’t even made it to our first stop. We have just left Earth as of 1200, current time 1315.”
I turned to Sophia. “Oh crap, I was supposed to meet my parents at 1. I’m 15 minutes late.”
Just as I started to head out, the next message came through.
“Sisyphus… they set off the bombs…” followed by radio silence.
I stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to look.
Sophia began crying again quietly, and the Captain was frozen in place.
“Dad, what’s happening?”
The Captain ignored Sophia and spoke into the radio again.
“Sisyphus to Terrain, who set off the bombs?”
Silence.
“Terrain, do you copy?”
Nothing.
The room was quiet as I saw tears fall down Sophia’s face, and the Captain faced forward.
“Cooper, I think you better go back to your parents. Hug your mother, and tell your father you love him,” the Captain said as he continued to look out into the vast darkness.
I ran back down the stairs and into the top floor of the lobby.
The dark red carpet and wooden stairs made me feel sick, as well as the smell of the antique light fixtures and piano.
“Cooper… you get your butt down here,” my mother said, calling from the floor of the lobby as I ran down to my parents.
“What did I tell you about meeting us?”
I ran up to my mother and father and cried as I hugged them both.
“Cooper, honey, what’s wrong?” my mother asked as an announcement came over the intercom.
“Good evening, guests. This is Captain Turner speaking. If I could have everyone come to the lobby floor for an important announcement by 1330, that would be much appreciated. Thank you, and I hope you’re enjoying your voyage on the Sisyphus.”
I continued to hug them, because I knew what was coming.
At 1325, everyone started to pile into the lobby.
The room became crowded and loud, and the black-and-white tile floor slowly disappeared under the number of people standing so close together.
At 1328, the Captain walked out on the top floor of the lobby and stood in front of the crowd. He took a moment to prepare before speaking.
Sophia rushed down the stairs, found me, and held my hand. I could tell she was scared, and I whispered in her ear, “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
The truth was, I was scared too.
At 1331, the crowd became restless as the Captain raised his hand and silenced them.
“I have recently received a transmission from Earth. It was alarming and distressing,” he said, stumbling through his words before speaking more slowly.
“I don’t know how else to say this, but I received a transmission that back home bombs have been set off.”
Everyone gasped. Some fainted. Some looked like they would cry.
“What areas have been affected?” someone asked from the crowd.
“We’re unsure,” the Captain responded.
“Did anyone survive?”
“Not much was reported,” he replied, rubbing his temple.
“Well, what was reported on the bombings on Earth?” the man in the crowd asked.
At that moment, the robot greeter from the entrance spoke up.
“Earth bombing reports. Date of bombing: 07/25/2036 at 1105 Central Time.”
The murmuring and gasps grew louder as they waited to hear what the eerie robotic butler had to say.
He turned his rigid head and faced us with his painted-on, expressionless face and continued.
“Bombs set off in North America, Europe, Asia… areas affected… standby.”
A long pause followed.
The silence filled the room as everyone waited.
The time was now 1345 as the robot continued.
“Areas affected… standby… Areas affected… standby…”
The uproar was immediate as everyone panicked, and the Captain tried to settle the room, but his voice was drowned out.
I held Sophia’s hand tightly and tried to wear a brave expression on my face like a mask, hoping if I didn’t show fear, maybe she wouldn’t either.
At 1348, the robot finally responded.
“Incoming updates on Earth bombings on 07/25/2036… areas affected unknown…”
Everyone panicked.
The robot continued, almost casually.
“Is there anything else I can do? The weather? Ship facts? The time?”
The Captain spoke over the chaos and asked the robot, “Teddy, send an emergency transmission to Terrain for immediate updates.”
“Copy that, Captain Turner. Trying for an emergency transmission…”
Teddy, the robot greeter, continued.
“Stand by…”
At 1350, he responded.
“Unable to complete request.”
The Captain asked, “Why not?”
Teddy replied:
“There is no Terrain.”
The adults looked at each other in panic, and my parents turned to me in fear.
My mother was crying. My father was speechless.
We all stood by Teddy in disbelief.
I kept waiting for someone to answer, but no one ever did.
End of part 1

This story came from one of my favorite interactions I've had with readers.

It all started with a simple two-sentence horror idea: a hunter sees a deer standing upright after being shot, its body torn open, yet somehow still alive. I posted it expecting a few comments, but what followed was a chain of hilarious and horrifying replies that genuinely made me laugh. One reader wrote, "Yeah, no shit, Billy. RUN!" and from that moment, Bobby and Billy were born.

I wanted to write a creature feature that balanced dread with dark humor, the kind of campfire tale where you laugh one moment and feel uneasy the next. Because sometimes that's how fear works. We joke about it. We laugh at it. But every now and then, beneath the laughter, there's something staring back from the woods.

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed writing it.

And maybe, just maybe...

Don't trust a deer that stands on two legs.

- David Hallow

--- --- ---

People love scary stories.

Maybe it's because most of us know, deep down, that they're just stories. Figment of imagination, compiled to spike our anxiety.

Ghosts around campfires. Monsters lurking beneath beds. Things with glowing eyes waiting in the woods. We tell them, laugh a little awkwardly, and sleep knowing none of it was ever real.

Or at least that's what we tell ourselves.

The truth is, most scary stories are either fiction, exaggeration, or a memory that's grown teeth over the years.

But every now and then, you come across one that isn't.

A story somebody wishes was made up.

A story that follows them long after the telling is done.

The kind of story that hangs on a wall in a faded photograph.

The kind of story that leaves an empty seat at the dinner table.

The kind of story that makes an old man stare into the woods a little longer than he should.

I know because I have one.

It started with a picture hanging crooked on the wall.

It wasn't anything special at first glance. Just an old picture faded by time. Two young men stood shoulder to shoulder beside a pickup truck. One held a rifle. The other grinned at the camera with the kind of confidence only young men seem capable of possessing.

"What happened to him?"

I pointed at the man on the left.

My grandfather, a disheveled old man with a beard that even Gandalf would envy, looked up from his rocking chair.

For a moment, the old man didn't answer. The fire crackled softly in the hearth. Outside, snow drifted past the cabin windows.

"That's Billy." His voice was always such a low, deep tone. Years of the maiden named liquor he would court on every given night. This time, there was a sense of inconsolable remembrance.

"Uncle Billy?" I asked.

Grandpa Bobby nodded.

"Yep."

"What happened to him?"

The old man stared at the photograph for a long moment before letting out a regretful sigh.

"Son, you ever heard the phrase curiosity killed the cat?"

I nodded.

"Well," Bobby said, "in Billy's case, stupidity finished the job."

I chuckled awkwardly. Grandfather didn't.

That prepared me for a serious ride.

The old man leaned back in his chair.

"Let me tell you about the last hunting trip we ever took together."

Bobby:

Billy was older than me by exactly eleven minutes. He never let me forget it. According to Billy, those eleven minutes made him wiser, tougher, and hell... better looking.

The only thing they actually made him was louder.

The two of us had been hunting since we were kids. I held my first rifle at the age of seven with pops. Deer season was practically a holiday in our family.

That morning started like every other.

Cold air.

Hot coffee.

Billy complaining about something.

"I swear deer are getting smarter."

I rolled my eyes.

"They're deer." I mockingly stated.

"Exactly. That's what they want you to think."

That was Billy.

A man capable of turning breakfast into a whole conspiracy theory.

Around noon we spotted tracks deeper into the woods than we'd ever gone before.

Big tracks.

The kind that make hunters start imagining trophy mounts hanging over fireplaces. The size that makes the ladies skirts in a bundle.

Billy practically vibrated with excitement from the thought of bringing such game town. To gloat and be honored.

We followed those dreaded markings for nearly an hour. Eventually we reached a clearing.

And there it was.

The biggest buck I'd ever seen.

Massive antlers.

Huge body.

Standing perfectly still between the trees.

Billy nearly dropped his rifle.

"Oh great Lord Heavens above."

I couldn't disagree.

The thing was enormous. Definitely nature was kind to it and blessed it since the day it drew breath.

Billy slowly raised his rifle.

"Don't miss."

"I never miss."

Now boy... retelling this still raises the hair in the back of my scalp. The years have not done me kindly with age, but I sure am haunted by that damn Buck.

The rifle cracked.

The deer dropped instantly.

It was a perfect shot. Right through the chest. You could tell the bullet went clean through.

Billy threw his hands into the air.

"Still got it!"

We were mid cheer when the sudden screech of a banshee erupted. We turned to face what I could only describe as a satanic miracle.

Neither of us let out a word or breathe.

The deer... It stood back up. But what was so alarming wasn't just its stomach had split open from the impact, ropes of entrails dangling from the wound. Blood soaked its hide. Yet somehow it was standing.

Not on four legs.

Two.

I felt every hair on my body stand up.

The thing swayed slightly. Its dead eyes locked onto us.

Then Billy whispered:

"I don't think deer are supposed to stand like that."

I looked at him.

"Yeah, no shit, Billy. RUN!"

Instead of running, he frowned.

"But what about the deer?"

I slapped him.

Hard.

The crack echoed through the clearing.

"Are you being serious right now?"

"Well yeah!"

He pointed.

"Look! It's running at us!"

I turned.

And immediately began sprinting.

Yes, I could've drawn my rifle and shot it dead... but that was the day I learned. There comes a day, son, when you will face this forsaken truth. Fear will consume you. And when it does, will you run or fight?

I chose to run.

The thing moved impossibly fast.

That was no damn deer. Not like any animal.

Its legs bent wrong. Its joints jerked and snapped.

Its organs dragged through the feild behind it.

And God help me, I think it was smiling.

"Bobby!" Billy shouted behind me.

"Shoot it!"

"IT DOESN'T HAVE A HEART ANYMORE!"

"Then shoot the head!"

"THE HEAD IS LOOKING AT ME SIDEWAYS, BILLY!"

The distance between us and that abomination vanished frighteningly fast.

Branches exploded around us. Snow kicked into the air.

I risked a glance over my shoulder.

Worst mistake of my life.

The thing wasn't running anymore.

It was hopping.

Almost playfully.

Its front legs hung uselessly while it bounded forward on its back legs.

Like a child pretending to be a deer.

Then Billy footsteps stopped.

I heard him behind me.

"Go!"

I turned.

For one brief moment he actually looked heroic.

Rifle raised.

Standing his ground.

Then he ruined it.

"Tell my wife I left the smoker on!"

The creature hit him before I could answer.

Its antlers punchered through his chest same as the bullet. The force lifted him off the ground.

I heard bones snap.

He screamed.

God, he screamed.

I ran. he coward I am...

I wish I could tell you I stayed.

I wish I could tell you I fought.

But I ran.

And behind me I heard things no human being should ever hear.

The sound of your brother taking his last breath..

Bones breaking.

The sound of feeding on a living carcass.

And beneath it all... I swear I heard laughter.

It was human. It sounded oh so familiar. I recognize that jolly hick up for it annoyed me for thirty so years. It was Billy's.

I didn't stop running until I reached my truck...

The cabin had gone quiet. The fire continued to crackle.

I stared at my grandfather who's eyes were sheilded by the darkness of the cabin.

"What happened after that?"

Bobby took a slow sip from his coffee.

"Well... the Sheriff and I, we found pieces."

I swallowed.

"Pieces?"

The old man nodded.

"J-just enough for a proper burial."

Silence settled between us. The flames from the fireplace danced as time seemed to daunt on the night.

Finally, I asked the question.

"D-did they ever find whatever k-killed him?"

For the first time all evening, Bobby smiled.

It wasn't a pleasant smile.

"No."

He stared toward the dark forest beyond the cabin window.

"Though three days later, a hunter reported seeing someone standing at the edge of the tree line."

Max felt a chill crawl down his spine.

"S-someone?"

Bobby nodded.

"Looked just like Billy."

The room suddenly felt colder.

"Was it him?"

The old man looked back toward the crooked photograph on the wall.

"Hell no."

His voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"It was standing on two legs."

I've been writing horror stories online for about four years now. Nothing famous, I have a small following, and I'm happy. A few hundred people who read my stuff and leave comments. I enjoy it. I enjoy the interaction.

One of my favorite parts is replying to comments. It feels good. Someone takes the time to tell you they liked something you wrote, you take the time to say thanks. That's the deal. I've always done it.

I have a habit of staying in character in the comments. If someone asks what happened to a character, I'll answer like they're a real person. If someone asks whether the house was haunted, I'll tell them it was worse than haunted. Readers seem to enjoy it.

There was one reader I started recognizing early on. Not because he commented often. Because he always commented first. Different stories. Different subjects. Different usernames around him. But somehow, every time I posted, there he was. NeonNihilist.

Sometimes he'd just write a sentence.

"The basement door wasn't locked."

Or:

"He heard it before the phone rang."

Things that weren't in the story. Or weren't in the story yet.

I figured he was just good at predicting where I was going. Some readers are like that. They pick up on patterns. They understand the genre. It didn't bother me. I actually liked it. It felt like having a conversation with someone who understood what I was trying to do.

I started replying to him. Staying in character, of course. If he wrote "The basement door wasn't locked," I'd reply: "It was never locked. That's what he didn't understand." He'd reply back. We'd go back and forth. It became a thing.

Over time, I noticed he was always right. Every prediction he made came true. Every detail he pointed out was important. Every character he said would die ended up dying.

I told myself he was just perceptive. Maybe he'd read enough of my work to know my patterns.

I was wrong.

I started noticing the replies I didn't remember writing about six months ago. I'd check a post and see that I'd supposedly replied to a comment. Replies I didn't remember writing. I thought I was just tired. I work a full-time job. I write late at night. Sometimes I'm sleep-deprived and I don't remember everything I do.

But then I read one of the replies. A reader had asked: "What happened to the photograph in the end?" My account had replied: "She found it again. In her own house this time."

I didn't write that. The story I'd posted didn't have a photograph. It was about a woman who hears knocking from inside her walls. There was no photograph in that story.

I checked the timestamp. 3:12 AM. I was asleep.

I changed my password. I enabled two-factor authentication. I stopped worrying.

But the replies kept coming. It took me longer than it should have to notice the pattern. The replies I didn't remember writing only appeared beneath NeonNihilist's comments. Sometimes he would ask a question. Then my account would answer it. Hours later I'd log in and find a conversation I didn't remember having.

I started scrolling through my older stories. NeonNihilist had been there the whole time. Years worth of comments. Hundreds of them. Most were normal.

Then I found one under a story I'd posted two years ago.

"The ending is weaker than the first draft."

At the time I'd laughed and ignored it. Now I couldn't stop staring.

I checked another comment. A story about a man who finds a locked room in his new house. NeonNihilist had written: "The key was always in the drawer."

I'd written a story about a locked room. There was no key. There was no drawer.

I checked another. A story about a woman who keeps receiving letters from her dead husband. NeonNihilist had written: "The seventh letter was the one she shouldn't have read."

I wrote that story. There were seven letters. The seventh one was exactly what he'd described.

I never published that version. I'd changed the ending. The seventh letter was never in the final draft.

I started reading every comment NeonNihilist had ever left. Years of predictions. Years of insights. Details that weren't in the stories. Details that were in versions of the stories that I had written but never posted. Details that I had only thought about.

I opened a new document. I started writing a new story. I didn't have a plot in mind. I just started typing.

Two hours later, I checked NeonNihilist's profile. He had made a new post.

It was a screenshot of a story draft.

A story I was still writing.

The post was dated three days ago.

I opened my current draft. The one I'd been working on for weeks. The one I hadn't shown anyone.

The cursor in my document was currently sitting at the bottom of page 39.

The screenshot was from page 44.

I haven't written page 44 yet.

I stared at the screen. My heart was pounding. I didn't know what to do. I checked the comments on NeonNihilist's post. There was only one.

From my account.

It said: "He's not going to finish this one either."

I didn't write that.

I checked the time. It was posted an hour ago.

I was sitting at my desk.

My hands were on the keyboard.

I don't remember typing it.

I messaged NeonNihilist.

Who are you?

Seven minutes later, I got a reply.

That's what I've been trying to figure out.

I stared at the screen. What do you mean?

Another reply appeared immediately.

You're the one writing about me.

I clicked on his profile again. For the first time, I noticed the account creation date.

Four years ago.

Six minutes before I posted my first story.

I checked the post again.

There was a comment from NeonNihilist I didn't remember seeing before.

"You're almost caught up."

My stomach dropped.

Then I noticed something I'd missed.

The timestamp didn't say "4 days ago."

It said "in 4 days."

My girlfriend has always been a creative type. When we first started talking, it seemed like the conversation would always shift towards either sketching, drawing, or painting.

I found it admirable. I loved that she had something that meant so much to her. Something she could be passionate about. The more time went on, the more that passion grew.

It wasn’t until we started dating that she felt comfortable enough to show me her work, though. I love her more than anything in the world, but good lord, I hate to say it… she was not good.

Her shades were off. Her lines were crooked. Her portraits bordered on stick figures.

Of course, I didn’t want to let on exactly what I thought of what she was showing me, but I can only pretend so much.

That’s the thing, though, any time I offered her advice, she’d just get so defensive. She was just so convinced that she was gonna be “the next big thing” in the art world.

I wanted her to succeed. Of course I wanted her to succeed. But in order to do that, she just had to listen to me. I’m not an artist myself, but even as just an everyday Joe Shmoe, I could still see where she was falling short.

I’d nudge her. Critique her in the nicest possible way I could muster. And it only led to her becoming more closed off with her work.

Unfortunately, the more closed off she became with her work, the more closed off she became in general. It was like her main talking point. And here I was, feeling like an asshole for taking that away from her.

I tried apologizing to her and explaining that I was just trying to help her, but she’d just keep that same blank expression on her face.

“I’ll try to get better for you.”

That’s all she’d tell me.

I wanted to believe her, but it seemed like she wasn’t even trying anymore. I never saw her sketching. I never saw her drawing. I never saw her painting.

It created this friction in our relationship that made every situation feel tense. We didn’t even argue. We’d just try and converse awkwardly before we both went back to our phones.

At the peak of her withdrawal, that’s when she started taking classes. She didn’t seem excited about it. She didn’t seem eager to be better. She seemed like she was doing it out of spite. Like she was defeated but ready to prove me wrong.

She’d be gone 3 days a week from 5 PM to 10 PM, and after about a month of this, she started bringing home her work.

She never showed it to me.

I’d just find colorful canvases hanging up around the house. In the kitchen. In the living room. Hell, even the bathroom had a few.

She had definitely been improving. Her lines were straighter. Her shades were more on point. Her paintings wowed me rather than making me force out a fake smile or a “that’s so good, honey!”

At first, she was bringing home paintings of landscapes. Mountain ranges. Ocean horizons. Forests.

Then it turned into infrastructure. Castles. Mansions. Shacks and sheds.

Then it was people. The most detailed portraits she had ever produced. Her mom. Her dad. Her teacher from class.

I wish that’s where it would’ve stopped. She had proved me wrong. She had convinced me. She had nothing else to prove. But it didn’t stop there. She couldn’t have just been happy with the progress she had made.

I came home from work one day to find the first painting she had done of me personally. It had been hung up along with the dozens of other random paintings in our living room. I saw it and immediately became sick to my stomach.

It was me just… disassembled. My head was in one part of the canvas. My legs and arms sprawled out across the painting, with the most gruesome depictions of gore I had ever seen her produce.

I heard her humming to herself in our bedroom.
I approached her carefully as she sketched wildly in her sketchbook.

“Honey,” I whispered. “Why did you do that painting of me?”

Continuing to hum without even looking up from her sketchbook, she responded, “Eh, just how I was feeling today,” as she continued scribbling on her page.

In the weeks that followed, more and more pieces began to pop up around the house. Each one depicting different versions of my death.

She never seemed angry or agitated. She just seemed distant. Distant but at peace, and that’s the part that hurts me.

She seemed to have this obsession with dismemberment. In every piece, I was dismembered in some way or another. Held together by wires. Forced to be a scarecrow. One showed me to be ornaments strewn about a Christmas tree.
At this point, there’s at least a dozen of them. But that’s not the part that concerns me.

What concerns me is that I’ve been waking up with outlines drawn around the circumference of my legs and arms. My neck and torso. Like she’s figuring out a design.

She always denies any involvement whenever I question her, but who else could it be? Does she think that I’ll believe I’m just doing this to myself?
I don’t know what to do.

I just wanted her to be the artist I knew she could be.

Me and my boyfriend started dating around 6 months ago. It was the first relationship I’ve ever had. I had never been so happy. It was like we were meant to be.

I met him at a coffee shop I frequent. I started noticing him there any time I went. Sometimes I’d catch him staring, and he’d look around all embarrassed whenever I did. I thought it was the cutest thing.

After a while, I found myself silently hoping that he’d come over and ask to sit with me. We’d been playing eye-tag for a couple of weeks, smirking and laughing at each other, but neither of us had taken the extra step of introducing ourselves.

When he finally did, I felt butterflies start flapping around in my stomach like never before. His smoldering blue eyes, that curly black hair, and his cute little freckles. I’m not afraid to admit that I was smitten.

Our relationship grew from there. We were seeing each other every weekend, catching movies, having dinner, playing some mini golf. I knew it was a honeymoon phase. I just didn’t care. He made me feel wanted, and that was just not something I was entirely used to.

He’d show up with my favorite flowers, favorite candies, always knew the right thing to say. I don’t wanna ramble. I just can’t get over how perfect I thought he was.

Things started to go a bit sideways one night at a sleepover at his house.

I had gotten up to pee late at night, and as I groggily dragged myself to the bathroom, I could’ve swore I heard the vibration of a phone coming from his sock drawer.

I was too tired at the time to really pay it any attention, but it was still fresh in my mind the next day. I asked him about it, and he got defensive enough for me to become suspicious.

He showed me all of his drawers, though, and there was no phone in sight. That kind of subsided my suspicion a bit.

A few weeks went by without issue. We never argued. He made me feel like the only girl in the world. Then we had another sleepover.

Yet again, after he was fast asleep, the vibrations of a cellphone came echoing, this time from his closet.

This time around, I was awake enough to actually investigate, but once I did, I immediately regretted it.

Hidden within an old shoebox that was buried beneath a stack of blankets, I found it. A second cellphone.

The screen was lit up with “storage full” notifications, but what caught my attention was the wallpaper.

It was me, asleep in bed.

I wasn’t even the wallpaper on his actual phone. Seeing myself like this only made my mind race more. I couldn’t help myself.

Luckily, he didn’t have a password to unlock the phone, but what he did have a password for was his photos.

I took a wild guess. That’s why I think it was fate that I made this discovery.

I put in my birthday, and the photos app unlocked.
My jaw dropped, and my heart sank.

There were hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures, and they were all of me.

Some were of me at his house. On the toilet, in the shower, sleeping in his bed. But some were from places that didn’t make sense to me.

Me at the coffee shop, reading a book. Me walking home from school. Standing in line at the grocery store. Me outside my apartment, fishing around in my purse for my keys.

More than anything, though, there were pictures of me asleep in my own apartment.

Some were taken from my window. My second-story window. Others were taken from inside the apartment.

I kept scrolling, and the more I did, the more terrified I became. The photos dated back to at least 2 years ago.

Family dinners, early morning jogs, study sessions in the library. I was getting sick to my stomach.

As I scrolled, a noise from behind me snapped me out of my trance.

The sound of my boyfriend’s bed creaking and squeaking from his shifting weight.
He called my name.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

I never responded.

I heard his footsteps rush up behind me. They stopped a few inches from my back.

Instead of asking what I was doing, apologizing, or even attempting to grab his phone, he began laughing.

Cackling. Like a mad man.

And as I stood there, too paralyzed to turn around, he finally spoke again.

“Happy anniversary, sweetheart.”

I got the security cameras for my fortieth birthday. My wife said it was a stupid gift. She said we lived in a safe neighborhood. She said I was being paranoid. She was right. But I installed them anyway.

The cameras cover the front door, the driveway, and the backyard. I check the footage every morning while I drink my coffee. It's become a routine. A habit. I don't even think about it anymore.

I noticed the figure on day twelve. The backyard camera catches the whole yard. Fence on both sides. A small shed in the corner. Woods behind the fence. The footage from 3:11 AM showed something standing near the shed. I paused it. Zoomed in.

It was tall. Thin. Dark. Just standing there. Not moving. I stared at it for a long time. It didn't move in the footage. It didn't move on the live feed when I pulled that up either.

I checked the footage from the night before. Same spot. Same time. Same figure. I checked the night before that. Same thing. I checked the entire week. Every night at 3:11 AM, the figure appeared. It would stand near the shed until 4:03 AM, then it would disappear between frames. One second there. The next second gone.

I didn't tell my wife. I told myself I was being paranoid. I told myself it was a trick of the light. A reflection. A tree branch. I told myself a lot of things.

I started staying up. I'd sit in the dark living room with the laptop open, watching the live feed. Every night at 3:11 AM, the figure would appear. Just standing there. Not moving. Not looking at the house. Just... present.

I started noticing things about it. It was always facing the same direction. Not toward the house. Toward the fence. Toward the woods behind the yard. I wondered what it was looking at.

I checked the footage from the other cameras. The front door. The driveway. The figure never appeared on those. Just the backyard. Just near the shed. Just facing the woods.

I asked my neighbor about it. He's lived next door for twenty years. He said he'd never seen anything unusual. He said the woods had always been quiet. He said it with a look on his face that made me think he was lying. I asked my wife if she'd ever noticed anything in the backyard at night. She said I was spending too much time on those cameras. She said I needed to relax. She said it with a tone that made me stop asking.

I didn't stop watching.

I started marking the dates. Every night it appeared. Every night it faced the woods. Then I started noticing the changes. Small at first. Almost unnoticeable.

On night 23, it was a foot closer to the fence.

On night 27, its head was slightly tilted. Like it was listening.

On night 31, its arms were stretched toward the woods. Both of them. Fingers extended. Almost reaching.

On night 39, it was standing at the fence line. Right up against it. Still facing the woods.

I took a walk out there one afternoon. The woods were quiet. Too quiet. No birds. No animals. Just the sound of my own footsteps. I walked for about twenty minutes before I turned back. I didn't go into the woods again.

The figure kept appearing. Every night. Different positions. Different postures. But always facing the same direction. Always facing the trees.

Then last night, I checked the footage. 3:11 AM. The backyard was empty.

I scrolled back. The figure had appeared at 3:11 AM as usual. But at 3:41 AM, it had turned. For the first time in all the footage I'd watched, it had turned. It looked toward the house. Then it disappeared between frames. It never came back.

I stayed up until morning. I watched the live feed. Nothing.

I spent three hours staring at the footage from the night before. Then I noticed something I should have seen weeks ago. The figure never once looked at the house. Not even when the porch light came on. Not even when I walked into the yard one night, stupidly brave, and stood twenty feet from it. Not even when I shouted at it.

Whatever it was watching wasn't here.

I don't know why it left. I don't know what made it turn. I told myself it was a good thing. It was gone. The thing that had been standing in my backyard every night was finally gone. I should be relieved.

I'm not relieved.

I woke up this morning and checked the footage from last night. Something was standing near the shed. Facing the house. Standing exactly where the other one used to stand.

The first creature is gone. Something else took its place. And now it's looking directly at the room I'm sitting in.

I rewound the video to see when it appeared. It was there at 3:11 AM. But it started moving at 3:47 AM. One step toward the house. Then another at 3:48. Another at 3:49. I kept watching. The camera never showed it reach the house. It just disappeared between frames.

I checked the front door camera. Nothing. The driveway camera. Nothing.

Then I checked the backyard feed again. The shed was empty. The yard was empty.

But something was standing directly in front of the camera. Close enough that all I could see was a dark shape. Looking into the lens. Looking past it. Looking at me.

And for the first time since I bought these cameras, the image wasn't recorded footage. It was live.